Bill Moyers Quotes
We will never know what would have happened if President Johnson had said no to more troops and more war [in Vietnam]. We do know what happened when he said yes.
See the Macnama telephone quotation when the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted many more combat soldiers in Vietnam. Johnson felt he had no political choice.
Bill Moyers, Journalist, Special Assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson, White House Press Secretary, PBS, Bill Moyers Journal, November 20, 2009
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The President told McNamara that if the administration does not send the troops the Generals want, they will be blamed for any military failures that occur. If they do send all the troops that the Joint Chiefs wanted, they would be going far beyond the limits that the Defense Secretary recommended and the President would have preferred. JBJ felt he really had no political choice. He authorized the wanted troops further escalating the war. See his special assistant’s question about that decision in {617151}.
Podharetz was citing the Vietnam war. The two American occasions where the plausibility seemed to fade were the Vietnam War and The Irag war. Both Presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson and George W. Bush as Bismarck predicted, had much political trouble over the wars.
War and international conflict had become very complicated in modern times. Americans and most other people associated victory in war with unconditional surrender. However, since the unconditional surrender is of WWII, no conflict has ended with an unconditional surrender.
WWII has been remembered as a “good war” which had the overwhelming support of American at the time and in historical retrospect.
Although the two men differed on a very important issue, each admired the other and acquitted themselves politely throughout. Congress explicitly gave the President the powers that he had exercised and won the dispute. But Dixon had also won, and upheld the law as it existed until it was changed.
In 1963 there was only one Congressman who expressed misgivings about United States military involvement in Vietnam:
When the Senate was debating the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which would empower the President to take "all necessary measures" to repel any armed attack on U. S. forces, Senator Morse was one of only two Senators opposing the resolution:
- Born: June 5, 1934
- Nationality: American
- Profession: Journalist
Billy Don Moyers is an American journalist and political commentator. He served as the ninth White House Press Secretary under the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years. Moyers has been extensively involved with public broadcasting, producing documentaries and news journal programs. He has won numerous awards and honorary degrees for his investigative journalism and civic activities. He has become well known as a trenchant critic of the corporately structured U.S. news media.
