American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 36.2 Lydon B Johnson

Episode Date: May 21, 2022

Ok, so he wasn't the greatest of guys before he became president. But maybe he can make up for it in today's episode? Maybe?

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Linda B. Johnson, part two. Hello and welcome to American President's Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm up ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden and this is episode 36.2. Lyndon B. Johnson part two. It's time to finish this guy, Jamie. Yeah, yeah, like he deserves. He's a man with blood on his hands as well. Well, we'll get into that. But yeah, you weren't too impressed with him last time, were you? No, I called him a rude word before we started recording.

No, not a fan. Not a fan. Bit of a womaniser-y kind of person, not into that. But JFK was as well. Yeah. Cheated, he lied. Stole. Yeah.

But, maybe, he'll redeem himself in this episode. Yeah. I seem to remember we were feeling the same about JFK at this point and he managed to squeeze an American. So he did what Biden may not be able to do. He stopped World War Three from happening. Yeah, that's a good point. OK, well, let's start our introduction, Shep. Start on an explosion, and I'll leave you to... An explosion. Like a fireball. I mean, this is a softball, Jamie. It is.

This is easy peasy. Start with an explosion. A huge, huge fireball. Big fireball. Big fireball. And then, all of a sudden, coming from the sky is aliens, Jamie. Aliens. And then Godzilla's there as well. Yes.

And robots and zombies and monsters. And they're all running around the place. Yeah. Yeah. And then everything turns a bit grainy. And it pulls out and you realise someone's just watching a film it's fine and it pulls out and it's a really hot room you can see there's a fan going off and there's some people sat around wearing soldier uniforms and they're watching this film and as the camera pans around it goes past a window and there's an explosion jamie

an explosion big fireball and everyone's running around and then there's an explosion, Jamie. An explosion. Big fireball. And everyone's running around. And then there's aliens, Jamie. And a Godzilla. And a robot. And zombies. And everything goes grainy. And then it pulls out.

I wonder how long you'll keep doing this. Right. Well, it does that for a solid 30 minutes. So 30 minutes later and roughly 30 transitions later, finally it comes out, and still a bunch of soldiers. And this time there's an explosion, Jamie! But they all just get vaporised and die.

Oh. Yeah. Lyndon B. Johnson. I feel guilty that I'm laughing at that. That's quite sad. It is. Those men probably had families. They certainly did. Children waiting at home. They did. Those men probably had families. They certainly did.

Children waiting at home. Where's daddy? He's been barbecued. But to be fair, they probably were relieved after watching the weirdest film in the world ever, which is just lots of versions

of themselves watching a film. Yeah. Right, okay. We ended the last episode roughly the same time as JFK ended his life. He didn't end his life, though, did he? JFK? Yeah, his life ended.

He didn't end his life? Oh, okay. I thought you meant he ended his life. Yeah. Oh, no, no. It wasn't suicide. He was shot. In the head.

Yes. He was shot once in the neck, once in the head. Yes, exactly. He was dead. Within two hours of this shocking event, Johnson and his camp, his aides, his advisors, were on Air Force One. It's very swift. It's a shoot, bang, president's dead. Right, okay, back to the plane. They were obviously not alone because the president's camp, his aides, his supporters, and also obviously Jackie Kennedy, were also on the

plane. Now, as mentioned before, these two camps had grown to distrust and resent each other. The Johnson camp thought the Kennedy camp were all stuck up Ivy League, Ponzi. The Kennedy camp thought the Johnson lot were just brash and rude and idiots. Johnson did it. Well, Johnson and his aides felt like the Kennedys and their supporters lauded it over them quite a bit and had done for the last few years. So the current situation was not helping matters. It's a tense plane. Kennedy's aides wanted to get back to Washington as soon as possible.

We need to get the ex-president back to Washington. Let's go. Yeah. However, Johnson was determined, no, I'm going to be sworn in as president before we take off. I need to be sworn in immediately. We're going to wait here until we can get a judge so I can be sworn in. The country needs continuity. And that's not a bad argument. It's not a bad argument.

I mean, you could argue that the country would survive the couple of hours it would have taken him to fly on this plane. But, yeah, it's not a bad argument. Realistically, what was going on here is that he was worried that Bobby Kennedy would attempt to do something to stop him from becoming president. Remember, Bobby Kennedy at this point is the Attorney General. So the Attorney General has quite a bit of power.

I mean, it would have been tricky. It's unlikely to have happened. Yeah, because constitutionally... Yeah, but as we have seen, I mean, the Constitution is but a bit of paper. I mean, things can get worked around, especially when you're the Attorney General and you're technically in charge of all these laws.

So he just wanted it written down on paper, I am definitely the president. The reason why he was worried about this, apparently Bobby Kennedy had told him personally within the last two hours that he was going to stop him from becoming president. Wow, that's good. Yeah. Now, Bobby Kennedy later completely denied this.

No, of course I didn't say that. So, who knows what happened there. But Johnson wanted to be sworn in as soon as possible. And he's now in charge. So a judge was found. Johnson was sworn in on Air Force One with a shell-shocked Jackie Kennedy at his side. They drag the poor woman and she has to stand next to Johnson. She is still covered in his blood.

I've seen the photograph. Yeah, yeah. She's wearing this pink dress suit thing. Yeah, the skirt part covered in her husband's blood still. She had actually wiped her face and her hands free from the blood, but apparently she regretted doing that because she wanted to show the world what they'd done to her husband, which is the kind of thing you'd be saying if you were in shock.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you've just got to feel for Jackie here. Your husband's just been shot next to you and you're being forced to stand next to this man whilst he's being sworn in as president. So there you go. Why was she made to be there? It looks good, doesn't it?

It's Kennedy's wife and its continuity of government. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I like to think the last thing Johnson said as he told her she can leave now after being sworn is like, you need your stuff out of the White House in the next four hours, please. We'll get to that.

That wasn't quite that bad with Jackie. But yeah, the flight's's tense it is a very tense flight those in uh jfk's camp were drinking heavily apparently and quite soon started to very loudly bemoan the fate of the country losing such a great leader and now having to be ruled by such an idiot they were saying loudly in front of all of Johnson's aides. And Johnson himself. Yes, it was a bit tense. Once the plane landed, Bobby was waiting

and pushed past Johnson to get to Jackie. Understandably, that makes sense. Go and comfort your sister-in-law. Johnson, however however apparently did not take this well he was the president now how dare he just be bush pushed past as you can see no no good feelings between these groups here anyway the kennedys leave and johnson goes to work and the next day according to one story bobby arrives at the oval Office to find his brother's rocking chair upside down in the hall, which is a tad insensitive. His brother's secretary was in floods of tears as well, because she had just been

given a couple of hours to pack up her things and leave. So, uh, yeah, that's, like, the Kennedys in the actual residence area of the White House, were allowed to stay for some time, obviously. But the Oval Office, the West Wing, no, pack up your things, get out. This is my administration now. Oh dear. Now, how true these stories are, we're not really sure, because there very much is a he-said-he-said kind of debate

over which camp was being the most insensitive. But it's very clear, like I say, that the Kennedy and Johnson factions are not getting on with each other. And you can imagine how it's going to go, because all those aides who were supporting the vice president, who has no power at all, suddenly found themselves with all the power. And Johnson needs to think about what he's going to do with this power. So what's he going to do? It's a year until election. He's got to make a mark.

It depends if he wants to run or not again, which I assume he does. Yes, he wants to run again. He decides that immediately. He's got a year to stamp his mark and convince people that he should be president. I mean, trying to eradicate communism in some far-off country,

something like that? Maybe, but there's definitely something better he could aim to do. If he could convince the public that he could provide all that they imagined Kennedy was going to do, he'd be fine. Oh, just fulfil all of Kennedy's pledges and policies? Yeah. Now, as we saw, Kennedy was starting to really go down the civil rights progressive track. Wasn't always there, but by the end, he'd started to go in that direction

and was starting to make some strides. So Johnson thinks, okay, I'll carry on doing that. He invited two of his top aides to the White House swimming pool to outline his ideas. They have a swimming pool? Yeah, yeah.

This is something he did quite a bit as the president, apparently. It was an awkward meeting. It's nude only. Yeah. Oh! Johnson was... Oh, I was joking. Oh, no, no.

Johnson was in the habit of swimming naked. And apparently he was also quite proud of himself, shall we say. Right. Proud of what he referred to as jumbo. Oh. Yeah, he would literally whip it out just to prove that it was larger than the guy he was talking with. I mean, there's no subtlety here. There is no metaphor, nothing figurative about this.

It literally was a measuring contest that is fantastic yeah so anyway so you got the aids watching this uh this large naked man watching the presidential jumbo yes exactly probably doing breaststroke what the jumbo backstroke sorry not breaststroke probably backstroke so everyone's got a good clear view i'm guessing and he started to do the you know the um water aerobics where you like kick your head up in the air and yeah you go upside down legs split them apart that kind of thing yeah and then he and to dry just windmill i was gonna say he just starts he's completely upright and he just starts moving backwards.

It doesn't look like he's moving anything. And then it suddenly clicks how he's managing to propel himself. And oh, it's all very shocking. Anyway, all that's going on. He's the president. It's good to be president. Kennedy never did that. So anyway, they're in this meeting.

It's an awkward meeting. But whilst all this is going on, he's also outlining his ideas for reform. There is no way his aides are paying attention to that conversation. Well, apparently they were, because this was a big

conversation, this was. Big ideas. There was lots of synonyms for large being used. Thrown around. Tossed around, you could say. Mountainous. Ideas of epic proportion. Johnson was going to make reforms in education, in health, in transportation, urban renewal, measures to tackle poverty. These were so large and extensive ideas, one of the aides came up with the name The Great Society,

and that stuck. That's what they were going to do. They were going to make The Great Society. Mm. Yeah. Johnson's like, oh, wait, wait, wait, no. Not The Great Society, The Jumbo Society. That was his first suggestion, and then it was,

how about Great Society, sir, maybe? I don't think it's big enough. At least it's not called jerry that's true yeah sorry jerry but it is called jumbo so we now know the names of two presidential advantages yeah jumbo and jerry could be a cartoon i'm jum Jumbo Jerry. I'm Jumbo. I'm Jerry. We're here to teach you about American presidential history. Look at the size of this. So, awful, awful, horrible image in my head. Let's push that out of the way. Yes, it's an ambitious agenda.

Arguably unrealistically so. However, there is one area that it was obvious to start with, and that is civil rights. That's the one, yeah. Let's get on this train, shall we? The civil rights movement that obviously had already gained a lot of momentum, the I Have a Dream speech had happened recently. This was given another boost by

Kennedy's death. I mean, it had nothing to do with civil rights, the assassination, but it didn't mean that those pushing for the civil rights weren't angry about the fact that one of the first presidents to be actually doing something had been assassinated. A lot of people saw hope in Kennedy's presidency, and it really annoyed them that this president had been killed. So it just made the country sit up and think, maybe we really should not be racist. It's sad, though, that Johnson's only doing this so that he looks good. We can decide that when we judge him.

Let's get to the end. All right, sorry. I know what you mean, though. It depends how you read it, though. But anyway,'s get to the end. Alright, sorry. I know what you mean though. It depends how you read it though. But anyway, that's for the end. So, Johnson let it be known that a civil rights bill that Kennedy had been pushing would indeed be supported by him.

Don't worry, he said. I know you all loved Kennedy but I'm just like Kennedy. Just like Kennedy. I treat women just the same. But bigger. Yes. In fact, I'll quote him here. I knew that if I didn't get out in front of this issue the liberals would get me i had to produce a civil rights bill that was even stronger than

the one that they'd have gotten if kennedy had lived which uh if johnson is anything he's uh an astute politician and he realized that he he's he's got to deliver big here yeah because everyone is dreaming about what kennedy would have done and we know kennedy he was mediocre writ not even large just medium font so it's he probably wouldn't have got all this stuff done it was just all the the hope and bluster was there so johnson's thinking well I've got to deliver now. So he throws himself into a campaign of the bill. It was not lost on all that Johnson seemed to waver on this issue of civil rights, depending on the political wind. When asked why he was supporting this so hard,

when he had opposed a civil rights bill just back in 57, he simply quoted Martin Luther King saying, free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I'm free at last, which is a vague answer to say the least. I mean, to be fair, he was pushed a bit further on this. Good. And he said that now that he was free of local regional politics, he could now do what he wants as a national politician, which is just a very poor answer. He'd been a national politician for a very long time. Yeah.

