President Johnson's Address to the Nation, 3/31/68. WHCA VTR 242-A.
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- Опубліковано 23 тра 2012
- President Johnson's Address to the Nation, March 31, 1968.
Index terms: Speeches; March 31; Vietnam; WH; Bombing Halt; Campaign 68.
Recorded off the air by WHCA. For research purposes only. Use/publish only with permission from NBC / Ch. 4. WHCA VTR 242-A
Captions from the Public Papers of the President, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pi....
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Vietnam pretty much ruined him, despite doing much to fight poverty and getting civil rights laws passed.
LBJ's space program was excellent .
Without that support we wouldn't have had a moon landing in 1969.
He only passed civil rights legislation to cater to the blacks that would surely vote Democrat for the next one hundred years.... LBJ words...not mine...look it up
@@harley1903100 Who even cares. He did say the n word a lot but that doesn't matter. What is done matters not why it was for things like this
@@harley1903100 it’s has been proven that he did not say that. The man literally said we lost the south for plenty of generations to come. He sacrificed the Dixiecrats over to the Republican Party because of Civil rights
Oh boy. Do I remember this. I was ten years old, and in my mind when Johnson declared what his intentions were for not running for office again, I swear you could hear the country give out a collective gasp.
To think he'd be dead within 5 years due to a heart attack, and his widow passed in 2007.
I was 14 when I saw this on TV. 1968 was considered by most historians as the worst year in American - and indeed the world - history. It was ugly. (Until it was unfortunately easily surpassed by 2020.) And here it is, only 3 months into 1968, and LBJ's already thrown in the towel. That's how bad the year was, and was going to be.
1943 was the worst year in world history
Even though LBJ had iron self-control at all times, I think that at about 39:24 he looks like he's about to cry. The man could've been a great president if it weren't for Vietnam, and I think he knew that as he was resigning.
He knew he was "finished", and that he wouldn't be able to serve a full second term even if he WANTED to be re-elected.
He would never have been great; he got into the White House by murdering his predecessor.
@america's golden age funny because almost everyone benefits from all the great deeds he did. Next time you see Food labels that explain what’s I you in your food. Next time think of Medicare and Medicaid that help your parents or grand parents. Next time think of 9-1-1 beforre you make all these statements. If you truly study history, you will realizes that he was the best president since FDR and Teddy Roosevelt. Because no President has been able to accomplished the things he has done in terms of passing legislature and getting bipartisanship.
I think he was smart to step down.
For himself as much as anyone else. Look how much he aged in 4 years.
I one time saw a clip of this speech as brodcast on CBS and after it was over saw Dan Rather and Roger Mudd staring at each other speechless for a second before Rather asked,"Did he just say that?"
I've always heard that. It's a bit before my time, but my dad told that story repeatedly.
fifty years ago tonight, and the worst was yet to come...
Yea, Donald J. Trump #45
38:16 - "And believing this... I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President... "
I think Johnson did the right thing to step down.
His approval rating was low, and his health was deteriorating; chances are Johnson would not have lived through a second-term, even if by some miracle he would have won the 1968 Democratic Nomination for President; even if Johnson would have been granted a bigger Miranda, and actually won the 1968 Presidential Election 🗳.
He wouldn't have won anyway.If he hadn't been killed Bobby Kennedy would have beaten Nixon
I'm sure he did his best as President of the United States.
Most of them did. Kennedy even said that it's unfair to shit on presidents (paraphrasing of course) when they are most likely doing their best.
34:41
I remember this well. It was a great day.
Yep, LBJ out of office was no loss
@@darreljohnson3644 Big fan of "whites only" restaurants, are you?
@@darreljohnson3644 Well, he did a lot, the civil rights bill, Medicare and Medicaid. The Vietnam war was an impossible task for him.
@@jonalderson5571 why turn this into a race thing? LBJ was an enormous pos - go read Caro’s work on him. He was a terrible human responsible for tens of thousands of lives lost.
He loved America
Ridiculous nonsense. LBJ only loved power. He was a sociopath who sacrificed millions of Vietnamese and thousands of Americans because he didn't want to be the first US president to lose a war. Wake the hell up already.
@@TonyTars I will bet that you never did anything for you country am I right?
Nah, he loved LBJ and was corrupt from head to toe...
I do believe that he was a good man caught in up in thing's
😔
I love how he quoted President Lincoln.
Lincoln was not an “abolitionist”
It’s hard when you lose confidence in your president.
Rest In Peace Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973)
Vietnam was a disaster but Johnson did a lot of good things for society.
He looked 80 years old when he was 40. Imho.
