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Presidencies Of John F. Kennedy And Lyndon B. Johnson

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In the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson times were extremely confusing. Domestically, the civil rights movement was in full effect and the war in Vietnam was raging overseas. Another major implication on these two mens presidencies was the Cold War and the fight for democracy to rule over communism around the world. Thus, many of the stances these two presidents had on Vietnam involved being aggressive in the war and not letting communism defeat the “free” world. Their decisions were both aggressive and extremely stubborn when the scope of the war began to take shape. Both of these men fit the description of James Thompson extremely well because of these decisions and the escalation of the war that followed. John F. Kennedy …show more content…

Johnson would step in to fill the void in the presidency. Ironically, this was mere after Kennedy approved the coup of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem that saw his death. The coup took place because of the clear lack of support for his government, again a step to defend the small nation from falling to communist ideology. Johnson took the presidency and was tasked with escalating the war, avoid involvement and surrender the country to communism. Johnson would choose the former until he was replaced by Richard Nixon in 1969. With already increasing financial support for the war to new South Vietnamese leader Gernal Khanh, the Gulf of Tonkin incident happened. An event that wasn’t even proven to exist, in August of 1964, the USS Maddox was attacked by Northern torpedo boats. Johnson was able to pass legislation that gave him a blank check to deal with a direct attack against United States military forces as a response,which lead to direct involvement in the war (Herring, ). In early 1965 the first ground forces that were not advisors were placed in Vietnam in the form of three thousand five hundred marines. On February, 1965 Operation Rolling Thunder was put into effect. With this operation in effect, the war was expected to end quickly. Operation Rolling Thunder would last for approximately three years. After these actions, escalation eventually ascended into a full scale war. In the year 1964, there were only 23300 troops stationed in Vietnam, most of them being advisors. By the time Johnson would leave office, 536,100 troops would be involved in

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McMaster also talked about how president Johnson believed that he would be able to control the U.S involvement in vietnam and part of that belief is based of of McNamara's confident assurance. (McMaster 333) Because of Lyndon B John secret decision made in Washington between November 1963 to July 1965, he got the United States deeper and deeper into the war. President Johnson also believed that it would be possible to preserve American credibility even if the U.S armed force withdrew from Vietnam (McMaster 332). He was totally wrong. “After the United States become committed to the war, however, more American soldiers, airmen,... had died in the conflict, it would become impossible simply to disengage and declare America’s credibility intact…”

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In the year of 1954, was the beginning of reunification of communism within Vietnam. A great number of events were taken place within this time, and new events were being established. This has embarked a positive and negative effect on Vietnam, and has made its way up to the United States. Where the role of Caputo played an important role of the story that tells about his experiences he faced. From the time, he was a suburban boy who took on the responsibility of becoming a United States Marine.

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The domestic policy of the Cold War era truly went on to shape the country we see to this day. Two of the presidents that had the greatest impacts on the modern United States were Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Regan. The administrations under these two men would, through their policies on the environment, poverty, and civil/ human rights, make lasting changes to how the government would handle these issues. Lyndon B. Johnson was the president when some of the first claims of global warming and acid rain reached the White House. Johnson’s administration began a wave of new environmentalism with new policies branded under his Great Society plan.

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the Vietnamese soldiers lost a lot of food supplies and lost some of their hiding positions. The war began with an alert from the two U.S. destroyers docked at the Gulf of Tonkin, they were attacked by North Vietnamese troops. What the U.S. did not know or were confused about was were they in Vietnam waters, or were they in a different area near Vietnam waters? Having several incidents occurring President Lyndon B. Johnson declares war on Vietnam for attacking one of ours without a reason to do so or without a provoke of any sort. That was when the Vietnam war began and Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Vietnam to try and take them over with just invading

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Name Course Assignment Date Lyndon Johnson and U.S. Involvement in Vietnam Lyndon Johnson was the successor of the Presidential throne after John F Kennedy was assassinated having served his term from 1961 to 1963. Similar to many other ‘hawks’ as presidents were referred to in the White House; he was an ardent supporter of the Domino theory. The concept behind the theory was that a political event in one country would lead to similar events in the neighboring countries or states.

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Lyndon B. Johnson made the Vietnam War his own by using manipulating. He used the media to get the support of the Congress. Media helped him manipulate Congress into coming on President Johnson side, so they could continue the war. The misinformation leads Congress to believe anything President told them. He informed them that the United States were the victims.

