Poll: Which 20th century American President was the most responsible for starting a war?

The poll has closed for the question, "Which 20th century American President was the most responsible for starting a war?" Thanks to all who participated by voting.

George H.W. Bush was the leading vote getter with 41% for the Persian Gulf War. President Kennedy was second with 29% for the Vietnam War. President Clinton was third with 12% for the Kosovo War. Truman polled 9% for the Korean War and Wilson got 6% for World War One.

I could only place five Presidents on the poll. As such, I left FDR off. I hardly think he started World War Two so I think this was a good choice. I am going to get off the war theme and try a different sort of poll question next.

Presidential Primaries

Since the primaries are the hot topic in the news right now, I thought I'd provide some history to go with them.

Wikipedia provides a nice summary of the history leading to the current method of primary elections:
There is no provision for the role of political parties in the United States Constitution, as political parties did not develop until the early 19th century. Before 1820, Democratic-Republican members of Congress would nominate a single candidate from their party. That system collapsed in 1824, and by 1832 the preferred mechanism for nomination was a national convention.[13]

Delegates to the national convention were usually selected at state conventions whose own delegates were chosen by district conventions. Sometimes they were dominated by intrigue between political bosses who controlled delegates; the national convention was far from democratic or transparent. Progressive Era reformers looked to the primary election as a way to measure popular opinion of candidates, as opposed to the opinion of the bosses. In 1910, Oregon became the first state to establish a presidential preference primary in which the delegates to the National Convention were required to support the winner of the primary at the convention. By 1912, twelve states either selected delegates in primaries, used a preferential primary, or both. By 1920 there were 20 states with primaries, but some went back and from 1936 to 1968, 13 or 14 states used them. (Ware p 248)

The primary received its first major test in the 1912 election pitting incumbent President William Howard Taft against challengers Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette. Roosevelt proved the most popular candidate, but as most primaries were non-binding "preference" shows and held in only fourteen of the-then forty-eight states, the Republican nomination went to Taft, who controlled the convention.

Seeking to boost voter turnout, New Hampshire simplified its ballot access laws in 1949. In the ensuing "beauty contest" of 1952, Republican Dwight Eisenhower demonstrated his broad voter appeal by out polling the favored Robert A. Taft, "Mr. Republican." Also, Democrat Estes Kefauver defeated incumbent President Harry S. Truman, leading the latter to abandon his campaign for another term.[14] The first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary has since become a widely-observed test of candidates' viability.

The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey II secured the nomination despite primary victories and other shows of support for Senator Eugene McCarthy, running against Humphrey on a strong anti-Vietnam War platform. After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned panel led by Senator George McGovern recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation. A large number of states, faced with the need to conform to more detailed rules for the selection of national delegates, chose a presidential primary as an easier way to come into compliance with the new national Democratic Party rules. The result was that many more future delegates would be selected by a state presidential primary. The Republicans also adopted many more state presidential primaries.

With the broadened use of the primary system, states have tried to increase their influence in the nomination process. One tactic has been to create geographic blocs to encourage candidates to spend time in a region. Vermont and Massachusetts attempted to stage a joint New England primary on the first Tuesday of March, but New Hampshire refused to participate so it could retain its traditional place as the first primary. The first successful regional primary was Super Tuesday of March 8, 1988, in which nine Southern states united in the hope that the Democrats would select a candidate in line with Southern interests.[15]

Another trend is to stage earlier and earlier primaries, given impetus by Super Tuesday and the mid-1990s move (since repealed) of the California primary and its bloc of votes—the largest in the nation—from June to March. In order to retain its tradition as the first primary in the country (and adhere to a state law which requires it to be), New Hampshire's primary has moved forward steadily, from early March to early January.

You can also read a nice history at the American Presidency. If you'd like to see the results of the last few primary elections, you can use Dave Leip's Atlas of Presidential Elections (this only goes back to 2000).

Now the Wikipedia mentions the "chaotic" 1968 Democratic convention and you can a first hand report of this event on PBS's site (this is definitely an interesting read).

LBJ and the CMC

I find it interesting that often “state secrets” are kept even from high ranking officials of state – like the Vice President. We’ve all heard the story of Truman and the atomic bomb. An HNN article from this week explores how little Lyndon Johnson (LBJ), Kennedy’s Vice President, knew about the actual happenings of the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC).
The article starts with the criticism that has been levied against LBJ – that he should have been better able to cope with Vietnam because of the lessons of the CMC, but the authors (Holland and Egan) bring up this question:
But what if Johnson was not permitted to learn the right lessons, which would have had to begin with an accurate understanding of what had happened? What if Johnson was purposely denied important knowledge? What if Johnson thought he had drawn the right lessons, but actually was trying to replicate a manufactured illusion?

