208 e lusive v ictories
enter the confl ict dictated that the response be limited. Th e political
consequences of his choices also weighed heavily on the mind of a pres-
ident who had not yet secured the backing of the American people in
his own right. Johnson knew that to withdraw from Vietnam could
undermine his electoral prospects in 1964. Further, he intended to
pursue a dramatic, in many ways radical, approach to domestic
problems, an agenda that would collide with mobilization for a major
military confl ict.
Upon taking offi ce, Johnson decided to retain his predecessor’s entire
cabinet and foreign policy team. This alone did much to push his
Vietnam policy further along the same path that Kennedy had followed.
Kennedy had embraced a muscular liberalism that demanded resistance
to communist expansionism. His defense and foreign policy advisors
refl ected this eager determination to meet any and all threats—as the
nation had seen in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Key holdovers
included, besides Defense Secretary McNamara, Secretary of State
Dean Rusk, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and national security
assistant McGeorge Bundy. Th ey outnumbered and outranked the few
skeptical voices, most notably Rusk’s deputy, Undersecretary of State
George Ball. Th e new president was also a relative novice on matters of
foreign policy. Supremely confi dent in his abilities as a legislative leader,
Johnson lacked the same self-assurance in the international arena,
leading him to rely heavily on the expertise of his advisors. H e
consulted, too, with a number of long-standing political friends and
lawmakers he knew well, such as Clark Cliff ord. Most of them shared
the same worldview as Kennedy’s inner circle and tended to echo the
dominant recommendations rather than examine them critically.
American leaders, including Johnson, viewed the Vietnam confl ict
through the prism of recent Cold War confrontations and their
memory of the world’s failure to block dictators before the Second
World War. To American policy makers, the communists since the
end of World War II had seized upon every opportunity to expand
their areas of control—Eastern Europe under Stalin, China, Korea,
Cuba, and Vietnam. Th ey could be checked only by resolute action,
including, as Korea had demonstrated, the use of military force. At
the moment, Soviet and Chinese leaders identifi ed the Th ird World
as the new site of struggle against Western powers, championing the