At the height of the Vietnam War in 1967, American poet Richard Wilbur composed "A Miltonic Sonnet for Mr. Johnson on His Refusal of Peter Hurd's Official Portrait". In a clear cut case of "criticism from the Right", Wilbur compares U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson with Thomas Jefferson and finds the former to be greatly wanting. Commenting that Jefferson "would have wept to see small nations dread/ The imposition of our cattle brand," and that in Jefferson's term, "no army's blood was shed", Wilbur urges President Johnson to seriously consider how history will judge him and his administration.