I think the stress of Vietnam drastically reduced his life expectancy
An underrated president who was saddled with the Vietnam war. He did good things for civil rights but was sunk by the war. I think he was a good man, all said and done.
'Great Society' motto !
Everyone who watches this has opinions on the man, the times and what he did. I lived through those times myself, albeit as a child. I will say this, no one ascends to the highest office in this land without some level of desire for power. But no matter how you view this man and his presidency which he won with a landslide victory after stepping up to the plate with the shocking assignation of president kennedy, him removing himself from the political foray to spend what time in power he had left to serve this county as best he could says a hell of a lot about the man. Just saying...
I partly agree with you. What he did was the right thing to do, but I also think that LBJ, a master politician if ever there was one, saw the writing on the wall. He probably saw that he would be quite likely to lose the election in November, and he wanted to avoid that. His entire life was devoted to politics and power. He would not have walked away from it if he could have avoided doing so, but there was nothing he thought he could do. So I think his motives for stepping down were mixed, which is only to say that he was more or less like all the rest of us.
Wow
LBJ was micre managing the bombing campaign. The bombing campaign should have stopped the movement of war materials from north Vietnam into south Vietnam. The bombing should have destroyed the ability of north Vietnam to plan organize and move war materials from Hanoi toward south Vietnam. Movement of war materials into south Vietnam by way of trails and roads should have never been allowed to happen.
He wanted out of the war. It was walk away and have a legacy, or take a bullet or be disgraced.
I can barely hear his voice even though my laptop's volume is at max.
He really opened the door for Robert Kennedy.
Remember, Nixon cheated to win the 1968 Presidential Election 🗳
50 years ago today, LBJ withdrew from consideration for renomination for President.
I wish Johnson could’ve gotten us out of Vietnam.
Wasn't getting us in enough?
Johnson was quite wrong that “what we are doing in South Vietnam.....is vital to the security of every American”, and alludes to his hackneyed dream of a Mekong River Authority. He invokes John Kennedy. In March 1968, could LBJ have foreseen that Richard Nixon would act to stall the talks in Paris? or that Nixon, as president, would drag the war out for another four years? He was taking the tight road in starting to seek a political rather than a military solution to the Vietnam conflict.
He was not perfect, neither in policy nor as a person.
But he got the Civil Rights/Voting Rights Acts passed. He got Medicaid/Medicare passed. Fair housing. Public broadcasting. He forced desegregation by federal provision-- and the country is better for it. And a whole lot of other pieces of legislation that still affect our lives today in a positive way. He helped to transform the country in a positive way. And it did it by effective use of political power.
Although all of the pissed off white Southerners switched to the Repulican Party because of the desegregation stuff-- 'How DARE you acknowledge all humans are human and are entitled to equal protection under the law!' Speaking as a Southerner, I can aknowledge this attitude basically holds true in 2018.
I just wish Johnson wouldn't have had Vietnam to deal with, which was passed down to him by every administration since Truman. I wish he would have delt with it in a better way. He could have rode his 1964 landslide and used his mandate to pull out of Vietnam, and probably not suffered that heavy a political price by the time he would have run in 1968.
Carl Higgins Hi Carl, I wish he would of got us out of Vietnam too. But, remember, he escalated the war claiming a withdrawal would bring on more bloodshed. He had a few advisors that advised him to pull out. He went along with the generals and got America deep into the war. There were dead Americans coming back in coffins every week, there were widespread protests against this war, young men were burning their draft cards. LBJ kept continuing with the war. In the end, he had to withdraw from running. He knew, he would either loose the nomination to Bobby Kennedy or split the party and loose the general election to Nixon. Either way, would of be humiliating. He made the right decision.
I wonder how President Lyndon Johnson would’ve handled the Coronavirus.
Chris Mc Evoy Would have put us under complete state control, however I’d rather see a skilled leader like Eisenhower or Kennedy
DenimJeans LBJ had more public service than Ike or JFK. He knew how to run the government and would’ve been talking to members of the House,Senate and Governors of all 50 states and the territories as well.
He would've been better. He was a true leader unlike trump.
We California born 1968
I like johnson. He did the best he could with a war that he inherited from past presidents, and he managed some powerful reform domestically despite vietnam overshadowing his presidency
Ryan D Goldwater should have been President.
Er, yeah. He escalated our involvement from one of a few thousand advisors to tens of thousands of ground troops fighting someone else's war. And all of it done with multiple lies and deceptions on the American people and the congress.
"DId the best he could".....smh.
Johnson expanded the War. If Kennedy would have lived, chances are he would have blended the war; also, Johnson would have been kicked off the Presidential ticked when Kennedy sought re-election in 1964; furthermore, Johnson would have gone to prison.
