Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Jack Valenti, 1981

Well Lyndon Johnson priorities first. Yeah LBJ is priorities for his new administration really set forth by him on the very night the first night of his presidency. Bill Moyers The Late Shift Carter and I sat with him in his bedroom at the elms his residence in Washington D.C. When we had landed from Dallas from about 11 o'clock in the evening till about 4:00 in the morning 11 o'clock in the evening of November 22nd to 4:00 o'clock in the morning November 23rd that night he sketched out for us what was to be an NDB ating priority for his administration human justice civil rights. The first time that he and his government would pass a federal aid to education act conservation. To get the economy robust that is to spring the tax cut from the Finance Committee. And in short to revolutionize a social structure in America for more equality

and for more hope for people that it that time had very little hope. Vietnam was a cloud no bigger than a man's fist on the horizon. He mentioned it only in passing that first evening. He did not give it much attention because in truth it didn't seem to merit much attention at that time. Keep in mind that on the night the Johnson became president there were sixteen thousand five hundred soldiers American fighting men in Vietnam of though they had not actually entered combat themselves they were there. But to Lyndon Johnson his priorities on that very first day of his presidency was to shake America by the throat and revamp. The social priorities in this country beginning with the economy and going through human justice conservation education. What would be best to refuse is right.

The problems that weighed on him as he is President Johnson shaped his political program was the fear that if he as he used to say cut and run in Vietnam he would find himself being assaulted on all sides by conservatives and the Republicans in the Senate and the House who would in turn as part of that vengeful feeling about dice exhibited in Vietnam would have torn asunder the domestic program that I guess you'd call it under the canopy of the great society at all cost Johnson wanted to protect his flank so that he could move ahead in the Great Society. And he realized that unless he was able to resolve Vietnam in a way that placated the right wing. His domestic program would be tormented beyond all repair. Yeah I mean she's. Johnson perceive the Joint Chiefs of Staff the way he viewed military

men with skepticism. But as Johnson used to say about the presidency I'm the only president you've got. He had to say about the joint chiefs they're the only military I have. Second he realized that the Joint Chiefs Harbor View casually by the rest of America or reviewed with veneration and respect by the Republican and the conservatives. And so he listened to them. Now he had no other source from which to receive military information. There was the CIA and then there is the military. Beyond that you've got journalists and so forth but he put little stock in what they had to say. So in a sense he was he was cabin crew have been confined by the fact that the military was a so short of both intelligence and data in in the 90s. Let's let Mike Lee

Johns ask that one out. People say plans were made to escalate the war in 64. And that's not precisely correct. What you have are contingency plans even as we speak the military probably in the United States today has military plans contingency plans for invading the Sandwich Islands I suppose so that there's always a contingency plan. The president was presented several times in 64 to my certain knowledge recommendations by the Joint Chiefs to begin bombing. He rejected those plans rejected them as he told me that he did not want to escalate the war as the war went on. And 64 he was constantly assaulted by the military with the notion that if we do a little bit more Mr. President we can get rid of this thing quickly. It's a very attractive notion to a president besieged by a ugly squalid little war he

wanted no part of which was threatening the very roots and foundations of his domestic program and so that is a siren's call and it's an enticing call but he rejected those calls to bombing. I happen to believe that he did not do it because he thought it would hurt the campaign because I think there are many people who might have liked the idea of us sending out our airplanes to do some bombing at the time. Even though I remember I was with Lyndon Johnson and in Manchester New Hampshire. When he made his now famous speech that we're not going to send American boys to fight in Asia any man it because if he had lived under the MacArthur dictum that you can't win a land war in Asia. And I think he always felt that way and later on in a discussion with the military kept coming back to this. This is premier question. Can Westerners win a jungle war in Asia. He was right. The resolution that later became.

Oh yes. Yes I can I can tell you about the Tonkin Gulf resolution because foremost in Lyndon Johnson's mind was what he perceived to be mistakes made by other presidents in his 30 years in Washington he had catalogued with computer perception all the presidents that he had served with and the mistakes they had made determine that he was not going to make same mistakes. One of the mistakes he thought Harry Truman made West be involved in Korea without congressional approval therefore he determined at some propitious moment that he would bring the Congress in and have them approve whatever the objectives were to be determined to be in Vietnam. And he said many many times that if we're going to continue in Vietnam I've got to have congressional approval for the general objectives that we set forth. And he had had as I

recall William Bundy McGeorge Bundy brother working on such a resolution that would be put forward at a moment that he thought was politically apt and not because he was being Machiavellian or not because he was being deceptive. But one thing Johnson wasn't going to do is delude himself that if you were going to continue in Vietnam until quote a resolution quote then you had to have Congress approving supporting and maintaining the president's objectives. We saw the resolution. Rapid Waves good. Well I won't quarrel with that I think that they may be some. I won't quarrel with the notion that the Tonkin Gulf resolution was as some people say a resolution waiting for an incident to trigger it. The president

