President Lyndon Johnson

American prevailing perceptions of the Cold War serve current US national foreign policy process goals that emphasize the expansion of US global influence. The prevailing view in the American polity remains that the Soviet Union was an aggressive, imperialist threat that the US defeated through its containment strategy. The validity of this ultimately self-serving assumption requires critique because Communist state postwar foreign and public policy behavior patterns did not conform with this prevailing position. Failure of the academy generally to predict the remarkably peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union is further evidence that this politically prevailing viewpoint was fundamentally flawed. Current dissent is in effect tied to the New Left that emerged partly as a critique to Cold War assumptions that produced the Vietnam debacle. This article analyzes the political interests that support the prevailing belief that the US nevertheless won the Cold War despite this left dissent. These interests overwhelm current critique of US global dominance that continues to rely on Cold War-era formulated hard power containment prescriptions. By accepting the validity of this assumption that the US won the Cold War, the academy weakens its ability to critique US foreign policy behavior in the so-called war on terror.

American prevailing perceptions of the Cold War serve current US national foreign policy process goals that emphasize the expansion of US global influence. The prevailing view in the American polity remains that the Soviet Union was an aggressive, imperialist threat that the US defeated through its containment strategy. The validity of this ultimately self-serving assumption requires critique because Communist state postwar foreign and public policy behavior patterns did not conform with this prevailing position. Failure of the academy generally to predict the remarkably peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union is further evidence that this politically prevailing viewpoint was fundamentally flawed. Current dissent is in effect tied to the New Left that emerged partly as a critique to Cold War assumptions that produced the Vietnam debacle. This article analyzes the political interests that support the prevailing belief that the US nevertheless won the Cold War despite this left dissent. These interests overwhelm current critique of US global dominance that continues to rely on Cold War-era formulated hard power containment prescriptions. By accepting the validity of this assumption that the US won the Cold War, the academy weakens its ability to critique US foreign policy behavior in the so-called war on terror.

The American media played an essential role during the Vietnam War. Not only did the television show the antiwar demonstrations across the U.S., but reporters also informed the American public and the politicians about the happenings in Vietnam. Although the media mostly supported the war, as President Johnson escalated the military conflict in 1965, journalists began to oppose the American involvement in Vietnam. In addition, the media also shaped public opinion about the war. One of the major journalists, Walter Cronkite’s report was a decisive moment in the Vietnam War as he, contradicting the statements of the American political and military leaders, revealed that the United States was unlikely to win the war in Vietnam. Afterward, more and more Americans turned against the war. This paper aims at examining the role of the American media in the Vietnam War and the effects of the media on public opinion.

The aim of this research paper is to examine the effects of the Vietnam War on the Johnson administration (1963-1968). First, the essay seeks to show briefly the outcome of U.S. military operations in South Vietnam between November 1963 and the summer of 1964, and to exemplify the nature of the Johnson administration as to misinforming the American public. In the second stage, the paper intends to examine the effects of the Vietnam War on the presidential election of 1964 and on President Johnson’s political decisions concerning the Gulf of Tonkin Incident that contributed to his victory. In addition, the paper also examines the reasons and factors, namely the escalation of the war in 1965 and its consequences, that eventually brought Lyndon Johnson’s presidency to an end.

The International War Crimes Tribunal organized by Bertrand Russell in 1966–1967 sought to investigate alleged violations of international law and the Nuremberg Principles by the United States in Vietnam. While the Tribunal successfully convened three sets of hearings in Stockholm, Sweden, Roskilde, Denmark, and, Tokyo, Japan, it was easily dismissed in most of Western Europe and the United States as an anti-American propaganda ploy. This article explores how the United States Government deployed the national security state and international diplomacy to discredit and disrupt the proceedings of the Russell Tribunal and ultimately contain the embarrassing damage caused by this first major international antiwar initiative during the Vietnam War.

Presidents do public speaking, of course, but how do presidents view public speaking? This essay examines public presidential remarks about public speaking to offer a view of presidential rhetoric about rhetoric.
This analysis reveals that presidents have offered evaluations (implicit and explicit) of public speaking, as well as specific advice about giving and writing speeches. Excerpts from speeches and other remarks are included, with representation from Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, H. W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama. Considering presidential remarks about public speaking provides unique material to further inform how we teach, view, study, and do public speaking.

Over the course of five months of preliminary talks in 1968, the United States and North Vietnam failed to achieve agreement on the terms of a total American bombing halt of North Vietnam that would pave the way to serious peace negotiations. Only after Democratic presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey expressed his willingness to halt the bombing with less explicit North Vietnamese guarantees of American and South Vietnamese safety than those sought by the Johnson Administration and Republican nominee Richard Nixon did North Vietnam take the first step toward accepting U.S. conditions for the cessation. President Johnson’s bombing halt less than one week before the election seemed to many a ploy to help elect Humphrey, but it was a genuine act forced upon him by North Vietnamese leaders who realized they could get a better peace from Humphrey than either Johnson or Nixon.