The Pentagon is a busy place, where the workday starts early-especially so, as the expression goes, if "a war is on." In that respect, one beautiful fall day in early November 1965 was no different. In another, it was more different than most. Many of us had come to call it "the day of reckoning." By 0700, the staff of Admiral David L. McDonald, the Navy's senior admiral and Chief of Naval Operations, had arrived and begun work. In short order, the phone rang in the aide-decamp's office. The caller was Admiral McDonald's driver, who announced that the admiral would arrive before 0730 and that he would appreciate Admiral Horacio Rivero being on deck at 0745. Admiral Rivero was the Vice Chief of Naval Operations-not only the Navy's number-two admiral but also Admiral McDonald's trusted confidant.
The two needed to talk. The Vietnam War was in its first year under President Lyndon Baines Johnson, and its uncertain direction greatly troubled not only Admiral McDonald but the other service chiefs as well. After numerous disagreements with Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and countless delays, the Joint Chiefs of Staff finally had been granted a long-sought, perfectly legitimate private audience with the Commander-in-Chief. This was to be the meeting to determine whether the U.S. military would continue its seemingly directionless Vietnam build-up to fight a protracted ground war or take bold measures designed to bring the war to an early, favorable conclusion.
Prior to the meeting, each of the Chiefs had visited the major commands in the Pacific as well as those of his respective service located in Vietnam. As Admiral McDonald's Marine aide-de-camp, I had accompanied him on what proved to be a valuable, illuminating visit some two months earlier.
From a purely warfighting standpoint, the admiral had three prime concerns. Foremost, of course, were his responsibilities associated with the Seventh Fleet and its operations at sea. Next, he had the problem of providing logistic support to III Marine Expeditionary Force, a command that would grow in size to more than two Marine divisions, an aircraft wing that might as well have been two wings, and their associated combat service support units. Admiral McDonald's logistic support responsibilities included developing logistics complexes in Vietnam, forming six new Navy construction battalions, and finding crews for two hospital ships that had just come out of mothballs. His final major concern related to the use of air power. The Marines had deployed F-4 fighter squadrons from Japan to Vietnam. Although the F-4 had a secondary bombing capability, it was the Navy's frontline fighter at the time, and the admiral considered its capabilities wasted in Vietnam. Other aircraft were better designed to provide close air support for the Marine ground units. During his visit to Danang, the Marines were able to allay at least some of his concerns, but he was an aviator and continued to question the large amounts of air power staged in Vietnam to fight an enemy who had no air force. The admiral clearly wanted to apply massive air to the head of the enemy-Hanoi-not to the scattered regiments of Vietcong we were trying to target in the south. He had a point.
The general consensus on the way back to Washington was that much could be done to improve support of the offshore fleet and the Marines in Vietnam. After a brief period of silence, someone chimed in, "it's hard to imagine where the hell this thing is going to end!"
The visits of the other service chiefs also must have ended with the same or similar thoughts. Each of the services had an unquestionably competitive drive to show its best in deploying to Vietnam. But Admiral McDonald and the other service chiefs were growing increasingly concerned about the lack of a clearly stated mission and objectives. These failings were the issues President Johnson was to address in the meeting. The situation was not a simple matter, for a variety of reasons-primarily because North Vietnam's neighbor to the north was communist China.
Only 12 years had passed since the Korean War ended in bloody stalemate. The aggressors in that war had been the North Koreans. When defeat appeared inevitable, communist China sent hundreds of thousands of its Peoples' Liberation Army "volunteers" southward to the rescue. In this new war, the aggressor was a North Vietnam that had not only the assistance of its Vietcong Main Force units and infrastructure in the south, but also logistic support provided by the Soviet Union and, more to the point, neighboring communist China. We could punish North Vietnam with air and naval forces, but we had to consider possible Chinese and Soviet reactions. Both had pledged to support North Vietnam in its "War of National Liberation" to restore the divided country, and both had the wherewithal to cause major problems. Given geography, the lesser question was what the Soviets would do if prevented from delivering goods to their communist protege in Hanoi. The greater question involved a communist China that shared a common border with North Vietnam. How would the Chinese react to a massive pummeling of their ally? In particular, would they enter the war as they had done in North Korea? Or would they let the Vietnamese, a traditional enemy for centuries, fend for themselves? These and similar questions were posed to the Central Intelligence Agency.
