LBJ was bullied into VietNam war same way they are bullying Obama now...

[H2O Man]

41. Thank you.

It is impossible to understand either "how" -- or, much more importantly, "why" -- things changed as far as US policy in Vietnam post-November 22, 1963, without a knowledge of this.

Most JFK and/or LBJ books do not mention it. Obviously, before FOI allowed access to the files that document it, authors did not know. Interestingly, that includes the Kennedy men who also served under Johnson. And that includes men like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who were horrified by the path that LBJ took the nation on.

It's interesting to note that LBJ's sources were, by and large, the same war-mongers that were around Nixon. That is not a coincidence -- something that I know you know very well.

RFK was also unaware that VP Johnson was being fed intelligence at the time. If he had, it seems highly unlikely that LBJ would have stayed on the ticket, had JFK lived. But, of course, that type of split would have reduced JFK's chances of being re-elected. The machine wanted that war. It demanded it.

And, of course, the two men who could have influenced the '68 election -- RFK and MLK -- in a powerful, anti-war manner, did not survive the first half of '68. Especially after Tet, the potential to withdraw US troops was expanding.

Even today, it is sad to ponder what might have been ....