Lyndon Johnson

* Robert Scheer’s excellent account of the millions of lives sacrificed on the altar of Lyndon Johnson’s political ambition (Column Left, March 25) doesn’t mention the good reason Johnson had for fearing what the Republicans and Congress would do to him.

It was the Cold War mentality among Americans that made them so ready to believe him when he blatantly lied to them about Vietnam and U.S. security. The Cold War conditioning began in the ‘40s with Harry Truman, which gave us the divisiveness of McCarthyism in the ‘50s and Vietnam in the ‘60s and ‘70s. After a government systematically lying to its citizens for over 20 years, and getting away with it, Watergate and the most corrupt president we have ever had were just waiting to happen.

Apologists for the Cold War, who think that on balance it did more good than harm, have yet to take into account these related events, which we are still paying for--morally, politically and economi- cally--50 years later.

THOMAS ROBISCHON

Culver City

* I must disagree with the implication of Scheer’s column. If one were to believe Scheer, Johnson is responsible for the deaths of 58,000 American soldiers and more than a million Vietnamese civilians.

I think it is important to note that almost half of American casualties during the Vietnam War occurred during the Richard Nixon administration. Nixon campaigned as a “peace” candidate in 1968, yet it took him more than four years to end U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

I hope Scheer will consider writing a column about Nixon’s responsibility for the Vietnam War as well. Unfortunately, the late senator from Vermont, George Aiken, was correct when he said: “Let’s declare victory and go home.” Perhaps, if Johnson or Nixon had listened to Aiken, tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians would still be alive today.

FRED HUEBSCHER

Hermosa Beach

* As a former Marine and Vietnam veteran, I found Scheer’s column disturbing. That the U.S. president put his political aspirations ahead of the lives and welfare of American troops is criminal. History should indict LBJ and Nixon for murder for sending thousands of young Americans to an early and wasteful death.

RANDALL N. KLAUK