Personal Qualities Of Lyndon Johnson And The Vietnam War

2) Personal qualities of Lyndon Johnson as a factor for the escalation of the conflict
As noted above, the struggle with the Republicans and the public sentiment within American society caused Lyndon Johnson to first give pre-election promises, which he was later unable to fulfill, and then to take steps that in fact turned against him. In this situation, special consideration is given to the personal qualities of Lyndon Johnson as a politician and as a president and what role they played in the adoption, as it turned out as a result of a fateful decision for his political career and for the country as a whole.

Lyndon Johnson, at the time of his accession to the presidency, was a fairly experienced politician who began his political career

as far back as 1931, when Congressman R. Kleberg accepted him as his secretary. Later, in 1937, he was first elected to the US House of Representatives, as a deputy from the 10th electoral district of his native state - Texas. It was during this period that Lyndon Johnson, being a democrat, was imbued with the ideas of the "New Deal" of F.D. Roosevelt, who later influenced his attitude to President J. Kennedy, who also was a supporter of broad social transformations.

During this period, several personal qualities and political views of Johnson which would play an important role in his position on Vietnam became distinctive. First of all, already at this early stage, Johnson expressed the support for those people who found themselves deprived and had their lives in danger. So, in the period from 1937 to 1938 he provided active support for German Jews who fled to the US from Nazi Germany. Later, Johnson would become the first American president to resolutely oppose segregation and its abolition would be one of the central points in his election campaign. It could be possibly argued that the US President shared the conviction that the task of America as a state is to support those who need help. It seems plausible to suggest that the people of South Vietnam in his opinion needed help in defending against the North Vietnamese Communists. The question of the extent to which his ideas about the situation corresponded to reality will be considered below.

The second point which requires the attention is connected with the decisiveness and straightforwardness the President usually had to achieve the set objectives. It was at this early period that he developed a straightforward approach to politics, in line with which Lyndon Johnson unswervingly pursued his goals without turning off the chosen path. Not the least role here was played by the fact that during his years in Congress he acquired a large number of influential supporters and developed the ties that helped him in moving along the political ladder. On the one hand, this led to Johnson becoming known as a persistent politician, which played into the hands of his popularity. At the same time, this led to the development a fairly authoritarian style of decision-making which directly manifested itself in the alignment of the US strategy in South-East Asia. As further events showed, Johnson often went for unilateral decision-making about US interference in the internal affairs of other states in the region, often without a full understanding of the situation in these countries (Logewall, 1999). The Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which gave the president special powers to use force in South-East Asia, contributed to Johnson's desire to resolutely fight the communist threat even further.

It is worth noting that Lyndon Johnson, leading the Democrats in the Senate since 1955, already aspired to the presidency during this period, but he lost the 1960 elections to J. Kennedy and became the vice-president. Despite being a member of the Democratic Party, Lyndon Johnson seemed to rely more on supporting the industrial circles of Texas that were close to conservatives. As a result, he held a somewhat detached position with respect to many of his party colleagues, which was in sharp contrast with the attitude of J.F. Kennedy. All in all, the vice-presidency under J.F. Kennedy affected Johnson not only positioning his policy and election program as a continuation of his undertakings, but also making him try to succeed where he had not due to his tragic death.

In addition, the assassination of John F.

Kennedy undoubtedly affected the domestic setup in which Lyndon Johnson took over as president. Johnson was forced to take the post of the president before the next elections. As a result, LBJ was forced to make a dramatic number of crucial decisions in the context of both the domestic political instability and the complications of the Vietnamese conflict, where the government of South Vietnam failed to resolve the problems on its own. As a result, Lyndon Johnson found himself in an emergency situation in which he had to choose between an emphasis on domestic politics and the continuation of his predecessor's social reforms, or try to save the Saigon government, which led to an inevitable increase in military spending and the escalation of the conflict (VanDeMark, ___). Lyndon Johnson seems to have decided to try achieving two tasks at the same time, hoping that US intervention in the conflict will facilitate its rapid completion and allow him to continue the Great Society reforms. However, as further events showed, this decision proved to be a mistake on his

part.

3) Lyndon Johnson awareness of the situation in Vietnam
Finally, speaking about the internal factors that influenced the decision of the US president to join the war in Vietnam, one should consider how well he was aware of the real state of affairs in that country. This question seems relevant as the further course of the war in Vietnam showed that not only American society, but sometimes even the political leadership had vague ideas about the course of military operations.
In general terms, Lyndon Johnson was fairly well acquainted with the directions of US foreign policy and during the years of Vice-Presidency repeatedly made diplomatic visits to foreign countries.

Nonetheless, most of his trips abroad were connected with European countries and visits to Asian states were rare. As it has been already mentioned earlier, while D. Eisenhower was personally acquainted with the political leadership of South Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson hadn’t got the possibility to get to know Southern Vietnamese leaders. As a result, it is sometimes argued that in times of deteriorating crisis in Vietnam the United States lacked the president who was well aware of the specifics of the East Asian region, its history and

leadership.

In these circumstances, while deciding on the policy in Vietnam Lyndon Johnson had to be guided by the data provided by his military. Meanwhile, the introduction of additional forces in Vietnam affected the quality of reports and attitude to the local population. The limited numbers of the US military advisors sent earlier studied the local specifics closely and supplied the Johnson administration with detailed and relatively accurate information. With the expansion of the contingent the situation deteriorated significantly. Receiving reports which expressed demands to increase the US military presence in the region and at the same time promising a quick victory in this case, Johnson in his turn issued orders to build up the US military presence. The US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara had the greatest influence in this respect, who already on December 21, 1963 informed Johnson that ‘the situation is very disturbing. Current trends, unless reversed in the next 2-3 months, will lead to neutralization at best and more likely to a Communist-controlled state." (PENTAGON PAPERS) Later, after an 8-day trip to South Vietnam, he only strengthened his views. Despite the fact that a small number of senators warned the president that further steps to help Saigon could lead to the fact that internal affairs of Vietnam would turn into the US problem, their position was at that time unpopular and was drowned out in the arguments of military advisers who assured the President that Saigon would not last long without military assistance from the United States.
Summarizing the above, one can say that domestic political factors played a significant role in the final decision of Lyndon Johnson on this issue.