was looking for a politically apt moment to present that resolution. I find that intelligent on the part of the president to find a time to present something that you think would be received the most favorably by the people you're trying to persuade. And when the Tonkin Gulf Incident came along. Johnson was ready with this resolution which if you read it today is very lucid and clear. The sentence is partially the logic is solid and its intent is crystal clear. No ambiguity about that Tonkin Gulf resolution. Therefore the Congress could vote it up or down and indeed out of the some 535 members of Congress only two voted against it but it was triggered by an incident and Johnson used that incident to gain congressional approval now. I find that neither unintelligent nor felonious I find it I find it astute that if you're going to

gain congressional approval then you ought to have a reason for submitting your particular resolution. Oh yeah. Since going back to what you said earlier it was going to be you. What was the kind of pressure you know. Well I had the mood of Johnson and 1064 and the truthfulness of his remarks I'm not going to send American boys to the fighting in Asia have been often debated. I can speak from personal knowledge of both the mood and what I believe to be the president's intent. Our number one. Keep in mind the last thing that Lyndon Johnson wanted was a war. I remember. Later on in 65 or 66 I sent him a

quotation from Walter Badgett who was writing about William Pitt and I underline this passage and sent it to the president what Badgett said was that that pit was by temperament. A You main man who thought war within you mane and he did not want a French war he entered it reluctantly and continued it out of necessity. I think that sums up Johnson's attitude about Vietnam because the war would have destroyed the Great Society and he knew that instinctively number two when he said I'm not going to send American boys to fight in Asia I don't think there's any question but what he meant it. Right. Now as to whether or not Johnson was honestly telling the truth when he said in New Hampshire and other places in the campaign that he wasn't going to send American boys to fight in Asia.

I don't think it's any question but what he meant that. The minute that he starts exporting American troops to fight in Vietnam he exposes his Great Society to tragedy and perhaps complete disrepair. A war would gain him nothing but trouble. And when he said that he earnestly meant. But what we have to understand is that you cannot try the men of one age by the standards of another. Today everything looks so easy to understand. We all have what Edmund Burke called retrospective wisdom which makes wise men of us all. But at the time Johnson said that American boys would not fight in Asia. I don't think it ever meant anything with more vigor and more substance than he did that. Let's jump ahead to some. When he was back how did

you see the choices. You know he's skinny. I would say that the meetings held by Lyndon Johnson with his advisers both in the White House and the State Treasury and Defense Departments and the Congress were the most crucial meetings that he held in all of the Vietnam adventure. They began on July 21st 1965 with the return home of General Wheeler and Secretary McNamara from an on the spot inspection trip. In Vietnam they ended on July 27 19 65 and on July 28 the president went to the East Room of the of the mansion to hold a press conference in which he disclosed to the decisions which emerge from those six days of meetings. Here's mood was one of anxiety.

It was one of frustration and I guess I can sum it up best by this saying that one evening after one of those meetings I went back into his office with him and his face was drawn. And I remember he put his hands in his. Over his face leaned back in his chair and said God we've got to find some way to get out of this war gotta find some way to end it. It was the expression of of a normal human being who was at the end of a tether just totally exhausted and frustrated by the the elusiveness of an end to this war. He examined this question from every side and all those six days he asked the tough questions if somebody were agreeing with him he would take the other side the devil's advocate if somebody would disagreeing with him then he would pummel this man with questions to see how sturdy was his own reasoning. I remember turning to wheeler and he said to him you're asking for 200000 more men now

what happens if in two three four years you ask me for five hundred thousand men. A very prophetic statement. What you expect me to do how can I respond to it. What makes you think oh chey men will win matches for every man we send in another time to the group he said we've got two questions that we've got to answer. Can Westerners fight a war. An Asian jungle. And number two. How on earth can we fight a war on the direction of others whose governments topple like bowling pins. He said knock somebody answer those questions for me. Nobody was able to do it. And then he asked one of the questions and kind of a resigned air you turn to McNamara Rusk and said we starting something. Are we getting into something now that we just can't get out of. We were going to have no way to extricate ourselves. These questions were asked over and over

again yet the alternatives were equally bleak. As I said. Hindsight makes us all a very intelligent but at the time those decisions were being made. How could President Johnson justify a total withdrawal from Vietnam where no man or woman in America could have foreseen whether or not he was making the right decision. Because at that time nobody didn't nobody believe we couldn't win the war it was a question of how we would win it. The idea that a few pajama clad guerrillas could defeat the mightiest power on earth was absurd. So if he cut and run his Johnson would say How could he remedy the situation by explaining to the American people that he was doing it in their best interest. Number two how do you turn tail and let aggressor ors run free in the world. We're facing that problem today and the alternatives are very bleak. Therefore Johnson was listening to the military and when they said a

