The Best and the Brightest: Kennedy-Johnson Administrations (Modern Library)

by David Halberstam

If Vietnam was to be saved, Lodge said, it was Johnson who would have to make the tough decisions. “I am not going to lose Vietnam,” the new President answered. “I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.” Lodge then asked him what kind of political support he had. “I don’t think Congress wants us to let the Communists take over Vietnam,” Johnson answered. It was the first sign. There would not be many more for a while, but it was an instant response and an important one. But hard decisions on Vietnam were the last thing he wanted right away; he wanted first to help the nation (and himself) absorb the psychic shock it had just gone through (which he did by a whirlwind of activity), to establish as much continuity as possible, to hold on to the Kennedy men, not just the big Kennedy men at first, but all of them. (“I need you more than he did,” he would say, pressing them, pushing them, imploring them to stay. He invited the White House people, not just Bundy but many of them, to lunch, a friendly swim first, then everyone was marched over to the swimming pool, stripped down naked in a tiny dressing room, with the result that Robert Komer was so nervous that he dove in with his glasses on, and the rest of the swim was devoted to diving for Komer’s glasses.) He intended to secure the Kennedy legacy, prove his own worthiness to accept the torch by pushing the Kennedy legislation through Congress, then he would run for President against Gol...