Hubert Humphrey occupies an interesting place in the nation’s historical memory. Many historians and pundits view him as a character from a Shakespearian tragedy, the protagonist who makes a difficult or impossible choice that then leads to problems from which he can never recover. Others consider him the lost progressive hope for America, the “conscience of the country,” as his most recent biographer described him, who could have spared the United States the agony of the Nixon years, shortened the Vietnam War, avoided Watergate, and helped to achieve long-held liberal aspirations for the United States.[2] A few contrarians see him as an opportunist, a political vagabond whose views shifted according to the predilections of the moment and his own ambitions, a chameleon who does not deserve the approbation of history.[3] Yet most scholars see the former vice president in a generally positive light. For example, forty-five years after Humphrey lost the presidential election, political scientist Norman Ornstein recalled that the former vice president was a “force of nature, with the intellect, personal integrity, and personal force that transcended policy differences” in a way that moved colleagues and outsiders alike. He was “a remarkable and unique human being; he would have made a marvelous president.”[4]
While opinions vary, two things are quite clear. First, the former Minnesota senator’s long and largely distinguished political career had a profound influence on the trajectory of U.S. history for over four decades. Second, Humphrey is an absolutely essential figure for historians to understand and assess in order to achieve a panoptic view of the trajectory and historical implications of the U.S. experience in Vietnam, particularly in the crucial period after 1964. Why? Because the war had such devastating consequences for the former vice president’s political fortunes. If Hubert Humphrey had a political Achilles’ heel, it was his inability to grapple successfully with the Vietnam conflict from 1964 to 1968. That failure not only cost him the White House but also damaged his historical reputation. For Humphrey, that was a reality that was at once tragic and ironic given his political beliefs and his aspirations for his country. The mayor who fought discrimination and championed civil rights, the senator who sought peace and disarmament, and the vice president who preached social justice at home and abroad would see his legacy permanently tarnished by his association with the debacle in Southeast Asia. As David Halberstam, the journalist whose reporting on the then-emerging conflict in Southeast Asia won a Pulitzer Prize, wrote in the wake of the 1968 election, if “one wanted to do a study of what the war in Vietnam had done to a generation of older American liberals, Humphrey would have been exhibit A.”[5]
Yet Humphrey’s difficulties with the war predated the 1968 presidential campaign. From the moment he accepted LBJ’s offer in the summer of 1964 to serve as vice president, the Vietnam conflict evolved from being simply another skirmish in Humphrey’s long crusade against communism into the defining and ultimately destructive issue of his otherwise impressive political career. Edgar Berman, Humphrey’s personal physician and confidant, wrote in 1979 that “Vietnam was the cause of the most harrowing and unproductive years of Humphrey’s life: it ruined his relationship with the president, engendered accusations of warmongering by his best friends and beloved public, and eventually cost him the presidency itself.” Part of the reason for this, Berman suggested, was that Humphrey’s “true antiwar feelings were never made known to the public during his vice presidency.” As a result, “It was especially agonizing for him that the public, which knew him from the very beginning as a man of peace . . . should turn him into a man of war. Even more disconcerting was that they would think his beliefs, always so consistent, could change so easily.”[6] While Berman’s apology for Humphrey’s ambivalence on the war during his tenure as vice president may be overstated, it does encapsulate the fatal harm the conflict did to Humphrey’s reputation—especially among his political allies on the left and in the antiwar movement—and to his presidential ambitions.
In his memoirs, the former vice president seemed to still be in denial about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, his role in the war’s evolution, and the conflict’s destructive impact on his political career. He recalled, “Though we involved ourselves in Indochina almost immediately after World War II, we never really had a Vietnam policy. . . . We edged up to it and finally slid in. Policy was never formalized, except in the most general terms. Our predecessors and we never resolved adequate, realistic short- or long-range objectives. Until early 1968,” he observed, “with the ‘A to Z’ review, there never appeared to be any real measurement of the ultimate costs, what our presence entailed, what actual benefits could be expected.”[7] The problems the Minnesotan identified were real; indeed, his perceptive February 1965 memorandum to LBJ, which advocated for disengagement from Vietnam based on domestic political calculations, highlighted many of them. Why, then, did Humphrey—renowned for his political instincts, foreign policy expertise, and intelligence—fail to recognize the danger inherent in linking himself inextricably to the administration’s Vietnam policy after Johnson rejected his advice? The answer can be explained in three words that make up the primary themes in this book: loyalty, principle, and politics.
During a debate in the House of Commons in June 1976, British Labor leader Neil Kinnock said, “Loyalty is a fine quality, but in excess it fills political graveyards.”[8] That sentiment neatly summarizes the effect that Humphrey’s loyalty to Lyndon Johnson had on Humphrey’s political destiny. The friendship between the two men dated back to their time in the U.S. Senate, where Humphrey proved to be crucial to LBJ realizing his ambition to become Senate majority leader. As a leading northern liberal, Humphrey possessed political bona fides and could rally support from the left that Johnson desperately needed in order to achieve his goals.
The same scenario played out in the summer of 1964 during both the administration’s efforts to pass the Civil Rights Act and the vice presidential selection process. LBJ needed Humphrey; the relationship was primarily (although not exclusively) transactional for Johnson. Nevertheless, Humphrey understood clearly what accepting the vice presidency meant, later saying, “Anyone who thinks that the vice president can take a position independent of his administration simply has no knowledge of politics or government. You are his choice in a political marriage, and he expects your absolute loyalty . . . could you imagine what would happen to a Vice President who publicly repudiated his Administration? Man, that’s political suicide.”[9]
But as laudable and understandable as Humphrey’s allegiance to LBJ might have been in 1964, it ended up causing him insurmountable problems, both as vice president and presidential candidate, over the four years that followed. Why? Because that loyalty was never reciprocated by Johnson. Humphrey maintained his allegiance to LBJ long after it became clear that the relationship was essentially a one-way street. By doing so, the vice president allowed himself to be manipulated, used, and ultimately discarded. It forced him to advocate vociferously for a war about which he harbored serious doubts. It led him to waver endlessly about the conflict despite consistent and escalating pressure from his friends, advisers, and political allies. And it limited his ability to unite the polarized Democratic Party in 1968, which crippled his presidential campaign and contributed to his defeat. Loyalty may have defined Humphrey’s political career, but it also irreparably damaged it.
While loyal to LBJ to a fault, Humphrey demonstrated less fealty to the principles and ideas that launched his political career. To be sure, Humphrey’s support of the Great Society programs, civil rights, and other domestic initiatives animated his decisions on Vietnam and reflected the liberal beliefs that had brought him to national prominence as the firebrand progressive mayor of Minneapolis, as did his advocacy of the nonproliferation treaty and international development programs. As one of the founding members of Americans