Mark Moyar

This is not something he was hoping for.

But now he's confronted with this fact.

And so besides, he needs to do something.

And here we hear him listening to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who is really the architect of the war for both Kennedy and Johnson.

What McNamara says is we need to convey a signal of our intent to the North Vietnamese.

And here he's drawing on academic theories about conflict, which are not based in history, which is really kind of remarkable to how influential these especially economists are.

But he buys into this theory that we'll use force to communicate.

And so they undertake a very limited raid

on the North Vietnamese naval base nearby.

Now, the North Vietnamese see this and they take away the very opposite message that the Americans are trying to send.

They see Americans just did a little pinprick strike.

That means they actually are not serious, because if you were serious, you'd hit them really hard.

So this

leads them to believe that Johnson is going to throw in the towel on Vietnam or not make a big fuss.

And then in the election, Lyndon Johnson portrays himself as the peace candidate and says, I'm not going to send American boys to fight wars that Asian boys can fight.

And so the North Vietnamese see this and they say, yeah, you know, South Vietnam is now ripe for the taking.

It's in big trouble since this coup.

And now Lyndon Johnson is saying he's not going to send American troops.

So

Soon as Johnson wins the election in November of 64, the North Vietnamese launch an invasion with, for the first time, sending entire North Vietnamese Army divisions.