Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics

by Lawrence O'Donnell

He had a plan. The next morning Bobby and Sorensen flew separately to Washington. They each went straight to the Pentagon. Together they sat down for a secret meeting with Clark Clifford, the new secretary of defense, who replaced Robert McNamara after LBJ came to believe McNamara was verging on collapse, possibly even suicide. In Clifford’s huge office overlooking the Potomac, Sorensen and RFK put forth the names of men they believed should serve on the Vietnam commission that would make recommendations to the president on the war. LBJ seemed interested in that idea—or feigned interest—when Sorensen had suggested it to him. LBJ did the same when Chicago mayor Richard Daley suggested something similar. Daley was now worried that the war was dividing the party. Clifford viewed the list as overpopulated by doves—it included RFK himself—but Bobby and Sorensen insisted that the list contained mostly moderates. Then Bobby floated the deal without actually saying it was a deal: if a credible process emerged from this commission, leading to the end of American involvement in Vietnam, Bobby told Clifford he would support Johnson’s nomination, keep the party together, and do everything he could to help Johnson defeat Nixon in November. Otherwise, Bobby told Clifford, he was going to run against Johnson. Bobby didn’t want an impartial commission, he wanted to stack the deck—that’s all Johnson could hear when Clifford brought the offer back to him. Johnson, Clifford, and Abe Fortas, ...