But there you go. He's hoping everyone forgets that he made those white supremacist speeches not that long ago, just because it would get him some votes. But that's fine. Still, in his defense, if there's one thing to be said for a politician whose views shift on political tides, it does mean they actually listen to public opinion. And support for a decent Civil Rights Act was now at an all-time high.

So he wasn't just going to stay entrenched in his own views. Yeah. People want a civil rights bill? Fair enough. Let's do a civil rights bill then. It's good that he's not stubborn, I guess. Well, yeah. So there is something to be said for this.

I mean, you could argue politicians should all shift on political tides, because that will mean they're actually representing what the people think. It's what people want. I don't know, that's debatable. But anyway, this bill, this civil rights bill, it covers all sorts, and we don't have time to go into the minutiae, but to sum it up, it outlawed any discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex or national origin. It prohibited voter suppression in various ways. It tightened up laws for racial segregation and also made things fairer in employment. This is the big civil rights bill in American history.

This is the one that's still being built on now. This civil rights bill of 64. Do you think there'd have been any opposition for the fact that there's like the free speech thing well if i want to be racist i can it's my freedom of speech kind of thing or was it just not really considered back then that's a very good question i don't know if that is exactly how people would have phrased the argument against it it was more i want to want to be racist, damn it! Well, it was, I want to be racist and the states should allow me to be racist. Yeah.

It was more of an argument of states' rights versus national infringement rather than personal First Amendment rights. I don't think that argument was particularly used, but I certainly haven't looked into it. Maybe someone listening, if they know, they can let us know. But yeah, there certainly was pushback.

You're absolutely right. Yeah. There definitely was. Especially in the South, who saw this as federal overreach. They, as states, had a right to be racist if they wanted to, damn it. And you can't tell me otherwise. Okay, if you're a small C conservative, that kind of makes sense why you wouldn't like that. A bit of an overreach by the government. Okay, if you're a small-c conservative, that kind of makes sense why you wouldn't like

that. A bit of an overreach by the government. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I fundamentally object to the opinion, but I do understand their argument, even if I disagree with it completely. That said, however, this actually isn't a minority in the country at this point. Support is very high in both the Senate and the House for this bill. So after some political wrangling, which remember is what Johnson is known for, this is what Johnson does well, there was enough support for the Senate to vote to end the filibuster that was going on, that was holding up the bill. And within a month the bill passes the House and then the Senate. A very pleased Johnson signed the bill into law, although he did say, and I quote, I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.

No, certainly not. Not at all. And there you go. We now fully have it. The switch is complete. The last click into place has happened. The South is now Republican instead of Democratic. Now, amazingly, there are still a lot of people

in america and probably in the world who genuinely argue that the political parties have not made this switch and they are still ideologically the same as when they first formed which oh no it's just just baffling that anyone can even begin to make that argument it's just i mean you've got more of a leg to stand on if you make the bizarre the civil war was about states rights arguments i mean at least there is some kind of grain of truth that you can stem from there but anyway that's a side point i just always get confused by all you need to know for now is that yes the bill has gone through and this is genuinely jamie one of the best things that has happened in this podcast yeah it really is yes i mean it's not quite as high as

the emancipation of slaves um but it's it's pretty good this is and we don't get much good news very often do we jamie no no we don't not in this podcast so we're gonna grab this and we're gonna we're gonna feel good yeah we, we're going to feel good. Going to feel good. And it's good as well because in the future, all of them African-Americans now, their problems are now solved. Yeah, I mean, this, like I say, this came through in 64. I think it was about 60, 65, February.

It took January. February 65 and everything was great. No more racism. No more homophobia. No more. Brilliant. Yeah, it's great. I might as well end the podcast now. No more racism. No more homophobia. No more. Brilliant. Yeah, it's great. I might as well end the podcast now.

Yeah, wonderful. Well, thanks for listening. Oh, no. Hang on. Sorry, something's happened in Vietnam. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah.

Right. Okay. Vietnam, here we go. If one half of Johnson's presidency is focused on the Great Society, the other half can be summed up with the one word, Vietnam. And even as he was pushing through the civil rights bill, Vietnam was starting to turn into the quagmire that we know it as. From now on, I'm going to try and keep things roughly chronological,

but to keep the narrative flowing, I'm going to jump slightly in time as I swap from his Great Society stuff to his Vietnam stuff. Can you do me a favour when you edit the podcast, though? Yes. Very quietly in the background, just play some Doors music. That'd be amazing. Okay, but before we do that, I think it's only fair that I just explain a little bit about Vietnam first.

That make sense? Because the last few episodes I've been saying things like, I'm not going to get bogged down into info about Vietnam here. That's for later, I said. Firmly passing that problem on to future Rob. Well, future Rob is here um so damn it yeah uh so very brief summary on where we have got to so far in regards of this south east asian country here we go we're only going to go back 10 years i was tempted to go back to like the year was 25 bc uh no no we're

going back 10 years i'm being sensible 1954 the french were forced out of their colony that they had named french indo-china wonderful because the french were essentially the british yeah yeah a conference in geneva had divided this colony into three countries, because why not? That makes it easy for everybody, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's just simple, isn't it? Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Now, Vietnam, because, I mean, that's just a bit too simple, isn't it? So let's divide Vietnam further into North Vietnam and South Vietnam. into North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Just like Korea, the North is communist and the South is not communist.

Or capitalist, you could say. So what you need to do is get, like, just type in Vietnam into Google Images and you get, like, a map picture. On the left-hand side, you get lovely photographs of Vietnam. It looks amazing. Oh, yeah, yes, yes, yes. It's beautiful.

Lovely jungles. Yeah. As long as no one's trying to kill you. No. Yeah. As long as you're not trying to fight, like, a guerrilla war there or something, yes, yes. It's beautiful. Lovely jungles. Yeah. As long as no one's trying to kill you. No. Yeah. As long as you're not trying to fight like a guerrilla war there or something. Yeah, yeah. As long as no one's dropping napalm on your family.

Yeah. I can almost smell the napalm. Apart from that. Lovely. Yeah. Anyway, you are going to be utterly shocked when I say this. Are you ready? Are you preparing your shocked face?

I'm preparing my shocked face. Okay. Here we go. Here we go. You know these lines that were drawn on a map half a world away yeah yeah to make things easier yeah it didn't lead to a lasting peace what i know i know i mean i suppose there's always an exception to prove the rule isn't there always yeah i mean like like india and pakistan perfect exactly israel and palestine it's worked north and south korea yeah it's wonderful newcastle and the rest of england scotland and england yeah the uh the idea was with north and south vietnam is they were split now but

they can have an election in the future and decide whether they want to be a unified country or not now you'll be unsurprised to learn that North Vietnam, who had been the main force behind pushing the French out, found, no, hang on, we're the ones who kicked the French out. We now get to rule the country. We've not been fighting for years for a chance to lose half the country because some elections going on has been run by countries from overseas. No, this is our country, they said. So they decided to take the South, and their strategy was, we're not going to go and invade the South. We will just get people who already

live in the South to rise up, insurgents. These are known as the Viet Cong. So if you've ever been confused by the Viet Cong and the North Korean troops and what's the difference, well, that's it. You've got North Vietnam as an actual country, and then you've got the Viet Cong who are actually South Vietnam. And they were rising up, so that's the difference there. Anyway, as we've seen, the United States' policy of attempting to stop the spread of communism had led them to giving military aid to the south to help push back the Viet Cong. And as we saw, this aid soon turned into advisors. Honest, they were advising. Yes. Advising in their camouflage. 20,000 advisors. Yes, exactly. Just don't ask how many advisors there are. It's fine. By the time JFK was in power, the number of advisors were

growing rapidly. And he was advised that the problem was the deeply corrupt southern Vietnamese government. Right. Until South Vietnam had a strong government, there's only so much the United States could bunny rabbit ears advise. Yeah. Sorry, by bunny rabbit ears. I just realised if I say bunny rabbit ears and actually do air quotes and then people figure out what I'm talking about, that's what I was doing.

Oh, you know I got it. It's fine. Oh, you can see me. That's why anyone listening could definitely just be going, what? I think it's an idiot. Anyway. So the United States did what the United States was getting very good at and they supported a coup in South Vietnam. How did that happen? However, despite the coup working,

you're going to have to get your shocked face out again. Okay, ready. This did not stabilise the Southern Vietnamese government. Oh my goodness, what? I know, crazy. Whoa. Yeah, they supported a coup, and yet the new one was just as bad. So, oh dear.

The conditions in the south of the country were rapidly going downhill, and it only seemed a matter of time before the south of the country fell to the communists. And this is the situation inherited by Johnson. So there you go. Brief summary there. And this is a big problem, because it's an election year. And Johnson and all his advisers agreed pulling out of Vietnam would make the United States look weak. It would embolden the Soviets and more importantly, all the other countries that were staying out of the Cold War for fear of the United States, especially countries in Southeast Asia and

South America. Excuse me, sir. Mr. President, I know you're not a fan of pulling out. But if we try and fight and lose, wouldn't it look even worse, sir? Sir? Well, there were certainly some people saying that, yes, but not enough. But they were also saying things like, if we stay in,

we are really going to have to start committing here because we are losing this war. Yeah. Now, throwing troops into a war with hard-to-define goals and the reasons being a bit vague before an election, it wasn't something that politicians particularly wanted to do, is it? I mean, it's not. It's not something you can knock on doors and campaign about.

Vote for me. I'm going to send your children to an unspecified war halfway across the country. I can't really explain why we're doing it clearly. And I can't tell you how long it's going to take. But they get to play with fire. We've got burning jelly. We've invented burning jelly. It's great. Wonderful stuff. Anyway, then something happens that forces Johnson's hand.

A northern Vietnamese torpedo boat had attacked a US destroyer called the Maddox. Now, this was in response to the South attacking northern coastal installations. It wasn't out of the blue. It wasn't unprovoked. But it was a direct attack on a United States warship, essentially. Now, Johnson initially sought to downplay this. People will get angry. The Hawk faction will be demanding blood.

So let's just keep this quiet for now. However, there's a problem keeping things quiet because the winner of the Republican primary, a man named Goldwater, had started to accuse Johnson of being weak and soft. Yeah, you don't want that. Now, Goldwater was from the very far right of the Republican Party,

and he had gone in hard in his campaign against the threat of communism. He was even hinting at using nukes to help get victory in northern Vietnam. Ooh. Ooh is the right answer, yeah.

It's the right response. It's like, oh dear, yeah. It's amazing how long it takes for the United States to come away from the idea of just using nukes as a solution. 20 years. Because it's still coming up. Well, we could just nuke them. No, no, you can't.

That's a bad idea. Fine, I will burn it then. That's okay. Not only was Johnson being attacked by Goldwater for being soft and weak, however, he was also being attacked by Bobby Kennedy in his own party. Now, at this point in history, very few were aware that Bobby and John Kennedy had actually negotiated with Khrushchev over the Cuban Missile Crisis,

suggesting removing the Turkish missiles. Remember, that was all done hush-hush. So most people, including Johnson, it would appear, thought that the United States' tough stance is what ended the crisis. So maybe we should just keep being tough. Yeah. Just be tough. So Johnson was afraid if he didn't match the

Kennedy's tough stance and he didn't match Goldwater's tough stance, he will just end up looking weak and he'll lose the next election. So due to these reasons, he decides to retaliate. He asks Congress for permission to take all necessary measures to repel attacks.

