LBJ and The Logic of Escalation
LBJ and The Logic of Escalation
Five days before this call, Dr. King had given a speech in Petersburg, Virginia, to a chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. According to theNew York Times, King declared that “the war in Vietnam must be stopped” and called for “a negotiated settlement even with the Vietcong.”
President Johnson did not welcome these comments since he was soon to initiate a major escalation of the war, calling up 100,000 American soldiers to go to Vietnam. The first two-thirds of the call concerned voting rights legislation pending before Congress (to be signed into law a month later). King brought up the Petersburg matter towards the end of the call. In response, Johnson offers a detailed rationale for his war-fighting strategy, highlighting the risks of pulling out, as well as those of getting in too directly.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson, thirty-sixth President of the United States, 1963-1969.
Biographical sketch from American President.
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a clergyman and an activist in the Civil Rights Movement.
Biography from The King Center.
LBJ Daily Diary for July 7, 1965.
"Notes of Meeting of Foreign Affairs Consultants: Vietnam Panel," July 8, 1965 Source: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian.
Tape citation numbers WH65707.02.8311 and WH6507.02.8312, Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum. Raw audio file available at the Miller Center's Scripps Library website.
Bibliographies
Bibliography - Vietnam Conflict, Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Bibliography of the Vietnam War, Prof. Edward E. Moise, Clemson University.
Vietnam War Bibliography, Richard Jensen, University of Illinois-Chicago.
Scholarship
Martin Luther King and James M. Washington, A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., (1999)
Brian VanDeMark and Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, (Vintage, 1996)
Brian VanDeMark, Into the Quagmire: Lyndon Johnson and the Escalation of the Vietnam War, (New York, 1991).
Archives
Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum.
Virtual Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.
U.S. Department of State: Office of the Historian, Vietnam, July-December 1965.
Documents Relating to the Vietnam War, Mt. Holyoke College.
March 21, 1964, WH6403.13, LBJL.
In the wake of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's recent trip to South Vietnam, Johnson had pressed him to prepare a speech on the subject, as several members of Congress were beginning to suggest that the administration consider a sharp revision of its policy there.
May 27, 1964, WH6405.10, #3520, LBJL.
In another segment of their May 27 conversation, President Johnson and Senator Russell discuss the challenges presented by war in Vietnam.
"LBJ and the Logic of Escalation"
See Stephanie van Hover, Marc J. Selverstone, and Patrice Preston-Grimes, "Window Into the White House," Social Education, vol. 72, no. 3 (April 2008), 130-135.
Teaching with the Tapes
Chester Pach, "The United States in the 1960s," Ohio Univesity.
Jeff Woods, "White House Tapes," Arkansas Tech University.