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ARTHUR J. GOLDBERG
ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW I PREFERRED CITATION
Transcript, Arthur
J. Goldberg Oral History Interview I, 3/23/83, by Ted Gittinger, Internet
Copy, LBJ Library.
INTERVIEW I
DATE: March 23,
l983
INTERVIEWEE: ARTHUR
J. GOLDBERG
INTERVIEWER: Ted
Gittinger
PLACE: Justice
Goldberg's office, Washington, D.C.
TG: What were your views
on the Vietnam crisis at the time?
AG:Oh, I was thoroughly
convinced that, to use a hackneyed phrase, wrong war, wrong place. I did
not conceive that we had a national interest in that situation. Our national
interest was not served. I had no illusions about what was happening. In
fact, I remember a conversation with Walter Lippmann who talked at the
time about a coalition government, at dinner one night. And I told Mr.
Lippmann, I said, "You're foolish, Walter. You're a good newspaperman,
but if North Vietnam is on top, they're going to take over the country,"
which indeed they have.
TG: Didn't the President
lead you to believe that you were going to play in fact a key role?
AG:Oh, well, all
you have to do is go back to the clippings. Just look at your morgue. Why,
he made a great deal of that. The announcement of my appointment and the
statement he made says that, and then of course repeatedly he made statements
to the same effect. I would be called down to the Ranch to discuss it.
And indeed, there were certain actions that proved it at the outset. For
example, before I was appointed I was invited to Camp David that weekend.
I hadn't submitted my letter of resignation. I told him I was going to
do it. Bob McNamara suggested we call up the reserves, put our nation on
a full war footing. I told the President, in front of Bob, who's an old
friend of mine from the Kennedy days, "You do that and you don't get my
letter of resignation," and he stopped in his tracks. He didn't want that
to develop.So if you'll read the history of the times, and I guess I'm
driven to write my own memoirs, but in your archives you have micro film
of the New York Times and you have the State Department papers as well
as the presidential public papers, you will find it replete with references
to that.
TG: Were you aware
at the time that you took the appointment that the decisions to escalate
had already been taken sometime before?
AG:No. I knew that
we were increasing our participation, and that is the thing that worried
me. By the way, you must understand I'm not a peacenik or unilateral disarmer.
I have always been rather sympathetic to the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs,
with whom I had many conversations. You remember I also sat as an ad hoc
member of the National Security Council, and I served in World War II as
an assistant to General [William] Donovan. I was sympathetic to them in
the sense that they said, "You're asking us to fight an impossible war.
You're putting restraints on us. We can go to Hanoi. You cannot fight a
war unless you take the nation's capital." They could have done it, you
see. Well, they were afraid of the Chinese, overlooking many centuries
of history. As we see now, when the Chinese invaded Vietnam, I had no doubt--because
I am a historian like yourself--I never had any doubt that the Chinese
couldn't care less. Of course they provided arms and help, mostly because
they didn't want the Russians to get too predominant a place, but that
they would go to war with us over that, no.
TG: Would reconvening
the Geneva conference have been helpful at this time?
AG:It would have
been, but no possibility. The Russians, although they said they were for
it, they consulted with North Vietnam, and North Vietnam was not very agreeable.
We constantly, if you looked at my speeches, talked about reconvening the
Geneva conference. But the Russians were co-chairmen, and they never agreed.
TG: Did the State
Department and President Johnson favor reconvening the Geneva conference?
AG:I never knew.
When I would recommend it I would get kind of an agreement, and I would
make speeches which I prepared. Unlike Adlai, I prepared my own speeches
and sent them to the State Department. I did not do what Adlai and [Henry]
Cabot Lodge did, regard myself to be an employee of the State Department.
I was not. I was an ambassador appointed by the President. Ambassadors
forget that they are. But career ambassadors, you know, their career depends
upon advancement, so they do what the Secretary of State tells them to
do. But I must say that Dean Rusk, whatever his views were, and he was
on the hawkish side, he respected that. He never resented that I could
pick up a telephone and call Johnson. And in turn he knew from White House
memos that Johnson talked to me frequently on this subject.
