More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Under the Kennedy-Johnson system, the Joint Chiefs lost the direct access to the president, and thus the real influence on decision making, that the Eisenhower NSC structure had provided.12
Above all President Johnson needed reassurance. He wanted advisers who would tell him what he wanted to hear, who would find solutions even if there were none to be found. Bearers of bad news or those who expressed views that ran counter to his priorities would hold little sway. McNamara could sense the president’s desires and determined to do all that he could to fulfill them. He would become Lyndon Johnson’s “oracle” for Vietnam.
The attorneys, managers, and analysts failed to consider that Hanoi’s commitment to revolutionary war made losses that seemed unconscionable to American white-collar professionals of little consequence to Ho’s government.
What had been meant as a “signal” of U.S. determination increased America’s vulnerability and forced the administration to consider further military action.
