LBJ Vietnam Archives - R. Lawson Author

The Vietnam war Revisited- Part XVII – LBJ Out, Nixon In

R Lawson — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 19:52:25 +0000

To see all of the posts in this series, please scroll to the bottom of this post. In a nationally televised address attempting to quell growing public dissent by explaining his administration’s failed efforts at negotiating “peace” with North Vietnam, LBJ shocked the world by announcing he would not run for reelection in November, 1968. […]

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The Vietnam War Revisited- Part XVI- Coming Apart at the Seams

R Lawson — Sat, 16 Nov 2019 21:45:59 +0000

I recall 1968 as one of the most chaotic years of my lifetime. A year or so prior, I had come back to San Francisco to complete my surgical residency following my USAF air evacuation experience in Vietnam as a flight surgeon. I was greeted with a wild, mindboggling “cultural revolution”, full-blown anti-war protests, and […]

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The Vietnam War Revisited- Part XV – No Way Out

R Lawson — Sun, 03 Nov 2019 15:30:31 +0000

Previous blogs discussed LBJ’s failed efforts to get the North Vietnamese to capitulate following Operation Rolling Thunder’s graduated bombing of targets in North Vietnam. Why did they fail? Our 7th Air Force pilots flying Wild Weasel missions quickly noted many vital targets were off-limits. They complained to command they were bombing the wrong targets, nonessential […]

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The Vietnam War Revisited- Part XI – Two Earthshaking Events

R Lawson — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 17:00:23 +0000

1963 – A pivotal year hallmarked by two earthshaking events affecting the outcome of the Vietnam War. Diem never enjoyed a popular mandate to govern South Vietnam. That background set the stage for the first event. The CIA operative, Edward Lansdale propped up his rule thoughout most of the Fifties. Diem’s presidency favored Catholics, not […]

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The Vietnam War Revisited – Part IV- Was It Worth It?

R Lawson — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 14:00:16 +0000

This series of blog posts is based off my reading of The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, by Barbara Tuchman. The Vietnamese repulsed Chinese invasions for millennia, resisted the Japanese in WWII, and defeated the French after almost a century of colonization of Indochina. I recount and document this history of the Mandarin […]

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The Vietnam War Revisited – Part II – It Did Not Have to Be That Way

R Lawson — Mon, 27 May 2019 22:52:08 +0000

If you read my first blog with this title posted in January 2019, you have some understanding how that controversial war divided and polarized our society into political camps that persist over five decades later. We suffer a form of national PTSD as a consequence of the confusion and myths that Vietnam engendered. Negative societal […]

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Vietnam: The Day It Became the Longest War

R Lawson — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 14:00:06 +0000

Vietnam – The Longest War A fellow Vietnam vet, a Marine A4 / CAS pilot, sent me a very revealing link that will shock you. It’s an excerpt of a book chapter written by Lt. General Charles Cooper, USMC (Ret) that demonstrates LBJ’s disingenuous behavior, his micromanagement and mismanagement of the Vietnam War. He believed […]

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Operation Rolling Thunder – Part II

R Lawson — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 23:43:23 +0000

A Follow Up – Operation Rolling Thunder From 1965 to 1968, the 7th Air Force conducted “graduated bombing” of North Vietnam targets to persuade the enemy to come to terms dictated by the LBJ administration to end the war and limit their ability to conduct the war. The backbone of the operation was the Wild […]

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The Domino Theory – The Vietnam War

R Lawson — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 20:19:36 +0000

Vietnam War and The Domino Theory How well do you understand the Domino Theory? Do you know the background? Half our population was not born in the sixties, so I doubt they have any idea why it was the pretext for our involvement in a SE Asian war lasting from 1961 to 1975. Others may […]

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Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War – 1945 -1975

R Lawson — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:19:10 +0000

That is the title of Michael Maclear’s documentary published in 1981.The book is an excellent, comprehensive historical review of the war. It is one that I used along with over thirty other references as background for my historical narrative RECALL published late last year. I highly recommend Maclear’s book for history buffs. The in-depth documentary […]

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