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

173. Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and James Rowe¹

November 1, 1968, 1:58 p.m.

President: Jim?

Rowe: Yes, Mr. President.

President: I don’t want anybody to know that I called you if I can avoid it because it just leads to a lot of complications.

Rowe: I think only your Secret Service people know.

President: You just speak on your own now, and not quoting me or implying otherwise. You just keep the candidate from mentioning Vietnam until Tuesday² night.

Rowe: Yeah. He isn’t talking about it anyway.

President: This is the most explosive thing you have ever touched in your life. And his statement that he would stop the bombing of Vietnam, period, North Vietnam, period, no comma, no semi-colon³—it took us 2 weeks to get around that one.

Rowe: Mm-hmm.

President: Then Mac Bundy’s.⁴ Then you know he said he would veto Thieu. That got Thieu mad. Now, Nixon picked up that ball right quick and started going right into them through your China Lobby friend.

Rowe: Mm-hmm.

President: So he is in deep telling Thieu and them and Korea and all of them not to go along with me on anything because Humphrey said here that he wouldn’t pay a damn bit of attention to them, and so what they better do is wait for him and he’ll never sell them out, that he’ll stay with them. Hell, he didn’t think we ought to have sold out China.

Rowe: Yes.

President: And they got your little friend, Mrs. Chennault, and the whole outfit is working in it.

Rowe: Working at it?

President: Yes, working at it. So, as a result, we had them signed up when Hubert made his last statement about the veto—not—going to stop bombing, no comma, no semi-colon, just period. That is, without any condition.

Rowe: Yes.

President: Well, we worked on it 2 weeks and we got them back on the ship again. And in the meantime, Nixon got them off. So, I had to proceed unilaterally last night, which I don’t want to because it could be shambles if President Thieu said tonight he is pulling his army out. You see, then we would just have to come home and it is all over. And it’s just so delicate. Now all the reporters are saying that Humphrey is being very jubilant and very enthusiastic, and all the aides are saying that this is the difference in the election. Now, if you do, and you are going to get a political issue out of it, and you are going to have these folks—they’re getting them answering—you got Hickenlooper and Tower and all the Republicans. And what I would say is just please bar him from mentioning Vietnam.

Rowe: I’ll get that done.

President: If I had to have one statement, I’d just say like—like Nixon and Wallace and every other American, I pray for peace every night, period. That’s all I would say. I’ll do the rest of it if they’ll just not be enthusiastic and jubilant and so forth, because if we had to order them back to bombing tomorrow—

Rowe: We’re in the soup. That’s right.

President: So I just wanted you to know the facts. Now, you have to act on your own judgment.

Rowe: Yes, I will get it done. But let me make this one point. Our staff people—

President: Rusk is just scared to death. He wrote me a memo in longhand⁵ which I read to Hubert and said tell him not to open his damn mouth.

Rowe: Yes. We’ve got about 150 press and every one of them are on everybody’s back. One thing we did do is we had a staff meeting and said, “Play this thing down—you Don’t know anything.” They are only asking us one question—“What is the political effect?” We just say we Don’t know. And when they press too hard, I say I haven’t heard anybody make a comment about it except Arthur Schlesinger.⁶ Did you see him on the “Today” show?

President: No, no, no.

Rowe: Well, he was on this morning. And the first question was, “Are there any politics in this?” And, in his usual way, he said, “While I have had many differences with President Johnson, this is obviously not political.” And I said that is the only comment I have heard on the politics of this, and we Don’t know. And the local politicians are in it, but one thing we can’t control is the local “pols,” is the—say, I think it is helpful, even there they’re saying they Don’t know how much. Our people aren’t saying anything except we Don’t know, and sticking to that pretty damn closely. Maybe some of them are breaking it, but I don’t think so, and I’ll go around and lecture them again.

President: I just—it is for your good. It is not—I am not going to get any votes Tuesday. But I just know, and Rusk knows, and Clifford knows, and we have two real explosive things. One, if Hanoi invades the DMZ or hits the cities, we are going back in a minute. Just—they trigger the motion. Abrams has got his orders. So, that could leave you pretty dry if you’re very jubilant about this move. The second thing is we do not know where our allies are because as a result of the statement 2 weeks ago, we’ve lost Thieu.

