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6 VIETNAM AND LITTLE ELSE Despite his public and private vows of restraint in Vietnam,Johnson had used an ambiguous encounter in the summer of 1964 between U.S.and North Vietnamese vessels in the Tonkin Gulf to gain passage of a Tonkin Gulf Resolution in the U.S.Senate.The resolution gave Johnson broad authority in conduct of the war. Floor manager for the resolution was Foreign Relations Committee chairman J.William Fulbright, who would later become an opponent of the war. (In a Senate floor speech, Fulbright at one point declared that it was folly to predict American failure in Vietnam merely because France had failed there.“One American is worth ten Frenchmen any time,” he declared, “and I do not restrict that to military matters.”) Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, a Humphrey protégé and his next-door neighbor on CoquelinTerrace in suburban Chevy Chase,Maryland ,was skeptical.So were Democratic senators Allen Ellender of Louisiana, Frank Lausche of Ohio, Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, and several Republicans .On August7,however,whentheresolutioncameupforavote,onlyWayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, both Democrats, voted no. The House of Representatives approved it without a single dissenting vote. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution later would be used to lend legitimacy to whatever escalations Johnson chose to undertake, including the initiation of Operation Rolling Thunder early in 1965. Humphrey’s National Security Council opposition to Rolling Thunder had cost him dearly.He felt fiercely loyal to Johnson,yet by speaking candidly when he thought Johnson sought candor, he found himself placed in purgatory .White House staª,Cabinet members,and media covering the presidency all are highly aware of who is up,who down in a president’s estimation,moment to moment.Word spread quickly that Humphrey had lost Johnson’s confidence. Balanced,serious White House staª members such as Harry McPherson and Douglass Cater continued to treat the vice president with deference and respect. On the other hand,MarvinWatson,Johnson’s chief of staª,treated Humphrey as he thought Johnson wished, doing things such as forcing him to get clear43 ance for use of aircraft or executive-branch resources.Humphrey was well liked by his Secret Service detail,and two senior members disclosed to me that Johnson was tapping the phones in the vice president’s Executive O‹ce Building suite.When I passed that information to Humphrey,a look of sadness crossed his face. We agreed that no one else would be told and that Humphrey and the rest of us would continue to speak on our telephones without constraint. One morning Johnson’s assistant Jim Jones called to inform that the person with whom John Rielly of the vice president’s staª was planning to have lunch that day was a KGB o‹cer at the Soviet Embassy. “Do whatever you want,” Jim said. “We just wanted you to know.” I passed Jones’s message to Rielly,suggesting he proceed as he wished.“I didn’t know he was KGB,”Rielly said, and cancelled the lunch. Jones could only have known of the lunch through taps on either our or the Soviet Embassy’s phones, or both. Smelling Humphrey’s blood in the water,Johnson assistants Joseph Califano ,McGeorge Bundy,andWalt Rostow were particularly patronizing toward him. Califano persuaded Johnson to strip Humphrey of some his administration civil-rights responsibilities and transfer them to him. One morning, while I was standing at Humphrey’s desk, Califano phoned to instruct him to report to his (Califano’s) o‹ce within a half hour. I asked Violet Williams to call Califano back, telling him that the vice president would have time to see him in his vice presidential o‹ce later that afternoon. Humphrey was a generous and forgiving person who seldom spoke ill of anyone, yet he made no secret of his belief that Califano was a power-hungry self-seeker operating well beyond his mandate. He felt the same about Bundy and Rostow, Johnson’s national security advisors. Both, he felt, played on Johnson’s feelings of intellectual insecurity—they were Ivy Leaguers whereas Johnson had attended a Texas state teachers college—to give him bad advice on Vietnam and reinforce their own positions. Late in 1965, Bundy dropped by the vice president’s EOB o‹ce for an early-evening chat. As he rose to leave,he asked Humphrey,“Do you think we can see things through in Vietnam and still meet our domestic and other obligations...

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