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If we stick with it, I am confident we shall come out all right in the end.
Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker to the President, February 29, 1968.
I shall not seek and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, March 31, 1968
The Clifford Task Force: “Give Me the Lesser of Two Evils”
President Johnson had given Clifford only until March 4 to arrive at an acceptable recommendation for meeting Westmoreland’s request for troops. “I was directed,” Clifford later wrote in his memoirs, “as my first assignment, to chair a task force named by the President to determine how this new requirement could be met. We were not instructed to assess the need for substantial increases in men and matériel; we were to devise the means by which they could be provided.”1
Clifford was not only new at the helm of defense but he found that those like himself on the periphery of intelligence data and information were at a distinct disadvantage vis-à-vis those individuals with extensive experience on Vietnam’s problems. “Thrust into a vigorous, ruthlessly frank assessment of our situation by the men who knew the most about it,” Clifford wrote, he proceeded somewhat cautiously.
Among the documents Clifford researched was the study known as The Pentagon Papers, which detailed how the civilian officials in the Defense Department sought to discredit the JCS and MACV military analysis. The study had been commissioned by Robert McNamara on June 17, 1967, in an attempt to assess where the U.S. military policymaking process on Vietnam had failed. The task force of 36 civilian and military analysts had had access to virtually all classified material from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the CIA, and the State Department. The result was a history of over twenty years of deception by the Defense Department to perpetuate U.S. military power in Southeast Asia with total disregard for the effects of that policy on American and Vietnamese citizens.*
One background paper in particular, “Alternative Strategies,” authored by the assistant secretary of defense for systems analysis, Alain Enthoven, was a blistering McNamara-like attack from a “whiz kid” turned whistle-blower: “Our strategy of attrition has not worked. ... We became mesmerized by statistics of known doubtful validity, choosing to place our faith only in the ones that showed progress. We judged the enemy’s intentions rather than his capabilities because we trusted captured documents too much. ... In short, our setbacks were due to wishful thinking compounded by a massive intelligence collection and/or intelligence failure. . . . We have achieved stalemate at a high commitment.”2 Enthoven’s paper was supported by the analyses of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (the Pentagon’s “Little State” Department) Paul Warnke.
Clifford also questioned the Joint Chiefs and those advisors who knew the most about Vietnam. He recalled his attempts at fact finding in “A Viet Nam Reappraisal”: “‘Will 200,000 more men do the job?’ I found no assurance that they would. ‘If no, how many more might be needed—and when?’ There was no way of knowing. ‘What would be involved in committing 200,000 more men to Viet Nam?’ A reserve call-up of approximately 280,000, an increased draft call and an extension of tours of duty of most men then in service. ‘Can the enemy respond with a build-up of his own?’ He could and he probably would. ‘What are the estimated costs of the latest requests?’ First calculations were on the order of $2 billion for the remaining four months of that fiscal year, and an increase of $10 to $12 billion for the year beginning July 1, 1968. ‘What will be the impact on the economy?’ So great that we would face the possibility of credit restrictions, a tax increase and even wage and price controls. The balance of payments would be worsened by at least half a billion dollars a year. ‘Can bombing stop the war?’ Never by itself. It was inflicting heavy personnel and materiel losses, but bombing by itself would not stop the war. ‘Will stepping up the bombing decrease American casualties?’ Very little, if at all.’ “
The Joint Chiefs had expected the new secretary of defense to be more supportive of the bombing program than his predecessor because of his past hawkish views, but Clifford now requested to see the military plan for attaining victory in Vietnam: “I was told that there was no plan for victory in the historic American sense. Why not? Because our forces were operating under three major political restrictions: The President had forbidden the invasion of North Viet Nam because this could trigger the mutual assistance pact between North Viet Nam and China; the President had forbidden the mining of the harbor at Haiphong, the principal port through which the North received military supplies, because a Soviet vessel might be sunk; the President had forbidden our forces to pursue the enemy into Laos and Cambodia, for to do so would spread the war, politically and geographically, with no discernible advantage. These and other restrictions which precluded an all-out, no-holds-barred military effort were wisely designed to prevent our being drawn into a larger war.”
Clifford also asked the Joint Chiefs, “What is the best estimate as to how long this course of action will take? Six months? One year? Two years? Not only was there no agreement, I could find no one willing to express any confidence in his guesses. Certainly, none of us was willing to assert that he could see ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ or that American troops would be coming home by the end of the year. After days of this type of analysis, my concern had greatly deepened. I could not find out when the war was going to end; I could not find out the manner in which it was going to end; I could not find out whether the new requests for men and equipment were going to be enough, or whether it would take more and, if more, when and how much; I could not find out how soon the South Vietnamese forces would be ready to take over. All I had was the statement, given with too little self-assurance to be comforting, that if we persisted for an indeterminate length of time, the enemy would choose not to go on.”
Clifford finally asked, “Does anyone see any diminution in the will of the enemy after four years of our having been there, after enormous casualties and after massive destruction from our bombing?” The answer was that there appeared to be no diminution in the will of the enemy.
Johnson received the Clifford task-force report on March 4. The report recommended meeting Westmoreland’s immediate military situation by deploying 22,000 additional personnel (approximately 60 percent of which would be combat and three tactical fighter squadrons). The task force also recommended approval of a 262,000 Reserve call-up in order to help restore the strategic Reserve. But the report contained none of Clifford’s private doubts or questions. Instead, it called for a major new study designed to give Westmoreland “strategic guidance” for the future. It was quite possible that an additional 200,000 American troops or double or triple that quantity, would not be enough to accomplish U.S. objectives.
Upon receiving the task-force report, Johnson convened a meeting of the principals. Now, for the first time, the president heard Clifford outline the problems facing the president. “Your senior advisers have conferred on this matter at very great length. There is a deep-seated concern by your advisers. There is a concern that if we say yes, and step up with the addition of 206,000 more men that we might continue down the road as we have been without accomplishing our purpose—which is for a viable South Vietnam which can live in peace. We are not convinced that our present policy will bring us to that objective.”
