Posted on 01/06/2015 9:41:34 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee
Before I came to dislike the movie “Selma,” I was deeply moved by it. Twice it brought me to tears. A crane shot of Martin Luther King Jr. leading thousands of demonstrators over the Edmund Pettus Bridge was one such moment, and so was the vicious attack on John Lewis — bravely, steadfastly walking into the beating he knew was coming. Today, Lewis is a member of Congress. Forever, he’ll be an American hero.
Too bad, though, that the movie had to go Hollywood on Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, as if from the grave, has bellowed his protest. In its need for some dramatic tension, “Selma” asserts that King had to persuade and pressure a recalcitrant Johnson to introduce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The movie also depicts Johnson authorizing FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to smear King and — as King himself suspected — try to drive him to suicide. It is a profoundly ugly moment.
But a bevy of historians say it never happened. It was Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general, who authorized the FBI’s bugging of King’s hotel rooms. Yet, for understandable reasons, Kennedy appears nowhere in the film. By 1965, he was no longer the AG and, anyway, he remains a liberal icon. But LBJ — Southern, obscene and, especially when compared to the lithe Kennedy, gross of speech and physique — was made the heavy. He should get a posthumous SAG card. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“Yep, he wanted Vietnam to be expanded and JFK was against it.”
Hardly. Kennedy had been expanding the American military in Vietnam the entire time he was in office, boosting advisory strength up to 16,000 and initiating the Army’s counter insurgency program.
JFK was intent enough on America’s role in South Vietnam that he arranged a coup to remove President Diem. Diem was assassinated the first week of November 1963, a disasterous decision by JFK that rendered South Vietnam unable to defend itself and which eventually resulted in Johnson’s decision to send in American combat troops.
There is no dispute of Kennedy’s involvement in all of this, you can read the background here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_243
JFK is the man who started the Vietnam war, when he sent in 16,000 troops.
JFK was a disastrous president.
The quote is what I think Bobby said. LBJ got Bobby for revenge.
Interesting, thanks for the info.
You were humming the james bond theme weren’t you?
Well no, actually. I’ve somehow managed to go through life without watching a Bond flick. Lots of clips but never a whole movie.
I didn’t realize it at first but the guy driving the Amphicar in that picture is Lyndon Johnson himself. Apparently he owned a blue one.
He was President at the time I saw an Amphicar sail the Potomac from the Pentagon over towards DC. Now I’m wondering if it was LBJ at the wheel.
I did once see one of his daughters drive past me in a new, blue Corvette as I was walking to school along Carlyn Springs Rd. The Johnson girls were very distinctive looking and with the Corvette being boxed by a sedan in front and back it was pretty obvious who it was. Birthday gift from her daddy.
Nice gift!
and here it is....
That’s not a bad gig for a SS AGENT.
Nice car. I wonder if she kept that.
The car is now at the ‘Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park’- that;s his old Texas White House.
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