238. Notes of Meeting1
(President, Rusk, McNamara, Ball, A. Johnson, Bundy, Valenti)
Rusk: Let the Christmas stand-down go.
President: What should I say?
Ball: There is perfectly good language.
A Johnson: Not everyone in Saigon is signed on—they are getting to Ky now. This evening the Vietnamese will be making a statement.2 It’s a good statement. Having urged this on them, I wouldn’t want to take the play away from them.
President: I can’t say anything tomorrow. If we have anything, we ought to say it and get credit for it.
A Johnson: The question is, how it is said in Vietnam. Tonight our time. Everybody but the Prime Minister has signed on.
President (?): I don’t think I should say anything except yes or no on the cease fire.
[Page 678]A Johnson: My thought was we’d follow up with a similar statement.
President: I would say: “We and our allies will take no military initiative except in self defense on Christmas Day”. We’d say this as soon as it is cleared. What about New Years and Tet?
Rusk: Much more comprehensive operation on Tet.
President: Do we do anything else?
Bundy: We ought to examine the question of a continuous pause, the only kind useful with the Soviets. Benevolent, but not internationally significant unless we have a clear specific period. We could get a major political advantage from this.
One paragraph in Lodge’s message says that bombing be stopped on Christmas, New Years, and Tet—bad weather, etc.3
Rusk: Would that story work?
McNamara: Not really, but we can blur it with statistics and bad weather.
Rusk: I’d go ahead with Christmas—and beyond that, talk to the Hungarians to see.
We won’t link anything else to it—and wait to hear.
Bundy: But you won’t hear in that time frame. Unless you tell the Russians something they won’t do anything.
Rusk: I’m not giving up the possibility for a pause. But we ought to talk to the Hungarians and Russians.
Bundy: I don’t see where it leads us.
Rusk: Go for one day at Christmas. Defer further action until we talk to the Hungarians and Russians.
Bundy: Do you think they will tell us anything they haven’t before?
Rusk: If Thompson had one of his personal chats with Dobrynin he might pick up something.
Does the President think a pause is possible while Congress is in session?
President: Yes, but don’t look with favor on it—it’s more a sign of weakness than anything else. All we’ll get is distrust from our allies, despair from the troops, and disgruntled generals.
Hanoi and Peking tell us we’re weak—won’t do anything if we pause. If we suffer a severe reverse as a result of this, we’d never explain it. It’s not difficult to explain why we fight when we are attacked every hour. But when commanders say it’s suicide, and we do it anyway, there’s no explanation.
[Page 679]I want more evidence from the Russians before I override Taylor and Wheeler et al.
Rusk: Congress returns on the 10th? We’ll see if we can get more evidence from the Hungarians and Russians.
Bundy: I don’t find the cables persuasive, but I understand your position. I think the cables miss the point—as a commitment to do nothing for a month. We can stop bombing, not say anything, and resume when we choose.
President: Would pressure mount to tell the press?
Bundy: Yes, it would be brutal. But Christmas and [Congress’ recess?]seem a logical time to pause.
Ball: We don’t know if the Russians are really organizing a Communist Congress in the spring.
President: 1. Once we take our step, we could have serious problems to resume bombing.
2. The danger is that it conveys the wrong signal—and I think it does.
If men we rely on to fight for us feel as strongly as they do—as Lodge does—I’d hate to have them at odds with us.
McNamara: We’ve had a good discussion. But we need political initiative. But we have had the best discussion ever on this subject.
President: Yes, but this is not the political initiative we want now.
McNamara: Question: Should we take out POL in Haiphong? I say we need to—but not at this time.
We need to go into Hanoi circle—30 miles—and take three bridges in this circle. Let the field commanders pick up 4 out of 7 possible targets. This would begin Thursday noon our time. The probability is that it will be after Christmas due to weather. Those targets are only a few miles inside the circle.
Bundy: There is a Cambodian problem as a result of giving commanders the right to defend their troops.
The leak came from Saigon. The first story came from Keyes Beech—and Times confirmed it.
President: Mansfield was very laudatory about Keyes Beech. I think our Congressmen go out and are very frank—and to show how smart they are.
I had the Governors out to my Ranch—and I told Reed of Maine he was the leak to Charles Mohr of the Times.
[Here follows a short discussion unrelated to Viet-Nam.]
Meeting adjourned at 1:10 p.m.
- Source: Johnson Library, Meeting Notes File, Meeting with Foreign Policy Advisers. Secret. There is no drafting information on the source text, but the notes were taken by Valenti. The time of the meeting, which was held in the Cabinet Room, is from the President’s Daily Diary. (Ibid.)↩
- Apparent reference to an announcement by Republic of Vietnam authorities on December 23 that they would observe a cease-fire from 6 p.m. on Christmas eve until midnight on Christmas day. The United States made a similar statement.↩
- Apparent reference to Part III of Document 237.↩