Clifford then turned to the tragic irony of the previous autumn’s progress report. “For a while, we thought and had the feeling that we understood the strength of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese. You will remember the rather optimistic reports of General Westmoreland and Ambassador Bunker last year. Frankly, it came as a shock that the Vietcong-North Vietnamese had the strength of force and skill to mount the Tet offensive—as they did. They struck 34 cities, made strong inroads in Saigon and in Hué. There have been very definite effects felt in the countryside.”
Clifford emphasized that the 206,000 request was not just another call for more troops. The new request brought the president to the clearly defined watershed of going down the same road of “more troops, more guns, more planes, more ships?” And, “do you go on killing more Viet Cong and more North Vietnamese and killing more Vietcong and more North Vietnamese?” Clifford now shattered any illusions the president may have held with respect to military progress. “There are grave doubts that we have made the type of progress we had hoped to have made by this time. As we build up our forces, they build up theirs. We continue to fight at a higher level of intensity. Even were we to meet this full request of 206,000 men, and the pattern continues as it has, it is likely that by March he [General Westmoreland] may want another 200,000 to 300,000 men with no end in sight. The reserve forces in North Vietnam are a cause for concern as well. They have a very substantial population from which to draw. They have no trouble whatever organizing, equipping, and training their forces. We seem to have a sinkhole. We put in more—they match it. We put in more—they match it. I see more and more fighting with more and more casualties on the US side and no end in sight to the action.”3
The Sinkhole
President Johnson now found himself in a difficult situation. The American people had been told that General Westmoreland would get all he required. Failure to meet the request of his field commander would leave Johnson vulnerable to the charge that he was not supporting soldiers in the field. Yet, to deploy beyond the 525,000 would raise questions on the viability of attrition and claims of progress. The 525,000 figure had been regarded as a lid. Moreover, the administration had claimed that Tet had been a military victory—what was the emergency? If enemy manpower had been depleted at Tet, why did Westmoreland now need these additional increments? Would a call-up of Reserves be perceived as a tangible sign of failure? Moreover, the domestic political consequences would polarize the country. The doves would charge that Johnson was dragging his country into a miserable and endless war. Hawks would wonder why the president was disrupting lives by mobilizing the Reserves when he could utilize the tactical weapons at his disposal. Bomb Hanoi, Haiphong, the harbors, and the dikes—hit the sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. If necessary, invade North Vietnam.
In virtually every respect, General Westmoreland’s 205,000 request represented the failure of U.S. strategy. The reinforcements would bring the total American military commitment in ground forces to three-quarters of a million—yet the United States would be no closer to victory than in 1965 at the outset of the Americanization of the war. Progress had been made but the objective of an honorable peace in Vietnam was nowhere in sight. It was becoming increasingly evident that no amount of military power would bring North Vietnam to the conference table—at least not in an American presidential election year. Why should anyone believe that 750,000 would break the enemy’s will?
Tet had been, in the words of General Bruce Palmer, who was deputy to General Westmoreland and later served as Vice-Chief of Staff, “an allied intelligence failure ranking with Pearl Harbor in 1941 or the Ardennes Offensive in 1944.”4 George Kennan, former diplomat, presidential advisor, and author of the containment doctrine, now bitterly denounced administration policy as a “massive miscalculation and error of policy, an error for which it is hard to find any parallels in our history.” At a campaign dinner for Senator Eugene McCarthy, Kennan charged that the military effort was “grievously unsound, devoid throughout of a plausible, coherent and realistic object.”
American public opinion would not tolerate a long drawn-out military campaign with high casualties. Westmoreland’s strategy of search and destroy was based on the faulty premise that a military victory was conceivable if U.S. forces just destroyed enough Viet Cong. This was a sound doctrine in World War II, but was not realistic in the Vietnam war. Vietnam could not be won by attriting the enemy alone.
On March 6, Rostow sent LBJ his personal assessment of prospects for the war. “We are clearly in the midst of an unresolved critical battle. The enemy is committed—having taken stock of his immediate post-Tet situation—to continue to throw forces into the battle at a rate almost four times his average for 1967; he is losing about 1,000 KIA per day as opposed to 241 per day in 1967. He did increase his order of battle in the days before Tet—with several additional North Vietnamese divisions, North Vietnamese fillers for VC main force units, plus hasty recruiting for VC units. But there is no evidence he can sustain present rates for more than a matter of a few months.”
Rostow was ready to mine the North Vietnamese ports but knew that Johnson would need a trigger point to justify these actions. “The Reserve call-up may not be able to wait until the battle is joined,” he wrote, “but the best time to mine the ports—should you decide to do so—would be at the height of battle. Not since the Civil War has quite so much hinged for our country on immediate battlefield events.” Mining the ports was now seen as a bone which could be used to placate the American public. Ginsburgh wrote Rostow on March 1, “Mining is the best way of satisfying that part of the US public opposed to sending more of our boys to South Vietnam, without increasing pressure on North Vietnam.”
The Strains of Political Skill
By now the strain to Johnson’s political ability was showing. As a senator, in the cloakroom of the Senate chamber or face to face with a political adversary, Johnson had been an overpowering force. “Johnson was a legislative pragmatist,” wrote Ralph Huitt. “He learned early and never forgot the basic skill of the politician, the ability to divide any number by two and add one.”5 He possessed an uncanny ability to size up his opponent and, through a variety of techniques that ranged from squeezing the thigh, reasoning nose to nose, horse-trading, or—when all civilized forms of negotiation failed—humiliation, usually got what he wanted; and the individual giving it never forgot how LBJ exacted his price. But as a war leader his political technique failed him.
The technique did not work in Vietnam, primarily because Ho Chi Minh, by Johnson’s standards, was essentially nonpragmatic. During a meeting with labor leaders in the State Department dining room on August 7, 1967, LBJ had revealed the personal reservations of a man who had misplayed his hand: “Some people say that we should turn the bombers loose. But I can’t do that. Some people say to pull out. But I can’t do that either. And some people say stop the bombing, but I can’t tie General Westmoreland’s right arm behind his back right now. I wish somebody would stop saying what President Johnson should do and spend a little time trying to get Ho to do something. Don’t put all the heat on me. I’m doing everything I can.”
