Success and American Politics
P. Schultz
July 4, 2013
It is
interesting for me to read about LBJ and the war in Vietnam as an illustration
of the psychology of American politicians. And the following is based on some
passages from a book, The Eve of Destruction:
How 1965 Transformed America, by James T. Patterson.
In his
book, Patterson presents LBJ as “trapped” or “doomed” with regard to Vietnam.
Here are two passages, one from Patterson and the second one a quote from LBJ
himself, taken from a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
“If
Johnson…allowed himself to hope…that incremental increases in bombing
might…achieve…success…he was doomed to disappointment. The North
Vietnamese were fighting a revolution, and they were not to be shaken from
their course. Johnson, trapped, quietly
decided…to launch daily and gradually more powerful air strikes against the
North Vietnamese.” [p. 95, emphasis added]
“I knew
from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left
the woman I really loved – the Great Society – to get involved in that bitch of
a war…then I would lose everything at home. All my programs….But if I let the
Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my
nation…as an appeaser and we would find it impossible to accomplish anything
for anybody anywhere on the entire globe. Once the war began, then all those
conservatives in Congress would use it as a weapon against the Great Society.
Oh, I could see it coming. And I didn’t like the smell of it.” [p.92]
LBJ was and he played the victim,
even to the point of being Christ-like as he would be “crucified” like Christ. He
was the victim of Communists, of Congress, of conservatives, and of a “bitch.”
And, apparently, there was “no way out.”
Secondly, victimizers very often
play the victim. E.g., OJ Simpson and his children were “victimized” by Nicole
who was a “slut.”
But let us take for granted that
LBJ, in his own mind, was “trapped” or “doomed” and ask a simple question: Why?
Answer: Because he was unwilling to
“do the right thing.” That is, he was unwilling to “do the right thing” if
doing so meant “losing,” i.e., losing his power, his reputation as a powerful
man, his place at “the top.” LBJ, like any calculating politician, put success, his success, the success of his programs, his policies, ahead of “doing the right thing.” Even MLK, Jr. made
similar assumptions, saying that “he sympathized with Johnson’s ‘serious
problem’ concerning Vietnam….” [p. 97] That is, MLK saw that handling Vietnam successfully was indeed a serious
problem.
This is why it appeared that there
was “no way out,” because success required actions that were, to put it mildly,
less than satisfactory – bombing a “damn little piss-ant country,” as LBJ once
described Vietnam – but were unlikely to succeed, as Johnson well knew.[1] Once
you seek success above all else [or power, prestige, or greatness], you are in
fact “doomed,” “trapped,” and there is “no way out” from doing things that you know
are not only inhuman but also almost certainly bound to fail.
Ah, but “do the right thing” and
there is “a way out.”
[1] “As
the marines were preparing to land [at Danang], [LBJ] called Senator Richard
Russell.” “Dick,” he complained on March 6 [1965], “a man can fight if he can
see daylight down the road somewhere. But there ain’t no daylight in Vietnam.
There’s not a bit.” Russell concurred: "There’s no end to the road. There’s just
nothing.” Johnson agreed….Russell sympathized, saying, “It’s just awful….It’s
the biggest – it’s the worst mess I ever saw in my life. You couldn’t have
inherited a worse mess.” P. 99.
No comments:
Post a Comment