Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume VII, Vietnam, September 1968–January 1969

172. Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Senator Richard Russell¹

November 1, 1968, 11:38 a.m.

Russell: Yes?

President: Lyndon Johnson. How are you, Senator? Dick, how are you?

Russell: Pretty good, Mr. President. How are you?

President: Fine. I just wanted to figure out what you thought over night and what bases you thought were untouched, what your reaction was, to the statement,² and what we should have said, we didn’t.

Russell: Well, I thought you made a fine statement, Mr. President.

President: We talked to the three candidates,³ I think I told you.

Russell: Yes, sir.

President: I didn’t see any of them come out in the paper and say this. I’m afraid Humphrey’ll brag a little.

Russell: I thought Wallace made a magnificent statement.

President: I didn’t see it. I haven’t seen it.

Russell: Well, he’s just—in the paper here, he said that “I couldn’t care less how it affects my campaign. All other matters pale into insignificance and how it affects me or any other candidate.” He said he “prays and hopes that the bombing halt ordered—that you ordered—is the beginning of the end of hostilities in Southeast Asia.” He said he agreed on your action—about 6 p.m.

President: Well, that’s wonderful. He’s said—he made the finest statement both times we’ve talked to him of any of the three. He said last night, “Mr. President, I’ll back you. Mr. President, I’ll be praying for you every hour, and I just want you to know that.”

Russell: Well, he went a little further. I just got that part here before me. He said that you’re the commander in chief, none of them could question that now, and had to support you and so forth. I thought that’s as far as he could go.

President: Uh—

Russell: I hadn’t seen where Nixon said anything specific.

President: Nixon just said, “We’ll back you.” He’s the first one that said it last night. And then Humphrey and Wallace followed. And then Humphrey—uh, I think Nixon is worried that he’s floundering; he’s fearful that it’ll have some effect. And, uh, I don’t think that he’s quite sure—I don’t think he trusts us because he doesn’t trust himself. That’s my judgment. I think that he’s had these people engaged in this stuff. And I told all the candidates that yesterday. I said that there’ve been folks messing around with both sides. And speaking of Humphrey, I said, “Some folks’re saying—making speeches that where Hanoi thought they could benefit by waiting. And then South Vietnam now is beginning to think they can benefit by waiting by what people’re doing.” So he knows that I know what he’s doing. And this morning, they’re trying to close it up. Some of his agents are not so active. The other side that-I noticed that one of the Embassy’s refused to answer their call.

Russell: Well, do you have any idea what kind of response you’re going to get out of the North Vietnamese or when it’s coming, I guess?

President: They’ll blast us and raise hell and keep fighting. The great danger in this for us is that they will not let up at the DMZ and they will shell the cities, in which event I’ll have to go right back. I have given—I have given Creighton [Abrams], though, the rules of engagement, and he doesn’t even have to come to us. And he says he’s going to give them two tits for one tat. And in the meantime, he’s taken every plane we’ve got, every bomb we’ve got, every man we’ve got, and he’s putting all the firepower that he can on Laos, where it’s dry and where they’re coming—coming in. And there’s not anything coming through North Vietnam—they’re all going out now. They’re pulling out. But he’s going to take this same firepower and concentrate it in South Vietnam and Laos. And then, if they’re not hitting the cities, and he doesn’t have to defend those cities, he’s going to spread out over the countryside, and try to clean them out pretty good. He was in hopes that he’d have a great psychological advantage, and he’d mount a masterful psychological warfare, saying, “Now’s the time to come on in and give up. You see, they’ve recognized your government, they’ve recognized your leaders, they’ve got President Thieu coming to the conference table, so now’s the time to give up.” And he would have North Vietnam protected—the DMZ protected, he’d have his cities protected, he’d be free to turn all of his power in Laos and South Vietnam with his planes, and then he could release his men—several thousands that are protecting these places like Saigon—and really have a sweep. Now, the damn fools in Saigon, we Don’t know what they’re going to do. Last night, they came back and made three demands on me. One was, we set no date for the conference. Well, I can’t do that, because the main thing I’m getting out of this is they let GVN come to the table. That’s what I’ve been demanding all these years, and now they’ve agreed to it. So I’ve got to have a date. And we so told—no date for the conference. Well, I can’t do that, because the main thing I’m getting out of this is they let GVN come to the table. That’s what I’ve been demanding all these years, and now they’ve agreed to it. So I’ve got to have a date. And we so told—

Russell: I thought that they already agreed they’re we going to meet and talk on Wednesday.⁴

President: They all agreed 2 weeks ago. And then they agreed to one day a week ago. But after Nixon’s operatives got busy with them, they started playing for January. And the first statement that South Vietnam put out was that this was a unilateral action by the President. And old man Bunker stayed with them all night. They put out another one this morning that said that they hoped it would lead to peace, that you couldn’t tell what if it was good, that he really didn’t know whether any good would come from it or not, just wouldn’t predict. Now, what he did, at the last minute—I spoke at 8 [p.m.], and I guess he came in at 7—maybe 7:15, he said he would go along and issue a joint announcement if I’d cut out the date in my speech where I said they’re going to meet regularly next Wednesday, and they’d be free to be there—I didn’t say they’d be there, I said they’d be free to be there. He said that if I’d eliminate that—well, I couldn’t eliminate it from the tape, and I wouldn’t anyway. That was the first thing. The second thing, if I would give him a guarantee that the North Vietnamese would not cross the DMZ and shell the cities. I told him I couldn’t give him a Communist guarantee; that I’d tell him I had good reason to believe that they had told us that, “You stop the bombing and we’ll show you, and you’ll see it soon.” The implication is that clearly they will. We told them that about a dozen times. And we told them the talks can’t go on if they’re doing either. And they won’t talk. So we must, when we say, “Do you get it?”, they say, “Yes, we get it.” That must mean that they really understand us. Then the Russians told us—I told the Russians I really doubt it that they would live by this—by the DMZ and by the cities. And the Russians—Kosygin came back and said, “Mr. President, I can assure you your doubts are not justified.”⁵ Now, I don’t know. I thought I left myself plenty of running room last night. But I couldn’t get—

