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By Root 3561 0

selecting targets from the West Wing of the White House, and that assessment seemed correct. I assume the idea was to demonstrate the close involvement of the commander in chief in the war, but for me it was an enduring lesson about the perils of trying to micromanage a war from thousands of miles away. Long before this briefing, I noticed that LBJ tried to preempt any second-guessing of his Vietnam strategy by quoting then Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn’s comment during World War II. “If General Marshall doesn’t know more than I do in this area,” Rayburn supposedly said, “then we’ve been wasting a whale of a lot of money at West Point all these years.” In other words, Johnson was suggesting that the military knew best and others ought not to question the military brass. I understood that I knew far less about what was going on in the war than the President and his advisers, but I didn’t think he had answered my question, so I followed up.

“Well, Mr. President, if we have been doing this since the conclusion of the pause,” I continued, “is there any hint or indication that we are, in fact, being successful in convincing them? Is the message getting through?”

LBJ looked at me for a moment in silence. “No,” he eventually conceded, “there isn’t.”

The President became more subdued—his moods could change rapidly—and his deep-pocketed eyes turned somber.

“Look, no man wants to end this war as badly as I do,” he said. His softer tone might have garnered some sympathy. That was, until he quickly added, “I’ve got a lot riding on it.”

Those words summarized the last hour of the briefing, which consisted of an elaborate and rambling effort to cast blame for the unhappy situation wherever President Johnson could. First, it was Congress’ fault. He referred more than once to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which had passed the House of Representatives in August 1964 by a vote of 416–0.6 Johnson clung to that vote like a life preserver. He carried a dog-eared copy of the resolution in his pocket, which he pulled out to recite some of its lines. He particularly liked to emphasize one phrase in the resolution: “approves and supports.”

“That’s two words,” he said, “and they are both there.”

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. When I voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, I did have some concerns about its language—I worried it might be interpreted too broadly by LBJ—and in hindsight I should have considered the words more carefully.7 But even then I had not anticipated it would be interpreted as a blanket justification for anything the President chose to do. LBJ clearly believed many of the people who voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution now wanted to bail out on him, and he would have none of it. He seemed to be trying to convince the Democrats that they would be alright in the upcoming elections if they stuck with him. And he threatened Republicans who publicly opposed his policies that he would “land on them with both feet.”8

But according to LBJ, it wasn’t just Congress that deserved blame for the situation in Vietnam. Johnson sought to tie the conflict to his predecessor, President Kennedy, who sent military advisers into Vietnam in the early 1960s, and to the Kennedy cabinet that Johnson had inherited. He pointedly noted that Secretaries Rusk and McNamara were both Kennedy appointees. I wondered if they felt ill at ease as the President spoke. LBJ then invoked former President Eisenhower, saying that “Ike” had supported his actions in Vietnam. Johnson even referenced consulting about the war with the Pope. I was half convinced he would have placed some of the blame on his wife, Lady Bird, if he could have thought of a way to do so. I watched in amazement—even embarrassment—as LBJ went on with his “woe is me” harangue.

As I listened to him personalize the growing criticism of the war, I thought to myself that Vietnam wasn’t LBJ’s personal problem. It was our country’s. A Johnsonian phrase, “a stuck pig squeals,” came to mind.

Looking back on that encounter from different circumstances, I was probably too harsh in my assessment