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The Tuesday Cabinet; deliberation and decision on peace and war under Lyndon B. Johnson,
200 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1970
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March 25, 2022
Tuesday was a special day for the members of Lyndon B. Johnson's administration. Each week, with rare exceptions, Johnson and his senior advisers met for lunch and discussion in the President's dining room. Those weekly meetings' agenda was always the same – the Vietnam conflict and the many questions that this complex topic arose. The composition of the Tuesday Cabinet was mostly fixed, with few changes occurring throughout the years. When the meetings began in 1965, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy were the members. Not long afterwards, they were joined by Bill D. Moyers, who was Special Assistant to the President and who had recently become White House Press Secretary.
What makes the Tuesday Cabinet meetings so intriguing is that there are virtually no records of them. This is why historian Henry F. Graff's account is so important: he was invited to the White House to write about Lyndon Johnson's handling of foreign policy. At four critical moments in the history of the Vietnam conflict between 1965 and 1968, Graff had the privilege to see how President Johnson and his advisers thought and talked about the Administration's foreign policy problems. It is fascinating because he has managed to draw brilliant portraits of the men who shaped American foreign policy in the 1960s.
According to the author, on the question of Vietnam, Johnson invariably sounded like a man who had meticulously studied the alternatives open to him and took special pains to eliminate those that he saw as most undesirable. He was hopeful, not optimistic. He hoped that the decisions he had taken would bring about a settlement in Vietnam that would be politically acceptable in America. In his words, Graff sensed a certain tiredness in Johnson, the result of the fear that on the biggest decision of all – the escalation of the American involvement in Vietnam – he had been terribly wrong. By 1968, Johnson's hopefulness and expectations had given place to a more somber and irritable tone. He had come to believe that he had been led down a slippery path by the men he relied on, and he was willing to give up anything for a chance to retrace his steps.
Secretary of State Rusk was the most articulate of the men, and a dogged advocate of the Administration's staying in Vietnam. As Graff describes, "Rusk blended the subdued manner of a corporate administrator with the authoritative manner of an army officer." His side of the conversations abounded in references to the historical precedents for halting aggression. His confident knowledge of where he stood in the stream of American history gave strength to his words and firmness to his acts. At the Tuesday meetings, Rusk always occupied the place at Johnson's right. He belonged there by right of protocol and also as the President's first defender.
Secretary of Defense McNamara — who sat at the President's left — was vigorous and businesslike. His administrative mastery of the Pentagon gave him rare self-assurance in talking about foreign policy and military possibilities. His crisp words and generalizations about the war in Vietnam blended with his long-range projections about the state of international politics in the next generation. One could never sure whether McNamara was a hawk or something less aggressive because his public reputation varied from loyalty to John F. Kennedy's pacifist policies prior to Kennedy's assassination to support for larger American commitment to Vietnam during Johnson's presidency. McNamara, writes Graff, was an intellectual who did not have the intellectual's fear of power. At the same time, he appeared to be a man of power who read more books than such men usually do, and consequently filled himself with ideas that sowed uncertainty in him as well as convictions.
McGeorge Bundy was the energetic Special Assistant who served under Kennedy and four more years under Johnson. The position being new, it was not yet confined by tradition, which gave Bundy opportunities to think outside of the box. Since he had both been a university professors, he brought to the meetings ease, informality, and strong opinions. He had been educated broadly in the social sciences and could sit in judgment on the political process he was seeing at first-hand. He seemed deeply conscious that he was now shaping foreign policy himself and could not look on events with the scholarly detachment he had been accustomed to. Bundy spoke with an ever-present awareness that the man he worked for, the President of the United States, was upstairs in the same building.
The only other member of the Tuesday Cabinet situated in the White House was the Press Secretary. Bill Moyers affected policy for a time in 1965 to 1966 as profoundly as any other member of the Administration, His successor, George Christian, was far less influential, far less emotionally involved in national and international issues, and far less a confidant of the President. Moyers was thirty-one years old in 1965, the youngest man of power so close to the President since John Hay a century earlier had served as Lincoln's Assistant Secretary at the age of twenty-three. Moyers was pragmatic. His clean-cut words and gentle candor were disarming, not only as such but also because of his youth. He seemed to require no mannerisms against the world and no subservience to help him deal with the President. When he talked at length about the Vietnam conflict, Graff knew that his chief interest in Graff's seeing the President and his aides was to help make known that Johnson's ways of reaching decisions about Vietnam — a task that the Tuesday Cabinet had not accomplished well, even though Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and the President himself had once been teachers and Moyers a minister. Moyers eventually came to privately doubt the war policies and argue against any further expansion of the American military involvement in Vietnam. He opposed as likely to be fruitless the bombing of the North Vietnamese oil and gasoline dumps, when that move was being deemed necessary by the hawks and disastrous by the doves.
