Dick?

Yes, sir.

I want you to do a little heavy thinking for me today. I don’t want anybody to know this but the two of us. I think [Henry Cabot] Lodge is . . . He hasn’t been willing to do anything out there, and I think he’s coming out within the next few days or weeks. I need to pick the best man in America to succeed him. I don’t know who that is. I can’t find anybody in my government. [Unclear comment by Russell] [Dean] Rusk is willing to do it, and I don’t think he’s the man, and I don’t think I can afford to let him go. [Robert] McNamara’s anxious to do it, the same thing. [McGeorge] Bundy, the same thing. I can’t let any of them go here because I’ve got too many damn serious problems. I need a Lucius Clay 25 years ago.[note 2] Like Russell, a native of Georgia, Lucius Clay graduated from West Point and embarked upon a successful military and civilian career. Before retiring from the Army in 1949, General Clay served in the Corps of Engineers, was in charge of materiel in World War II, and in 1947 became commander in chief of U.S. forces in Europe and military governor of the U.S. zone in Germany. As John Kennedy’s personal representative in Germany he gave the order to send U.S. tanks to “Checkpoint Charlie” during the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. At the time of this conversation, Clay was 67 years old. “Lucius Clay Dies, Led Berlin Airlift,” New York Times, 17 April 1978.

They . . . We’re making some little progress in our province program, and we’ve been doing a little better the last few weeks because the folks think they got some little something to hope for and to live for. We’re doing a little with the school and the hospital here and there. They’re getting a little better, and we haven’t done bad, but Lodge won’t let any of these folks really do anything. He won’t let anybody broadcast hope because he handles all radio, television, newspaper himself. He won’t let anybody get out [and] do any of this economic work because he thinks that we’ve got too many Americans now.

So we need a top man, and . . . I can’t take anybody from the Cabinet. I’ve looked over every single ambassador we’ve got: George McGhee and [Charles “Chip”] Bohlen and [David] Bruce, and none of them fit the specifications.[note 3] George McGhee, Charles “Chip” Bohlen, and David Bruce were the U.S. ambassadors to Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, respectively. The man we need is a man that’s a pretty good diplomat and a hell of a good administrator that can help this government and make some decisions for them and lead them and that can put in a good economic program and get those people doing something themselves and, at the same time, work with our military. We think we’ve got the best man we can get in [William] Westmoreland.[note 4] General William Westmoreland served as deputy commander of the Military Assistance Command for Vietnam; he would become commander on 19 June. Now, that man needs a combination

of military and economic experience and must be a good administrator. The best that anybody’s come up with now, I’m down to George—

It’ll be hard to find that kind of man [unclear]—

George Ball. The best we’ve got in the government’s George Ball, who’s probably first, and Averell Harriman.[note 5] A veteran diplomat, former governor of New York, and scion of one of the wealthiest families in the United States, W. Averell Harriman served as under secretary of state for political affairs. And we just can’t send Walter Jenkins, so we’ve got to send somebody. And I don’t know where they are. I need a good . . . Lucius Clay 25 years ago. He’s too old, and he wouldn’t go now, and tired. [J. Lawton] Collins I don’t guess would be the man, would he?[note 6] General J. Lawton Collins served as commanding general of the 25th Infantry Division at Guadalcanal and of the VII Corps during the Normandy Invasion. He was chief of staff of the Army during the Korean War and was a special U.S. ambassador to Vietnam during the Eisenhower administration (1954-55).

[softly] No.

All of my men are too old, the retired ones like [General Omar] Bradley and Collins and Clay.[note 7] General Omar Bradley served in North Africa and oversaw the Omaha Beach landing on D-Day. He later directed the Veterans Administration for President Truman, succeeded Eisenhower as chief of staff of the Army, and became the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Collins is as old as Clay, I’d think.

