whutTHEYsay
Gold Member
- Jul 9, 2014
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LBJ escalated the war Not Nixon.
but the Democratic Party became the anti-war party as you probably know and then Nixon escalated in the huge major split between Republicans and Democrats. And Nixon took the old confederacy and most of his pro-war racists to the Republican party.
choice-lbjs-decision-to-go-to-war-in-vietnam-38410
The choice: LBJ’s decision to go to war in Vietnam. Published: March 6, 2015 6:05am EST. Randall B Woods, University of Arkansas
The South was both the most segregationist region of the country and the most hawkish on foreign affairs. Johnson believed he could not ask the region to accept both the demise of Jim Crow and the loss of South Vietnam to the communists.
Matters were further complicated by the fact that right-wingers led by FBI Director J Edgar Hoover and Alabama governor George Wallace were trying to portray the civil rights sit-ins and demonstrations as communist inspired.
Furthermore, Johnson was acutely aware that he was JFK’s successor.
The American commitment to South Vietnam was one of Kennedy’s legacies. Johnson saw no evidence that President Kennedy had intended to deescalate. Johnson had chosen to keep on Kennedy’s foreign policy team – McNamara, Bundy, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. They were unanimous and vehement in their advice to stay the course in Vietnam (although McNamara would very publicly do a mea culpa years later.)