Beschreibung:

Title: Message from the President of the United States. Transmitting State of the Union Message… January 10, 1967. [With] Message from the President of the United States Transmitting State of the Union Message… January 12, 1966. [With] State of the Union. Address of the President of the United States… January 17, 1968. Author: Johnson, Lyndon Baines Place: Washington, D.C. Publisher: Date: 1966-1968 Description: Three volumes in one. 14; 11; 10 pp. (8vo) 23x15 cm (9x6") full pebbled black morocco, lettered in gilt on front. Scarce official government printings (House of Representatives issue) of President Johnson’s State Of the Union Addresses for 1966, 1967 & 1968, each boldly signed by him on the front leaf, foundational speeches tracing Johnson’s efforts to balance the human and military costs of the Vietnam War with his embattled Great Society, including his final 1968 State of the Union, delivered only two months before Johnson told a stunned nation he would not seek another term. These momentous Addresses are bound together with a typed signed letter from Vice President Humphrey telling prominent Minnesota businessman and philanthropist Charles Horn that “the President was happy to sign his State of the Union messages for you, and they are enclosed.” This unique volume, containing official printings of Johnson’s State Of the Union Addresses, from 1966-68, each signed by him, traces his often conflicted approach to the Vietnam War over three terms. Despite his escalation of the war in 1965, “Johnson did not want a war in Vietnam and did not want to be a war president… Johnson felt compelled to maintain… the commitments that his predecessors had made… His thinking was driven by the containment notion that South Vietnam was an outpost on the front line of the global Cold War and by his political sense that this frustrating war was a real danger to his domestic agenda” (Anderson, Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War, 44-48). Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union importantly conveys his early conviction that Vietnam would not derail his social programs. “I believe that we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam,” Johnson states. “We will give our fighting men what they must have: every gun, and every dollar, and every decision—whatever the cost or whatever the challenge… And let me be absolutely clear: The days may become months, and the months may become years, but we will stay as long as aggression commands us to battle.” His 1967 State of the Union, despite continuing to assert his vision for the Great Society, reveals an emerging pessimism: “this is a time of testing for our nation. At home, the question is whether we will continue working for better opportunities… Abroad, the question is whether we have the staying power to fight a very costly war… I wish I could report to you that the conflict is almost over. This I cannot do. We face more cost, more loss, and more agony.” In Johnson’s final State of the Union, delivered January 17, 1968, he opens with a brief summation of attempts to negotiate peace in Vietnam before turning to an extended focus on domestic upheaval. “Tonight our Nation is accomplishing more for its people than has ever been accomplished before… Yet there is in the land a certain restlessness.” Noting the “despair and frustrated hopes in the cities where the fires of disorder burned last summer,” Johnson insists: “We can—and in time we will—change that despair into confidence.” He concludes: “So this, my friends, is the State of our Union: seeking, building, tested many times in this past year—and always equal to the test. Thank you and good night.” The year’s subsequent presidential election would come “at the height of the Vietnam War and in the wake of major upheavals in the struggle for civil rights… Johnson withdrew as a candidate for reelection on March 31, leaving Senator Robert F. Kennedy the front runner. Kennedy, however, was assassinated in June, and th