252. Draft Telegram From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson, in Texas1
Washington,
December 27,
1965.
- 1.
- I talked to Dean Rusk2 to urge him to get on every diplomatic wire and tell people that there has been no noise over North Vietnam for four days and that we certainly would like to know it if anyone has heard any signal of any sort that this lack of action has done any good. I found him very resistant indeed and he told me that he and Alex Johnson and Tommy Thompson and my brother Bill all think that we cannot get diplomatic mileage this way. They really would prefer to resume bombing right away and have a longer pause later on, with advance notice to the Russians, as they initially recommended last week.
- 2.
- I tried gently to say to Dean that this was not the present problem. I said that I thought we now had a 4-day start and the question was what use we could make of it if we continued for another period of up to a week. He continued to resist my suggestion, and I do not feel that I should make further diplomatic contacts tonight behind his back.
- 3.
- What I do think is that if you should decide—as I myself hope you may—that it makes sense to withhold the bombing for another several days, you might then speak to the Secretary yourself about the usefulness of directing the attention of every available diplomat to the fact that there is a pause and the further fact that we certainly want to know it if anyone has any way of finding out whether there is any prospect of a response.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XVII. Secret.↩
- See Document 251.↩