The authors tell us that four members of ExComm were excluded from the final secret deal that ended the CMC – namely the US pulling missiles out of Turkey in return of the USSR pulling missiles out of Cuba. One of these members was LBJ. The other three (Taylor, Dillion, and McCone) were for political reasons. By why LBJ – JFK’s own Vice President?
…John Kennedy also decided to shut out Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat and the second-highest officeholder in the land. There was a tinge of irony in LBJ’s exclusion. Like any consummate politician, Johnson valued one quality—loyalty—above all else, and since he expected it, he gave it in return. Still, not even LBJ’s repeated demonstrations of fealty had been sufficient to overcome the Kennedys’ distrust, and in Robert Kennedy’s case, intense and ineradicable dislike.

So what happened?
In the days following the discovery of the Soviet missiles on October 15, Johnson had played an ambiguous, even contradictory, role at the ExComm meetings—that is, when he chose to speak at all. During the first day of deliberations, the vice president expressed the view that the offensive elements of the Soviet buildup were intolerable for domestic political reasons. As the ExComm’s discussions turned to the crucial question of whether to impose a blockade or take more violent action, however, LBJ went missing in action. Because the administration did not want to signal Moscow that its missiles had been sighted in Cuba, it was decided to keep LBJ on the political hustings as if nothing were untoward.

When Johnson finally made it back to Washington on October 21, the president directed DCI McCone to bring the vice president up to speed on the controversial decision to impose a blockade. Johnson initially expressed disagreement with the policy that had been developed. But McCone had also briefed Dwight Eisenhower that morning, and when the DCI informed Johnson that the former president opposed a surprise attack, and accepted the military handicap that came with imposition of a blockade, Johnson reluctantly changed his position.

Johnson attended every ExComm session thereafter, though his return hardly seemed to matter. Johnson only began to assert himself during the critical meeting on Saturday afternoon, October 27. Overall, LBJ seemed to favor a negotiated solution to the crisis, though he also came down on both sides of the key issue of linkage. At one point he criticized Robert McNamara’s stiff opposition to a missile swap, arguing that the Jupiter missiles were “not worth a damn” anyway. Minutes later, LBJ likened an outright trade to appeasement, asserting that it would be tantamount to dismantling the containment edifice Washington had painstakingly built.

There was every reason to believe, from the totality of what Johnson said, that he would have genuinely supported Kennedy’s gambit: to make the trade, so long as the Soviets agreed to keep it secret. But when the president convened a rump ExComm session on October 27, after the regular one broke up and just before RFK’s evening meeting with the Soviet ambassador, Johnson was purposefully excluded from the trusted inner circle. Thus, LBJ was left unaware of the genuine settlement terms that were hastily accepted by Nikita Khrushchev the next day.

Since the actual agreement was never known at the time, the CMC became a fabled stand-off and Kennedy a hero and after his assassination, no one was willing to contest the story. Stanford Professor Barton Bernstein pointed out in 1992 that this myth made it impossible for Johnson to live up to JFK’s image. While LBJ knew some of the story was false, there were parts that he did not even know, making it difficult for him to work with.

Holland and Egan state that even a better knowledge of the CMC probably wouldn’t have changed LBJ’s Vietnam policy:
Being privy to the truth about the missile crisis settlement might not have altered materially Johnson’s decisions about Vietnam. Had Johnson had a more accurate understanding of the missile crisis’ true history, he still would have had to contend with the false analogies and “lessons” that were rife in public. But more knowledge would have indisputably served him better than what he was allowed to know.

LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident

In August of 1964, President Johnson and his advisors believed that US destroyers had been attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The National Security Archives declassified these documents in 2004. Available documents of note are:

• 40th anniversary essay by John Prados that includes thoughts on how this situation is similar to the Iraq situation
• The military messages that began this incident
• Listen to President Johnson discuss the situation with his advisors
• US Foreign Relations Papers
• CIA on the situation
• Article on possible skews that includes many other links to more information

Prados' article ends with this comment:
This new evidence permits us to view more accurately the internal deliberations of the Johnson administration. Especially in combination with LBJ's telephone conversations with McNamara, recently made available to the public with transcriptions, the material clearly shows Washington rushing to a judgment on events in the Tonkin Gulf, which it seized upon as evidence in support of its predetermined intention to escalate the conflict in Vietnam.

Just like any event, as times passes we have come to reevaluate and hopefully more fairly judge what happened in 1964. With the release of classified materials, we are able to see what went on behind the scenes in the Johnson administration. Go read the materials and consider what you would have done in the position of Johnson and his advisors.

History of Vietnam

History of Vietnam. Several American Presidents are mentioned in this essay dealing with Vietnamese history. In this case, the focus is on the Vietnam War.

