VIETNAM: A PRESIDENTIAL DECISIONloewenstern.weebly.com/.../lbj_nsc_biographies.pdf · VIETNAM: A PRESIDENTIAL DECISION Vietnam: A Presidential Decision is an educational program that

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VIETNAM: A PRESIDENTIAL DECISION


VIETNAM: A PRESIDENTIAL DECISION Vietnam: A Presidential Decision is an educational program that challenges students in a role-playing exercise related to presidential decision making. IN THE CLASSROOM Before coming to the LBJ Library, students will spend time learning about the major advisors in the Johnson administration and the roles these advisors played in decision making. Teachers will assign each student a role to play in the National Security Council Meeting. Students are expected to have read:

§ Memorandum- July 20, 1965 § Excerpt from Jack Valenti’s book, A Very Human President. § Who is at the table? Handout § Biography of the role they are to take on during the National Security Council Meeting

LBJ LIBRARY AND MUSEUM At the LBJ Library and Museum students will spend two hours participating in Vietnam: A Presidential decision, where students will become fully immersed participants in the key Presidential decision of whether or not to increase U.S. presence in the war in Vietnam. VIETNAM: A PRESIDENTIAL DECISION

§ Provides experiential learning, which immerses students in history § Gives students the opportunity to study and work with original documents § Allows students to assume the roles of President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors § Gives students a realistic experience portraying top-level leaders in history § Allows students to learn about and practice leadership and consensus-based decision

making § Allows students to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the requirements of

leadership and decision making while experiencing a critical time in U.S. history


MEMORANDUM-JULY 20, 1965

July 20, 1965

Memorandum for:

The President Robert McNamara Dean Rusk George Ball William Bundy McGeorge Bundy William Raborn Henry Cabot Lodge Clark Clifford General Earle Wheeler

Please be informed that at our next national security meeting scheduled for July 21, 1965, you will be asked to prepare and deliver a report on the situation in Vietnam. The purpose of this meeting is to inform the President of possible practical policy options concerning our problems in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. As you are well aware, the President has grappled with this issue since coming to office; we, his advisors, must set our priorities and commit to a policy under our administration. Please be prepared to give the President details on why you think a particular policy needs to be considered at this time. Review all necessary documentation for your presentation and testimonials that you believe necessary to make your case for continued support or change of our policy. You will have a minimum of five minutes at this national security meeting to present your case. Be prepared to defend your position with any questions that the President may have for you. The President has invited Clark Clifford and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to participate in our proceedings.

The President and I look forward to seeing you, and we await your recommendations on how the administration can solve this long-term problem in Southeast Asia.

Sincerely yours,

McGeorge Bundy National Security Advisor


EXCERPT FROM JACK VALENTI’S BOOK, A VERY HUMAN PRESIDENT Jack Valenti was a close personal advisor to President Johnson and witnessed the events you will simulate at the LBJ Library. His account of the events leading up to the meeting will give you the necessary background information and historical context for Vietnam: A Presidential Decision. Jack Valenti, A Very Human President. pp. 318-321 Meeting background In the summer of 1965, the thirty-sixth president [Lyndon Johnson] was faced with more than the fearsome question of whether or not to commit even larger bodies of American troops than were then positioned in South Vietnam. It was a total decision to determine whether to pull out completely from Vietnam or to stay. The slow accumulation of public statements, presidential policies, and national intent were now weighing down on the available alternatives. This is crucial. Lyndon Johnson was the only one of four presidents to be confronted with the leprous alternative: get out or get in with more, much more. All the previous presidents escaped, through circumstance or chance, an ugly confrontation with this decision. Each previous president—Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy—had examined the situation and each had done what he thought to be right in the long-range best interests of the country whose future he swore by solemn oath to protect and defend. Each decision by each president narrowed the alternatives of his successor. It is difficult for critics to be dispassionate, that is, to set the scene exactly as it happened. The critic is fortified by hindsight, that which give him gifts of knowledge that at the time of the crucial decision were nowhere to be found. In the hot summer of 1965, the curtain went up on the bullet-biting crisis of the Johnson administration. Essentially, the military high command had examined the nature of the war at that moment in time and found that the entire bastion was crumbling. In their judgment the South Vietnamese armed forces were not capable of stemming the tide of reinforcements from the North; the war was going so badly, worsening so swiftly, that the joint chiefs had concluded everything was going down the tubes, and fast, unless the United Sates was prepared to commit large bodies of troops, now. The alternative was disaster for the Vietnamese and the prospect of evacuation of American forces immediately. The unaskable question had now been asked. It had to be answered. At 10:40 A.M. on July 21, 1965, in the Cabinet Room of White House, the first prime meeting took place, hours after the arrival from Vietnam of Secretary McNamara and General Wheeler. When President Johnson looked squarely at the facts of the U.S. commitment and the U.S. involvement he probably looked at them with the same gaze President Kennedy might have fixed on the same questions. The same advisers who had counseled President Kennedy were


