Office of the Historian

114. Diary Entry by the Ambassador to the United Kingdom (Bruce)1

Washington, February 13, 1965.

In George Ball’s office at 10 a.m. I went over papers on Vietnam, to be submitted later today to the President. [Here follow two sentences unrelated to Vietnam.]

At 1:30 I met Bob McNamara, Mac Bundy, Tommy Thompson and George Ball in the Situation Room at the White House, before we went up to see the President.2

The President was cross about newspaper leaks. He said his decisions were announced in the New York Times before he made them. He wanted his principal officers to enforce rules against divulgences from their Departments, also to report to him the gist of conversations they had with journalists on substantive matters.

He told us of his telephone conversation with Harold Wilson,3 in the course of which he remarked “We’ve got no time to be flying back and forth across the Atlantic with our shirt-tails hanging out.”

[Here follows a paragraph unrelated to Vietnam.]

After much exposition, the President agreed to the next steps of Vietnam policy. The three salient provisions were: (1) Intensification of the pacification program; (2) Measured, but effective, action below the 19th parallel, against military targets in North Vietnam—to be reported to the United Nations Security Council. Action will cease when aggression stops; (3) U.S. will press for talks to bring an end to aggression. Ambassador Stevenson will take this up with the Security Council.

It was decided to instruct Max Taylor to secure the support of the South Vietnam Government to the above. The President is to explain the policy in a speech next week, probably on Thursday.4

[Here follows information unrelated to Vietnam.]

  1. Source: Department of State, Bruce Diaries: Lot 64 D 327, January-March 1965. Secret.↩
  2. The President’s Daily Diary shows that he met from 1:56 to 4 p.m. with McNamara, Ball, McGeorge Bundy, and Bruce. Thompson is not listed as present, but Bruce’s Diary suggests otherwise. (Johnson Library) No other record of the discussion has been found. Apparently the President reviewed Ball’s memoranda of February 13 at that meeting (Document 113 and footnote 2 thereto). Ball recalled that in a meeting with Bundy and Thompson, the President read Ball’s memorandum quickly, asked Ball to go through it point-by-point, and returned the memorandum without comment. (Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern, pp. 391–392)↩
  3. See Document 103.↩
  4. The speech was not given; see Document 124, paragraphs 5–7.↩