A wonderfully vague statement that gives him a lot of leeway. There's no numbers here or anything. It's like, if I want, can I do what I want? Yes. Yes, you can. Just send the bill. He also told the public that the attack

on the Maddox was totally unprovoked, which is a straight-up lie. He knew it was a lie. He did it anyway. Yeah. Then the Maddox reported that it was under fire again. Another torpedo had been sent towards them. Another one. Another one, yeah.

So Johnson's thinking, great, okay, I'm on the right track here. If I keep attacking, this will gain support However Shortly afterwards A very embarrassed Maddox had to Admit that actually They'd had a bit of a think Bit of a chin scratcher

And They weren't actually sure they'd been attacked anymore Oh It could have just been the weather affecting the sonar and the sonar man getting a little bit overexcited. Now, considering how embarrassing this must have been for those high up in the Navy to admit, I'm guessing it must have happened,

otherwise they would not have admitted it. Well, yeah. Yeah. It would appear that the person reading the sonar just freaked out one day and went, we're under attack! And they weren't. Right. Yeah.

Now, I should be clear, this is only the second attack. The first one apparently did happen, and they were jumpy afterwards. But it's not what you want, is it? No, no. No. What's that spoof of Top Gun? Fairly sure there's a scene where the guy sneezes on the uh so now and then starts reporting of extra um hot shots yes yeah yeah i guess it's wonderful i'm guessing that's how it happened how well has that aged i wonder i loved it as a kid

but it would not surprise me if i watched it now and just went ooh I think it's very early 90s isn't it because there's Hot Shots 1 which is more Top Gun then Hot Shots 2 I think is more

sort of Vietnamese Vietnam War my memory of it is Charlie Sheen with shooting a chicken with a bow and arrow and they touch it

it's hilarious I love that very deep and meaningful as you can imagine Johnson keeps this shooting a chicken with a bow and arrow. Yes. And they touch it. Oh, it's hilarious. I love that scene. Very deep and meaningful. As you can imagine, Johnson keeps this embarrassing mistake hidden from the public and ramps up his hawkish speeches. Excellent.

He's full on in the hawk faction now. He wants everyone to be very clear he is as tough as Goldwater and Bobby Kennedy. Yeah. Because there's an election going on, damn it. So, let's swing over to the election, shall we? The Democrat convention was about to happen.

Now, there's no arguments. Johnson is going to be the nominee. No one's even debating this. Excellent. We've got our nominee. The only thing anyone could talk about in the back rooms while smoking their cigars and drinking their brandy was who's going to get the vice president position.

Now, Bobby Kennedy was overwhelmingly the most popular decision, but Johnson hated the idea. No way is that man being my vice president. Yeah, he's terrible. He's an awful human being. On his... hours after his brother died,

he said he wouldn't support me as president. What an arse. Pretty much, yeah. Now, instead, he was going to go for a guy called Humphreys. He didn't say this at the time, at least not in public, because there was a problem going on in the convention. A depressing one. Because in Mississippi, there were now two Democratic parties.

Two? Hmm. Yeah. The traditional Democratic Party, which, as you can imagine, was entirely made up of white men. Yeah. And a new Freedom Democratic Party, which was made up of black Democrats, who pointed out that the all-white party is completely illegitimate because they are not representative.

Oh. Yeah, so you've got these two parties pointing at each other going, they're not the real one. Now, Johnson didn't want this to overshadow the convention. Yes, he knew all the civil rights was popular at the moment, and no, he didn't like racism, but he didn't want people to be talking about racism during the convention. It would put everyone off, damn it. So how can we just make this go away? So many advise Johnson, well, just,

it's really easy, this, just ban the Freedom Party. I mean, they're not the legitimate one by law, so just ban them. I'm going to apologise for the language I use here, but I feel it's important so you get a sense of how these people who are being lauded as the front of the civil rights movement in politics were talking to each other. I'll say a beep when you say the bad word. If you seat those black jiggerboos, the whole South will walk out. Beep. Yeah. That was the general thinking in the Democrat Party at the time. See, they're playing politics

they don't really care about. Yeah. These are the people who are pushing for the civil rights. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, um, footage, however, of black people being beaten up and thrown in jail in Mississippi for simply trying to register to vote

swung the tide a bit. Because that doesn't look good, does it? So a compromise was sought for. Now, Humphreys had a strong connection with the liberal wing of the party. So the reason why Johnson hadn't said, you can be my vice president yet, was he was going to get Humphreys to just sort this out. Could you, Humphreys? And if you do a good job, then who knows?

Maybe there's a vice president seat going. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Yeah. So a compromise was come up with. How about the Mississippi Democrat delegates come along and two members of the Freedom Party as well? Ah, so combine. Yeah.

I mean, that is like a whole bunch. I don't know the exact number, but we're talking probably about 30 people from the Democratic Party in Mississippi coming along and two members of the Freedom Party. How about that? Just for even daring to suggest this, the white delegates from Mississippi storm out

and completely leave the convention. They just go home outraged. I guess I'd say it's an insult because we're legitimate, but they're not legitimate. Why do we have to do this? It's ridiculous. Yeah. And we're racist.

Yeah, that's pretty much what they said, yes. The Freedom Party had 21 delegates, so they just took up all the seats. All 21 joined in. Oh, okay. However, they were not officially recognised. So they were in the room, but they couldn't do anything. Ah.

Yeah. But this was enough of a compromise for the rest of the South not to walk out. So it wasn't smooth. It wasn't a good compromise. In fact, it was an awful compromise, but it was still a compromise, so it meant things could tick over yeah so yeah that's

all a bit not good a bit messy yeah anyway the convention starts and bobby gives a speech about his brother a 22 minute standing ovation then took place minutes. 22 minutes of clapping. I'd have to break and sit down after 10. No, after 5. It has to be Red War. Why would you do that? I've heard a lot of worry, of stress,

articles written about the idea that mobile phones and the internet have meant we've all got short attention spans nowadays and it's really terrible. But no one ever talks about the flip side is that nowadays no one would put up with a 22 minute standing ovation no way no way you've got stuff to do yeah you just send a thumbs up emoji yeah after after 20 to 25 claps you'd be slyly getting your phone out to check Twitter, wouldn't you? Yeah, so what's Ben Shapiro saying? Oh, dear. Yeah, exactly.

So, anyway, a 22-minute ovation took place. It's still taking place, as far as I know. It's still going on. Just one solitary old guy. Anyway, Johnson got the nomination with no fuss. And then the first polls came out for the actual presidential election And showed that he's going to win, no problem In fact, the poll showed he had 69% of the support compared to 31% It kind of makes sense

So yeah, his tactic of showing the country that if they wish Kennedy was still alive, then, well, they've got the next best thing. I mean, it was working. And it did work. He wins in a landslide. Utter landslide. The whole map is blue pretty much because the South hasn't quite shifted yet because this has all been going on recently with the civil rights stuff.

So, anyway, yeah, he's a real president with real president pens and real president shoes and everything so this is good so time to move on with the great society agenda he's uh he's already got victories with civil rights he's made some progress on his war on poverty which i'm not going to go into uh in this episode for time reasons but just know he's doing stuff to try and help the poor and poor urban areas rejuvenate them and stuff. So on to educations next on the list. Now as we've seen the main issue in education at the moment is segregation but with Brown v Board and the Civil Rights Act now in place, the federal government now has quite a decent amount of power to enforce desegregation. So, I mean, if segregation, it's not fixed yet, no, but it's getting much, much better.

We're on the right track. So what else needs to be fixed in education, he thinks? Well, there has been a big debate over funding recently that has been overshadowed by all the segregation stuff. And we shouldn't be ignoring it. To many people, this is very important. And you'll be pleased to know, Jamie, don't worry, that this debate over funding has nothing to do with the colour of people's skin.

Right. Yeah, that's good. It's all about what type of Christianity they were. Oh, OK. Yes, yes. Because many opposed to funding Catholic schools. Right. Because if you to funding Catholic schools. Right. Because if you give the Catholics money, then they might try and take over the country or something.

Give it to the Pope. Yes, and here, take over the world. Yeah. Those high up in government who were Catholic, obviously, opposed funding only non-Catholic schools. I mean, obviously, they were upset by this. So there's this big debate going on. As it turned out, though, this issue, despite it being a big problem for many years,

it had been a big election issue when Kennedy was around. Well, it just seemed to disappear. Johnson didn't have to do much. A large factor could have been, it's been theorized, that a Catholic president, the first ever, had just been assassinated. And a lot of people now stopped and thought about

it. It's like, you know what, that Kennedy fella he didn't seem like he was trying to take over the country for the Pope. Now I think about it. In fact, he didn't seem evil at all. Maybe these Catholics are just like us.

With real thoughts and feelings. Yeah, maybe they are. So, yeah, anti-Catholic feeling really seemed to take a knock at this time. So that's nice, isn't it? I didn't know there was one. Oh, yeah. I mean, it mostly stems from racism against the Irish coming over. That makes sense. Yes, but there's also deeper things going on um and yes obviously it's not just kennedy being

assassinated the whole civil rights movement obviously wasn't just about black people although obviously that was the vast majority of it but it's very hard to talk about equality for black people without also mentioning that you know know what, everyone should be equal. So, yeah, this is good. So Johnson pushes something through where we're going to fund students instead of institutions. That way there's no arguments about which schools. And, yeah, that works. So another bill passes, resulting in a fairer education system.

Good. On to the next one. And this one's even bigger. Healthcare. Oh, oh. Oh, yes. At the time, Johnson pointed out, because he'd been told a fact and it was a shocking one. Four out of five of all people over 65 had a disability or a chronic disease.

Four out of five? Yeah. But... 80%? But over half of them had no health insurance whatsoever. So were not being treated. I've got a solution for that. Now, the state of healthcare in the country was a complete mess.

I mean, to be fair, the state of healthcare in the entire world was a complete mess at this time, but it was in America. And it did not help that New Zealand, and more importantly for worldwide impact, Britain, had just created this crazy idea of a free universal healthcare system. Oh, where everyone pays a little bit, but everyone benefits from it kind of thing yeah that'll be it uh britain is usually credited um but actually new zealand got there before britain yeah i did and obviously other countries had done bits that russia had gone into bits of it and stuff it's a bit complicated but uh new zealand and Britain, the entire country, universal health care for everyone.

Great. Everyone in Britain and New Zealand were loving that, I can tell you. So many lives being saved every day. Yeah, it just was very obviously a very good thing for the country because people suddenly stopped dying in the streets. It was great. In fact, it was going so well that Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Egypt all followed suit almost immediately. Canada started pushing towards it, as did Japan. The Soviet Union looked at it and went, oh, you know what, this is a good idea. That's right up our alley.

Well, yeah. In fact, the trend was clear. This was going to continue, and over the next few decades every country that could support the infrastructure to do so was turning to universal health care yeah the only reason why countries weren't were the ones that just literally couldn't do it so what's the united states going to do uh well truman had attempted to make some inroads in this area but it just went nowhere. The American Medical Association and conservative Republicans had made sure of that.

In their words, it would, and I quote here, invade every area of freedom in the country to have health care for all. Everyone should have the right to choose what type of health care they've got, not have it forced upon them. Which is true here, because you can go NHS or you can go private. Ah but you still have to pay taxes for the NHS. That is true. Yes so that's the argument against it. To sum up they did not want universal health care. They just felt like it would infringe on freedoms. In fact even supporting the poor with aid would stop freedoms, apparently. Incidentally, it would also harm the profits of the companies in the sector, they theorised.

