ABSTRACT
President Johnson had proved himself the master of deceit. His spokesmen had withheld critical information about the South Vietnamese commando assaults along the North Vietnamese coast, and they had described the American destroyers as the targets of deliberate communist aggression while performing routine patrols in international waters. Despite his determination to defend the New Frontier throughout the Third World, however, Johnson confronted a rapidly deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. President Johnson thereupon made a concerted effort to build domestic support for a program of military escalation. On May 4, he asked Congress for an additional $700 million to sustain the struggle against communism in South Vietnam. Meanwhile, during the final phase of his campaign for reelection in the autumn of 1964, President Johnson continued telling the American people what he thought they wanted to hear.
