Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XV, Germany and Berlin

165. Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Senator Russell Long¹

Washington, September 1, 1966, 10:07 a.m.

[Here follows a discussion of tax legislation.]

LBJ: This thing y’all did yesterday really murdered us on NATO.² I want to give you the views. I don’t want to change your views because I know how you felt since you were born about this thing, but this playing President up there with these statements wthout my knowing it really gets me in a hell of a shape.

And let me tell you the facts. I hadn’t finished analyzing Fulbright’s program in Thailand and Mansfield’s suggestions on de Gaulle as commander in chief until this damn thing hit me in the face and nobody had ever even mentioned it to me. You’ve got to call me and let me know sometime that they are getting ready to be commander in chief for an hour or so.

Now here is what we’ve done now. I’ve just had a war with the British for two weeks now asking them, “Please don’t open your mouth until you can sit down and talk to us,” because they have got to make reductions with their problems there. But I want to put them to where we make reductions when they do, and we take it into account what the French are doing, and that we satisfy the Germans that we are just not pulling out completely so they don’t either start a complete rearmament or blow up. And that poor devil that is supporting us and is buying enough here to permit me to keep my people there, he’s down in the polls now to 30 percent because he’s just having every—Bobby Kennedy and the world after him over there. They’re just chewing him to pieces and saying that he’s a satellite of Lyndon Johnson’s and he’s giving these Dutchmen money over here and that they don’t need to do it, and so on and so forth. And I’ve said to him, “Now you come over here and don’t you do anything—you’ve got to keep your commitment to me to reimburse me for every dime I spend.”

Now, all at that time, I had Rusk notify the Russians that, “Would you be interested in reducing some of your 22 divisions if we would make a corresponding reduction in NATO?” And they came back with a little indication—no commitment—emphasize, no commitment. But we got a response, a little feeler, that we thought was good.

So we set up to send a special mission to see the British and to try to have John McCloy—he’s out of town, but he was Commissioner in Germany and he has the confidence of all the German factions. And he’s on vacation in Canada. So I sent a special messenger to him to get him to talk to the Germans, to try to get him back from vacation, preparatory to Rusk saying to Gromyko, when he comes to the United Nations, that if you consider removing some of your 22 divisions, we’ll consider removing some of ours. And by God, right in the middle of it, so far as I can see without doing a bit of good to anybody, we’ve got every Democratic leader in the Senate, all 13 of them, to serve notice on the President that, by God, they ought to reduce. Now, I’m just an old Johnson City boy, but when I’m playing bridge and I show the other fellow my whole hand, I can’t make a very good deal with him. And I wish that on these international things that have such terrible consequences, where you are committing me to meet with de Gaulle it puts me in a hell of an embarrassing position—I know you can’t do anything about it. I’m just illustrating to you, though, my position—and where we are using Thailand bases³ or if we don’t, we’re going to have to send them from Okinawa or Guam or something. And they are exposing those, with the committee wanting to have hearings there. And John Stennis is running a sideshow over there saying to the world that we are so goddamned weak, we can’t do anything and making them all think that if they just hold out a little longer, these goddamned vultures will eat me up here in this country and won’t let me stand. He’s got Rusk on television. And then, by God, the fourth thing, for the Policy Committee to hit me. I don’t know what kind of organization we got in our party. I don’t know if we can ever get anybody elected. Do you see my point?

RL: Well, Mr. President, let me just talk for 20 seconds. These boys had Rusk up here. They had McNamara up here. They had McGhee up here and they talked to them at great length. And frankly, those fellows just made a pitiful case. Now, we boys down here have no business hauling the President before our Policy Committee to cross-examine him. If you want to talk to us, why, of course, any time you want to send for us, we’ll come down there, but—

LBJ: I never heard of the Policy … I never heard of this. This is the first time I ever heard of the Democratic Policy Committee, by God, getting in to being commander in chief. I thought it was a scheduling committee, and I never looked upon it, and I served on it a long time.