As his political maneuverings failed to achieve their anticipated goals, Johnson’s great personal insecurities manifested themselves. All presidents feel ill-treated by the press, but with Johnson it had become an obsession. In an interview on September 20, 1967, Johnson claimed that “NBC and the New York Times are committed to an editorial policy of making us surrender.” He argued that Ho Chi Minh received fairer treatment in the U.S. media than did the president of the United States: “But the television doesn’t want that story. I can prove that Ho is a son-of-a-bitch if you let me put it on the screen—but they want me to be the son-of-a-bitch. Press coverage of Vietnam is a reflection of broader and deeper public attitudes, a refusal by many Americans ‘to see the enemy as the enemy.’” He told Max Frankel of the New York Times that the paper “plays a leading part in prejudicing people against [me]. Editors won’t use the words ‘President Johnson’ in anything that is good. Bigotry is born in some of the New York Times people.” On his overall relationship with the press Johnson once confided to a friend, “I feel like a hound bitch in heat in the country. If you run, they chew your tail off, if you stand still, they slip it to you.”
Johnson also lashed out at the mostly anonymous “intellectuals” for what they symbolized—the freedom to dissent without fear of reprisal. It pained him that those he believed had been helped the most by his presidency were leading opposition to the war. “The same groups continue to call [me] ‘that lying SOB.’ These are the preachers, liberals and professors who are the first to cry discrimination if anybody says anything about them.” College students had received loans and scholarships under his administration; now they chanted slogans for Ho Chi Minh. No president had done more for civil rights; now Martin Luther King, Jr. urged blacks to oppose the war.
Johnson labeled those who dissented “nervous nellies,” “half-brights,” and “knee-jerk liberals.” In an August 19, 1967, meeting with Rusk, McNamara, Wheeler, and Rostow, Johnson had bemoaned the lack of congressional support for administration policy. “In war, politics stops at the water’s edge,” he asserted, noting that as Senate minority and majority leader he had supported President Eisenhower 79 percent of the time on foreign policy. When Secretary McNamara was called to testify on the Hill, Johnson told his staff, “There is something wrong with our system when our leaders are testifying instead of thinking about the war.”
During a November 4, 1967, luncheon meeting with Rusk, McNamara, Rostow, and Helms, LBJ expressed worry over his political fortunes: “Gallup and Harris say anyone could beat us. Gallup takes these polls a month old, juggles them a little, and makes it look that way and the public believes them.” Referring to the impending selection of a new Marine commander Johnson said, “I’m going to take that man’s blood pressure and make sure he’s loyal. It doesn’t do any good to win the fight over there and lose it over here.”
The Genie Is Out
On March 10, Hedrick Smith of the New York Times broke the story that Westmoreland had requested 206,000 additional troops. The secret was out, and the political dominoes quickly fell. The dispatch, written by Smith and Neil Sheehan, with the assistance of Max Frankel and Edwin Dale Jr., reported that Westmoreland’s request for 206,000 additional troops had “touched off a divisive internal debate within high levels of the Johnson administration.” Perhaps more damaging than the headline were comments from “high administration civilian officials” in the Pentagon who now described Vietnam as “a bottomless pit.” Smith quoted a Pentagon official with intimate knowledge of the situation: “We know now that we constantly underestimated the enemy’s capacity and his will to fight and overestimated our progress. We know now that all we thought we had constructed was built on sand.”
Ironically, two days earlier General Wheeler had cabled Westmoreland, “I do not wish to shunt my troubles on you. However, I must tell you frankly that there is strong resistance from all quarters to putting more ground force units into South Vietnam. . . . You should not count on an affirmative decision for such additional forces.”
A Gallup poll released on March 10 reported that 49 percent, more Americans than ever before, believed that the United States was wrong to have ever begun its involvement in Vietnam. Only 33 percent believed the United States was making progress in the war, compared to 50 percent in November’s survey following the big sell.
On March 12, Abe Fortas, “after a week of exercise, sleep and relaxation,” wrote Johnson with his views on Vietnam. Fortas and Rostow were the only remaining civilian hawks in LBJ’s camp. Fortas urged LBJ to stop trying to convince North Vietnam that it should negotiate. “This weakens your position in this country. It stirs doubt here and in the world as to our power and resolve. It encourages the enemy, domestic and foreign. It does not help to end the war. You have a good position: They know how to reach me.’” Fortas then moved to a lengthy but revealing personal analysis that advocated “winning” the war on grounds that the United States was “the only—the last remaining—non Communist nation whose existence and presumed willingness to fight and whose power operate as a deterrent to aggressive-Communist domination (first) of all Asia and (second) of other parts of the world.” Moreover, “unless we “win” in Vietnam, our total national personality will, in my opinion, change—and for the worse. If we do not “win” here, we will not participate elsewhere in the world on a substantial scale. If we do not “win” here, I think that a long period of national self-doubt and timidity will be reflected in our economy, our social programs, etc.; and our nation will be sufficiently shaken so as to be in real danger from a demagogue (who is not likely to have even the virtues of de Gaulle).”6
According to Fortas, ‘winning’ entailed “bringing [the war] home to North Vietnam” by “asking how far we go short of an American invasion of North Vietnam.” Moreover, he recommended mounting all-out air campaign strikes against Hanoi and all other targets in North Vietnam. “I would suggest discarding the theory (or even the pretense) of attacking only North Vietnam’s supply capability and infiltration potential.”
The Political Death Knell
On March 13, Senator Eugene McCarthy startled the nation with his strong showing in the New Hampshire primary. McCarthy’s candidacy centered on the tragic consequences of the war. “The administration can no longer have it both ways,” McCarthy declared while campaigning. “The new budget makes it clear what most Americans have known for many months: we cannot wage war in Vietnam and at the same time alleviate the hopelessness that leads to riots.”
The New Hampshire primary became, in retrospect, the loose thread which, when pulled, unraveled the Johnson presidency. Senator Robert Kennedy had previously announced that he would not challenge LBJ because to do so would split the Democratic party; McCarthy had none of those reservations. Campaigning as an unabashed peace candidate and assisted by thousands of young college students who came to New Hampshire to dump LBJ, McCarthy’s grass-roots candidacy came to symbolize hope, the light at the end of the dark tunnel of endless escalation.
