Johnson’s War/
Johnson’s Great Society
The Guns and Butter Trap
by Jeffrey W. Helsing
j.r. wilson
Jeffrey Helsing represents his book, Johnson’s War/Johnson’s Great
Society, as the first time in which the subject of President Lyndon Baines
Johnson’s [LBJ] well-known, much discussed, and often maligned Viet Nam era
policy of “Guns and Butter” has ever been thoroughly exposed to a complete indepth examination. Johnson’s Guns and Butter was the aptly named policy in
which LBJ intended to utilize one of the most vibrant economies the nation had
ever known in order to simultaneously provide for both the continued militaristic
Cold War containment of Communism around the world and the expansion of
U.S. social programming domestically. Helsing challenges the simplistic and
myopic notion commonly held that the Viet Nam war resulted from a nefarious
collaboration between the various elements of government as a whole, including
the executive, legislative, and military.
Allowing for the passage of a quarter of a century, Helsing was able to
take advantage of the release of certain information which heretofore was
unavailable to scholars. To debunk the dominant story line of the prior thirty
years, he made a detailed analysis of conversations, minutes, dispatches and
other pertinent data from Johnson’s Vietnam War era. Evidence gathered was
used in a fact based assessment for determining the political, economic, and
military consequences of actions taken, and not taken, prior to and during the
escalation of direct U.S. involvement in the Viet Nam war between 1964 and
1967.
As a result of his assessment, Helsing arrived at two major conclusions.
First, the decision making process was corrupted by being confined to Johnson
and some key members of his administration who “…engaged in a major pattern
of deception in how the United States committed its military force in Viet Nam” 1
as part of his very limited and most trusted inner circle. Helsing’s research also
led him to present what he considered an innovative second assertion that not
only were Congress and the public kept in the dark about war planning, but so
were government economic and domestic planners. This deception resulted in
those planner’s perspectives and consequent plans for American society being
critically skewed at a time when the nation’s greatest needs were clarity and
credible leadership.
Johnson’s dilemma in 1964-1965, reflected the contradictions within the
man himself. War Hawk, “Progressive” Southerner, compassionate school
teacher, and consummate American politician were all qualities that could be
found in the President. Like his post-World War Two predecessors, LBJ the
American politician was determined to prevent the spread of Communism and
followed the codified policy of Containment. Emerging as the central element of
the 1947 Truman Doctrine, the success of Containment policy in meeting its
global commitment to stem the tide of Communism was the primary measure of
U.S. Cold War credibility.
1Helsing,
ix.
2
Various U.S. foreign policy failures during the two decades following World
War Two, including China, Korea, and Cuba, led to the prevalence of the
“Domino Theory” which foretold of neighboring countries falling in succession to
Communism. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations drew a line in the
sands of Southeast Asia to bolster and preserve U.S. credibility while forming a
bulkhead against so-called Communist “aggression”. In the midst of the Cold
War, placing a check on Communism, where ever it could be found, represented
an inviolable commitment to the world that was embraced by “…most members
of Congress, the bureaucratic elite, private industry, public opinion, and the
press.”2 The Johnson administration set its course by replacing key advisors
from the Kennedy administration who were doves in State, Defense, and the
NSC that resisted escalation. Moves such as this made escalation more
plausible. 3
However, as the book title suggests, Johnson’s War/Johnson’s Great
Society infers that LBJ was far more than a Cold War Hawk. His experiences of
living with and teaching the children of the poor in South Texas, made an
indelible mark on his social consciousness and domestic agenda, manifesting
itself in his Great Society program. Helsing highlighted the fact that in an
economic environment of low unemployment, stable prices, low defense
spending, and high productivity and profitability, Johnson was determined to
utilize the abundant resources and progressive mood of the country to pass
legislation that would enhance access to opportunity for all citizens. His
2Ibid.,
3Ibid.,
4.
40.
3
administration created the War on Poverty, Medicare, and improvements in
education, housing, and urban transportation. Perhaps most importantly, LBJ’s
embrace of equal rights for all American citizens led to his Great Society. This
program was indeed visionary and comprehensive in both its scope and potential
impact, but as Helsing pointed out, it was critically dependent on continued
economic growth and stability, and keeping conservative legislative opposition at
bay.
In Helsing’s opinion, Johnson had two great failings. His administration
functioned through the consistent use of political deception and while
misdirecting and deceiving the American people, the Congress, and members of
his own administration, he failed in providing clear, decisive leadership. He
minimized budget cost and, with McNamara, personally managed the escalation
of the war in a manner that made it appear not to be a major escalation. LBJ
concealing his true intentions by shrewdly avoiding acknowledging “…the heavy
costs in order to avoid a debate in the United States that would force him to
choose between guns and butter.”4 In this way, the President could manipulate
Congress by getting funding for the Great Society in place before they realized
the staggering costs of the war effort.
Helsing indicated that one of LBJ’s greatest concerns was a war funding
debate that would lead to Southern Dixiecrats and other social conservatives
mounting an effective opposition to the Great Society. Though an overheated
economy and high inflation resulted from his deception, LBJ’s minimizing of war
costs led to his success in securing the commitment and funding for both the War
4Ibid.,
9.
4
on Poverty and the War in Viet Nam. He initially got Guns and Butter, without
having to make the highly charged political choice between the two.
