Lyndon Johnson War Analysis

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Recommended: The public view of the Vietnam war

Oluseun Taiwo
3/15/14
History 261
Dr. Hagaman
Lyndon Johnson’s War
In his monograph, Lyndon Johnson’s War, Michael Hunt converses the different verdicts, choices, faults and actions which lead up to the Vietnam War. Hunt exploits documents from both American and Vietnam archives to explain in full the actions taken by many American leaders and the potential thought process of our counterpart the Vietnamese and other European and Asian countries and their leaders. In each and every one of these archives he makes a point of it to explain how the United States came to be drawn into the conflict in Southeast Asia and several times through this book Hunt makes the silent argument that the Unted States of America fought the war as if it were “fighting a conventional war.”(Hunt, pg. 53) Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of further American involvement into the war.
Hunt begins his book by means of looking into a more global and broad view of American politics. The opening Chapter, “The Cold War World of The Ugly American” focuses on the actions that President Truman and Eisenhower where plagued with during the cold war. A reoccurring character throughout popular Asian history, Ho Chi Minh, was quite a large role in the Americans decision to get involved because not only he was fighting the French, a common ally for the Americans, but also the Ideology which he relentlessly fought for (communism), assorted with the geographic location of Vietnam is what troubled the United States. At the time they were adamant about practicing a strict policy of “continment” which saw the united states side with the failing French so not only ould a French colony be saved, but also to stop the big gains and advancements that communism had been...

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...Johnson and his administrations shoulders because he was the main president during the height of the war. He makes this clear by naming the title of his book after Lyndon -Lyndon Johnson’s War- specifically highlights Johnson and places an “owner” on the war. Also, significant is the fact that Johnson was not voted into office but simply placed there because President Kennedy had passed, meaning that many American people could not specifically agree with what Johnson believed in. He makes note of it that Lyon Johnson and his office weren’t remotely ready for this war.
In Hunts Lyndon Johnson’s War, he imposes on his readers just how ill prepared each presidential administration ( multiple due to elections and assassination) was. He makes several notes saying how the poor vision of US forgein policy esscientially runined any chance for the United States of America

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