But that was nothing to do with it. It was all about freedom. Absolutely not, no. Yes, definitely. Also, many Democrats and Republicans feared that this would result in massive government spending that would spiral out of control. If the government had to start paying for the medical bills, well, yeah, that's going to cost a fortune. Just spiral out of control. If the government had to start paying for the medical bills, well, yeah, that is going to cost a fortune, just spiral out of control. We don't want an area of government spending spiralling out of control again, because obviously they've already got one of those, and that's the military, which has hugely spiralled out of control by this point. So we don't want another one of those, because that's not good. So yeah, that was another

argument against it. However, in the progressive train that was hurtling onwards at the moment, the momentum was finally there to do something. The Democratic chairman of the Ways and Means Committee came up with a proposal, and this was called Medicare. This meant over 65s would be provided with hospital insurance through Social security so there you go that's nice but to keep the conservatives happy doctor's bills would still be voluntary so they could you could opt into an insurance program for your doctor's bills but you didn't have to to keep the liberals happy about that however an extended medicare program would be implemented to help the poorest and this was

called medicaid is this kind of what the free clinics are now in the u.s this is still to this day what what the uf house system is built upon it's obviously changed since but roughly this is the foundation of it it passes it goes through so there you go excellent i guess at that time that's quite a big compromise isn't it oh yeah. This was much better than it was before. It meant if you were over 65, you weren't going to die of a simple illness just because you can't afford to go to hospital. Yeah.

So it was good. I mean, it's not universal health care. No. Which, I don't know, I probably should say, we are coming from a very biased position being British here. But I will just say it is one of the most baffling things looking at America from the outside, that the country doesn't have universal healthcare.

That is such a given in not just Britain, but pretty much every other country that can support the system, that you would surely aim to have that. I've got a friend in the US, more of an acquaintance, but her husband has type 1 diabetes like me. I get all of my insulin, blood testing strips, anything I need absolutely free. He's paying just under a grand a month for the same thing that i'm getting for free and it's you it's sad it's really sad because people people ration the

medications i can't afford it this month so they ration take an insulin yeah and insulin is something like your body produces if it doesn't you've got to have it otherwise you're going to die and people being put in that position is just atrocious and i get you can say well i've got good insurance i don't have to pay that much i get that but there's people that don't have that insurance yeah yeah and they're being punished for being poor and it's not fair linking your health care to your employment is just such a bad idea especially when you live in a hyper capitalist society where boom and bust means people's jobs are not secure yeah anyone listening um who is going oh they don't understand

how great our health care actually is over here maybe i don't maybe i don't appreciate it but it just from an outside perspective the american health care system is confusing. Anyway, so, yeah, this passes the House with no problems at all. It just sails through the momentums with it. However, it still needs to get through the Senate, and the American Medical Association would be piling on the pressure, as would the Conservative Republicans. So, Johnson tackles the Republicans first. He invited a bunch of senators to the White House just after the bill passed the House to discuss it, and also invited TV cameras. And without warning, he asked a senator called Byrd, the leading Republican opposing the bill and chairman of the Finance Committee, which the bill would have to get through, he asked him, will you arrange a prompt hearing? Byrd had not

anticipated this. He just thought they were discussing the content of the bill. And suddenly he was posed a question in front of the TV cameras. So he had to agree just to save face. He was hardly going to say no. Because this was a different age back when politicians thought they actually had to say things like, of course we'll do a prompt hearing. Unlike nowadays where you get politicians openly bragging about how they're holding up the government. But anyway, different time. Anyway, so the bill was not going to be held up in theory.

Johnson then invited the American Medical Association to the White House and pretty much pulled the same trick. He invited them to the White House to discuss doctors going to Vietnam. How patriotic. Again, reporters were there, and Johnson thanked the Medical Association for their patriotism. Look at you doing your bit for the country,

helping doctors get over there, you brilliant, brilliant men. Anyway, any questions, journalists? And as predicted, one of the journalists asked the medical association are you going to support medicare it was the obvious question johnson then quickly jumps in and answers for them of course they'll support the law of the land aren't you yeah this this shows how good johnson is at this kind of stuff he knew that the question was going to be answered. He was ready and he didn't say they should support it. It's a good idea. He completely

puts it to the side, the argument of whether it's good or not. He just says, of course they support the law. And there's no answer to that. The leader of the American Medical Association was forced to agree in our quote, we are, after all, law-abiding citizens and we have every intention

of obeying the law sigh wonderful yeah so things are going well in this area the country's education civil rights uh health care uh poverty all these areas everything is doing well like really well yeah i'm actually more impressed now So let's jump over to the other side again, shall we? So it's February 65, and a massive offensive from the Viet Cong took place. Many United States troops lost their lives, and this is what Johnson had been waiting for and dreaded, because now he was going to have to put into action those tough words he'd been bandying about for quite some time. Yeah.

Now, as details of the attack came in, the mood got worse and worse in the White House. It is obvious that the South was losing this war and the United States were being dragged down with them. Was it time to stop being defensive and just attack the North? Now, this has its problems. At the moment, this is a proxy war in the Cold War. If the United States invaded, would the Soviets or China join in? Because that's World War III. Yeah. However, Johnson was appalled at the reports coming in that most of the United States troops were asleep when the Viet Cong bombs had gone off. And I'll quote him here, we have kept our guns over the mantle for a long

time now. And what was the result? They're killing our men while they sleep at night. So Johnson makes a decision. We're not going to invade the north. That's probably a step too far. Instead, we are going to bomb a Viet Cong

base north of the border. So we're not attacking the northern troops. No. We're not attacking the northern troops. No. We're not invading. We are bombing southern Vietnamese insurgents. We're pushing them back.

That happen to be north of the border. Yeah. Yeah. So there we go. So they do. They bomb. This resulted in, you'll never guess what,

retaliation. Yes, loss of death. This resulted in, you'll never guess what, retaliation. Yes, loss of death. It resulted in lots of death and retaliation from the Viet Cong a few days later, hitting a US barracks. Johnson and his advisors decide, right, we're going all in. They came up with a plan and they called it Operation Rolling Thunder. I can only imagine that morning they came up with the title and then they decided that's it. That's it for today. We'll come back tomorrow. We're not topping that in this meeting.

Operation Rolling Thunder. How cool does that sound? We'll work out the details tomorrow because it's going to be great with a name like that, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that's going to be great. Yeah, here is the idea though that they came up with probably the next day um what we're gonna do is we're gonna gradually apply pressure on the north

until they give in we're gonna do this by increasing our bombing until the north go no no just edging forward ever so slightly Yes. Now, hopefully this boiled lobster approach would mean that the Russians and China won't get drawn in. This is the idea. Yeah. However, it was a bluff and one that was seen through immediately because the North Vietnamese government figured that the United States won't dare bomb the important northern cities, such as the capital, Hanoi.

Yeah. Because that would be too much. so the bombing will escalate but they're never actually going to bomb us here in the capital and they were absolutely right the united states have decided no we can't bomb the capital because that would be too far so north vietnam just didn't give in to the pressure taking the hit to the south of their country and the bombing raids continued and continued, and they just didn't do much. They certainly weren't stopping the Viet Cong. They definitely were creating sympathizers for the Viet Cong.

Recruitment for the Viet Cong went through the roof. It wasn't stopping them. So, late in February, General Westmoreland, top US commander in Vietnam, sent a request. Can we please have two battalions to defend the main american air base because i think we're in a bit of trouble here yeah well this would cross a line there's no way of dressing up two battalions as advisors it doesn't matter how many clipboards you're giving them that's clearly two battalions just a tank covered in cardboard clipboards

see it's an advisor it's fine it's the whiteboard that's what it is we use that to draw our advice on oh Darren put the cannon down put the cannon down yeah no this is full on sending in the troops in there's no dressing it up

any other way the ambassador to Vietnam at this time was a man named Taylor. This is a respected World War II veteran, very respected. He knew his onions, apparently. He opposed the idea of bringing in those two battalions. He said to anyone who would listen at the time, no, if you do this, the US troops will fare no better than the French did. Now, this caught

quite a few people's attention because taylor pretty much up to this point had been calling for more troops to be sent over but it would appear taylor had a bit of a change of heart where he realized oh actually no if you're going to send two whole battalions over this uh no we're just going to end up like the french did. And that did not end well. Well, I guess he's on the ground as well, so he's seeing this isn't working. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, he knew how to fight. He's a military man, and he'd made an assessment.

He's there in Vietnam now, and it's like, no, we're just going to get bogged down. But by this time, Johnson's in too deep. He found he had no choice, and I'll quote, I guess we've got no choice. Sorry, there is i'll quote here i guess we've got no choice sorry there is more to that i guess we've got no choice but it scares the death out of me the vietcong are not going to run and then you're tied down yes but despite the misgivings he ordered 3 000 marines to vietnam they arrived on march the 8th i I want you to send your youngest, most inexperienced Marines, please. Off you go. Oh, no, no. These ones were experienced.

Yeah, they've had two weeks of training. It's fine. No, no, no. These ones are genuinely experienced. Okay. Yeah, 3,000. Have you got that number? 3,000? Yeah. Anyway, yeah, they arrive. And there you go. The line is now crossed. America now has troops in Vietnam.

They arrive and they say, we're the first troops america now has troops in vietnam they arrive and they say we're the first troops to steve what are you doing here is that a clipboard i've been here for a year just a clipboard full of like bullet holes yeah um so yeah the seal's broken now um troops are now going to vietnam. And Johnson was right to be worried because immediately the request was given for 30,000 soldiers from the Pentagon. Wow. And then that was quickly changed.

They realised maybe 30,000 was... OK, maybe that was... Maybe 40,000. 45. Oh, really? 45,000, yeah. You weren't far off. I was joking. Again, the ambassador 45,000. Yeah, you weren't far off. I was joking.

Again, the ambassador, Taylor, opposed this. No, no, seriously. If you do that, they will get bogged down. And by bogged down, I mean die. Yeah. Johnson listened to Taylor. He listened to Westmoreland. And a compromise was reached.

We will send 40,000 men, but those men... It's not a compromise! No, but it is slightly. Those men all have to stay within 50 miles of their base. So they are there to defend bases only. They're not there to invade. They're not there to scout. They're not there to patrol.

They're there to defend bases. So you're then in a siege position. Well, could argue that. uh anyway westmoreland asked well okay i see where you're coming from but from a military standpoint that is very silly we need to send some patrols out so we can see what's going on around us surely we can send out patrols and johnson fair enough he he agreed. It does actually make sense. You don't want to be completely blind, do you? Despite all this, amazingly, the press at the time saw little escalation. All of the reports were still about the bombing.

That's what everyone was focusing on. Operation Rolling Thunder, it had a cool name, damn it. Yeah. The anti-war people were saying, stop the bombs. The pro-war people were saying, bombs. It was not a very nuanced debate. No. Very, very black and white. Yeah. No one was really talking about the buildup of troops. So it just kind of happened. No one

was really paying attention. Yeah, there's some troop movement, but the new troops are defensive, so it's not really a big deal, is it? So the bombing in the north continued, and continued to do little. Meanwhile, by May, the Viet Cong raids into the south were becoming more and more devastating. The southern Vietnamese forces were just falling apart completely. Westmoreland was determined to use the forces he now had offensively, rather than just waiting to be attacked. I mean, you can understand why. You've now got hundreds of thousands of men

and you're still just sitting there doing nothing. I can see his point. So he starts aggressively patrolling, shall we say. Yes, just some patrols, that's all. Just march louder. Yes. Frown as you're doing it. Back home at this point, so we're in May of 65,

the war has a 70% approval rating. Pretty much everyone is on board. Is that from years of anti-communist propaganda? Yes, very much so. As we have seen since and recently, it's disturbingly easy to get a country on board with a war to begin with. Or a stupid idea. Yes, also.

Yes. Yeah, as far as the country was concerned, almost all the troops were out of harm's way, and this was a bombing campaign. The troops over there were just to make sure everyone was extra safe. Yeah, they're all fine. They're all fine. So few paid attention when 200,000 more troops were requested.

Wow. Yeah. Johnson had to make a decision, because this really is a tipping point here. If he agrees to this, it would mean the United States no longer was supporting the South Vietnamese army. It would mean that they now were being supported by the South Vietnamese army. It means that it would outnumber them. I will quote Johnson here, what I would like to know is what's happened in recent months that requires this kind of decision on my part. Now, this was him addressing a room full of the Joint Chief of Staffs and various

advisors and the Defence Secretary. So six days of discussion take place. To be fair, they don't just wave it on through. They had quite a bit of discussion take place. To be fair, they don't just wave it on through. They had quite a bit of discussion about whether to do this. Do we make this extra step? It was quickly agreed that the South Vietnamese government was probably going to fall. We've been saying this for a while. They can't be relied on. It's only a matter of time. Johnson asked, can the United States function without local intelligence over there? No one really gave an answer, but no one said no either. So that was just pushed to one side.