TG: Would you describe
the role that U Thant played during these years?
AG:Well, before I
do that, I want to correct my earlier answer somewhat. While I overestimated
my capacity to influence Johnson to get the hell out, I did achieve what
I had in mind three years later. After Tet, I sent him a memo. I had sent
him previous ones, that's why I asked you if you've received everything.
I sent him a memo which reflected a memo I sent within two months after
I got to the U.N., saying that "if you want to keep the consent of the
governed"--which I did not find present and which is required under our
constitutional system--"you'd better get out." But three years later I
was more emphatic, "You have lost the consent of the governed." Now that
memo created an explosion. He didn't call me for three days. [It was] unlike
him; he was on the telephone all the time. You know Lyndon Johnson. You've
now interviewed enough people. He would call me on anything. But after
three days it was quite interesting. He asked me to come down, and very
soberly--this is now in 1968, about a month or so before he announced that
he would not run. After sulking around for several days, he called me and
asked if I could come see him. I did. And he said, "I've read your memo.
It's a serious memo." And I said, "It was intended to be." He said, "Would
you mind joining a group of so-called Wise Men"--
TG: Did he call them
the Wise Men?
AG:--"which I have
relied upon for advice in this area?" I never knew about that group, typical
of Johnson. Although I was supposed to be au courant with everything taking
place pursuant to our understanding, but I never had heard of that group.
And he said, "Would you present your views to that group?" and I said,"I
don't know anything about that group, who is it?" And he told me in general
who it was: Douglas Dillon, General [Omar] Bradley, General [Matthew] Ridgway--I'm
trying to think of all the fellows who were there.
TG: Dean Acheson
was there, I think.
AG:Dean Acheson,
yes. You can recall the membership better than I. "That group is meeting
tonight." And I said, "Yes, I'd be glad to." That was the group, you know,
where there was a briefing by Phil Habib, a CIA--
TG: Was that George
Carver?
AG:Yes,
Carver. A very nice intelligence general from [William] Westmoreland's
staff, and that is the one that [David] Halberstam picked up in gossip,
but it's true. I listened to what they had to say, that Tet was a great
victory, and since I'd been on the Supreme Court and am a lawyer of long
standing, I know how to ask questions. I asked they key questions. I said,
"General, it's a great victory." "Yes," he said. Reminded me of a [Robert]
Southey's poem. In any event, I said, "Would you tell me how many Viet
Cong effectives you think there are buttressed by [North] Vietnam?" and
he said something. I don't remember exactly. He said something about a
hundred and eighty thousand Viet Cong and maybe they're buttressed by twenty
or thirty thousand North Vietnamese. I said, "All right, let's say two
fifty. Those are the effectives. Now we had a great victory. How many did
we kill?" He said, "Oh, we must have killed a hundred and eighty thousand
or a hundred and ninety, and the rest we wounded." I said, "Wounded in
the sense they're in the hospital?" "Yes." So I started to add up, and
the number he gave me of killed and wounded was greater than the number
he mentioned as effectives. So I asked the ultimate question, which was
kind of dirty. I said, "General, if you are correct, I have added up the
figures. Who are we fighting?" And he was stymied. That was the situation
which developed. The next day Johnson invited the key figures, including
myself, to the White House for lunch, and General [Creighton] Abrams, who
obviously was designated to be Westmoreland's successor, and he had heard
about the briefing. It was at that luncheon where it became apparent that
Johnson had decided that he had to cut back the bombing and lay the groundwork
for starting a negotiation. It was also that briefing where the Wise Men
who had supported the war effort, including Clark Clifford--not only supported
it, stimulated it. Because I was in the bedroom when Abe Fortas and Clark
Clifford, Johnson's bedroom at night, told him no American president has
ever lost a war and so on. I had always been opposed so I used to argue
against that and point to De Gaulle, [who was] stronger because he left
Algeria. I said this is nonsensical. In any event, it was at that luncheon
that I think Johnson made up his mind he wouldn't run again.