The president’s name was not on the New Hampshire ballot; he was not a declared candidate; and delegates could not pledge themselves to a noncandidate. Johnson supporters were banking on a heavy write-in campaign. The timing could not have been worse for Johnson. News of Westmoreland’s 206,000-man request broke on Sunday, March 10, and the New Hampshire primary was just three days later. Speculation was rampant that the troop request would help McCarthy. When New Hampshire voted on March 13, Johnson received 49.5 percent (27,243 votes) to McCarthy’s 42.4 percent (23,280 votes). When all write-ins were tabulated, the president of the United States had won the primary by all of 230 votes, and McCarthy had captured twenty of twenty-six delegate votes.
The McCarthy vote was deceptive—not all was for peace—many self-proclaimed hawks had voted for McCarthy to protest Johnson’s handling of the war. Hawks and doves finally found a common ground in their dissatisfaction with Lyndon Johnson’s war. The next day Johnson summoned Dean Acheson to the White House. As Truman’s secretary of state, Acheson had helped implement the containment policy that had shaped the parameters of the cold war; but he now told Johnson that American interests were not being served in Vietnam. When the president told Acheson that Westmoreland and the Joint Chiefs remained optimistic, Acheson warned, “Mr. President, you are being led down the garden path.” (The president had asked Acheson to explain his views to Walt Rostow. “Walt listened to me with the bored patience of a visitor listening to a ten-year-old playing the piano,” Acheson later recalled.7) Acheson recommended that Johnson reconvene the president’s senior foreign policy advisors—“the wise men.”
If McCarthy’s showing in New Hampshire was a smoke signal to LBJ, it was a wake-up call to Robert Kennedy. Kennedy had not wanted to split the party in a divisive challenge of LBJ. New Hampshire revealed the degree of malcontent with Lyndon Johnson, and following a brief reassessment, Kennedy announced his candidacy for president on March 16. “These are not ordinary times, and this is not an ordinary election,” declared Robert Kennedy.
The erosion of public support threatened to overwhelm Johnson. Should he stop the bombing—if not to negotiate then to win the election? Harry McPherson wrote Johnson on March 18, “I think the course we seem to be taking now will lead either to Kennedy’s nomination or Nixon’s election, or both.” President Johnson, as the incumbent, was the “natural defender of the status quo. You represent things as they are—the course we are following, the policies and programs we have chosen. Therefore, you are the most conservative of the six—the man who is not calling for change, but resisting it. That is a tough position today.”
With respect to Vietnam, McPherson pointed out two alternatives to LBJ: “Change from today’s status quo could mean either escalating to 750,000–1,000,000 men and seeking a military victory, or de-escalating the fighting by changing our tactics, and ultimately even bringing a few Americans home. I pray we choose the latter. It seems to me that we are not going to win a military victory, in the ordinary meaning of that term, with forces we have there now, plus 25–30,000. Just saying we will won’t make it so. ...”
United Nations Ambassador Arthur Goldberg now wrote Johnson in support of a bombing halt. Goldberg had accepted the ambassadorship in hopes that he could forge a negotiated settlement in Vietnam. The March 15 cable represented one of his final attempts; Goldberg would submit his resignation in April. The cable reached LBJ at the Ranch. Goldberg pointed towards “a growing public belief that the war in South Vietnam is increasingly an American war, not a South Vietnamese war which the U.S. is supporting, and, further, that the war cannot be won on this basis without evermounting commitments not worth the costs. ... It is my considered opinion that the very best way to prevent further erosion of public support from taking place is to make a new and fresh move toward a political solution at this time.” Goldberg recommended a total bombing halt in the North: “We would ‘stop’ the aerial and naval bombardment of North Vietnam for the limited time necessary to determine whether Hanoi will negotiate in good faith.”
But Johnson was still not convinced that, as Commander in Chief, he should stop the bombing and endanger the lives of his troops. “Let’s get one thing clear,” Johnson told his aides. “I’m telling you now I’m not going to stop the bombing. Now I don’t want to hear any more about it. Goldberg has written to me about the whole thing, and I’ve heard every argument. I’m not going to stop. Now is there anybody here who doesn’t understand that?”8
Minutes from the March 18 meeting of the Joint Chiefs reveals just how closely their private divisions mirrored the public debate on the war. General Harold K. Johnson was the least optimistic, saying, “We’ll find ourselves where we are today—even if we build up forces—one year from today.” General John P. McConnell favored hot pursuit into Laos and Cambodia and hitting “any target of military worth in North Vietnam.” Admiral Thomas H. Moorer favored relaxing bombing restraints in Hanoi and Haiphong and complained that we “have not really gone out to win the war.” General Leonard F. Chapman favored expanding the sea and air campaigns as well as “preparing forces to invade North Vietnam. Unless we can expand our efforts north—we cannot hope to achieve our purpose.” General Wheeler urged “maximum protection to population areas. Saigon only city that has to be defended at all costs. (Hué has psychological value.) Build up ARVN as rapidly as possible. Beat up NVN from air and sea.” General Johnson then suggested trying an “Inchon landing and take and occupy area 30 miles north of DMZ.”
Troops and War or Bombing Halt and Negotiations
On March 19, 1968, the principals convened to discuss the parameters of a national presidential address that would presumably focus on Westmoreland’s troop request. No one had a good answer to Clark Clifford’s question, “Do we have anything to offer except new war?” Hanoi’s rejection of the San Antonio formula had badly divided the administration. Secretary of State Rusk acknowledged that the “element of hope has been taken away by TET offensive. People don’t think there is likely to be an end.” McGeorge Bundy added, “Right. Great fall-off in support. Hell of statement now is ‘here they come again, with $30 billion now forever instead of $25 billion.’ Can we convey impression that we are ready for peace by saying, ‘This is about the US share’? People agree with the objectives, but wonder what it will cost.”
If President Johnson really wanted to open negotiations, he would have to stop the bombing. Unless there was a meaningful offer for peace, LBJ should not make it. The only thing which offered the possibility of talks was cessation of bombing. But President Johnson still would not buy into the de-escalation reasoning. He warned those assembled that “standing down bombing gets the hawks furious. Bunker’s argument is that any overture would hurt South Vietnam.” Support for LBJ came from Abe Fortas who argued that the slightest hint of negotiations would be taken as a sign of weakness. “People’s feeling of discontent is over whether the effort is being prosecuted intelligently and firmly. Our combination of war and peace is confusing.” Troop reinforcements represented strength and resoluteness.
