![]() One of the most important discoveries I hope students take away from a deep dive into the history of the Vietnam War is an understanding of the dangers we face when our elected officials allow for a blind adherence to foreign-policy orthodoxies to dictate their decisions and when political considerations guide what happens with regards to war and peace.īoth factors were clearly at work when Johnson kept making the decision to increase U.S. The war that unfolded in Southeast Asia (though it was never officially a war) is an integral part of classroom conversations about U.S. Undergraduates continue to learn a number of important lessons from examining America’s war in Vietnam and its aftermath. Vietnam remains a major topic in our classrooms. The war resulted in massive casualties and permanently undermined confidence, within the United States and throughout the world, in America’s stated objectives in its fight against communism. government withdrew its forces, and South Vietnam fell to communism. ![]() “That bitch of a war,” Johnson later said, “killed the lady I really loved - the Great Society.” What started small would grow rapidly into a huge and deadly ground war that lasted until 1973. The war turned into a huge disaster for Johnson, for the nation, and for the Vietnamese. Barry Goldwater, which produced huge liberal Democratic majorities (295 Democrats in the House and 68 in the Senate), LBJ continued moving the escalation forward, first with a fierce bombing campaign, known as Operation Rolling Thunder, against the communist forces, and then by sending tens of thousands of ground troops into the conflict The following year, after his massive landslide victory against Republican Sen. William Fulbright, who led the resolution through the Senate, that he would return to Congress if he wanted to use significant force in the future. Johnson said that the authority from the resolution was so broad it was like “grandma’s nightshirt” since “it covers everything.” Nonetheless, he promised Arkansas Sen. The process had started in August 1964, when LBJ convinced Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, a measure that granted the president sweeping authority to use military force in the area. Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson vastly escalated the war in Vietnam. ![]()
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