Why during lyndon johnsons presidency

As a student at Southwest Texas State Teachers College, Johnson was assigned to a tiny Hispanic school in a deeply impoverished area on the Mexican border. Johnson left his brief career as a teacher after four years to pursue politics during the Great Depression. His father had served in the Texas state legislature, and Johnson became a congressional aide in In , he won a special election to the U.

House to replace a deceased Texas House member named James Buchanan. Johnson was nearly killed in World War II. Johnson entered the Naval Reserves while still a Congressman, and on his only bombing run, he boarded a plane called the Wabash Cannonball for a mission in the South Pacific.

Johnson reported for active duty in December and served in the U. Navy as a lieutenant commander until all members of Congress in the military were recalled to Washington in the summer of In , Johnson was elected to the U. Senate following a bruising Democratic primary. After crisscrossing Texas by helicopter, Johnson managed to eke out a victory in the primary by just 87 votes. Once he reached the Senate, Johnson showed a deft political touch. In , at age 44, he became the youngest person ever to serve as minority leader of the Senate.

Two years later, when Democrats won control of Congress, Johnson became the Senate majority leader. His ability to work productively with Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower and unite his party behind important legislation made him a powerful figure in Washington. In , John F. Kennedy , the Democratic presidential nominee, invited Johnson to be his vice-presidential running mate. On November 22, , Kennedy was shot and killed while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.

His ambitious legislative agenda created the Medicare and Medicaid programs to provide federal health insurance for elderly and poor Americans. It also included measures aimed at improving education, preventing crime and reducing air and water pollution. Johnson also made great strides in attacking racial discrimination by signing the historic Civil Rights Act of and Voting Rights Act of His wide-reaching achievements improved the lives of millions of Americans and contributed to economic growth and prosperity.

Like the three presidents before him, Johnson was determined to prevent North Vietnamese communists from taking over the U. As part of this effort, Johnson steadily escalated U. Six weeks into came the hammer blow to the Johnson presidency: The North Vietnamese, shrewdly discerning that America was losing heart for the endless bloodletting, staged dozens of near-suicidal attacks all over the South.

Known as the Tet Offensive, it held some similarities to the unsuccessful strategy attempted by the Japanese two decades earlier with their kamikaze attacks: inflict great casualties regardless of cost to your own forces, sap enemy morale, and force the dispirited foe to adopt your terms. Only this time, the strategy worked.

Despite fearsome losses by the North Vietnamese—nearly ,—American opposition to the war surged. Although the North Vietnamese Army was never able to defeat U.

Television screens brought images of endless and seemingly pointless battles to living rooms across the nation. Although Americans still supported the goal of a non-Communist Vietnam, public confidence in the President and Johnson's popularity continued their sharp declines.

Just weeks from the early presidential primaries, Johnson was utterly vilified by those opposing our involvement in Vietnam. LBJ complained to his cabinet that the only place he could give a campaign speech now was on an aircraft carrier. A month after the Tet Offensive came New Hampshire, the site of the first presidential primary: McCarthy ran astoundingly well against the beleaguered President, winning 41 percent of the vote, and John F. Kennedy's brother Robert entered the race as well.

A few weeks later, Johnson stunned the nation by announcing that he would not seek another term as President. A terrible spring and summer ensued. The murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and a bloody confrontation between police and protesters at the Democratic Convention in Chicago sent shock waves through the nation. Just weeks before the elections, Johnson announced a halt in the bombings of North Vietnam in a desperate attempt to portray his administration as peacemakers.

In the fall, Richard Nixon won the presidency, defeating the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, by claiming he had a "secret plan" to end the conflict. Meanwhile, the war dragged on. The Vietnam War cut short the promise of the Great Society. Democrats took large losses in the midterm elections of , though they retained majorities in the House and Senate. By late , Johnson could no longer get most of his domestic measures through Congress.

Although Johnson's relationship with the Soviets was colored by the Vietnam War, the President nonetheless made some progress on arms control.

In January , Johnson signed the Outer Space Treaty with Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, which banned nuclear weapons in earth orbit, on the moon or other planets, or in deep space. In , the U. The two sides agreed to defuse tensions in the area. Johnson faced a series of minor crises in Latin America, all of which he handled to maximize U.

When Fidel Castro, the Cuban Communist dictator, demanded the return of Guantanamo Naval Base and shut off the water to the installation, Johnson had the Navy create its own water supply. The Cubans backed down. And when Panamanians rioted against U. Johnson's administration passed an unprecedented amount of legislation, with much of it designed to protect the nation's land, air, water, wilderness, and quality of life—to keep Americans safer and the United States from becoming uglier and dirtier.

President Johnson's administration also extended the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, including aid to education, Headstart, Medicare, and Medicaid—programs that are still significant today and that command bipartisan support for their effectiveness. But many of his initiatives for the arts, for the environment, for poverty, for racial justice, and for workplace safety angered many economic and social conservatives and became the targets of alienated white voters and tax revolters.

The reaction to his Great Society and to broader trends helped spawn a dramatic political polarization in the United States that some historians have labeled a conservative counterrevolution. Further clouding Johnson's legacy was the devastating outcome of the Vietnam War.

While his programs kept untold numbers of Americans out of poverty, gave others basic health care, and ensured the fundamental rights of citizenship for minorities, in Southeast Asia, millions of Vietnamese lost their lives and homes, more than 58, American military personnel lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands more would have their lives permanently altered. At a time when Americans were reshaping the locus of power at home, events in Vietnam were raising serious questions about how America should use its clout abroad.

The legacies of death, renewal, and opportunity attached to the Johnson administration are ironic, confusing, and uncertain.

They will likely remain that way. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A.