Executive Powers During War : Incumbent Vs. Successor

Both JFK and Johnson were highly famous, yet controversial presidents. Elected in 1960 as the 35th president of the US, 43-year-old John F. Kennedy was the youngest man to run in office. As president, Kennedy endured to tense Cold War strains in Cuba, Vietnam and elsewhere. He additionally drove a reestablished drive for an open administration and in the long run gave government support to the developing social equality development. On November 22, 1963 JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His successor, Johnson, took over as president for a brief period of time. In spite of his noteworthy accomplishments in mainland US, Johnson's legacy was characterized by his inability to lead

After Kennedy’s assassination, the country mourned and Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency and began to finish the work that JFK started.

In the fall of 1963 Kennedy’s Administration was preparing campaigns for the election of 1964 in hopes of bringing the fragile Texas Democratic Party closer. The Kennedys headed to Dallas on the morning of November 22, 1963 to attend a scheduled luncheon. On that tragic day President Kennedy was assassinated in a senseless act of violence. Within the next few hours, Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president. In the midst of a grieving country, he was given the duty of handling a transition in leadership and presenting an acceptance speech before Congress. LBJ gave his acceptance speech of the U.S. presidency in front of Congress just five short days after John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Expectations were high but then

Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th President of The United States, following the assisantion of John F. Kennedy, who Johnson was vice president too. During his presidency two major events would occur in the United States, that Johnson had to resolve. He first has to deal with the conflict of the Vietnam War which was a major issue in the United States during his presidency, many people argued not to be there any longer since it was seen as a pointless and almost victory was seen as unachievable. Another goal of Johnson’s was to put the United States into to an era of social reform, in this goal he was highly successful. Johnson was reelected by the people as the President in 1964, where he won in a landslide showing how the American people approved of him at the beginning of his presidency.

Lyndon B. Johnson was similar to Andrew Johnson who both became president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and President Lyndon B. Johnson was officially named president on November 22, 1963 after the famous John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Though President Lyndon had big shoes to fill after the beloved JFK was no longer in office he definitely had his own agendas. However, Johnson did not want to try to compete with JFK legacy but he did want to honor the civil rights bill that President Kennedy was working on before he passed away. President Johnson grew up in poverty and understood how to live without our basic necessities. Therefore one of his biggest accomplishments was getting Congress to approve the education and poverty of our

On 11/22/1963, following the association of President John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as President and serves the remainder of JFK’s presidential term as Commander in Chief. In 1964, LBJ campaigns for the presidency and becomes the 36th President of the United States. LBJ plans to use his presidential term to continue to support legislation introduced under JFK’s administration to fight the War on Poverty and enforce his vision of a “Great Society”.

Our 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson, became the president immediately after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. Prior to serving as Kennedy’s Vice President he represented Texas in the House of Representatives and the Senate. He went to Washington DC after a career as a high school teacher and service as a National Youth Administration Director for the state of Texas, a project dedicated to finding youth employment as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program (p. 894).

Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th president of the United States on November 22, 1963. It was after Kennedy’s assassination that Johnson was sworn in as president. To the people, the great majority thought Lyndon Johnson was safe and secure. Johnson however, was a southerner who was profoundly insecure and desperately desired to be liked; yet he constantly did things to alienate himself. Johnson did many things for the general welfare with the Great Society such as federal aid to education, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and the Voting Rights Act. While Johnson reforms in the arts and humanities, and the environment changed the face of America, he had kept many Americans ignorant about Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency can be seen as an act of heroism, in fact he would have been considered a great president if had not got involved in Vietnam. Johnson’s fatal flaw, like other heroes in Shakespearean tragedies, had a weakness in

Lyndon Johnson took over as President when John F. Kennedy was assassinated on a hot Dallas day. Many feel that the government acted quickly after JFK was pronounced dead to move on actions that JFK was not going to do in his presidency. Johnson sent over 22,000 troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965 without the approval of congress (Schlesinge, 1973). Johnson also sent combat troops in Vietnam. People still have a bad taste in their mouth over the debacle in Vietnam. Vietnam ranks 4th among all wars in troop casualties and was a war that lead people to flee the country because they did not want to fight and did not believe the war was just. Congress required 48 hours’ notice when a president wants to send troops to another country and Lyndon Johnson did

The debate of war powers between the executive and legislative branches has led to a conflict between the two branches on who has the right or responsibility to declare war and to commit troops. Although the constitution specifically gives the President the title of Commander-in-Chief, he does not have the power to declare full out aggression. This has led to conflict over the years because Congress is the one with the true power to declare war and yet, US Presidents have committed troops and other resources without congressional approval. Truman set precedents for using military force without congressional approval. Truman declared troops without Congress even declaring war in Korea. Truman in doing this had done something that no one other President had done: using full-scale military force without an official declaration of war. Truman had simply called his deploying troops as, “a police action.” This action by Truman did not go well with Congress but because Congress was going to declare war on Korea anyways, Congress allowed Truman to continue to deploy troops without a full declaration of war but Congress asked Truman to ask for their permission before deploying more NATO troops. This continued during the Vietnam War as both Presidents Johnson and Nixon used military force without official declarations from Congress. They both were following something called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which was passed by Congress and allowed the President to have full rein over

New president Lyndon B. Johnson acquired a troublesome circumstance in Vietnam, as the South Vietnamese government was in shambles and the Viet Cong was making substantial additions in provincial ranges of the South. Despite the fact that Johnson charged himself as an intense hostile to Communist, he vowed to respect Kennedy 's constrained troop duties in Vietnam. In reality, Johnson took care of the Vietnam circumstance respectably amid the early piece of his term, endeavoring to proceed with Kennedy 's projects without drastically heightening the war.

Prior to the War Powers Act, President Harry Truman, rather than seek Congressional declaration, used his constitutional power as commander in chief to commit troops to the Korean War. Congress had no say in whether this war would be fought. Along with this, the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon the power to “take all necessary measures … to prevent further aggression[iv].” This gave the presidents complete control over the war despite the Congresses eventual division, who could do nothing about it. These incidents caused Congress to decide that the Framers did not intend for the president to have this kind of war making power, so they passed the War Powers Act on November 7th, 1973, right after the Vietnam War.

“His administration [was] widely [seen] as a moment of youthful glamour, soaring hopes, and dynamic leadership” (Forner, 918). Being the youngest president to be elected at the time, brought lots of hopes for the people of America. During his presidential time, one of his main problems was with Cuba in the Bay of Pigs to attempt to overthrow their communist leader, and in the Cuban missile crisis to get the Soviet Union to remove their nuclear weapons out of Cuba. In 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, leaving Lyndon Johnson as the new President.

President Johnson took the oath of office in an airplane, on November 22nd, 1963, after hearing of the Kennedy’s assassination. Johnson just barely made it into office for the 1964 election. When Johnson took the oath as president in 1964, his wife made history, as the first “First Lady” to stand by her husband as he took office. When Johnson took his oath in 1965, he saw himself as an equal to everyone. While he was the one taking the official oath, he believed that he was taking the oath was not his alone, but for every American Citizen. He had big expectation for what would happen during his presidency. He said, “Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.”

Approximately a total of 192,402,000 have died in war since the beginning of the twentieth century. (Scaruffi, 2015) While the United States has had only twenty-one years of peacetime since its founding in 1776 (WashingtonsBlog, 2015). In fact, if you pick any time period since the United States was founded you will have ninety-one percent chance that we were at war. Not to mention the fact that no U.S. president can be considered a peacetime president instead all of our past and current presidents are considered “war presidents.” (WashingtonsBlog, 2015) Some of our citizens call this insane while others call it unfortunate but