Dereliction of Duty (H.R. McMaster) pp50-1
The new president’s preoccupation with consensus and unity came from his insecurity and his consequent distrust of his advisers. At times he manifested a kind of paranoia about dissent. His quest for reassurance and support rather than wide-ranging debate on policy issues, would color Johnson’s relationship with the Joint Chiefs and his other advisers and determine who exerted influence over American policy toward Vietnam.
Johnson especially distrusted his military advisers. His first contact with the military had come during his initial bid for the Senate in Texas in 1941. He seized on the issue of military preparedness to put a more conservative face on his campaign. Johnson hoped that his strong position on defense matters would mitigate his support for President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s New Deal. His strategy failed, and he lost the election. After his defeat Johnson took a five week leave from his office in the House of Representatives to fulfill his campaign premise to volunteer for military service.
Serving in World War ll helped Johnson advance his political career. After gaining a commission as a lieutenant commander in the US. Navy, he secured from President Roosevelt an assignment to the Pacific as part of a three-man observation team. One of Roosevelt’s aides wrote in his diary that Johnson was anxious to he in a danger zone to enhance his appeal to the electorate. On June 9, 1942, Johnson got his wish. He rode on a B-26 bombing run from an airfield in New Guinea. While approaching the target area, Johnson’s plane experienced a mechanical malfunction and came under attack from Japanese fighters. The pilot nursed the aircraft back to base and landed it smoothly on the runway. The plane to which Johnson had initially been assigned was not as fortunate and crashed into the ocean, killing the entire crew and one of his fellow observers, Lt. Col. Francis Stevens, who had taken Johnson‘s seat. The next day Johnson headed for home. During a brief stopover in Australia, Johnson and his surviving fellow observer met the commander of the Southwest Pacific Theater, Gen. Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur told Johnson that he was awarding him the Silver Star Medal for gallantry during his ride on the B-26 bomber. No other crew member, not even the pilot who landed the crippled plane, received a decoration. A week after his return to the United States, LBJ was out of uniform and back in the House of Representatives.
Despite his limited experience, Johnson assumed the demeanor of a war-weary veteran. He told reporters of his “suicide mission” against the Japanese and “the harrowing flight home under fire.” The press, caught up in the emotional fervor of the war, eagerly embraced his deliberate misrepresentation of his service in the South Pacific. Johnson told his rural Texas constituents that he was simply happy to have survived the ordeal. In December of 1942, when a reporter asked him if he had been in combat, Johnson replied. “Yes I was, I was out there in May, June and part of July. We exchanged greetings [with the enemy] quite often. They [the Japanese] paid us very busy visits every day” for a time. In Johnson’s accounts enemy fire had “knocked out” the engine that had malfunctioned. He even told a reporter that the men with whom he had served in the 22nd Bomber Group had called him “Raider” Johnson Although Johnson once told a journalist that he didn’t deserve the Silver Star Medal and told a receptive audience that he had refused the honor, he arranged to have the medal bestowed upon him in public – several times. His misrepresentation of his war experience for political benefit revealed a real propensity for lying. Both Lyndon Johnson’s self-doubt and his willingness to forgo the truth would color his relationship with his principal military advisers and shape the way that the United States became more deeply involved in the Vietnam War.
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