s taying the c ourse 217which he denied that the additional troops represented a change in
American policy.
Johnson’s refusal to bring the American people into his confi dence
troubled both his military and civilian advisors. Th e Joint Chiefs had
favored a reserve call-up in part to remind the American people that the
nation was going to war. All the more troubling, Johnson had been
warned that defeating the communists would require a long struggle,
one certain to test the patience of the citizenry. Nevertheless, he took
no steps to rally the public behind his decisions to escalate American
involvement, even though polls showed the war to be popular.
Johnson’s refusal to explain his decision to the American people
posed a risk for his wartime leadership. A president has to prepare the
citizenry. Roosevelt had also done little to move public opinion in favor
of American involvement, even when he saw war approaching in
1940–1941, but Pearl Harbor proved a godsend, uniting Americans at
one stroke behind a full-scale war eff ort. Th e Tonkin Gulf incident did
not rise to the same level. Nonetheless, popular support for retaliation
indicated that Johnson would fi nd it much easier to sway the public on
the need for military intervention. Americans were already primed to
meet any communist threat their leaders identifi ed—“to pay any price,
bear any burden,” as Kennedy had put it in his inaugural address. But
that support, as Humphrey and Cliff ord realized, was shallow. It would
not sustain a prolonged confl ict or heavy losses unless the president
secured an informed popular commitment upfront, likely at the price
of the Great Society. Johnson led the nation into the Vietnam confl ict
on a very fragile political foundation. ^
Peace without Victory
Johnson fi rst laid out American goals in Vietnam in a speech at Johns
Hopkins University on April 7, 1965, before he had decided whether to
commit American ground forces. As the fi rst goal, the United States
sought to secure the independence of South Vietnam as a nation free to
determine its own future. A clear parallel could be drawn in recent
American experience to South Korea. Th ere the United States had inter-
vened in June 1950 to preserve a noncommunist state that faced a direct
invasion and had succeeded after a protracted confl ict. Th e president