Trying to Find the Guy Who Invited Them”
Lyndon Johnson, Bridge Building, and the End ofthe Prague Spring
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16529425 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mitchell Lerner (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 77-103 |
| Publication date | 2008-01-20 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Diplomatic History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0145-2096 • E-ISSN: 1467-7709 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2007.00668.x |
| OpenAlex | W2123206068 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
Lyndon Johnson was jubilant on August 20, 1968. The next morning, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union planned to announce the opening of arms limitation talks, which would include a likely presidential journey to Moscow in October. For LBJ, it was to be one of the highest points of his presidency. Over a celebratory drink that afternoon, he told his advisers that this might be “the greatest accomplishment of my administration.”1 A few years earlier, the president had started a program of “bridge building,” an attempt to reach out to the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies through a series of small steps that lacked dramatic impact but together might lay the groundwork for more significant breakthroughs in the future. Bridge building, explained Secretary of State Dean Rusk, would simply “reduce tensions by trying to find points on which agreements could be made.”2 By mid-1968, the effort seemed to be paying dividends. A Consular Convention was ratified in June, and the following month saw the start of direct Moscow-New York air service and the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Arms talks and a major summit were now on the immediate horizon. Now, while protestors across the country called him a warmonger, LBJ was on the brink of establishing a legacy as a figure of peace and statesmanship. He was, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford recalled, “just about as excited about it as anybody I ever saw.”3
Administration (probate law · Cartography · Convention · Economic history · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Presidential system · State (computer science · Summit · Treaty · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law
| Citations per year | 0.22 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2008 - 2019 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |