Forum; Lloyd C. Gardner: Lyndon Johnson And The Wars From Vietnam

from the longhorn radio network the university of texas at austin this is for him and we think of course there had been teachers questions about where american resources record historian lloyd see gardner author of paid any press lyndon johnson and the wars for vietnam my bonnie wrote this article in which he said the key here is the presence enough talk to carson that who argue causes peripheral question the process of peace is a century woman come upon the presence in the johnson can handle this is a theory today on

former rutgers university historian lloyd gardener discusses president lyndon johnson's attempts to bring success and prosperity to southeast asia and to the home front as well his work pay any price published by ivan aren't the professor gardner revealed the interplay of the military domestic and diplomatic arenas that made the sixties such an exciting decade in history he describes his use of classified material in his research at the lyndon baines johnson library and museum well you have to understand that the library the lbj library is constantly declassify material so it'll be materialistic last flight now after i finished the book obviously i think that in my case i was probably the first person was during the vietnam war to look at all the materials that have been declassified at that point and putting together an lbj library some massive project to try to do it on a timetable in some cases yes in other

cases you have freedom of information act requests you know a lot of the classification occurs because researchers ask for maternal to be declassified i surrendered in large numbers and this is a continual ongoing process ms nikki silva well it's the it's day fourteenth of the month will move this box from the self that cellphones that would be open to the center and they have a schedule like for example all things are working on right now are the telephone conversations which will vest new research by amateur rules for people and they have a timetable on the caramel to moderate little armor and wanted to get this accomplished within five years or whether they will and without his own timetable certain things are in the transcript the transcript and but in many cases they have to listen to them again they close when lbj's to have something transcript at the people transcript and very often make mistakes and so let's go back and forth between

the tape from a transcript a trucker why did you decide on this particular segment of history to church well i suppose and large for business loans george broad and has upheld a professor at to read christian mckay nineteen sixties brutus parent teacher movements and the solos doing to the students who has two in the country you couldn't help but be dramatically affected by it and so this became a great interest to me why it happened or have this president who had such promise to be our greatest presidents ever get trapped bog down the most terrible war when the french gave up the fight and fifty four indian films usually that's a cut off point did we willingly take the banner yes i

think us are creatures state john foster dulles was for your ticket the french other so we could take up the power only would be different than it would be not a colonial power but a pair of flying off the advances of of communism and so the eisenhower administration and willingly took this up in nineteen fifty four and what eisenhower did not two courses are either members has become involved before the french were defeated had been going through there was some pressure on him and dulles to become involved that the title of the old gm him through he did not and what the united states or did after that time was to support an independent government itself can't even though the geneva conference you know the geneva agreement called for a temporary protection and we behaved as if it was a proper jewish and so therefore the new government as such became or ward you quoted johnson as referring to a

manifest destiny in asia did he see aig to use the term domino theory beer for the united states as opposed to the communist if you listen to this interesting way of putting it yeah i think so in the head below thesis would be in this case be a question of pushing one over were standing love and the others who stand up afterwards and he was about play but was he competent in early on just the use of advisers did your faith in that i think that what he had faced him was that he really believed that john kennedy had a symbol the british branch of the world and the cabinet and i remember those samurai ruled johnson's all cronin mentor and justin was going to list of the kennedy

people he inherited and a re re assemble us overwhelm and just which one of them had been elected share for bear county have that they didn't have any real political understanding that they were basically intellectuals and technocrats and that johnson was at their mercy this was re rooms point to and that richard russell's listen to the famous comet two linen sequiturs trump secretary you know if you just poured into question their competence but he was an emanation of fire commission gun people who really trusted in the situation and so are a lot of the county a people but he did have some loyalists period or were least loyal to the presidency and not dance i think most of them were alone presents a map under surveillance but there's another group who are not associated with a candidate so much like clark clifford abe fortas

and so on who also richard russell also the law's johnson to recover an interesting one of course these are the people who are most awful about the whole vietnam scenario was just sent in the loop under candidates in moderation you know johnson if you look at the records attended a few of the national security council meetings attend a few of the inner circle meetings but he was by no means provide all the information so as the press and when this at the beginning his administration was a depression he was an opponent of american policy in vietnam in the early sixties but not because they want to get out like later on that rather because they thought the policies we were four following would lose the war

and so those are consumer pressure from the press but it was not in the direction of getting out those in the direction doing something that's him who was at that time presence of hiv mom who's regarded would lose is simply impossible that was an added pressure on jobs and sixty three from this vantage point was the press credible at the time yes what they were doing was exposing in many cases misrepresentations of how successful in war was going and kennedy was a victim of that to the military and saigon was an anxious not to tip was him over because they could see that this crop of generals and other people thought might be able to come and take over to not have as much confidence is him so they recover to interrupt our whatever money was cut and the press was on remaining and it's criticism avoid war was an author whose name i can't