Now, after about six days of debating, the arguments going on in all this was summed up by one advisor. Playing devil's advocate, he said, right, these are the reasons against doing this. Number one, everything we have done for the last 10 years, since 1954, has been because the previous plan we tried failed. And this is the same. This is still us just whacking bandages on the problem. This is not proactive. This is us reacting. Number two, if we do this, we are committing troops to a land war we cannot win, because the government we're planning to help is already falling to all intents and purposes it has fallen so the outcome of helping the south vietnamese government is not possible number three we're about to send conventional troops into a guerrilla war

on their home turf in dense jungle and gorillas are very aggressive animals. Yes, exactly. And history tells us what happens when we do this. Throughout all of history, it always goes bad for the side that sends their normal troops in to fight the gorillas. We've all seen Planet of the Apes. Exactly. Number four, we have no idea how long this war is going to take, and the cost will rise every single year, in life and in money. A diplomatic solution ultimately will be cheaper. The Secretary of Defence at this point, McNamara, apparently replied this. Wasn't he a football commentator, McNamara? Yes, but I'm guessing it was a different one. Maybe not, maybe it's the same guy. Anyway, McNamara replied this, and I'll quote, I think we can answer most of the questions posed there.

this and I'll quote, I think we can answer most of the questions posed there. But then crucially, he didn't. He literally just said that. That's a politician answer, isn't it? That's wonderful. Instead, the security advisor, who had just given this big list of very good reasons why not to get into this war, then said the counter-argument. And I'll quote his counter-argument in full. Let's sum up. The world, the country, and the Vietnamese people would have an alarming reaction if we get out. So that is the argument for, and all the previous ones are the argument against.

So, death, destruction, it's not possible to win, or sad feelings. Slightly miffed. McNamara, to be fair, I'm being slightly disingenuous here, did go on to talk about the domino effect. If the United States back out now, they would lose Vietnam. They'd lose Laos. They'd lose Cambodia.

Thailand and Burma would then follow. Pakistan would waver. Greece and Turkey would get closer to the Soviets, etc, etc, etc. If we do this, it's the first pebble on a communist avalanche. We need to stop it, nip it in the bud right now. And that is a fair argument. That is a fair argument, far fairer than just sad feelings. However, as much as that is a strong argument, is it as strong as the arguments against? I mean, but this is what they've been spending six days discussing.

Because then also if you escalate, like you said earlier, it'll be all or three. Well, yeah, exactly. The Admiral of the Navy chimes in at this point. By putting more men in, it'll turn the tide. the tide sooner or later we'll force them to the conference table I'd like to think the Admiral of the Navy always talked in sea metaphors

we'll get the bonnacle to the stick shaft yeah I like the fact he used turn the tide it's good but yeah that seemed to swing it it's like yeah actually if we just pour loads of troops in, show Johnny North Vietnamese the taste of our cold steel, then they'll run screaming, won't they?

Of course they will. Like an octopus to a shark. Yes, said the Admiral. Yeah. Yeah. So let's do that, shall we? Well, in the end uh only two people in the meeting opposed the escalation both these men pointed out this is going to lead to a long

protracted messy war with no positive outcome but johnson was sold he publicly announced a further 50 000 troops to be sent with and i quote additional forces sent later as requested. So no upper limit whatsoever. Wow. Do you think that another element of opposition could have been, well, who's protecting us? If Russia decides to, say, invade now, which is unlikely, but if they did, who's protecting the homeland? Because our troops are in, like, Vietnam,

which is, don't even know where it is on a map. I don't think that was really a concern. I was concerned that the Russians would drop nukes, but soldiers aren't going to stop that land invasion of america's just not going to work i know but there's often that kind of that argument which is always ridiculous yeah i don't think it was really something that was uh considered no no podcast back then i guess to spread the fear well johnson apparently started to suffer under the strain at this point. Lady Bird. Remember Lady Bird, his wife?

Yeah. She was worried for his health, which I think was kind of her, considering all he does is cheat on her. She said that Johnson remarked often how he was sending hundreds of thousands of young men off to die, and it was playing on his mind.

It would. Still, it's not all doom and gloom, though, because Johnson's getting somewhere with the next step in the Great Society. Hooray! We flip that coin and we're back onto the other side of his presidency. Positivity!

Voting rights this time. The largely toothless Civil Rights Bill of 57 had done no way near enough to ensure voting suppression stopped whatsoever. And sure enough, many southern states had managed to find their way around it using loopholes. In fact, in Mississippi, yes, that's right, it's Mississippi again, only 6% of the black population were eligible to vote. Six.

Wow. Yeah. Now, Martin Luther King, obviously hot on this issue at the time, he organised a programme to help black people register in Salma, Alabama. That's where he was making this push. There was a sheriff in Salma, Alabama. You'll be pleased to know. His name is Jim Clark. In McClark? Jim. Jim Clark. Jim McClark. Jim Clark. You're saying that like I should know.

No, no, you shouldn't know. I just feel like we should all remember Jim Clark's name McClark. Jim Clark. You're saying that like I should know. No, no, you shouldn't know. I just feel like we should all remember Jim Clark's name. Oh dear. He doesn't do anything particularly worse than other people we've come across. It's just, seriously, what is wrong with these people? He organised all his deputies to line the streets where the people were going to go and register to vote. He supplied his deputies with cattle prods and they just attacked the black people trying to register to vote.

I don't say this lightly. I hope Jim Clark is dead. Oh, he's dead. Don't worry. It was a long time ago. Was he killed by a cattle prod? Let's say yes. I'm not going to look into it. Like inserted somewhere for about an hour. He sat down on a cattle prod one Let's say yes. I'm not going to look into it. Like inserted somewhere for about an hour. He sat down on a cattle prod one day. That's what he did. I hope he's placed down on a cattle prod.

Yes. What on earth? Yeah. Images of white policemen cattle prodding unarmed citizens, including children, by the way. Oh. Yeah. Once again outraged the country.

Johnson told Martin Luther King that, OK, I'm going to speed up this part of my agenda now. This is obviously a hot issue. You're absolutely right. I've been too slow here because Johnson had been pushing this one to the back. urgent. You need to get it done. But this was the straw. So things are going to get done. However, King is not about to sit around and wait on the word of a politician, obviously. So he organizes a massive march on the state capital of Mississippi, one that he didn't personally attend because there was very credible evidence that someone was trying to assassinate him at this point. So he didn't go on the march. However, hundreds of people did march. You will be shocked to learn that they were all beaten in the street. Seriously beaten. This isn't just knocking them back. They were chased down in the streets and just beaten half to death. There was only one hospital in the region that allowed black people to go in and be treated.

So yeah, it was soon very, very full and full of people with lots of injuries. Again, all caught on camera. In fact, there was a showing on ABC that night of a popular film that got interrupted and the newsreel was shown. So a lot of people who perhaps weren't paying attention before suddenly were paying attention. Johnson invited the governor of Alabama to the White House and put the pressure on. This was a man named Wallace, and he asked Wallace, how do you want to be remembered?

Not in your next election in 1968, but in 1988. How are people going to remember you in the future? How is AHA going to remember you? Yes. Dead or alive, they're going to sing songs about you. Exactly. When people are sat around stroking their mullets, what will they say about you in their double denim?

What's going to happen? What's going to happen to you? I just found out Jim Clark, he died relatively peacefully in 2007 at the age of 84. 2007? Yeah. god damn it yeah well there you go uh anyway yeah wallace is asked how is it um you want to be remembered in 1988 and johnson just goes full-on johnson at this point big speech doesn. Doesn't just keep talking. Keeps talking, prodding at the chest. He probably got jumbo out. Don't prod with that. Well, he probably did.

Eventually, Johnson and a very cowed-looking Wallace went in front of the cameras, and Johnson said that all the black people in Mississippi should be registered to vote. Shouldn't they, Wallace? And Wallace just meekly nods. Yeah. Yeah.

So control of the state was then handed over to the president. Wallace said, I can't stop my troops from beating up black people. So you're going to have to do it. So the National Guard are called in and another march goes ahead. 25,000 strong. King gives a speech at the end of it. This is much more successful. The King.

The King. No, Martin Luther King. Oh, I'm with you. Yes, different King. Things hadn't suddenly changed that much. Johnson uses this momentum to push the voting bill forward. Now, again, momentum's with him here. This was a far harder bill to find loopholes in

and would be a massive improvement on the 57 bill. And it passes both houses. Fantastic. In one county in Mississippi, just to show you how well this worked, the number of registered voters of the black population went from 320 to 6,789. So there you go.

Johnson was very proud of his achievements. So he should be. This is is good so increased by 27 times pretty much yeah yeah this huge huge increase that's that shows how much voter suppression was going on that's a jumbo increase yes it is said johnson signing the bill with a pen with Okay, right. Where are you going? Yeah, anyway, so Johnson's really, really happy until someone walks past and just goes, Vietnam. What? Because, yes.

Vietnam rears its head once more. Yeah, you know all these troops that they keep sending over? Turns out that's a lot of people, so we're going to need a lot of people, So we're going to need a lot of people. So we're going to have to start drafting more people. I mean, the draft is still there. There was a draft at this time. Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. Still from World War II. That would never happen now. Oh, I don't know. You can say that. This country, no. I cannot see this country. No.

But yeah, the draft was going to have to be doubled. Wow. Yeah. That's not going to go down well see my first question to present would be is that because we just need more people because everyone we're sending is not shh don't ask questions like that that's a bad question no no quick say the word freedom freedom not! Not going down well. However, politically, Johnson felt like he could take this hit because if you had money or connections, it was easy enough to dodge this draft. The draft wasn't a really iron-out draft, so he wasn't going to be upsetting anyone important.

In fact, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden all managed to dodge the draft at this time. Wow. That's interesting. Yes, this also does hit home that we're in 2022 and we've still only had one president born after 1946. Yeah, wow. Which is just insane. Is that Obama? Yeah, Obama's the only one born afterwards the young whippersnapper off the top of my head um biden trump and bush were all born in 1946 yeah because biden's the oldest president oh actually no it might have been clinton biden i think was born slightly before biden's slightly older than the other three that's it i think clinton was 46 as well that sounds right i think biden's like yeah but But anyway, that's beside the point.

It's just something I noticed when, wow, old people. Old white people making decisions. Old white men. Anyway, the draft is increased. The death toll starts to mount up. Sure enough, as the death toll increases, so do people's anger about the war. That 70% approval rating soon rapidly starts to decline. Johnson starts looking for a way out.

He attempted to entice the North Vietnamese government into peace talks. What could he use to entice? We will get out of your country? They're not technically in their country. The American troops have stayed in South Vietnam. What are they doing to leave? No wonder they're not. We'll stop throwing fire at your people.

Yes, yes, we'll stop bombing. We'll stop bombing, and then if we do that, we'll have Peter Storks, yeah? How about that? Yeah? Please? Maybe? Please?

