In the eyes of anti-war protestors, congressmen, and most presidential advisors, one man should bear the brunt of taking the US into war in Vietnam: President Lyndon Baines Johnson. For it was under Johnson that a relatively low-level conflict was transformed into a military commitment requiring more than three million men, and a financial cost which came close to crippling the US Treasury. Furthermore, the justification for this escalation lay in one of the great lies of twentieth-century US politics.
In response to a deteriorating situation in South Vietnam, Johnson quickly authorized a shift in US policy towards the North. OPLAN 34A provided for commando raids to disable North Vietnam’s transportation system, bombing of suspected North Vietnamese bases in Laos, and the instigation of DeSoto missions, with US destroyers patrolling off the coast of North Vietnam gathering intelligence and supporting the commando raids against the North. From this point, the US strategy was as focused on applying pressure to the North as much as buttressing the government in the South.
President Lyndon Johnson listens to a tape recording from his son-in-law Capt. Charles Robb, a Marine Corps company commander in Vietnam, July 31, 1968
NARA
Johnson was not prepared to risk direct US involvement in South Vietnam, but reports that a US destroyer, the USS Maddox, had been attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats on 2 August 1964, followed by reports of a further attack two days later on the USS C. Turner Joy, prompted Johnson to seek congressional approval to take any means necessary in order to protect US interests in South East Asia. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed unanimously by the House, and 88–2 in the Senate. Johnson now had his mandate to escalate as he saw fit, without the need for further congressional approval.
While few at the time doubted the authenticity of the reports, signals intelligence reports declassified in 2005 confirmed what had long been suspected: the second attack did not take place, suggesting the administration was already preparing for escalation, and was waiting for a ‘smoking gun’ to justify it. With a presidential election campaign to fight, Johnson did not exploit the ‘blank cheque’ provided by Congress immediately. Indeed, he barely made reference to Vietnam during the campaign, but, in one of his rare references to the situation in Vietnam during the campaign, he did announce that he was not going ‘to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.’
With a huge election victory behind him, and faced with increasing number of attacks on US personnel already in Vietnam, Johnson introduced the first bombing campaign against North Vietnam in February 1965. However, Operation Flaming Dart failed to dissuade the North from supporting the southern insurgents, resulting in Operation Rolling Thunder being launched at the start of March. This campaign lasted for three years, and saw nearly twice as many bombs dropped as the US dropped in the Pacific during during the whole the Second World War. With more US personnel on the ground, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) commander William Westmoreland requested the despatch of ground troops in order to defend air bases.
The first troops arrived in March, but by the summer their mission had become an offensive one, and by the end of the year around 200,000 were in Vietnam.
As the war dragged on and the likelihood of victory remained elusive, Johnson despaired at the limited range of options offered by his military advisors. Under pressure from Westmoreland to escalate still further, while intent on avoiding a Korea-style expansion, he relied on gradual escalatory bombing and an attritional strategy on the ground. By 1966, it was apparent that without substantial political and economic reform by the South Vietnamese government, the US military strategy would not achieve victory.
On 31 March 1968, Johnson declared a halt in the bombing campaign and offered to open peace talks with the North. In addition, he announced that he would not run for President again. The advice of his ‘wise men’ not to sanction further troop increases earlier that month appears to have convinced him that the war could not be won, while the rising financial costs of the war had contributed to a $24 billion increase in the budget deficit since 1965. On a personal level, Johnson had experienced numerous health issues and doubted whether he would make it through a second term (he was right to be concerned; he died of a heart attack in January 1973). The time had come for US to get out of the war, and for Johnson to leave the Oval Office.