Yeah. I saw him the other day, and he didn’t look good, but he was here with the D-day group that took off.[note 8] Collins was a member of the official U.S. delegation that would travel to Normandy, France, to participate in ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of D-Day. Omar Bradley headed the delegation. Johnson had met with the delegation in the Rose Garden on 3 June, prior to their departure for France. [George Whelan] Anderson, my administration wouldn’t have him: They think he’s just a puffed up, attractive physically fellow, but he’s not much to him, as chief of naval operations.[note 9] Admiral George Whelan Anderson had served as chief of naval operations from 1961 to 1963. Clashes with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara led to his removal from the position. President Kennedy then appointed him to the post of U.S. ambassador to Portugal. Bruce Lambert, “Adm. George W. Anderson, 85; Was in Charge of Cuba Blockade,” New York Times, 22 March 1992.

He’s pretty good man.

You think so?

Yes, sir, I do. He’s a pretty good man, but I don’t know. He grates on the State Department people. They never have liked him. I don’t think I’d select him for that reason. They . . . I don’t know. I don’t know why the hell they ever sent Lodge out there—

Well, they did, and—

—it makes it doubly difficult to succeed him. If you had a career man out there, it wouldn’t be any problem. But now you’ve got to get a man that somebody knows and that’s got some sales [unclear].

Somebody just gave me a thought, and I don’t guess he’d think of doing it, but what about [John] McCone?[note 10] John McCone served as director of Central Intelligence. I just thought of that while I was talking to you. No human’s ever mentioned him, but since Rusk is willing to do it and since McNamara is willing to do it. You think it would be very bad for McNamara, don’t you?

Yeah, I don’t see hardly how . . . how you . . . he could afford to do that.

He’s the most valuable man I got in the Cabinet on everything.

He’s . . .

I have him work—

You need him here in the first place, and in the second place, all this business about “McNamara’s war” would be accentuated if you sent him out there.[note 11] In a 30 March 1964 speech, Oregon Senator Wayne Morse had called for the “repudiation” of the Johnson administration unless it ceased to support “the McNamara war.” This was the first recorded use of the phrase in the nation’s major newspapers, but it caught on so rapidly that by late April, McNamara responded by embracing the designation: “I don’t object to its being called ’McNamara’s war.’ I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.” “Morse Scores Role of U.S. in Vietnam,” New York Times, 31 March 1964; “M’Namara Agrees to Call It His War,” New York Times, Nobody’s paying any attention to it now, but they might if he went out there. And . . .

Have you had any dealings with George—

I don’t think . . . don’t think you can spare him.

Have you—

George Ball, could you spare him? He’s a consistent fellow.

Yes, I could. . . . I could. I just . . . They say he’s no administrator, but they say this AID [Agency for International Development] man, [William] Gaud, G-a-u-d, is the best administrator in the government.[note 12] William S. Gaud served as deputy administrator of the State Department’s Agency for International Development (AID). He’s a former businessman and tough and able, and he’s the deputy for AID, and they say we ought to just jerk him out of there and send him out yonder.

Ball is a tough fellow and a good man. I . . . without any further thought, I’d say Ball could fill the bill. Ball is a[n] exceptionally strong character. He’s a . . . and he’s a man—he’s an observant man, too. He knows what’s going on, where he is.

He went to Greece and Turkey, and Greece just made him a stump speech and didn’t get a goddamn where. They’re just insisting on backing [Archbishop] Makarios, and they’re going to ruin the . . . run the Turks back up a wall, and they’re going to go in and invade, and we’re going to have a bloody war. I stopped an invasion the other night. They already had the ships ready to go.[note 13] Archbishop Makarios III was the leader of the Greek Cypriots and the President of Cyprus. Johnson was referring to his efforts to dissuade Turkey from invading Cyprus to support the possible establishment of an independent state for the island’s Turkish minority. See Johnson to Dean Rusk, 6:30 p.m., 9 June 1964, in this volume.

I don’t see how the Turks have put up with what they have over there.

I don’t either. . . . And I sent Ball back to talk to both of them yesterday, and Inonu is just doing his best, wants to come see me in June, June 22 or something.[note 14] Johnson mispronounced the Prime Minister of Turkey’s last name here and a few sentences later. And we can’t settle it. They’ve got to settle it between themselves, and they’ve got to have some kind of a formula that both of them can agree to and won’t humiliate either. They just don’t do it. The Greeks just make a stump speech and say they got to support Makarios, and the Greeks can’t take it, and Inonu’s—that government’s in danger, threatened, because he’s listening to me and stopped the invasion. And he’s not going to listen to me next time.

