Path to War is a 2002 TV movie, produced by HBO that deals directly with the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of President Lyndon Johnson and his cabinet members. The movie starts off after LBJ's 1964 landslide election. It shows some of the good things the administration did early on, such as civil rights, before the war consumed it. The majority of the movie however, focuses on LBJ's good intentions being thwarted by a war gone wrong. The movie is considered an insightful view of President Johnson's often misunderstood and challenging Presidency.

Featured cast

Actor	Role
Michael Gambon	Lyndon B. Johnson
Donald Sutherland	Clark M. Clifford
Alec Baldwin	Robert McNamara
Bruce McGill	George Ball
James Frain	Richard N. Goodwin
Felicity Huffman	Lady Bird Johnson
Frederic Forrest	Earle Wheeler
John Aylward	Dean Rusk
Philip Baker Hall	Everett Dirksen
Gary Sinise	George C. Wallace
Tom Skerritt	William Westmoreland
Cliff De Young	McGeorge Bundy
Chris Eigeman	Bill Moyers
John Valenti	Jack Valenti
Gerry Becker	Walt Rostow
Sarah Paulson	Luci Baines Johnson
Francis Guinan	Nicholas Katzenbach
Curtis L. McClarin	Martin Luther King Jr.
Randy Oglesby	John Stennis
Patricia Kalember	Margaret Craig McNamara
Diana Scarwid	Marny Clifford
Madison Mason	John McCone

Trivia

• Gary Sinise, who had played Alabama governor George Wallace in a 1997 TNT biopic (also directed by Frankenheimer), reprises his role in a cameo appearance, in which Johnson intimidates Wallace into asking for the National Guard's help to deal with racial unrest.
• Donald Sutherland won a Golden Globe Award for his performance as Clark Clifford.