The pretext for their onslaught was a second memorandum from Mansfield to the president that favored such a solution. After reiterating many of the points of his earlier effort, the majority leader suggested that there should be less talk of American responsibility in Vietnam and more talk of the Vietnamese themselves and that there should be a great deal of thought given to the possibilities of a negotiated solution. “We are close,” he warned Johnson, “to the point of no return in Vietnam.”