now counseling President Johnson. It is fair to assume that their advice to him was what it would have been to President Kennedy. The green draperies were drawn in the Cabinet Room in the West Wing of the White House, a spartan and sparsely furnished rectangle. Usually, the draperies were kept open during meetings, and one could see the Rose Garden, and beyond it the graceful white facade of the Mansion. Today, the Rose Garden was aglow with a profusion of colors, the gardeners having only recently planted new blooming flowers. The lawn had been cut the day previously, and the thick carpet of grass lay close to the soil, clipped and shorn of its shaggy edges. Around the immense octagonal table sat fifteen men. The president had not yet joined the gathering. His high-backed, black leather chair was empty. In front of the vacant chair was a yellow foolscap pad, three sharpened pencils, and to the side of the pad was a carafe of water with two glasses. These … men were the president's closest advisers. He had plainly put his trust in their judgment over the previous months and whenever there was a crisis in Vietnam these were the men he summoned to take their counsel. Some of them were statutory members of the National Security Council. Some were not. Two of the men were special assistants to the president. They were: Robert McNamara, secretary of defense; Dean Rusk, secretary of state; …; McGeorge Bundy, special assistant to the president for national security affairs; General Wheeler, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; George Ball, under secretary of state; William Bundy, assistant secretary of state and brother of Mac Bundy; …; Admiral "Red" Raborn, director of the CIA; Henry Cabot Lodge, ambassador to Vietnam; …; Bill Moyers and Jack Valenti, special assistants to the president [Clark Clifford friend of the President would join later]. Now all of them were sitting, prepared to discuss what they all knew to be possibly the most troubling decision the president had yet faced. Each of them had read the top secret recommendation of the Defense Department; each knew he was to respond to presidential questions concerning that recommendation. Indeed, the subject of the meeting was, as everyone knew, to counsel the president on what course of action was to be taken. But the gristly question was still, get in or get out; most of the men around that table were aware that doing more of the same was no longer a suitable answer. At precisely 10:40 A.M. the meeting began…


WHO IS AT THE TABLE?

President Lyndon B. Johnson: President of the United States (POTUS), Commander in Chief of the Armed forces and Chief Diplomat with the power to formulate and direct military and diplomatic policy

Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense: Advises POTUS on national security and directs U.S. armed forces

Dean Rusk, Secretary of State: Advises POTUS on all foreign affairs and implements decisions regarding foreign policy

George Ball, Undersecretary of State: Advises POTUS on specific policy areas within foreign affairs

William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State: Advises POTUS on specific policy areas within foreign affairs

McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor: Advises POTUS on specific foreign policy areas within Asia and offers insight in to world reaction of policy consequences

General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff: Military liaison and spokesperson between POTUS and all branches of military

William Raborn, Central Intelligence Agency Director: Coordinates intelligence of the U.S. government, and advises POTUS on national security matters

Henry Cabot Lodge, Ambassador to South Vietnam: Advises POTUS on specific foreign policy areas within South Vietnam and offers insight in to conditions within Vietnam

Clark Clifford, Special Advisor: Advises POTUS outside traditional bureaucratic channels


LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES November 22, 1963 Lyndon Baines Johnson became the 36th President of the United States following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. In an address before a joint session of Congress on November 27, Johnson pledged support for President Kennedy's legislative agenda, which included civil rights and education legislation.

In a speech at the University of Michigan, May 22, 1964 Johnson spoke of a "Great Society." He said, "The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning." President Johnson also proposed domestic legislation to deal with employment, health, and other issues affecting the U.S. population.

