Lyndon B Johnson And The Vietnam War - 1470 Words

Widespread disaster, extreme mobilization, heightened fears and are all characteristics of war. The Vietnam War was a war that spanned almost twenty years, with over a decade of those years involving the United States military forces. During the war, elections so if things aren’t going your country’s way on the battlefront you are going to be on the hot seat. This is exactly what happened for Lyndon B Johnson amidst the Vietnam War. The year was 1968, with the incumbent President, not running for office anymore. The President of the United States was up for grabs and between the Vice President, Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon, in order to gain the upper hand in this election, would sabotage peace talks in Vietnam and end†¦show more content†¦Hubert Humphrey was Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vice President and due to this Richard Nixon felt that he didn’t need to campaign as hard because Humphrey was seen as another Lyndon B Johnson. On October 31, 1968, President Johnson announced to the United States during a televised speech that they were going to halt bombings of North Vietnam in order to have peace talks and hopefully create a resolution to end the war. â€Å"We have been engaged in discussions with the North Vietnamese in Paris since last May. The discussions began after I announced on the evening of March 31st in a television speech to the Nation that the United States—in an effort to get talks started on a settlement of the Vietnam War—had stopped the bombing of North Vietnam in the area where 90 percent of the people live. Therefore, our Ambassadors Harriman and Vance made it abundantly clear to the representatives of North Vietnam in the beginning that—as I had indicated on the evening of March 31st—we would stop the bombing of North Vietnamese territory entirely when that would lead to prompt and productive talks, meaning by that talks in which the Government of Vietnam w as free to participate. Our ambassadors also stressed that we could not stop the bombing so long as by doing so we would endanger the lives and the safety of our troops. For a good many weeks, there was no movement in the talks at all. The talks appeared to really be deadlocked. Then a few weeks ago, they entered a new and a very much more