Guns or Butter

by Bernstein, Irving;

  5. Carson, Silent Spring, 39; James M. Fallows, The Water Lords (New York: Grossman, 1971), ch. 1, quote at 18; Noel M. Burns, Erie: The Lake That Survived (Totown, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1985), 5, 22–25, 223–25; see also Public Health Service, Report on Pollution of Lake Erie and Its Tributaries, pt. 1, Lake Erie (July 1965), and International Joint Commission, Pollution: Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and the International Section of the St. Lawrence River (1970). The sketch of Muskie is based on Current Biography, 1968, 276–78; Political Profiles: The Johnson Years, 447–49; Edmund S. Muskie, Journeys (Garden City: Doubleday, 1972), 31; David Nevin, Muskie of Maine (New York: Random House, 1972), ch. 5, quotes at 31, 104–5; Theo Lippman, Jr., and D. C. Hansen, Muskie (New York: Norton, 1971), ch. 7; Frederic N. Cleaveland and associates, Congress and Urban Problems (Washington: Brookings, 1969), 259–60.

  6. CQ Almanac, 1965, 743–50; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, I: 161–63, II: 1034–35; Task Forces on the Quality of the Environment, Nov. 21, 1966, pp. 3, 4, 5, 7, Dec. 1, 1967, pp. 6–7, 12, Gordon to Wilson, March 6, Cohen to O’Brien, March 18, Hughes to Moyers, April 8, Wilson to O’Brien, Aug. 23, Udall to Califano, Dec. 30, 1965, Califano to Johnson, Jan. 14, Udall to Johnson, May 6,1966, Legislative Background Water Pollution File, Deutch to Udall, June 30, July 20, 1965, Confidential File LE HE 8–4, Udall to Johnson, Sept. 2, Califano to Johnson, Sept. 8, 1965, EX HE 8–1 File, Gardner to Califano, Dec. 27, 1965, Schultze to Johnson, Jan. 11, Water Pollution Organization, Jan. 11, White to Johnson, Jan. 12, Muskie to Udall, Feb. 7, Califano to Johnson, Feb. 18, 19, 26, 1966, with attachments, EX FG 165.1A File, Lawrence F. O’Brien, Oral History Interview, XIII-2, all Johnson Library. For enforcement of the water program, see David Zwick and Marcy Benstock, Water Wasteland (New York: Grossman, 1971), chs. 3, 14; Walter A. Rosenbaum, The Politics of Environmental Concern (New York: Praeger, 1973), chs. 5, 6; Clarence Davies III and Barbara S. Davies, The Politics of Pollution (Indianapolis: Pegasus, 1975), 27–44, 198–218; Administrative History of the Department of the Interior, 9, 12, 61, Ackley to Califano, Further Report of the Task Force on Pollution Abatement, Dec. 1965, Davies to Director, Nov. 23, 1966, all Johnson Library.

  7. The general studies are James A. Krier and Edmund Ursin, Pollution and Policy (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1977), quote at 172; Davies and Davies, Politics of Pollution, 44–49; John C. Esposito, Vanishing Air (New York: Grossman, 1970); and, on the technical side, Charles T. Stewart, Jr., Air Pollution, Human Health, and Public Policy (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1979). A. J. Haagen-Smit, “The Air Pollution Problem in Los Angeles,” Engineering and Science (Dec. 1950): 7–13, and “Chemistry and Physiology of Los Angeles Smog,” Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (June 1952): 1342–46; Frederic N. Cleaveland and Associates, Congress and Urban Problems (Washington: Brookings, 1969), 224—78; James L. Sundquist, Politics and Policy (Washington: Brookings, 1968), ch. 8; Steps Toward Clean Air, Report of the Special subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, 88th Cong., 2d sess. (Oct. 1964); CQ Almanac, 1965, 780–86; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, I: 163, II: 1066–67; HEW, Office of the Secretary, Background Information Concerning Crankcase Emission (Blowby) Control and Air Pollution, Aug. 7, 1961, Task Force on Air Pollution from Motor Vehicles, Memorandum to the Committee on the Use of Economic Incentives for Pollution Abatement, Aug. 1, 1965, Legislative Background Clean Air File, O’Brien to Califano, Dec. 29, with attachments, particularly Markley to Wilson, Dec. 17, 1965, EX HE 8–1 File, all Johnson Library.

  8. Esposito, Vanishing Air, 204; Public Papers, Johnson, 1967, I: 93–97, II: 1067—70; Califano to Johnson, Jan. 17, Johnson to Watson, Feb. 3, Califano to Johnson, April 20, Gardner to Califano, May 19, Zimmerman to Levinson, May 31, Califano to Johnson, May 31, July 11, Cohen to Johnson, Aug. 17, 1967, all EX HE 8–1 File, Califano to Ackley, Sept. 22, 1966, Legislative Background Clean Air File, Lee to Califano, Dec. 6, 1967, Califano Papers, all Johnson Library.

