Johnson was put into office as the 36th president of the United States after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November of 1963, his first task was one close to his heart, which was to alleviate poverty and create what he called a “Great Society” for all Americans. This is where Medicare and the Head Start program came from which led to better healthcare, education, urban renewal, conservation and civil rights. Despite his amazing achievements at home in the US, he was also known very well for his failure to lead the nation out of the devastation of the Vietnam War which was travesty from 1954 to 1975. It was after this that he decided not to run for office again and he quietly retired to his ranch in Texas in January of 1969 (History.com Staff.
Andrew Jackson’s legacy has proved many things about him, his ambition, talent and ability to get the job done has shaped a future for America although not necessarily in a good way. Along with the highlights of his legacy the downfalls may over shadow them, his actions alone with the trail of tears were detrimental to the Native American people, along with his ill temperament and controversial acts of racism. His inability to follow the guidelines that we still use and respect today, a man who is a poster boy for all those things isn’t fit to personify what it means to be an American.
... He fought his way to do everything he could to end our nations poverty and he made medical insurance available for the elders above the age of 65. He wanted everyone to be equal and have equal rights so he passed four different legislations such as; The Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Immigration Acts, and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment. These all outlawed discrimination against races and origins. He also helped form the education program by designing a preschool program for children. By creating the Job Corps Youth training program, it created equal opportunity to obtain and maintain a job in the work force. Overall, Lyndon B. Johnson was a wonderful man that accomplished so many different goals and truly helped America’s society, poverty, and made sure that everyone was equal. He is an above average president with a kind heart that made America a better place.
Lyndon Johnson’s presidency was embroiled in foreign nations as was Madison’s. An advocator of the space program, Johnson and the leaders of Russia worked things out between their two nations. During Johnson’s presidency, Vietnam became his defining moment. Unfortunately, many people believe this to be his greatest failure. Never has a war seen more protests and draft dodgers. Even now, the word Vietnam leaves a rotten taste in people’s mouth. For Johnson in 1968, the United States joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, prohibiting the transfer of nuclear weapons to other nations and assisting other nations to join the nuclear arms race.
LBJ showed presidential greatness through passing groundbreaking legislation and improving society, as we know it. With these efforts made by LBJ, our society has changed forever. His leadership along with his skills with legislation helped pass needed bills through quickly. He worked to improve the lives of so many people and to help our society work as one; and, working as one, we can live happier lives with a true sense of freedom. Kennedy’s motives may have started a great deal of the programs Johnson passed, but it took his great skills to get these measures passed in the legislative branch. Johnson’s hard work and his striving for a better society made him one of the presidents of our time.
The life and presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson could never be summed up in a word, a phrase or a sentence. Even hundreds of pages seem too few to capture the years of Johnson. Both books present Johnson as a political figure as powerful and memorable as Lincoln or FDR, each trying to show a complete picture of this huge man. History books will forever be puzzled by this enigma of a man, just as readers and students are. The biggest struggle is determining how one feels about the actions and effects of Johnson. Many presidents can be seen as almost completely "good" or "bad" depending on one's political ideology and opinions, however, when one looks at Johnson, it is easier, almost inevitable, to find nuances and contradictions which make forming straightforward and binary opinions difficult, if not impossible. Accomplishments are followed by nagging failures and triumphs are shadowed by relentless criticism. These two books (Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream by Doris Kearns Goodwin and A Life: LBJ by Irwin and Debi Unger) try to present a story of a figure that was larger-than-life, yet just a regular man underneath. Both books tell the story, but leave it up to the reader to decide how to feel, to decide if the good outweighs the bad and vice versa. They have to decide what to make of this man who, in his life, ranged from a confident young senator, a triumphant president, a defeated, tired leader, to ultimately just an old man hoping his story will live on.
The United States involved themselves in Vietnam for four main reasons: they wanted to contain communism, prevent the domino effect, support a very weak South Vietnam, and get retaliation for being attacked. After seeing China fall to communism in 1949, Lyndon Johnson did not want to watch the same thing happen in Vietnam. He decided that the United States must fight to contain communism in Vietnam and prevent the domino theory. The domino theory simply stated that if one country fell to communism, neighboring countries would soon follow suit, falling like a set of dominos. Essentially, Americans believed that if South Vietnam fell, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand would follow. Also, South Vietnam could not stand against the Vietcong alone because they were too weak and ill-equipped to fight. The United States believed that with good government, a large scale and ...
...iped out the Viet Cong army. "Tet was the roof falling in." (Clark Clifford -sec. of def.) Not only were thousands of Vietnamese and American lives lost but LBJ's dreams and presidency seemed to die as well. The cost of the war was simply too high to keep the 'Great Society' going and everyone else around LBJ was fed up with the war. They wanted America out. Eventually when Johnson finally got it through his head that he was the most hated man in America and his credibility was long gone he announced that no more troops would be sent to Vietnam and that America was willing to make peace. He also stated that he would not seek re-election in the future as he wanted to consolidate all his elbow grease in bringing the war to an end. "Lyndon Johnson believed in the domino theory but his presidency turned out to be the last domino." (Theodore White -American journalism).
