Johnson and Vietnam

Johnson and Vietnam: 1965-69

The impact the Vietnam war had on the US cannot be overstated. Its role in influencing elections and political opposition was crucial and it marked the climax of the paranoid policy of containment. The American military’s, to put it lightly, devious actions were hoisted onto display thanks to Vietnam’s status as the first ‘TV war’, although seemed mild compared to that of the Viet Cong. The mess that was the Vietnam war, and America’s troubled involvement, ultimately changed the direction of the United States.

US intervention in Vietnam kickstarted in a blaze of perceived North Vietnamese aggression in 1964. Two American destroyers who had been stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, dangerously off the coast of North Vietnam, informed of being ‘under continuous torpedo attack’. President Johnson, eager for authority over the military, and a stronger presence in Indochina, tirelessly convinced Congress to give him just that, with a fundamental view that the ends justified the means. His Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, stood before the Senate, zealously justifying full military authority as humane; a rational reaction to communist aggression. The ensuing solution was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, passed with little opposition on the 7^th August 1964. Only two democrats voted against it in the Senate, and the House unanimously voted for it. It granted full military authority to the President, stating: ‘That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.’ It provided Johnson and Nixon a blank cheque on military power and acted as the base for troops on the ground in Vietnam.

Although it caused a headache for Johnson considering the constant Republican attack on Democratic military policy, Vietnam’s impact on the 1964 election proved to be minimal – the country was far more visibly divided along racial lines. The deep south voted for the anti-Civil Rights Act candidate Barry Goldwater, and largely voted based on his racial views, and his constant espousing of ‘freedoms’. Vietnam as a truly central issue had to wait several years before it had such a powerful hold on elections.

In March of 1965, with the American public more occupied with Great Society legislation, Johnson made the decision, rather autocratically, to send troops into Vietnam. By June of the same year, 82,000 troops were in Vietnam; in alien conditions, fighting off an alien enemy. In April, one thousand tonnes of bombs are dropped on Viet Cong positions. It was announced that 100,000 more troops were to be sent in July 1965 and 1966. These troops went in unaware of the experience of Vietnam. They were trained for conventional warfare, which was a wholly inappropriate defence of the brutal guerilla tactics employed by the Viet Cong. American soldiers had trouble deciphering whether to trust what would be a friend to the untrained an inexperienced. By the end of 1966, troop levels reached almost 400,000, with a death toll of 6,350, and 30,093 wounded. The psychological impact of this foreign warfare in just two years was astounding. In March of 1967, Congress authorised $4.5b for the war, whilst in the same year, troop levels were at 475,000. Johnson ordered 45,000 more in July. By December of 1967, 16,000 had been killed. The average age of an American front-line troop was just 19. Although the US had control of the air, Vietnamese land superiority meant that progress was limited; US forces never gained a true foothold in the war. Seemingly, billions of dollars and thousands of men were being thrown into a meat grinder in the name of an unwinnable war. 1968 saw this ignored, as around 500,000 men were in Vietnam, whilst combat deaths had reached 30,000, and in 1968, one thousand per month were killed.

The plight of the North Vietnamese under Johnson’s troubled tutelage cannot be ignored. An estimated two million Vietnamese citizens were killed during the war, and the US military’s bombing campaign was unprecedented. It unleashed the equivalent of 640 Hiroshima sized bombs on Vietnam. Democide was normal in Vietnam. The most infamous, yet equally brutal, massacre was undoubtedly the events of My Lai in March of 1968 – 500 civilians, young and old, indiscriminatory of gender, were killed by the US military, and its insistence on taking no chances in this war. Yet this was far from an isolated incident. The US had brutalised Vietnam and its citizens through years of Johnson’s policy of stubbornness.

The impact of Johnson’s period as commander-in-chief during the war was huge, and the experiences of both sides influenced the years to come in America. The horrific experiences of American soldiers were highlighted by the number of desertions – 500,000 in total either dodged the draft or deserted altogether. A culture of deference was being eroded thanks to the war and its unappealing nature, and a hugely significant portion of men abandoned, understandably, American chauvinism. Public opposition to the war was also vastly important in shaping America. In October 1967, 55,000 marched on the Pentagon in a huge public display of anti-militarism. The days of blind support for the military were over, and the age of scepticism was born. The remnants of opposition to Vietnam were palpable even 35 years later, with painfully evident public opposition to Bush and Blair’s war on terror – hundreds of thousands marched against the Iraq war in the early 2000s. Vietnam truly marked the end of blind trust. More protests erupted, and there were 14 protests outside the White House during Nixon’s administration. Truly, deference had been slashed by the experiences of Vietnam. Far from being the minor issue that Vietnam was in 1964, the election of 1968 was centred around Vietnam. Nixon’s campaign ran on opposition to the war, which saw him win conclusively. Undoubtedly, his popular stance influenced the way people voted. Johnson’s policy in Vietnam clearly and decisively shaped society, and the political direction of America, and its immediate and distant future.

Ultimately, Johnson’s policy in Vietnam acted as a base for change and a climax of non-compliance. He bred protest with his policy and drove America away from timid deference into the new frontiers of political objection. What cannot be ignored is the atrocities personified by Vietnam – the blatant attitude that the ends justified the means saw civilians killed and a country torn apart, culminating in Johnson’s legacy question: was it worth it?

References

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