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As you do the readings and watch the video, you should remember that several related dramas are taking place. First, the decision makers in Washington are trying to devise acceptable strategies and tactics to carry out those strategies in a political environment that is growing hotter and hotter. President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) is in the middle of a civil rights revolution and social welfare revolution with his Medicare and Great Society programs. Vietnam is the last thing he wants to be distracted by, yet he cannot escape it. As he tells his Press Secretary, Bill Moyers, who later resigns in protest over war policies, he feels like he is caught in a hail storm in Texas, he can't run, can't make it stop, and has nowhere to hide. His insecure personality as well as political pressure from the right wing will not let him run and no perfect policies exist that will let him hide. Things become hotter and hotter for him as his advisors, most specifically Defense Secretary McNamara, and former congressional friends conclude that the war cannot be won at an acceptable cost. He is attacked from the left by Robert Kennedy, and feels betrayed by the family that he supported when John Kennedy escalated our involvement. By the end of 1967, the public is turning against the war and more and more journalists are following the lead of public opinion and being more and more critical. All of this is well covered in Karnow. http://www.usca.edu/polisci/apls345/a8.htm
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