. . . things that can’t wait until our meeting this afternoon. One, in order to get the Canadians fully on board with as much of this message to Hanoi as we can get, we think it very important for someone to speak personally with [Lester] Pearson.[note 4] Lester Pearson served as Prime Minister of Canada. And I’ve tentatively nominated myself, because I don’t see anybody else. Would you object to my going up there tomorrow morning to give him the picture? We’re going to be briefing his man, and saying . . . giving you . . . giving whatever you would authorize me to say this afternoon. Or would you rather have the [State] Department do it, or [Walton] Butterworth do it, or would you want to do it by phone?[note 5] W. Walton Butterworth served as U.S. ambassador to Canada. The difficulty with the phone is, it’s not entirely secure. What their man is willing to carry in terms of messages to Hanoi may have a great deal to do with how we can get this thing turned off peacefully, and that Mike should know that he was doing it for you and not just for a lot of other people, as . . .[note 6] Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson was informally referred to as “Mike” Pearson.

I think you could do it Friday. I think maybe tomorrow you ought to be here.

Ought to be here. All right, I could do it that way. I could do it that way. Second question: [Adlai] Stevenson . . . you’re going to be going up to New York.

I talked to him this morning, and he wanted to come down to see me and he was going to call me back, and we finally kind of agreed we’d try to get together tomorrow night.

I would have thought that was the best way to do it and I think we ought to plan [on] that basis.[note 7] The Presidential Recordings Program revised the following section of text in 2021 for inclusion in The LBJ Telephone Tapes, a project produced by the Miller Center in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to commemorate the library's 50th anniversary.

I’ll tell you, the more—I just stayed awake last night thinking about this thing—the more I think of it, I don’t know what in the hell . . . it looks like to me we’re getting into another Korea. [Bundy acknowledges.] It just worries the hell out of me. I don’t see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we’re committed. [Bundy attempts to interject.] I believe the Chinese Communists are coming into it.[note 8] One of the purposes of the Seaborn mission would be to assess the exact state of the Sino-North Vietnamese relationship and to ascertain whether the Chinese would in fact intervene in response to U.S. escalation. Logevall, Choosing War, p. 157. I don’t think that we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere on—in that area. I don’t think it’s worth fighting for, and I don’t think we can get out. And it’s just the biggest damn mess I ever saw.

It is. It’s an awful mess.[note 9] End of 2021 revisions.

And we just got to think about [it]. I look at this sergeant of mine this morning, got six little old kids over there, and he’s getting out my things and bringing me in my night reading and all that kind of stuff, and I just thought about ordering those kids in there, and what in the hell am I ordering him out there for?

Ordering him out there . . .[note 10] The Presidential Recordings Program revised the following section of text in 2021 for inclusion in The LBJ Telephone Tapes, a project produced by the Miller Center in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to commemorate the library's 50th anniversary. One thing that has occurred to me—

[speaking over Bundy] What the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country?

[speaking under President Johnson] Well, we have to get [unclear] to explain this.

Now, we’ve got a treaty, but [unclear] . . . we got a treaty, but hell, everybody else got a treaty out there, and they’re not doing a thing about it.[note 11] Johnson was referring to the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO). See Johnson to Richard Russell, 10:55 a.m., 27 May 1964, in this chapter.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, of course, if you start running [from] the Communists, they may just chase you right into your own kitchen.

Yeah. That’s the trouble. And that is what the rest of the—that half of the world is going to think if this thing comes apart on us. That’s the dilemma. That’s exactly the dilemma.

But everybody I talk to that’s got any sense, now, they just say, “Oh, my God, please give this thought.” Of course, I was reading Mansfield’s stuff this morning, and it’s just [Bundy acknowledges] milquetoast as it can be, got no spine at all.[note 12] For Mansfield’s statements in favor of neutralization and against escalation in Vietnam, see Johnson to Richard Russell, 10:55 a.m., 27 May 1964, in this chapter.

Yeah.

But this is a terrible thing we’re getting ready to do—

Mr. President, I just think it’s the biggest—it’s the only big decision in one sense that was—this one is one [where] we have a need that we either reach up and get it or we let it go by. And I’m not telling you today what I’d do in your position. I just think the most we have to do is to pray with it for another while.[note 13] End of 2021 revisions.

Anybody else that we got that we can advise with that might have any judgment on this question?

Umm . . .

