Why did the Johnson administration decide to escalate the war in Vietnam? What were the consequences of this decision?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should include:
- Inherited policies and Cold War perspectives: LBJ wanted to avoid Truman's fate of "losing" China and producing a stalemate in Korea; LBJ decided he would not be the president who lost Southeast Asia to communism, especially after Kennedy called Vietnam "the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia"
- National prestige and credibility: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara warned that failure in Vietnam would result in "a complete shift of world power" with the "prestige and integrity" of the United States severely damaged
- Gulf of Tonkin resolution: Congress gave the president the authority "to take all necessary measures" to defend U.S. armed forces and "to prevent further aggression"
- Reasoning for justification: Vietcong suicide bombing at the U.S. military base at Pleiku; LBJ ordered reprisal bombing and authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, which gradually intensified air attacks against North Vietnam to exhaust its resources
- Consequences: Between February and November 1965, 165,000 U.S. combat troops had been deployed to Vietnam; U.S. ground troops wreaked havoc on South Vietnam through search-and-destroy missions on villages; one-quarter of South Vietnam's population were turned into refugees; destructive chemical warfare through the use of herbicides such as Agent Orange; LBJ began to lose popularity and credibility as public support for the war declined; warfare cost the United States $21 billion a year, which led to a 10 percent surcharge on individual and corporate taxes and tapping into the Social Security fund; spending on warfare caused a high rise in inflation