U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Czechoslovakia in 1968 in the Context of the Vietnam War.

Abstract

This article analyzes the effort by US foreign policymakers to predict Moscow’s intentions at the end of Lyndon Johnson’s Administration in the context of the Vietnam War. The war in Vietnam, which became – due at least partly to his own fault – the main problem of the last years of his presidency (1963–1969), shifted his presidency in an unintended direction – from the improvement of American society at home to the Vietnamese jungle. Immediately after the Tet Offensive, which ended with the heavy military defeat of the Vietnamese pro-communist forces, but with a great propaganda victory for them, Johnson decided not to run for reelection. He gradually lost his interest in events outside of the United States and Vietnam. In this situation, the Czechoslovak crisis – the worst in the Soviet bloc in the 1960s – came at a rather inconvenient time. US – Soviet negotiations concerning Vietnam in 1968, in which Johnson expected Soviet diplomatic encouragement of the North Vietnamese in order to persuade them to enter peace talks, weakened the American negotiating position, and practically prevented any reaction other than a rhetorical one to the August Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. This resulted in the fact that, in 1968, the United States was simply unable to come up with a “meaningful alternative” to challenge the reality of Soviet power and rule in East-Central Europe.

Keywords: United States, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Soviet invasion, relations, 1968