The Big (ger) Vietnam Disaster(s) did indeed happen on LBJ's watch. However, it was JFK who initially began the War in Vietnam as an American Armed Forces Show, by replacing Dulles' and Eisenhower's "unarmed" and un-uniformed Advisory Group with at first, The First Marine Division.
He did this in the face of stern warnings from Eisenhower ... and MacArthur(!) JFK, a fervent supporter of McCarthy, simply bdid not wish to be identified with the loss of territory to the Communists ... and thus "weak on Communism," which was the Democrat Party's rap after the loss of China and Korea. It is also true that he sought a way to back off from this ill-considered commitment to "boots on the ground," but then he was murdered in office and LBJ manufactured the "Tonkin Gulf Incident" to drastically increase the commitment of more and more men ... eventually reaching the more than half=-million-man total ... before Nixon began the face-saving "Vietnam-ization process that led to withdrawal and a perceived defeat.
Remember, this war draqged on from 1961 to the beginning of 1975! JFK was actually a Foreign Policy disaster. His legacy is the belief held by Democrat Presidents Clinton and Obama that running the US Executive Branch can be handled in 2-3 hours per day or less, with the real work done by delegation to increasingly socialistic advisors, cabinet members, and "czars."
The philosophy apparently is: "Whatever is going to happen, will. The important thing is to control the "spin," the perception of the public after what is going to happen anyway, actually happens."
Working for them rather well, all things considered.
“Remember, this war draqged on from 1961 to the beginning of 1975! “
It probably goes back a even few years before 1961; I have a copy of Bruce Palmer’s ‘The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam’ around here somewhere; Palmer was one of Westmoreland’s deputies.
When I was an Army brat kindergartner back around ‘56 my teacher’s husband was a Captain just back from a tour in Vietnam. He was in a Staff and Command class with my dad, and I think it was the first he became aware our role in Vietnam. In ‘61 dad’s Pentagon office partner, an Army small arms expert, did a tour in Vietnam; his comment when he returned was “they may not be calling it a war but they’re sure using ammunition like it’s one”. In ‘62 dad went to Vietnam for a year, part of MACV if I recall correctly. There were about 15,000 Americans there at the time.