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JOHN KENNEDY & LYNDON JOHNSON.
Term Paper ID:18812
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Compares personalities, attitudes, backgrounds & styles & their impact on presidential dealings with Congress, Vietnam & domestic issues.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Compares personalities, attitudes, backgrounds & styles & their impact on presidential dealings with Congress, Vietnam & domestic issues.
Paper Introduction:
This study will provide a comparative analysis of two U.S. Presidents, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, concentrating on the differences in their personalities and the impact that those differences had on their actions as President.
Tom Wicker, in JFK & LBJ: The Influence of Personality on Politics, notes that there was indeed a great difference in the ways that the two men approached the office of the Presidency of the United States.
As Wicker writes, Johnson "sets much store by instinct. No wonder, then, that it would be to his instincts . . . that he would often turn in the White House. This reliance on instinct enabled Johnson to put on the Presidency like a suit of comfortable old clothes. John Kennedy, on the other hand, came to it with a historical, nearly theoretical view of what was
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This was confirmed inthe New York Times of November 24, 1963. It is a sign of the approach of Wicker that the two major parts ofhis book have to do with the failures of the two presidents--"Kennedy LosesCongress" and "Johnson Loses His Consensus." The intimate connection between the two presidencies can be seen inthe fact that the failure of Kennedy in Congress led to Johnson's greatestsuccesses as President, while the Vietnam War which Johnson inherited fromKennedy led to Johnson's loss of his consensus and his refusal to run forre-election in 1968. Both mencould be ruthless on the campaign trail when necessary, as we saw inKennedy's tactics in Illinois and in Johnson's use of the nuclear bomb TVad against Goldwater. . Clearly, then, comparing the two Presidents involves the biases ofthe one doing the comparing. . Kennedy, on the other hand, enjoyed a social life quite separate fromhis political life. New York: Holt,Rinehart. We should not be surprised that his friends would saysomething like this" (Snyder, 1988, p. 21). Lincoln writes that Kennedy had come to recognize the greatdifferences between himself and Johnson by the time of the trip to Dallasin November, 1963. . It is easy tounderstand, then, why the Vietnam War brought down not only Johnson thePresident, but Johnson the man as well. . The impression given by the sources consulted for this study makeclear that Johnson's presidency will likely stand forever in the shadow ofthe Kennedy presidency, both in terms of Johnson's successes and hisfailures. In his brief tenure asPresident, he had acquired experience and wisdom which led him to moveslowly, cautiously, and skeptically in Vietnam. In the final analysis, it is their war. Clearly, Kennedy was by far the more charismaticcandidate with respect to the media, and especially television. Johnson felt so much resentment because he knew that it was already being said that his many accomplishments should all be credited to Kennedy . . As Leuchtenberg writes, "Johnson succeeded in part because of thewave of grief and remorse that followed Kennedy's death, an ineluctablefactor in any equation about the relative contributions of the twopresidents" (Snyder, 1988, p. On the other hand, ashistory showed, the defeat of Johnson the President in politics meant thedefeat of Johnson the man in life. Kennedyignored Johnson and Johnson's resentment toward Kennedy helped shapeJohnson's Presidency. as an old-fashioned, behind-the-scenes politician . Lincoln writes that Kennedy had decided to dumpJohnson, despite the trip to Dallas which was to be a fence-mending effortfor Johnson, Connally and Yarborough. Wicker, Tom. At the same time, however,Kennedy was no match for Johnson. As we read in Evans and Novak, "In the early weeks of the Johnsonpresidency, and, in fact, right up to the election of 1964, relationsbetween the President and individual members of Congress were closer thanat any time in memory. " (Lincoln, 1968, p. Paterson might argue that all thetroops would not have been ordered home by the end of 1965, as Kennedy wassaid to have desired, and he might argue that Kennedy would have changedthat policy, but he is utterly in error when he reduces this definitivepolicy to the level of "stories" from "partisan followers." Paterson writes that the "stories" about Kennedy's intention towithdraw all military personnel from Vietnam "come largely from partisanfollowers . " (Wicker, 1968, pp. This proved to be a benefit to Johnson in dealing effectively withCongress in a way that Kennedy could not match. It is impossible