Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [36]
In addition to the Vice President, Johnson had his senior national security officials in attendance at the morning session, including the courtly southerner Secretary of State Dean Rusk, the cerebral Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Ambassador Averell Harriman, and Deputy CIA Director Richard Helms. This was a command performance. And there was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who the commander was.3
Though LBJ was supposed to turn the briefing over to the Vice President, he never relinquished control. Humphrey spoke with almost continuous interruptions from the President. Throughout the meeting, Johnson gave the impression of a man sitting on the lid of a volcano that kept erupting. Overall, it did not seem like a presentation from a confident administration.
With only a small number of U.S. military advisers on the ground, the Vietnam War had not been an issue in my first campaign for Congress in 1962. After Johnson became president and the American war effort expanded, I was willing to support a more robust military campaign in Vietnam, as were many others in Congress. But it was becoming difficult to support the administration, since their policy was increasingly unclear. The President seemed to vacillate between the left flank of his party, which wanted concessions to the enemy—some were even beginning to talk of withdrawal—and those on the right who supported a more decisive military effort. LBJ would give a speech about negotiating and working things out with the North Vietnamese. Then the next month he’d give another speech asserting that the road to peace was not the road of concession or retreat and criticizing those who disagreed as “nervous Nellies.” The military would announce a bombing pause that could last for weeks. Then bombing suddenly would commence with ferocity. Even at this meeting, President Johnson’s team again was offering up the word “victory” without providing their definition of the term.
Though the meeting was supposed to be a frank exchange between the executive and legislative branches, during the first half of the question-and-answer session I watched White House aides walk through the attendees, seeming to place questions with friendly members of Congress. I was thirty-three years old, in my second term in Congress, and far from an expert. But I had a question in my mind and decided to ask it. I began by mentioning some of the earlier questions raised by other members that I felt had not received adequate answers. I noted Congressman John Young of Texas had asked, “Why, in view of all of the power, the airplanes, the bombing, the manpower, the billions of dollars, have not the Viet Cong quit?” Humphrey’s response had been that the Viet Cong still believed we might pull out. I then pointed out that Secretary of State Rusk had said much the same: The Viet Cong still thought they would win and America would fold up in defeat as the French had in Vietnam twelve years earlier.
“So my question is: Why are the Viet Cong not convinced of our national will?” I asked. “In what ways have we failed to convince them of this determination, and what is being done, or can be done, to convince them?”4
Since he was supposed to be leading the briefing, I addressed my question to Vice President Humphrey. But before he could answer, LBJ popped up from his chair and jabbed his big index finger toward me.
“I’ll tell ya what’ll convince ’em!” he almost shouted. “More of the same like we’ve given ’em!”5
“Like the bombing pause?” I asked skeptically.
“For the past thirty days, we’ve stepped up bombing!” Johnson raged. “The Reds have seen twenty thousand casualties!”
LBJ knew all the details of the bombings then underway. The press was reporting that he was personally