Lyndon Johnson and Foreign Affairs

 

 

 

 

KC Johnson

Brooklyn College

Lyndon Johnson discussing Vietnam policy, with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and (back to camera) National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy
Photo from LBJ Presidential Library

This module contains three parts, a prerequisite, and a conclusion; you should complete only those sections requested by your instructor.

Part One In-class assignment: LBJ tapes at 1964 Atlantic City Convention
Part Two Blackboard assignment
Part Three Out-of-class writing assignment
Part Four Conclusion
   

Overview

During his 5-year tenure as president, Lyndon Johnson secretly recorded around 642 hours of phone conversations and (in 1968) cabinet meetings. The bulk of the available tapes come from 1964 and 1965, the years of his greatest political and legislative triumphs. This unit uses clips from these recordings to glimpse inside the White House at a time when LBJ made some of his key decisions--regarding civil rights politics and policy; Vietnam and foreign affairs; and his 1964 reelection bid.

Prerequisite

Activity One: (In-class assignment)

For a sense of how Johnson struggled with the Vietnam policy that he inherited from Kennedy, listen to the clips below (each of which is less than 3 minutes), from a conversation between the President and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 2, 1964. Seeking to counter press criticism of the administration's Vietnam policy, the President pushed McNamara for a clearer sense of the U.S. justification for involvement in the war. Keep in mind that, by this time, Johnson had already been President for more than three months, and the number of U.S. troops in South Vietnam had risen to more than 20,000.

  • We pick up the conversation after McNamara briefs the President on unrelated matters; Johnson asks (mp3 file) for a memorandum outlining Vietnam policy, and in the process spells out the alternatives for the United States as he sees them. Click here for a transcript of the clips.

  • After reading McNamara a series of hostile comments from Republican senators and the press, focused on LBJ's remark in a UCLA speech that North Vietnam was playing a "deeply dangerous game," the President complains (mp3 file) about press criticism directed against him for considering escalating the U.S. involvement.

  • After some more complaining about leaks (a favorite Johnson topic) from the State Department and the military, the President asks McNamara about how the administration should explain its Vietnam policy to the public, and receives a startling reply (mp3 file).

  • After some discussion about the possible political motives of U.S. ambassador in Saigon Henry Cabot Lodge, a former Massachusetts senator who was making a write-in bid for the GOP presidential nomination, Johnson concludes (mp3 file) the call by pressing McNamara for bolder political and military tactics on behalf of the new South Vietnamese leader, General Nguyen Khanh, who had assumed power in a January military coup.

Discussion Questions

  • Based on these conversations, what was Johnson's primary goal in Vietnam?

  • In terms of the relationship between Johnson and McNamara, who seemed to have a better sense of policy? Why?

  • Who did American policymakers consider the "enemy" in Vietnam?

  • How much consideration did LBJ give to domestic public opinion?

Activity Two: (Blackboard assignment)

Lyndon Johnson was someone who preferred doing business over the telephone, and who believed that formal meetings often were a waste of time. In contrast to his lobbying members of Congress, however, on foreign policy issues he had little choice but to work through the established bureaucracy, at least to some degree. These documents from the Foreign Relations of the United States series detail U.S. policy toward Vietnam in the month following Johnson's March conversation with Secretary of Defense McNamara. You should read documents #74, 81, 84, and 100.

Text Questions:

What are the central features of the administration's policy toward Vietnam? How much leverage did the President possess compared to other key policymakers? Do you see any key "turning points" in the development of US policy?

Source Questions:

How does analyzing a government document differ from analyzing telephone calls between key policymakers? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each as a historical source?

You should post at least twice, with the second post at least 12 hours after the first, and to include responses to the arguments of the other posters.

Activity Three: (Writing assignment)

Listen to President Johnson's complete conversation with McNamara (mp3 file), along with this discussion between the President and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy (mp3 file) about Vietnam from November 3, 1964. In what ways had the administration's approach to Vietnam changed between March and November 1964?  What do you see as the one or two central principles of LBJ's policy? Be sure to consider the following issues:

  • Johnson's conception of his role as commander-in-chief;

  • The role of LBJ's personality in his approach to foreign affairs;

  • The degree of leverage possessed by Johnson regarding Vietnam policy.

 

Conclusion

Presidential biographies are among the most common, and popular, type of political history, and presidential historians have to balance the sometimes competing needs of presenting a faithful portrayal of the President's personal life with an understanding of his public policies. Striking this balance can be especially difficult when dealing with the tapes, since the recording systems often picked up unusual and perhaps atypical moments in a President's life that under any other circumstances never would have been retained.

How much attention should historians devote to the private traits of 1960s chief executives? Keep this question in mind when listening to the following two calls: the first, between Lyndon Johnson and Joseph Haggar, in which the President ordered some slacks, giving some very specific tailoring advice; the second, between Richard Nixon and the late New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at the time US ambassador to the UN, in which Nixon discussed his theories on the capacities of different races for effective governance.

Resources