Pay Any Price: Lyndon Johnson and the Wars for Vietnam [Hardcover]

Lloyd C. Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995 | ISBN-10: 1566630878 | ISBN-13: 978-1566630870 | Edition: 1St Edition

A masterful account of Lyndon Johnson and America's fall into Vietnam by one of our finest historians, filled with fresh interpretations, deft portraits, and new perspectives. Absolutely terrific...simply the best book on the period. --Marilyn B. Young

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lloyd C. Gardner traces the trajectory of the Vietnam War from police action to international conflict, showing how its conduct coincided with Lyndon Johnson's attachment to social programs meant to improve the lives of the world's poor. By introducing such tangled political elements into a military problem, Gardner argues, Johnson cast a certain unreality on the whole affair. "If one could go to the moon," Gardner imagines a loyalist reasoning, "and if one could help grandma with new medical miracles, surely it would be possible to convince Ho Chi Minh to accept a dam on the Mekong River instead of a residence in Saigon." Manipulated by Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara, Johnson believed that his schemes of regional economic development would bear him out as a savior of the world's oppressed---whether the oppressed asked for his help or not. Gardner's suggestion that Vietnam can be seen as a moral drama played out in the dark recesses of LBJ's conscience is intriguing, and he backs it up with careful scholarship.

From Publishers Weekly

Gardner's masterful study takes a close look at President Lyndon Johnson's juggling of military strategy, international diplomacy and domestic politics during the Vietnam War. Most interestingly, Gardner (Imperial America) explores LBJ's dream of going beyond the Cold War policy of containment by offering the North Vietnamese huge incentives to abandon communism, e.g., a Mekong River project that would have surpassed the New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority. The book features a clear explication of the views of key advisers, most notably Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his struggle with moral and ethical dimensions of Vietnam policy. By the fall of 1967, according to Gardner, most advisers' conferences included a clash between McNamara and colleagues, particularly over the bombing of the North. Making judicious use of newly declassified documents at the Johnson Library in Austin, Tex., Gardner has written a major study of LBJ's incremental reactions to the war's shifting options, shedding new light on the internal debates over the conduct of the war. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 629 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; 1St Edition edition (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566630878
• ISBN-13: 978-1566630870
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,244,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lloyd C. Gardner is the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University and the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including Three Kings and The Long Road to Baghdad. He lives in Newtown, Pennsylvania.