LBJ and the Great Society
A larger-than-life President and a transformative moment in American history, revealed through little-known recordings from the White House.
S1 Ep 6 LBJ's War - The Shock of Tet
“Whammo, we got caught with our pants down,” a CIA analyst says of the Tet Offensive, the massive surprise attack that North Vietnam launched against American and South Vietnamese forces in the pre-dawn hours of January 31st, 1968. Just what exactly happened and what it signified would take some time to sort out, but the message from Hanoi to the White House was immediate and unmistakeable: We will outlast you. In this final episode of the series: Tet '68 and its transformative impact on American understanding of the war.
More episodes from LBJ and the Great Society
S2 Ep 7 - Post Script
So what do historians think, fifty years out, about LBJ’s Great Society and its long term impact on American life and politics? In early February, …
S2 Ep 6 - The Engineer
Five decades after Lyndon Johnson first unveiled his lofty vision of a Great Society, politicians and pundits are still arguing about what he …
S2 Ep 5 - Give Us the Ballot
By his own account the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was Lyndon Johnson’s greatest achievement – the jewel in the crown of the Great Society, and widely considered the most effective piece of …
S2 Ep 4 - Medicine Man
FDR, Harry Truman, and JFK all attempted to pass some form of universal health care — but no one had gotten even close. Johnson believed he might succeed where his predecessors had failed, …
S2 Ep 3 - The Bully Pulpit
“We will not win our war against poverty until the conscience of the entire Nation is aroused,” LBJ told an aide. But how to do that when most …
S2 Ep 2 - Mr. Poverty
"I didn't know a damn thing about poverty and didn't want the job," Sargent Shriver would later recall, of his conversation with the president, “and …
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