recall the moment in which research from syria said that all of those generals were really just sergeants under the french that's true they were not the sort of person that you would rely on an anxious to build a state to build a nation but we were stuck with them yes we're stuck with him they did not have the nationalist credentials that don't even for example because i had a clever it with the french and in some instances even covered with japanese during world war two sows him in that sense at least at nashua's credentials and we never succeeded in finding anyone who has met a nationalist credentials as presented one consonant entered the presidency after his election he begins a war on poverty does he have a

vision of these two tracks and when one might end for alicia says that it was not so much i'm saying two tracks only talk about the pioneer with an ax in one hand and gun mayor but that to lyndon johnson had built his entire political career on the alliance between the south and the west and politics in the sun so this meant that he had a brunch progresses out the worst frank church uber conference on they haven't conservatives in the south richard russell and he had a coalition that was fraudulent that was nine a strong real coalition that he had built it and he had to import against eastern establishment and we've seen a lot of anti asian establishment politics since and nixon and reagan and so on and when johnson was trying to do was to perform it something that would be a

progressive alliance against the establishment in the east and it was a very tricky thing to try to work so he could not really a ma at the southern edge of all that much and he regarded them as ready to jump off the bat away and anytime we produce in vietnam then he needed a kind of cruel or revolution two to bring about his girls meaning who's in charge here he knew to establish himself and what he needed was to he even sent a few days after kennedy had done adventure that if you think i'm concerned saw that in fact they just cancel concert now lyndon johnson goes through many changes in his life he starts of course is a representative from texas hill country as interested and dams was

interesting public power becomes a salary becomes much more conservative in the nineteen fifties with the question of offshore or it sorts and so on and then when he becomes president he reverts back in many ways to one hear them as a representative from the texas hill country to his new deal roots and through his new dylans and also something he shared with candy and to liberals believe in the power of the federal government to change the lives of people through technology's through education him for a big competition there's an important as you do routes to winning indian royalty in texas so the un said you know if people believe if you can put a man on the moon why can't you give graham all medicaid medicare good question we just need the political will and he had a machete and this is a golden time it's an opportunity but he felt that he could not at the same time it's a

war it's legislation passed and the losing in vietnam but i think that was more i think he really did not need to give paul behler that moment where in oregon but i'm not lyndon johnson and i didn't face the kind of view of the political situation poses a trip to earth as he campaign in nineteen sixty four as a dove was it really barry goldwater's position that drove him to that extreme it wasn't that he really had grave doubts about the situation i think and one of the interesting things at least a believer contributed to the bookers of that on the one hand his motor i was pressing him to do things and he would talk about these things in private meetings and seemed to give them certain things in parliament which

would then take back in his public speeches when he made that famous statement to another in some american boys overdue asian voters should be done and they matter for the barry goldwater was the point and i think this was just trying to work himself out of a bond as much as possible but as things got worse and he found himself slipping more and more into this situation and escalation as we look at that escalation school who are the players we're is it taking place and why it's going on the two major players or mac monday and robert mcnamara and as we've seen in recent days and weeks and months robert mcnamara has practically repudiate everything he also suggests that

john kennedy would not have escalated and that he met them or understood this and so on which is very difficult to square with them are under that he sent to johnson in the months after cantor's that's very difficult because he insists in those memoranda and that's why as a key player he insisted we must establish a position which will demonstrate to the north that they can't win this war and of course there is of basically encrypt formulation start with the notion that the war can be won by feeding him on the war was in the south and no matter what you are introduced groucho or you could not eliminate the war myself i've been doing this but a matter where until next monday when the two key people advising johnson in early nineteen sixty five has been a clue in one memorandum the basic roman vietnam is that the vietnamese people see us with our vast power stay in our hand and if we don't do something

that will simply collapse and so loesser is the bombing campaign began when summer which earned the strangest target in history a bombing that tore it was not more threatening the city's charters none more feminine and so carla saw fit me is moral that presumably we were improving self in the morale of arlington or showing or we'll never recess was war was supposedly very much question will in short will and the military's quite right to her great deal of skepticism about such a target and warfare and there's a true buildup that this entire that comes two or three months later and jaw sixty four they're operating from nineteen sixty two through nineteen sixty five through that troop buildup on crisis management there and the theory is that if you increase the