Now Clark Clifford broke ranks. The secretary of defense took the same position on disengagement that his predecessor had long held. “In World War II ‘prevail we will’ would work because conditions were right. Now they aren’t.” Nothing could stop the erosion of public confidence. The meeting ended abruptly when Johnson interjected, “We are mixing two things when we include peace initiatives. Let’s make it troops and war. Later we can revive and extend our peace initiatives.”
The fact that President Johnson was heading towards “troops and war” soon became apparent in the strident hawkishness of his public rhetoric. At the National Farmers’ Union convention LBJ declared, “We hope to achieve an honorable peace and a just peace at the negotiating table. But wanting peace, praying for peace, and desiring peace, as Chamberlain found out, doesn’t always give you peace. If the enemy continues to insist—as he does now, when he refuses to sit down and accept the fair proposition we made, that we would stop our bombing if he would sit down and talk promptly and productively—if he continues to insist, as he does now, that the outcome must be determined on the battlefield, then we will win peace on the battlefield by supporting our men who are doing that job there now.”
The speech drew a quick response from McGeorge Bundy who warned LBJ, “If we get tagged as mindless hawks, we can lose both the election and the war. ... This damned war really is much tougher than—and very different from—World War II and Korea, and I just don’t think the country can be held together much longer by determination and patriotism alone. We have skillful and ruthless opponents—and we have just got to do more than give them an easy target. (And that’s what I found dead wrong in Abe Fortas’s advice on Wednesday—although he was dead right about the need to avoid empty peace gestures right now.)”
Bundy then discussed the deep divisions between Johnson’s principal advisors. “And I have to admit that Arthur Goldberg is right when he says the only [choice] that the whole world—and Kennedy and McCarthy too—will call serious is a bombing halt. I know that is what McNamara and Vance also think. I’ve been against them all up to now—but no longer. ... A full halt in the bombing—one which ends only by the evident fault of Hanoi—seems to me the indispensable missing ingredient in our package for 1968.”
As an unofficial senior foreign policy advisor within the inner circle, Bundy wrote to Johnson, “I’ll be with you in whatever decision you make. Until those decisions are final you can count on me to tell you what I think as you asked us to yesterday.”
General William Westmoreland: Army Chief of Staff
During a March 23 news conference, President Johnson announced that General Westmoreland would replace General Harold K. Johnson as Army Chief of Staff. While touted as a promotion for Westmoreland, those most knowledgeable described the surprise reassignment as being “kicked upstairs.” Westmoreland had first learned of the possibility of reassignment during his visit to Washington in November 1967 when General Wheeler informed Westmoreland that he was “the obvious candidate” to replace General Johnson, whose term was about to expire. But Westmoreland had heard nothing more until March 23, 1968, when Wheeler called to report that LBJ had just announced the reassignment at a news conference. Westmoreland later wrote, “I received news of the appointment with mixed emotions. I had hoped to remain in Vietnam until the fighting ended, yet I was honored by the selection. In my own counsel I knew that with the decision against my proposed new strategy, the war was likely to go on for a long time.”9
Westmoreland’s reassignment was the first tangible signal that Johnson had accepted the failure of his administration’s military strategy in Vietnam. Despite Westmoreland’s optimism in November and his statement of “turning the corner” in Vietnam, by March it was evident that he and Johnson had “been cornered” by their optimism. Implicit in the decision to bump Westmoreland upstairs was Johnson’s recognition that the strategy of search and destroy and a war of attrition had failed.
Within the White House a battle for the president’s mind, or as it would evolve, over the president’s next speech, was taking sides. On one side was the secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, joined by presidential counsel and speech writer Harry McPherson, who set out to convince LBJ that he had lost control of the war. Five hundred American deaths a week, a budget crisis, and electoral challenges were signals that a change from earlier optimism would be necessary. On the other side were the Joint Chiefs, Ambassador Bunker, and Walt Rostow, who believed that the president needed to fully commit his country’s resources to war.
The president’s speechwriters were working on Johnson’s major address to the nation. During a luncheon meeting with the principals the president explained that he felt “there has been a dramatic shift in public opinion on the war, that a lot of people are really ready to surrender without knowing they are following a party line.” The group then focused on Harry McPherson’s most recent speech draft. The dialogue showed just how close to the edge administration policy stood. The president had to leave the room for a few moments, and during his absence, McGeorge Bundy said that extreme care had to be taken in the president’s statements to avoid hawkish speeches that “will cost the President the election.” According to Secretary Clifford, the president’s recent speech to the National Alliance of Businessmen “had caused concern among thoughtful people because the President seemed to be saying that he was going to win the war no matter what the cost in American lives.”
When he returned, the president suggested that his advisers should get together on their thinking. “He said he felt that Congress was going to interpret the speech as pressure on the taxpayers and that others would say it was a speech for the campaign year if he made the address before a Joint Session. He said he thought he should make the statement from his office on television, talking about taxes, troops and reserves, negotiations and peace.” Secretary Clifford said “the major concern of the people is that they do not see victory ahead. The military has not come up with a plan for victory. The people were discouraged as more men go in and are chewed up in a bottomless pit.”
The president now asked the principals to speculate on possible peace moves. Secretary Clifford suggested that de-escalation be started by a limited cessation of bombing above the twentieth parallel, with reciprocal action by the enemy. Secretary Rusk did not believe Hanoi would reciprocate. William Bundy, assistant secretary of state, said that in Bunker’s judgment this would cause major difficulties in Saigon, and that he was skeptical of the idea but had no alternative. Walt Rostow said Hanoi would know full well that the U.S. was taking advantage of the bad weather. He said it might have some effect on doves and some effect in Europe, but would not succeed and would cause problems. In Secretary Rusk’s opinion, a critical time for a peace offensive was later, after the winter fighting had subsided, but if the administration delayed in offering peace and the enemy hit Saigon, our forces would have to be prepared to hit Hanoi very hard in retaliation. Justice Fortas thought the decision would be criticized as too little, too late, and insincere. In his view the speech lacked an essential ingredient in that it did not explain why the United States was in Vietnam. “If we do not talk in terms of Communism, it is like a production of Hamlet without the prince.” He suggested emphasizing in the speech the invasion of Laos by the North Vietnamese and the brutal murders of the civilians during the Tet truce. He did not believe the people would give the president the support the administration needed with the speech in its present form.