The North were not convinced. No. In fact, they were convinced of something, and that was, we're going to win this. So, no. You guys are pouring troops into South Vietnam Vietnam and yet you're not getting anywhere. So with no prospect of negotiation, the only other option to Johnson was to give in. And as much as he hated being trapped in the war, there was no way he was pulling out a loser. He just refused to even consider it. So the war continued throughout 66. McNamara,

the following year, predicted that they would need another, wait for it, 600,000 troops by the end of 68. How quickly that 3,000 troops has risen. Almost a million people. Yeah, yeah. troops has risen. Almost a million people. Yeah, yeah. Now, this, by the way, he said was the bare minimum number of troops we are going to use, and even that would not guarantee victory. So, again, Johnson thinks that this is unsustainable, we need to do something, so again they suggest a North Vietnam. Seriously, we'll stop bombing you, please can we talk peace talks? Again, nothing. Nothing. But Johnson, worn down by the lack of success in the war,

stops the bombing anyway. We're going to stop bombing for 37 days. Hopefully that will entice talks. Hanoi, however, just simply ignore this. Nope. Not going to do it. You would, wouldn't you? Yeah. Johnson, you suspect with a sigh after 37 days, ordered the bombing to continue. The bombing would, wouldn't you? Yeah. Johnson, you suspect with a sigh after 37 days,

ordered the bombing to continue. The bombing that was achieving nothing but killing innocent people. Meanwhile, Johnson had gained a new security advisor. The last one left because Johnson kept doing war things when he was advised to not do war things, essentially. Yeah, his advisor was a dove. So he gets in a hawk and this is a man named roscoe literally just a hawk like just a hawk yeah come on roscoe kill to get a sense of

the people now advising johnson now the war's been going on a couple of years to back up his views roscoe once asked the cia to produce a report of all the successes in Vietnam for the president. The CIA created the report, but someone in the CIA deserves a pay rise because they created the report, but also, without being asked to, created a list of setbacks and losses, which was significantly larger. I have two files here, sir. We have the one sheet of A a4 and we've got the book yeah which one i'm not gonna tell you which is which just decide what you want to read first well roscoe binned the list of the negatives and just took the positives to johnson so this was

how johnson was being advised oh that's yeah you. You need honesty. As the fighting ramped up, the anti-war movement grew. Even the likes of Bobby Kennedy were now openly speaking about how the President was leading them on a path to destruction. People started to demand answers to questions such as, what on earth are we doing in that country over there?

What's this all for? The country and a large part of the world also was changing at this time. The Beatles around, so... Oh, yeah, you've got it. Yes, literally about to mention them. As the rights of citizens in many countries around the world were improving quite rapidly,

those citizens started to demand things such as being able to exercise those rights. And an explosion of culture resulted. The United States at this time was invaded. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and everyone who followed. It's the British invasion. See, this is taking the country back. Yes.

Very, very exciting time for music. You can make an argument that this is the start of popular music and everything we've had since stems from this. It's all exciting, but it's not just music. Obviously, films, books, television, all of them are going through. Yeah, everything going through a golden age, you could say. Hippies. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A lot of people.

Yes, Jamie. Jimi Hendrix. Yeah, all of this is happening. Yes, it's all very exciting. Oh, what a time to be alive if you weren't in Vietnam. Yeah, or just poor, which most people were. Especially hippies. Well, I mean, basically you now had a new generation

that were just nowhere near as stuffy as the previous one and they were not going to take it anymore. We're not going to take it. They're going to put the world to rights by smoking a lot of drugs and being happy. And they get around to putting the world to rights. But for now, we're going to relax a little bit. That's what we're going to do. We're going to chill out.

This music's really... You've got to hear this. It's amazing. As soon as we've done that, we're going to put the world to rights. And This music's really... You've got to hear this. It's amazing. As soon as we've done that, we're going to put the world to rights. And you've got to hear this while you're smoking this. It's amazing. Just amazing.

Yeah. So the world is changing. It's becoming unrecognisable to the older generation. Charles Manson. Very few times in history. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry. It's just going to be the rest of the episode. You just remembering things that happened in the 60s. Yeah. Back when I was a kid. And being quite surprised. Yeah. McNamara, the defence secretary.

He was very embarrassed when his son and daughter openly came out to oppose the war. Yeah. The fact the defence secretary became so desperate at this time, he even suggested that, why don't we, and here's a crazy idea, don't all say I'm stupid straight away, why don't we just build a big electric fence between the North and the South? Yeah, dividing lines, they always work. Yeah, after everyone had stopped laughing and throwing fish at him,

he realised, no, just putting a wall up is a stupid idea. Obviously, we can't do that. So what can we do? The Joint Chief of Staffs by this point became outraged at the Defence Secretary's loss of war. No, all we need to do is get more men in. We're about to turn the war. The tide is turning. The Navy Admiral over there keeps saying stuff about the sea and tides, and he's convinced the tide is turning. All we need is one more big push. Johnson more and more was landing... One more barnacle off your ass.

Yeah. Johnson more and more is landing on the side of the Joint Chiefs. He is full on hawk mode at this point. In fact, he says at one point around this time, and I'll quote him here, and again, I'm going to apologise for the language, but again I feel it's important that you know just how these people were talking. He said,

to the room full of American soldiers, nail the coon skins to the wall. Yeah. No. Not good. No. Not good. No. That's not okay. It's definitely not okay. Beep. No. Not good. No. That's not okay. It's definitely not okay. Beep.

Yeah. Anyway, the cracks start to show. Good. Westmoreland asked for another 200,000 troops. That's over a million now. Oh, no, no. That predicted 600,000 was a predicted how many would be needed. So this 200,000 would be part of that prediction. Oh, no, that predicted 600,000 was a predicted how many would be needed. So this 200,000 would be part of that prediction.

Oh, OK. But it shows that, yes, it's going in that direction. So can I have 200,000 more men, please? Johnson, at the end of 67, only gave 55,000. Only? So why this softening here? Why is Johnson starting to waver? Perhaps it's because the

election's coming up. And the feeling in society is it's not a good thing. Well yeah the anti-war movement had grown well beyond just students by this point. Students and the parents of students and old people and dogs and all sorts were turning up to the protests. It really had gained a lot of momentum and so much so they had gained an anti-war candidate for the Democratic Convention. This was a man named Eugene McCarthy. His campaign was joined by one of Johnson's previous aides. In fact, many of Johnson's previous aides

had quit over the last couple of years because Johnson apparently was becoming unworkable with. I'm tired of being lectured and shouted at. Well, stories of how he behaves starts coming out, and it's just appalling. Stories of him bullying, demeaning people, shouting at people, swearing at people, physically pushing people.

He quite often, if he was in a meeting and he needed to go for a number two, would just tell his advisors to follow him. They'd go into the toilet with him and he'd just sit down and they'd carry on having their conversation whilst he pooped. Generally, he was being very nasty. Now, remember, this is not new for Johnson. This is how Johnson's always been. He's been like this all his life, but apparently it reaches new levels as he feels very stressed. But as the pressure on the now very

hawkish department was on, there was suddenly good news. From Vietnam. Yeah. Have we won? We've taken Hanoi. Wonderful. No, we haven't won. However, Westmoreland said, that's it. We've got the vietcong on the ropes

we've broken their back this worked our plan has worked it's only a matter of time now but we have almost certainly won so put the banners up victory let's take some photos uh excellent just don't stop asking questions we've won we. We've definitely won. Soon, soon. Send all the soldiers home, quick. Not now. We've not won now, but we've essentially won. Hooray. So there was a mood of celebration almost in Washington. This is getting better.

In fact, the press started to become more lenient. However, this apparently was just a lull before a storm, However, this apparently was just a lull before a storm, because in late 67, the northern forces attacked at the same time as the Viet Cong launched a massive insurgency. See, if they'd have listened to Sgt Pepper, that wouldn't have happened. Or he's in 67, that would have sorted it right out. Is there a song on Sgt Pepper all about how to deal with the insurgency of the Viet Cong? I'll find out.

Let me play the entire album. Are you leaning over to pick up your copy of Sgt Pepper? Oh, Robert, it's not a copy. It's not a copy, is it? It's an original. The original pressed vinyl, is it? From 1967, yes. Oh, is it? It's an original. The original pressed vinyl, is it? From 1967, yes.

Oh, is it actually a vinyl from 67? Yeah, it's my dad's one. Oh, nice. Okay. So that vinyl you've got in your hand there was sitting around whilst all this was happening. Yeah. That looks in very good condition as well.

My dad kept it in a wallet-y thing. Yeah. No, it's original. It's got the original shoulder things and stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah, where you can get things out. Yeah. I think... Is track four how to deal with the insurgency of the Viet Cong? One, two, three, then I'm numbered.

Four, getting better. Yeah, maybe, getting better. Maybe it is. Fixing a hole is number five. That could be. Yeah, maybe. Getting better. Maybe it is. Fixing a hole is number five. That could be. That could be. I think the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

absolutely is the epitome and would have solved all the issues. Yeah, definitely. That would be fine. Yeah. Anyway, this is a very waffly episode today. Yeah, it really is.

I wonder how much of all the tangents I'll keep in. Anyway, yeah. So the fighting, very, very fierce. The United States were pushed to its limits. However, they managed to beat back the attack. This was a victory for the United States. The North and the Viet Cong attacked and failed. However, the United States suffered heavy losses. Such heavy losses, in fact, that most

at home did not see this as a victory at all. The public had been told that the war was almost over, and here their men were barely holding back an attack and being killed. The country's mood towards the war dropped lower than ever. It was becoming clear to almost everyone that this is not winnable. Johnson's advisors, who were mostly in the hawk faction remember, even they started to waver at this point, pointing out to Johnson that his chances in the next election are slim unless he does something to end the war, and that clearly wasn't going to happen through military means anytime soon. So Johnson makes a decision. There was no way that he could see to get the United States out of the war, but there was one thing

he could do. So in April 1968, he announced he was going to address the country. No one knew what he was going to say, apart from a very select few. And I'll just quote him here. Ah. Did you just get his jumbo out? It's the Johnson and the Jumbo show. I have concluded that I should not permit the presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. With America's sons in the field far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home with our hopes

and the world's hopes for peace and the balance every day. I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan cause or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

Wow. Yeah. That was almost an iambic pentameter. It's quite enough. That was almost an iambic pentameter. It's quite poetic. That's a structured... Wow, that's quite a statement as well. Yeah, he's had enough.

The mood of the country immediately lifts. Hooray! He's going. Let's vote Republican. Johnson was being cheered by crowds. I mean, the anti-war movement saw this as a defeat for the pro-war movement this is great this means inevitably we're getting out of the war that's what this means there was a glimmer of hope and then three days later someone shot martin

luther king yeah yeah king is assass. The country goes into shock and then rage. Riots break out across the land. Now, we simply don't have time to go into King's assassination. So rather than not do it justice, I'm just not going to go into it at all. But as you can imagine, it sends shockwaves across the country. Johnson deploys 14,000 troops in Washington, D.C. to restore order, but in an act of what can only be described as common sense, most of these troops were given guns with no ammunition in them. Good. Yeah. That's a really good decision. Yes. Amazingly, amazingly though good news from vietnam have we won uh no but nor vietnam were open to the idea

of peace talks oh yeah excellent does that link to johnson saying no more um possibly also the uh the um the fact that he had been making statements that were obviously we're going to have to start toning down the war, um, the stopping of the bombing. I mean, Johnson, to be fair to him, to give him some credit, had not stopped trying to get peace talks. Uh, not Vietnam, just were not interested, But you can see why they weren't interested, because they were winning. The winning side never wants to get into the peace talks when they are going to get what they want. Not Vietnam wants to control the country. So yeah. Anyway, Johnson

sends two delegates, and both of them are from the dovish faction. So really sending a clear message here. We are aiming for peace. But no one expects anything to happen until the next president's chosen, because obviously there's no point making a decision now. There's about to be a new president. Then, two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, someone shoots and kills Bobby Kennedy. Yes, I forgot about that. Yeah. Johnson again.

Once more, the nation mourned. In five years, three leaders, to be very clear here, various degrees of the progressive movement had been killed. I'm not suggesting here that the Kennedy brothers were up there with Martin Luther King, but

they were seen as the face of the progressive movement. Depressions just seems to set in across the country here. We're just, we're not getting anywhere. We've been trying so hard to make the world a better place. A lot of us have been smoking a lot of weed, but we're just not getting anywhere here. People just keep assassinating people who are trying to make a difference. So is it these things that caused the 70s?

Oh, God. Is this the reason why? Maybe. However, Johnson gets thinking at this point. One of the main reasons why he stepped out the running was mainly because he knew Bobby Kennedy was going to run and bobby kennedy was going to beat him he didn't want that embarrassment but kennedy's gone so maybe i could run he thinks he starts saying in a time of such disorder it is only fair that i stay on and fight for

yeah exactly but no it's too late the the cogs in the machine have already started moving. It just isn't going to work for him. All Johnson can do is sit back and watch as his vice president ran against Nixon in an election that we're going to cover in the next episode. Who wins? Who knows? Who knows? But we'll cover it in Nixon's episode. Anyway, Johnson stays for Nixon's inauguration and then heads back to Texas. Apparently, as he walked through his front door, he lit a cigarette, his first since his heart attack back in 55.