to know if Kennedy couldhave gotten through Congress the bills that Johnson was able to getthrough. Tom Wicker writes in his epilogue that Johnson won his highest marksin trying to create a Great Society on the foundation of Kennedy's bills,but fell as a result of the Vietnam War which he had inherited fromKennedy: The overriding cause for Lyndon Johnson's decline from the peaks of 1964 and 1965 is the war in Vietnam--too confidently entered upon, too little understood, too costly for any gain he could make men see, too complex either to win or to end by the kind of direct and straightforward action that Americans favor. . As we read in Leuchtenberg, there was great resentment on the part ofJohnson toward Kennedy: "Johnson was deeply aware of Kennedy's legacy; heknew that his style was being compared always, usually unfavorably, to thatof his patrician predecessor; that even in his own administration therewere people who could not stand the sight of him because he held the officethat rightly belonged to Kennedy; that there was even a play that likenedhim to Macbeth, who had acquired the throne by foul murder" (Snyder, 1988,p. He found a war onhis lap, and he found all the experts around him telling him that theUnited States had to save Vietnam. John F. 186-187). that he would often turn inthe White House. . Kennedy had time to evolve his foreign policy and the maturity ofthat policy had begun to show by the time he was assassinated. (Snyder, 1988, p. (Ed.). It is ironic, then, that John Kennedy began to have more instinct forthe office the longer he was in office, while Johnson was to be driven fromoffice because of a failure of instinct in the Vietnam War. Johnson thoroughly resented thefact that he had to serve in the nearly meaningless position of Vice-President after having had so much power for so many years as a leader inCongress. There may be debate about the impact of Kennedy's assassination onthe speed with which Johnson rammed important bills through Congress, butthe fact remains that Johnson was far more skillful than Kennedy in dealingwith Congress. . as a sign of renewed presidential-congressional cooperation" (Evans &Novak, 1966, p. Tom Wicker, in JFK & LBJ: The Influence of Personality on Politics,notes that there was indeed a great difference in the ways that the two menapproached the office of the Presidency of the United States. . . (1968). After all, Capitol Hill was Johnson'spolitical home . In any case, Wicker writes that "JFK, in his pursuit of excellence,and LBJ, with his instinctive grasp of power and responsibility, are thesubjects of this book. Senior Democrats who had seen President Kennedyonly on official business or at social events had easy and casual access toPresident Johnson. To some extent, this apparent difference between the two men ascampaigners was just that--appearance--because both men were willing andable to be as ruthless as possible behind-the-scenes when it was necessary. New York: William Morrow.----------------------- 13 As Leuchtenberg writes, it is not a given that Kennedy was such afailure in dealing with Congress or that Johnson was such a master bycontrast. The impact of Vietnam caused Johnson towithdraw from the 1968 race. . No wonder,then, that it would be to his instincts . (1988). Lincoln writes that she asked Kennedy whom he would select as running-mate in 1964. These personal differences and mutual dislike are important for thepurposes of this paper because their Presidencies reflected thesedifferences and were shaped to some degree by that dislike. . . Paterson, in Snyder, discounts the claim that Kennedy had made thedecision to withdraw the 16, advisers he had committed to Vietnam. JFK and LBJ. Kennedy's critics have said that at the time of his death his program was hopelessly bogged down in Congress but that within months of taking office Johnson was able to put through both civil rights legislation and a tax cut (the centerpiece of the 'New Economics'), and to launch a War on Poverty. 16). This approach was the result of the encounter between Kennedy'sintelligent and reasonable personality and the experiences of the office. References Evans, R., & Novak, R. The two men did not like each other, as the sources all agree.This dislike was probably inevitable, because of the differences inpersonality and background, and because the two men were political rivals.The fact that Johnson, for political expediency, became Vice-President tothe younger Kennedy did not help matters. . New York: New American Library. . As Wicker writes, Johnson "sets much store by instinct. Inany case, Kennedy had learned not to trust the CIA after the Bay of Pigsdisaster, he had learned the importance of open-minded and debate-filleddecision-making after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he had begun to applythese and other lessons to crises around the world. We have already briefly touched on the debate over their relativesuccesses in dealing with Congress--particularly with regard to taxes,civil rights, and the bills having to do with the War on Poverty. Kennedy replied that he wanted to make important changes inthe structure of government in his second term in office, and "To do this Iwill need as a running mate in sixty-four a man who believes as I do . The two were inextricably blended" (Evans &Novak, 1966, p. Wicker's interpretation is open to debate, however. Senator Johnson, on the other hand, came across . With Johnson, we find an entirely different picture. 