Lyndon B Johnson

            A third issue that happened under President Johnson was the Vietnam War, which is a foreign issue. The war was fought between 1964 and 1975 in North and South Vietnam. The situation in Vietnam was that North Vietnam (Communist) was trying to take over South Vietnam (Republic) and the Soviets along with the Chinese were giving military aid to North Vietnam while the United States helped South Vietnam. President Johnson started of by sending about 75,000 troops to Vietnam, but as time went on, he saw that keeping South Vietnam away from Communism was a necessity; he therefore kept on sending more and more American soldiers into Vietnam and when the war was at its height, more than 200,000 American troops were in Vietnam. Since President Johnson believed that he had to do whatever is needed to defeat North Vietnam, he would disregard what the public believed. Even though at one point only 25% of the public believed that Johnson was doing good for the country, he continued to fight the war. Because Johnson kept fighting the war against the public’s will, there were demonstrations being held in Washington. The war became so unpopular that 9,118 draftees refused to fight in the war; but to make matters worse, all of the draftees were prosecuted. The war made the people of the US angry. The war made President Johnson a poor president due to the fact that he disregarded the public opinion on the war.

            The fourth affair that President Johnson dealt with was the relationship between the US and South American countries; this was a foreign issue. During Lyndon’s presidency, there was a series of crises in Latin America; and due to the Monroe Doctrine, Johnson was obligated to settle the problem(s) in these countries. When Cuba demanded that the US return the Guatanamo Naval base and shut of the water installation, the US navy created their own water supply, causing the Cubans to back down. When the Panamanians rioted against American control of the Panama canal, President Johnson dealt with the Panamanians firmly with violence, but eventually President Johnson agreed to return the canal by 1999. President Johnson’s decision to deal with Latin American affairs gave the people of the United States a sense of nationalism. This made President Johnson an average president because the American public responded to the event with approval.

President Johnson wasn’t a poor president because he did enough things to benefit the American public that people didn’t weigh the bad things he did as heavily. He wasn’t an excellent president because his actions proved that he supported things that were wrong and unjust, which makes him in no way an excellent president.