McCone and [Sargent] Shriver and all those boys are Catholics. If you could get a good strong Catholic, it would help out there.

Shriver’s got to run the poverty program and get me some talent. He’s good at selecting good men for government and now, damn it, I need them by the dozens. I wish you’d find some good, young men in Georgia. Trouble is, every damn one of your folks want to stay there and be a [unclear] like Bobby [Russell].[note 15] Bobby Russell was the senator’s nephew and a state judge in Georgia. We need some of those folks coming out and doing these things. I got me a good ambassador in the Dominican Republic from your place, but he’s an old . . . career one, been gone a long time from Georgia.[note 16] Johnson was referring to W. Tapley Bennett Jr., the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Johnson and Russell had talked about Bennett at length in January 1964. See Kent B. Germany and Robert David Johnson, eds., The Presidential Recordings, Lyndon B. Johnson: The Kennedy Assassination and the Transfer of Power, November 1963—January 1964, vol. 3, January 1964 (New York: Norton, 2005), pp. 654-55, 662-64, 683, 1007.

Yeah, Tap’s a good boy.

We need some folks with some common sense that adjusted to what’s happening in the world, and we just haven’t got many of them. The only place I can go is [to] professors. The last recommendation I got is the best man to send to Vietnam was Clark Kerr, the president of the University of California. I don’t know him, but they say he’s the ablest man in that whole country.

I don’t know him either.

Said he’d built a school of a 100,000.[note 17] Clark Kerr had served as the president of the University of California system since 1958 (previously, he had been the chancellor of the system’s flagship Berkeley campus). During his tenure, Kerr had overseen a massive expansion of the U.C. system, including the addition of three new campuses. A graduate of Swarthmore College and a Quaker who had once worked on an American Friends Service Committee “peace caravan” in support of the League of Nations, Kerr was thus an ironic choice as a candidate for an ambassadorship that would consist in large part of overseeing the diplomatic dimensions of an American military effort. Grace Hechinger, “Clark Kerr, Leading Public Educator and Former Head of California’s Universities, Dies at 92,” New York Times, 2 December 2003; Clark Kerr, The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949-1967 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001). He’s able, and he’s tough, and he’d do this if I insisted.

I would think some. I don’t know . . .

What’s your impression of McCone?

Oh, McCone can do the job. He’s getting old, but he’s still tough-fibered as hell. I don’t—I doubt whether he’d want to go out there or not, but he might. I guess he’d do anything nearly to get rid of Lodge; he despises him. He feels like—

Well, he has been a miserable failure.

—[unclear]—Well, they ought to [have] known he was going to be when they sent him out there.

And this damn State Department, I can’t stop them from talking. They’re infiltrated worse than MacArthur said they had, and they put out one this morning that we—yesterday and last night—that somebody over there said that we had suspended flights.[note 18] Johnson was almost certainly referring to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who in 1950 had claimed that the U.S. State Department had been infiltrated by Communist agents. As Johnson indicated, major newspapers had carried stories that the United States had suspended reconnaissance flights “over Laos . . . in deference to objections by Premier Souvanna Phouma.” Hedrick Smith, “Temporary Halt in Laos Flights Ordered by U.S.,” New York Times, 11 June 1964; “Laos Flights May Resume,” Washington Star, 11 June 1964. Well, we hadn’t scheduled any. We just sent one in there to answer what they’d done and answer it damn quick, and then we didn’t schedule any more. We haven’t suspended some that hadn’t been scheduled, but it makes it look like we started a program and then quit it. We started one of going in there, and we went in and came out. And we think it had a good reaction, don’t you?

Apparently so.

Mm-hmm. Looks—

It’s surprising that these Chinese Reds haven’t been hollering like hell about it.

Well, they came out this morning and said that this was a very dangerous game we were playing.[note 19] For the Chinese statement, which warned that any extension of U.S. military activities in Laos would meet with a “powerful rebuff,” see Seymour Topping, “Red China Warns U.S. on Laos War,” New York Times, 11 June 1964.

Oh, they did?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

They’re going to have to do something about it if we keep it up. They notified us they’d come in this morning if we didn’t stop it.