McGeorge Bundy had found the briefing papers quite illuminating. Like the secretary of defense, the more he had read, the more skeptical he had become. The link between guns and butter, between the war in Vietnam and domestic programs posed the single greatest political threat to the administration. Bundy wrote Johnson, “I now understand, as I did not when I got here, that the really tough problem you have is the interlock between the bad turn in the war, the critical need for a tax increase, and the crisis of public confidence at home. If I understand the immediate needs correctly, the most important of all may be the tax increase, simply because without it both the dollar and the economy could come apart—and with them everything else. So while you may not be able to say so plainly, what you do and do not do on other fronts has to be effectively related to the incredibly tough business of getting the Congress to act, at very long last, on taxes. I hate this fact, because I hate to see the President so hobbled, but I have no instant way to amend the Constitution, so there it is.”
Bundy recommended that the president reject the military recommendation for calling Reserves for Vietnam. “No good military case for them exists, on anything I have seen, and to me what may make this call really necessary is simply that you may not be able to get the tax increase unless you can prove to some people that we need it for a war in which we are backing Westy all the way. I have a feeling that the cost at home of sending more reserves will be very high and the real military return very low—specially because what people most want is to see the Vietnamese do more and us do less. I hate to see my President held to ransom by military men, and their Congressional friends, who really do not know what to do with the troops they are asking for.”
Bundy used Clifford’s reasoning: “I am much affected by my belief that the sentiment in the country on the war has shifted very heavily since the Tet offensive. This is not because our people are quitters, and McCarthy and Kennedy did not create the shift, though they may benefit from it. What has happened is that a great many people—even very determined and loyal people—have begun to think that Vietnam really is a bottomless pit.”
The Wise Men: Who Poisoned the Well?
In response to Dean Acheson’s proposal, President Johnson invited the “wise men” to assemble in the State Department on March 25. The group was first briefed by Philip Habib of the State Department, George Carver of the CIA, and Major General DePuy. The briefings stunned the “wise men,” because most had not recognized the degree of devastation Tet had inflicted upon the pacification and security program. According to George Ball’s recollection of the briefing, “If the North Vietnamese were to be expelled from the South and the country pacified, it would—so our briefers estimated—take at least five to ten years.”10 Clark Clifford asked whether the military victory could be won. “Not under present circumstances,” answered Habib. “What would you do?” asked Clifford. “Stop bombing and negotiate,” Habib answered. Douglas Dillon quickly noticed the contradictions between public and private views: “In November, we were told that it would take us a year to win. Now it looked like five or ten, if that.”11
Arthur Goldberg questioned Major General DePuy about the killed-to-wounded ratio. DePuy replied that during Tet the enemy had lost 80,000 troops and the kill-to-wounded ratio was 3 to 1. Goldberg wanted to know “how many” were left in the enemy’s overall strength? DePuy cited the official MACV Order of Battle of 230,000. According to Goldberg: “It just did not hold up in my mind. The briefing indicated that the enemy had lost 80,000 men killed in the Tet offensive. I asked the general what the normal ratio of killed to
wounded would be. He said, as I recall, ten to one. And I said that that was a big figure and that, assuming that the Vietnamese were not as solicitous about their wounded as we were, and would not treat their slightly wounded or would put them back into combat when we would not, could we consider three to one to be a conservative figure for those rendered ineffective by wounds? And he said yes. And then I asked the question, ‘How many effectives do you think they have operating in the field?’ And he said something like 230,000. And I said, ‘Well, General, I am not a great mathematician, but with 80,000 killed and with a wounded ratio of three to one, or 240,000, for a total of 320,000, who the hell are we fighting?” It didn’t make any sense to me, and I didn’t think that was a very good briefing. I like facts laid out. I thought there was a great obligation to tell the president the facts.”12
When the group broke up it was apparent that the next day’s scheduled meeting with President Johnson would not be a comfortable one. Johnson had always relied on these distinguished patriots for support. This was not a radical group; its members represented the establishment and believed passionately in supporting their president. In early November 1967 they had counseled against the stabilization policy proposed by Secretary McNamara. By March 26, 1968, they were willing to accept the failure of the war. But would the president?
When the “wise men” assembled the next day at the White House, Johnson asked Clifford, Rusk, and most other government officials to leave. Those who remained included Acheson, Ball, General Bradley, McGeorge Bundy, Dillon, Fortas, Murphy, Ridgway, and Vance. The only government officials in the room were Vice-President Humphrey, Wheeler, Taylor, and Lodge.
Former secretary of state Dean Acheson, the senior person present with respect to service in government, was asked to begin. George Ball said he quickly recognized that something was fundamentally out of synch. “Dean Acheson was the first of our group to acknowledge that he had changed his mind; we could not, he said, achieve our objective through military means. Views were expressed around the table, and I thought to myself, “There’s been a mistake in the invitation list; these can’t be the same men I saw here last November.”13
The morning session devastated Johnson. The president listened carefully to the reviews of the situation, but it was not until after lunch that LBJ learned just how much rot had existed in his policy. After lunch McGeorge Bundy took the lead: “There is a very significant shift in our position. When we last met we saw reasons for hope. We hoped then there would be slow but steady progress. Last night and today the picture is not so hopeful particularly in the countryside. Dean Acheson summed up the majority feeling when he said that we can no longer do the job we set out to do in the time we have left and we must begin to take steps to disengage.” Bundy explained that this view was shared by George Ball, Arthur Dean, Cy Vance, Douglas Dillon. “We do think we should do everything possible to strengthen in a real and visible way the performance of the Government of South Vietnam.”
Three men took a different position: General Bradley, General Taylor, and Bob Murphy all felt that the United States should do what the military commanders wanted done. General Ridgway had a special point of view. He wanted to strengthen the Army of South Vietnam so that the United States could complete the job in two years. With respect to negotiations, Ball, Goldberg, and Vance strongly urged a cessation of the bombing now. Others wanted a halt at some point but not while the military situation was still unresolved in certain corps areas. On troop reinforcements the majority sentiment was that the burden of proof rested with those urging the troop increase. “Most of us think there should not be a substantial escalation. We all felt there should not be an extension of the conflict. This would be against our national interest. The use of atomic weapons is unthinkable.”
