LBJ’s dark Laotian legacy

Lyndon Baines Johnson needs a better legacy, according to the former president’s family, and they are right. The Vietnam War overshadows many of the striking things he accomplished in the White House. It is time history reflects the full breadth of his deeds.

To that end, the LBJ Presidential Library is holding a special summit this week to honor the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, which Johnson signed into law. He also signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Those laws changed history, expanding basic human rights to all Americans. The war in Vietnam will never undermine those achievements.

But another oft-forgotten legacy of LBJ remains. Just as he ensured basic human rights for millions of Americans, he quashed them for millions of others through history’s largest, most secretive bombing campaign over the sparsely populated country of Laos.

Starting in 1964 — the same year he signed the Civil Rights Act — U.S. forces and their allies flew more than 580,000 bombing missions across Vietnam’s neighbor to the west, targeting nearly every corner of the country. The bombs stopped falling in 1973. This legacy lingers, unknown to many Americans. But it is a visceral history lesson still endured daily by millions of Laotians.

The president’s younger daughter, Luci Baines Johnson, recently told The New York Times that her father’s legacy is weighed down by the “agony of Vietnam,” at the expense of his domestic accomplishments, which transformed American society for the better. Her family is asking Americans to look beyond Vietnam when remembering LBJ.

I ask the same: that we look to every corner of the world where LBJ left his mark — including Laos.

According to the Office of Air Force History, three and a half weeks before he signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, LBJ ordered the first air attack on Laos. As he signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965, the U.S. bombed Laos. As he signed the Fair Housing Act on April 11, 1968, the U.S. bombed Laos.

Over the next two years, the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas will present “50 for 50,” a series of 50 events exploring the critical human rights issues of our time and calling for the next generation to “get it done.”

Brilliant. Let’s get it done.

Let’s get the $16 billion that experts in Laos estimate is necessary to clean up the country. Let’s rid the land of bombs, so children can play in safety, farmers can plow their fields without fear and families can cook over fires that don’t explode.

Let’s enact Senate Bill 419, sponsored by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein in February 2013, which restricts the use of cluster munitions and requires the U.S. to clean up its messes, removing unexploded bombs that threaten civilians post-conflict. Better yet, let’s join the ban on cluster munitions, as 113 other countries have, so no future U.S. president acquires the legacy that LBJ left in Laos.

For half a century, Laos has been the skeleton in all of our closets. As Americans, that is our collective burden to bear. We must not forget the monumental things LBJ did to spread civil rights in the U.S. But equally important, we must not forget what he did to destroy those very rights in other lands.