John Kenneth Galbraith
Johnson administration

After leaving the American embassy in India, Galbraith continued to advise Johnson, now president, against escalating American involvement in Vietnam. In 1965, he advised Johnson that he should "instruct officials and spokesmen to stop saying the future of mankind, the United States, and human liberty is being decided in Vietnam. It isn't; this merely builds up a difficult problem out of all proportion. It is also terrible politics". During the 1966 Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam, Galbraith wrote Johnson a letter on April 3 saying he now had "an opportunity only the God-fearing deserve and only the extremely lucky get", saying that if the government of Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ should fall, Johnson should use the occasion to pull all Americans out of Vietnam.

On June 16, 1966, Galbraith offered to write Johnson a speech that would set out an orderly withdrawal of American forces over the next year. Galbraith advised Johnson the beginning of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in China represented an opportunity for a diplomatic settlement of the Vietnam war, predicting that Mao Zedong would lose interest in Vietnam now that he had launched his Cultural Revolution. The National Security Adviser, W.W. Rostow, wrote the reply to Galbraith that was signed by Johnson, curtly declaring: "I have never doubted your talent for political craftsmanship, and I am sure you could devise a script that would appear to justify our taking an unjustifiable course in South Vietnam". On June 28, 1966, Galbraith made his final attempt to change Johnson's mind, warning that the Vietnam War would ruin his presidency and that he should stop taking the advice of Rostow. Galbraith stated that Johnson had the potential to be one of the greatest presidents if only he find a way out of Vietnam, and concluded: "The people who want to invest more and more in this war have nothing to lose. They will end up working for a foundation".

In 1966, when he was no longer ambassador, he told the United States Senate that one of the main causes of the 1965 Kashmir war was American military aid to Pakistan.

In early 1968, Galbraith endorsed Senator Eugene McCarthy, who ran against Johnson on an anti-war platform. During the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Galbraith toured the Granite State, giving pro-McCarthy speeches in churches, union halls, campuses and house parties. As McCarthy had the reputation of being strange and frivolous, Galbraith's support and campaigning for him was important, as McCarthy needed the endorsement of mainstream figures to give him credibility. When the New Hampshire Democratic primary was held on March 12, 1968, Johnson defeated McCarthy by only about 300 votes, a humiliation for an incumbent president with a well funded campaign running against a senator widely considered to be too eccentric to be president, and who had only a fraction of the campaign money that Johnson had. Though Johnson won the primary, the very narrow margin of his victory was widely considered to be a defeat. On the night of the primary, Galbraith celebrated the result at McCarthy campaign headquarters as if it were an outright victory. The day after the New Hampshire primary, Galbraith was widely cheered by his students when he entered his lecture hall at Harvard.

The results of the New Hampshire primary showed that Johnson was vulnerable. On March 16, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy announced he was entering the presidential race. Kennedy asked Galbraith to withdraw his endorsement of McCarthy and to endorse him instead, a request that Galbraith refused. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who campaigned with Galbraith in New Hampshire for McCarthy, switched his support to Kennedy, on the grounds that Kennedy was a far more electable candidate than the eccentric McCarthy, a man most people found to be too silly to be president. Schlesinger strongly urged Galbraith to support Kennedy, but Galbraith chose to continue to campaign for McCarthy, partly because McCarthy's liberalism was closer to his own politics, and partly out of a personal revulsion for Kennedy, who had only opportunistically entered the presidential race when it became clear that Johnson was not invincible. Galbraith had been friends with John Kennedy, but his relations with Robert were more difficult, as Galbraith found Robert too rigid, utterly convinced that he was always right. Galbraith later said that with Robert Kennedy "You were either for the cause or against it, with the Kennedys or a leper".

After Kennedy was assassinated, McCarthy became so depressed that he almost dropped out of the election, and Galbraith visited several times to urge him to continue, through Galbraith later admitted "...I don't believe Eugene McCarthy's heart was ever wholly in the battle". At the chaotic and violent Democratic National Convention in August 1968 in Chicago, Galbraith attended as the floor manager for the McCarthy campaign. Amid what was later called a "police riot", as the Chicago police fought in the streets with anti-Vietnam war protesters, Galbraith held an impromptu speech outside the Hilton Hotel before a group of demonstrators, urging them to reject violence and to have patience, while assuring them that the American system was capable of reform and change. Galbraith pointed to the armed Illinois National Guardsmen standing in the background and said that they, unlike the Chicago police, were not the enemy, as he maintained that most of the young men who joined the Illinois National Guard had only done so to avoid being drafted to fight in Vietnam. After finishing his speech, a National Guard sergeant approached Galbraith, who froze up in fear as he believed he was about to be arrested. Instead the sergeant wanted to shake hands, saying: "Thank you, sir. That was the first nice thing anyone has said about us all week".

At the convention, supporters of Johnson challenged Galbraith's right to serve as a delegate, and sought to expel him from the building. Galbraith quarreled with Johnson supporters on the convention floor as he sought to add a peace plank to the Democratic platform, which Johnson saw as an insult to himself, and ordered the delegates to reject. The Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, a Johnson supporter, had imposed such stringent security conditions that it was impossible to walk across the convention hall without jostling somebody else, which added to the tension of the convention as pro-war and anti-war Democrats fiercely argued about the platform, all of which was captured live on national television. Adding to the tension were televisions on the convention floor that showed what was happening outside, as the Chicago police attacked and beat anti-war demonstrators. On Daley's orders, the Chicago police searched Galbraith's room at the Hilton hotel, alleging that he was hiding anti-war protesters. None were found. After Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination, Galbraith reluctantly endorsed Humphrey as preferable to the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon.
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