Essays in History

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume Forty-One 1999 Essays in History Published by the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Congress, the President, and the Battle of Ideas: Vietnam Policy, 1965-1969 Michael Jay Friedman 1. Introduction "This is a time of testing for our nation. The question is whether we have the staying power to fight a very costly war, when the objective is limited and the danger to us is seemingly remote." ­Lyndon Johnson, 1967 State of …

…their climactic battle. By arguing for American aid to support the right of the South Vietnamese people to "self-determination," and later on grounds of honoring commitments so made, Nixon fought the war of ideas on the doves' strong turf and allowed Fulbright to appropriate the realist language that properly should have been his. The Administration could have utilized the prestige of the Presidency to buttress any number of arguments. A victory for Hanoi could res