PU The Vietnam War - Class 4 Body Count - Major US Involvement and the Tet Offensive (1965-1968)

April 24, 2025
7:00pm - 6:30pm

In March 1965, President LBJ ordered the first U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. Three years later, there were more than a half million Americans fighting in Southeast Asia. This presentation will examine how and why LBJ escalated the war and the difficulties U.S. forces encountered. It will also examine how reporters covered America’s first television war—the first time that TV coverage had a critical effect on public understanding of a military conflict and on a president’s ability to build popular support for a war. The Johnson administration’s effort to “sell” progress in Vietnam collapsed in early 1968 with the Tết Offensive, leading to the president’s stunning announcement that he would not seek reelection. This presentation will explain how Johnson’s presidency became a casualty of the Vietnam War.

Instructor:  Dr. Chester Pach is a Professor of History at Ohio University. He has an A.B. from Brown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. He specializes in the history of U.S. involvement in world affairs and recent American political history. He has a particular interest in television coverage of international issues and the intersections between politics, popular culture, and international history. His books include Arming the Free World: The Origins of the United States Military Assistance Program, 1945-1950 (University of North Carolina Press); The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (University Press of Kansas); The Johnson Years: Presidential Profiles (Facts on File); and A Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower, ed., (Wiley Blackwell). He is completing The Presidency of Ronald Reagan for the University Press of Kansas. His articles and essays on U.S .news media coverage of the Vietnam War have appeared in The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War and the New York Times.

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In 1951, the Ohio County Public Library's librarian, Virginia Ebeling, referenced British historian Thomas Carlyle, who said, “the public library is a People’s University,” when she initiated a new adult education program with that name. Miss Ebeling charged the library with the responsibility of reaching “as many people in the community as possible.” In keeping with that tradition of public libraries as sanctuaries of free learning for all people, the Ohio County Public Library revived the series in 2010.

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