Tapes Reveal LBJ’s Vietnam Anxiety as Own Term Begins

WASHINGTON — On election day 1964, on the brink of one of the biggest presidential landslides ever, Lyndon B. Johnson lay in bed at 5 p.m., nursing a headache and sore hip--and sorting out his conflicted thoughts about whether to increase U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.

On newly released presidential tape-recordings, Johnson yawns noisily into the phone and complains about his back, head and hip pains. Yet he ignores advice from his assistant Bill Moyers to take a break and celebrate his victory under the Florida sun. Something troubled him deeply.

“I’m afraid of Vietnam,” Johnson tells Moyers in a hoarse voice.

The conversation is among 36 hours of recorded conversations released Friday by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas. Most of the tapes were recorded in November and December 1964 as Johnson, who took office after President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, was elected to his own four-year term.

The tapes capture Johnson’s earthy and domineering persona. He exchanges oral backslaps on election night and chats about civil rights with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In the King phone call, Johnson calls his victory, which was heavily supported by black voters, “a great tribute to the intelligence and the judgment and the patriotism of the Negro people.”

He wonders aloud how large his win will be. He chuckles--even snorts--on the tapes and jokes about how his running mate, Hubert H. Humphrey from Minnesota, had donned Western duds and hopped on a horse at the LBJ Ranch in Texas.

But the tapes also show a president burdened by Vietnam and still undecided about America’s response to communist actions in Southeast Asia. It wasn’t until March 1965 that Marines, the first U.S. combat troops, landed in South Vietnam.

Soon, antiwar protesters would chant, “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?”

“There are two schools of thought on this,” said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian who is writing three books on the Johnson tapes. “One is that Johnson came to the presidency in November 1963 desperate to escalate the war in Vietnam. The other is that he believed in the American commitment to South Vietnam but that, as late as the end of 1964, he was open-minded on how to carry that out.

“What these tapes show is that he was still keeping his counsel and actually still soliciting recommendations as late as election day.”

Two days after the election, Johnson asks former Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, “If you get any solution for Vietnam, just call me direct, will you?”

In the same phone call, Johnson warns of moving too fast on Vietnam. He tells Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) that he has received “some pretty strong ideas” from congressional leaders. But he says: “I sent them back and told them, ‘Let’s be careful. Let’s, let’s look where we’re going before we go.’ ”

Later that same day, Johnson asks Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara for an update on Vietnam. “It’s just a worrisome problem,” McNamara tells him. “None of us have a pat answer that we’re ready to give you yet.”

Walt Rostow, director of policy planning at the State Department in late 1964, said in a telephone interview that Johnson was still weighing the decision about troops in early 1965. “He didn’t wait until the election was over and say, ‘Well now, let’s go,’ ” Rostow said.

Despite his worries about Vietnam, the tapes also reveal Johnson’s teasing and cajoling.

He jokes with congressional leaders about Vice President-elect Humphrey, who was bunking at Johnson’s ranch right after the election.

“Did you hear what Hubert announced in his speech here?” Johnson asks the leaders who were gathered in a room on the other end of the line. “By God, he said he’d resign if there was any more horseback riding.”

Humphrey jokes that his Western clothes were “droopy” and blames it on Johnson. “After all, the president was the man that dressed me.”

Johnson asks Sen. Ross Bass (D-Tenn.) how he thought Humphrey looked on a horse.

“I’ll tell you what. That’s a desecration to put him on a Tennessee walking horse,” jokes Bass.

“Is that a desecration of Hubert or the horse?” Johnson says in a quick comeback.

Humphrey breaks out laughing.