pressure on north vietnam and they were like the poem says so subtly for the tents are still in the mind of course that wasn't going to happen and i think they realize that at the end of nineteen sixty five and by the time they put a hundred thousand troops and more on the way in are we still at this point be using the term applies it's still called mildred was recruit but it's an army and they are in uniform and they are in uniform something that you made a great point and even though i was reading newspapers and i'm not sure i picked up understand what's called something seem to have fallen through the cracks and that was the mekong valley development magic johnson had a vision that would turn that

period into something like the tennessee valley or even the colorado river here for coroner crooner know what this life was that practical well certainly it had been researched out before johnson had to have been researched on the united nations and united nations commission on development and restrict research to how can be done so that was the plan and being and we're the people of the un was an old old friend of johnson's arthur texas goldschmidt who came to town sometimes was present when johnson was by his first trip to vietnam and sixty one came to him and explain and he also put in terms of what the federal government had done in this country so the notion of the mekong well a development they want to see the oil or colorado was not johnson's invention this came from

school schmidt and others and johnson then employed this in nineteen sixty five in his johns hopkins speech when he in a census of the bill moyers that he had made to vote she minimal for he couldn't refuse a big development one billion dollars project well that never materialized because there was no repeats johnson held the sun you got david lowenthal on fault and i'm going out on a lot of it remains reconstruction lowenthal and all gone from print tv and so well so he meant a question he meant it just wasn't going to happen under the war commission just within that have as the civil rights movement is taking place at the same time and there's a cast of characters over a gear that are watching the war as well

some of these were johnson supporters on shalit but falling away from him on the basis of some of the war policy explain what was steve the politics of that at that time was he losing support for his war on poverty from eye on bayard rustin for instance ralph bunche no no bear essence of summer prefer it after the nineteen sixty four election when johnson had so much of the political spectrum listen to them what happened sixty fours the johnson succeeded then you get a lot of people vote for him were not naturally his office and that he would therefore be somewhat beholden to them rip it it pushes the democratic party and various were not normal constituents if johnson was as sir it's about a four part about solar helping

cities and so on and the most intimate going there and increasingly this cause people to fall and with also understand that to a great extent vietnam is a poor man's war college kids and a draft deferment in the areas that were had the hardest where the inner cities and small town america or forming commission song were a lot of these kids see an informant commits a recurrence of formal or two and they were about to go to canada yet these huge vehicles the other side of that is the current just ration a lot of hope and the sudanese were many many instances of people going to military because there was no option for them at that time and at the notion that this was in the white men fighting and using american blacks to fight

asian surely a perfect at large for laughs out of their units or as moment and you can see this direction martin luther king when martin luther king tries to move this or its movement from the south and to cities like chicago or sharing of the day it moved from the cotton fields of the south where it was successful and ran up against the steel pillars of the solution or what clearly the democratic coalition martin luther king then was not alone in his objections to the war and you know why was it considered so fatal for him to have taken that position we're listening to if you're listening to the johnson administration people who become more more desperate and their position is that the blacks by

opposing the vietnam war like leadership opposing vietnam war will turn whites against more trailer i was like going against them that's what the john some people feared and chris martin luther king was the most upstanding leader at that time in terms of who you look to who has who is saying the things that are impacting on the black society and of course king was being groomed for that love to buy the black power movement sometimes he had something to with the synthesis american veteran who's poor too so it wasn't simply moving toward the black power groups well garry willis environmentalist former christian story and he pointed out in the great depression the two or three things are happening in the nineteen sixties once in his role on a

place to live outside the service and they really were becoming some turns and to displays for police and weaponry and so on more weapons let them try that home whoa what what can serve up when you concluded the book you quoted coffee a poet annie referred to are periods when they are barbarians and both these friends that suddenly people to know that they were not in court have to do with it the notion that these people up there were barbers cooks slopes whatever snl what will become of those barbarians they were kind of solution you know that's true in the sense that in the post cold war

world film american politics just aren't come apart and we don't have any outside an image to focus insular for me and i have all these problems only come much more than before eustis and so that we can do this question with them at the barber and for him for burns when you do and boom that's the dilemma american politics is a navy was american politics stopped with the new deal but that was far as you could go on the lyndon johnson simply give the final push in a new direction where the new dual national have gone and so now what we do this and summonses sometimes just waiting for noon charles and mary beard professor of

history at rutgers university and the author of pay any price lyndon johnson and the wars for vietnam published by phaidon r d the views expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect the views of the university of texas at austin or this station technical producer for foreign get over its production assistants diana bullock and jennifer proctor i'm a producer and host of grey businesses are available and maybe purchased by writing for and cassettes communication giving the ut austin austin texas seventy seventy one to that's for a cassettes communication to lead the ut austin austin texas seventy seven wanted to issue the university of texas at austin this

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