"The Company," as it was often called, produced reams of text, executive summaries of the texts, and briefs of the executive summaries-all Top Secret, all extremely sensitive, and all of little use. The principal conclusion was the impossibility of predicting accurately what the Chinese or Soviets might do. The report did identify the enormous capabilities each could bring to bear, ranging from simple posturing at the United Nations to threatening nuclear war. It was thought-provoking stuff, and the Defense Intelligence Agency could offer nothing either to refute or enhance the CIA effort. In fairness, the task given the intelligence agencies was probably an impossible one. They had been asked to provide too much detail with too much accuracy. And they had responded conservatively, cautiously waffling the answers.
Despite the lack of a clear-cut intelligence estimate, Admiral McDonald and the other Joint Chiefs did what they were paid to do and reached a conclusion. They decided unanimously that risks of violent Chinese or Soviet reactions to massive U.S. measures taken in North Vietnam were acceptably low, provided we did not delay. Unfortunately, their opinions and judgments were not commonly held in the Pentagon, at least by those who were actually steering military strategy-namely, McNamara and his coterie of civilian "whiz kids." In the Chiefs' view, the United States seemed to be simply piling on forces in Vietnam without understanding the consequences. In the view of McNamara and his dominant civilian team, we were doing the right thing. This was the fundamental dispute that had incited the Chiefs to invoke the seldom-used request for a private audience with the Commander-in Chief in order to express their own military recommendations. McNamara had finally acceded to their demand.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff of 1965 had more than ample combat experience. Each was serving in his third war. The Chairman was General Earle Wheeler, U.S. Army. Tall, affable, and highly regarded by the other members, General Wheeler had the unenviable task of following General Maxwell Taylor, whom President John F. Kennedy had brought out of retirement to reinvigorate the Armed Forces, especially the Army. General Harold Johnson was Army Chief of Staff. A World War II prisoner of the Japanese, he was a soft-spoken, even-tempered, deeply religious man. General John P. McConnell headed the Air Force. A native of Arkansas and a 1932 graduate of West Point, General McConnell had been the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff before relieving the flamboyant Curtis LeMay - a major proponent of strategic bombing - the previous February. The Commandant of the Marine Corps was General Wallace M. Greene, Jr., a slim, short, all business Marine. General Greene was a Naval Academy graduate and a jealous protector of the Marine Corps' concept of controlling its own air resources as part of an integrated air-ground team. Last, and by no means least, was Admiral McDonald, a Georgia minister's son, also a Naval Academy graduate, Class of 1928, and a naval aviator. While Admiral McDonald was a most capable leader, he was also a reluctant warrior. He did not like what he saw emerging as a national commitment. He was not comfortable with involving himself in matters concerning land warfare, but be knew the Navy and felt that sea powermining, blockading, and assisting in a bombing campaign- applied against North Vietnam could help bring a swift conclusion to the war.
The prime topics of the meeting with the President were intended to feature Navy matters-mining and blockading the port of Haiphong and naval support of a bombing campaign aimed at Hanoi. For that reason, the Navy was to provide a briefing map, a chore that became my responsibility. We mounted a map suitable for the occasion on a large piece of plywood, then coated it with clear acetate so that the Chiefs could use grease pencils to mark it during the discussion. The real finishing touch was a tray affixed at the bottom to hold the grease pencils. All told, it weighed about 30 pounds; it would get heavier. The Military Office at the White House agreed to make an easel. available in the Oval Office to hold the map. My job was to accompany Admiral McDonald to the White House with the map, put the map in place when the meeting started, then get out. No strap-hangers were to be included in the summit with Lyndon Johnson. It was make-or-break time for the Chiefs. The short drive to the White House was memorable only because of the silence. Admiral McDonald was totally preoccupied.
