LBJ and McNamara on Vietnam

Date: Mar 02, 1964
Participants: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara
Conversation Number: WH6403.01-2301

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(President Johnson): I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I would assume Bundy. "Deeply dangerous game." But I don't see anything wrong with it, even yet. I think it is deeply dangerous when anybody starts aggression. Now, that was not where it started at all. I blew my top here for a whole damn week. I jumped on you and jumped on Rusk both why you were saying out in Saigon that you were invading North Vietnam, even if you were going to invade it. Now, I know that Rostow- how he feels, and I know how we all feel. But they came back a week before we said it's a "deeply dangerous game," and this stuff was pouring out by reams. And the first story said that military officials in Saigon- it came from Saigon. I talked to you about it, and you said that that wasn't correct, so I jumped on Rusk about it, and Rusk comes back and points out the story itself... it said military officials. And that's where it came from. Now, the story came from Saigon that we're getting ready to do this. A lot of people in Saigon, they tell me, said that they got it from the State Department here, that Rostow had a propaganda move on to really invade North Vietnam-and always had had it. Now, I don't know enough about the inner workings of these two departments, but I know that this thing has gone on ten days or a week before we got it, and I can get the clippings and show them where they were full of it. But now they want to hang it on a little higher person and say that I indicated that we're going to invade Vietnam, or that we're going to hit the Chinese, or that we're going to bomb Moscow. Now, I didn't do any such thing. I said that this is deeply dangerous, and it is deeply dangerous. It's dangerous for any nation to start aggression and start enveloping neutral, freedom-loving people. And I think it was dangerous to 5,000 of them- 20,000 of them that got killed there last year! I think you could... I think maybe Pierre did get in an argument with somebody and say this is an important sentence, out in California, because they were writing about the sentence that said the Communists... What was it, Phil Potter? Communist civil war. And they wanted to know what we meant by civil war, and we were talking about the fight that's going on between the Chinese and the Russians and calling each other ugly names and things like that. We say that is civil war. But... they're trying to transfer this stuff that's been coming out of Saigon onto this "deeply dangerous" statement. And... the... the... we're just not doing it. They say that the administration's putting out all this propaganda itself. Now, I'd just give anything in the world if we could stop everybody from talking except the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and the President, and that we could clear those things. So, was not this Los Angeles speech cleared with your department?

(Robert McNamara): No, I didn't see it. I-

(President Johnson): Well, it was given to Bundy to clear it with everybody.

(Robert McNamara): Well, I-

(President Johnson): And it should have been.

(Robert McNamara): There wasn't anything in it I would change so-

(President Johnson): All right.

(Robert McNamara): -it doesn't make a difference from that point.

(President Johnson): Well, it ought to be. Now, is there anything in the press conference you'd change?

(Robert McNamara): No, I thought it was excellent.

(President Johnson): Do you think it's a mistake to explain what I'm saying now about Vietnam and what we're faced with?

(Robert McNamara): Well, I do think, Mr. President, that it would be wise for you to say as little as possible. The frank answer is we don't know what's going on out there. The signs I see coming through the cables are disturbing signs: poor morale in Vietnamese forces, poor morale in the armed forces, disunity, tremendous amount of coup planning against Khanh. About what you'd expect in a situation that's had three governments in three months.

(President Johnson): Why don't we take some pretty offensive steps pretty quickly, then? Why don't we commend Khanh on his operation and try to prop him up? Why don't we raise the salary of their soldiers to improve that morale instead of waiting a long time? Why don't we do some of these, do some of these things that are inclined to bolster them?