Johnson Seeks Vindication

Lyndon Johnson--secretive, unpredictable, vindictive, egocentric--was a trying boss. Now it appears that he is even a trying ex-boss. A current source of fury in Washington: Johnson's recent televised version of the events leading to the U.S. bombing halt over North Viet Nam (TIME, Feb. 16). The men responsible for shaping and carrying out his Viet Nam policy in 1968 listened with stunned disbelief. This was not the history of the pivotal month of March as they knew it.

Last week they were consulting their own and one another's memories. Some were checking back into their own files. A number of former officials telephoned fellow alumni, comparing their distressed reactions.

Were the followers in a position to know as much as the leader? Averell Harriman, then Ambassador at Large in the State Department, was soon to represent Johnson at the Paris negotiations, along with Cyrus Vance. Robert McNamara had just departed the Pentagon and was replaced by Clark Clifford, who became a central figure during that long month. William Bundy was an Assistant Secretary of State intimately concerned with Southeast Asian affairs. Harry McPherson and John Roche were White House aides; McPherson drafted the March 31 speech. Paul Nitze had succeeded Vance as Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Warnke was intimately involved with Viet Nam planning as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Townsend Hoopes, then Under Secretary of the Air Force, later wrote a persuasive account (The Limits of Intervention) of the Administration's internal debate.

While none of these men was willing last week to comment publicly on Johnson's Feb. 6 television interview, most of them view L.B.J.'s principal assertion as misleading. As Johnson would have it, Dean Rusk in the first few days of March orally proposed a U.S. bombing halt north of the 20th parallel, with no strings attached. Further, by March 7, Rusk had put forward a written suggestion that, said Johnson, was "not far different from the proposal in my [March 31] speech."

By Johnson's account, it was Rusk and the President who originated the initiative that began the scaling down of the war and helped bring about the Paris negotiations. Clifford, then in the process of trying to turn the Administration toward a more conciliatory line, is relegated to a minor role. If true, Johnson's story means that for the ensuing three weeks, senior members of the Administration siding with Clifford--as well as the country at large--were the victims of a charade.

In private and public statements, Johnson advocated the same tough policy as before. Rusk gave no hint of change when he appeared on Capitol Hill. The oft-revised McPherson draft was still free of concession as late as March 28. High-level discussions were continuing, and men like Clifford, Warnke and Hoopes apparently still believed that they had to convert Rusk, Johnson and Walt Rostow, the President's aide for national-security affairs.

Trust at Stake. It may be that Johnson is technically accurate. A Rusk paper concerning a bombing halt did exist, though its precise contents have not been disclosed. In Austin, Walt Rostow says that Johnson will eventually produce the records that will solidly support his assertions. If so, they will prove that Johnson and his Secretary of State had an even closer relationship than anyone knew, a relationship almost unique in modern history, which excluded all the other key men around them.

While in power, Johnson diminished the prestige of his office by putting its credibility in doubt. Now he is reaching back from retirement for vindication. It would be a limited one at best. If he is now being true to the spirit as well as to the letter of his and Rusk's discussions early that March, then there was gross deception at the time, and for motives that are still unclear. If, on the other hand, it develops that Johnson is now distorting the facts or lying for the sake of historians' notices, the impact on public confidence in the nation's leaders could be even worse.

Far more than Johnson's personal reputation is at stake; Americans' trust in the institution of the presidency is also involved. Richard Nixon has developed his own Viet Nam policy, to be sure, but he still must work to hold popular confidence in his motives and goals. Thus it would be a boon if the documentary proof Rostow talks about is forthcoming. It could help Johnson's reputation and, more important, his successors' performances.

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