Capitol Issues

At about noon January 24, while the plane bearing Lyndon Johnson’s body was heading toward Washington, Henry Kissinger was explaining the Vietnam truce to the press: “We have here several issues: One, is there such a thing as South Vietnam even temporarily until unification; secondly, who is the legitimate ruler of South Vietnam. This is what the civil war has been all about. . . .”

The President who sacrificed everything for the principle that the Vietnam conflict was aggression, not civil war, did not share his successor’s interest in foreign policy. FDR was Johnson’s patron and idol and in 1965-66, 25 years after Congress stalemated the New Deal, Johnson used a temporary congressional imbalance to give the New Deal a last gasp as the Great Society.

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George F. Will

George F. Will has been a columnist, beginning with National Review, since 1973.

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt

At about noon January 24, while the plane bearing Lyndon Johnson’s body was heading toward Washington, Henry Kissinger was explaining the Vietnam truce to the press: “We have here several issues: One, is there such a thing as South Vietnam even temporarily until unification; secondly, who is the legitimate ruler of South Vietnam. This is what the civil war has been all about. . . .”

The President who sacrificed everything for the principle that the Vietnam conflict was aggression, not civil war, did not share his successor’s interest in foreign policy. FDR was Johnson’s patron and idol and in 1965-66, 25 years after Congress stalemated the New Deal, Johnson used a temporary congressional imbalance to give the New Deal a last gasp as the Great Society.