I thought they’d be going to the . . . United Nations and all that if it bothered them—

Well, I think that they . . . I think they’re doing some of that, and that’s all right for them to go. We want some conferences. I do. I’m confronted with a . . . I don’t believe the American people ever want me to run. If I lose it, I think that they’ll say I’ve lost the . . . I’ve pulled in, and at the same time, I don’t want to commit us to a war, and I’m in a hell of a shape. I can’t do . . . I just don’t know.

Well, we’re just like the damn cow over a fence out there in Vietnam.

That’s right, and Laos, and I’ve got a study being made now by the experts, which I want you to come over some night and have a drink and see how important the two of them are. Whether Malaysia will necessarily go and India will go, and how much it’ll hurt our prestige if we just got out and let some conference fail or something.[note 20] Johnson was referring here to the idea that unless Communist expansion in a region such as Southeast Asia was immediately checked, one state after another would fall in succession.

I know all those arguments.

But they say that . . . well, a fellow like A.W. Moursund said to me last night, said, “Goddamn, there’s not anything [that will] destroy you as quick as pulling out and pulling up stakes and running, that America wants, by God, prestige and power, and they don’t want . . .” I said, “Yeah, but I don’t want to—”

[Unclear] what anybody’s saying.

“I don’t want to kill these folks.” He said, “I don’t give a damn,” said, “they didn’t want to kill them in Korea, but,” said, “if you don’t stand up for America, there’s nothing that a fellow in Johnson City or Georgia or any other place will—they’ll forgive you for everything except being weak.”

Well, there’s a lot in that. There’s a whole lot in that, and . . .

[Barry] Goldwater and all of them raising hell about, “Go on, let’s . . . hot pursuit; let’s go in and bomb them.”

Yeah. . . . I ran into Chan [unclear] the other day. He said, “[Unclear] God, hell, why don’t we just go on in there in Vietnam and Laos and clean that situation up?”

You can’t clean it up; that’s the hell of it.

I said, “My God, Chan, it would take a half a million men. They’d be bogged down in there for 10 years,” and [he said], “Oh, hell no, they’d be [unclear]”—

Well, we never did clean Korea up yet!

[chuckling] No, it ain’t clean yet. We’re right where we started, except for 70,000 of them buried over there.[note 21] U.S. casualties during the Korean war included 33,741 battle deaths, 2,833 “nonhostile deaths,” and 103,284 wounded. For many years, the Department of Defense listed the battle deaths total as approximately 54,246; in 2000, however, research indicated that this figure included 17,672 military deaths during the Korean War period outside of the Korean theater itself, and the totals for the war itself were revised downward. Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, “Korean War—Casualty Summary; As of June 15, 2004,” http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/CASUALTY/KOREA.pdf; Steve Vogel, “Death Miscount Etched into History; American Fatalities Outside of Korea Included in War Toll,” Washington Post, 25 June 2000.

Now, Dick, you think every time you can get your mind off of other things, think about some men. You’re bound to run into them testifying or something.[note 22] Senator Russell chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee and would thus have been familiar with many officials in the military and foreign service through their testimony in committee hearings.

I’ll try, Mr. President. I’ve got a hell of a lot on my mind, but I’ll try to think of—[note 23] Along with leading the just-concluded Senate filibuster against the civil rights bill, Russell was serving on the Warren Commission, the body charged with investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. The commission would make its final report in September 1964. Morton Mintz, “Warren Commission Combined Men of Diverse Talents and Views,” Washington Post, 28 September 1964.

You haven’t got anybody in Georgia that’s top flight?

I don’t think of anyone in the moment that I would . . .

I’ve looked at every man I’ve got in Texas, and I can’t think of a single one I know, and my great weakness in this job is that I just don’t know these other people. The Kennedys, they know every damn fellow in the country or have got somebody that knows them. They’re out [at] these universities and every place in the country, in New York, and Chicago, and . . .

I never did know just how they made all those connections.

