On this day in 1964,

Goldwater Urges Withdrawal from Vietnam or Limited Use of Nuclear Weapons to Support U.S. Troops

But Johnson wins election landslide and 58,000 American boys die in Vietnam.

On this day in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater said the U.S. should do whatever it took to support U.S. troops in Vietnam and, if Democrat President Johnson was not prepared to “take the war to North Vietnam,” the U.S. should withdraw.  Goldwater also suggested using low-yield nuclear weapons to defoliate infiltration routes and destroy bridges, roads and railroad lines bringing supplies from China.

Johnson responded by labeling Goldwater a warmonger who would drop atomic bombs on the people of Hanoi, a theme expanded upon in the Democrat Party’s famous “Daisy” ad showing a little girl picking daisies in a field while an atomic bomb goes off.  

Johnson won a landslide victory and went on to ignore the advice of his generals and mislead the American people regarding the scope of American involvement in Vietnam and what lay ahead.   

By the time the Vietnam War was over, 58,000 American boys, most of whom had been drafted and forced to go to Vietnam to fight, had been killed. [Partial source: Lt. General H.R. McMaster (President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor), Dereliction of Duty (1997).]