In a talk based on his new book, Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War, Andrew L. Johns assesses the influence of the Republican Party--its congressional leadership, politicians, grassroots organizations, and the Nixon administration--on the escalation, prosecution, and resolution of the Vietnam War.  Beginning his analysis in 1961 and continuing through the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, Johns argues that the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations failed to achieve victory on both fronts of the Vietnam War--military and political--because of their preoccupation with domestic politics. Johns details the machinations and political dexterity required of all three presidents and of members of Congress to maneuver between the countervailing forces of escalation and negotiation, offering a provocative account of the ramifications of their decisions.  He offers a compelling reassessment of responsibility for the conflict, and challenges assumptions about the roles of Congress and the president in U.S. foreign relations.

Dr. Andrew Johns received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2000 and joined the faculty at Brigham Young University in 2004.  His research and teaching focus on the history of U.S. foreign relations, with an emphasis on the Cold War and the nexus of foreign policy and domestic politics.  Dr. Johns is the author of Vietnam's Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War (University of Kentucky, 2010) and the editor of The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). He is currently working on several projects, including a book examining Vice President Hubert Humphrey's struggles with the Vietnam conflict, a political biography of Senator John Sherman Cooper, and a reinterpretation of Richard Nixon’'s "madman theory."