GAG LEGISLATION

by David Nuttle

In 1954, when LBJ (Johnson) was running for re-election to Congress in Texas. Two Texas church congregations were working to defeat his re-election. LBJ retaliated and with help from a few friends in Congress. He sponsored and got passed the Johnson Amendment to our Tax Code. This amendment was effectively a "gag order" preventing churches and their members from participation in a political campaign for a public office. If they did so, IRS was thus directed to terminate the tax-exempt status for the violating church.

Based on free speech litigation, by the National Religious Broadcasters, a Judge for the Federal District Court in Texas ruled said legislation unconstitutional on 07 July 2025. Free speech is still being debated with major concerns for prolific hate speech promoted now on social media. The argument is that such speech is like a person screaming "fire" in the back of a crowded movie theatre when there is not fire. This debate is expected to continue.

In the case of the church members in Texas, they later appeared to be correct in saying that LBJ was corrupt and incompetent. As VPOTUS LBJ became POTUS upon JFK's very unexpected assassination. POTUS LBJ acted as an "armchair Army General" and ordered our military to use situation flawed conventional military tactics to win an unconventional war in South Vietnam. There were three major problems: 1) Communist forces were mostly protected from bombing and artillery strikes by sheltering in extensive underground bunkers; 2) Our troops were not trained or poorly trained in jungle warfare; and 3) Protection of the Viet & Montagnard populations ended by ordering our Special Forces to terminate their effective VDP (Village Defense Program) to assist the SVN population to defeat communist forces, the Viet Cong and PAVN forces.

Form my being there and interacting with military "brass" I was aware that the Army's conventional trained officers openly hated Special Forces and considered them to be nothing more than a crazy idea by POTUS JFK. The VDP effort was very successful in defeating communist forces and related good publicity for Special Forces was not well appreciated. The put an end to the real success by Special Forces they were ordered to construct and fully defend forts on the S. Vietnam border with Laos. There, they would be nothing but targets for infiltrating PAVN (N. Viet troops), so I believe they must have been assuming. This fatal assumption proved to be valid.

POTUS LBJ acted to assign Special Forces to an impossible mission with border forts since the VDP (Village Defense Program) had been requested by JFK. LBJ and our rigid/ conventional Army "brass" did not want or like the program. POTUS JFK thus asked CIA Special Ops, U. S. Army Special Forces, and USAF Air Commandoes to start this effort to protect the SVN population from armed attacks by communist forces. Since I had worked with the Montagnard for 2-years and had made friends w/ Montagnard Chiefs, I was asked to help start this project with the Montagnard. I also spoke Rhade, a main Montagnard language, and GVN's President, Ngo Dien Ngu, had endorsed me as the responsible person to start this project in cooperation with a Viet friend of mine, an ARVN Capt. named Phu, who was ordered to keep Diem informed of problems and progress.

The above background is to provide the reasons LBJ failed as POTUS and made the U. S. suffer a loss of the Vietnam War. The above said Texas church members knew LBJ well and recognized his weaknesses. They were "gaged" so they could not tell others what they knew and it seems we all suffered the harmful consequences. As I have previously posted, details on the VDP (Village Defense Program) are presented in a book entitled "Vietnam's High Ground," by J. P. Harris. In my opinion, the VDP effort could have prevented the communist victory in Vietnam.

Politics in any nation often can be a "dirty game" that inflicts a great many damages for the players and non-players.