Lyndon Johnson may have escalated the war, but when I was drafted and shipped off to Vietnam, the signature on my orders was Nixon's.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's Kennedy's war, Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson got all the flak, but it's Kennedy's war.
The Vietnam War soured President Johnson's legacy. We still have to recognize his domestic legacy.
I was so opposed to the war in Vietnam that I initially refused President Nixon's urgings for me to go there.
George W. had a plan. He arranged to join the Air National Guard in Texas, which meant he would not be sent to Vietnam.
Truman fired the popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur because he disobeyed orders in the Korean War. Johnson knew that he had reached the endgame in Vietnam when Gen. William Westmoreland, the top commander in Vietnam, requested 240,000 more troops in 1968 for the prolonged war that also could not be won.
Nixon did have a secret plan, and I knew that it involved making threats of nuclear war to North Vietnam.
I believe Johnson understood that the reason was Vietnam. I also believe that he felt that if there was a way to communicate the real issues in Vietnam, that the reasons would be answered or understood. But there was just no way to communicate.
I greatly blame Congress, spurred on by its personal hatred of Nixon, for passing legislation in June through August of '73 which embargoed any further U.S. help to South Vietnam.
Lyndon B. Johnson thought he'd have the boys home from Vietnam by Christmas - for four Christmases in a row (he never shifted course, and lost his presidency for it).
President Johnson did not want the Vietnam War to broaden. He wanted the North Vietnamese to leave their brothers in the South alone.