Rowe: Yeah.

President: Because he thinks that we will sell him out, and Nixon has convinced him, and this damn little old woman, Mrs. Chennault, she’s been in on it.

Rowe: Yes. I wouldn’t doubt it.

President: Well, I know it. Hell, I know it. I’m not doubting it.

Rowe: Do you want me to get Tommy⁷ to pull her out?

President: I don’t know. I don’t care now. I’ve already done it. I took the action at 8 o’clock last night, and they’ve pulled the planes out. Now, we have to wait and see what they do. If they—we can tell them 48 hours—if they Don’t do anything, it will be very evident we had a deal and it worked.

Rowe: Yeah.

President: If they do do it, then we are in trouble. But I have just got a letter here from Clifford.⁸ He is relieved. He said, “Mr. President, there have been times without number in the past 5 years when I have admired you for your fortitude and determination and very unique effectiveness. As of this moment, however, I feel it more deeply than ever before. Your performance on the Vietnam cessation has been magnificent. It was handled with courage, with rare distinction, and the most admirable statesmanship. I was aware of the myriad difficulties that confronted you and I drew comfort and inspiration from the masterful manner in which you met and overcame all of them. I have a profound sense of pride in your performance and in your success.” Now—

Rowe: Well, you’re hearing this, for what it’s worth, you’re hearing this kind of comment on the street. It ought to please you. They are saying that this guy’s been tough. We think he must be getting us a good, tough deal. They are saying, “By God, he’s been holding them.” That’s the man on the street talking.

President: If we get it, we’ve got three things. They said they’d never sit with these puppets. Now they have said they would. That’s number one. Number two, we told them there’s no use coming to the room if they either bomb the cities or abuse the DMZ. Now, if they Don’t do either, we have got these two. If they do do them, we are right back where we started.

Rowe: Mm-hmm.

President: Now, we are gambling on the latter. We Don’t know. The Russians tell us they’ll be all right. We’ve told them twelve times. But I just have a hell of a problem between two candidates and Averell. Averell cusses the generals everyday. And, of course, everything—they pick it up and their Ambassador wires their President and says, “Harriman said today you are a bunch of puppet generals.” So, of course, if you were President and you had a million men out there and you were losing twice as many as the United States, how would you feel about that?

Rowe: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

President: Then, the next day here comes a flash. Humphrey says you’d never veto anything he does. So Nixon just picked that one up and went out the same night and said, “By God, I won’t veto you. We’ll work closely together.” So then this guy quit me and went to Nixon.

Rowe: Yes.

President: Now, Bunker has worked all night for the last two nights trying to clean this thing up. And so I told Hubert last night in the long-hand note that Rusk has written which I will show you someday in my memoirs—let you have a copy of it. Rusk said tell Hubert not to brag, please not to be exuberant. Just say I pray for peace. Period. And what the others—they will know what it does if we Don’t jump up and down about it.

Rowe: Yes.

President: So you watch that.

Rowe: I will. I think his line has been pretty much, “This is the President, the President is handling this,” and so forth. The only time he had any jubilation was a little on the plane, and I am afraid a couple of the pool reporters saw him in the back.

President: They described him as going up and down the plane being jubilant and exuberant. And, of course, that just puts the John Towers—let me show you what they’re saying about it. It’s a good excuse for them.

Rowe: That was the only mistake. Publicly, he didn’t make any. But the pool fellows saw him doing it.

President: Here is LeMay. He’s talking about the politics of it. General Walt—he’s put his mouth in it. “One of Nixon’s key advisers and a military expert called for further explanation from Johnson. Tower said Johnson’s announcement unconditional cessation raised several questions. He is a member of the [Senate] Armed Services Committee. Nixon has consistently supported the President’s efforts in Paris, but he added that bombing announcement raised questions concerning what the United States received. Very recently Abrams said the unconditional cessation would let the enemy increase his capability. I believe it is incumbent upon the President to assure America immediately the circumstances have changed—that General Abrams’ contention is no longer valid. ‘I think some explanation should be given to the timing of his announcement,’ the Senator said. ‘Everyone hopes the bombing halt would lead to peace. Let us be hopeful there will be some reciprocal gesture. It should be adequately understood by the American people that this unilateral action on the part of America to refrain from the bombing has not ended so far.’”

