policy - The Black Vault

THE BDM CORPORATION
sought to exploit the dissatisfactions of the traditionaily Democraticvoting
working class through a new coalition of the "unyoung, unpoor,
unblack." 16/
In the second phase of Johnson's presidency, the Democratic
Party was being fragmented by antiwar elements of the party, chiefly intellectuals
who were pulling to the left while the other elements dissenting
against the domestic social policies were pulling to the right. This
condition was markedly different from the political pressure Kennedy had
faced. Kennedy had had relatively little personal interest in domestic
politics and his personal policy choices were complemented by his political
opposition on the right which entered political debate on foreign policy
issues.
Johnson faced not only political opposition to his foreign
policy in Southeast Asia and the Dominican Republic, he also was confronted
with growing criticism of his domestic policies. Most important, after the
overwhelming defeat of Barry Goldwater, the opposition to Johnson's foreign
policy from the right evaporated. From that time until the emergence of
spokesmen like Senator Henry Jackson of Washington in the 1970s, the right
did not have credible representatives who argued for a stronger approach to
communist actions in Vietnam. Thus, Johnson's policies were assaulted from
the left: the traditional balance to the political debate from the right
was missing in the 1965-to-1968 period. Johnson had always sought to take
a moderate course in handling the Vietnam situation. His determination to
escalate the war gradually was partially rooted in the fear that he might
trigger intervention by the Chinese or the Russians. 17/ He was also
fearful that a lack of restraint would stimulate a domestic demand for
increased escalation from the political right. 18/ His war policies had
consequently been developed through an approach that he perceived to be the
middle course between failure to act decisively and over-reaction. He was I
ill-prepared for the collapse of right wing criticism of his policies.
Without that balance his policies were exposed to attack only from the
left, and he found himself painfully exposed as representing the right end
of the debate which was fragmenting his political coalition. Had credible,
5-7