March 31, President Lyndon Johnson delivers his Address to the Nation Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not To Seek Reelection. The speech announces the first in a series of limitations on US bombing, promising to halt these activities above the 20th parallel.
The embattled Johnson responded to mounting political pressures and those shifting popular opinions by announcing, on March 31, a major shift in U.S. policy in the Vietnam War. In an address to a nationwide television audience, the president said he was ceasing nearly all bombing raids against North Vietnam and called upon Hanoi to enter into formal negotiations with the United States to secure a peace settlement. Just before the close of his address, Johnson shocked his listeners by declaring he would neither seek nor accept his party’s presidential nomination. Johnson’s decision was not easy, because he was driven by deep political ambition, but he was greatly troubled by the divisions and turbulence in American society and by an increasingly unpopular war that was so closely tied to his administration.