361). Even a few New Frontiersmen now felt thatthe Kennedy legislative record was the weak spot of his presidency. However, Kennedy's defenders have responded that the civil rights and tax cut measures were assured of passage in November 1963 and that Johnson's War on Poverty was no more than a consolidation of Kennedy proposals under an exaggerated title . It is this reader's view that Kennedy, because of the lesson of theBay of Figs, would not have made the same fatal error. . John Kennedy, on theother hand, came to it with a historical, nearly theoretical view of whatwas required of a strong President . Where Johnson and Kennedy truly came together was in the post-assassination effort by Johnson to push Kennedy's legislation throughCongress. Wicker arguesthat Kennedy was very torn by the involvement of the United States inVietnam, but that finally he saw that it was not an American war to win orlose. 22). 15-16). In fact,there is serious speculation that that policy--particularly his decision topull out of Vietnam--was in part responsible for that assassination. Infact, at the moment of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in 1963, there wasin full force the Presidential edict, announced by Defense SecretaryMcNamara on the steps of the White House a month earlier, ordering thefirst thousand of those advisers home from Vietnam. This study will provide a comparative analysis of two U.S.Presidents, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, concentrating on thedifferences in their personalities and the impact that those differenceshad on their actions as President. Lyndon Johnson came into office seeking a Great Society in America and found instead an ugly little war that consumed him (Wicker, 1968, p. . Kennedy was an intellectual Easterner, a Harvard man,and used reason where Johnson would overwhelm a man with his physicalpresence. Clearly, then, whatever critics and historians thought about thedifferences between the two men, as men and as politicians, Johnson andKennedy themselves were never able to resolve those differences. (1968). Theyare the ones who have to win it or lose it. Johnson's bull-headed approach to Vietnam led him to disaster, buthis hands-on approach to Congress led him to successes that Kennedy mighthave won, but never as quickly as Johnson did. Kennedy was not afraid of afight, either, however. Atthis time I am thinking about Governor Terry Sanford of North Carolina.But it will not be Lyndon" (Lincoln, 1968, pp. Evans and Novak do grant that Kennedy was in fact a better negotiatorwith Congress than Truman and Eisenhower. (1966). This marked change in relations between Capitol Hilland the White House was inevitable with Lyndon Johnson as President, nomatter what the prevailing problems. 21). Paterson does admit, however,despite his obvious dislike for Kennedy, that Kennedy was never ascommitted to military adventure in Vietnam as Johnson was. . has gotten out oftouch with the people . Theywere coming to believe that his place in history would be assured by hisbrilliant victory in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the skillfulnegotiations that brought off the 1963 test-ban treaty but that historywould not record him as one of those few Presidents who tamed Congress"(Evans & Novak, 1966, pp. . Johnson, on the other hand, was a man who operated withlittle political ideology, developing as a liberal (on Kennedy's coattails)on domestic issues, and as a conservative hawk in Vietnam. Johnson wassuddenly thrust into the office on November 22, 1963. . 2 4-2 5). Lyndon B. .It is too early to make an announcement about another running-mate . Kennedy and Johnson. There is little room for comparison with respect to the two men asPresidential campaigners. He saw the war as a challenge to America, to thePresidency, and to himself as a man and as a Texan. It is a work of the imagination that poses anexplanation of Kennedy's bitter and disappointing relationship withCongress, and puts forward the thesis that the expansion of the war inVietnam was an almost inevitable but not entirely planned result ofJohnson's succession to the Presidency" (Wicker, 1968, p. Kennedy. 