Hello?

Yes, sir.

Dick, we’re going to meet again at 4:30 . . .

That’s right now.

Yeah. I wanted to talk to you before I went in the meeting. They’re meeting downstairs. Now here’s the . . .

Nobody wants to do much. They think that [in the] first place these fishermen oughtn’t to even have been picked up, that it was a mistake, and that they were over the limits, but we ought to have told them to get on back home and not make a big incident out of it because [there is] not anything to be gained from it. We ought to let him [Fidel Castro] show his hand, whether this is in concert with [Nikita] Khrushchev, and what all it means, before we act irrational.

There’s an opposing viewpoint—that’s pretty well the viewpoint of [Dean] Rusk and [John] McCone and, I would say, Bobby Kennedy. He wants to turn everybody loose and let them go on home.

[Robert] McNamara feels like the sentiment in this country is such that we’ve got to do more than that and that even though we would stand acquitted in the eyes of the world and maybe some of the liberal papers in this country, that we probably ought to do two things: declare the independence of that base by saying, “We’re going to furnish our own water, and we don’t want your damn water, and to hell with you,” and, number two, tell the people that are on there that they can pledge allegiance to us and live there—the 600—and the other 2,500 to go on back, and we’re going to quit financing [Cubans]. We’re going to operate the base independently, so our country can be secure, and so we can operate it independently. It’s going to hurt you more by this action than hurts us, and we just don’t need your people.

Now, that’s his feeling. He’s about the only one that feels that way. That’s myfeeling. I think we ought to rap them.

That’s mine.

I think that they’ll say we’re cruel, and these people have been loyal to us for two or three generations, been working there.[note 1] Johnson was referring to Cuban nationals employed at Guantánamo. We’re just firing them outright without anything on their part because Castro did this. USIA [United States Information Agency] thinks it will get a good deal of sympathy from the rest of the nations, and . . .

Well, that’s their professional attitude. These nations ain’t as silly as we attribute them to be, as we seem to think they are. And while they’re envious as hell of us, when they get down to where their self-interest is involved—and when we get hurt, their self-interest is injured—they’re not nearly as bad as everybody makes out like they are.

And if—This Panama thing will demonstrate that beyond any doubt. If our people will just sit tight, give them the facts: “Here it is now. You’ve got a stake in this.” Same thing is true here in Cuba. They don’t want Castro to prosper—none of the leaders do; just thousands of the little people who are Communist do.

But they’re not going to raise any hell about it. Khrushchev will blow up like hell. Comrade Mao Tse-tung will come in with a philippic of some kind.[note 2] The spelling of Mao’s name here conforms to the pronunciation by Russell and to the widely used form in 1964, not to the contemporary spelling, Mao Zedong. But the world as a whole will say, “Well, that’s a very logical position to take because you got to know that you can protect this.” And if Khrushchev pulled them out all at once, which he could do, if he’d stopped them all one morning, and you hadn’t even had an hour’s notice, you would need them. But now you’re giving yourself the hour’s notice, and you’re preparing against the probability that he will do another asinine thing by declaring that no Cuban national can enter on the base. You’ve got to be ready for that. But I know—

What do you think? I don’t like to see them so split and so divided—State and Defense and CIA. What do you think the attitude of the country is? The Senate? Are they indignant about cutting this water off? I don’t guess many of them feel as strong as [Barry] Goldwater does, but I guess a good many of them feel—[note 3] The day before, the GOP presidential candidate had issued a public statement urging the President to send in the Marines unless Castro turned the water back on.

No . . . no, they don’t. But a great many of them, they don’t know exactly what they want done, Mr. President, because they don’t know what can be done. But they want something done.

That’s right. There ain’t much you can do but this.

That’s right. They don’t know just exactly what to do. They’re not in favor of any war, I don’t think. I don’t believe 10 percent of them would vote for that right now, under these circumstances. But they are just tired of Castro urinating on us and getting away with it. They don’t like the smell of it any longer, and they just want to sort of show that we are taking such steps as are within our power without involving the shedding of a lot of blood. That’s my analysis of the sentiment in the Congress.

Mm-hmm.

And, I think, in the country.

Mm-hmm.

Of course it’d be mighty easy to whip them up to where they’d be ready to go to war over it if you cut loose and fanned it up, instead of playing it in the low key like is being done. But I approve of the low-key play.

But I think that there’s a latent feeling there that it may not explode right now, but one of these days they’re going to say, “Well, we’ve just been a bunch of asses in this country to continually just back down and give away and say excuse me every time we come in collision with one of these little countries because they’re small, and particularly this Communist country.”

And when that thing does . . . and when that valve blows, somebody is going to get hurt, and nobody will know just when the boiler is ready to give on it. But there is a slowly increasing feeling in this country that we’re not being as positive and as firm in our foreign relations as we should be, and that we just lean over backwards, that we’re worried more about our image than we are about our substance, and that we’re backing down.

Now, that feeling’s in the country. Just how far it’s gotten, I don’t know. A demagogue with any strength could blow it up. I don’t know of anyone who’s got enough strength to do it. The people don’t trust Goldwater’s judgment. A lot of them like his independence, and his . . .

You think a lot of people are going to think you’re hotheaded when you just fire a bunch of innocent Cubans?

No, sir, I don’t think so. I don’t believe that even the . . . [New York] Times and the [Washington] Post could stir up 5 percent of the people about this. I would make it perfectly clear that this is regrettable, that our association with these people has been pleasant and mutually profitable over a period of years. But they were within the power of Castro, and not in our power, and that we had to make this base independent, and we hope that in happier days that our pleasant relations with them could be renewed.

I’d sure throw that in there. You’ll get every one of them—why, he’d be a potential assassin of Castro. Yes, I’d certainly put it in there that way: that our relations with these people have been mutually pleasant and profitable, that Castro, of course he has control of them. He could stop them any morning. And not a one of them could come, and that we couldn’t afford to be placed in that uncertain position, if we had to rely on our own resources.

If he is going to cut off our water, tomorrow he can cut off our people.

Pardon? Yeah, oh, yeah.

If today he can cut off our water, tomorrow he can cut off our people.

Sure . . . sure, sure. He can stop them every one at the gate, where not one could come in without a moment’s notice, and we just . . . We can’t operate that important establishment in that uncertain atmosphere. And as regrettable as it is, we’ll have to make other arrangements for the time being and hope that in better days when the Cuban people and the American people are permitted to fraternize as they have in the past, and as we are anxious to do today, that we hope to be able to renew this.

I had planned . . . I think I’m going to make some kind of a statement on it, at least authorize the press to, after we have our meeting this afternoon because I think they’ll want to hear something after working all day.

I think you’re . . . I think you’re going to have to say something.

Then I think I’m going home for the weekend. Do you see any reason why I shouldn’t?

No, I do not.

I think there’s every reason to kind of ignore him, go on and make your statement, then go on. Not hang around . . .

I agree. I don’t think there’s any reason why you shouldn’t.

OK. Good-bye.