The Loyal Opposition: Lyndon Johnson, the Right, and Vietnam

The conservative movement was among the most adamant defenders of the Vietnam War. Conservatives believed that once the US committed military might to the war, there was no excuse for defeat. The Right organized pro-war protests, wrote articles calling for an increasingly aggressive military strategy, and wrote letters to various elected officials. Despite its support for the war, conservatives strongly opposed Johnson’s military strategy. In a political climate where conservatives represented a minority movement, acting as a pro-war and anti-Johnson movement became increasingly difficult. This paper explores how the Right struggled as it attempted to support the war but opposing Johnson’s strategy, and the multifaceted problems conservatives encountered as they tried to retain these duel political beliefs. Furthermore, this paper inspects how foreign policy decisions helped to unify the conservative movement and influence domestic, American politics.

Supporting the ‘Worlds Most Self-Deluded Observers’: Understanding the Evolution of Conservative Movement’s Early Vietnam Positions

The historiography of the Vietnam War accounts for the American conservative movement’s support for the war, but rarely does it mention why the conservatives endorsed President Lyndon Johnson’s expansion of the war. In fact, the early period from 1964 through early-1965, when Johnson rapidly expanded the number of troops in Vietnam, is largely unexamined by the historiography of either the Vietnam War or the American Right. This presentation begins the process of analyzing the conservative movement’s complex set of emotions and ideas regarding the Vietnam War.

Rather than adamantly endorsing the war during the early years, most conservatives had serious reservations regarding the war. For instance, in a September 1964 National Review editorial the magazine admits that victory in Vietnam is unlikely to come quickly – if at all. It also derisively called President Johnson and his military officials “the world's most self-deluded observers.” This came on the heels of several months worth of apprehension within the conservative movement over the nature and viability of the war. In short, conservative were not convinced that the war in Vietnam was the right war in the right place.

Conservatives were some of the most deeply anti-communist Americans at the time, yet they disapproved of a war against communists until early-1965. This complexity is rarely discussed in the historiography largely because the movement eventually became some of the most adamant defenders of the war later on, but in the early years there was a lot of hesitation regarding the war. The reasons for this were wide ranging and included: the foreign policy belief that Vietnam was not strategically important enough, the political argument that Johnson was an incompetent military commander, and because there was no strong anti-communist South Vietnamese leadership to aid the American effort. All of those accounts contributed to a movement hesitant to support the Vietnam War.

The contemporary historiography about the start of the Vietnam War focuses on Johnson’s decisions for expanding the war and the domestic political pressure he felt to stand up to communism. This presentation seeks to complicate that narrative by incorporating the Right’s various beliefs about the war into the historiography. Combined with my dissertation, this will help provide historians with a more complete interpretation of the start of America’s largest Cold War proxy-battle.

Heed the Grassroots: Re-examining the Birth of the New Right

In January 1970, William Rusher, the Publisher of the National Review, wrote a letter to his fellow conservative, Roger Milliken explaining that the internal divisions within the South Carolina branch of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) were just “the tip of the iceberg.” Rusher was alluding to YAF’s nationwide problem of retaining support among many grassroots members, specifically libertarian members. However, he believed that the organization would ultimately survive and that this was only a temporary problem, brought on by the “immense pressure” on college students from the Vietnam War. Still, he expected the organization would undergo some major changes because of the growing alienation many libertarians felt.

While completing my dissertation on the conservative movement and the Vietnam War, I noticed that the historiography did not fully account for the divisions within the grassroots. This presentation is an attempt to bring the grassroots into the conversation regarding the birth of the New Right. Specifically, it questions whether grassroots disputes over the Vietnam War helped to force the conservative movement to evolve and form the New Right. This paper argues that many of the internal disputes within YAF and the grassroots in the late-1960s and early-1970s helps explain the movement’s ideological shift in the late-1970s with the rise of the New Right.

The shift within YAF during the Vietnam War is important is because of the role YAF, and grassroots youth activists played in Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. Many historians have noted the role youths played in Goldwater’s nomination and presidential campaign, but many of those youths were libertarians who would later oppose the Vietnam War. This presentation seeks to blend that narrative with the greater historiography of the birth of modern conservatism and the New Right.

By giving the grassroots agency, this presentation will help integrate an important group into the movement. Much of the literature currently focuses on the role of new campaign techniques and methods. While conceding those changes, I seek to incorporate the grassroots into the greater historiography of the birth of the New Right.

“The Politics of Failed Wars: Conservatism and Vietnam, 1964-68”

Twilight in America: The Birth of Ronald Reagan and Contemporary Conservatism

2008 & the Modern American Presidential Election

The Right Recollection of Vietnam: How Conservatives Remember Vietnam

M.A.D. About You: Détente, Vietnam and the Transformation of American Conservatism

The Other Side of Vietnam: The American Right and Vietnam

The Power of Portrayal: The Media and the Young Americans for Freedom

The Media and the Young Americans for Freedom, 1960-68