Rowe: Yeah. The only real problem we have got that you can handle is that the reporters come off these planes for the rallies—they Don’t pay a bit of attention to Humphrey. These just start looking for local politicians they know. They Don’t trust the staff people. They all tell them the same thing. They realize this is a line now.

President: You know better than I do. All I know are the facts on two things. I want you to know the Asian allies may dump us any minute. If we do, we’ve got pandemonium. The second thing—that Hanoi might not go through with it. That’s the second thing. The third thing—I think that he could very properly say, and you all could say, is all three candidates said the same thing to the President: “We will back you.” This is not any politics. All of them said “We will back you.” And that is all there is to say.

Rowe: Yeah. He said yesterday, after the call, you know, what you had already said—I mean you hadn’t, but you would say later—that we had a conference call. We had one on October 16th.⁹ The President informed us. He informed us again.

President: That was good.

Rowe: And then they started to pursue and he said: “That’s all.” He said: “That’s all we know—is what he told the three candidates.”

President: What he ought to do now is—

Rowe: He’s doing quite well except that one thing you have got there. You know, he just—he happened to make a good speech and a good crowd. And this thing occurred, and he just thought—he just got a little jubilant about it.

President: You just tell him on your own, just Don’t mention Vietnam and what he does. Just use two things. Say all of us said they would back the President, as every American ought to, because if you have them all backing, that helps him.

Rowe: That is right.

President: That we all—all candidates told him, each one of them—Wallace, Nixon, Humphrey—we’d back you up on this. Number one. All the Joint Chiefs of Staff backed him up.

Rowe: We ought to say that?

President: Yes. I don’t know how public. I don’t think in a public speech. But I’d tell everybody that asks me, and then I wouldn’t go any further because I would say: “I don’t want to comment any further.”

Rowe: Yeah.

President: And if I were you and the strategists around him, say: “I don’t know what effect it has. I think the effect is when Johnson withdrew in March.” I just think that—because they are going to see if history says we threw an election.

Rowe: That’s right. Now let me give you this one other thing the press is saying that you can put in your press back there. There’s some kind of rumor you are going to Texas on the 3d, and they are saying, “Is he going to do it?” And I say, “I don’t know.” And they say, “Is he up on the mountain as President or is that old campaign spirit of his coming out?” Well, I said, “I think he can do both, you know.”

President: Well, I am going home this afternoon in the next hour,¹⁰ and I’m going to make a television speech Sunday night that I worked on a week here, and that is going to be my finale.

Rowe: You’re not going to do the Houston [campaign rally]?

President: No, no. I told them—

Rowe: I think it might be helpful with all this churning around that that can sort of—that he, you know, the President, is too busy with this problem—he can’t get to Houston. He’s going to make a television speech—he’s not going to turn up at that big rally, or something like that.

President: Yes. I went on the network night before last and on radio the night before that, and I just Don’t want to be doing it every night as a kind of barn-stormer. I just think it loses a good deal of the effect.¹¹ Okay.

Rowe: All right, sir. Thank you.

1. Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of Telephone Conversation Between Johnson and Rowe, November 1, 1968, 1:58 p.m., Tape F6811.01, PNO 1. 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 Rowe at Peoria, Illinois, where he was campaigning with Humphrey. (Ibid., President’s Daily Diary)
2. November 5.
3. See Document 40.
4. See Document 63.
5. Not found but summarized in Document 168.
6. Former Special Assistant to the President, 1961-1964.
7. Thomas Corcoran, Washington lawyer, prominent Democratic Party insider, and social escort of Anna Chennault.
8. Clifford’s letter, dated November 1, is in the Johnson Library, Clark Clifford Papers, Correspondence: President [1].
9. See Document 80.
10. The President left for his Texas Ranch at 3:36 p.m. that day, remaining until his return to Washington on November 7. (Johnson Library, President’s Daily Diary)
11. The President did in fact make a speech at the Democratic Party Rally at the Houston Astrodome on November 3. For text, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1968-69, Book II, pp. 1107-1110.