Includes chapter notes with bibliographical references (pages 353-384), bibliographical essay (pages 385-396), and index.

Few presidencies will be recalled, reconsidered, and reassessed so often in future years as that of Lyndon Baines Johnson, thirty-sixth chief executive of the United States. His five years in office, from late 1963 to early 1969, were a dramatic period in which the American people were brought face-to-face with crucial questions of public policy. One was the appropriateness and feasibility of waging an undeclared war in a very distant theater for mixed and partially understood goals. Another was how far the national government should go in trying to legislate full civil rights, provide education to the extent of everyone's potential, seek at some cost to eliminate poverty, spend to control crime, fund the arts and humanities, create public radio and television services, and pursue new departures in conservation. This administration also engaged in activity designed to conquer space and to minimize the danger of thermonuclear war. Striking successes were achieved in many important areas. Yet, acutely anxious to pursue utopian goals, this presidency was not alert to the dangers inherent in making unrealizable promises. There was also excessive devotion to party well-being; overregulation; distortion of the balance between national, state, and local responsibilities; invasion of privacy by intelligence agencies; and increased federal spending that paved the way toward inflation of the currency. The most catastrophic decision, it turned out, was choosing to wage an open-ended Vietnam War for democracy and against communism without having the goal of quick military victory.

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