  9. The most important source is Lewis L. Gould, Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment (Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas Press, 1988), particularly chs. 7, 8, quotes at 7, 144. Liz Carpenter, Oral History Interview, 4–5, Johnson Library; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, I: 8, 582–84, II: 1074; Liz Carpenter, Ruffles and Flourishes (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), 242; Beauty for America, Proceedings of the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, May 24–25, 1965; Elizabeth Brenner Drew, “Lady Bird’s Beauty Bill,” Atlantic Monthly (Dec. 1965): 68–72; Helen Leavitt, Superhighway-Superhoax (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), ch. 2; Califano, Johnson, 81–85, Johnson quote at 84; Highway Beautification, H.R., Hearings, Subcommittee on Roads, Committee on Public Works, 89th Cong., 1st sess. (1965); Califano to Johnson with attachments, Sept. 12, 1965, Wilson Papers, Lawrence F. O’Brien, Oral History Interview, XII-25, both Johnson Library; Cong. Record, Oct. 7, 1965, pp. 26252–55, 26291, 26306, 26321–32; Charles F. Floyd and Peter J. Shedd, Highway Beautification: The Environmental Movement’s Greatest Failure (Boulder: Westview, 1979), authors’ quote at 113, Stafford quote at xiii; Clifton W. Enfield, “Federal Highway Beautification,” in John W. Houck, ed., Outdoor Advertising, History and Regulation (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1969), 149–82.

  10. Krier and Ursin, Pollution and Policy, 252; Task Force on the Quality of the Environment, Oct. 1, 1967, pp. 1–2, Johnson Library. Stewart Udall recounted the conflict with LBJ over the lands set aside in his Oral History Interview, IV, Johnson Library, and the quotes are his. See also the oral histories of Edward C. Crafts, II-7–10, and Califano, V-33–34; Public Papers, Johnson, 1968–69, II: 1264, 1369; Johnson, Vantage Point, 562–63; Johnson, Diary, 772.

  Chapter 11. Failure: The Repeal of Right-to-Work

  1. Paul Sultan, Right-to-Work: A Study in Conflict (Los Angeles: Institute of Industrial Relations, UCLA, 1958); Harry A. Millis and Emily Clark Brown, From the Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1950), 326–29, 438–40; 61 Statutes at Large 136 (1947); Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), 288.

  2. CQ Almanac, 1965, 818–31; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, I: 6, 555; Wilson to O’Brien, May 5, Humphrey to O’Brien, July 30, O’Brien to Johnson, Sept. 21, with Biemiller to O’Brien, Sept. 21 attached, Wirtz to Johnson, Sept. 24, 1965, all GEN LE/JL File, Johnson Library; Neil MacNeil, Dirksen: Portrait of a Public Man (New York: World, 1970), 264–65; Califano, Johnson, Johnson quote on Mansfield at 44.

  3. CQ Almanac, 1966, 837–40; Califano to Johnson, Nov. 28, with attached Wirtz to Johnson, Nov. 25, 1966, GEN LE/JL File, Lawrence F. O’Brien, Oral History Interview, XIII-19–23, XVIII-6, both Johnson Library.

  4. Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, I: 121–22, II: 828–29; CQ Alamanac, 1965, 613–19.

  Chapter 12. Unhinging the State of the Union

  1. Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Oral History Interview, 1–1–13, XLI-1–2, Johnson Library, covers his background; he discusses the 1966 State of the Union address at length in XXIV, XL, and LVII and more broadly in his book The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, chs. 5–8; Califano interview by author, June 6,1994; Jack Valenti, A Very Human President (New York: Norton, 1975), 84–87; Richard N. Goodwin, Remembering America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 423–24; Public Papers, Johnson, 1966, 1: 3–12. Eric Goldman, the White House historian, had a talent for missing the bus. On July 9, 1966, he sent Johnson a memorandum on the “axiom of American history that wars tend to throw back progressive programs.” He pointed to this reaction following every major modern war. “The Civil War was followed by Grantism; World War I by Harding; World War II by the 80th Congress; and the Korean War by Eisenhowerism.” Both Woodrow Wilson and FDR took this axiom into account when they asked for declarations of war. Goldman was historically correct and this was a powerful argument against going into Vietnam in the first place. But that decision had been made a year earlier. Goldman now offered to work up statements on palliatives, such as putting Vietnam “in a larger setting,” a Four Freedoms type of declaration, and short remarks answering critics. Jo
hnson approved of his doing so, but nothing came of it. Shortly, Goldman left the White House after a nasty rift with the President and struck back with the academic atom bomb, a critical book. Goldman to Johnson, July 9, 1966, Vietnam Reference File, Johnson Library; Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Knopf, 1969), ch. 17.