Just a "mere" 5 years after Dallas.
LBJ left Jackie Mason with 20 minutes left in the hour,enough time to give Ed Sullivan the finger.
I don’t care what anybody says. He was a good man and a good President. Of course, Vietnam was one of the worst foreign policy blunders in history, but the good LBJ did far outweighs the bad in my view.
Ask 58,000 dead people from Vietnam.I'll bet they disagree.
@@darreljohnson3644 You mean 36,000. Nixon continued and expanded the war for over 4 years after LBJ left office. But if we’re talking about body count alone,no one dwarfs the current administration with over 356,000 killed from COVID-19. Talk about piss poor planning.
"Their little country"?? Wow.
Compared to the U.S.? Sure.
drop it
Maybe our current president is can understand & take a clue.
damon9408:LBJ had integrity and usually did what was right for the country unlike who’s there now.
Trump is TOO DENSE
URANIUM IN THE MOUNTAIN REGIONS OF SOUTH ASIA
~Steven of Montreal
He looks like he aged a lot, must have been all the stress he was under, he acomplished a lot, what a tragic end...
2000Betelgeuse all presidents looks much older when they leave office--
Yeah. That and cigarettes.
It's the power he wanted.
Sad 😞
@@landochabod7 He hadn't smoked since 1955, by that point.
At 29:00, the old syndrome of flag-waving and the lie that our misadventure in Vietnam is “America’s own security”. In 1968, we had a chance to change the foreign policy that was tearing the country apart. Instead, we elected Richard Nixon. The war dragged on for another five years, and widened into once-neutral Cambodia.
LBJ was in poor health, but was badly advised. He would have won a second term. HHH nearly beat Nixon with luke warm LBJ support. He should have run in '68. It was Nixon that kept the war going. LBJ would have found the right buttons later in '69.
Nope, LBJ was toxic by this time...his own party was divided by the war...he would have been defeated in a general election...
LBJ just barely beat Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire primary 49%-42%...then 4 days later Robert Kennedy announced his run for the presidency and further divided the party's peace movement into two camps.
It was a real tragedy that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated and that Nelson Rockefeller refused to run as the Republican candidate. That would have been a great election, and either of them would have been a better choice than LBJ or Nixon.
Jeff Foehringer Kennedy was an opportunist prick at least Eugene McCarthy had the bollocks to take Johnson on from get go.
I’m glad Nixon got us out of it.
Chris Mc Evoy Yeah, after sabotaging the Paris Peace Talks and prolonging the war(and in some cases expanding the war) for another 4 years.
Westmoreland suppressed vital intelligence on VC and NVA troop strength. Not an endorsement of Johnson, but he acted on bad information, from the Tonkin Gulf to Tet. As George Kennan had cautioned, the U.S. had no real vital interest in Indochina and did not need to get involved militarily.
oldjack1754 Have you ever read the State Dept reports to the President from Saigon?
They authors were either deluded or severely over optimistic.
why in every speech he makes it's so depressing?
LBJ was used to speaking to his cattle...but he did always seem to have a very severe tone...but I found the ending of this one to be given from the heart and for him that was his charming persona. He even smiled...
He made some pretty inspiring speeches too. This setting and subject matter are not exactly chipper!
The more interesting LBJ tho is in the phone tapes. Some of those are downright hilarious.
LBJ was a great president, he's done a lot of great things including the Civil Rights Bill. I don't think any other presidents would've been able to convince the racist South to sign the bill. LBJ, one of the top 10 best presidents, and one of the most underrated presidents.
He WAS a Southerner. That was the difference.
What arrogance to bombard a people, thousands of miles away; a people who never attacked the USA; and what evil to conscript teenagers to kill and die in its jungles.
Died almost 4 years to the day after he left office.
He purposefully ruined his own health, poor man. He just didn't want to live, anymore; he was waiting to die.
Did he kill Kennedy
I’m researching that myself
Jacqueline Kennedy thought so...as well as many others...of course LBJ had a lot of help. JFK had a lot of enemies as does our current president.
If you wanna know the truth about LBJ look up “The Clint Murchison meeting” right here on UA-cam. Spend an hour watching LBJ’s mistress Madeline Duncan Brown .
If I were of voting age then I would have voted for goldwater in 64
Both would have continued to escalate the war. Difference is, Goldwater wouldn't have done great society (LBJ's greatest achievement) and he probably would have used nuclear weapons, which would be very bad. Despite Johnson's failures, it was very good that he won that election.
Gregory Love No it didn’t. What proof do you have of your assertion?