From the site:

In December 1961, at the request of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, President Kennedy sent U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam to help the government there deal with the Viet Cong campaign. In the wake of escalating political turmoil in the south after a 1963 generals' coup against President Diem, the United States increased its military support for South Vietnam. In March 1965, President Johnson sent the first U.S. combat forces to Vietnam. The American military role peaked in 1969 with an in-country force of 534,000.

LBJ in the Oval Office

LBJ in the Oval Office - Listen to some of LBJ's most important speeches and peer into the Oval Office through secretly recorded conversations made by Johnson during his presidency.

From the site:

At this site, you can listen to some President Lyndon Johnson's most important speeches and peer into the Oval Office through secretly recorded conversations made by Johnson during his presidency.

Listening to these audio files requires installation of the free RealAudio Player. It is available from RealAudio.

Speeches include Johnson's Vietnam Anguish, Selected Telephone Conversations Concerning the Special Commission to Investigate the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Johnson's Address to a Joint Session of Congress introducing the Voting Rights Act, and Johnson's Address on Civil Rights.

John Kennedy's Vietnam Rhetoric

John Kennedy's Vietnam Rhetoric This is an extensive review of the public rhetoric of Kennedy on Vietnam which concludes that he would have had an extremely difficult time withdrawing, given his public statements.

From the site:

Abstract:

Pres Kennedy's rhetoric on the situation in Vietnam exemplifies the way in which presidents balance idealistic arguments, which apply principles of genus to public problem-solving, and pragmatic arguments, which emphasize the efficacy or practicality of politics. Kennedy legitimized his Vietnam policy through his idealistic appeals, casting himself as a principled leader, and deflected criticism and built an image of expertise through his pragmatic appeals.

Full Text:

In 1951, Congressman John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts set out for an extensive fact-finding mission to the Middle and Far East. Upon his return, Kennedy reiterated his support of western efforts to defend freedom in both regions. He claimed that if the West did not act upon this ideal, especially in Southeast Asia, that the Chinese Communists easily would dominate these countries.(1) At the same time, however, the Congressman clearly disagreed with the methods the French employed. For Kennedy, France's anachronistic colonialist mentality had blinded it to the nationalistic aspirations of the native peoples of the region. In a radio address upon his return, the Congressman explained the complexities of Southeast Asia and warned that these complexities called for particular policies. Kennedy presciently observed:

The Indo-Chinese states are puppet states, French principalities with great resources but as typical examples of empire and colonialism as can be fond anywhere. To check the southern drive of Communism makes sense but not only through reliance on the force of arms. The task is, rather, to build strong native non-Communist sentiment within these areas and rely on that as a spearhead of defense. To do this apart from and in defiance of innately nationalistic aims spells foredoomed failure.(2)

In the years that followed this speech, Kennedy claimed French and U.S. policy in Southeast Asia lacked practicality.(3) Nonetheless, he never failed to show support for the principle of freedom behind that policy. As he declared in 1956, "Vietnam represents the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike."(4)

In many ways, this early rhetoric foreshadowed John Kennedy's presidential rhetoric on Vietnam. From 1961 to 1963, President Kennedy invoked idealistic terms to encourage Americans to view the conflict there as one small part of the larger struggle between freedom and communism. According to the President, the United States had to do whatever was necessary to defend freedom's Vietnam. Alternately, Kennedy explained that the situation in Vietnam was quite complicated and unique because of that nation's particular history, government, logistics, and legal relationship with the U.S. In view of these complexities, the President held that the United States must pragmatically pursue very special policies in order to fulfill its mission in Vietnam.

Nixon, Ford and the Abandonment of South Vietnam

Nixon, Ford and the Abandonment of South Vietnam This book is by J. Edward Lee and H. C. Haynsworth.

From the book description:

South Vietnam fell because of events occurring thousands of miles away from the battlefields—in China, the Soviet Union, Latin America, the Middle East, and Washington's corridors of power, along protest lines, and around America's dinner tables. These other wars being fought by American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford profoundly impacted what happened in Vietnam.

This work examines those other conflicts and the political, social, and economic factors involved with them that distracted and crippled the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and led to the eventual abandonment of the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese regime. Nixon entered office with the goal of bringing the world together, but saw that goal ruined by the 1973 war in the Middle East, preoccupations with China and the Soviet Union, a weak economy, Watergate, and his disgraceful exit from the White House. Ford's presidency was tainted almost from the beginning because of the pardon he granted to Nixon, but the American public, tired of war and concerned about the economy, was ready to hear that the war had come to an end. An argument is presented that the war could have been won if the "other wars" had been fought by presidents willing to honor the American commitment to its allies in South Vietnam.