Admin How did President Johnson change the course of the Vietnam War?
On February 13, 1965, Johnson authorized Rolling Thunder, the sustained bombing of North Vietnam. LBJ steered a middle course: The “hawks” in Congress and in the military wanted him to engage in massive bombing of enemy cities, threaten to use nuclear weapons, and even threaten to invade North Vietnam.
How did the Vietnam War affect the US government?
The Vietnam War had far-reaching consequences for the United States. It led Congress to replace the military draft with an all-volunteer force and the country to reduce the voting age to 18. The war also weakened U.S. military morale and undermined, for a time, the U.S. commitment to internationalism.
Why did Johnson want the Vietnam War?
Johnson believed that if he permitted South Vietnam to fall through a conventional North Vietnamese invasion, the whole containment edifice so carefully constructed since World War II to stop the spread of communism (and the influence of the Soviet Union) would crumble. There were also domestic considerations.
What did Johnson do in the Vietnam War?
Johnson was given the reason he needed to order bombing raids on North Vietnam. As president and commander-in-chief he would have been seen as a weak leader if he had done nothing to counter this – just as both his Chiefs of Staff and he, himself, had bargained on.
Why did the US pull out of Vietnam?
The US decided that it needed to hold the line against the Communists , though, and continued to send increasing amounts of war material and increasing numbers of military advisors to the aid of capitalist South Vietnam. Gradually, the US got pulled into an all-out shooting war of its own with the North Vietnamese.
What did Lyndon B . Johnson do during the Vietnam War?
On this day in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson asks Congress for more money to support the Vietnam War. Lyndon’s War, a war Johnson actually inherited from President John F. Kennedy, had achieved nothing by 1967. The North Vietnamese use of guerrilla warfare tactics resulted in approximately 14,000 American troops killed in action by early 1967.
What are facts about the Vietnam War?
While many aspects about the Vietnam War are debatable, the facts and figures of the war have a voice of their own and are indisputable. Here are some of the commonly accepted facts about the Vietnam War: 58,148 Americans were killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.59 million who served.