  Chapter 13. Vietnam: Sliding into the Quagmire

  1. The useful general works on Vietnam are Stanley Karnow, Vietnam, a History (rev. ed., New York: Penguin, 1991); David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Penguin, 1983); Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly (London: Abacus, 1985); and George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (New York: Knopf, 1986). Karnow is especially good on the overthrow of the Diem regime. There is an exhaustive history in the Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), II: ch. 4, with supporting documents at 727–93. Daniel Ellsberg, Papers on the War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), 28; Neil Sheehan, A Bright and Shining Lie (New York: Random House, 1988), 174–75, 352, 366; Kennedy quote on Krulak-Mendenhall report in William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1986), II: 170–71, Oct. 6, 1963 cable to Lodge at 191, the Lodge quote at 198; Kennedy comment about Mansfield from Karnow, Vietnam, 284—85; the Salinger quote from BDM Corporation Study, vol. VI, U.S. Domestic Factors, p. 3–1, Johnson Library; Public Papers, Kennedy, 1963, 624, 696; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 997; Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Bantam, 1965), 735, 741. On the Halberstam flap: On October 21, 1963, Sulzberger had lunch at the White House and Kennedy told him, “I wish like hell that you’d get Halberstam out of there.” The publisher phoned his editors in New York, who said that Halberstam was tired of Vietnam and wanted to come home. They planned to send Hedrick Smith to Saigon to replace him. Sulzberger had dinner with Reston that evening, who said the Times could not buckle under that kind of pressure and Sulzberger agreed. Poor Halberstam was stuck in Vietnam. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 636–37.

  2. Clifford, Counsel, 381; Kearns, Johnson, 259–60; David Wise, The Politics of Lying (New York: Random House, 1973), 19–22; Karnow, Vietnam, Johnson quote on “a little pissant country” 411; Halberstam, Best and Brightest, Johnson quote on “raggety ass” country at 620; Thomas Powers, The War at Home (New York: Grossman, 1973), xvii; George W. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern (New York: Norton, 1982), 336.

  3. On the American Establishment: Godfrey Hodgson, America in Our Time (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), ch. 6; Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 25–32. On McGeorge Bundy: Halberstam, Best and Brightest, 56—81 includes all quotes; Milton Viorst, Hustlers and Heroes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971), 266–82; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 420—21; Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper, 1947). On Robert McNamara: Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993), in general; Halberstam, Best and Brightest, chs. 12, 13; John M. Logsdon and Alain Dupas, “Was the Race to the Moon Real?” Scientific American (June 1944): 37.

  4. Tom Wells, The War Within (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1994), 9; Pentagon Papers, III: ch. 2; Gibbons, U.S. and Vietnam, II: chs. 4–5, quote at 302; Karnow, Vietnam, ch. 10; John Galloway, The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Cranbury: Associated Univ. Presses, 1970); Anthony Austin, The President’s War (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1971), O’Donnell quote at 30; Eugene D. Windchy, Tonkin Gulf (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971); James B. and Sybil B. Stockdale, In Love and War (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 21, 23, 32; Public Papers, Johnson, 1963–64, 926–28, 930–32; Wise, Politics of Lying, 43, 295. In the present state of knowledge concerning the alleged naval encounter in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964, Admiral Stockdale’s testimony deserves most credit because he was the only direct witness. Nevertheless, controversy resonates. In a 1991 seminar on Vietnam at the Johnson Library, Tonkin Gulf was a major topic of discussion among 22 prominent members of the Johnson administration. It was published. In addition, Lawrence E. Levinson, who had been an aide to McNamara and who prepared a chronology at the time, wrote a newspaper article on the incident. These authorities agreed, of course, that there had been a North Vietnamese attack on August 2. The disagreement was confined to the alleged event on August 4. Mac Bundy stated that on the morning of that day the President told him, “ ‘Get me a resolution, because I’m going to make a speech about it tonight. …’ The two attacks together gave him the opportunity for something which he had perceived as desirable for a long time.” Ray Cline, who handled the intercepts for the CIA, said, “You couldn’t demonstrate that anything happened on the night of the fourth.” Chester Cooper, who was in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House, stated that the “stuff that was coming in … was absolutely incomprehensible.” General Bruce Palmer, who was with the Joint Chiefs, stated that “no second attack ever occurred.” These statements support Stockdale. Hanoi, of course, has consistently agreed. Nevertheless, Levinson urges this caution: “Perhaps the most intriguing clues of all are locked in the files of the National Security Agency. These are a series of still highly classified radio-signal intercepts used by the administration officials as the ‘clinching proof that our destroyers were attacked during the evening of Aug. 4.” All the efforts of historians to persuade NSA to open its file have failed. Unless they are made available and confirm the contrary, there is no option but to stick with Stockdale. Johnson Library, The Johnson Years: A Vietnam Round-table, Ted Gittinger, ed. (Austin: Johnson Library, 1993), 30, 31, 34, 159; Sacramento Bee, Aug. 1, 1993.

