LBJ and the Descent into War
By the time Lyndon B. Johnson became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, the United States had already made a significant commitment to South Vietnam’s struggle against communist forces. Military advisers were first sent to Vietnam in 1950 by President Harry S. Truman, and their numbers grew during the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Kennedy, but no combat troops were there when Johnson came into office. On Aug. 2, 1964, three small North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin (a second attack was alleged on Aug. 4 but did not occur). Johnson ordered airstrikes against North Vietnam, and Congress on Aug. 7 passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the president to use “all necessary measures” to deal with the North Vietnamese threat. In November, Johnson soundly defeated Republican Barry Goldwater in the presidential election. Throughout the fall, the president’s team debated the proper course of action in Vietnam, but when Johnson began his new term in January 1965, there were still no U.S. combat troops in Vietnam. That would soon change, as historian Michael Beschloss describes in rich detail in his book Presidents of War.
In his inaugural address, on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 1965, Johnson said not a word about Vietnam. The president spoke exclusively of domestic affairs, for he planned to make fundamental changes in American life—with his War on Poverty, voting guarantees for all Americans, Medicare, aid to education, and other initiatives—that would install the architect of the Great Society in the record books.
Three days after being sworn in, at 2:26 a.m. on Saturday, Johnson was hurried by ambulance from the White House to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. Lady Bird feared that he had suffered another heart attack. She stated in her diary that she “just patted him and
