Bill Moyers Journal

A Tale of Two Quagmires

Fascinating story of how LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam and explicitly offered as background to our current dilemma about Afghanistan.

What puzzles me is why LBJ didn't follow-up further on the "neutralization" option which he himself discussed several times. LBJ was obviously extremely smart and commonsensical and well-aware that one way to avoid getting further entangled was to have South Vietnam neutralized. I am surprised that he didn't pursue it. At the very least the international conference to pursue such an approach would have bought him more time. And when you are in a bad situation sometimes the best thing to do is to simply delay the time at which you have to make an unalterable commitment.

Also puzzling was Senate Majority Leader MIke Mansfield's non-response to what seemed to me was LBJ's beseeching request to Mansfield for Congress to get involved and ask LBJ to come it for consultation, authorization, political cover  etc