Now, Mansfield wrote me this letter. Now I get these proposals from him. Now I wish he could be Secretary of State for a while. But I’ve read 800 suggestions and I’ve never found eight of them worth a—very much. But I read them and I study them and I look at them every damn day. I’ve had three this week. I’ve got Thailand on the cooker with Fulbright. I’ve got the de Gaulle big meeting. I wish he would let me run my own schedule. But, and then I’ve got this one here.

But the moment I got his letter, I picked up the phone and called Rusk and McNamara and got them in and said, “Now, Mansfield is playing Secretary of State. Will y’all get up there right quick and will you tell him two or three things. First, this is desperately unwise. So let’s just let him know it’s unwise. It doesn’t contribute a thing to the United States. It’s almost a shot in the back of some goddamned boy because it divides us. That’s the first thing. It’s unwise. The second thing is that whatever we do, we’ve got to do collectively. We want to talk to these other people. And we’ve got to let them know if they pull out, we’re going to pull out. And we’ve also got to let the enemy know that if we pull down, he ought to pull down. So let them know that, number two. Then, number three, finally, let them know that we have these things underway now working feverishly. We’re trying to see how many of these folks we can bring home. We’re trying to see how many we can get the Germans to add to it. And we’re trying to see what the French are ultimately going to do. We’re trying to see whether the British have really got to pull down 15,000 or whether they can move them across the line into Britain and still do the same thing. And let them know that this is not going to be handled in The New York Times! And a goddamned sense of Congress resolution ain’t worth a shit unless this President has some respect for the sense of it. And all it can do is notify every enemy that we’re just a bunch of un-unified folks running off like Bert Wheeler, and Jeanette Rankin, in every goddamned direction!”

So they went and did that, and they came back and reported to me. I don’t know if you were at the meeting or not. But they reported to me that the committee understood that, and that they said that no action was going to be taken. They’d just hold it, in the light of what they told them, where it was. So yesterday morning when I got word from a Republican—I’m sorry to say that there wasn’t one Democratic Senator of the 13 that would tell their own President what to do—they called me and said, “We think this is disastrous here, and what are you going to do about it?” I said, “I’ve never heard of it.” So they said, “Well, they’re getting ready to file it at 10:30.”

I immediately called Rusk and said, “Rusk, will you get a hold of Mansfield? Tell him not that you want to talk to him on the phone. Tell him you want to come see him. And you get up there and tell him that you’ve got conferences scheduled this month with the Russians on a trade-out deal where they will remove some of their 22 divisions so let’s don’t say what we ought to do until we can kind of trade with them. That’s one. Show him the cables I sent to Wilson from the Ranch last Friday.⁴ Tell him not to leak it, but show it to him,” and so forth.

Then I called McNamara and I said, “I know Dick Russell’s got too much sense for this. I just know he’s always wanting to be out of there and he’s really an isolationist at heart, just 100 percent so far as this group is concerned. Always has been. Was when I was the Leader. But I know he’s got too much sense when this is going on to take the ball. So McNamara, you go see Russell. And then Symington’s gone crazy on balance of payments. He’s just a nut on the question and get a hold of him.”

So Rusk called me back and said, “Mansfield said he doesn’t want to see me. He’s already made up his mind.They’re already going to do it. No reason. I told him that I’d understood that he told me he wasn’t. Why, he told me, ‘That wouldn’t make any difference, we have.’”

McNamara called me back and said, “Russell agrees that we oughtn’t to be taking it up in the light of these things, but he says they got to file it but he’ll try to do what he can to keep them from acting on it.” Then Symington called back and said, no, he wants to be Secretary of the Treasury for a day or two and play with it and, under this theory of balance of payments, this is really going to save us a hell of a lot of money. Now it may next year, could affect the balance of payments. This year we got a firm sign-on from them, and unless they weasel out of it, which we are afraid the Germans might make Erhard do, we are going to get every damn dollar we spend. But we’re going to have to modify it by letting them buy a little space equipment and something besides strictly military—

RL: Mr. President, assuming you are right about this, I just hate to say it, but assuming you are right, your Cabinet boys and your executive boys just did a very poor job in getting your side of the argument—

LBJ: May do it …

RL:—across.

