Turning Point: LBJ, Vietnam, the Great Society, and the Month That Defined His Presidency

A pivotal month. A presidency transformed. A nation forever changed. In Turning Point, independent historian Ryan S. Walters delivers a gripping, day-by-day narrative of the most decisive month of Lyndon B.Johnson’s presidency-when the paths of Vietnam, the Great Society, and American political history converged. This powerful new work reveals how a single month produced the turning points that shaped LBJ’s legacy.From the controversial Gulf of Tonkin incident-and the deceptive intelligence that led to Congress granting Johnson sweeping authority to wage war-to the landmark domestic breakthroughs of the Great Society, Walters exposes how August 1964 set the course for both one of America’s greatest social revolutions and one of its most disastrous foreign wars. Readers will uncover:The truth behind the Gulf of Tonkin, including the attack that never happened and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that pushed the U.S. into Vietnam. How the Economic Opportunity Act and Food Stamp Act, pas