If you have a short attention span; go to 33 minutes into the speech, pay particular attention @ 34 min 30 sec., to every word and order of said word. @ 39 min,, 15 sec. He announces the takeover to come of the democratic party, that he couldn't be part of. I remember listening to this speech live from a Republican household, having just turned 12yrs old. I remember everyone was left dumbstruck in disbelief of what had just happened. Because he was a shoo-in to be reelected. ( Being caught off guard and without the ability to replay his words leading up to this shocking statement). What had just happened & why!
Nam was VERY UNPOPULAR in 68.I don't think he would have gotten reelected.I think RFK would have beaten him because he wanted out..
It took LBJ to escalate the war, and it took Dick Nixon to get us out. There's some history
Nixon chested by committing an act of Treason to get elected President in 1968; moreover, he expanded the war in Vietnam another five-years. If it weren’t for Nixon cheating to get elected President, and if both JFK and RFK would have lived, Nixon might have never been elected President.
@@brianvivickers3712 if wishes were horses beggers would ride!
While we all debate whether or not he could have won or not in 68, we have to know that he was a worried man. He had become President in 63 via an assassin. He worried what would become of the US if another President came into office in less than 7 years and was not the lead on the ticket. He knew his family genetics. Men in the Johnson family seldom lived past 62. He was worried that he would die in office if re-elected in 68. Johnson was better than Nixon. He would have crushed him in the election. His life span was the question. As it turned out he would have just made it. He died in Jan of 73 after 4 years out of office.
With the strains of the office, I doubt he would have lived to the end of his term, but Nixon resigned in 74, so we have to wonder what changes an assuming President Humphrey would have been from an assuming President Ford?
Even if LBJ had sought re-election in 1968 and even if he had defeated Nixon or anybody else the GOP may have nominated (which is very doubtful) Johnson COULD NOT have run again in 1972. He would have been term-limited out of office. To attempt to compare what Hubert Humphrey MIGHT have done as president to what Gerald Ford actually DID is silly to even speculate about. By 1968 Johnson had already become so unpopular with the American people that it is doubtful he could have won re-election, no matter who his opponent might have been.
Late to the party, what are you smoking?
Tom Johnson who are you? A liar for the Johnson family or library or something? Everything you say is baloney - everything. I bet you're just very ignorant. LBJ's health had absolutely nothing to do with his decision to quit. Saying he worried for his country that another president could come in from his death is ludicrous. Saying he would have crushed Nixon in '68 is idiotic cuz he didn't even know if he'd get the Democratic nomination as Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy were in there. LBJ's popularity was way down so he was very vulnerable to defeat to either Kennedy or Nixon.
Here are the real reasons in brief and they ALL happened not long before LBJ's sayanora: 1) McCarthy did very well in a primary and it jilted LBJ 2) Kennedy had just announced his candidacy and LBJ hated the idea of running against him and hated him period 3) Tet offensive had just happened and it was really turning the country against the war and LBJ, and it proved to the public the leaders were lying about the war. 4) Unlike his other meetings with the "wise men", the last one was all gloom and doom. They now told him the war was unwinnable and America should get out.
At the time of LBJ's very historic sayanara speech of March 31, 1968 LBJ saw the county ripped apart over the war and civil rights. He knew Vietnam had absolutely destroyed his presidency and killed his "great society". He faced a humiliating possible loss to Nixon or RFK but the MAIN THING was he knew the war was lost and he would be seen as the first president to lose a war. He understandably wanted to pass the war on to someone else - either Nixon or Humphrey.
LBJ's whole life was politics and no one could want another term than him. LBJ could very well have actually lived longer had he stayed in the White House. He loved it there. It's a known fact when he left he considered his life over and he did very little with the rest of his life but drink and smoke himself to death. It's all such a tragedy and LBJ would have likely gone down as one of the greatest presidents ever if it weren't for Vietnam.
a father a tour a country our tour
a father of a war 46 years a song of life
Amazing to think that LBJ only got the top job through the misfortune of Kennedy’s assassination, yet he went on from that dark moment to make the presidency his own and leave his own mark on history. Always fascinates me how fate plays its part in our past....he might otherwise have been a pretty unknown and irrelevant politician.
When you look at it from the standpoint of LBJ involved of orchestrating “ the misfortune of Kennedy’s assassination “ it changes my whole view of him. Here’s a non -famous quote from Richard Nixon , “ Lyndon Johnson and I both wanted to be president. The difference is that I wasn’t willing to kill for it “
@@TwoScoopsRB if you believe Nixon’s words there you need to learn literally anything about the man.
Maybe start with him and Kissinger committing treason to make sure peace talks with North Vietnam got nowhere in ‘68.