Well, this damn Shriver knows everybody. He’s the fellow, you know, that get [sic] Phil Landrum to handle poverty. That’s a damn smart thing to do. We never would have a pro[gram]—

But we’re just doing fine except for this damn Vietnam thing. We’re just doing wonderful. Every index, the businessmen are going wonderful. They’re up 12, 14 percent investment over last year. The tax bill has just worked out wonderfully.[note 24] Johnson was referring to the $11.5 billion reduction in personal and corporate taxes that his administration had successfully navigated through Congress in January and February 1964. An annual survey of business plans for capital expenditures released in April indicated that U.S. businesses planned to increase spending on plants and equipment by 12 percent over 1963, up from a projection of 4 percent in a survey taken in April 1963. Manufacturers planned an 18 percent increase. 17th Annual McGraw-Hill Survey; Business’ Plans For New Plants and Equipment (New York: McGraw-Hill, Department of Economics, 1964), pp. 1-2.

We’re in a boom period [unclear]—

The married people, only 2.6 percent of the married people are unemployed; 97.4 got jobs. There’s 16 percent of these youngsters, and I’ll have all them employed when I give them a job where they can stay in high school, give them a job where they can stay in college, and give them a job at one of these camps, and I’ll cover that 16 percent when I get my other program, but . . . everything’s doing—[note 25] Johnson was referring to his economic opportunity bill, the legislative core of his proposed War on Poverty. The Job Corps component of the program (Title I) would establish camps where unemployed young people could receive remedial education and job training. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1964, vol. 20, pp. 210-11.

Well, a lot of that’s not firm unemployment at all.

No, it’s kids that are dropping out of school and then they’re going on a [welfare] roll. But I’ll take care of that with my poverty, just by organizing it all. We’ve got the money in these various departments: Labor and HEW [Health, Education, and Welfare] and Justice. Justice has got a juvenile delinquency program; Labor’s got a retraining program; HEW’s got an education program. I’m going to put all of them in one, and put one top administrator, and really get some results, go in and clear up these damn rolls. And I’ll do it with only 300 million [dollars] more than was in the budget anyway, last year.[note 26] Johnson was referring again to the economic opportunity bill and portraying it as primarily a reorganization of existing social service programs. Contrary to Johnson’s claims, the bill created a series of new antipoverty initiatives and a new executive agency, the Office of Economic Opportunity, to oversee their implementation (a few programs were delegated to the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare). James T. Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty 1900-1994 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 133—43; Michael L. Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996).

Well, I hope so.

Well, that’s—I’ve got 900 million [dollars] and 600 million’s already in the budget last year for this stuff—

Mm-hmm.

—but it’s being scattered around, and we get no credit for it. We don’t dramatize it, and they don’t know it.

Well, there has been a good deal . . . been a lot of comment on it. I think it’s more widely understood than you perhaps [unclear]—

Well, I was down in Kentucky the other day. We’ve got 50 kids there that are teaching beauty culture, how to fix Lynda’s [Johnson’s] hair, and they’re all going out and get jobs at 50, 60 dollars a week in another three months. They’ve been at it now for about a year. I had 50 auto mechanics in the same building, and those kids from all over the mountain. They’re teaching them how to tear down a differential and put it back together, and they’ll get jobs.[note 27] Johnson had traveled to Kentucky on 24 April as part of the first of two tours of high-poverty regions of Appalachia. “Remarks at the Johnson County Courthouse, Paintsville, Kentucky,” 24 April 1964, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-64 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1965), 1:543—44. Now, that’s what we ought to do instead of paying out 4 billion [dollars] a year on relief . . . for nothing. They don’t have to work. To hell with this unemployment compensation relief.

But I’ve got to find a man for Vietnam, and I don’t know . . .

[coughing] Well, I’ll try to think.

You wouldn’t send Clay—

[Unclear.]

You wouldn’t try Clay, would you?

I haven’t seen Clay in the last three or four years, Mr. President. Sometimes these fellows start breaking mighty fast; I don’t know. Last time I saw him, he was full of vigor, but I haven’t seen him in four years now.

What would you think of Westmoreland for both places?

I think highly of that. I was going to suggest that. I made a note here when I was talking to you. See if Westmoreland couldn’t fill both of them. He’s a topflight man. [Coughs violently]

Well, I see you’re still having trouble with your damn cough, aren’t you?

Yes, I certainly am.[note 28] The 66-year-old senator suffered from emphysema and died from respiratory complications in 1971.

