Word: macpherson
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...careful coverup of the war's financing; instead he marshals statements from Johnson advisers explaining how they "anguished" over the decisions to escalate the war. The chapter on Vietnam is particularly frustrating, for Miller presents a few fascinating insights and then fails to elaborate on them. Former aide Harry MacPherson tells how Johnson was completely oblivious to the demands and concerns of the militant left, how he didn't even understand them. According to MacPherson Johnson was always asking. "What in the world do they want...
Miller here presents the central tragedy of Johnson and the war--the master politician, after so many years of being attuned to the subtleties of electoral opinion, suddenly lost touch with the nation's growing disillusionment over the war. Miller throws the MacPherson interview out as if it were one more bit of gossip, just another interview, instead of using it as a focal point to organize some interpretation of Johnson's failures...