Johnson Despairs In 1964: ‘It Looks Like We’re Getting Into Another Korea’
Johnson Despairs In 1964: ‘It Looks Like We’re Getting Into Another Korea’
The White House announced this week that it “would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea,” where U.S. troops have been stationed for 50 years. Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed the “Korea model” on Thursday, and Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, who oversees daily operations in Iraq, called it a “great idea.”
Such enthusiasm for a protracted U.S. presence modeled after Korea is grimly ironic. Back in 1964, when “the war in Vietnam was only a small dark cloud on the very distant horizon,” President Lyndon Johnson privately told National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy that “getting into another Korea” was the very thing he feared:
I just stayed awake last night thinking of this thing, and the more that I think of it I don’t know what in the hell, it looks like to me that we’re getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me. I don’t see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we’re committed. I believe the Chinese Communists are coming into it. I don’t think that we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere in that area. I don’t think it’s worth fighting for and I don’t think we can get out. And it’s just the biggest damn mess that I ever saw.
PBS’ Bill Moyers recently highlighted this conversation between Johnson and Bundy in a feature called Listening to History. Watch it:
As Moyers noted, “That was May 1964. Two hundred and sixty Americans had been killed in Vietnam by then. Eleven years and two presidents later, when U.S. forces pulled out, 58,209 Americans had died, and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.”
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Wow, unbelievable — tragically unbelievable.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:07 amI just stayed awake last night thinking of this thing
Somehow I don’t get the impression the current President loses a minute’s sleep over Iraq or anything else. He strikes me as the kind of guy who doesn’t think about something unless it’s put right in front of him.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:08 amDel,
Remember Bush told people this:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2006/12/bushs_first_com.html
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:11 amAt least Johnson has the class to resign when he saw the blunders that made the Vietnam go way past it’s expiration date. Every death from that moment of clarity must have weighed heavily on his conscience. I respect him for at least admitting his mistake, and helping close a national nighmare. Unfortunately, the “Commander-in-Chief” and ” War President” Bush thinks it’s all a game that he can pass to the next President. No conscience here.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:14 amjohnson didn’t resign…he refused to run for re-election.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:20 amwhat would happen to the war in Iraq if Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and all of the other oil producing countries were to follow Hugo Chavez example and nationalize their oil and kick the western oil companies to the curb.
Would we be able to call them all terrorist nations and go to war with all of them to make “regime” changes so that the oil companies could continue to steal their oil and cheat the American people out of billions of dollars.
While they have been stealing the oil for oil producing nations, the oil companies have also been cheating the American people out of billions of dollars for generations.
If Pelosi and the “blank checkers” democratic congress want to really work for the people, then they should pass a law forcing the oil companies to open up their balance sheets. Costs vs profits. Then the other shoe would drop, and the American people would see what suckers they have been, and that we are all victims of the oil companies.
But they won’t. The “blank checkers” are just as owned as the “rubber stampers” were.
The only way to end this tyranny of the oil companies is for the oil producing nations to nationalize their oil and tell American to go to hell.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:26 amAttaturk,
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:36 amThe big clue for me was a speech Bush gave where he very dramatically declares “I think about Iraq every day,” as if it was somehow a hugh sacrifice on his part to not let a full day go by without thinking about the war he started and the mayhem it’s causing.
“History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap”. Ronald Reagan . . . . . .
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 amI was drafted in March 1968 and I also remember when Reagan
did not retaliate when 283 US Marines were blown up in Lebanon in 1983.
Do not let cowards create a war for the patriots to fight . . . . . .
War profiteering is treason . . . . .
Rowland Driskell
US54513597
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June 2nd, 2007 at 9:42 amIt’s funny and weird this very slow moving away from “catching the 911 perpetrators” to setting up a success story like Korea.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:56 amThey’re going to regret not looking for Osama and Zawahiri.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:04 am“I was drafted in March 1968 and I also remember when Reagan
did not retaliate when 283 US Marines were blown up in Lebanon in 1983.
Do not let cowards create a war for the patriots to fight .”
Sorry Rowland but I am dense. Should Reagan have retaliated or not?
