"Peace without Conquest": Lyndon Johnson's Speech of April 7, 1965

Abstract

On April 7, 1965, Lyndon Johnson delivered a televised address from Johns Hopkins University, reaching an estimated sixty million viewers across the United States and many tuning in from around the world. (1) His administration billed the speech, Peace without Conquest, as a major address on the Vietnam crisis, possibly its most important foreign-policy speech. (2) The speech responded to months of criticism regarding American military escalation in Vietnam. During the speech, Johnson spoke at length of America's commitment to the Vietnamese: have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence.... We are also there to strengthen world order.... We are also there because great stakes are in the balance.... We will not withdraw. At the same time, however, he declared his willingness for unconditional discussions in pursuit of and announced an offer of $1 billion in aid for a development project along the Mekong River. The speech presented the North Vietnamese with a choice, as one periodical put it: Destroy or build. (3) Public pressure for a peace offensive had mounted in the months leading up to the speech. Though Johnson had won the 1964 presidential election as the candidate, he subsequently ordered the bombing of North Vietnam and dispatched American ground troops to the area. Domestically, a small but voluble minority, including Walter Lippmann and the New York Times editorial board, became increasingly alarmed at American escalation and critical of Johnson's handling of the situation. Internationally, it was hard to ignore complaints and public advice from NATO allies and the United Nations. Thus, the April 7 speech addressed not only the North Vietnamese and their Chinese and Soviet backers, but also domestic and allied public opinion. It marked the first major attempt to win the other over Vietnam, that is, the one for public support. In the short term, the speech was a spectacular success. Leaders and newspapers of NATO allies hailed the speech. At home, editors and columnists fell over themselves praising Johnson's perceived new course, while mail to the White House swung from criticism to support. Those advocating a more militant line found Johnson's promise to defend South Vietnamese independence reassuring, while those clamoring for nonmilitary solutions found their satisfaction in Johnson's willingness to negotiate and offer of development aid. Indeed, the speech is noteworthy for allowing Johnson to apply his domestic antipoverty outlook to foreign policy. Most Americans and Western allies alike expressed new optimism about prospects in Vietnam. Less than four months later, at a July 28, 1965 press conference, President Johnson publicly committed the United States to a long-term, full-scale war in Vietnam. Gone were the optimism, the willingness to negotiate, and the promise of development aid in the Johns Hopkins speech. Johnson and his advisors truly believed their rhetoric about peace, with the qualification that they wanted a free and independent South Vietnam and believed that firmness was the best way to achieve it. As Senator Eugene McCarthy said, Watching presidents, I find that at certain points their own rhetoric begins to feed back on them. (4) But they knew such oratory was unlikely to bring Hanoi to the negotiating table. In this sense, the April 7 speech marked a rhetorical turning point: from that point forth, Johnson followed a course that led to war and downplayed further references to postwar development in Vietnam. (5) In effect, this speech marked the doves' last major policy initiative. This article looks at rhetoric before delving into the speech itself, demonstrating the speech's importance not through a microanalysis but through a careful examination of its crafting and its consequences. The first part deals with the broad study of rhetoric, as well as Johnson's use of rhetoric in particular. …