We arrived about 20 minutes before 1400. The Chiefs were ushered into a fairly large room across the hall from the Oval Office. I propped the map board on the arms of a fancy, lightweight chair where all could view it, left two of the grease pencils in the tray, and departed. One of the Chiefs shut the door, and they held a short discussion until someone interrupted them at about 1355. I retrieved the map and followed them into the corridor outside the President's office. And there we patiently waited.
Precisely at 1400, President Johnson emerged from the Oval Office and greeted the Chiefs. He was the essence of charm. He was also big; at three or more inches over six feet tall and something on the order of 250 pounds, he was larger than any of the Chiefs. He personally ushered them into the room, all the while making gracious and solicitous comments delivered with a Texas accent far more distinctive than his television voice. Holding the map board as the Chiefs entered, I looked between them, trying to locate the easel. There was none. The President looked at me, realized the problem, and invited me in, adding, "You can stand right over here." I had become the human easel-one with ears.
To the right of the door, not far inside the office, large windows framed evergreen bushes growing in a nearby garden. The President's desk and several chairs were further inside, diagonally across the room from the windows. The President had placed me in a corner near the windows, then arranged the Chiefs in a semicircle next to the map and its human easel. They were not offered seats but stood, with those who were to speak-Wheeler, McDonald, and McConnell-nearest the President. Paradoxically, the two whose services were most effected by a continuation of the ground build-up in Vietnam-Generals Johnson and Greene-were placed in more remote positions on the other side of the map. President Johnson located himself nearest the door, about five feet from the map.
In retrospect, none of it-the failure to have an easel in place, the positioning of the Chiefs on the outer fringe of the office, the lack of seating-augured well. It was not intended to be a lengthy meeting, and it met that expectation. It was intended to be a meeting of momentous import, and it met that expectation, too. Unfortunately, it also proved absolutely pivotal to the conduct of what was to become the longest, most divisive and least conclusive war in our nation's history. It was the day of key decision for a war that nearly tore the nation apart.
As General Wheeler started the presentation, President Johnson peered at the map. Within five or so minutes, General Wheeler summarized: our entry into Vietnam; the current status of forces; and the purpose of the meeting. He also thanked the President for having given his senior military advisers the opportunity to present their opinions and recommendations. Finally, he noted that, while Secretary McNamara did not subscribe to their views, he did agree that a presidential-level decision was required. President Johnson, arms crossed, listened carefully, as though hanging on every word.
The essence of General Wheeler's presentation was that we had come to an early moment of truth in our ever-increasing Vietnam involvement. We had to begin using our principal strengths - air and naval power - to punish the North Vietnamese, or we would risk becoming involved in another protracted Asian ground war with no definitive solution. Speaking for the Chiefs, General Wheeler offered a bold course of action designed to avoid the threat of protracted land warfare. He proposed isolating the major port of Haiphong through naval mining, blockading the rest of the North Vietnamese coastline, and simultaneously beginning a B-52 bombing offensive on Hanoi. General Wheeler then asked Admiral McDonald to describe how the Navy and Air Force would combine forces to mine the waters off Haiphong and establish a naval blockade. General McConnell added briefly that the speed of execution would be paramount, with the assumption that either the North Vietnamese would sue for peace or we would increase the level of punishment.
Normally, memories are dimmed by time-but not this one. My memory of Lyndon Johnson on that day remains crystal clear. While General Wheeler, Admiral McDonald, and General McConnell spoke, he had been attentive, apparently listening seriously, communicating only with an occasional nod. After General McConnell finished, General Wheeler asked the President if he had any questions. Johnson waited a moment or so, then turned to Generals Johnson and Greene, who had remained silent during the briefing, and asked, "Do you fully support these ideas?" He followed with the thought that it was they who were providing the ground troops. The inference was obvious. The Army and the Marines were the services that had most to gain or lose in this discussion. Both generals indicated their agreement with the proposal. Seemingly deep in thought, President Johnson turned his back on them for a minute or so, then suddenly, losing the calm, patient demeanor he had maintained throughout the meeting, he whirled to face them and exploded.
