10. Record of Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and the Under Secretary of State (Ball)1

LBJ: I hear some bad rumblings on IDA. It is coming up today. They told me they had enough votes but the Sec. of State and Treasury is out of town. I think they are going to get that bill murdered like Freeman did. You had better get hold of Sec. Treas. or whoever is acting and get your people up there and start knocking on doors—door to door—and tell them how important this thing is. Any AID agents that you should have that have contacts on the Hill and get in touch with Larry. I don’t know how accurate this is but they say it is critical.

GWB: We will mobilize everything we have. You know, Doug has been calling the shots on this.

LBJ: You had better get a hold of him and tell him that we hear bad reports. It doesn’t hurt anything to win by 30 votes but it kills it if you lose by one. I think everybody in the Cabinet is traveling—they haven’t got time to look after these programs—we’re going to get the “stuffin” beat out of us. We haven’t got a chance to pass foreign aid. I had the Foreign Affairs Committee down here last night and I pled with them and reported it just as it is and they are going to try to do that today. They think they can do that. The Republicans are going to have a motion to recommit and add a couple hundred million to the military and take 500 million off the economics. They say they will stay but we just can’t hold them. We will have to fight that battle when we get to it. We are going to have to get our forces lined up—our newspapers and everybody else on that one. It is a very dangerous move. The Republicans are going to say we are trying to help win the war but we are not going to give this money away to India. I looked at a sample poll of some place in N.J. It had the [Page 22] Republican and Democratic nominees and how they felt and why they liked us. On this foreign aid it is just frightening. That is the sentiment of the country. Salem, N.J. and it is a sample town according to… the persons interviewed in the survey were asked, taking everything into consideration, do you think the U.S. is not getting its money’s worth out of foreign aid. Two out of every three of 65 replied no. One in ten said yes. The remaining 25% expressed no opinion. Proportionately more men felt this way than did women. The major reasons cited the U.S. does not get its money’s worth. The reason it is getting its money’s worth is that it makes friends for the U.S., countries have been rebuilt.

Another reason the U.S. does not get its money’s worth, countries turn their backs on us after we have helped them, we get nothing in return. Aid is misused. We should help our own people first. Countries don’t pay back the money. You can’t buy friendship. Dick Goodwin sent me this poll. It has been taken for a special National Broadcast—The Brinkley Journal. That is just one of the hundreds of questions. It is thick as a Sears Roebuck Catalog. They say it is as close as anyone could come to a small community which would be a small small model of the U.S. The social, economic and racial makeup is the same as the makeup of America. “A good friend of mine is producing this show. He let me see this survey on condition I return it to him and not let another human see it, in fear it would jeopardize the networks neutral position. One thing that impresses me is that when people asked what should be discussed by Presidential candidates, foreign affairs is high. When they are asked what concerns them most in their daily lives, they do not mention foreign problems. This strengthens my conviction that the foreign affairs problem is left to the President to pursue the peace [in] Cuba and keep America strong.” I just read it last night.

I had the Foreign Affairs Committee down and I told them I would cut it from 4.9 to 3.4. I told them I had to have them stand by it to the dollar. I wouldn’t give an inch. They asked me to let them trim a little bit so they could meet the argument. I told them I couldn’t do it. If they started trimming everybody would start trimming. They agreed to go up and do it. They say they will fight if the leadership—and McCormack and Albert say they would fight. You are the only one I can talk to. I have appointments the rest of the day.

GWB: I will get hold of Dave and we will go up on the Hill right now on that IDA thing. Our problem here is that this has been the Treasury …

LBJ: I would just call Dillon or who ever is acting and get them up there and get Joe Barr and go up there. Let’s do whatever we can and let me know.

GWB: I will.

  1. Source: Johnson Library, Ball Papers, Foreign Aid (DLF) 1/21/64–8/16/66, Box 3. No classification marking. No other record of this conversation has been found. However, later in the day the President had conversations with Douglas Dillon (11:41 a.m.), Larry O’Brien (time unknown), Douglas Dillon (3:11 p.m. and 3:44 p.m.), Charles Hallack (3:50 p.m.), John McCormack (3:55 p.m.), and George Ball (4:47 p.m.) on foreign aid related matters. (Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recordings of Telephone Conversations, Tape 6405.02, PNOs 25 and 26, Tape 6405.03, PNOs 4, 5, 6, and 16) During a 5:35 p.m. conversation with McGeorge Bundy, the President referred to his meeting “socially” with the Foreign Affairs Committees the previous evening, the unpopularity of foreign assistance in both the parties, and Congressional plans to recommit the foreign assistance bill, adding to military assistance and taking an even larger amount from economic assistance. The President told Buddy that Secretaries Rusk and McNamara needed to get reengaged, along with AID Administrator Bell, and take the initiative from Congress; he told Buddy that it was time to prepare a supplemental for Vietnam—$70 million on the military side and $35 million on the economic side. (Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of a Telephone Conversation, Tape F64.27, Side A, PNO 1)