That might have something, might be fresh, might have some new approach. Would [Omar] Bradley be any good? Would [Lucius] Clay be any good?

No, Bradley would be no good; I do not think Clay would add. I think you’re constantly searching, if I understand you correctly, for some means of stiffening this thing that does not have this escalating aspect to it. And I’ve been up and down this with Bob McNamara, and I’ve been up and down it again with Mike Forrestal.[note 14] Michael V. Forrestal served on the staff of the National Security Council. I think there are some marginal things that we can do. And I think the notion of . . . and I don’t . . . I think the . . . also, Mr. President, you can do what I think Kennedy did at least once, which is to make the threat without having made your own internal decision that you would actually carry it through. Now, I think the risk in that is that we have, at least, seemed to do it once or twice before. And there’s another dilemma in here, which is . . . the difficulty your own people have i n—I’m not talking about Dean Rusk, or Bob McNamara, or me, but people who are at second remove—who just find it very hard to be firm if they’re not absolutely clear what your decision is, and yet you must safeguard that decision and keep your ultimate—

What does Bill [Bundy] think we ought to do?[note 15] William Bundy, McGeorge’s brother, served as assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs. He had served as assistant secretary of defense for international security under President Kennedy.

He’s in favor of touching things up, but you ought to talk to him about it. I’ve got an extremelygood memorandum from Forrestal that I’m just getting ready for you, that shows what he thinks about it, and—

What does he think?

He thinks we ought to be ready to move a little bit; a little bit. And [advocates] mainly Vietnamese [action]. On the other hand, [U.S.] readiness to do more. He believes really, that that’s the best way of galvanizing the South. That if they feel that we are prepared to take a little action against the center of this infection, that that’s the best way of moving.[note 16] Although Michael Forrestal did call for increased U.S.-backed South Vietnamese military activity, Bundy understated the memo’s emphasis on both the weakness and factionalization of the Khanh government and the overall lack of coordination of U.S. policy. In an appendix to the memo, Forrestal blamed much of the U.S. disorganization on Ambassador Lodge. Michael V. Forrestal, “memorandum: South Vietnam,” 26 May 1964, “Folder 2: Vietnam Memos Vol. X: May 24–30/64,” Country File: Vietnam, Box 5, National Security File, Lyndon B. Johnson Library. A 27 May cover memo from McGeorge Bundy stated that the document “should not be given any circulation” and indicated that it went only to McNamara, George Ball, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs John McNaughton, William Bundy, and Interagency Vietnam Coordinating Committee head William H. Sullivan (who also served as the secretary of state’s special assistant for Vietnamese affairs). McGeorge Bundy, “Personal Memorandum,” 27 May 1964, “Folder 2: Vietnam Memos Vol. X: May 24–30/64,” Country File: Vietnam, Box 5, National Security File, Lyndon B. Johnson Library.

What action do we take, though?

Well, I think that we really need to do you some target-folder work, Mr. President, that shows precisely what we do and don’t mean here. And the main object is to kill as few people as possible while creating an environment in which the incentive to react is as low as possible. But I can’t say to you this is a small matter. There’s one other thing that I’ve thought about, that I’ve only just thought about overnight. And it’s on this same matter of saying to a guy, “You go to Korea, or you go to Vietnam, and you fight in the rice paddies.” I would love to know what would happen if we were to say in this same speech, “And from now on, nobody goes to this task who doesn’t volunteer.” I think that we might turn around the atmosphere of our own people out there if it were a volunteers’ enterprise. I suspect the Joint Chiefs won’t agree to that, but I’d like to know what would happen. If we really dramatize this as Americans against terror, and Americans keeping their commitment, and Americans who have only peace as their object, and only Americans who want to go have to go, you might change the temper on its own.

You wouldn’t have a corporal’s guard, would you?[note 17] A “corporal’s guard” is a reference to a small or insignificant group; it was originally derived from the relatively limited number of troops under the command of a corporal and may have first been used to refer to members of the Whig Party who remained loyal to President John Tyler following an unpopular veto of a tariff bill.

I just don’t know. I just don’t know. If that’s true, then I’m not sure we’re the country to do this job.

I don’t think it’s just [Wayne] Morse and [Richard] Russell and [Ernest] Gruening.[note 18] See Johnson to Richard Russell, 10:55 a.m., 27 May 1964, in this chapter. I think it . . . I think it’s . . . did you see—

I know it isn’t, Mr. President. It’s 90 percent of the people who don’t want any part of it.

