Path to War - Entscheidung im Weißen Haus

I expected little from this 'movie' but was pleasantly surprised. After all, it was a made for television mini series originally, it was about politics and U.S. ones at that, it was very long (both episodes were played as one cohesive piece in Queensland). On the plus side, it seemed to have an ideal cast, I like most of Alec Baldwin's work very much, I greatly admire Michael Gambon's work, Donald Sutherland needs no explanation as someone to watch, and that was just the beginning. Furthermore, I had seen the political drama "Nixon" not long ago and was greatly impressed by that (how could you not be with Anthony Hopkins at the helm); so things could have gone either way.

Thankfully, my doubts were not realised and I can safely recommend this saga to any thinking person, particularly those of us like myself who actually experienced those times. I suspect to those born later it might seem somewhat like a 'boring' history lesson unless that moment in history bears any particular fascination.

For Australians particularly it may be interesting as, just like with previous conflicts (World Wars I and II as well as Korea) and all wars since including Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and currently Afghanistan, we stood shoulder to shoulder with our American brothers in Vietnam, fighting and dying in battle. We knew why we as a nation were there in the thick of it, so it was very interesting indeed to see why America was there in the first place, and this docu-drama provided some of the answers.

I tuned into this expecting to see something similar to the exciting, tension-filled "Thirteen Days," but these two movies are not at all alike. Even the titles tell the difference. "Thirteen Days" (about the Cuban Missile Crisis) is a compact story, while "Path To War" deals with events spread out over several years, and as a result moves more slowly and often in much less detail. It is in its own way, however, just as gripping.

"Path To War" is the story of the United States during the Lyndon Johnson administration as it spirals into war in Vietnam, almost against its will. Johnson is well portrayed by Michael Gambon, who manages to capture the complex situation the man was facing, both militarily and politically. Johnson, of course, assumed the presidency upon John Kennedy's assassination and inherited Kennedy's decision to increase US involvement in Vietnam. Johnson is constantly pushed by his military officials and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin), a holdover from the Kennedy administration, to take just one more step, to commit just a few more troops, to bomb just a few more targets in order to win the war. Every step fails, which leads to another step being necessary, until Johnson is hopelessly trapped in a war he can't win but that he can't get out of either. Feeling unable to trust the people who had been Kennedy's advisors, Johnson turns to Clark Clifford (a great performance here from Donald Sutherland) who originally opposes increased involvement in Vietnam, but who eventually realizes that the spiral has gone too far to be stopped and becomes an advocate of stepping things up on the grounds that there is nothing left to do but put everything into trying to win. It's a fascinating study of an entire nation; one that carefully avoids the unfortunate stereotype of Johnson as a warmonger, and instead depicts him as desperate to find a way out of this mess; one that just as carefully notes that Johnson didn't create this mess - he inherited it from Kennedy.

That, of course, is the subplot of the movie. Johnson spends much of the movie (as he spent his presidency) fighting the ghost of John Kennedy and looking over his shoulder at Robert Kennedy, not able to trust those who had been close to the Kennedy's, but unable to simply jettison them.

It really is fascinating movie, well worth watching. It isn't "exciting" in the sense that you'd be on the edge of your seat, but it's gripping and holds your attention well enough. 7/10.

This is a good movie, and includes some very good performances. It is not a great movie, however. While the writer understood that the complexity of the Vietnam "problem" lay in the various individuals involved in "The Path to War," he misunderstood where the contradictions and conflicts of those characters lay.

For example, given the material, and in spite of a peculiar attempt at LBJ's Texas accent, Michael Gambon acquits himself well as LBJ. He has the mannerisms down pat. And the writer does appreciate LBJ's vulgarity (which could be quite offputting, and was for many people). However, in his attempt to lionize LBJ, he misses the point. LBJ was a politician who got himself elected as a populist candidate with the concept of "The Great Society," but was always supportive of the actions in Vietnam. (For example, the writer conveniently places the *pivotal* Gulf of Tonkin incident outside the scope of the movie and it is only mentioned once, briefly, in an aside. As a result, based on this movie's version of events, and without being aware of the consequences of the Gulf of Tonkin, both domestically and in Vietnam, a viewer would think that LBJ was some kind of benevolent monarch, which actually does him a disservice.)

