Pierre Asselin

speaker

562 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2025 last heard yesterday

Pierre Asselin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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American History Hit · LBJ & the Vietnam War · 24 Sep 2026 podcast

They have a family history.

They have issues with faith.

And all of these elements, whether we like it or not, you know,

have a bearing on the decisions, these really, really important decisions that these guys make.

And so for Johnson, there's also this element, right, that by supporting the war in Vietnam, he's going to look tough, right?

Personally, on behalf of his party, and he's going to make America look tough.

And it becomes kind of a means to overcome this potential humiliation that

likely to ensue from disengaging from Vietnam.

It's definitely a factor when he's running for the presidency in 64, right?

Because, I mean, his adversary is a very, very tough guy, right?

So for Johnson, supporting the war is a way to kind of enhance his own legitimacy, his own credibility in the eyes of the American people, including some individuals who might have been questioning his viability as commander-in-chief of America's armed forces.

Yeah.

And I think, Don, for me, as a student of US foreign relations, there's this intangible element that we often discount, which I think is so important, is this idea of credibility, especially for American presidents.

I mean, credibility becomes one of the main currencies in international relations.

And, you know, whether you believe in something or not, you have to consider the kind of image

your ultimate decision is going to create about you, about your party, about your country.

I mean, and credibility in ways that are scary sometimes really shapes the decision-making of American presidents.

You know, we always like to think that our presidents are very rational human beings, but these concerns about how I'm going to look, about how the party's going to look,

have such a big bearing on the decisions that these guys end up taking.

And we're seeing that today, right?

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