As part of his campaign, Linden B. Johnson directed his efforts toward improving the lives of people in poverty, paying little attention to the Vietnam War. Yet, once elected, he caused “the escalation of the Vietnam War to an intensity that few Americans expected when they voted for him” (Walsh). Johnson's growing interest and support for the war created a serious problem of misrepresentation, his election came from his ideas aimed at the "Great Society", however he authorized the increase of the original "20,000 US troops to more than half a million" to serve in Vietnam (Walsh). The policies under which the former president was elected were what the general public hoped would come from his time in office, but his legacy would continue to be almost entirely about his involvement in the war. Not only did he bring the United States deeper into the war, he also failed “to honestly discuss how badly the war was going and to reveal the true costs of the conflict” (Walsh). This duplicity on the part of the former president, forged by a serious difference in preference and policy between him and the majority of the American public who had voted him into office for his first official presidential term in