TG: Did you have
any hint of that?
AG:No. But I had
a pretty good idea after that luncheon, that he felt he was so involved
and could not extricate himself.
TG: As long as we're
to that point, let me ask you the next question I always ask, which is
where were you when you heard the March 3l speech?
AG:
I was with my wife at the U.S. Mission to the U.N., at the residence of
the U.S. ambassador, and I heard it. There was a cabinet meeting the next
day, and he reported to the cabinet. I, as a senior person--Rusk wasn't
there and at that time the U.S. ambassador was regarded to be next in seniority
and protocol to the secretary of state. So as senior cabinet officer, I
said in effect, "You've made the right decision," although I was polite,
"we regret it." He had said "You're free, since I made the decision, to
do what you want to do about staying or how long." I went in and I said,
"That being the case, I resign."
……………….
TG: How did the bombing
affect our position in the U.N.?
AG:Well, I was opposed
to the bombing on a couple of grounds. We had a meeting of the National
Security Council at which I spoke to that subject against everybody's--as
far as I was aware--position, including Ball, who's supposed to be the
peacemaker. The President talked about bombing Haiphong and beyond what
parallel is it, I've forgotten.
TG: The Seventeenth?
AG:Seventeenth. I
get it confused with the Korean, Thirty-eight. The President, I must say
conscientiously, raised the question and was worried about civilian casualties.
He was told by the head of our air force at the time, I've forgotten the
name of the commandant, chief of staff of the air force, but President
Johnson asked that question. The Chief of Staff of the air force said,
"Oh, we've got smart bombs. If we have five casualties, that will be a
lot of civilians."
TG: Would that have
been General [John P.] McConnell at the time?
AG:I've forgotten
his name. But you can trace it. Well, that was a little too much for Bob
McNamara, who then spoke up and said, "Well, I can't guarantee five, but
there won't be any more civilian casualties than in the neighborhood of
fifteen or twenty-five." At which point I intervened and said, "Look, I
come from Chicago. Right outside Chicago are the oil depots, at Whiting,
Indiana. Workers live all around it, even though we have automobiles. Those
are their homes. Also I served in World War II." North Vietnam had terrific
anti-aircraft supplied by the Russians. I said, "My experience in World
War II and my experience in Chicago demonstrates that--and I don't blame
them--a pilot shot at by anti-aircraft fire is going to throw his eggs
wherever he can and go home, and I would do the same thing. My prediction
is there will be hundreds of civilian casualties, Mr. President, and you
ought to be told that." And then I finished, typical Johnson, and I said,
"Mr. President, we're here for a purpose, I assume to advise you, is that
correct?" He said, "Of course, I want to hear advice." So I said, "You
can't do that." The President got his back up and said, "I'm President
of the United States and of course I can do it." I said, "I made a mistake."
So he thought I was going to apologize. And I said, "You mustn't do it."
TG: How did he react
to that?
AG: He didn't say
anything, but he did the bombing. And I disagreed with Clark Clifford who,
after Tet, favored a partial bombing. He is an astute compromiser, and
on this I thought there wasn't room for compromise. He suggested we confine
our bombing after he began to see some light. Turning from a hawk to somewhat
of a dove [he] sold David Halberstam that he was a dove. I said, "Clark,
if we're going to do it, then we ought to stop the bombing totally and
we ought to make preparations to get out and give Abrams what he needs
to rearm the army of South Vietnam and make it self sufficient." Perhaps
Clark was right, in light of the practicalities of the situation and I
was wrong. One can never know in these sensitive matters.
TG: But of course
this was later. This was in 1968.
AG: Yes.
TG: There has been
some controversy about Johnson's stand on the various bombing halts that
took place.
AG: Well, I recommended
a complete bombing halt shortly after I came to the [U.N.]. I was turned
down by Johnson. I said, "Let's stop bombing of all kinds and let's see
if we can have negotiations." Because I thought I saw some signals in the
traffic reporting the North Vietnamese statements. He turned me down, but--it
was around Christmas time as I recall it that the President for a limited
period ordered a bombing halt, as I suggested. What year was this?
