Johnson's "Great Society" Program

The Black-Power Movement

Johnson's "Police Action" in Vietnam to
        stop Communism's spread

The textual material on page below is drawn directly from my work A Moral History of Western Society © 2024, Volume Two, pages 300-304.

With Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) now taking office as U.S. President, Kennedy's international sophistication will be replaced by Johnson's air of Texas "good-old-boy" plainness.  But there was nothing plain about LBJ … having been chosen as the Democratic Party's Senate Minority Leader in 1953 (at 44, the youngest ever to hold that powerful position) and then, with the Democratic Party election victory in 1954, the Senate Majority Leader – the most powerful man in the Senate … holding that position all the way up to his installation as Kennedy's Vice President in early 1961.  But as Vice President, he had played only a minimal political role (the Kennedys actually did not like him very much).  But now, with Kennedy's death, he was U.S. President.  And he was determined to show America what a Real President was capable of! JOHNSON'S "GREAT SOCIETY" PROGRAM What Johnson lacked in charisma he more than made up for in political skill – quite able to get the Democratic-Party majority in Congress to follow his lead … the way Kennedy as President was never able to achieve.  But he was not only powerful, he had a very strong caring heart for the poor (having been brought up in tough circumstances himself) … and planned to use all the power he had in Washington to see "progressive" social programs put into action.   He had also been brought into the world of politics – and was shaped deeply by Roosevelt's New Deal.  He understood extensive government management of American society as government's proper role … although a very prosperous America of the 1960s was going through none of the social emergencies that supposedly had justified the New Deal's takeover of much of the country's social dynamics in the 1930s ... or the Federal government's commanding role during the years of World War Two.  But from his point of view, there was still much work to be done to bring America to perfection as a social model to the larger world.  Washington had a lot of work to do to get things to just such perfection. And his wife "Lady Bird" was determined by her own Southern aristocratic instincts to turn the rather humble American capital city into something of a great metropolis, on the order of London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, etc.  Under the Johnsons, DC was to become a culturally majestic as well as a politically powerful city … more appropriate to its position as the leader of the Free World. Thus it was that on 22 May 1964, addressing a University of Michigan graduating class, Johnson announced the basic design of what was to be his Great Society Program.  The program was intended not only to end all poverty and racial injustice in America – but to improve America's educational and professional development; to protect its natural beauty from pollution, overcrowding and loss of fields and forests; and to shape America's rapidly developing urban life … offering housing for all, improved urban infrastructure, and enhancement of a urban cultural growth – even the promotion of a spirit of urban community-mindedness. And how was he going to do this?  In the speech he claimed that he did not intend to make this a matter of federal government programming … but a social movement that would build itself on the support of cities and states all across the nation. The only problem with this grand approach was that while Johnson commanded great power in DC, he had no such influence out in those very cities and states.  Consequently, he had to have known at the time he made this promise that in fact it would be the DC government that would be given the responsibility to see his programs put into action.  And this was going to require an enormous expansion of DC's bureaucratic infrastructure to make this happen. And indeed, DC's population (especially in the realm of the legal profession) expanded enormously … and very quickly.  Washington was taking command in America's development as a Great Society. LBJ at the University of Michigan, May 22, 1964 – announcing the outline of his "Great Society" Program LBJ Library - University of Texas Blacks lining up for the vote in rural Peachtree, Alabama – May 3, 1966 THE BLACK-POWER MOVEMENT Another development that would shake America deeply was the growth of a very militant Black power "revolution of rising expectations" … in particular the more active of the movement that identified themselves as the "Black Panthers."  Despite the quite visible progress in getting a much more affirmative pro-Black cultural shift underway, the progress was never fast enough for young Blacks for whom expectations for social equality were that it was to take place immediately … something that was guaranteed not to happen.  In response, their anger against White society produced a rapidly rising incidence of urban violence … attacks on White (or Asian) businesses located in their neighborhoods, attacking, pillaging and burning them with great abandon – as if it constituted some right of theirs to enact such "justice" against White society.  