little bit more and we can win it and get rid of it was very alluring. Why. With reason. Why. Oh well. Why Johnson wasn't more open with the public and why didn't raise taxes put the country on a war footing. Is open to a lot of debate. What the president told me at one time was that. First he was not going to collapse his civil rights human justice economic plans to have a robust economy education and the like. The elements that comprise what we call the Great Society because he believed that was going to be his great legacy to the future. Number two

he hauled in businessman by the long ton of to the east room and I was in maybe a dozen of those meetings of the proconsul as a business all over this country heavy and light industry retailers professional men of all kinds and I remember he would constantly say should I raise taxes. And there was very little enthusiasm for raising taxes. Now you might say what your businessmen never want their taxes raised but business men also understand inflation. But there was very little enthusiasm for that but basically Johnson did never went to a war footing because he knew a war footing would destroy perhaps irretrievably. His plan is to make this a better and no better plan. Looking back on that record. When was that. Well economists who depended mainly on introspective values

and and judgments have said that that was the seed bed of inflation. Possibly it was at that time inflation was maybe one and a half percent it was practically no inflation. I have no doubt it was a seed bed which doesn't mean it couldn't have been stand later on but there was no doubt that adding 12 15 20 billion dollars worth of work the war had an inflationary impact on our economy. And Johnson understood that. But he was risking and gambling that he could get rid of this war quickly. Without doing irreparable damage to the great centerpiece of his contribution to the next five generations of America which was this new kind of social justice. Why did you choose that. Oh yeah now the question is often raised

and it has been raised to me by people in the Nixon administration and others who said why didn't Johnson pursue this war more vigorously than some senators and congressmen said My God if you going to fight a war why do you deny victory to your soldiers aren't you doing them an injustice. Yes I think there's something in that. But every decision has a progeny has an ancestor and the ancestors to that decision was the specter of World War Three. Johnson hesitated and he did it every day and shoving in his stack as he was want to say carpet bombing mining of Haiphong all the things which were recommended to him by the military because he was afraid that I hope Covey airplanes going over to Hanoi three or four of them get over the Chinese or Russian border get lost drop their bombs or to mining Haiphong we blow up a so be it freighter and all of a sudden stealthily noiselessly without any warning of any kind you got World War Three on your

hand and once you start an escalation as Mike Mansfield told the president escalation breeds escalation and this was our haunting fear that never left him like some looming animal that he was in bed with every every evening it stayed deciding World War Three. And so he erred on the side of caution. If you look back you say well you know they would've come into the war. But at that time the decision was being made. He didn't know that. And Johnson feared more than a fear anything else in the world that the history books would say here Lyndon Baines Johnson started World War Three and destroyed the known world. Was it. Oh really that uses. So we'll work on it. Well his first reaction was to make sure. But the fact the first

reaction of Johnson to the Tonkin Gulf incident was to find out what the facts were. Contrary to what a lot of people have written. Contrary to what a lot of people have written about the Tonkin Gulf incident President Johnson and sector American-American both believe the facts were correct. It would have been absurd and insane for a president to take facts which were known to a lot of people and distort them. If Johnson believed he was using your only as information he knows he's not the only person that has that information he understands the Washington leak and therefore the idea that he would deliberately use false information is absurd.

What was his as well. Johnson's mood after hearing about the Tonkin Gulf was the audacity of the North Vietnamese and making such a move. And number two that we could not let that go on attended by reprisal. He always believed and I think justly so that the enemy's probe your out of limits to find out how much you will absorb without striking back. And he determined that he wasn't going to let this happen as indeed that was the mood that he had on the other attacks on our barracks on the very other thing the play coup incident others. When there was an overt unusual attack by the enemy you could not let this life follow you.

It deserved prompt reprisals if you like. Well I think his reaction was the same as the reaction of Lyndon Johnson to the play coup attack as the other attacks that happened in M Italy before the war really began in earnest was that any time that the US is humiliated or assaulted. The United States could not turn the other cheek it had to make a strong and visible reprisal to let the enemy know that this was not going to be won on the cheap and there was a modest amount of anger but mainly there was a little bit of steel in the spine a resolution that. Attack begets reprisals. And I think this was was what he felt was the proper response of the United States. To a number of these incidents as we are now want to call them.

We will read it. Yes John the the the response of Johnson is moot when the when we first sent in the contingent of Marines was that the Marines would secure the defenses that this would be the beginning of the end as it were for the for the North Vietnamese. Every military action that Johnson took was taken with the fore knowledge that this was going to be the next to the last step. Keep in mind that almost every turning of the Ratchet was supposed to be the next to the last turn and military saying a little more here a little more there a contingent of Marines and we will have now really sealed off the further assaults and this whole thing will die out.