One of his daughters, appalled, grabbed it off him and says, what are you doing? This will kill you. Apparently, he took it back and said, and I'll quote, I've now raised you girls. I've now been president. Now it's my time. And he takes a big drag on his cigarette. He died of a heart attack three years later.

Yeah. So there you go. That's Johnson. That's a mixed bag, isn't it? Oh, oh, oh, what a mixed bag. I mean, it's almost like you're flipping a coin and one side is made of gold and the other side is made of a big turd.

Yeah, yeah. Poop for American friends. Yeah. Is turd not American? Don't know. You could say it in an American accent really easily. Turd. Turd.

Turd. Yeahd. Turd. Yeah. Write in on a postcard. It's turd American. Anyway, should we rate him? Hell yes. Statement shit! Okay, well, I mean, what do we do?

What do we do here? I mean, for a start, he is a lifelong politician, and he was inarguably damn good at being a politician. Oh, absolutely. He got stuff done. More so than pretty much any politician we have seen. He was known as a wizard in the Senate. And, let's look at some of these things he did, shall we?

He arguably pushed through some of the most important reforms in US history. The Civil Rights Act is monumental. It underscores the aim of equality to this day. Equality, yes. Yeah, I mean, it didn't fix everything. Nope. Not even remotely. But it was far better than it had been. And it is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it's a very slow step and it's not being improved upon much.

But just because it wasn't improved on rapidly doesn't mean that this wasn't a huge step and it should be celebrated. It was good. Reforms in education and housing and tackling poverty were also hugely important and also very successful. And no, again, it did not work perfectly. The education reforms did not deal with the fact that the teachers were underfunded and um that's still going on to this day the tackling poverty obviously didn't work in the long term um but again strides were made made uh health care if you're over 65 you've now got health care yeah and that's when you start caring about it.

Yeah, exactly. This is hugely important. Really, really, really good. Again, not perfect, because if you're under 65, you're still in a system that really heavily depends on whether you've got a job, whether you have healthcare or not. But there's Medicaid for those people who are really suffering. So there is a safety net.

It's just not a brilliant one. But far, far better than before, so there is a safety net it's just not a brilliant one but far far better than before because there was no safety net before yeah at all before so yeah healthcare massive voting reform if black people can actually start voting i mean technically they could before but they couldn't and now more can there's still lots of loopholes yeah that are still being used very much to this day and they are being grown still to this day uh so it's not perfect but it's much better than it was he managed to get done arguably far more than kennedy would have would have i'm willing to say he's a better politician of that role yeah exactly kennedy knew what to say he was charismatic but he was mediocre at

most things. And there's no reason to think he wouldn't have carried on being mediocre. Everyone had this image of him because he was charismatic and he was young and good looking and he died. So everyone went, oh, he would have been brilliant. But actually, you could argue Johnson did more for Kennedy's legacy than anyone else, because he all of kennedy's promises and actually made them a reality yeah this is amazing right okay and yes his agenda was always a bit flighty did he believe the things that he was going for deep down i mean he was quite racist but on a personal level. Yeah. That's the biggest thing that sticks out to me. But does that really matter in statesmanship? Who cares if he was really a bit racist,

if he's actually the one who got the civil rights bill through? Well, no, because the country benefited. Even if it's only a minutiae, it benefited. Yeah, in this particular round where we're judging statesmanship, I don't think we can hold that against him. We can hold it against him in Disgracegate, where we're talking about him personally, but not in this round. So you have right there, I would argue, the best,

I'm just going to say it, the best statesmanship we have ever seen. Yeah, that's undeniable. And then Vietnam. Yeah. I mean, this isn't a small mistake. You can't just brush this to the side and say yeah well he made one mistake but look at all the good he did it's not that he blundered into this blind no this isn't even something he inherited because the last two administrations had done everything they could to stay out of vietnam kennedy tried his hardest he learned from the bay of pigs and went no no we're not doing it we're staying out we're going

to send advisors with clipboards just lots of them armed clipboards with like little little guns in the ends where you usually put the pen yeah throwing clipboards. Yeah. Johnson knew all the facts on how bad it was going to be. In that meeting, it was laid out just how unwinnable this war was and why they shouldn't do it. Yeah. And they said, let's do it anyway. They just went to it. And yes, the domino argument is an important one.

You've got to stop somewhere. But is it a really important one in the grand scheme of things if vietnam had a communist government is that that much different to north vietnam having a communist government no is it hugely different has north korea caused a massive thing yeah and if it is important is it important enough to justify the sheer loss of lives? Nearly 50,000 Americans died in this war. That's nearly as many US soldiers who died in World War I. Wow.

50,000 soldiers. What did it gain? And it gained nothing whatsoever. However, don't forget a majority of Americans supported Johnson's direction of the war for a majority of his presidency. It was only right at the end that support collapsed. But flip side to that argument,

it's very easy, like we say earlier, to use propaganda to sell a war to a country. It's happened in our lifetime in our country and in America. It's disturbingly easy to, in our country, and in America. It's disturbingly easy to get people on board with war. It's only in retrospect that populations often look back and think, what were we doing there? Oh dear, yeah.

Yeah. So that's what's mostly happened here. For a large part of the Vietnam War so far, it had public support. So you could argue Johnson was right, but I don't know. Ultimately, I would argue a diplomatic approach was not explored hard enough, and it should have been. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So I think this should definitely go in the bad column. So how on earth do we rate this? I'm going to go beyond five. i'm i'm going to agree with you i think the same i think the positives do outweigh the negatives for the countries if you're an american living

at home he's done more for you yes not if you're a soldier no no or a diplomat um you know you've got better health care you've got better education you've got better health Or a diplomat. Yeah. You know, you've got better health care, you've got better education, you've got better health, everything. Better voting rights. There are now equality laws on the books. If you are a black American, you now are in a better position than you've ever been in the history of America. than you've ever been in the history of America.

And like you said as well, these are things that still now impact US culture. Yes. These are ongoing. These have been going on for 50 years. Yeah. 60, 70 years. They're still here now from what he did. Whether that's still positive now or is it irrelevant,

it made it better from what it previously was. Oh, yeah, it certainly got impact. And yes, it's not obviously all Johnson. A lot of this was put into place, started by Kennedy and obviously the way the American system works. It's not the President who makes all these things. There's a whole thing

in the Senate going on in the background but Johnson used his political skills to make sure these things got through and I think he definitely deserves credit. But how much do we take off for the utter mess that was Vietnam? That's tricky. How much is human life worth is basically

what you're asking. Yes, come on, Jamie. Put a number on the price of human life. Well, because I already typed in seven. You've already done it. And you know what? That's exactly what I was going to go for. Oh, that's okay then.

So the cost of human life is six. Yes, in total. Whose idea was it to do a numbering system in this series? Right, okay. A total of 14 for this round. On to the next. Disgrace game. He was a bully. He was a cheat. He was the next. He was a bully.

He was a cheat. He was a liar. He was a womanizer. He was an abuser. Let's maybe dig into this slightly. The way he treated his staff, he was a bully. He physically would kick people, prod people. He'd get up in their faces.

He'd shout at them. He'd humiliate them. He had one particular advisor who, when he came into meetings with cups of coffee, he would just berate in front of all his advisors pretty much for fun. He would literally humiliate people using the size of his jumbo. That is not the actions of a good man. Yeah, because usually when, you know, if you're adequately endowed with a big jumbo,

you just expect you don't need to do that. No, no, but no, not Johnson. As for cheating, don't forget last episode, he cheated to get into the house and the politics. He bribed Kennedy's son to endorse him to get into the house and the politics he bribed kennedy's son to endorse him to get into the house and he straight up made up votes to get up into the senate i mean that is yeah completely undermining democracy to get into the senate that's not okay no and yes you could argue loads of people were doing that at the time yeah yeah maybe they were it's still not okay no it's not so um yeah he's a liar he lied to the american public often about what was happening in vietnam he straight up just said things like this was an

unprovoked attack yeah no it wasn't it was attack, and maybe it does need to be dealt with, but it wasn't an unprovoked attack. You have just lied there. Was he lied to? Because you suggested earlier that he was given misinformation. Oh, he was, but in this case, no, that was him choosing to lie. Yeah. And let's not also forget, in his personal life,

he lied to Lady Bird throughout his life because he was a serial womanizer he boasted that he was even worse than or better than depending on how you want to phrase that i know how he wanted to phrase it uh than jfk himself yes as i hinted at last time many women later came forward to state that johnson was in the habit of touching them inappropriately, making suggestive remarks. Oh. Yeah. One moment also got him into trouble. He was playing with his dog one day, and there were TV cameras around, and in his mind, playfully, he picked his dog up by the ears.

No. They're very sensitive. Yeah. Horrifying dog lovers across the country, understandably. But to him, this was all bluster. That's just a bit of fun, isn't it? He was, from all accounts, a horrible person. Yes.

However, in his defence, there were no major scandals during his presidency. No. And the government seemed to actually work more effectively than it had done for a long time. But then I suppose that's statesmanship, isn't it? We've already judged that. All of these things are personal character traits that are really horrible. But there's nothing really horrible but there's nothing really big in there there's not a big story where you go oh that was really terrible

for the country because he's awful it's almost things that happened at the time which is horrible to think about yeah he he really does does sum up the worst of this period. Yeah. So I don't think I'm going to go into the highest numbers, but he's certainly getting a good chunk of numbers. Well, until about 20 seconds ago, I had minus eight on my thing, but I'm going to take it down to minus six.

So I think the fact that he... Yeah he yeah like i said he wasn't disgraceful for the entire country other than yeah that that's why i'm not going that high um think about if if he was um if he was saying this horrible racist things that he said in private and then also using his political power to do horrible racist laws yeah but it's like it's it's not so so yeah i'm going for six as well so that is minus 12 drops him down to a score of two yeah yeah the big irony that one of the most progressive uh and uh just generally good politicians of the country's history. He's just such an unpleasant man. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Silver Screen.

Silver Screen. Born in a poor family farm in Texas. He loved to follow his father around, who was into local politics. And then he ran off to find his fortune in California. Didn't find it, though, so he came back after a year. He got a job in construction, fell in with the Wild Bunch, remember? Yeah. Yeah. He got beaten up so so badly he decided to go get an education he needed something better in his life um he taught

on the side to pay to get through education and then thanks to a chance connection he got a job as a political aide in washington and he found out he was actually very good at this and the rest of it is him climbing the political ladder, pretty much. He briefly went back to Texas to run the National Youth Administration and did a very good job. Apart from all the bullying he did. But the actual thing ran well. Then a man died in the house,

and Johnson went for it, bribing his way to victory. World War II happened. He worked in the United States for most of it, doing things like chatting to film stars and raising money. But he did go off on his adventure to Australia where he had one of his many affairs and then he had his little plane trip, remember,

where he nearly died. Yeah. But he didn't because he went to the toilet. Back to the US where he won a seat in the Senate by cheating and then he rose through the Senate and he did a very good job. Genuinely did do a very good job there. Oh, I can do my correction here. When I said he was the majority leader of the Senate and you said, like Nancy Pelosi last time,

and I said without thinking, yes, like, no, Pelosi's obviously in the House, not the Senate. Like Chuck Schumer is what I should have said. That's my fault then, sorry. Yeah, but I should have picked you up on it. But yeah, that's a correction. Some people pointed that out um so there you go correction there i'll put the sad music in uh anyway he then became vice president and uh he was there when the president was shot so he became the president and actually did a really good job at home yeah um despite being an awful person.

But he dragged the United States into one of the worst wars and certainly the most pointless war in its history. It's got to be a 10. Really? Are you going high for this? Yeah. Films have been made about it. About Vietnam War.