The writer makes LBJ seem like a victim of circumstance, when in fact he was very much of control of events, witnessed by the amount of legislation he put in front of Congress in five-plus years. This is noted in a conversation LBJ has with Lady Bird in the movie, but it is made to seem like LBJ placed the legislation for philosophical and principled reasons, when his primary motivation was based on two things: His best years were as a legislator and he knew that side of the government best, and it was politically advantageous for him to do what he knew best.

One could also say that he was dogged by the memory of JFK. He knew he had been elected on JFK's bootstraps, so to speak, and the writer does pay some lip service to this issue. Yet, the writer does not touch on the shame and guilt LBJ felt about JFK's death, which, while he was not complicit, he knew had been politically motivated within the government. And for all his professed desire for social change, he never once called the Warren Commission to task for their idiotic findings, and he was always conflicted about that, as well. It was politically expedient to let it "die," but it was not the right thing to do, and he knew it.

All through his Presidency, he felt the Kennedys nipping at his heels, so, for example, he knew if he pushed the Voting Rights Act, he'd not only look good next to the Kennedy legacy, but also have a slew more voters to vote for him the next election. (In one kudo to the writer, he does appreciate LBJ's dislike of Bobby Kennedy, who was, ironically, as political an animal as LBJ himself was. In fact LBJ's assessment in the movie of Bobby as not being "One-tenth the person his brother was" is actually considered by many to be true, and also plays on the truism that we tend to dislike in others what we most dislike about ourselves.)

The tragedy, if we look on LBJ as a tragic hero, is that there was no next election for him because of Vietnam. The problem is that the real LBJ had the tragic hero's fatal flaw (in his case, a problematic mixture of indecisiveness and arrogance, which led to poor leadership skills), so when the tragedy comes, it does not bear the poignancy it should. The only time we actually get a glimpse of LBJ's character defects is during one conversation with one member of his staff. (Some might argue that his questions of his cabinet would also demonstrate this deficit, but that was actually one of his strengths: When he did not know something, he was not afraid to admit it and go to the person who did know. This "consensus-building" aspect of his personality was one of the things that made him an excellent legislator.)

Did LBJ have some commitment to social change? He did, and it was best demonstrated during his tenure in Congress, representing the people of Texas, not during his tenure as President. The writer does make a brief pass at this when he refers to his regrets at ever associating himself with the Kennedy Presidency, that it was his political undoing. (And many historians do, in fact, believe this is true.)

Another character the writer fails to fully grasp is McNamara. McNamara was always full of conflict regarding Vietnam, and yet we don't start to see this in the character until the very end of the movie. Alec Baldwin plays the writer's version of McNamara well, but it was not an accurate portrayal of McNamara, at least not in the eyes of his contemporaries. That is not Baldwin's fault, but the writer and director's fault.

Another lost opportunity is Felicity Huffman's portrayal of Lady Bird Johnson. This is an excellent actress who has done the best with what she's given, but she's given so little, when there was so much more to Lady Bird's character at this period in history. The only hint we see is when she reminds LBJ that the footsteps she's following "didn't die." In fact, the offset between Lady Bird's presence as First Lady and LBJ's as President is contradiction that is not even explored - while Lady Bird continued in her desire to see social change (she is rightly credited for having a strong, positive impact on the growing environmental movement, for example), something she had shared with her husband for many years - LBJ is buffeted by political forces that actually pull him away from some of the social idealism that many saw in him in Congress, including his friend Clark Clifford. That juxtaposition would have not only made a stronger movie, but would have been more historically accurate.

As for Clifford, that is the one character that comes through fully realized, convincing and true: Donald Sutherland's portrayal of Clark Clifford. (Who was a family friend to our family as well.) The writer has presented his character, and his contradictions, very well, and, as a result, Donald Sutherland, always an able actor, is able to not just make the best of the material, but take it to the award-winning level he achieved.

Frankenheimer's direction, as always, is good. But this is not his best movie. It has pacing issues, some throwaway scenes, and some scenes that should have been included and weren't. As a result this is not the best political movie you will ever see. Although, if you consider that the brush used is broad, it does show how complex and political our slippery slope into Vietnam generally was.

