RIGHT ON ONE POINT
What did Johnson mean when he said in his press conference - April 27, "I am not concerned with any friends that we have lost" around the world because of escalating the war in Vietnam?
A Washington correspondent of the Associated Press, John M Hightower. explained it this way: "President Johnson clearly wants to win as much support as possible around the world for his policies in ‘Vietnam, but he is also grimly determined not to run U.S, strate egy in the Vietnamese war as a ‘popularity contest."
Johnson's reasoning is quite clear. The people in the rest of the world don't vote in the election of an American president 3 they only suffer the consequences.
Thus the popularity contest is not being held now; it. was held last November, At that time Johnson was "grimly determined" to appear as the man of peace, crusading against the “trigger-happy, war-mongering" Senator Goldwater, who wanted to launch:a war on. north Vietnam.
Having won that popularity contest, Johnson did what capitalist politicians always do. He tore up Ais: campaign promises and went ahead wfth his imperialist chores. ~
While Johnson is accurate in his judgment that he is not engaging in a popularity contest at the moment -- the next one not being scheduled until 1968 -- it would nevertheless be untrue to say that his course is utterly without approval.
On April 27 no one less than Goldwater himself enthusiastically proclaimed, "My President has done the might thing in the right way." a
The American voters might well ponder these consequences of their famous two-party system.
ONE OF THE "