WI: Johnson Never Escalates in Vietnam

Vietnam falls quicker , America shifts to the right and become more anti-communist. May reduce/delay the drug problem in the US due to less exposure/use from former GI's.
 
Vietnam falls quicker , America shifts to the right and become more anti-communist. May reduce/delay the drug problem in the US due to less exposure/use from former GI's.

I disagree that the US would shift to the right if LBJ had not escalated in early 1965. See https://books.google.com/books?id=YRTeKY1xcVUC&pg=PA323 for Hubert Humphrey's prescient February 15, 1965 memorandum warning LBJ of the adverse consequences of escalation and noting that "It is always hard to cut losses. But the Johnson administration is in a stronger position to do so now than any administration in this century. 1965 is the year of minimum political risk for the Johnson administration. Indeed, it is the first year when we can face the Vietnam problem without being preoccupied with the political repercussions from the Republican right. As indicated earlier, our political problems are likely to come from new and different sources (Democratic liberals, independents, labor) if we pursue an enlarged military policy very long."

The notion that accepting a Communist victory in Vietnam in 1965 would have moved America to the right did disturb LBJ in 1965, but I think he was misguided. He was haunted by memories of how the "loss" of China had led to McCarthyism. But in the first place, 1965 was not 1949 (anti-communism in the US was much less intense); in the second, Vietnam was not China (as of early 1965, most Americans didn't really care that much about Vietnam); and in the third place it is even questionable how much Mao's victory in 1949 would have moved American politics to the right if not for other factors like the nuclear spy cases and above all the Korean War.

What moved American politics to the right after 1965 (apart from racial and other considerations which had little to do with the war) was the way the war caused disunity in the Democratic Party (thus weakening it against the Republicans) and the way it led to an antiwar movement whose tactics and rhetoric were resented by much of Middle America. And of course what hurt most of all was the way the war seemed to be an endless "no win" war. Without the war, there is no antiwar movement as we know it, fewer TV stories about rioting students to outrage the "Silent Majority," and a more unified Democratic Party. And of course there will not be endless US casualties from the war itself. There will still be *something* of a turn to the right in the 1966 elections, but it will probably be less than in OTL.
 
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Perhaps The other war in the domican republic can arouse some annoyance? Iotl it was handled with OAS cover, and outside of the limelight. There will be some point somewhere of push back against America can and should do anything.
 
Assuming that LBJ continued to provide military aid, air support, and limited military advisors, it would force the South Vietnamese to accept that their fate was in their own hands. They would either win or lose based on their own leadership. Also, with much lower American troop presence, the Viet Cong would not be able to use the Americans as propaganda in the country side.
 
I had thought for a time that Walter Jenkins not being busted at the YMCA just might be enough of a PoD to make this happen, George Read and Ramsey Clark seemed to think so. Even if LBJ doesn't decide against escalation as such, he might, with less paranoia, be brought around to the idea of sharing said decision with the American people, which would have implications of its own. It's also possible he still goes with Rolling Thunder, but feels less trapped when Westmoreland asks for ground troops to help defend the air base.

That said, I realize there is disagreement.
I am afraid that Jenkins was just too much of an LBJ loyalist, and too little of an original thinker, to change LBJ's policies in any meaningful way. At most, he would sometimes delay making public something LBJ had rashly said for a day or so, to give LBJ time to rethink it. But the Vietnam war escalation was not like that. It was not an impulsive decision, but the product of a real dilemma: there was just no way in January 1965 to prevent South Vietnam from becoming Communist except for US escalation. Jenkins could not have dissuaded LBJ from thinking the latter the lesser evil, and probably would not even have tried. (And by the way, support for LBJ's escalation policy was widespread at the time; a lot of Democrats who later earned antiwar reputations didn't oppose it until 1968 or even later...)
 
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