It is hard to watch 'Path to War' and avoid remarking the similarity between historic and present circumstances. Although dedicated to the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, the film brings to mind the situations the current US President had to face - after being elected on an internal social agenda, he has to face an external conflict and runs down on a spiral towards an external war costly in American and other peoples human lives. The film is interesting by itself, although there may be many comments to be made on the accuracy of the historical details. 'Path to War' also succeeds better than other films in bringing to screen historical characters and giving them a life of their own - Johnson, Clark Clifford, Bob McNamara are well built film characters in the film. I recommend this film, and not only to the history fans - 8 out of 10 on my personal scale.

In some ways the most dramatic illustration of the bifurcation of American society during 1968 is presented in this movie and then gone in the blink of an eye. LBJ is watching a series of TV broadcasts excoriating him. Among the clips is one of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who states that he (who had been silent on Vietnam for so long) can now no longer keep from speaking against violence and against the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, his own government. It's difficult to imagine Johnson recovering from King's speaking out. Blacks had been among his most resolute supporters for years. LBJ liked them and sympathized with them and they responded in kind. I did some minor canvassing for Eugene McCarthy earlier that year and was surprised to find that every black family I spoke to politely turned away my arguments. It didn't matter to them that they felt Vietnam was draining resources that were needed for domestic programs, or that the disenfranchised were suffering disproportionate casualties. (Know how many sons of Harvard died in Vietnam? Guess.) They fully supported LBJ because of his unyielding and thoroughly courageous stand on civil rights, as the issue was then called. How King's change of heart must have hurt him.

The movie as far as I can tell is pretty accurate. Inevitably, characters come and go, and the story itself is complicated enough to be occasionally confusing. If you want a more thorough analysis of how to go about letting slip the dogs of war, try Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest."

The acting is fine, with no one's performance outstanding. Frankenheimer's direction, with its drumbeats, hand-held camera, and fast editing of protest marches, recalls his "Seven Days in May." The script sometimes comes up with lines that are a little too epigrammatic to be swallowed whole.

LBJ's passionate commitment to the solution of domestic problems is carefully laid out, and it was real. His forte as a politician was in manipulating others in order to get his way and, minor earlier malfeasance aside, his way was one to be admired. What the film soft pedals or leaves out entirely is a side of his character that was really and truly vulgar and exceedingly unpleasant for subordinates. You didn't have to be a wuss to feel uncomfortable when, as a highly educated senior aide, LBJ would call you into the bathroom for a conference while he was taking a dump. The tongue lashings that Jack Valenti alone endured would fill up a marine boot's schedule for his entire stay on Parris Island. He was also an egomaniacal blowhard, and there is little of this in the film. While still Vice President, he ran into Russel Baker, at that time White House reporter for the NY Times, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into his office, shouting, "You -- I want to talk to YOU." He harangued Baker for half an hour, accusing the press of lying about his lack of power, of being outside the loop, as VP. Midway through his tirade, Johnson buzzed in his secretary, scribbled a note and handed it to her, then took up where he left off. When a weary Baker finally stumbled back into the hallway, another reporter said: "Do you know what it was he wrote on that note to his secretary? It said, 'Who is this I'm talking to?'"

A bit of this side of LBJs character might have gone some distance in explaining his gradual and reluctant commitment to war. He was the kind of guy who could not admit that he was beaten, a tragedy really, in the same way that Hamlet was a guy who could not make up his mind. It wasn't just that his advisers misled him. It was that he couldn't bring himself to back down. This is one of the things that worried me when I heard our next president from Texas say, "My mind is made up, and I'm not going to change it, because I'm not the kind of guy who changes his mind." (No? Hold on to your hats, boys.)

You come away from this movie filled with a genuine pity for LBJ who, in Vietnam, had got hold of his baby. He really had little choice but to resign. When he did, he went to his ranch and manipulated local merchants so they put his order for an oil sump on the fast track, using the same friendly but conspiratorial tones that he had once used in running the country. He grew his hair out to Beatle length, crept into Doris Stearn's guest room in the mornings in order to have someone to talk to, a lonely man. A tragic story, well done.