The dialogue from the afternoon meeting is reprinted below:
RIDGEWAY: I agree with the summary as presented by McGeorge Bundy.
DEAN: I agree. All of us got the impression that there is no military conclusion in sight. We felt time is running out.
DEAN ACHESON: Agree with Bundy’s presentation. Neither the effort of the Government of Vietnam or the effort of the U.S. government can succeed in the time we have left. Time is limited by reactions in this country. We cannot build an independent South Vietnam; therefore, we should do something by no later than late summer to establish something different.
HENRY CABOT LODGE: We should shift from search-and-destroy strategy to a strategy of using our military power as a shield to permit the South Vietnamese society to develop as well as North Vietnamese society has been able to do. We need to organize South Vietnam on a block-by-block, precinct-by-precinct basis.
DOUGLAS DILLON: We should change the emphasis. I agree with Acheson. The briefing last night led me to conclude we cannot achieve a military victory. I would agree with Lodge that we should cease search-and-destroy tactics and head toward an eventual disengagement. I would send only the troops necessary to support those there now.
GEORGE BALL: I share Acheson’s view. I have felt that way since 1961—that our objectives are not attainable. In the U.S. there is a sharp division of opinion. In the world, we look very badly because of the bombing. That is the central defect in our position. The disadvantages of bombing outweigh the advantages. We need to stop the bombing in the next six weeks to test the will of the North Vietnamese. As long as we continue to bomb, we alienate ourselves from the civilized world. I would have the Pope or U Thant [Secretary General of the United Nations] suggest the bombing halt. It cannot come from the President. A bombing halt would quiet the situation here at home.
CY VANCE: McGeorge Bundy stated my views. I agree with George Ball. Unless we do something quick, the mood in this country may lead us to withdrawal. On troops, we should send no more than the 13,000 support troops.
GENERAL BRADLEY: People in the country are dissatisfied. We do need to stop the bombing if we can get the suggestion to come from the Pope or U Thant, but let’s not show them that we are in any way weakening. We should send only support troops.
BOB MURPHY: I am shaken by the position of my associates. The interpretation given this action by Saigon would be bad. This is a “giveaway” policy. I think it would weaken our position.
GENERAL TAYLOR: I am dismayed. The picture I get is a very different one from that you have. Let’s not concede the home front; let’s do something about it.
FORTAS: The U.S. has never had in mind winning a military victory out there; we always have wanted to reach an agreement or settle for the status quo between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. I agree with General Taylor and Bob Murphy. This is not the time for an overture on our part. I do not think a cessation of the bombing would do any good at this time. I do not believe in drama for the sake of drama.
ACHESON: The issue is not that stated by Fortas. The issue is can we do what we are trying to do in Vietnam. I do not think we can. Fortas said we are not trying to win a military victory. The issue is can we by military means keep the North Vietnamese off the South Vietnamese. I do not think we can. They can slip around and end-run them and crack them up.
On March 27, Bundy wrote Johnson about the meeting of the “wise men”: “My own best judgment is that we did not receive an unduly gloomy briefing. I do think we were given too rosy a picture in November, and it may be that to some degree there was a reaction from that. But on balance I think your people gave us a clear, fair picture, and one which matched with what many of us have learned from all sources over recent weeks.”
It would take time for Johnson to accept this verdict. LBJ grumbled to Ball, “Your whole group must have been brainwashed and I’m going to find out what Habib and the others told you.” LBJ called Carver and DePuy (Habib was out of town) to the White House for the same briefing. “Tell me what you told them!”15 After listening to the briefing it was evident that disengagement would be Johnson’s only option. General Maxwell Taylor later wrote that the Pentagon doves had succeeded in impregnating the “wise men” with their doubts. Nevertheless, “I had heard Carver and DePuy make similar briefings many times in the past and found nothing unusual in what they said on this occasion. I had heard Habib’s views less frequently, but, while he seemed slightly more pessimistic about the political situation than I had expected, he too made a temperate, thoughtful presentation. I make these comments on the briefings because the President was at first inclined to blame them for the unexpected reaction of his guests. Whereas only a few months before they had generally supported his policy and concentrated their attention on ways to obtain better public understanding for it, this time they arrived apparently convinced in advance that the policy was a failure and must be changed.”16
In The Vantage Point Johnson wrote of these elder statesmen, “They were intelligent, experienced men. I had always regarded the majority of them as very steady and balanced. If they had been so deeply influenced by the reports of the Tet offensive, what must the average citizen in the country be thinking?”14
Checkmate
During McGeorge Bundy’s presentation at the meeting of the “wise men,” President Johnson jotted on a pad, “can no longer do the job we set out to do . . . Adjust our course . . . move to disengage.” The war had become a sinkhole. The notion of American omnipotence and inevitable victory was shattered during Tet. The Tet offensive had contradicted the president’s public pronouncements. “I am convinced I made a mistake,” Johnson later wrote, “by not saying more about Vietnam in my State of the Union report on January 17, 1968.”17 Cable traffic and intelligence reports all confirmed a buildup of enemy forces, but after presenting optimistic scenarios in November, President Johnson could hardly have done otherwise. “In retrospect, I think I was too cautious. If I had forecast the possibilities, the American people would have been better prepared for what was soon to come.” Tet had revealed that despite over 525,000 men, billions of dollars, and extensive bombing, the United States had not stopped the enemy from replacing his forces. The rate of the war and the capacity to sustain it were controlled not by America’s superior technology, but by the enemy.
President Johnson had tried to control public perceptions of the war’s progress. He appears to have believed he could utilize the prestige of the presidency to legitimize statistics—as though they could stand alone as proof that there was no policy stalemate. Faith in numbers replaced a visible demonstration of presidential leadership.
Between the final meeting of the “wise men” and President Johnson’s March 31 speech, Clifford took control of the speech-drafting process. He informed Rusk and Rostow that the country could not accept a war speech; the president as candidate and as Commander in Chief needed a peace speech. Democracy could not survive without majority support for a nation’s war policy. LBJ had lost that link. Clifford assigned responsibility for drafting the speech to Harry McPherson, whose views were well known amongst the principals. Clifford and McPherson have provided lengthy oral-history interviews which describe how they literally set out to save their president from the hawks. “Together we’ll get our country and President out of this mess,” Clifford decided. “Is he with us,” a phrase from the French Revolution, became the secret code for those working for disengagement. The speech became the format for a bombing halt at the twentieth parallel of North Vietnam which would be tied conditionally to Hanoi’s favorable response for negotiations.