On July 2 he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in a televised ceremony at the White House. The far-reaching law included provisions to protect the right to vote, guarantee access to public accommodations, and withhold federal funds from programs administered in a discriminatory fashion.

The history of Vietnam will reveal that previous U.S. presidents also dealt with the situation in Vietnam. On August 2, 1964 North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the destroyer USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. August 4, a second North Vietnamese PT boat attack was reported on the USS Maddox and her escort, the USS C. Turner Joy, this time in poor weather. There would be debate, then and later, over whether the second attack actually occurred. President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam after being given firm assurance that the attack did occur, and he sought a congressional resolution in support of our Southeast Asia policy. In 1965, he met with his top advisors to further decide about the situation in Vietnam.

Your job: Commander in Chief of the Armed forces and Chief Diplomat with the power to formulate and direct military and diplomatic policy


DEAN RUSK SECRETARY OF STATE Dean Rusk was born in Cherokee County, Georgia, on February 9, 1909, and attended public schools in Atlanta and graduated from old Boys High School in 1925. He worked two years for an Atlanta lawyer before enrolling at Davidson College. In 1931, Rusk was graduated Phi Beta Kappa and named Davidson's sixth Rhodes Scholar. He earned his B.S. and M.A. degrees from St. John's College, Oxford, where he also received the Cecil Peace Prize in 1933. Later he also studied at the University of Berlin and the University of California Law School. In 1940, he was called to active duty in the Army and eventually rose to the rank of Colonel. He was deputy chief of staff in the China-Burma-India Theatre and was awarded the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster. Rusk began his State Department career in 1946 with assistant chief of the Division of International Security Affairs. He served in a variety of positions culminating in his appointment as Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs in 1950, where he was instrumental in mediating the U.S.’s involvement in the Korean War. In 1952, Rusk left the State Department to become president of the Rockefeller Foundation, a position he held until 1961. On December 12, 1960, Rusk was named Secretary of State and was sworn in to his office on January, 1961. Beginning in 1961, Rusk served eight years as Secretary of State under two presidents, Kennedy and Johnson. This was the second longest term in U. S. history. He was party to some crucial policy decisions of the early Cold War, including the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, and the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. As a diplomat Rusk attempted to diffuse the mounting tensions between Arab nations and Israel, supported aid to developing nations, and helped broker some of the earliest arms control agreements between the U. S. and the Soviet Union. In 1969, after shouldering the American reputation abroad through some of the most tumultuous years in its history, Rusk retired from politics for good. Your job: Advise POTUS on all foreign affairs and implement decisions regarding foreign policy


GEORGE BALL Undersecretary of State After earning a law degree from Northwestern University in Chicago, George Ball practiced law there and became a supporter of Adlai Stevenson, the governor of Illinois. When Stevenson ran for the presidency in 1952, 1956, and 1960, Ball served as national director of Volunteers for Stevenson and was propelled into politics. Ball joined the Kennedy administration as undersecretary of state for economic affairs but was soon elevated to undersecretary of state and advised Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Ball served several as undersecretary of state in the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He vocally objected to increasing U.S. troop involvement in Vietnam and warned both presidents that the U.S. could not win a guerrilla war. His prophetic counsel was ignored, however, and U.S. involvement escalated from 400 "advisers" to more than 500,000 ground troops. Ball resigned in 1966 to return to his law practice but served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1968. His dovish views on Vietnam became known with the publication in 1971 of the sensitive Pentagon Papers. Ball was the author of five books, including Diplomacy for a Crowded World (1976), Error and Betrayal in Lebanon (1984), and The Passionate Attachment (1992), an examination of U.S.-Israeli relations. Your job: Advise POTUS on specific policy areas within foreign affairs