133). As Evans and Novak emphasize, the great difference on the domesticfront was the ability of Johnson to do with Congress what Kennedy hadproved, at least to the time of his murder, unable to do. Johnson, unlike the more self-confidentKennedy, saw the Vietnam War as a personal challenge to him, and as hebecame more involved and finally obsessed with the war, he vowed that hewould not be the first American President to lose a war. Again, Johnson was the man of action without hesitation, the man whowanted a fight, enjoyed a fight, and was used to emerging the winner.Kennedy, on the other hand, was a far more thoughtful man, a man who wasconfident enough of himself as a man that he did not have to continuouslyprove to himself and others that he was a man. . . As a result, Kennedy was a more well-rounded man whodid not have his identity completely tied up with politics, as Johnson did. Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy's secretary, writes in her book thatthe differences between the men as politicians was clear before Kennedy waselected: "In this pre-convention campaign, Senator Kennedy seemed tosymbolize an open, though hard-hitting determination to win politicaloffice. 278). Kennedy, for his part, felt a measure of contempt for the boorishTexan. 59). Lincoln, E. This reliance on instinct enabled Johnson to put on thePresidency like a suit of comfortable old clothes. The Vietnam Warbecame to Johnson a test of his masculinity, and he was determined not tolose the battle with leaders he saw as inferior to himself. However,many observers argue that Johnson was able to pass those laws becauseCongress and the nation saw such passage as a sign of love and respect forthe murdered Kennedy. Besides, Johnson had never had a social life distinctfrom his political life. Johnson: The exercise ofpower. This identification ofhimself with the war effort spelled disaster for him and for hisPresidency. . And, asLeuchtenberg writes in Snyder, it is simply not a given that Kennedy was afailure in dealing with Congress and that Johnson was a success. 365). Johnson also inherited the Vietnam War, and it seems that he took thewar in a direction entirely opposite to that in which Kennedy was moving.Kennedy was hesitant to become involved in a ground war in Asia, as DouglasMacArthur had warned against, but Johnson immediately rushed into the warafter taking office. When the New Frontier hit a slow period in early 1963, and hisCongressional representatives warned against risking major losses inCongress, Kennedy saw that "substantial progress on the tax and civilrights bills was impossible until 1964." Johnson, upon taking over, madeas his "first goal" the ramming through of "all the appropriation bills . In the firstplace, if Johnson's success as a politician was based on his instincts,then how could he have blundered so horribly in the Vietnam War? As we have seen, Johnson felt strong resentment and jealousy towardKennedy's style, while Kennedy felt that Johnson was too mired in back-room-style politics to keep as running-mate in the 1964 election. 361-362). However, Kennedy faced a down-to-the-wire battlewith Nixon in his election campaign, whereas Johnson faced little seriousthreat from Goldwater in 1964. Evans and Novak write: "Some of Johnson's advisers who were lessthan admiring of the Kennedy presidency actually believed the congressionalstalemate was undermining foreign confidence in the administration'sability to run its own country. Consider the enemies that he made in his shortleadership--the Mafia, the anti-Castro Cubans, the CIA, the FBI, themilitary-industrial complex, the oil and steel industries, the far rightwing opposed to his civil rights policies--and we see a man of courage anddetermination. As Wicker writes, Kennedy in a TV interview "said he did not think'the war can be won unless the people support the effort, and in myopinion, in the last two months, the government . .. Lincoln's most fascinating contribution to the research on Johnsonand Kennedy and the comparison between them has to do with Kennedy's likelychoice for Vice-President in 1964. Any comparison between the two Presidents has to consider thepersonal styles of the two men. Wilmington, DE:Scholarly Resources. And that is the ultimate, perhaps tragic, irony. Johnson inherited the legislation that Kennedy had put into theCongress, and he was able to pass them where Kennedy had failed. . Evans and Novak write that one crucial difference between Johnson andKennedy on domestic issues was that involving relations with Congress. Snyder, J.R. Theissue of Vietnam is just as full of controversy as the domestic issues. Johnson was a down-to-earth Texan who wasknown for his ability to use both charm and arm-twisting to get his waywith Congressmen. We can help them, we can givethem equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers but they have towin it, the people of Vietnam against the Communists.' He did not,obviously, see the situation as one requiring purely military action fromwhatever source" (Wicker, 1968, pp.
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