the long run

There's a saying, "Politics is the art of the possible."  (Like -- What CAN we do?  What's possible?  Setting aside pessimism and and seeing what you can do.)...In this book one of President Kennedy's advisers is quoted as saying, "Politics is not the art of the possible, it's choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."

Yikes.

[excerpt, Dallek biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson]----------------------------..."The basic decision in Southeast Asia is here," Johnson asserted.  "We must decide whether to help these countries to the best of our ability or throw in the towel in the area and pull back our defenses to San Francisco and a 'Fortress America' concept."  Though Johnson did not mention Munich, memories of appeasement in 1938 echo through his advice to Kennedy on Vietnam.  Failure to take a stand would mean retreat and defeat and greater ultimate dangers to the national security.

[You read this,  & you know he's right, all the people who were saying that were right, and yet then you read the next paragraph where John Kenneth Galbraith says pissing around in this sinkhole that is Vietnam isn't going to accomplish anything and just get a lot of our guys killed and from the vantage point of decades later, you know he is right, at well.

But at the same time you had the communists (which was Soviet Union, huge, & their silent {potential} partner, huger still, China & they didn't care how many of their people had to get killed, they'd just pour 'em down on you until you said "uncle" if they ever roused up out of their Quiet and joined up with the Soviets) -- communists and communism pushing, pushing -- pushing here, pushing there...Vietnam, Berlin, look out where will they pop up next...The first guy, V.P. Johnson was right....But so is Galbraith....]

Kennedy had other advice.  John Kenneth Galbraith, who described himself as "sadly out of step with the Establishment," warned against an expanded U.S. role in Vietnam.  Spending "our billions in these distant jungles" would do the U.S. no good and the Soviets no harm.  "Incidentally, who is the man in your administration who decides what countries are strategic?  I would like to...ask him what is so important about this real estate in the space age."  Galbraith also advised seizing the opportunithy to make "any kind of a political settlement."  Though it would bring political attacks, these would be better than "increasing involvement.  Politics is not the art of the possible.  It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.  I wonder if those who talk in terms of a ten year war really know what they are saying in terms of American attitudes."

[He said a mouthful there.]

But Johnson's view of Vietnam represented the prevailing wisdom in the administration, the Congress, and the press.  Defeat in Vietnam would mean the loss of all Southeast Asia and worse.  In the grip of the World War II experience, when one uncontested Hitler aggression led inevitably to the next, most Americans, including JFK, shared Johnson's exaggerated fear that a Communist victory in Vietnam would become the prelude to a Red tide sweeping across the Pacific.  In consequence, between 1961 and 1963, the Kennedy administration expanded the number of U.S. military advisers from 692 to 16,700 and increased material aid to a level that marked a "transition from advice to partnership" in the war.

----------------
...The one instance in which LBJ played more than a peripheral role in foreign affairs was during a crisis over Berlin in August 1961.  An exodus of many of the best-trained citizens from East Germany through Berlin moved the Communists to build a wall sealing off the eastern part of the city. 

Unclear as to whether this was a prelude to more aggressive action against West Berlin,

unwilling to order an assault against the wall, as some in Germany asked,

and eager to counter demoralization in the American, British, and French zones,

Kennedy ordered Johnson to make a symbolic trip to Berlin.

Johnson was reluctant to go.  He believed that such a journey might produce more recrimination over U.S. weakness than hope that America intended to stand up to Soviet expansion.  If he were right, as the President's representative, he would then take some, if not much, of the heat for a gesture that was too little and too late.  Kennedy ordered 1500 U.S. troops to move from West Germany to West Berlin as a show of American determination.  But believing this was insufficient to boost morale in West Berlin, he wanted Johnson to make a very public appearance in the city as a demonstration "to the Russians that Berlin was an ultimate American commitment."

[Sometimes, even if it's not "enough" or "a clear win" you have to -- Do The Thing.]

Despite his doubts, Johnson took on the assignment with characteristic energy and preparation.  He stayed up all night on his trans-Atlantic flight discussing his itinerary and speeches that would give meaning to his trip.  Landing in Bonn, where West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer met him, Johnson refused to be drawn into the current election campaign between Adenauer and West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt.  He refused Adenauer's request to travel together to West Berlin.  Instead, he focused on giving the West German crowd greeting him a message from President Kennedy that America was "determined to fulfill all our obligations and to honor all our commitments."  We will "dare to the end to do our duty."

Johnson's trip to West Berlin was a triumphal tour.  After an eighty-minute flight to Tempelhof Airport, LBJ rode to the city center in an open car cheered by 100,000 spectators.  Stopping repeatedly to shake hands with the people lining the curbs, he was greeted with unmistakable enthusiasm.  At City Hall, where 300,000 Berliners had gathered, he declared himself in Berlin at the direction of President Kennedy to convey the same commitment that "our ancestors pledged in forming the United States:  'Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.'"  The wall, Johnson presciently declared, was a testimony to Communism's failure.  This was not a time for despair, but for understanding that "in the long run this unwise effort will fail....This is a time, then, for confidence, for poise, and for faith -- for faith in yourselves.  It is also a time for faith in your allies, everywhere throughout the world.  This island does not stand alone."

The next day, Sunday morning at 9 a.m., Johnson and General Lucius Clay, former High Commissioner for Berlin, who Kennedy had asked to join the Vice President, went to the Helmstedt entrance to West Berlin, where they awaited the arrival of the 1500 troops traveling along a 104-mile stretch of Autobahn.  President Kennedy, who normally spent his summer weekends in Hyannis Port, stayed in Washington to await word of the convoy's unimpeded arrival.  When the column of tanks and troops reached the city at 10 a.m., Berliners greeted them with shouts, tears, and flowers.  The commanding officer remembered the occasion as "the most exciting and impressive thing I've ever seen in my life, with the possible exception of the liberation of Paris."--------------------------- [end excerpt]

{Flawed Giant.  Robert Dallek.  1998.  Oxford.  New York}

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