Finally, the professional voice of the hawks in the Cabinet was General Wheeler. Wheeler was instantaneously not a bookish man, but a man who read books. His life was shaped by ideas, though this did not show on the surface. In the era of the Cold War in which the threat nuclear war accompanied every outbreak, Wheeler turned himself into a thinker able to link diplomatic and military considerations in international politics and prevent the worst.
The Tuesday Cabinet was Lyndon Johnson’s war-and-peace council. It met a need of the Presidency that was new in the nuclear age – a response to the requirement that the President be able to react to a crisis at any moment, on the instant, and like an expert. In short, it was a reassurance that he would be able to turn the White House into a command post. Think John Kennedy's ExComm meetings during the Cuban Missile Crisis but weekly and permanent. As the author explains, by the time Johnson became President, the old-fashioned full Cabinet meeting that consisted of the heads of the Departments had become only a memory as far as advising the President was concerned. Although President Dwight D. Eisenhower liked to discuss a wide range of questions with his entire Cabinet, he was alone in that among modern Presidents. The activist Chief Executives have never been able, or willing, to make decisions in such a cumbersome manner, more unwieldy than ever as it grows in size.
Although the President alone makes decisions, he depends on his advisers to give him directions, if not direction, warn him of pitfalls as he sorts out the alternatives, and give him encouragement when he has acted. Presidents rely on the men they trust, with the consequence that these men become highly publicized people and lose the "passion for anonymity" that Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted to see in his advisers. Johnson's Tuesday Cabinet was no less important than Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet or Theodore Roosevelt's Tennis Cabinet, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Brain Trust.
THE TUESDAY CABINET is not a life-changing work, especially regarding Vietnam, but it is a lot of fun to read because it allows more than a glimpse at the most intriguing members of the Johnson administration. Graff was never permitted to take part in one of the Tuesday meetings, so do not expect any insider information about the decision-making of the Tuesday Cabinet. This book offers some insight into the characters of the man who shaped American foreign policy in the tumultuous decade that witnessed the Vietnam conflict.
What makes the Tuesday Cabinet meetings so intriguing is that there are virtually no records of them. This is why historian Henry F. Graff's account is so important: he was invited to the White House to write about Lyndon Johnson's handling of foreign policy. At four critical moments in the history of the Vietnam conflict between 1965 and 1968, Graff had the privilege to see how President Johnson and his advisers thought and talked about the Administration's foreign policy problems. It is fascinating because he has managed to draw brilliant portraits of the men who shaped American foreign policy in the 1960s.
According to the author, on the question of Vietnam, Johnson invariably sounded like a man who had meticulously studied the alternatives open to him and took special pains to eliminate those that he saw as most undesirable. He was hopeful, not optimistic. He hoped that the decisions he had taken would bring about a settlement in Vietnam that would be politically acceptable in America. In his words, Graff sensed a certain tiredness in Johnson, the result of the fear that on the biggest decision of all – the escalation of the American involvement in Vietnam – he had been terribly wrong. By 1968, Johnson's hopefulness and expectations had given place to a more somber and irritable tone. He had come to believe that he had been led down a slippery path by the men he relied on, and he was willing to give up anything for a chance to retrace his steps.
Secretary of State Rusk was the most articulate of the men, and a dogged advocate of the Administration's staying in Vietnam. As Graff describes, "Rusk blended the subdued manner of a corporate administrator with the authoritative manner of an army officer." His side of the conversations abounded in references to the historical precedents for halting aggression. His confident knowledge of where he stood in the stream of American history gave strength to his words and firmness to his acts. At the Tuesday meetings, Rusk always occupied the place at Johnson's right. He belonged there by right of protocol and also as the President's first defender.
