In a speech in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson explained his reason for not committing American troops to the brewing conflict in Vietnam:
"We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."
With his commitment to focusing his administration on his Great Society reforms to the exclusion of foreign policy, LBJ went on to landslide victories over Barry Goldwater in 1964 and George Romney in 1968 and go on to rank among the top ten in greatest Presidents.
In 1967, the North Vietnamese with the help of their Viet Cong allies completed their conquest of South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh personally walked through the main street in Saigon in a photograph made famous by Life Magazine.
But what if LBJ decided to send military "advisers" to Vietnam? Would it have resulted in a Korean-like armistice and would Johnson still have won re-election in 1968?