Middle class factions had come to believe the Vietnam War was a mistake. Some believed it was an unjustified and immoral intervention in the internal affairs of another country. Young men who faced conscription and concerned parents became increasingly engaged and many joined the antiwar movement.

Vexing events in 1965 set off growing disaffection across America. Reacting to an inconclusive report that on August 4th, a US war ship came under torpedo attack in the Gulf of Tonkin -- it never happened -- Johnson precipitously ordered large-scale bombing of North Vietnam. He then persuaded congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution granting him discretion to prosecute the war. Johnson ordered higher troop deployments and increased the draft. The violence and casualties in Vietnam escalated dramatically and were broadcast into American homes on the evening news.

Defense Secretary McNamara reversed himself on U.S. war policy and advised the president to scale down American involvement in Vietnam: “My May 19, 1967 memorandum triggered a storm of controversy. It intensified already sharp debate within the administration. It led to tense and acrimonious Senate hearings on the bombing that pitted me against the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And it accelerated the process that ultimately drove LBJ and me apart.”

On November 1, 1967, McNamara handed his boss a pivotal private memo that expressed profound concern about the moral justifications for the war and argued that the course they were following was totally wrong. President Johnson fired McNamara.

McNamara later commented, “Even to this day . . . I don't know whether I quit or was fired?” -- The Fog of War.