Johnson , Lyndon Baines , 1908-1973 , US President Bundy , McGeorge , 1919-1996 , US public official Rostow , Walt Whitman , b 1916 , US economist

The presidential administration of Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-69) represents a significant period in the history of US foreign policy. The 1960s marked the height post-World War Two globalism and Johnson inherited from his predecessors world-wide obligations and a host of complex problems. In addition to the Vietnam War, he faced major crises in Panama, the Dominican Republic and the Middle East, as well as concerns about apartheid in South Africa, the coup d'état in Brazil, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Although the Cold War shaped US responses to these crises and continued to influence US foreign policy in general, new approaches were devised toward the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the major adversaries of the United States, as well as towards the Third World and Latin America. The 'Country Files' were maintained in the White House by McGeorge Bundy and Walt Whitman Rostow, national security advisors to the president. Bundy and Rostow monitored the daily cable traffic through the White House Situation Room and co-ordinated the flow of intelligence and information to the president, determining what items should be brought to this attention. They served as liaison officers with the departments and agencies involved in foreign policy, reviewing recommendations sent to the President by these groups and monitoring their daily operations to ensure that policies were co-ordinated and decisions implemented.