Thus to the tune of police and fire engine sirens rushing to burning inner-city Detroit or Newark or Watts could be heard the Black Panther refrain, "burn baby, burn"! Of course this merely made the social conditions in such Black communities much worse … as gangs rose quickly to allow young Black males to get on the "right" side of such local dynamics.  Consequently, the murder rate in Black urban America skyrocketed to new heights. Tragically, the "White guilt" experienced by more "socially-enlightened"  Whites led them to form an unusual political alliance with these young Black revolutionaries1 – making it even harder to bring some kind of social order to the social disorder that descended on Black urban societies in the mid-1960s … not even when things got worse in these neighborhoods – much, much worse. 1Malcolm-X, LeRoi Jones, H. Rap Brown, Ron Karenga, Bobby Seale, and Stokely Carmichael became prominent national figures as a result of the development of the Black Power Movement. Malcolm X, 1925-1965 Blacks demonstrate their new freedoms by torching the world around them (what exactly was the logic in this behavior?) Rioting and arson in Watts - 1965 (less than a week after the passing of the Voting Rights Act) Black looters in the Watts section of Los Angeles – August 1965 Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; President Lyndon Johnson in background (the breakdown of social order was not at all what either of them expected or wanted the civil rights movement to develop into) By Yoichi Okamoto, Washington, DC, March 18, 1966 Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, National Archives For many young Blacks, 1967 was yet another summer for looting and burning (giving rise to the new mantra:  "Burn baby, burn") Looters in Newark's riots – mid-July 1967 National Guardsmen and police arresting looters in Newark's riots – mid-July 1967 A boy wounded in the Newark riots - 1967 (26 died) Playwright LeRoi Jones arrested in Newark for possessing two loaded pistols – mid-July 1967 Detroit – 1967:  Black summertime rioting and pillaging Blacks rioting in Detroit – July 1967 A Black district in Detroit set afire – July1967. One of the many burned-out sections of Detroit – late-July 1967 A burned out Black middle class section of Detroit - 1967 (43 people died) National Guardsmen in Detroit – July 23, 1967 A National Guardsman standing watch in Detroit as firemen battle blazes set by rioters – late-July 1967 H. Rap Brown arrested for inciting the Cambridge, MD riot – late-July 1967 Black Panthers in a defiant mood SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael at a University of Texas gathering, denouncing US imperialism JOHNSON'S "POLICE ACTION" IN VIETNAM TO STOP COMMUNISM'S SPREAD As far as foreign policy went for Johnson, the single, all-absorbing issue was the Vietnam mess he inherited when he became president.  And his response to that challenge paralleled his approach to American politics at home:  when you need to get something done, simply hit it hard.  Thus to Johnson the issue was quite straightforward:  increase the American military presence in South Vietnam to the level needed to simply defeat the Communist Viet Cong. Somehow it never occurred to Johnson that the situation was in fact quite complex.  And he was oblivious to the fact that no matter what America chose to do, it had better be focused on achieving one goal:  getting the South Vietnamese population to support the American effort.  Otherwise, no matter what America did, it would have no lasting quality … unless America was planning to undertake full control of South Vietnamese society – like the European colonial powers before them had held their positions in Asia.  In other words, this was not really about bringing democracy to a foreign land.  It was about making sure that this foreign land never fell under the sway of Communism.  Period. But to get Congress on board in support of his intended response to the Vietnam situation, he was going to need something dramatic to happen to muster such Congressional support.  That finally came when he was able to report two incidents occurring in early August 1964 when American destroyers were fired on by North Vietnamese at the Gulf of Tonkin. [Actually, only one of these reported incidents was partially true; the second never happened at all.] This demanded a full response.  And Johnson got his needed Resolution from Congress to take whatever action was necessary to protect any of the countries of the region from Communist aggression. A very serious mistake he then made was in selling his military response in Vietnam as simply a "police action" … not full-out war – as what recently happened in Korea.  But nonetheless, he would be sending American boys off to fight a war – without having the national consensus to make their sacrifices seem worthy of the cause. Yet another mistake he (and his military advisors) made was nonetheless to go at this the way America had gone at the Korean challenge.  It all seemed quite clear looking at a map of Vietnam that the object of the "police action" was to unload American troops at various points along the coast of South Vietnam's long but narrow profile – and then branch out from there until they had brought the entire country under American military command. The only problem with this very conventional military approach was that the Viet Cong wore no military uniforms … and thus were indistinguishable from the people American soldiers were trying to save from Communism. Thus, beginning in March of 1965, as they moved forward from their beachheads, supposedly securing village after village, American troops soon found themselves being shot at from behind … by what they previously had supposed were friendly Vietnamese.  