Oh, yeah, but that's the war. That's not Johnson's life. This is a series about his life. No, I'm quite high on that. And he's not in Vietnam. He's at home going, yes, I'm watching. Yeah, but he's also got the kind of, oh, should I, shouldn't I? He's got the affairs.

He's got the war thing. Maybe not 10, maybe 9 or 8. I was thinking 4. Really? I'd love to see a film. I just don't see that... This isn't an exciting story. He's just unpleasant to people.

And for most of it... If this is a 10-part series, Jamie, episode 1 and maybe episode 2 will be his youth and him getting an education. Episodes 5, 6, 7 and 8 will be him in the House and the Senate doing politics. Because that's what he did most of his life okay yeah if you don't condense it down maybe i mean you could skip you could

suddenly skip to him being vice president if it was just vice president and you got kennedy's assassination in there and then the stuff to do with vietnam i imagine that would be interesting and if it was just that i'd be going to maybe six or seven. But you'd have an episode after his heart attack where he's just, like, trying to get back in. You know, you've got the drama. OK, maybe not ten. I suppose you've got the scene of him sneaking up to have an affair with the help after his heart attack.

I'm personally... You go for what you want, because we say the same scores far too often, so sometimes it's good to differ. I'm personally, you go for what you want, because we say the same scores far too often. Sometimes it's good to differ. I'm personally going for four. I personally don't think it's great. You do what you want. I'm going for eight, though, because I think it's quite exciting and interesting.

Everything that happened, the drama around it, even if it's just focused on him, I think that's quite exciting. Okay. Also, what's exciting is I think that's probably the largest discrepancy in scoring we've ever had in this series. I think it's happened a. Okay. Also what's exciting is I think that's probably the largest discrepancy in scoring we've had in this series. I think it's happened a couple of times in the Roman series, but yeah. Okay, fair enough.

12 for this scene. Wild and Johnson. Invisibility. There you go. That's his official White House portrait. He is standing against a very moody looking sky. And you've got the Capitol building there because obviously was uh the leader in the senate for a while so that's represented there uh he's looking i it goes to show how little male formal fashion has changed in the last 70 years because he is

wearing exactly what people still wear today yeah it's crazy if you go 70 years before this painting it's almost unrecognizable yeah and there just has been no change for 70 years It's crazy. If you go 70 years before this painting, it's almost unrecognizable. And there just has been no change for 70 years. It's crazy. It's just a normal suit. Is this the first time we've had an outside,

as in an outside shot like this? Just... We had a few outside shots early on. Remember, Kennedy's was very abstract. He just had his

moody background, which was amazing. Brace. This one's a bit... Yeah, this one's more to form of the earlier ones where they were doing like Roman imagery, although there isn't technically any Roman imagery. I can see cons. It reminds me of that with the, well, yeah,

you've got the Capitol building and the sky. He's looking straight at you, piercing eyes. And also, you just know if you pan down,bo's out i was gonna say i think i can see it jumbo was out for the entirety of this painting you just know yeah yeah he's like he's wearing a shirt and a suit and nothing else yeah yeah as the guy was painting it jumbo was just hanging yeah yeah i mean it's quite i find it quite oppressive It feels like a grey cloudy day in Coventry Yeah It's not a great sky is it

And he does look quite moody I don't know is he presidential Or does he just look like a disappointed grandfather He does a little bit I'm not that impressed I'm not that impressed but it's not awful I think this is middle of the road I think I'm just going to go for 5

I'll agree with that. I'll go with five. Okay. So that is 2.5 for this round. Bonus! Okay, and then we go on to our bonus rounds. Only one term, obviously. Because he served one term and a bit.

No one tried to off him, which is nice. But that does mean he gets no points and election huge landslide uh so he gets two points he got 90 percent of the electoral college that i'd say that's a landslide 90 percent that is even higher than roosevelt's highest. Yeah, and Roosevelt won in loads of landslides. In fact, this is the third highest date. Only Washington that got 100%, and you can't really

count that because he was... And then Monroe's in the afternoon of good feelings is the only person who got higher. And even then, Monroe was on 91% so yeah it's even higher than Trump's isn't it

yeah no it is just so you know though someone does beat Johnson to the third place slot in the future. Clinton? no no and it's even more impressive because it is an average of two elections

instead of just one. Oh, Carter's a one-time. Oh, I don't know. Oh, well, we'll find out. Right, anyway, so that is two points for elections. That's a total of three points for his bonus. So what's his score, Jamie? Editing Rob here.

Believe it or not, we again managed to mess up the adding. I don't know how we do this every single time. But yeah, we decided he got 17.5. He obviously didn't. He got 19.5. I'll probably put in the end some outtakes of us not being able to do maths. We still got it wrong. Anyway, back to real episode me and Jamie. But now we have a really tricky question. Yeah. American or American?

I don't know, Jamie. I really don't know. It's very hard not to give the person who pushed through the Civil Rights Bill of 64 and give him American. It's very hard not to give someone who gives the voting right reforms through and the education and the health however it's very hard to give american to someone who's responsible for 50 000 deaths well yeah that's the trouble see why see if we're struggling i've got a jfk coin have we ever flipped the coin in this series we occasionally flip the coin in the roman series a jfk coin have we ever flipped the coin in this series we occasionally flip the coin in the roman series a jfk half dollar there's one side there's there's jfk's

head and i think johnson would like nothing more for us than to use a jfk coin to decide that however i think we should well let's discuss it first let's see let's see if we need to rely on the coin. What's your initial thoughts? Are you leaning at all? I'm leaning towards yes. Because of what he did for society in the USA at the time. Personal side aside, you know, most politicians are genuinely horrible. Take advantage of your position. Yeah, I'm leaning towards yes. Most politicians are genuinely horrible. Take advantage of your position. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I'm lean towards yes. So am I, which I suppose means we should give it to him. Yeah, I think so. But I'm not happy about it. No, I'm not happy about it either. No. But, like you said, when we did Kennedy, and it was the thing that swung it for me, you said the words, Jackson got it. the thing that swung it for me you said the words Jackson got it that's true and he killed people and Jackson and a slave horrible person yeah it was

awful and horrible but he also did do some things that were good for the country so you can apply that to Johnson as well it's a reluctant yes for me but I think it's a yes. I think it's a yes. He's got it. He's an American. He's an American. Yeah. We'll see how he fares at the end. But well done, Johnson. Not the best score, but you got an American. Goes to show if you're a really good politician, sometimes you can get some stuff done.

Yeah. Okay, right. Well, there we go. Thank you very much for listening. Oh, we've got an interesting one next. Yeah, we do. Yeah. It'll be interesting.

I'm very much looking forward to Nixon. Yeah. Nixon obviously is the big scandal president. He is. But I can't help but feel we are going to be very disappointed. Yeah. If we'd done this podcast 10 years ago, I'm sure we wouldn't have been as disappointed. But I've got a feeling everything's going to seem quite tame.

Yeah, I think so. But we'll see. We will see. I don't know. We will find out. I'm excited because it's like this born the whole adding the word gate onto anything. It's a slight scandal.

Yeah, exactly. One of our rounds is named after this guy's activities. Yeah. Okay, right. But that is for next time. It's not this time so thank you very much for listening and thank you for downloading some pop bean itunes and wherever else you download us from yeah not stitch it yet we need to do that we need to put it on stitch it's really

easy to do we'll do it right do it do it well i can't i can't log into our okay i'll do it i'll do it afterwards right i'll try and do it. Anyway, right. This is an after thing conversation. Okay, so all that needs to be said then is... Check out my jumbo. Goodbye. Bye. Excuse me, Mr President, we have... Not here, not here, follow me. Sir?

Come on. Okay. Yes. Right, okay. Strip off, lads. What? Let me just... Here we go, got that out.

Right. That was quite a bit of heaving sir oh oh oh oh come on then I've explained what I want

I've outlined all the proposals and oh sorry just doing my stretches and oh right

and into the pool anyway names come on brainstorming brainstorming I'm going to backstroke to the other end and by the, come on. Brainstorming. Brainstorming? I'm going to backstroke to the other end and by the time I get back, I want a name

for my policy. Something that, something catchy, something like the New Deal or something like that. That's what we need. Okay. Off you go then. Keep your eyes on me. Um, the, the, the fantastic deal, sir.

The fantastic, no, I don't want deal, it sounds too Rooseveltian. No, no, something to do with society. Give me an adjective. Describe the society we are going to live in. Um, the, um, massive, massive society. The massive society? That doesn't make sense, man. What are you talking about?

Um, I, the garg The massive society? That doesn't make sense, man. What are you talking about? Um, I... The gargantuan society? What? No, this doesn't make sense. I don't want something describing just big. Come on, it needs to inspire. Um, sizable society? No, no, move away from large.

I don't understand where you're getting this from. Come on, you seem distracted, man. Come on. I don't... where you're getting this from. Come on. You seem distracted, man. Come on. Well, when you're splashing your arms, I still hear three splashes. How about the girthy society, sir? Girthy? I don't even know what that means. No, no, we're not having...

It means fitting in well. No, we're not having girthy society. Something, the amazing society. No, that sounds a bit rubbish. The wonderful society. No, it's just not. Now, come on, come on. I. Something, the amazing society. No, that sounds a bit rubbish. The wonderful society. No, it's just not. Now, come on, come on. I'm doing all the work here.

The fey-ny society? What? That doesn't make sense at all. What is the point in you being here? I don't know. The productive society. Reproductive society? The adventurous society.

Come on, come on. Oh, I don't know. The great giant would impress my wife. Massive Johnson society. Ah, you know what? I'll shorten that to just great society. That will have to do. It's not brilliant, but fine. Seriously, I don't know why I pay you. leave me now I'm going to do some laps oh no the last one had left are you about to explode no I um

I have a tamagotchi oh right is your tamagotchi hungry do you need to go and feed it well it's twice and it needs food but i can ignore it for a bit it's fine no i don't you can't ignore your tamagotchi we can for a bit my last one died to be fair through neglect because i have it at school it's like i use it at school and now i've got children that are going to buy tamagotchi which is amazing um and uh it i i basically ignored it for about a week and it my TA was in the classroom alone and so I make this alarm sound like I'm about to die

and she's like I don't know how it works and she just had a panic attack and just did she cradle your Tamagotchi in her arms as it Slowly slipped away, and then she looked up to the ceiling, screaming, why? Why? Yeah. Then I pressed the reset button. It was all fine. Like wheel pets. Yeah.

Yeah. It's beeping again. Jamie, go and feed it. Go and feed it. It takes a while to eat so much. I don't know if you can see it on the crappy LCD screen that it's on. There he is. Oh, there he is.

He's a little blob. He's jumping around. And he's in a big poo. He has done a poo. You're going to have to clean that up. Yeah, they seem to be making a comeback. My nephew's got one. Are they?

Yeah. I bought this about two years ago i sort of used it last year my last class and it sort of and ran out of batteries i've put new batteries recently i don't know if they are actually making a comeback it's just the fact my nephew's got one which is weird and you've now got one so i assumed they are i've had a i don't know this is an alien one is this like an alien but if you go on Amazon for £15 you can buy an R2D2 one I know

I'm so tempted that's cool out of the fund out of the ranking fund yes that's definitely that is definitely something we can do definitely worth it

sorry I'll just that's alright he's um I'll try and remember oh yeah advisor that's it sorry

right he's had some food cleaned him up he's good excellent I'll try and remember. Oh, yeah, advisor. That's it. Sorry. All right, he's had some food. Clean him up. He's good. Excellent. Type in Johnson official portrait. Oh, God, that's Boris Johnson. Lyndon.

Lyndon Johnson. Oh, now a total of 10 so far. No, a total of 14. Except minus two. No, he was on two. He got 14, then minus 12. Oh, okay. Okay, yeah. Are you writing these scores down,

or are you just remembering them? Because I'm writing them down. I'm still getting them wrong. That was just me remembering. Oh, dear. No, you're right as well. Oh, there's going to be so many outtakes on the end of this episode.