Well, take care of yourself, and I love you, and be good.

Westmoreland, he can do the job if you want a military man, if there’s any way you can handle it where he can do both of them.

All right. Let me ask you this: What would you tell these Greeks now? Just tell them they’ve got to get with the Turks and do something or they all going to hell in a hack?

Well, I think I’d tell them if they wasn’t willing to come to some reasonable agreement there, that you’d just have to pursue a hands-off policy, and I think that will scare the hell out of them. They’re counting on us supporting them; the Greeks are. [Pause.]

[with Russell acknowledging] Now, one other thing. Carl Hayden is crying and just shoving me and just demanding that I send up a budget estimate on his Arizona thing.[note 29] Carl Hayden, a Democratic senator from Arizona and president pro tempore of the Senate, had been pushing for federal funding for the Central Arizona Project, which would construct a series of dams and aqueducts to divert Colorado River water for urban uses in rapidly growing areas of Arizona. The massive project had been blocked since the 1940s by opposition from California, which would have lost Colorado River water rights allocated to it under earlier agreements. The Kennedy administration had developed a compromise regional water plan known as the Pacific Southwest Water Plan that allocated water resources on a cooperative basis and minimized interstate competition. In particular, the federal government would subsidize the cost of diverting excess water from northern to Southern California to compensate for the Colorado River water that would be redirected by the Central Arizona Project. For background and additional conversations on the topic, see Edmund G. “Pat” Brown to Johnson, 3:31 p.m., 6 April 1964, in David S. Shreve and Robert David Johnson, eds., The Presidential Recordings, Lyndon B. Johnson: Toward the Great Society, February 1, 1964—May 31, 1964, vol. 5, March 9, 1964—April 13, 1964 (New York: Norton, 2007), pp. 734-40; Kermit Gordon to Johnson, 10:04 a.m., 12 May 1964, in McKee, The Presidential Recordings, Johnson, vol. 6, April 14, 1964—May 31, 1964, pp. 596-99; and Johnson to Jesse Unruh, 6:50 p.m., 3 June 1964, in this volume. And I’m just so scared it’s going to screw me in California that I don’t know what to do. He’s got a little agreement with [Edmund “Pat”] Brown, but he hasn’t got one with [Pierre] Salinger and the Los Angeles Times, and [Thomas] Kuchel and all of them are raising hell about it.[note 30] Pat Brown served as governor of California, while Thomas Kuchel was a Republican senator from the state. Press Secretary Pierre Salinger had left the Johnson administration earlier in the year to run for the Senate in California with the backing of Jesse Unruh, the Speaker of the house in the California House of Representatives and Brown’s rival for control of the state party. Gladwin Hill, “Salinger Winner in Bid for Senate,” New York Times, 3 June 1964.

Lot of dynamite in that.

And it’s just awful. And he just cries with me every day. And I just put off and run and dodge and hide, and I can’t kill him, and I hate to get involved in that damn thing again. He does have the governor of California. He won his lawsuit, and he got the governor, and they’ve worked out a plan.[note 31] The compromise Pacific Southwest Water Plan had been motivated in part by the June 1963 Supreme Court case of Arizona v. California, in which the court allocated a fixed, specific amount of water to each state in the lower Colorado basin according to a formula that in effect granted Arizona the right to build the Central Arizona Project. The Court based these allocations, however, on outdated estimates of annual water flow, which meant that the Interior Department would have to allocate annual shortfalls among the states. Kermit Gordon to Johnson, 10:04 a.m., 12 May 1964, in McKee, The Presidential Recordings, Johnson, vol. 6, April 14, 1964-May 31, 1964, pp. 596—99. It don’t cost me much money this year, and not much next year. And over the whole affair, the [Bureau of the] Budget said it’s a sound project, that it’ll pay back, but I think it kind of messes up my image a little bit.[note 32] Since taking office, Johnson had worked to cut unnecessary spending and create an image of fiscal frugality.

It’ll sound mighty big when you get that total figure out there and go to throwing [unclear].

Yeah, and it’ll sound pretty big if California goes to giving me hell. I need those electoral votes.

That’s what I’m talking about.

Well, how do you look at this political thing?