Also Johnson didn’t “orchestrate” shit. Every non-idiot who’s looked seriously into those claims has concluded they’re garbage.
All BS until 39:21.
On October 31, 1968, president Johnson announced he was stopping all bombardment of North Vietnam
This speech is really petty when you look at it through a political lens.
From an apolitical lens, this was a great move. But that's really giving the benefit of the doubt to LBJ. The original draft of the speech didn't have him make the big announcement. He withdrew after he knew Humphrey would get in to stop RFK and Gene, two people that LBJ very much hated. It's easy to forget this while watching the speech, but LBJ had a rivalry so bitter with those two that when JFK died he essentially told RFK to screw off and he tried to publicly embarass Gene at the '64 convention, then got pissed when Gene didn't play along. LBJ wanted his presidency to be about civil rights and not Vietnam, and from the modern perspective his withdrawl from re-election did just that. Ironically, he probably would've been re-elected just on the basis of being able to draw a clear contrast to Wallace. Humphrey didn't do that because he didn't have the political skill LBJ had. But at the time of this speech, LBJ obviously didn't know that MLK would be assassinated. It was all about Vietnam and getting back at RFK and Gene.
@@fishlawyer2799 Humphrey DID nearly win, because he pulled to the left of Johnson on Vietnam. It was a very near thing.
Oh, I love the Texan, but why is he so weak?
not weak in any way!
He had many health concerns and they were one of the reasons for him to step down
You are sadly mistaken if you think Johnson was weak - undoubtedly the strongest president of the 20th century
I'm glad Richard Nixon brought the war in Vietnam to an end.
+Chris Mc Evoy, hope you're being funny. Nixon brought our boys home only after lengthening and expanding the war.
He was not much better than LBJ in his handling of with the Vietnam War.
LBJ got into it thinking we could win, and he could keep the arms producers happy...Nixon was on a glory mission and went bannas on innocennt women and children in a neighboring country (cambodia) not hundreds of thousands dead..a couple of million...think about the size of your High school, and figure out how many of those high schools go into a million people...NO WAy - NIXON WAS A MASS MURDERER, And we ended up pulling out with a tail between our legs anyway...all that death, and no real win...Watergate a shame? how about victims in the millions - that should be his legacy...poor little Richard Nixon, always feeling sorry for himself...poor guy didn't get the appproval and granduer he wanted...why not go on a killing spree...Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam...are girl scouts compared to that monster...other then that___ Richard nixon seemed to be a really nice man
after undermining LBJs cease fire so he could be elected. Then moving ground troops into Cambodia, allowing Laos to fall into authoritarian hands, and killing more American and others, for "peace with honor".
That's was Gerald Ford, not Nixon.
By all accounts, LBJ supported Nixon's handling of the war.
LBG was the best President ever if not Vietnam.. I fight in Vietnam I hated those people. but look at the good for the black in this man did
+David Ward LBG? What is that, short for LBGTQ?
If you're talking about LBJ, he was our worst commander in chief ever.
As for what he did for blacks, check their casualty rates in Viet Nam.
Much higher than for whites and Hispanics.
David Ward no not thinking so on that one
tahoepoet LBJ wasn't the worst president ever. Now I realize that he could have been one of the worst leaders ever during the Vietnam War, but we should acknowledge that this was e president who signed the Civil Rights act of 1964 and voting rights act of 1965. He created Medicaid and gave Medicare to the elderly. The economy was booming when he left office. There have been worse leaders than LBJ like Herbert Hoover, Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan
David Ward LBJ was horrible.
Naive suckers give LBJ credit for the civil rights act when in reality that was inevitable by mid 60s. Any president in LBJ's position would have had to do something similar by the second half of the 60s.
Blame Woodrow and Harry not Lyndon.
I blame Johnson because he expanded the war in Vietnam.
I was alive then...LBJ could not give a speech in public anywhere without being shouted down...does everyone know that? He was a divisive figure because of his failed war policy.
Medicare did pass during his presidency which I term a domestic success...I have a different feeling about 'affirmative action' and feel it is/was a racist (anti white) policy...hire the most qualified...
I still do support his passage of the Civil Rights Act...it needed to be stated again and highlighted in our society.
Of course the military/industrial complex didn't blow his head off either unlike his predecessor. LBJ followed the orders of the Deep Intel State...their coup was a success and they still rule the country and they are coming after President Trump now.
You have no proof of any kind. None, zero.
+jdhhey, proof, no.
But you're very naïve if you think Oswald acted alone.
Was just 13 at the time, but knew from the get-go that something was fishy.
39:21