The president was scheduled to deliver his speech at 9:00 P.M. EST; McPherson was still working on the draft in his White House office when LBJ telephoned: “‘Do you think it is a good speech?’ the president asked his aide. McPherson thought it was. ‘Do you think it will help?’ McPherson thought it would, particularly at home. ‘Do you think Hanoi will talk?’ The aide was much less certain—the chances seemed to him to be less than 50–50. ‘I’m going to have a little ending of my own to add to yours,’ the president told his aide and friend. McPherson had heard that it was in the works, and he caught a hint the day before of what Johnson might do. ‘Do you know what I’m going to say?’ Johnson asked. There was a pause. Yes, he thought so. ‘What do you think?’ ‘I’m very sorry,’ said McPherson softly. ‘Okay,’ responded the President with a Texas lilt in his voice—‘so long, pardner.’”18
In his speech on March 31, 1968, Lyndon Johnson announced a partial suspension of the bombing against North Vietnam. “There is no need to delay talks that could bring an end to this long and this bloody war. Tonight, I renew the offer I made last August—to stop the bombardment of North Vietnam. We ask that talks begin promptly, that they be serious talks on the substance of peace. We assume that during those talks Hanoi will not take advantage of our restraint. We are prepared to move immediately toward peace through negotiations. So tonight, in the hope that this action will lead to early talks, I am taking the first step to de-escalate the conflict. We are reducing—substantially reducing—the present level of hostilities. And we are doing so unilaterally, and at once.” The president then stunned the nation by announcing, “believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year. With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”
McNamara, Westmoreland, and Johnson—the architects of U.S. policy in Vietnam had fallen. Their departures reflected a recognition that the idea of military victory had been a “dangerous illusion.” Writing to Secretary of Defense Clifford on March 14, under-Secretary of the Air Force Townsend Hoopes had discerned from the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam “repeated miscalculations as to the force and time required to ‘defeat the aggression,’ pacify the countryside, and make the GVN and the ARVN viable without massive US support. Each fresh increment of American power has been justified as the last one needed to do the job.”*
General Westmoreland’s 206,000-troop request forced the principals to confront the reality that 750,000 troops would not alter the conditions of stalemate. A 206,000 augmentation would be matched by only a 50,000 corresponding increase in Communist strength. At Johnson’s request, the CIA had taken a fresh look at the data on North Vietnamese Army strength in South Vietnam and the rates of NVA infiltration over recent months. Carver reported, “During the past three or four months there has been a dramatic increase in the movement of regular North Vietnamese Army units into South Vietnam. This Agency now believes that last Fall (1 November) there were over 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers fighting in South Vietnam. The number has risen rapidly in the past five months and today may be over 100,000. This increase in NVA strength in South Vietnam has been achieved despite the thousands of casualties suffered by the North Vietnamese in the intensified combat of the past two months.”
What did the data mean? There were nearly twice as many North Vietnamese regular army soldiers in South Vietnam as there were VC regular soldiers. Between November 1, 1967, and February 1968, 35–40,000 NVA personnel had infiltrated into South Vietnam.
By March 1968, the Gallup Poll reported that 49 percent of the American population believed that the United States was wrong to have gotten involved militarily in Vietnam. While seven in ten doves thought the country was wrong to ever have gotten involved, four in ten hawks thought so as well. When the president uttered his March 31 words, “I will not accept ...” Johnson’s colleagues, friends, and political observers unanimously viewed his decision as a positive, forward, and constructive step for national unity and peace in Vietnam. A Harris survey immediately following Johnson’s announcement revealed a complete reversal in the president’s job approval rating at the start of March. Approval in April stood at 57 percent, in March it had been 43 percent; disapproval had dropped in one month from 57 percent to 43 percent. Stepping aside brought Johnson more praise than any of his actions in the past year—so much had Vietnam become Lyndon Johnson’s war.
In Retrospect
I am reminded of the adage, “Those who write history have the gift of revision; those who make it get only one chance.” In looking over the course of American foreign policy between 1965 and 1968 there were many chances for those who shaped Vietnam policy to revise that policy. One of these occurred when Senator George Aiken of Vermont remarked, “Let’s declare that we have achieved our objectives in Vietnam and go home.” A few days later Leonard Marks, Johnson’s director of the United States Information Agency, mentioned Aiken’s proposal to the president. “He looked at me—he had a way of staring at you—and finally I blinked. I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘Get out of here.’ I picked up my papers and left. That’s the first and only time he’d ever been harsh with me. ... Several years after he left the White House I was invited to spend a weekend at the ranch. We were by ourselves. It was on my conscience and I said, ‘Mr. President, I have to ask you something. In all the years we’ve been together, only once did you act in a way that I could really complain’ and I recalled this experience. ‘Why did you do it?’ He looked at me and he said, ‘Because you and George Aiken were right.’”19
Lyndon Johnson chose to Americanize the war in July 1965; he chose to accept General Westmoreland’s attrition strategy; he chose not to mobilize his country for war; he chose and encouraged others to paint optimistic scenarios for the American public; he chose to hide the anticipated enemy buildup prior to Tet because, in an election year, he had hoped for a military miracle—perhaps Westmoreland would turn the tide when the enemy began its final desperate assault.
It was left to Clark Clifford as secretary of defense to convince Johnson that Vietnam had become a sinkhole. The irony was that Secretary McNamara had been banished from the administration for the same advocacy. George Ball had been listened to but not heard. Johnson’s decision to remove himself from the renomination race represented the ultimate recognition that the Vietnam war had become interwoven with his personality and his presidency. “I shall not accept” was the president’s admission that Vietnam had become, against his every desire, Lyndon Johnson’s war.
*The Pentagon Papers was published by the New York Times in June 1971 after Daniel Ellsberg, a former defense department official and critic of the war, leaked the top-secret study.
*See Appendix for Hoopes memo in full.