LBJ: May do it. But I think that Rusk and McNamara are both reasonably articulate. But it may be that and just, in this instance—but hell, I can’t help it. But you see the problem one man has got in trying to run it. And I think we ought to really understand that if they’ve lost confidence in me and they don’t want me to handle Thailand—and I think it’s just awful for us to be going through the excruciating experiences on television, talking about the weaknesses of our forces and the strengths. And Strom Thurmond and John Stennis, and then Bill Fulbright handing them down the other day, trying to browbeat them on Thailand. And then the Democratic committee hitting us here on what we are doing on NATO. I just think they ought to get their views [Sanitized—Donor’s Deed of Gift] come down here and talk to me but, by God, don’t do it in the papers! Don’t, don’t shoot me in the back. It’s worse than old Acheson going over in a conference to the Foreign Relations Committee⁵ meeting before, because it sure don’t help the country. And I just got to have you or somebody to kind of give a little leadership.

The first place, if I wanted to reform things and get some action, I’d start in the United States Senate, instead of working on the Executive. Because I think that I’m ready to receive their views, to listen to them, to evaluate them, to carefully consider them and so forth. But I don’t see that they did a bit of good by these damn—introducing the resolutions and speech. I don’t believe it will be. And anyway, if they do do it, it ought to be after we both understand it. And then I can tell Wilson I can’t control my folks. They want to go out and make this pitch. I’m not going to pay a damn bit of attention to it. But you go on. And I can tell the Russians that I’m not in the position to make any agreements and I’m helpless. But I want you to really give a little thought to it and try to put yourself in … The Constitution, I think, makes one thing clear, that the Commander in Chief is the President, and these things, he can’t fight a war from Thailand bases and explain to the Soviet Union every day why he’s doing it.

RL: Well, as far as the Thailand thing is concerned, I’m 100 percent with you. And with regard to this part of it, Mr. President, to be fair to us, McNamara told this group down here that in his judgment that the fact that the______was raising hell about the fact that these other guys had not delivered on their commitment, that not a single country over there has done what they had promised to do, would in some respects help him to get better cooperation from those people. And frankly, that’s one point that they discussed several times. Now, as far as coming to you about the thing, their thought was, “Well, should we go tell the President,” and the reaction of every man there except one was to say “Well gee, if you go tell the President, he’s going to say don’t do it, And then if you do it, he’s going to feel that you just went out and just deliberately kicked him and—”

LBJ: What do you think I think now?

RL:—[inaudible] here’s what we think about matters and—

LBJ: They told me what they thought in that damn, long-winded letter, three or four pages. I know what they thought. And what do you think I thought about it when everybody in the world says that the Committee unanimously—anyway you see my viewpoint, you see my problem, and I know you love me and I know your views and I know we differ. If we didn’t, we’d want the same wife and we’d all want to live in the same place. Of course, we’re going to have opinions. I just want you to be my floor leader and kind of understand that I’ve got to have a little bit of help up there, and I went out and picked Mansfield a good many years ago to be Whip to try to balance the party problems there. And I know that he feels that he can’t really be very … Well, anyway, you saw your daddy Governor and you saw his floor leaders and you know what a President’s got to have. And I don’t know who my leaders are. I don’t know how in the hell I can get any help. I don’t know who is defending me. I know that I like every man in the Senate, and I want to work with them and I want to help them. But these sense resolutions, I don’t believe are going to change the course of things very much and I’m more anxious than any man on that goddamn committee on balance of payments to get troops out. But I sure as hell don’t want to get them out with 22 divisions there and kick off World War III. And every damn man on that resolution will run and hide, by God, when you say “You kicked this thing off, you pulled a goddamned Chamberlain and you ran out and said you were going to pull out, you’re not interested in it anymore. You refused to fortify Guam or you refused to do this.” And I know what is happening. I’m not one of these folks that’s just sucked in by the Russians. I don’t believe in the Fulbright, Mansfield, Symington whole goddamned theory, that it’s all over over there. I don’t think so at all. I think those sons of bitches want to eat us any day they can. And I think the biggest notice you can do is just say “Uncle Sam is tired and wants to come home. We’re going to follow John Stennis and Fulbright.” And I think those sons of bitches will do worse than what Hitler did. I may be wrong …

RL: Mr. President, what I’d suggest you do, and I think it would be best not to do it today or tomorrow, but sometime during the next week or so, I think it would be good, if not the whole bunch, get about six or eight of those fellows who are on that group down there, and give them your views on it and I think that will quiet things down.