Johnson was the first president to be impeached and was acquitted in the Senate by only a single vote. He was the only President without any schooling and didn’t learn to read until his wife taught him at the age of seventeen.
After the Second World War, the American world was going to change. Things were going to be different. The U.S. was going to act differently in certain situations. On an international level they would never get involved, however after the War they took it upon themselves to protect the world. They saw themselves as the global power. They would stop the spread of communism. Clearly, the United States involved themselves in the Vietnam war since they held newborn prestige as the “superpower” of the world after their involvement and gradual victory in WWII and, therefore, wished to (and claimed they had a right to) enforce their anti-communist views upon the Vietnamese. Also these beliefs led to the clash between this war and Johnson’s hopes for “a Great Society” by spreading the ideas of false liberalism.
The Vietnam War was a difficult experience both for the US military as well as its foreign policy. It was unique geographically, ethnically, politically, militarily and diplomatically. Although Johnson inherited a difficult problem from his predecessors, he did step into a trap essentially of his own making. His decision to go to war was reached from hard thought-out reasoning but he did not factor in the environment in Vietnam or the opinion of the American public, resulting in a disastrous war, for the Empire of Liberty, that lasted for over two decades.
President Johnson believed in containment and the domino theory. Containment was to stop the spread of communism. Domino Theory was that if one country falls then more and more will start to fall as well, they were most worried about Southeast Asia. To stop the spread of communism President Johnson told Congress that North Vietnam attacked one of the American ships first. We would later find out that is was a lie to get get Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This document states that “ Resolved by the Senate and House if Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.(Document A)” This document then threw off the check and balance because now it was giving the president to much power. Once we went to war we thought it was going to be fast, at least thats what Johnson wanted America to believe. Bill Crawford saw what was going on and published a political cartoon. This showed that Johnson’s foreign policies were pulling the what Johnson wanted the Great Society to be down. After that was released in 1967 the tensions...
Before I read this book, I knew almost nothing about LBJ. I had no opinion of him, good or bad. I can't even really remember hearing much about him. So I was given the rare opportunity to formulate an opinion without any personal bias, and despite popular opinion, I really like Lyndon Johnson. Despite his shady political methods (which is actually nothing unusual in politics), he was a man who knew how to get things done. I think people criticize Johnson too quickly. Although the distrust Johnson received from Americans may have been well deserved (when he with-held the truth about the escalating situation in Vietnam), how can one man be held responsible for Vietnam. Johnson didn't start the war, he simply inherited it from Kennedy. Sure, he could have withdrew from Vietnam, but when he started sending troops, he did so at the discretion of his advisors and with the support of the American people. But when Vietnam turned into the horrible "unnecessary" disaster it is remembered as, everyone backed off and Johnson was left to blame. I think the book did an excellent job showing the awesome pressure a president (who people often forget, is just another human being), is put under during a war.
President Andrew Johnson lifted himself out of extreme poverty to become President of the United States. He was a man with little education who climbed the political ladder and held many different high offices. As a strict constitutionalist, Johnson believed in limiting the powers of the federal government. President Johnson was one of the most bellicose Presidents who “fought” Congress, critics, and many others. President Andrew Johnson faced numerous problems post-Civil War Era including reconstructing the Southern states to combine peacefully with the Union, his battles with Congress, and his career ending impeachment.
JOHN F. KENNEDY IN VIETNAM There are many critical questions surrounding United States involvement in Vietnam. American entry to Vietnam was a series of many choices made by five successive presidents during these years of 1945-1975. The policies of John F. Kennedy during the years of 1961-1963 were ones of military action, diplomacy, and liberalism. Each of his decision was on its merits at the time the decision was made. The belief that Vietnam was a test of the Americas ability to defeat communists in Vietnam lay at the center of Kennedy¡¦s policy. Kennedy promised in his inaugural address, Let every nation know...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty. From the 1880s until World War II, France governed Vietnam as part of French Indochina, which also included Cambodia and Laos. The country was under the formal control of an emperor, Bao Dai. From 1946 until 1954, the Vietnamese struggled for their independence from France during the first Indochina War. At the end of this war, the country was temporarily divided into North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam came under the control of the Vietnamese Communists who had opposed France and aimed for a unified Vietnam under Communist rule. Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French controlled the South. For this reason the United States became involved in Vietnam because it believed that if all of the country fell under a Communist government, Communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia and further. This belief was known as the domino theory. The decision to enter Vietnam reflected America¡¦s idea of its global role-U.S. could not recoil from world leadership. The U.S. government supported the South Vietnamese government. The U.S. government wanted to establish the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which extended protection to South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in case of Communist subversion. SEATO, which came into force in 1955, became the way which Washington justified its support for South Vietnam; this support eventually became direct involvement of U.S. troops. In 1955, the United States picked Ngo Dinh Diem to replace Bao Dai as head of the anti-Communist regime in South Vietnam. Eisenhower chose to support Ngo Dinh Diem. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917. Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the Navy the next year.