Word: lbj
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Although he sets out, against this backround, to describe the "activist" programs which we must carry out ("Rarely has so much depended upon the turn we now take"), not until three pages before the end of the book does LBJ actually get there. Throughout, it is The Past which is important...
...LBJ tells us why this is so. "I think a loss of national memory has something to do with it [dissent]. After four decades, the Depression has become something to read about in textbooks. . . . World War II, and the great need to prevent an aggressive tyranny from expanding beyond control, is a topic for old movies and not an aching personal fear replete with lessons for the present time...
...imagines LBJ down on the ranch. "Did you sleep well, dear?" Bird says...
...What LBJ says about the past, however, can teach us a lot. We learn, for example, that "the history of the last 20 years. . . is the story of our persistent efforts to find a path to agreement with the Soviet Union and China and with other nations controlled by Communist parties." We learn why Western Europe has been in such bad shape recently. "The reason, quite simply, was the policy of the government in France." And we learn about the Soviet Union. "The main obstacle between our two great nations . . . has been the Communist ideology." These are important things...
...LBJ LEARNED some things, too. "Perhaps the greatest single lesson a President learns is that America's power to control events in the world is limited." That is why LBJ only sent half a million men to Vietnam and kept the rest at home. He also learned about national defense. "The Soviet Union is the only nation on earth that possesses a destructive force similar to ours. Theirs is some what less in size, but the average human being would not be able to detect the difference in being hit by 30,000 tons of explosive or 15,000 tons...