I almost dropped the map. He screamed obscenities, he cursed them personally, he ridiculed them for coming to his office with their "military advice." Noting that it was he who was carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders, he called them filthy names - sh _ heads, dumbsh_s, pompous assh_s - and used "the F-word" as an adjective more freely than a Marine at boot camp. He then accused them of trying to pass the buck for World War III to him. It was unnerving. It was degrading.
After the tantrum, he lapsed back into the calm, relaxed manner he had previously adopted and again folded his arms. It was as though he had punished them, cowed them, and now he would control them. Using soft-spoken profanities, he said something to the effect that they all now knew that he did not care about their military advice. Totally deprecating their abilities, he added that he did expect their help and wanted each to change places with him and assume that five incompetents had just made these, "military recommendations." He told them that he was going to let them go through what he had to go through when idiots gave him stupid recommendations, adding that he had the whole damn world to worry about, and it was time to, "see what kind of guts you have." The silence was overpowering. The tension was palpable. Finally, he turned to General Wheeler and demanded that Wheeler say what he would do if he were the President of the United States.
General Wheeler took a deep breath before answering. He was not an easy man to shake, and what he said set the tenor for the others. Lyndon Johnson was an unbelievably strong personality, a venal and vindictive man. They all knew that. They had known that the stakes were high coming in, and they now knew that McNamara had told Johnson beforehand about the proposal, including, in all probability, his own views and disagreement with the Chiefs. The meeting had been a charade.
Looking President Johnson squarely in the eye, General Wheeler told him that he understood the tremendous pressure and sense of responsibility Johnson felt. He added that probably no other President in history had been confronted with an up-or-down decision of this magnitude and further cushioned his remarks by saying that no matter how much about the presidency he did understand, there were many things about it that only one human being could understand. General Wheeler closed his remarks by saying something very close to, “You, Mr. President, are that only human being. With that thought in mind, I cannot take your place, think your thoughts, know all you know, and tell you what I would do if I were you. I can't do it, Mr. President. No man can honestly do it. Respectfully, sir, it is your decision, alone."
Apparently unmoved, Johnson asked each of the other Chiefs the same question. One at a time, they supported General Wheeler and his rationale. My arms felt as though they were about to break. The map now weighed a ton, but the end was obviously near. Lyndon Johnson was nothing if not a consummate actor. General Greene was the last to speak. When he finished, President Johnson looked sad, then he came to life, yelling and cursing, again using language that even a Marine seldom hears. He told them he was disgusted with their naive approach toward him, that he was not going to let some military idiots talk him into World War Ill. It ended when he ordered them to "get the hell out of my office!"
The Joint Chiefs of Staff had done their duty. They knew that the nation was making a strategic military error, and despite the rebuffs of their civilian masters in the Pentagon, they had insisted on presenting their views of the problem and recommending solutions to the highest authority. They had done so, and they had lost. So, too, had thousands of other Americans. As Admiral McDonald and I drove back to the Pentagon, he turned and remarked that he had known tough days in his life, and sad ones as well, but "... this day has got to be the worst experience I can ever imagine."
The U.S. involvement in Vietnam lasted another ten years. The irony is that it began to end only when President Richard Nixon, after backstage maneuvering on the international scene, did precisely what the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended to President Johnson in 1965. Johnson had lacked something. Maybe it was foresight or boldness. Maybe it was the sophistication and understanding required to deal with complex international issues when the moment arose. And since he was clearly a bully, maybe what he lacked was courage. We shall never know. But had General Wheeler and the others been given a fair hearing, and had their recommendations been given serious study, it is entirely possible that 55,000 or so of America's sons would not have been killed in a war that its major architect, Robert Strange McNamara, now considers to have been a tragic mistake.