Secretary of Defense McNamara — who sat at the President's left — was vigorous and businesslike. His administrative mastery of the Pentagon gave him rare self-assurance in talking about foreign policy and military possibilities. His crisp words and generalizations about the war in Vietnam blended with his long-range projections about the state of international politics in the next generation. One could never sure whether McNamara was a hawk or something less aggressive because his public reputation varied from loyalty to John F. Kennedy's pacifist policies prior to Kennedy's assassination to support for larger American commitment to Vietnam during Johnson's presidency. McNamara, writes Graff, was an intellectual who did not have the intellectual's fear of power. At the same time, he appeared to be a man of power who read more books than such men usually do, and consequently filled himself with ideas that sowed uncertainty in him as well as convictions.
McGeorge Bundy was the energetic Special Assistant who served under Kennedy and four more years under Johnson. The position being new, it was not yet confined by tradition, which gave Bundy opportunities to think outside of the box. Since he had both been a university professors, he brought to the meetings ease, informality, and strong opinions. He had been educated broadly in the social sciences and could sit in judgment on the political process he was seeing at first-hand. He seemed deeply conscious that he was now shaping foreign policy himself and could not look on events with the scholarly detachment he had been accustomed to. Bundy spoke with an ever-present awareness that the man he worked for, the President of the United States, was upstairs in the same building.
The only other member of the Tuesday Cabinet situated in the White House was the Press Secretary. Bill Moyers affected policy for a time in 1965 to 1966 as profoundly as any other member of the Administration, His successor, George Christian, was far less influential, far less emotionally involved in national and international issues, and far less a confidant of the President. Moyers was thirty-one years old in 1965, the youngest man of power so close to the President since John Hay a century earlier had served as Lincoln's Assistant Secretary at the age of twenty-three. Moyers was pragmatic. His clean-cut words and gentle candor were disarming, not only as such but also because of his youth. He seemed to require no mannerisms against the world and no subservience to help him deal with the President. When he talked at length about the Vietnam conflict, Graff knew that his chief interest in Graff's seeing the President and his aides was to help make known that Johnson's ways of reaching decisions about Vietnam — a task that the Tuesday Cabinet had not accomplished well, even though Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and the President himself had once been teachers and Moyers a minister. Moyers eventually came to privately doubt the war policies and argue against any further expansion of the American military involvement in Vietnam. He opposed as likely to be fruitless the bombing of the North Vietnamese oil and gasoline dumps, when that move was being deemed necessary by the hawks and disastrous by the doves.
Finally, the professional voice of the hawks in the Cabinet was General Wheeler. Wheeler was instantaneously not a bookish man, but a man who read books. His life was shaped by ideas, though this did not show on the surface. In the era of the Cold War in which the threat nuclear war accompanied every outbreak, Wheeler turned himself into a thinker able to link diplomatic and military considerations in international politics and prevent the worst.
The Tuesday Cabinet was Lyndon Johnson’s war-and-peace council. It met a need of the Presidency that was new in the nuclear age – a response to the requirement that the President be able to react to a crisis at any moment, on the instant, and like an expert. In short, it was a reassurance that he would be able to turn the White House into a command post. Think John Kennedy's ExComm meetings during the Cuban Missile Crisis but weekly and permanent. As the author explains, by the time Johnson became President, the old-fashioned full Cabinet meeting that consisted of the heads of the Departments had become only a memory as far as advising the President was concerned. Although President Dwight D. Eisenhower liked to discuss a wide range of questions with his entire Cabinet, he was alone in that among modern Presidents. The activist Chief Executives have never been able, or willing, to make decisions in such a cumbersome manner, more unwieldy than ever as it grows in size.
Although the President alone makes decisions, he depends on his advisers to give him directions, if not direction, warn him of pitfalls as he sorts out the alternatives, and give him encouragement when he has acted. Presidents rely on the men they trust, with the consequence that these men become highly publicized people and lose the "passion for anonymity" that Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted to see in his advisers. Johnson's Tuesday Cabinet was no less important than Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet or Theodore Roosevelt's Tennis Cabinet, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Brain Trust.
THE TUESDAY CABINET is not a life-changing work, especially regarding Vietnam, but it is a lot of fun to read because it allows more than a glimpse at the most intriguing members of the Johnson administration. Graff was never permitted to take part in one of the Tuesday meetings, so do not expect any insider information about the decision-making of the Tuesday Cabinet. This book offers some insight into the characters of the man who shaped American foreign policy in the tumultuous decade that witnessed the Vietnam conflict.
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