Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965
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Book Summary Information
Reader: Michael R. BeschlossEdition: Audio Cassette
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 2001-11-01
ISBN: 0671580027
Number of pages: 6
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Book Reviews of Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965
Book Review: Absorbing and Excellently Edited; But don't Construe Tapes as an Admission by Johnson that the War was Lost Before it Began
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a terrific collection that must be listened to rather than read and that, in tracking developments in Vietnam, is more significant than the materials in the first volume. Beschloss is an excellent editor, who provides the necessary context and background for each tape.
Listening to the tapes reveals LBJ's larger-than-life energy and charm. He controls the conversation and can charm or bully the caller as he sees fit. His conversation with Adam Clayton Powell is a hilarious example of Johnson taking a man to the woodshed.
Johnson is in command of his material, is prepared and insightful, and thoroughly controls the conversation.
The most significant issue raised by the tapes is Johnson's acknowledgment -- even before the massive escalation phase -- that the war cannot be won. Beschloss invites the inference that Johnson simply plowed ahead tragically, apparently feeling he had no choice politically.
I don't agree. What Johnson really says on these tapes is the war cannot be won military and must be won politically. He was right on the mark here. He plows forward, I believe, because he thinks he will have a politically viable South Vietnamese government. We know from hindsignt that this was delusional. But remember, the American experience as of 1965 was that nation building worked. South Korea was viable, and CIA engineered coups in Guatemala and Iran worked out quite well. Also, while no politician had better insight into domestic politics than Johnson, he was clueless about Southeast Asian politics and had to rely on his advisors -- who, in turn, made some rosy assumptions as a result of the American experience with nation building in the 1950s.
A great and completely absorbing book.
Summary of Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965
Reaching for Glory lets us eavesdrop on LBJ's private, often tortured thoughts during the most crucial year of his presidency -- when his dreams of being hailed as the equal of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were destroyed by the war in Vietnam.
As Reaching for Glory opens, LBJ is campaigning for the greatest presidential landslide in history. To win, he hands embarrassing secrets about Barry Goldwater to friendly reporters. When Johnson's closest aide is arrested in a sex scandal, he tries to keep it from exploding before the election.
This audiobook reveals the secret history of how Lyndon Johnson took us step by step, often by stealth, into Vietnam. While publicly boasting that there will be victory in Vietnam, he privately worries that the war can never be won and that it will crush his presidency. He foresees the backlash against the war, civil rights, and the Great Society that will bring Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to power.
Reaching for Glory lets us hear LBJ's private telephone conversations with Jacqueline Kennedy just after her husband's assassination. It allows us to live at Lyndon Johnson's side, day by day, through the dramatic, triumphant, catastrophic, and pivotal year of a turbulent presidency that continues to affect all of our lives.
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