But the thing that also worried Johnson and constantly room where with him was the instability of the of the South Vietnamese government. And he felt that this was an absolute fortune that had to be plucked and these these governments at the they were I guess you might call the coat of arms of the Vietnamese government a turnstile for God's sake. And I remember very vividly that somebody would come in his office and say there's a looks like there's a coup beginning in Vietnam again of the coup you know coups were like like fleas on a dog and Johnson said I don't want to hear any more about this coup shit. Had enough of it and we've got to find a way to stabilize those people out there. And indeed a good part of his mood was up a kind of an angry introspection as to why can't those mothers get their act together out there and find some stable way to hold on to their

government. So here I can sum up his mood by saying that the military actions were taken too for two reasons one to give stability to the South Vietnamese government and to that extra turn of the ratchet that the military would had confirmed to him would be the beginning of the end of the aggressive attitude of North Vietnam. You're right. It was the same reason. Please highlight trades. Yes. Well I would say he was probably the most single dominating human being I've ever been in contact with. Johnson believed that he had

gifts of persuasion that weren't given to most men. He believed if he could sit across the table from men face to face as Johnson said just me and hope he could settle this war he could find a way to negotiated out all of his Parliamentary success. I told him that he and ho could cut a deal that would satisfy Ho would allow the US to withdraw and would give that region a kind of a blanket of stability for some time to come. Honestly and earnestly believe that. And he thought that he could pull it off if you could have that personal meeting with hope. But you know what I'll I'll give you the characteristics of John's one. He was the single most intelligent man I've ever known. I didn't say educated because of education.

The standards of Johnson's education were meager but in sheer intelligence that is the weighing of a problem the Sorting Out of all the alternatives the fitting in together of a mosaic out of which comes the possibility of a decision the insatiable unsatisfied curiosity for facts and data to surround himself with all the numbers the arithmetic that he had to have. He was an incredible man for digging out all there was to know about a problem. And personal conversation he was like an avalanche. Spending time with Johnson was like living on the end of a runway. You were overwhelmed by the confusion the noise the the the dominance of beings and things all larger and more formidable than you were. And I never saw him in person to person confrontation where if he really wanted to persuade you that you would not leave that room at least

partially persuaded though you came in determined that you would resist his blandishments. It was. We might see. JOHNSON I think personalized the war because it was a personal agony. If he said My helicopters or my airplanes it was not in a kind of an egocentric way it was the way he personalized everything it had to do with that war I was within want to does an occasion early in the morning when he would be on the phone to THE SITUATION ROOM finding out how many casualties the fate of one pilot lost in the sea. And did they locate him and to tell me one of the rescue missions. Missions that he knew were going on how many how many people came back.

And I remember one morning I was on the phone in his Jeep. You look somebody put the phone down and looked at me in anguish on his face is that we lost six men last night it was as if he had taken a swallow of carbolic acid. Six men lost. They weren't statistics to judge. They were living human beings summoned to their death because he the commander in chief had ordered them to be and he felt as if it was a cancer and a fungus and an explosive device inside it. Every time he got on the phone and learned of one two three five men killed too much too much. Oh yes

I remember the daisy commercial very well. Why. Well of course the daisy commercial that maybe some older people might remember was done by the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising firm. They'll burn back an advertising genius if I ever saw one. I was handling the 1964 presidential campaign for Lyndon Johnson and they came up with this commercial which was really one of the most creative commercials political commercials I have a sore because it went right to the heart of the issue in the 64 campaign which was whose finger to get trashed on the button and showed a lovely little 7 or 8 year old girl plucking daisies in a field and all of a sudden she disappears from the screen as a mushroom cloud. This commercial was so devastating that I.

The Daisy the daisy commercial which was probably the most celebrated of all the commercials television commercials used in a 1964 campaign was done by the dog Dane Bernbach firm as part of the overall strategy in our campaign but it's it's signified in a fundamental way the key and and and really in my judgment the only issue in the campaign was whose finger do you trust on the button. Ergo it showed that if you elected Goldwater that was the possibility of nuclear war. That's a pretty tough card and in many ways a biting commercial. The first few days it was on the air. It had an incredible effect to effect one Hora.

And two cries of foul from the opposition of the commercial withdraw for two reasons one its effect had already taken place and number two if we withdraw it we show that we don't want to be unfair to the opposition. But as in any political campaign you can't tell a jury to disregard that remark any more than you can tell the American people disregard that commercial. The impact had been made which was spectacular and in my judgment deep within the psyche of the American people and therefore it showed a certain gallantry on the part of the chance and campaign to withdraw the commercial. Look campaigns are jungles and everybody who fights in a campaign understands that you go for the juggler and you do what you think will most persuade the American people be your point of view. Why else life.

Seems to me so.