The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. Johnson: The United States and the World, 1963-69

Drawing on recently declassified documents as well as some of the latest published research, The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. Johnson provides a fresh general account of President Johnson’s handling of US foreign relations. It begins with an exploration of the Johnson White House, and then considers US policies towards Vietnam, Britain and France, the NATO alliance, the Soviet Union and communist China, the Middle East, the Western Hemisphere, and the international economy. The author contends that although the war in Vietnam could have been prosecuted more effectively, overall Johnson dealt with the world beyond the borders of the United States very capably. In particular, he dealt with successive challenges to the NATO alliance in a skilled and intelligent manner, leaving it politically stronger when he left office in 1969 than it had been in 1963. The book provides the most sympathetic general account of Johnson’s foreign policy thus far and confounds the traditional image of him as maladroit in the realm of diplomacy. It is essential reading for students of US foreign policy, the modern presidency and the Cold War.