LBJ's Vietnam

It's an understatement to say that the Vietnam war was a boondoggle. And Lyndon Johnson owns it. President Kennedy had intended to reduce the number of U.S. military advisers in Vietnam, but LBJ reversed Kennedy's order to pull a thousand troops out. Next, incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964 gave Johnson the authority he wanted to ratchet up activity in Vietnam in an attempt to stop the spread of Communism. But the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, in which it was purported that North Vietnam ships attacked U.S. vessels, was mostly a ruse...and Johnson knew it. In taped conversations between LBJ and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, LBJ admitted that the Gulf of Tonkin incidents weren't definitive. Here's a transcript snippet of their September 18, 1965 conversation, as featured in Michael Beschloss's excellent Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965.

LBJ: Take the best military man you have, though, and just tell him that I've been watching and listening to these stories for thirty years before the Armed Services Committee, and we are always sure we've been attacked. Then in a day or two, we are not so damned sure. And then in a day or two more, we're sure it didn't happen at all!
McNamara: Yeah, yeah.
LBJ: Just say that you want to be sure...that we were fired upon. Because you just came in...a few weeks ago and said that, "Damn, they are launching an attack on us. They are firing on us." When we got through with all the firing, we concluded maybe they hadn't fired at all.

Pictured are Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Johnson and McNamara at a Cabinet meeting, courtesy of Yoichi R. Okamoto, White House Press Office.

Work on Those Final Words

Most people would agree that a president's last words should be memorable and inspiring. But it hasn't always worked out that way. Millard Fillmore, after eating some soup, said, "The nourishment is palatable" and then expired. Ulysses S. Grant reportedly uttered "Water!" before he died. Lyndon Johnson's "Send Mike immediately!" is memorable for having been uttered into his bedroom telephone upon feeling ill. Some presidential final phrases reflect that they weren't aware of their impending doom. Just before Oswald's bullet hit him, John F. Kennedy answered, "That's obvious," to Mrs. Connolly's question: "Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you." Moments before Booth put a bullet in his head, Abraham Lincoln said, "It doesn't matter," when his wife refused to hold his hand. Other presidents had the opportunity to be rather eloquent, such as Dwight Eisenhower's, "I've always loved my wife, my children, and my grandchildren, and I've always loved my country. I want to go. I'm ready to go. God, take me." Grover Cleveland's, "I have tried so hard to do right," is rather touching. Theodore Roosevelt's final words, "Please put out the light," seem inadvertently perfect. But the award for the lamest final words goes to Andrew Johnson, who said, "I need no doctor. I can overcome my troubles." (Photo of Andrew Johnson, Library of Congress)

Executive Privilege

While not necessarily a blunder, here's an incredible story about a president using special knowledge for his own benefit. The late Pierre Salinger, then President Kennedy's press secretary, was summoned to the Oval office one evening. There, according to Salinger in a story that appeared in Cigar Aficionado, Kennedy asked him for a personal favor: "I need a lot of cigars." The president asked Salinger to bring him a thousand Petit Upmann Cuban cigars. Salinger recounts what happened next:

I shuddered a bit, although I kept my reaction to myself.

"And when do you need them, Mr. President?"

"Tomorrow morning."

I walked out of the office wondering if I would succeed. But since I was now a solid Cuban cigar smoker, I knew a lot of stores, and I worked on the problem late into the evening.

The next morning, I walked into my White House office at about 8 a.m., and the direct line from the president's office was already ringing. He asked me to come in immediately.

"How did you do, Pierre?" he asked, as I walked through the door.

"Very well," I answered. In fact, I'd gotten 1,200 cigars. Kennedy smiled, and opened up his desk. He took out a long paper which he immediately signed. It was the decree banning all Cuban products from the United States. Cuban cigars were now illegal in our country.

Here's a link to Salinger's full Cigar Aficionado article.