Oh, I think it’d . . . I can’t see the slightest difficulty anywhere now.

Goldwater said yesterday he had three issues. Southeast Asia, he’s going to make that an issue; I don’t know how he can. That the results of the civil rights bill would be an issue. I’ve got to get the leaders in here after that bill’s passed. I don’t know how to do it, but what would happen if I asked you senators to come in and give us advice and try to help us see that it was put into effect the right way, would that be a bad move?

[chuckling] I don’t know how anybody up here could tell you much.

Are governors, senators and governors—I think I’ve got to have some leaders to kind of help take charge because we’re going to be worse after the bill than it was before if we don’t.

Yeah [unclear]—

And they’re demanding I send troops in. Last night, St. Augustine just raising hell, and I told them, “Go call the governor [Farris Bryant].[note 33] Farris Bryant served as the Democratic governor of Florida from 1961 to 1965. Tell the governor to send his highway patrol in, his national guard, that I didn’t want to take over a state, that I” . . . So they did, but I don’t know whether he did or not.[note 34] Governor Bryant had deployed the Florida State Police to St. Augustine on 10 June. John Herbers, “Police Rout Mob at St. Augustine,” New York Times, 11 June 1964. He’s a pretty good little governor, but he’s tough as a boot.

Yeah, Farris is a pretty tough little fellow. He had the state police over there for a while.

Well, I know it, but he’s off running around this governors’ conference, and they’re threatening Martin Luther King, and he’s down there wanting to get shot.[note 35] Farris Bryant was attending the 56th Annual National Governors’ Conference in Cleveland. Douglas B. Cornell, “Governors End Conference with GOP Show Sidetracked,” Washington Post, 11 June 1964. On 11 June, Martin Luther King Jr. and 12 or 13 other civil rights protestors were arrested for attempting to integrate a St. Augustine restaurant. “King Arrested in St. Augustine Racial Protest,” Washington Post, 12 June 1964; Taylor Branch, Pillar ofFire: America in the King Years 1963—65 (New York: Touchstone, 1998), pp. 338-40.

Yeah, he don’t want to get shot, except by a fellow with— who’s got a camera in his hand. [The President chuckles.] That’s the only way he wants to get shot. Some fellow’s got a Kodak can shoot him.

Well, I see you and John Stennis got your pictures all over the paper.[note 36] John Stennis was a Democratic senator from Mississippi. You ought to open your eyes, though, goddamn them, make them quit taking with [unclear]. You took that picture like Lyndon Johnson, having my eyes shut.

[Chuckles.] Well, I . . . I’m not very photogenic as you are.

Somebody said you made a hell of a speech yesterday, closing it up.[note 37] Johnson was referring to Senator Russell’s final speech before the successful cloture vote on 10 June. Without any apparent recognition of the irony in his choice of words, the defeated segregationist had referred to civil rights supporters as a “lynch mob.” He had also argued that the rationales for the bill were similar to those for “a purely socialistic or communistic system.” Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1964, vol. 20, pp. 367-69. Were you proud of it?

Yeah, I was, perhaps, except they got it so screwed up that I couldn’t recognize the stenographer’s notes. It said they’d all got worn out over here at Bob Byrd’s one-man effort, and that [the President chuck-les] I got the damn notes back, and I couldn’t remember a word I’d said, and I finally just threw them on the floor and told Bill Bates to try to make them make some sense, and . . .[note 38] Robert Byrd was a Democratic senator from West Virginia, a position he would hold until his death in June 2010. On the final night of the filibuster, Byrd had delivered a 14-hour, 13-minute speech against the civil rights bill—still more than ten hours short of Strom Thurmond’s record, set during debate over the 1957 Civil Rights Act. Bill Bates remains unidentified. See Johnson to Robert Byrd, 4:55 p.m., 10 April 1964, in Shreve and Johnson, The Presidential Recordings, Johnson, vol. 5, March 9, 1964-April 13, 1964, pp. 956—62.

Bob Byrd just stood to the last, didn’t he?

Yeah, he sure did.

He’s a tough little—

He’s tough as hell.

