When Lyndon Baines Johnson took office, he inherited a simmering mess in Southeast Asia — a steamy bowl of Cold War noodles America had been stirring since Truman, and which JFK had spiced up with “advisors.” What LBJ did was take that murky soup and boil it over.

It all began with the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, a classic case of “we’re not sure what happened, but let’s pretend it justifies full-scale war.” Whether it was one boat, two boats, or a shadow, LBJ grabbed the excuse like a cowboy latching onto a steer. Congress gave him a blank check, and boy, did he cash it.

By 1965, Johnson had escalated the U.S. presence in Vietnam from 23,000 “advisors” to over 180,000 troops, with that number ballooning to over half a million by 1969. He sold it as fighting communism. What he delivered was a long, bloody treadmill that ground down American lives, treasure, and credibility.

His administration believed in a domino theory — that if Vietnam fell, all of Asia would go red. But the real dominoes turned out to be draft riots, nightly news footage of burning villages, a shattered trust in government, and a nation permanently scarred. Instead of dominoes falling overseas, they fell at home.

LBJ thought he could fight a war without calling it a war. He refused to officially declare it, refused to mobilize the full public will behind it, and refused to listen to critics warning him it was unwinnable. He dropped napalm on villages to “win hearts and minds.” Let that irony sink in.

Meanwhile, he gave us the Great Society, trying to wage war on poverty while also waging actual war in the jungle. One war gutted his other. The cost of Vietnam helped derail civil rights progress and social programs. LBJ watched his legacy go up in smoke — or more accurately, in jungle mist and chopper exhaust.

By 1968, the American people were fed up. The Tet Offensive revealed how little control we had. Walter Cronkite famously turned against the war. And Johnson? He folded. “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” Translation: “Y’all deal with this mess — I’m out.”

📝 Editor’s Note:

How did a man who envisioned eliminating poverty become the architect of so much suffering? LBJ escalated a war he never understood, refused to de-escalate when it was clearly doomed, and left a legacy soaked in jungle mud and American blood. What a waste.

đź“š References:

  • Karnow, S. (1983). Vietnam: A History. Penguin Books.
  • Logevall, F. (2012). Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam. Random House.
  • Dallek, R. (1998). Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973. Oxford University Press.