Meanwhile, displeasure with Johnson's war policy became part of the 1968 presidential race. [20] In a campaign known as Operation Rolling Thunder, the U.S. would continue to bomb North Vietnam until late-1968, dropping over 800,000 tons of bombs over three and a half years. On March 31, two months after the start of the offensive, President Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. When police confronted them, however, they knelt in prayer and turned around. He stated that there would be no bombing of North Vietnam except in the area near the demilitarized zone and asked Ho Chi Minh to respond positively to this gesture. Together, he explained, echoing the anthem of the civil rights movement, "we shall overcome.". Clifford thought such a move would be both politically and economically disastrous. . By the late 1950s, a Communist guerrilla force in the South, the Viet Cong, was fighting to overthrow the Diem regime. Thus the Vietnam conflict could be seen through three lenses: (1) it was a civil war between pro- and anti-Diem groups in the South; (2) it was a war of reunification waged by the North against the South; and (3) it was viewed by the United States as part of the conspiracy by the Sino-Soviet bloc to conquer the Third World and install Communist regimes. [30] Impatience with the president and doubts about his war strategy continued to grow on Capitol Hill. Marshall was also a firm integrationist, believing that equality was best achieved by integrating society. The choice: LBJ's decision to go to war in Vietnam 1st atomic bomb. ]]>*/ Lyndon Baines Johnson's domestic policy known as the "Great Society", greatly affected the areas of civil rights and health. France) or were getting weaker (Britain); and the American economy was unable to meet Johnson's demands that it supply both guns and butter. He was the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court. Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) receives the Republican nomination for President. [13] He feared that the fall of Vietnam would hurt the Democratic Party's credibility on national security issues,[14][15] and he also wanted to carry on what he saw as Kennedy's policies. [CDATA[/* >