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:04 amDavid Halberstam focused on this subject in his searing classic The Best and the Brightest. Geoffrey Perret has done the same thing today, though on a smaller scale, in his incisive and analytical tome Commander in Chief-How Truman, Johnson, and Bush Turned a Presidential Power into a Threat to America’s Future. Both of them point out how heavily influential their advisers were, people such as Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, Walt Rostow [who was featured so prominently in the 1974 Oscar-winning documentary Hearts and Minds], who were so eager to draw the United States inexorably into a war of choice. As Gore Vidal noted in the penetrating documentary Why We Fight, this country should be known as the United States of Amnesia, since its leaders do not seem to have learned the valuable lessons of history and yesterday’s wars.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:13 amOf course George Bush sleeps well at night. First of all, he has no conscience and he has no soul. Second of all, I suspect that he is heavily medicated.
There is no comparison between Korea and Iraq. In Korea the people want us there, they want and appreciate our help. In Iraq the people want us gone, and I don’t see that changing. So, if we leave our soldiers in Iraq, they will be a constant target and the deaths will continue.
These NeoCON RepubliCONS live in a fantasy world I don’t comprehend.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:17 amHow is it that we go from ridding Iraq of WMD’s to setting up a Korea type thing? What on earth are these guys smoking? There is absolutely nothing remotely similar to the two countries or the situations politically or militarily. God help us.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:25 amCheney is manipulating the president into a military confrontation with Iran. I suppose if we keep troops in Iraq it will aid that blunder logistically.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:27 amTo: Gus & Others,
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:37 amIf Falstaff was correct and “the better part of valour is discretion . . . ”
then Reagan acted in a prudent rather than foolhardy way and, in my opinion, was correct in not bombing Lebanon(even though America had the U.S. Navy offshore). Economic and trade embargoes can be mighty weapons that shed no more blood and can bring about the desired results. {Re: JFK and the Cuban missle crisis}
Rowland Driskell
Johnson was another criminal president who was in bed with the Military Industrial Complex. He should have been indicted and gone to prison.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:50 amI think a post Korean war scenario would be a “great idea” as well. How are we going to seal off the terrorists though? It would sure cut down on casualties.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:50 amKorea started out as a smashing US success. We had pushed the N. Koreans back and had essentially destroyed their army. However, we had to make a point to the Communists. We had to push the North Koreans to the Chinese boarder. We wanted the Chinese and the Russians to receive a clear message. Instead of coming out ahead and showing our enemies true strength and wisdom, we had to ignore warnings about pressing on. McArthur pressed on and the Chiniese intervened.
We salvaged Korea after a long and fruitless battle to regain territory lost after the Chinese intervention. We expended countless US lives and treasure that could have been avoided had we sought a quick diplomatic solution after we had defeated the N. Korean army and prior to the Chinese intervention. The S. Koreans loved us for saving them. Same would have been true after our initial success.
Iraq shows the same stupidity. We had essentially defeated BinLaden in Afghanistan. We could have finished off BinLaden forever, rebuilt the country and sent a message to terrorists, Sadam and Iran. It would have been a message of strength and success. Now we have shown weakness, the irrational fear on the part of our leadership and how easily we can be manipulated into a self defeating position. In Korea, we ended up negotiating a cease fire. In Iraq we seek to create a long term position in the middle of a civil war.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 amI can think of few other statements more apt to infuriate and inflame the Iraqi people, or fuel their insurgency, than this utterance. Its reckless disregard for their sensibilities, which in an instant has surely served to place our troops in even greater jeopardy, is breathtaking in the scope of its stupidity.
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:01 amYup. I mean, yes, Yup. The only Iraqis who might be open to a US occupation would be some Kurdish Iraqis who (rightly or wrongly) would consider it a hedge against Turkish incursions.
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:14 amWatch this Moyers video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sstDwKTCpM&mode=related&search=
Profound.
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:29 amCheney is personally responsible for 9/11, and the next one he has in the works.
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:30 amWow, unbelievable — tragically unbelievable.
Comment by attaturk
I second that.
