LBJ and the Vietnam War

Thus far the Vietnam War has shown to be a highly complex situation. Many of times, I have found myself agreeing with Lyndon B. John’s decisions to escalate the war. First and foremost, the United States had made a promise of freedom and tranquility to the people (whom were not part of Viet-Cong) of Vietnam. As an American, it is my opinion that the United States had to uphold its word, essentially its credibility. Secondly, withdrawing troops from Vietnam when the situation was really out of control would make the United States appear weak. In midst of the Cold War, the one thing that was not going to prove true was that the United States was weak. Although these reasons were and are valid, the anti-war movement in conjunction with the Tet offensive required President Johnson to make a decision that changed the perception of the war; he chose to call a halt on the bombardment in Vietnam. The purpose of this essay is to further analyze how the continuing anti-war movement and the Tet Offensive were the reasons that “America’s fate was effectively sealed by mid-1968.”

The antiwarriors that have been described in Melvin Small’s book have shown to be relentless. They were fighting for a just cause, or at least it was a just cause in their opinion. They were able to organize and rally others to join in their quest to end the violence that was occurring in Vietnam. Between 1967 and 1968, however, a new phenomenon was occurring, the age of the “hippies.” Small mentions, “For many Americans by 1967, antiwar demonstrators were not only unruly and potentially violent but hippies…serious politically oriented activists became easily conflated with hippies to the detriment of their cause.” (Small, 81) This unexpected result of the antiwar movement definitely did put a damper on the cause because hippies were perceived as these pot-smoking, disrespectful, unappreciative bunch of kids who had no idea what they were talking about because they were high all the time. This proved to be untrue. The hippies were just as much as a centrifugal as the other activists, and this was evident in the rally held at the Pentagon.

Although only 75,000 or less activists were there, the event that occurred at the Pentagon was one of the underlying reasons LBJ had decided to end the bombing in Vietnam. What made this event stand out from the rest is that is was one of the largest, and nonetheless, it occurred “at the center of [American citizens] center of their war-making machine [which] presented a powerful image of a nation in turmoil.