10, 1965, called to discuss a response to a Vietcong attack on a U.S. outpost, Johnson went around the room asking whether anyone dissented from the meeting’s consensus that it was imperative to launch a retaliatory air strike. Humphrey, being his usual ebullient self, spoke up to express “doubts as to whether the strike should take place today” while Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was visiting North Vietnam. In fact, “he had mixed feelings about whether we should retaliate as Secretary McNamara had recommended.” Johnson seemed to take such reservations seriously. He suggested that the United
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