June 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 amI remember when Johnson’s conscience finally caught up with him, March of 68, I believe when he announced he wouldn’t run for another term. I was shocked. That he had a conscience. Turns out he did.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:12 pmI posted a comment two hours ago but for some reason it did not appear. I will try it again. David Halberstam discussed this same subject in his epic and searing work The Best and The Brightest. Geoffrey Perret also covers the same ground, though in a less massive scale, in his incisive tome Commander in Chief-How Truman, Johnson, and Bush Turned a Presidential Power into a Threat to America’ Future. What Bill Moyers and TP have noted is what Gore Vidal has also commented on when he said that this country should be known as the United States of Amnesia. America will continue to engage in wars of choice as long as it inexorably elects to ignore history and its wars which it has so foolishly decided to fight.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:28 pmDraft all one hundred U. S. Senators and all four hundred and thirty five Representatives, put ‘em in Army uniforms, give ‘em each a flak jacket, a helmet, an M-16 and ship ‘em to Baghdad and send ‘em out on combat patrols. Then our criminal illegal imperial occupation of the sovereign state of Iraq will end so fast that it will make you head spin. Suddenly, our Senators and Representatives will see the wisdom of bring all the troops home immediately and will happily be “supporting the troops” back in the good ole USA… Our present crop of so-called “representatives” in Congress are just a bunch of worthless lying cowardly war-mongering oil-stealing whores for the Bush crime family.
Maybe its time for a new political party, independent of corporate greed that will actually represent us the people instead of the wealthy ruling class and their corporations.
June 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 pmWe haven’t finished a conflict since Truman nuked Japan. The he and most every President since has pissed down their leg in every engagement since. Truman in Korea, JFK with the Bay o Pigs, JFK/LBJ in Viet Nam, Nixon in Viet Nam, Carter with the Iranian Hostage debacle, Clinton in Kosovo, and now Bush in Iraq. If you’re going to have a war do it right, get it done and get it over with. I don’t care if the rest of the world loves us, as long as they fear us. Right now they don’t do either one.
June 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 pmBeefeater at #29 believes that “I don’t care if the rest of the world loves us, as long as they fear us.” That type of thinking does not appear to be working out too well in the Middle East. He may also wish to avail himself of the works of Chalmers Johnson, where he discusses, among other things, the concept of blowback, which results from the unintended consequences of America’s foreign policy and especially the secret activities of that policy that is kept hidden from the American people.
He also says “If you’re going to have a war do it right, get it done and get it over with.” A war against whom, the Iraqi people? Perhaps he is not aware that not one Iraqi was involved in the hijackings on 09/11/01. A war against the terrorists? The outside forces who are aligned against the coalition forces number a mere 2000. As Geoffrey Perret correctly points out in his book Commander in Chief, since the Koreans, Vietnamese, and Iraqis posed no threat whatsoever to the United States, the U.S. had to invent reasons based upon hysteria and fear as to why the United States had to unnecessarily invade those countries. As Chalmers Johnson notes, the United States can have either a democracy or an empire; it cannot have both.
June 2nd, 2007 at 3:18 pm> Watch this Moyers video:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sstDwKTCpM
Not bad – even if retro.
Fun facts:
1) The CIA setting up bombs in Saigon then claiming it was North Vietnamese.
June 2nd, 2007 at 3:33 pm2) According to Thomas C. Reed in “At the Abyss – An Insider’s History of the Cold War” on Aug 4, 1964, the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy, which signalled that they were engaging North Vietnamese Patrol boats, were apparently firing at nothing at all as witnessed by a F-8 wanting to help out. Even more suspicious, the president was slated for a major statement about a retaliatory raid at 19:00 PM Washingtomn time even though the attack on the Maddox and Turner Joy had still to take place, at 21:20 PM. Weird, huh?
3) Salvador Allende was not assassinated but took his own live under siege (with his AK he got from Castro). Official.
I remember when Johnson’s conscience finally caught up with him, March of 68, I believe when he announced he wouldn’t run for another term. I was shocked. That he had a conscience. Turns out he did.
ROFL! You chumps really are bending over for this guy.
I guess Cheney has a conscience too; he’s not seeking the 2008 Presidency.
June 2nd, 2007 at 4:18 pmAt least Johnson has the class to resign when he saw the blunders that made the Vietnam go way past it’s expiration date. Every death from that moment of clarity must have weighed heavily on his conscience. I respect him for at least admitting his mistake, and helping close a national nighmare. Unfortunately, the “Commander-in-Chief†and †War President†Bush thinks it’s all a game that he can pass to the next President. No conscience here.
1. Johnson didn’t resign.
June 2nd, 2007 at 4:20 pm2. Johnson passed the war to the next President.