  5. Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Oral History Interview, XVIII-24, Johnson Library; Karnow, Vietnam, 418. The evolution of the Working Group report on Vietnam is treated exhaustively in Pentagon Papers, HI: 210–51, supporting documents at 588–691, quotes at 208, 212, 216, 217, 622. Kahin, Intervention, Taylor quote at 237; Ball, Past, quote at 388; Shapley, Promise and Power, 313; Gibbons, U.S. and Vietnam, II: 213, 250–51. Ball sent copies of the Oct. 5, 1964, memo to McGeorge Bundy, McNamara, and Rusk. They were “dead set against the views that I presented and uninterested in the point-by-point discussion I had hoped to provoke.” Their main concern was that it might leak. Later Ball said that McNamara was “absolutely horrified. He treated it like a poisonous snake, … as next to treason.” Johnson did not see the Ball brief until a month later and only as a result of the intervention of Bill Moyers.

  6. Wise, Politics of Lying, 48, 295, 344; Charles M. Haar, Oral History Interview, 35–44, Johnson Library; Kai Bird, The Chairman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), Johnson quotes at 578, 580, Alsop quote at 580; Halberstam, Best and Brightest, 641–42; Bundy to Johnson, Jan. 27, NSF, NSC History, Feb. 7, 9, NSF Memos to President, Wheeler to McNamara, April 6, McCone to Rusk et al., April 2, 1965, NSF, National Security Action Memorandum No. 328, April 6, McNamara to Johnson, July 20, Bundy to Johnson, July 24, 1965, all Johnson Library; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, II: 794–99.

  7. Johnson, Vantage Point, 153; Thomas C. Thayer, War Without Fronts (Boulder: Westview, 1985), xxiii, 3–4, 34, 46, 79, 105; Michael Herr, Dispatches (New York: Avon, 1978), 3, 14, 19–20, 38–39, 47, 54, 61–62; Karnow, Vietnam, 361, 450—52, 454; Neil Sheehan, Two Cities: Hanoi and Saigon (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992), 19; John P. Roche, Oral History Interview, 20, Johnson Library; William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), 83, 144–46; Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam (New York: Atheneum, 1994), 34, 59; Pentagon Papers, IV: 136–38, 477–78.

  8. This section depends heavily on Shapley, Promise and Power, chs. 19, 20, quotes at 407, 408, 425–26, 428–33, 485–86; Johnson, Vantage Point, 20; Clifford, Counsel, 456–57; Gelb to Clifford, Jan. 15, 1969, Pentagon Papers, I: xv-xvi, IV: 424–538; Califano, Johnson, 264.

  Chapter 14. Launching the Great Inflation

  1. Arthur M. Okun, Inflation: The Problems It Creates and the
Policies It Requires (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1970), 41; David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Penguin, 1983), 732–33; Johnson, Vantage Point, 438–46; Wilbur Mills, 1–21, Gardner Ackley, 11–14–15, Walter Heller, 11–44, Charles L. Schultze, 11–14–19, all Oral History Interviews, Johnson Library; Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993), 367–74, quote at 373.

  2. Califano provides a graphic account in Johnson, ch. 5, quotes at 91, 97, 99–100; a more sedate version is James L. Cochrane, “The Johnson Administration: Moral Suasion Goes to War,” in Crauford C. Goodwin, ed., Exhortation and Controls (Washington: Brookings, 1975), 215–39. See also Economic Report of the President, 1962, 189; Bernstein, Promises Kept, 133–37; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, II: 969; Gardney Ackley, Oral History Interview, 1–24, Johnson Library.

  3. Walter Heller, 11–40–41, 44, Kermit Gordon, 11–15, Joseph W. Barr, 1–22, all Oral History Interviews, Harris to Moyers, Dec. 16, 1965, Confidential File, FG 105–4, Ackley to Johnson, Dec. 17, 1965, EX FG 110 File, all Johnson Library; Robert Warren Stevens, Vain Hopes, Grim Realities (New York: New Viewpoints, 1976), 71; Califano, Johnson, 106–11; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, II: 1137–38.

  4. Stevens, Vain Hopes, 77–80; Cochrane, “The Johnson Administration,” 252–72; Ackley to Johnson, Aug. 6, 10, 17, 26, Sept. 17, Nov. 8, 1966, EX FG 11–3 File, Ackley to Califano, Aug. 8, 9, 15, 16, Eckstein to Califano, Aug. 23, 1966, Califano Papers, all Johnson Library; Public Papers, Johnson, 1967, I: 8.