LBJ Stands Firm on Vietnam

Apr. 1, 1965 - President Johnson, summoning his diplomatic and military high command for a review of the Vietnam war with Ambassador Maxwell Taylor (left), said today the U.S. will proceed with its “measured” program for air strikes against North Vietnam.

Speaking at an impromptu press conference, Johnson made it clear his Administration plans no immediate departure from current war plans for continued pressure against the Hanoi government.

Johnson said he wished that persons who complain about the U.S. air strikes would display equal concern about such actions as the terror bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. 

“We will try to take such measures as are appropriate and fitting and measures that are calculated to deter the aggressors,” Johnson said. “We think in due time the course of wisdom will prevail.”

The President discounted talk of negotiations for a quick settlement of the war.

“I have no indication or evidence,” Johnson said, “that they [the Communists] are ready and willing to negotiate under conditions that would be productive, and I have no information that such a conference would hold out hope of peace in the world.”

Called into the session with Taylor, in Washington for a week’s reporting visit, were Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, CIA Director John McCone, Gen. Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and McGeorge Bundy, the President’s special adviser on national security affairs.

In the broadest terms, the major issue awaiting Presidential decision is whether to proceed with current operational plans for slowly stepped-up strikes with tighter sea patrols or to move into a new phase with a massive blow at northern industrial targets. 

At his press conference, Johnson said he did not make the decision to use anti-riot gas in Vietnam, but he defended it as more humane than “machine guns or bombs or implements of war that bring death and might injure women and children.”

The President noted that similar gas has been used in New York City and Alabama but admitted that “the word ‘gas’ is, like the word ‘dope,’ an ugly word.”

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