LBJ: All right, I’ll do that. And you kind of give me quietly, without telling another human, because you know the envies and jealousies in this city. If anybody sees I’m even speaking to you, why they think I’m undermining them or affecting their prestige or running under the Pope or something. But you give me the group that you think it would be wise to talk to, whether it would be, who would speak up, whether it would be Pastore, or whether it would be Muskie, or whether it would be Russell—

RL: I don’t think it would serve much point to talk to Dick Russell. His views are so, have been fixed for so long. And he, incidentally, had no interest in taking the leadership in this matter either.

LBJ: He told McNamara that he agreed it wasn’t going to do any good, that he wanted them out and he believed they ought to come out. But he didn’t think we ought to be doing this while we’re trying to negotiate ourselves out. See, we all agree with the general purpose. There is no argument about that. We would like ourselves to get as many as we could out. I tried to get them out of Korea. First thing I did when I came to be President, I said two things I’m going to do: to bring some folks home from NATO and bring some home from Korea or make them put up. Well, when I started looking, suppose I pulled them out of Korea, I couldn’t have the Korean divisions over there and that would be an invitation to show we’re weaker there. And if I pulled them from NATO, I might let the Russians start. Kennedy, by God, showed a little weakness in Vienna. And Khrushchev said “Well, we’ll just move on you this year.” So then he had to send me to Germany and he had to march his troops through the gates. He had to cross the Wall and he had to call up all of the reserves. I don’t want to have to do that. Because, show a little weakness, and if those sons of bitches think you’re weak, they’re like a country dog—you stand still, they’ll chew you to death, if you run, they’ll eat your ass out. And I’m dealing with them every day. [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] And I just don’t believe that John Stennis’ staff and Stu Symington, I just, I don’t want … Well anyway, they haven’t got the job. Now, if they want me to turn it over to Humphrey or they want Bobby Kennedy to run it, why that’s something else in ’68. But I sure as hell, during this period, don’t want to get us in World War III. And I can’t think of a better way in the world to get us in it right now than to let the Chinese think we won’t fight in Asia, and let the Russians think we won’t fight in Europe, and that they can do what Hitler thought he could do. We just can’t let them think that. And that’s why I had to say yesterday that this is not United States Government policy at all. And I said to every goddamned Embassy, I just said, now Woodrow Wilson had his Senators, Roosevelt had his Wheeler’s, and I’ve got some talking, too. But don’t you think for a goddamned minute I’m moving one man. Now they can cut off the appropriations and they can do anything they want to do. But I goddamn sure am not going to say to the Russians at this stage of the game, when the North Vietnamese are sitting there talking to them now, at this minute, trying to make up their plans what they are going to do in Asia, that, by God, I’m going to cede them Europe by default and come home.

So you think about what I’ve said, you consider it and then you kind of give me a little advice, even if you have to oppose me.

RL: I guess I’ll do that.

LBJ: God bless you.

RL: Thank you.

1. Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and Long, September 1, 1966, 10:07 a.m., Tape F66.22, Side A, PNO 1. Secret. This transcript was prepared by the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume.
2. On August 31, Senator Mike Mansfield (D.-Wyo.) together with 12 other Senators offered a non-binding resolution (S. Res. 300) based on Senate Democratic Policy Committee recommendations that included unspecified cuts in the size of U.S. forces in Europe. For text of the resolution, see The New York Times, September 4, 1966. President Johnson commented on the resolution at his September 8 press conference; see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966, Book II, pp. 998–999. The resolution did not come to a vote.
3. The New York Times reported in its September 1 editions that Senator Fulbright would call hearings on September 19 to study the presence of thousands of U.S. soldiers in Thailand. In making his announcement, Fulbright had described base locations and operational activities of these forces.
4. See Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. XIII, Document 198.
5. For text of Acheson’s April 26 statement, see U.S. Senate, Committee on Governmental Operations, Atlantic Alliance, Part 1, 89th Congress, 2d Session. (Washington, 1966)