205. Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Senator Everett Dirksen1
Dirksen: Hello?
President: Yes?
Dirksen: I talked to Dick this morning.
[Page 589]President: Yes, Everett.
Dirksen: Now he’s coming to see you at 1:30 p.m. Monday,2 as I understand.
President: Yes.
Dirksen: And he asked for your backgrounder. Now, I gave him the works. I said, “It seems that they send some of the boys out to stiffen Thieu’s spine and tell him to wait and not send anything,” so you’ll know that he knows the story.
President: Well, what was his reaction?
Dirksen: Well, he said he didn’t send anybody. Well, maybe not, but maybe somebody else sent somebody.
President: Well, what was his reaction to the request that he tell somebody to tell them to go on and get to that Paris meeting?
Dirksen: He didn’t give me very much reaction. He just thinned it a little by saying “We didn’t do anything.” Well, that may well be, but there are a lot of people in camp, as you might know. So you’ll know the kind of background you’ll have to talk into.
President: Well, now, the point is, though, that this is not going to wait until Monday.
Dirksen: Won’t wait until Monday?
President: No, no, no. Hell no. This ought to go right now because if they Don’t go in there this week, we’re just going to have all kinds of problems, you see.
Dirksen: I thought that from the arrangements that were made that coming up here on Monday would be satisfactory.
President: No. I thought I told you last night—I ought to—I thought I’d hear early this morning because we want Thieu to get a message so he can get a delegation from Saigon to Paris next week. We think we’re held up just everyday. We’re killing men. We’re killing men.
Dirksen: Yes, he called. Said that this arrangement for Monday was made through Jim [Jones].
President: Yes, he called. His man talked to Jim Jones and said they were coming this way and they’d be here Monday. So we told them to come in and have lunch. They’re coming for lunch. But what I’m hoping that he will do—I think it would be better if he didn’t have it direct from me—but I think what he ought to do is just this simple thing: Say “I have said I’m supporting our President. Now, he thinks that the South Vietnamese should be at that Paris conference, and I’m supporting [Page 590] that, that’s my position.” And he ought to tell the Chennaults and the rest of them that, by God, to get the word out.
Dirksen: He said he would go to Paris, if you wanted him to, or Saigon.
President: No, I don’t want any travels. All I want him to do is just tell them to get to Paris, to get the delegation there. That’s the way I’d—it doesn’t do any good for me to go there or for him to go there. We just need the Saigon delegation because you can imagine what you and Mansfield are going to have if we’ve got a peace conference and this fellow won’t even attend it. Now, what he does at that conference is another matter. We have told him that we will not be for a coalition government. We’ve told him that we will not be for recognizing the NLF. But he must go to the conference because we can’t get him one vote in the Senate if he refuses to even talk.
Dirksen: Well, I sensed that he said that after he made the arrangements through Jim that you would have been informed about it.
President: No, no, he didn’t mention this at all. I just told Jim to tell them, when he wanted to see me, that I would be delighted to see them, but that I had given you a message last night that was urgent, that we’re killing men everyday while they’re sitting there and doing nothing. Now if Saigon doesn’t come to that meeting, I don’t know what we’ll have to do. Rusk is ready to brief Dick if he wants a briefing. But Saigon now thinks that they will play this out and keep this thing going on until January 20th and we think that’s a mistake.
Dirksen: I had to shop over all of hell’s creation to find him, and only got him, here, I guess it was 12 o’clock.
President: Well, you can call him and you tell him that I think this is urgent enough that he should send word to the South Vietnamese, either through me or through them. If he wants to give me a message, I’ll carry it, if he wants to go through the Embassy, he can do it—
Dirksen: I told him I was going to call you.
President: And say to them that he supports the President and they should send a delegation there and do it quick.
Dirksen: I’ll do my best.
President: All right. Thank you.
- Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of Telephone Conversation Between Johnson and Dirksen, November 8, 1968, 2:54 p.m., Tape F6811.02, PNO 11. No classification marking. This transcript was prepared specifically for this volume in the Office of the Historian. According to an entry in the President’s Daily Diary, Dirksen called Johnson “re the Senator’s talk w/Nixon this morning, South Vietnamese reactions, China lobby, and Saigon delegation to Paris.” (Ibid., President’s Daily Diary)↩
- November 11.↩