Russell: You left yourself—

President: But I couldn’t guarantee him—get back to him and say, “Yes, I will agree to this.” I tried to play him like [John F.] Kennedy did to Kosygin. I said, “I will assure you that I have no reason to believe that they will not. No one can guarantee a Communist statement. But I have reason to believe.” But he wouldn’t take that.

Russell: Well, you mean, who wouldn’t take it?

President: Thieu.

Russell: Yeah.

President: Thieu asked three things of me. One was I eliminate the date completely. The second thing that I give him a guarantee—

Russell: Yes, I understood those things.

President: And I’ve forgotten what the other one was. It’s something that—

Russell: The last one that—

President: I don’t remember myself, even. But—

Russell: Of course, you couldn’t agree to either one of those. He’ll be there, though. I don’t mean he’ll be there, but his representative will be there.

President: He’s making a big speech tonight—9 o’clock—to all of his [National] Assembly.⁶ And I’m worried about Pak [Chung-hee] too because all these people out there get awfully exercised. Every damn one of them cleared this 2 weeks ago, but after they think they can get a better deal—

Russell: That’s right.

President: They all get independence, you know, after you do. But we may have to start back bombing, or we may not get any more. But I think this ought to put the cap on the climax—every son-of-a-bitch that says, “Stop the bombing, it’ll be lovely,” they got a chance to see now. And I don’t believe we’re going to lose anything ‘cause I asked Abrams this question, “Can he assure me?” In August he told me they would increase their capability five-fold if we stop the bombing and he’d have to move his men out of the I Corps.” “Now,” I said, “this is October/November. Can you assure that if we stop the bombing that it will not result in increased casualties?” He said, “I most certainly can.” He said, “First place, I hadn’t got anybody north of Danang. Second place, they can’t get anybody down there without violating any rules where I’d be back bombing again. The damn roads are so bad, and 22 inches of rain in 24 hours, all that kind of stuff, and not 2 days a month that we can get through,” and so on and so forth. And he said, “He’s whipped, and he’s been whipped since September, your people just Don’t know it.” But he said he knows it. And Westmoreland says identically the same thing and Palmer says the same thing. Do you feel that—or do you know enough about it?

Russell: I don’t know enough about it to evaluate that.

President: I wish you did.

Russell: I didn’t seem to think so, and—

President: I wish you’d come up here. You can sit around and let them show you where they’ve got their divisions, and where they’ve moved, and what’s happened—see what the hell you think about it. Are you going to come back before the first of the year?

Russell: Yes, sir, I’ll be there before the first of the year. Yeah.

President: First time you do, you make Palmer and Westmoreland sit down with you, and Buzz Wheeler, and see just what they’ve done. They claim they’ve got less than 75,000 North Vietnamese left—that they’ve moved 40 or 50 [thousand] of them out.

Russell: Well, they said that the other day, though.

President: Yes. That’s right.

Russell: I mean, Westmoreland said that.

President: That’s right. They’re still moving them out. And Westmoreland is just as cocky as you are that you know how to make a point of order—he’s just as sure that they’ve had ‘em whipped since September. He said it’s over.

Russell: He repeated that a couple times there the other day.

President: Did you think that we were weak in any point on our statement—we left anything that ought to be—

Russell: I think that when you consider what you had to go on, it was a fine statement. You couldn’t make them any guarantees, just like you couldn’t tell that fellow in South Vietnam that you promised that there’d be no shelling, no activities, in the DMZ.

President: Where do you think I’m weak? What do you think my danger is?

Russell: I don’t—the only danger I see at the present is purely from an historical standpoint and has no relation to the present day. That is, a big flare-up, say, on election day, of bombing Saigon, Hue, and all those other places, and shooting torpedoes in there, and they get active in the DMZ, you’re going to have to hit them. And then you’ll be accused of this being a purely political maneuver. That’s all that I can see. But from a standpoint of just day-to-day, I—I think that you have closed all the holes up awfully well.

President: I think that if these three candidates take the position that they do what they could—that we can keep it out of politics altogether—if every damn one of them say, “I support it.”

Russell: I think that’s true, because there ain’t going to be much of any—there ain’t gonna be no politics after next Tuesday, except the recriminations and the funeral services and all that.

[Omitted here is discussion of domestic politics.]

1. Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of Telephone Conversation Between Johnson and Russell, November 1, 1968, 11:38 a.m., Tape F68.08, PNO 5. No classification marking. This transcript was prepared specifically for this volume in the Office of the Historian. A summary of this conversation is ibid. Johnson, in Washington, reached Russell at Winder, Georgia. The description of the meeting in the Daily Diary reads: “Asking his reaction to last night’s statement. Ran through developments leading to the statement, and discussed possibilities for the future.” (Ibid., President’s Daily Diary)
2. See Document 169.
3. See Document 166.
4. November 6.
5. See Document 138.
6. See footnote 4, Document 178.