Johnson’s Legacy, Ulysses S. Grant

Richard Goodwin’s Feb. 17 commentary on Lyndon B. Johnson suffers from selective amnesia. True, LBJ saw through the nation’s despicable racist traditions and effected the passage of the great civil rights legislation from 1964-1967. But LBJ and his same cadre of advisors escalated the Vietnam War, and did so in a surreptitious manner, secretly paying for it with an inflation scourge that gutted the government’s ability to carry out the Great Society programs.

Truth be told, this nation never truly tried to end poverty, for if we did so it would end--the resources are there. No, we remain greedy and selfish bastards, and it remains an open question as to whether LBJ was one as well.

CLAYTON VERNON

Austin, Texas

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Goodwin’s commentary engages in some hyperbole when it declares that Johnson “did far more for the cause of civil rights than any American president since Lincoln.”

Ulysses S. Grant’s civil rights record is noticeably more sweeping. Grant was responsible for the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which banned racial discrimination in voting in the first place, and he played an instrumental role in building an apparatus that would ensure the protection of civil and political rights for former slaves during civil (as opposed to military) rule. In this category are the creation of the Justice Department and the passage of five enforcement acts, which Grant used to combat the counterrevolution that threatened Southern blacks.

Grant utilized federal troops to protect former slaves’ political rights, and his prosecutions of racial terrorism destroyed the 19th century Ku Klux Klan. Grant also secured a bill desegregating public accommodations. His policy later would be repudiated--sometimes the depressing consequence of true presidential courage.

FRANK SCATURRO

New Hyde Park, N.Y.