Johnson knew what he was talking about (fear of getting into another Korea), but somehow was talked into entering the fray. He and his advisers could not remember the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1963, only 11 years earlier.
June 2nd, 2007 at 5:44 pmShame on him, shame on us, then and now, for allowing our stupid arrogance and greed to overrule all reason.
Celtic Cynic, just a correction, Dien Bien Phu happened in 1954. What was remarkable is that after tossing the French out of Indochina, the Viet-Minh led by Ho Chi Min were looking to us for aid and help in rebuilding and uniting their Country.
June 2nd, 2007 at 6:49 pmThe US coldly turned its back on Ho because it was thought that he was under the influence of the Soviets.
What could have been……
Could someone tell me what I’m missing ?
As I understand history, the Korean conflict has led to an insular North Korea who Shrub calls the “Axis of Evil”. They are threatening that they are close to getting the bomb.
How is this a good thing ?
June 2nd, 2007 at 7:22 pmre #34 – I was referring to when it started, the year was 1953.
June 2nd, 2007 at 7:33 pmThe French were defeated when believing they were invincible. Deja vu all over again.
Iraq is arabic for Vietnam, isn’t ??
June 2nd, 2007 at 7:45 pmYes, I remember well how those pesky South Koreans kept planting IED’s under their roads and ambushing our soldiers…. I recall somewhere that Ho Chi Minh actually wrote a letter to President Wilson at the end of WWI asking his aid in freeing his nation from foreign occupation; it was ignored.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:19 pmJohnson was correct then for the following reasons:
1. The Vietnamese had millions of soldiers.
2. The Vietnamese were supported by China.
3. The jungle terrain was horrible for warfare.
You morons are completely wrong for comparing this to Iraq because:
1. The Iraqi insurgents don’t number in the millions, but in the tens of thousands.
2. The Iraqi insurgents are not supported by anything equivalent of communist China.
3. The flat desert terrain of Iraq made for easy warfare.
Not to mention:
a. We already whipped Saddam’s army.
b. We’ve already set up a new democratically elected government.
c. We’ve already got Iraqis controlling 7 out of 18 provinces.
Yes, Vietnam was the most retarded war in US history, we all know that, you friggin idiots. But what’s that got to do with Iraq? What’s it got to do with Korea? On that note:
a. Look at Vietnam
b. Look at South Korea
c. Notice any differences?
d. Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
In conclusion:
You guys are god damn morons who think it intellectually stimulating to compare an apple to an elephant.
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:59 amOne wonders if Dream Crusher at #39 is intentionally overlooking the most obvious reasons how Iraq is similar to Vietnam. Both were fought not out of necessity but of choice. Like Vietnam, Iraq has now become a quagmire which the United States finds itself ineluctably sinking deeper and deeper. As In Vietnam, the Iraqis will be fighting until their last breaths are drawn until the invader has finally left their soil. No country wants to have their land illegally occupied and Iraq, like Vietnam, is no exception. For confirmation of these opinions, I would suggest that those who are interested should read David Halberstam’s The Best and The Brightest [Halberstam originally coined the word quagmire in his earlier book The Making Of a Quagmire], one of the definitive works dealing with Vietnam, as well as Geoffrey Perret’s incisive Commander in Chief which explores how Truman, Johnson and now Bush became embroiled in unnecessary wars of choice.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:30 amCorrection of post #41. That post was referring to Dream Crusher at #40.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:32 amThe only way things are going to change is if those Americans, who are not speaking out find a way to voice their opinions about how things are going with both the media and politicans, concerning situations both here and in Iraq. Polls serve a limited purpose. If Congress members aren’t afraid there’s a price to pay, it doesn’t matter whatpeople say in polls. The polls have consistently indicated that people aren’t happy. But, so what? Without affirmative action to follow that unhappiness, things will continue on the same course. Members of Congress, like many other people, want to protect their jobs. How many people will go against their bosses and/or supervisors if their jobs might be in jeopardy or in the case of a public service job and they believe the public won’t back them? If members of Congress feel people won’t support them when they do the right thing and won’t punish them when they do the wrong thing, the views in the polls don’t matter. This is how we got stuck with this war in the first place.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:21 amA good example of this was the poll results given today which indicated that democrats aren’t happy with the fact that there’s no war
deadline. But, many of these same people just sit back and do nothing in affirmative support for those members who try to and want to do the right thing.