The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

by Vincent Bevins

LBJ was liberal, probably more so than Kennedy, and regarded as the “Master of the Senate,” where he had served as its incredibly powerful leader for six years.58 But when it came to foreign policy, he was less experienced. He had none of Kennedy’s appreciation for the historical battles between imperialism and national revolution in the Third World. According to biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, who knew him well, Johnson held an all-too-common American belief that the rest of the world was basically just like the USA, but a bit behind. He held a “belief in the universal applicability of American values, the existence of a global consensus,” she wrote. But LBJ didn’t have the confidence in his own mastery of foreign policy to challenge the men left behind by Kennedy.59 So he often neglected foreign affairs, deferring to the wisdom of these advisers.