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The United States was directly involved in the Vietnam War from 1964 through 1974. A major event in this war was the Tet Offensive, which profoundly affected American history by impacting our politics, economy, military, and society. The Tet Offensive affected politics by influencing the presidential elections of 1968. It affected the American economy, boosting personal prosperity with new jobs but greatly increasing the national debt, due mainly to the vast amounts of money spent on the war effort after the Tet Offensive. The military was affected by the offensive because of America’s increased involvement in South Vietnam, and the fact that many people in the military realized that this was a war we could not win.

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In 1963, Lindon B. Johnson inherited the White House from John F. Kennedy as well as the Vietnam War. Johnson vowed to not lose the war as he saw a Communist Asia would form if he failed to act correctly. When the counter insurgency in Vietnam began to fail, due to the Diem Coup, Johnson immediately increased America’s political and military presence in Vietnam. While being fully aware of the reports and documents he was given, he decided to intentionally mislead Congress as well as the public on America’s position in the war. Johnson and his administration knew that entering the war would be expensive and consuming, but they had motives to do so anyways.

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President Johnson made the Vietnam War his own by manipulating information, and the media to get congress to help support him in fighting the war. He didn’t want to go to war with Vietnam, but he felt that if the U.S. did not help South Vietnam, it would be a failure on him to have let Vietnam become a communist country. He was determined to keep the North Vietnamese communists from taking control over the government of South Vietnam. He feared that if America did not do anything to help contain communism, that it would spread throughout the world. This was also known as the “Domino Theory,” in which President Johnson strongly believed in.

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What options were available to President Johnson? To President Nixon? What were the advantages and disadvantages? When Johnson took the presidency he could have stopped support to South Vietnam, but he didn’t.

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OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER -SUCCESS OR FAILURE? Operation rolling thunder was a strategic and gradual bombing campaign undertaken by the united states military and the republic of south Vietnam. The aim of the campaign was mainly to prevent the north Vietnamese from invading the south Vietnamese and spreading communism. Over Three years the USA and south Vietnam dropped 643,000 tons of bombs on the north and spent around 900 million dollars. The operation was seen as ineffective as it did not meet the initial objectives as men, North Vietnamese guerrillas and materials continued to travel from the north to the south via a sophisticated network of paths and the ho Chi Minh trail which also ran through neighbouring countries such as Laos

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Johnson initially listed eleven possible ideas in his State of the Union speech, but when it came time to draft the legislation, he only had one main component and had to quickly add five other programs to make the initiative seem sufficient to battle a “war”. In addition to the domestic war, President Johnson also made significant improvements in the power of the presidency during the Vietnam War. Johnson believed that the Constitution gave him the authority to commit troops to the war, but thought it was desirable to gain Congress’ approval so he would have their support throughout the length of the conflict (Milkis & Nelson 2016, 365). Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, which gave Lyndon B. Johnson the power “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” during the Vietnam War (Milkis & Nelson 2016, 365). The additional authority to make any and all military decisions without requiring additional approval from Congress gave the U.S. presidency more power than it ever had before.

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When he took office President Nixon, along with his advisors, presented a policy called Vietnamization. This new policy was aimed at ending American involvement in the Vietnam War by shifting all military responsibilities to South Vietnam. Nixon believed that by removing American troops and training South Vietnam’s military, it would prepare the South Vietnamese to take charge for their own defense against communist takeover. The Vietnamization strategy was first announced to the American people in a nationally televised speech by President Nixon on November 3, 1969. Nixon emphasized that his idea of “Vietnamization” did not follow the same lines as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s idea of “Americanization”.

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Kennedy regarding Americas obligation to enable Vietnam to battle against communism. They, as well as America, shares esteems, such as living in a free world where their votes and voices will be heard. America needs to demonstrate that they are a solid nation that is resolved to help countries in distress. Accordingly, this was the explanation why Kennedy kept deploying additional troops to the war. Now this generates the question whether he did not care about the severe psychological damages the warriors were experiencing or if “Apocalypse Now” depicted their welfare

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The Vietnam War happened in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975. The war was battled between the comrade North Vietnam, upheld by its socialist associates, and the legislature of South Vietnam, bolstered by the United States and other part countries of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The Vietcong, the delicately furnished South Vietnamese comrade insurgency, to a great extent battled a guerrilla war against hostile to socialist strengths in the district. The North Vietnamese Army occupied with a more routine war, now and again submitting vast estimated units into fight. U.S. what's more, South Vietnamese powers depended on air prevalence and overpowering capability over behavior seek and-demolish operations,

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