WILLIAM BUNDY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE As a U.S. presidential adviser, William Bundy was one of the foremost architects of the U.S. policy in Vietnam. He and his younger brother, McGeorge, who was national security adviser in the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, were the sons of parents from prominent Boston families. William graduated from Yale University in 1939 with a B.A. in history and in 1940 earned an M.A. in history from Harvard University. He left Harvard Law School in 1941 to enlist in the Army Signal Corps and served in England in intelligence, for which he received the Legion of Merit and was made a member of the Order of the British Empire. He received his law degree in 1947 and worked for a private firm until 1951, when he entered government service preparing estimates for the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1960 he served as the staff director of the Commission on National Goals, appointed by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, which in the following decade influenced civil rights laws and poverty programs as well as policy on women in the workforce. In 1961 Bundy moved to the Department of Defense and in 1964 to the Department of State, becoming assistant secretary for Far Eastern affairs. Although he at first reportedly argued against escalation of the fighting in Vietnam and even proposed withdrawal, he later refused to support those who took a dovish position. He left government in 1969 to teach at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became a target for antiwar protesters who once tried to bomb his office. In 1972 he became editor of the journal Foreign Affairs and beginning in the mid-1980s taught part-time at Princeton University. His book A Tangled Web (1998) was a critique of the foreign policy of President Richard M. Nixon. Your job: Advise POTUS on specific policy areas within foreign affairs


ROBERT MCNAMARA SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Robert McNamara graduated in 1937 from the University of California Berkeley with a degree in economics and philosophy, earned a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1939, worked a year for the accounting firm of Price, Waterhouse in San Francisco, and then in August 1940 returned to Harvard to teach in the business school. He entered the Army Air Forces as a captain in early 1943 and left active duty three years later with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1946 McNamara joined Ford Motor Company as manager of planning and financial analysis. He advanced rapidly through a series of top-level management positions to the presidency of Ford on November 9, 1960, one day after Kennedy's election. Less than five weeks after becoming president at Ford, he accepted Kennedy's invitation to join his cabinet as Secretary of Defense.

The Vietnam conflict came to claim most of McNamara's time and energy. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations had committed the United States to support the French and native anti-Communist forces in Vietnam in resisting efforts by the Communists in the North to control the country. The U.S. role, including financial support and military advice, expanded after 1954 when the French withdrew. During the Kennedy administration, the U.S. military advisory group in South Vietnam steadily increased, with McNamara's concurrence, from just a few hundred to about 17,000. U.S. involvement escalated after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964 when North Vietnamese naval vessels reportedly fired on two U.S. destroyers. President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes on North Vietnamese naval bases and Congress approved almost unanimously the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the U.S. and to prevent further aggression."

McNamara left office on February 29, 1968; for his dedicated efforts, the president awarded him both the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal. He served as head of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.

Your job: Advise POTUS on national security and direct the U.S. armed forces


HENRY CABOT LODGE, JR. AMBASSADOR TO SOUTH VIETNAM Best known for his controversial role as the American ambassador to South Vietnam from 1963 to 1967, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. also served in a variety of other diplomatic positions as well as in the U.S. Senate during his long career in politics. Born to a New England family in 1902, Lodge graduated from Harvard in 1924 and worked as a journalist for nine years before entering politics. Lodge began his political career as a representative in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1933. Three years later he won election to the U.S. Senate where he earned a reputation as a moderate Republican. Believing that the Republican Party needed to shed the isolationism that had long guided its views on foreign policy, Lodge helped Eisenhower win his battle for the Republican nomination against the isolationist Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. Having focused on assisting Eisenhower with his presidential bid, however, Lodge lost his own reelection battle with Congressman John F. Kennedy. As a result, Eisenhower offered him a position as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a position he retained until 1960. As a liberal internationalist, Lodge worked to foster a healthy American relationship with the United Nations and the Third World but, as an ardent cold warrior, he also advocated a tough line of opposition against the Soviet Union. As a successful and popular ambassador, Lodge joined the Republican presidential ticket in 1960 as Richard Nixon's vice-presidential running mate.

Briefly returning to private life following Nixon's defeat in 1960, Lodge reentered government service in 1963 when President Kennedy appointed him ambassador to South Vietnam. Anxious to use American clout with the South Vietnamese as a means of organizing their resistance to communism more effectively, Lodge quickly became frustrated with the country's president, Ngo Dinh Diem. Regarding Diem as an eccentric obstructionist who lacked the ability to lead South Vietnam's turbulent population, Lodge signaled tacit U.S. support for a military coup against Diem's regime in November 1963. Remaining with the American Embassy in Saigon until later the next year, Lodge returned in 1965 for a second tour as the American ambassador under President Lyndon Johnson. As ambassador to South Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, Lodge supported President Johnson's decision to escalate American involvement in the Vietnam War, believing strongly that a communist takeover in the South would be disastrous for U.S. foreign policy goals.

