18. Editorial Note

On April 2, 1964, from 12:35 to 2:54 p.m., President Johnson met with Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary of Defense McNamara. (Johnson Library, President’s Daily Diary) No record of the discussion has been found, but Michael Forrestal prepared on April 1 a memorandum for McGeorge Bundy with an annotated agenda for the meeting. Item 5 (of 6) of the Bundy agenda anticipated discussion on Laos and Cambodia as follows:

“5. Cross border operations between Laos and Cambodia. Although the JCS raised this question this afternoon, they were surprisingly mild. General Taylor, however, was not present, and he may suggest early action. Sihanouk having just made another turn-about, and Souvanna being in one of his periodical states of jelly—this is not the time to press against either of these countries. This is particularly true if we have any hope of laying a political base for direct pressure against the North. It is going to be difficult enough to lay such a base without also having to face the screams of the rest of the world that we are beating on two small and supposedly neutral countries.” (Ibid., Files of McGeorge Bundy, Luncheons with the President, Vol. 1 [Part 2])

The full text of the memorandum is in Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, volume I, pages 213214.