Johnson’s chief accomplice was his Secretary of Defense, Robert
McNamara. Under the guise of fighting Communism, McNamara, along with
national security advisor McGeorge Bundy, skillfully aided the President in
sending out confusing, mixed signals on “…increased involvement by the United
States in the internal affairs of South Vietnam….”5 “The rapid, undeclared, and
“covert” nature of the major military buildup” created a disjunction between stated
military goals and economic planning. This forced budgeting for the escalation
into a supplemental ad hoc format, resulting in what Helsing characterized as
costs that were “severely underestimated”6
One of the most revealing insights from Helsing was that McNamara and
LBJ had pre-determined stalemate rather than victory as the goal of the war.
The CIA had warned the administration that even with 500,000 American troops,
there was still doubt about being able to win in the jungles of Vietnam.
McNamara explained to the Johnson cabinet that even though the U.S. and the
South Vietnamese were then “currently” loosing the war, the alternatives to
escalation were generally no better. Both withdrawal or defeat, as alternatives to
escalation and stalemate, threatened U.S. credibility. With an excerpt from a
June 18, 1965 cabinet meeting, Helsing takes readers into the inner sanctum of
government where the administration’s deceptive charade was unveiled:
With the cabinet, President Johnson discussed the Vietnam conflict
in terms of months, not years: ‘We don’t really anticipate that the
5Ibid.,
6Ibid.,
25.
59.
5
prospect is good for settlement or for arriving at any agreement,
certainly until the [fall] monsoon season is over …. Our problem is
largely one of trying to protect our national interest in the next three
or four months, hoping that the conditions and the atmosphere will
be better for our position in the fall.7
The policy proposed by McNamara at this cabinet meeting actually became the
formal but unstated U.S. foreign policy relative to Vietnam: deceive the American
people [and government officials as required] and to pursue stalemate rather
than victory as the solution to what was portrayed as a short term problem.8
Based on the prosperity being generated by the great American economic
engine, ill-informed domestic and economic advisors were attempting to coerce
the final authorizations and commitments out of Congress for the Great Society.
Unfortunately, the administration’s foreign policy and defense teams were
simultaneously and unknowingly preparing for what was to be an expensive
escalation into all out yet undeclared war. But, Helsing makes it clear that a
primary policy objective of the “policy of deception” was to prevent generation of
discussion and debate on the Hill about Guns versus Butter.
The administration avoided creating a crisis atmosphere and putting the
nation on a war footing, which certainly would have been the case had the truth
of Vietnam been known. The author points out that “…while most of the
authorizing legislation for Johnson’s new programs … had been enacted, …
appropriations had not yet been passed, [and] it would have been over
appropriations that a major guns-versus-butter battle would have been fought.”9
Surrounded by economic prosperity, and unaware of one another’s vulnerable
7Ibid.,
149.
138-140, 149.
9Ibid., 167.
8Ibid.,
6
situation, neither military planners nor economists concerned themselves with
one another’s area of responsibility.
In his analysis of the emergence of chronic and endemic inflation in late
1965 and 1966, Helsing identifies the seeds of destruction for the Great Society,
outlining them in six stages: soaring demand, rising employment, rising wages,
rising labor costs, rising prices, and a leveling of spendable earnings. Adding to
these specific woes was a lowering of tax revenues in an overheated war
economy. The author’s examination highlighted that for the first time in U.S.
history, war did not foster growth and prosperity. The uncontrolled inflation and
exploding budget deficits eroded the resources generated by pre-escalation
economic prosperity, which would have sustained the Great Society programs of
Johnson’s vision for America. In fact, this era witnessed a convergence of these
various negative factors that left a legacy of entrenched inflation, endemic
unemployment, increased taxation, and a global monetary crisis that threatened
world order.10
Helsing’s Johnson’s War/Johnson’s Great Society, does indeed go
beyond offering readers the usual evidence and insights not only into the war
and administration programs, providing insights into the thinking of Johnson the
man as well. Helsing does a truly admirable job delving into the historic evidence
and presenting a coherent picture of what was really going on behind the scenes
during the simultaneous escalation of the war and implementation of the Great
Society. In a very readable narrative, the author clearly lays out a sequence of
events gleaned from the evidence, that provides readers with a cogent view of
10Ibid.,
197.
7
how LBJ and McNamara, whom Bob Buzzanco aptly termed “masters of war”,
made use of understatement, coercion, and deception to formulate a plan of war
that was palatable to Congress and the American people, yet had the capacity to
generate a moral imperative for war.
Though not stated as a central theme of the book, Johnson was truly
committed to the American ideals of freedom and democracy both domestically
and internationally. This became his driving ideology. His stand against what he
saw as the overt threat of Communist aggression in Southeast Asia, and his
pursuit of racial and socio-economic equality domestically, were more than mere
political opportunities, both were genuine concerns. Johnson by no means
emerges as a sympathetic character from Helsing’s examination, but his dilemma
and resulting policy of deception can perhaps be best understood as the sole
best approach available under the circumstances. Though his tactics may have
been questionable, one must consider that if the President was to meet
America’s international obligations to promulgate and protect democracy, he had
an even greater responsibility to not allow those freedoms being fought for
abroad to be abridged or sacrificed at home.
Helsing surmised that as President, “…Johnson failed the nation as a
leader, and he failed on his own terms, losing the war and his Great Society.” 11
Yet, as President, he did what he felt he must do to promulgate the America in
the Constitution. Perhaps America failed to meet the Presidents expectations,
lacking the political and social will to live up to its own creed. In the milieu of the
mid 60s, the trap alluded to in the book subtitle was unavoidable. Guns and
11Ibid.,
256.
8
Butter was truly the sole best option for then President Lyndon Baines Johnson
and the American nation.
9