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Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Lyndon Johnson > Item 90
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Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam
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by Thomas Alan Schwartz
Sales Rank: 809789
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List Price: $29.95
$29.95
At Amazon
on 9-12-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 352 pages
Published by: Harvard University Press April 30, 2003
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0674010744
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0674010741
Book Dimensions:
8.4 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Product Review
Schwartz's carefully researched and thoughtfully presented history of Johnson's European policy is not only fascinating for the light it casts on this enigmatic president; it also shows the degree to which today's transatlantic tensions reflect permanent fault lines between Cold War partners.
--Walter Russell Mead (Foreign Affairs )
Schwartz challenges the dominant view of most scholars that Lyndon Baines Johnson, the domestic politics guru, was uninterested, inept, incompetent, and ineffective in foreign policy, a perception enhanced by his Vietnam quagmire. Schwartz contends that Johnson did not separate domestic and foreign policy but always saw the two as part of the same whole, and that he became increasingly adept at shaping and controlling policy on the world stageThis is a first-class piece of scholarship and writing, a very important contribution that must be given utmost attention in any interpretation of the Johnson administration.
--J. P. Dunn (Choice )
Though entitled "In the Shadow of Vietnam", this welcome and necessary contribution to the scholarship of US-European relations during the Johnson presidency demonstrates that there were many other issues beyond Vietnam that exercised the minds of LBJ and his advisers during the 1960s…Through his detailed exploration of the American response to the many problems thrown up in the maelstrom of the 1960s, Schwartz reveals a president who showed restraint and no little sensitivity and skill in his handling of the proud French leader, Charles de Gaulle, to prevent a serious rupture in the Atlantic alliance…This analysis of US-European relations also provides a fascinating portrait of the foreign policymaking process and the ways in which the United States was and is still able to achieve its objectives abroad. Through his examination of the papers of presidential advises and diplomats, Schwartz reveals the influences on the conduct of US foreign policy and the significance of channels and links with agencies and institutions of foreign governments. Such transnational links enabled American officials to secure influence in the decisions-making processes of other nations, thus achieving America's objectives abroad. This most cogently argued and insightful study of US-European relations in the 1960s is an invaluable source for policymakers and students of American foreign policy alike.
--Raj Roy (History )
Product Review
An great revisionist account of Lyndon Johnson's European policy. Schwartz argues convincingly that LBJ was not the cornpone provincial who neither understood nor cared about other societies. He learned on the job and after concentrating on the domestic successes of 1965, paid careful attention to Europe. This work is the first of several that will begin to place Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam in their proper historical contexts. Clearly and concisely written, this is diplomatic history at its best.
--Randall Woods, University of Arkansas (20030901)
Reader Reviews
Complaining bitterly to Dean Acheson about the public affection that had surrounded John Kennedy and the coolness toward him, Lyndon B. Johnson wondered aloud why people didn't like him. "Mr. President," Acheson replied, "you're not a very likeable man." Contrary to Acheson's opinion, shared by most contemporaries and by many subsequent historians, Johnson emerges from this thoroughly researched and well-crafted study, not only as a shrewd politician, an able negotiator and a skillful foreign-policy leader, but also as an almost likeable person. Schwartz finds that LBJ, after he settled into office, became "an astute and able practitioner of alliance politics," one who developed a keen understanding of the perspectives and preoccupations of European leaders and who dominated the foreign policy process. His policy toward Europe, the author writes, was "one of the most important achievements of his presidency." Schwartz unravels a series of complex negotiations-over arms control, the future of NATO, a Multilateral Force, and international economic issues-, and asserts that LBJ, determined to combat nationalism and unilateralism, effectively pursued his vision of a further integration of Europe and a relaxation of cold war tensions. What makes Johnson an engaging character are the many quips and axioms of popular wisdom that he brought to a foreign policy realm traditionally dominated by soft-spoken diplomats and cosmopolitan personalities. When his advisors reminded him that America was committed to the creation of a Multilateral Force and had to find a compromise even though the Europeans didn't really want it, Johnson proposed to drop the idea altogether by remarking: "While you're trying to save face, you'll lose your ass." This Texan brought up in a German-American community developed a good friendship with Chancellor Eckard but advocated the following course of action toward his ally: "There's only one way to deal with the Germans. You keep patting them on the head and then every once in a while you kick them in the balls". He resisted the advice to react strongly to the public attacks by de Gaulle by remarking that he didn't want to get into a "pissing match with the French" and, commenting on de Gaulle's decision to exit NATO's integrated defense system and have American troops evacuate France, noted soberly: "When a man asks you to leave his house, you don't argue; you get your hat and go." He also brought fresh ideas to international economic policy debates, bringing the Kennedy Round to completion and salvaging the Bretton Woods system, although he rarely talked publicly about those issues - he once told John Kenneth Galbraith that "making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg: it seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else." Indeed, Schwartz makes the case that LBJ's gut feelings and instinctive understanding of power politics often trumped the judgment of more experienced foreign policy experts and made him a natural leader of the Atlantic alliance. The book opens with a reference to Lyndon Johnson as "the Ugly American" and concludes with a quote from Charles de Gaulle, who once said that "Roosevelt and Kennedy were masks over the real face of America. Johnson is the very portrait of America. He reveals the country to us as it is, rough and raw." The quote wasn't intended as a compliment, but may be taken as one.
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Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam
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