Did you see the poll this morning? Sixty-five percent of them don’t know anything about it, and of those that do, the majority think we’re mishandling it, but they don’t know what to do. That’s Gallup.[note 19] In a Gallup poll conducted between 24 and 29 April and released on 27 May, 63 percent of respondents indicated they had given little or no attention to the situation in Vietnam; among “those who have followed the situation,” 42 percent thought the “U.S. is doing as well as can be expected,” 46 percent thought the United States was handling the situation “badly,” and 12 percent had no opinion. Out of a range of future options for U.S. policy, none received the support of more than 5 percent of respondents. George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971, vol. 3 (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 1882.

[Unclear.] . . . I’m sure that’s right, yup . . . yup.

It’s damned easy to get in a war, but it’s going to be awfully hard to ever extricate yourself if you get in.

It’s very easy. I’m very sensitive to the fact that people who are having trouble with an intransigent problem find it very easy to come and say to the President of the United States, “Go and be tough.” That’s very easy.

What does [Walter] Lippmann think you ought

to do?[note 20] Walter Lippmann was a syndicated Washington Post columnist and one of the most influential figures in mid-twentieth-century American journalism.

Well, I’m going to talk with him at greater length. What he really thinks is that you should provide a diplomatic structure within which the thing can go under the control of Hanoi, and walk away from it. I don’t think that’s an unfair statement. But I will ask him to do you—

You mean he thinks that Hanoi ought to take South Vietnam?

Yes, sir. Diplomatically. Maybe by calling it a neutralization and removing American force and letting it slip away the way Laos did—would if we didn’t do anything, and will if we don’t do anything. And that we would guarantee the neutrality in some sort of a treaty that we would write. I think it—I’m sorry, I don’t . . . I’m not sure I’m the best person to describe Lippmann’s views because I don’t agree with them.

Who has he been talking to besides you? Has he talked to Rusk any on this? Has he talked to McNamara any?

He’s talked to George Ball. He’s talked to George Ball. And he’s talked to . . . I don’t think he’s talked to Rusk, and I don’t think he’s talked to McNamara.

Would it be good for him and McNamara to sit down and discuss this?

I think it would be very good, but I don’t . . . and I think that . . . I had planned to have lunch with Walter on Monday because I couldn’t find a workable time before that, but I can do it sooner if you’d like me to.

I wish you would.

I will.

I’d try to get him . . .

I’ll get a talk to him today.

. . . get his ideas a little more concrete before I leave here and I’d like to have him talk to McNamara. I might . . . I might just have the three of you in this afternoon sometime.[note 21] The President, Robert McNamara, Under Secretary of State George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy met with columnist Walter Lippmann later in the day.

All right.

Walter, McNamara, and him. I’d like to hear Walter and McNamara . . .

Debate it?

. . . evaluate this thing, yeah.

All right. What’s a possible time, Mr. President; that’s the trouble.

Well, that 4:00 time you’ve got open.

The damned Irishman is all over the place.[note 22] Bundy was referring to Irish President Éamon de Valera, who arrived at the White House shortly after the close of this conversation.

Off-record meeting on Southeast Asia, they got you at 4 [p.m.] today.

That’s at 4 [p.m.]. That’s to review the telegrams to Lodge and other action items that we’ve been working on the last two days. I don’t think—

I’ve got Ireland at 5 [p.m.], so why don’t we just see if they can’t come at 4 [p.m.]?

Put off the 4:00 meeting?

No . . . yeah. Put . . .

Or do you want to put Lippmann at 6 [p.m.], or do you want to . . . ?

No, no, I’ve got that dinner tonight.

Yeah.

We’d better . . . we could . . . you and I could get together at 3:45, and Lippmann and Mac come in at 4 [p.m.] if they would.

Yes. What happens, then, to the working meeting is my only problem.

How long do you have to have it?

It wouldn’t take you 10 or 15 minutes probably.

Well, I’d say come in . . . I’ll come in at 3:45 with you . . .

To try and do that business.

. . . and then have them come in at 4 [p.m.].

All right. Well, make it 3 [p.m.]–that’s 3:45, and then have Lippmann standing by at 4:15, eh? . . . Or 4:00? From 4:00 on.

Yeah.

Aye-aye, sir.