He’s a good little boy—

Yes, he—

Good little boy. I had old John Lewis and all of his coal men in last week for him just to try to help him a little bit.[note 39] John L. Lewis was president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) from 1937 to 1940 and of the United Mine Workers from 1920 until 1960. Both Senator Byrd and John Lewis had attended a meeting of the National Coal Policy Committee at the White House on 5 June.

Well, I’ll think about McCone and Ball and Westmoreland, and you try to give me two more names in the next 48 hours.

Well, I’ll try to, but—

OK.

—out of those three, Westmoreland is the best man. He’s tough, he’s smart as hell, he understands human nature, yet he’s an excellent officer. And he’s a scholar, too.

How did the Congress react to our going in and doing this bombing?[note 40] Johnson was referring to the recent U.S. bombing of a Pathet Lao antiaircraft battery in Laos. Johnson had called the congressional leadership on 9 June to inform them of the raid.

They don’t know about it.

Mm-hmm.

Not over a dozen know about it, but I think all of them would approve of it if they did.

Well, now, we’re going to continue these reconnaissance flights as needed and as we must have them, and we’re going to send in armed people, and if they shoot at us, we’re going to shoot back.

Well, that’s just like A.W. told you, that’s the American inclination. I—

Well, now, [Mike] Mansfield’s got a—

—sometimes think we go too far on it, but—[note 41] 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.

Mansfield’s got a four-page memo saying that I’m getting ourselves involved, and I’m going to get in another war if I do it anymore.[note 42] “To: The President; From: Senator Mike Mansfield,” 9 June 1964, “Folder 4: Vietnam Memos vol. XI: 6/1-13/64,” Country File: Vietnam, Box 5, National Security File, Lyndon B. Johnson Library. For a discussion of the Mansfield memorandum, see Johnson to Robert McNamara, 6:20 p.m., 9 June 1964, in this volume.

Yeah. Yeah, he’s taking that attitude down there all the way. And I, in a way, share some of his fears.

I do, too, but the fear the other way is more.

I don’t know what in the hell to do. I didn’t ever want to get messed up down there. I do not agree with those brain trusters who say that this thing has got tremendous strategic and economic value and that we’ll lose everything in Southeast . . . in Asia, if we lose Vietnam.[note 43] Russell was most likely referring to members of the Kennedy foreign policy team, particularly Robert McNamara and William and McGeorge Bundy, who had shaped U.S. policy in Southeast Asia and had backgrounds either in academia or in highly technical areas of business management. I don’t think that’s true. But I think as a practical matter, we’re in there, and I don’t know how the hell you can tell the American people you’re coming out. There’s just no way to do it. They’ll think that you’ve just been whipped, and you’ve been run, you’re scared, and it’d be disastrous.

I think that I’ve got to say that we’re—I didn’t get you in here, but we’re in here by treaty, and we can’t—our national honor’s at stake, and if this treaty’s no good, none of them are any good. Therefore, we . . . we’ve . . . we’re there, and being there, we’ve got to conduct ourselves like men. That’s number one. Number two, in our own revolution, we wanted freedom, and we naturally look with other people—sympathy with other people who want freedom, and if he’ll leave them alone and give them freedom, we’ll get out tomorrow. That’s the second thing. The third thing, I think that we’ve got to try to find some proposal some way that . . . like Eisenhower worked out in Korea that we can—

Yeah, I wouldn’t eliminate the United Nations or some agreement, because if . . . I think people, if you get some sort of agreement all the way around, would understand it. And I don’t think that they’re so damned opposed to . . . they . . . to the United Nations getting in there. And I don’t think they’d be opposed to coming out. I don’t think American people want to stay in there. They got enough sense to realize it’s just a matter of face that we just can’t walk off and leave those people down there [unclear] without some agreement.[note 44] End of 2021 revisions.

That’s right, but . . . U Thant says he won’t have anything to do with that part of the world.[note 45] A native of Burma (now officially known as Myanmar) in Southeast Asia, U Thant served as secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971. He just says, “No, we can’t do it.”

Who’s that?

U Thant of the United Nations.

Oh. Well, why in the hell does he say that? Ain’t he from Burma himself?

Well . . . Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but he doesn’t want to.

Think about my man, and I’ll talk to you in a day or two.

All right, sir.

Bye.