TG: 1965-66, I think.
AG:Yes. I took a
little vacation. We just had finished the India-Pakistan War and I was
pretty worn out, and I flew down to Eleuthera, to the place of a friend
of mine. I was there one day and I got a call from the President, he changed
his mind, and is sending an airplane to pick me up to go on one of those
aborted peace missions. I saw the Pope, General De Gaulle, Harold Wilson,
and would have continued had we not had a death in the family. My beloved
mother-in-law who lived with us died, and I had to return for her funeral.
TG: That was the
thirty-seven day pause I think, the long pause.
AG: Yes.
TG: Did you get any
feeling that that had accomplished anything or that the North--?
AG:I didn't think
it would accomplish anything. In fact, my conclusion was we should get
out the best we could. A bombing halt of limited duration would not accomplish
our objective of a peace negotiation. Like any person trying to negotiate,
a stubborn employer or president, I had various fall back positions and
so on. But basically, as my early memoranda show, I felt that we ought
to get out. You know who supported me at the Wise Men meeting? One person.
TG: You want me to
guess?
AG:General Ridgway.
TG: That's who I
would have guessed.
AG:A great man, I
think one of our greatest generals. General Bradley was opposed, Secretary
Dillon was opposed. Rusk, Acheson, McCloy and some others were still opposed.
They had second thoughts and were prepared to tell the President, as they
did, at our next meeting, at our luncheon meeting the next day, that maybe
we ought to have another bombing pause.
TG: There's one story
that President Johnson turned a little sour on those who had recommended
the bombing pause.
AG:I cannot answer
that because--and I should have said this at the outset--the experience
where things were going on that I was supposed to know about and didn't
know about soured me. That's why I handed in my [resignation] immediately
after Tet. Among other things the President opened the door by saying,
"I accept your resignation. I think you ought to do what you think." But
also the fact that things were going on that I knew nothing about. For
example, some of the telegrams you saw and memos were supposed to be sent
to me. This is the first time I've seen them.
TG: I rather thought
that might be the case, but I don't know why. Do you know why?
AG: Oh,
it would be the President saying, "You'd better watch out for him. He's
a peacenik and you'd better not share it." Although I like Mac Bundy, I
think he's one of the brightest fellows who ever served our government.
……………………..
TG: How did the various
factions and blocks in the UN react to the news of Tet? How did that beak
on that? Were you able to observe this?
AG:Oh, it was a mixed
bag. Some privately would say to me that obviously the North Vietnamese
and the Viet Cong did not succeed what they had hoped to accomplish. Others
ould say that they won a big victory. Always with the ambassadors of the
various countries, ou have to distinguish between the rhetoric they employ
and their real feeling. And it's very ard sometimes to do that.
TG: How did you react
to Tet? Now you've said that--
AG:Oh, Tet, I didn't
regard it to be of that great consequence, because I had pursued the same
lie for about three years. I did think it demonstrated thoroughly that
they had the capacity to stage an attack in Saigon itself. If not a successful
attack in the sense that it drove us out, it was a successful attack in
world opinion in the sense that our embassy was besieged and so on. But
for me, it was the final act that convinced me that I should get out because
what I had tried to do for three years was not successful. Then peculiarly
enough it was, by the memorandum I sent. The March memorandum I sent was
preliminary to resignation. But I thought I owed it to the President to
state my views.
TG: How did you react
when the North Vietnamese accepted, at least conditionally, the offer to
talk so quickly?
AG:I knew it would
be a long process, and being a realist I knew also that whatever deal they
made--unlike Kissinger who thought he'd made a deal--would not hold up,
that they were going to take over the whole country. But as I said, I always
believed they would. I didn't like it, but I didn't believe that our national
interests were served in Vietnam by massive intervention to prevent that.
TG: Why do you think
they accepted so quickly? I think it was only four days between the March
3l speech and [their acceptance].
AG:Oh, they saw a
president going down the drain, and they thought psychologically that was
a good time.