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Oh, How We All Sang Along: Continued Thoughts on LBJ

By John Crandell

The termination of a very particular man's life and the resultant onset of US combat in Southeast Asia forged a precipitous inflection point for United States' society. Despite extraordinary achievements in arts and technology, a nation's confidence in its future coursed downward over decades, became enshrouded by an ever more crapulous presentiment, in one true fall from Olympus. What rises to mind as Don McClean sings "Bye, Bye Miss American Pie" for us? Instead of the death of an emerging rock and roll artist in 1959, we instead have been drawn towards reflecting upon the common prospect of our nation—no matter the path of our individual lives. By 1959, the dark, intrusive emergence of a particularly aggressive Texan in the red-baiting years after World War II would collide with the contrasting image and excitement surrounding a senator representing Massachusetts. For a time, the forwardness of the former was eclipsed by the congeniality of the latter, one person who has since remained a subject of inordinate human fascination. Seems that blood was destined to be shed, both at home and on the opposite side of Earth.

Down we have gone, plummeting from zenith to nethermost exigency, from JFK's speech in 1963 at American University to Trump's recent "I am your retribution." This series of articles form an attempt to exhume what one sees as Lyndon Johnson's truest motivation for waging death and destruction in Vietnam. Was our great quagmire wrought simply by political necessity or had he been forced, put in a position of "do it or else?"

James DiEugenio has written that by the chaotic summer 1963, John Kennedy intuitively saw that the South Vietnamese conflict was unwinnable given whatever assistance from America and that it took until the winter of 1968 for Johnson to realize the same. If Johnson had been leveraged into military involvement due to his long record in Texas and in Washington, it wouldn't have taken so long for anyone with the perspicacity he possessed to realize what was the real deal in the civil conflict so far distant. He had been a brilliant if corrupt political practitioner and all he had had to resort to was hiding behind anti-communism. He was as well quite adept in reading human personalities and his having assayed Ngo Dinh Diem as the Winston Churchill of Asia was all bullshit. But he had been the most brilliant congressional operative of his generation as well and no one in Washington could discern whatever side he was on on any issue until the final vote came down. One final vote on Johnson still remains and herewith, one tries to get it into the ballot box sixty years later.

It was during the siege of Khe Sanh that Lyndon called upon Truman's secretary of state to attend a rare briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Roosevelt Room. Post briefing, Johnson ranted and raved for forty five minutes. Dean Acheson recognized the canned Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) performance for what it had been and walked out as POTUS fulminated. Afterwards, an assistant phoned Acheson from the Oval Office to express outrage. Truman's SecState told the assistant to "shove it up your ass" whereupon "Ol Hang Dog" grabbed the receiver to argue and instead got called on for the JCS charade. The top dog had been miffed as a result of the JCS not paying him obeisance when he'd been VPOTUS. Thus he was returning the favor. Clark Clifford's prediction of disaster was coming true. Johnson's intent to mislead Congress and the citizenry had forced McNamara's hand: either resign or cook the books. Mac readily chose the latter. In March of '64 he ditched the results of "War Game Sigma I-64." The Joint Chiefs had decided to study his option of a gradual increase in pressure against the North. Conducted April 6th thru 9th, it examined what most likely could result by including China and Russia in play. Findings indicated that the US would underestimate Hanoi's resolve, that North Vietnam was capable of responding to increased violence. Doubt was indicated as to the effectiveness of air power. The officer who played the role of the North Vietnamese leaders "banked on a lack of American resolve to see the effort to fruition." The ultimate result was that a path of graduated pressure would result in a protracted military commitment with little hope of success. Mac only wanted numbers, no ostensible negativity. In response to the Chief's request for increased action, he told them to submit quantitative data so that his staff could test their validity. Endemic corruption and lack of will within the South Vietnamese military would never be gamed. As H.R. McMaster has said, despite his expression of doubts, Johnson's every move, his every decision only indicates a move towards violence.

Circa June of 1961, one Henry Marshall had been murdered at his own ranch in Robertson County in connection to an investigation into federal subsidies by the USDA granted to the Texas empire of Billy Sol Estes, purveyor of mortgage fraud and ammonia tanks to Texas' cotton growers. Readers may want to investigate the notorious death of Marshall, deemed to have shot himself five times with his own rifle. A few months previous, Billy Sol's business manager had written his concern over Marshall's investigating pursuit of Estes in a letter to Clifton Carter, LBJ's chief benefactor in Texas. Three officials in the agriculture department would lose their jobs for having accepted bribes from Estes. Nearly two months before Marshall's death, Estes contacted the deputy director of the department and broached an "embarrassment of the Kennedy administration if the investigation were not halted." George Krutilek, Estes' own business accountant had been found dead on April 4th the previous year when Johnson was still senate majority leader. There was a severe bruise on his head. His passing was ruled as a suicide as well. Forty years later, Barr McClellan—Johnson's one time lawyer would write a book and allege that the late president and Edward Clark had conspired in the death of the accountant and covered up the true facts.

One can find quite a number of telephone conversations between Carter and Johnson as listed in the LBJ Library website. Various conversations having happened between Johnson and his closest friend Edward Clark—"The Secret Boss of Texas"are also indicated. It is a curious fact that all individual telephone records of LBJ as vice president ceased in early August of 1963 and did not resume until March of the following year. One wonders if his expressions of doubt to fellow politicians were truly of the moment or existential circa August 1964. Rather, you ponder as to the degree of his conceiving imagistic false ideas serving to obscure cynical posturing and concealment—the nation's ensnarement behind his grand spanking new interest in civil rights for America's minorities which seemingly began in a cubicle in the Minor Medical section of Parkland Hospital—twenty two November. Lady Bird was shaken by what she'd seen in the parking lot outside. Down the hall from Trauma Room One, the new POTUS stood calm, cool and collected against the wall directly behind her. As historians have told us, as soon as Ken O'Donnell entered to tell him that JFK was gone, he immediately seized the bull by the horns. Later, Bill Moyers would opine that Johnson's facial expression aboard Air Force One ought to evince a lack of perfidy. Yet he knew stories of "The Greatest Actor" and said actor's history of treachery.

In this grievous age we're all ensnared by suppositions, that we should possess more than everyone else and in getting no satisfaction, we're supposed to be someone other than ourself. JabbaSaurus successfully plucks the strings of bigotry and suppressed bitterness. We've witnessed an extended string of disasters, scandals and tragedy ever since we DEROSed.The level of corruption on high, particularly its blatancy serves to obscure the legacy of the Hill Country native. Where did lay the motivation and what have been the effects of his darkness? Adding to the ludicrous official report of the death of a president, we need to question the establishment view of the man who sent troops abroad so long ago. Further concerns over the 36th POTUS await one final installment in The Veteran.

In 1969 in the Central Highlands, John Crandell was confined inside chain link cages serving Fourth Infantry postal customers at Camp Enari as well as Camp Radcliffe.