Remaining with the State Department for another ten years after leaving Vietnam, Lodge served as ambassador to Germany (1968-69), envoy to the Paris Peace Talks (1969), and occasionally as the American representative to the Vatican (1969-77). Retiring in 1975, Lodge returned to his home in Beverly, Massachusetts where he wrote his memoirs.

Your job: Advise POTUS on specific foreign policy areas within South Vietnam and offer insight in to conditions within Vietnam


WILLIAM RABORN, JR. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, DIRECTOR In 1928, William Raborn graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy. During World War II, he led the Gunnery Training Section at the Bureau of Aeronautics. He was the Executive Officer aboard the USS Hancock when the ship was attacked by a kamikaze during WWII. In 1955, Raborn was Director of Special Projects at the Bureau of Weapons where his job was to develop a submarine launched ballistic missile, which he eventually created and was first successful used aboard the USS Washington. In 1962, Raborn was named the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Development. William Raborn decided to retire from the Navy in 1965 and four months later on April 28 of that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Raborn as the seventh Director of Central Intelligence Agency. William Raborn was inexperienced in the field of intelligence, which made it difficult to direct and examine the actions of the CIA. Since Raborn was familiar with military hierarchy, he worked to satisfy LBJ's demands that the CIA provide more intelligence and run concealed operations for the Vietnam War. Your job: Coordinate intelligence of the U.S. government and advise POTUS on national security matters


GENERAL EARLE WHEELER Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman Earl Wheeler was born in Washington, DC, and later attended the US Military Academy at West Point. During World War II, he served with the 63rd Division during campaigns in Europe. After the war, Wheeler also held high-ranking staff positions in Europe with the American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces. Attaining the rank of general, he was appointed Chief of Staff for the US Army in 1962. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of Johnson's major advisors on American policy in Vietnam, Wheeler stated his belief that the US needed to "make an unambiguous stance in Vietnam or get out." Wheeler served as Joint Chiefs Chairman until 1970. Your job: Principal military advisor to POTUS, Secretary of Defense and National Security Council; liaison between POTUS and all branches of military


MCGEORGE BUNDY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR McGeorge Bundy, a U.S. educator and government official, was born in Boston. An Army intelligence officer during World War II, he was on the Harvard faculty 1949-61, becoming the youngest dean of the faculty of arts and sciences in 1953. As the special assistant to Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson for national security affairs (1961-66), Bundy supervised the staff of the National Security Council and played a major role in making foreign policy. He supported the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion , helped determine strategy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and strongly advocated increasing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. He resigned from government to serve as president of the Ford Foundation (1966-79). Bundy was the author of The Strength of Government (1968) and Danger and Survival (1988). Your job: Advise POTUS on specific foreign policy areas within Asia and offer insight into global consequences of U.S. foreign policy


CLARK CLIFFORD SPECIAL ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT Clark Clifford was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, on 25 December 1906, earned both bachelor and law degrees at Washington University, and practiced law in St. Louis between 1928 and 1943. He served as an officer with the Navy from 1944 to 1946, including assignment as assistant naval aide and naval aide to the president. After separation from the Navy, he held the position of special counsel to the president from 1946 to 1950. During this period he participated extensively in the legislative efforts that resulted in the National Security Act of 1947 and its 1949 amendments.

After leaving the government in 1950 Clifford practiced law in Washington, but continued to advise the White House occasionally. In 1960 he was a member of President-elect Kennedy's Committee on the Defense Establishment, headed by Stuart Symington. In May 1961 Kennedy appointed him to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which he chaired beginning in April 1963. After President Johnson entered office, Clifford served frequently as an unofficial counselor and sometimes undertook short-term official duties, including a trip with General Maxwell Taylor in 1967 to Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

On January 19, 1968 President Johnson announced his selection of Clark M. Clifford as McNamara's successor for the position of Secretary of Defense. Clifford took office committed to continuing the president's Vietnam policies. Vietnam occupied most of Clifford's time and attention during his less than 11 months in office. Your job: Advise POTUS outside traditional bureaucratic channels

Documents

VIETNAM: A PRESIDENTIAL DECISIONloewenstern.weebly.com/.../lbj_nsc_biographies.pdf · VIETNAM: A PRESIDENTIAL DECISION Vietnam: A Presidential Decision is an educational program that