Gradually it dawned on the American troops that they in fact had secured nothing at all in this conventional military sweep.   In the end they simply set up military camps here and there in the land, ventured out from there upon occasions to shoot at supposed Communist guerrillas … then return to camp.  And this would be the profile that would literally never change over the coming years of American involvement in Vietnam. Faced with this disappointing result, Johnson simply upped the number of American boys drafted and sent to Vietnam to kill Communist guerrillas … until by early 1968 there were over a half-million American troops in Vietnam.  But their action was combined with extensive aerial bombardment of suspected Communist sites (whole villages) … and also the spraying of Agent Orange to kill the forests that allowed the Viet Cong to hide in them – and the fields that fed them.  All in all, it was a very nasty war. Ultimately, the only "good news" that the American action was able to produce was that Americans were killing more Vietnamese enemies than the Vietnamese enemies were killing American troops.  It was now just a numbers game … one clearly going nowhere. Quite naturally, as the darkness of this effort became increasingly apparent, it brought not just severe criticism from a growing Congressional opposition to the war … but campus and street protests by young Americans (and their adult mentors) fervently opposed to the military draft that was sending those young men off to a war that was making no sense at all.  "Hey, hey, LBJ … how many kids did you kill today" was the chant that echoed across the country – as well as by protesters gathered opposite the White House. Then in October of 1967, thousands of American youth gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in DC and then, under "Yippie" leaders Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsburg and others, marched across the Potomac River to the Pentagon military headquarters to protest the war.  Thankfully, things remained peaceful … despite the huge number of young Americans (over 50,000?) and military police and U.S. marshals facing each other at the Pentagon. Things at this point were not going well for Johnson. Body count of NLF guerrillas – 1962 US officer training Montagnard troops in Vietnam - 1964 Lyndon Johnson reviewing American troops US Marines landing at Khe Sanh military airbase near the North-South Vietnamese border US helicopter and troops in Vietnam – 1965 America beginning to realize that the Vietnam War was not going to be easily winable – 1966 "SP4 Ruediger Richter (Columbus, Georgia), 4th Bn., 503 Inf., 173 Abn Bde (Separate),lifts his battle weary eyes to the heavens, as if to ask why? SGT. Daniel E. Spencer Bend, Oregon) stares down at their fallen comrade. The day's battle ended, they silently await the helicopter which will evacuate their comrade from the jungle covered hills in Long Khanh Province." US Marines on search and destroy mission in South Vietnam (nearly 550,000 US troops were in Vietnam by the spring of 1968) U.S. artillery in Vietnam Peasants working in the Mekong River Delta rice fields while bombs go off nearby An F-4C Phantom air strike on a Vietcong-controlled village (A great way to sell the idea of democracy to the South Vietnamese!) A village after an air strike A VC guerrilla captured during "Operation Piranha" – November 1965 Vietcong on the move – May 1965 A US Marine moving a Viet Cong suspect to the rear in an action near the Da Nang Air Base - August 1965 Operation Rolling Thunder ... an attempt to bomb North Vietnam into submission ... begun in March of 1965 and continued until just before the American presidential elections in November of 1968 Peasants being held and questioned under suspicion of being Viet Cong supporters - 1966 Checking a Vietnamese house in an anti-VC sweep in October of 1966 Marines capturing a VC suspect emerging from a "spider hole" behind this house – 1967 Dead Marines are stacked on a tank near Con Thien after hand-to-hand combat with North Vietnamese regulars – July 1967 But Johnson realizes that he is losing popular support for his Vietnamese program ... and tries to make it look as if he is achieving actual success in the project  Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin confers with Johnson in Glassboro, New Jersey – June 1967 Official inspection tour of "progress" in the Vietnam war by US envoys – June 1967. Seen here conferring are Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker (left), Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Clark Clifford, and Gen. William Westmoreland Johnson confers with Gen. William Westmoreland and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara - July 1967 Nguyen Van Thieu sworn in as S. Vietnamese President; Vice-President Nguyen Cao Ky behind him - October 1967 Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his Deputy, Cyrus Vance – May 1965 (McNamara, who had become despondent over the war, left his position in February of 1968 to become chairman of the World Bank ) Anti-War demonstration in San Francisco - April 1967 Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Ark) Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ... giving the Vietnamese War a scrutiny which made LBJ very uncomfortable Go on to the next section:  Mao's China   Miles H. Hodges