330. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson1
The British and Vietnam
On a number of occasions you have showed your skepticism when one or another of us has remarked that the British have been very solid and helpful on Vietnam. And of course you have recollections, which the [Page 717] rest of us only have at second hand, of Harold Wilson’s effort to telephone his way into a fancy trip to the White House at just the wrong moment.2 Moreover, you feel the wounds of what Home said about busses and what Michael Stewart said about gas, although everyone else has long since forgotten those particular episodes.
It remains a fact that every experienced observer from David Bruce on down has been astonished by the overall strength and skill of Wilson’s defense of our policy in Vietnam and his mastery of his own left wing in the process. The support of the UK has been of real value internationally—and perhaps of even more value in limiting the howls of our own liberals. It is quite true, of course, that we would get this kind of backing more or less automatically from a Conservative government, but support from Labour is not only harder to get but somewhat more valuable in international terms.
The only price we have paid for this support is the price of keeping them reasonably well informed and fending off one ill-advised plan for travel. This is not a very great cost. Moreover, we have had no leaks from the British, and no public expression of worry about the length of the pause. It is true that Gordon Walker has been making some moderately foolish noises lately, but he is not a member of the government.
My own feeling is that it is well worth our while to keep the British on board as long as it can be done simply by keeping them fully informed and giving them the feeling that they are in the know as we go ahead. To put it another way, I see no advantage at all in putting them at arms length and thus increasing the risk that they will be tempted to criticize.3 You have taught us all a great deal about the advantages of Congressional consultation in the last year and a half—I myself believe that the same rules apply in diplomatic consultation. After all, we are dealing with human beings in both cases.
I attach Bruce’s latest cable on this subject.4
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. XI. A handwritten “L” in the margin of the source text indicates the President saw this memorandum.↩
- See Document 103.↩
- On June 3 Prime Minister Wilson sent a message to President Johnson in which he warned against air raids on petroleum storage areas in North Vietnam, and argued for a limited concept of warfare in Vietnam. He reiterated, however, his continuing support for U.S. policy in Vietnam. (Pentagon Papers: New York Times Edition, pp. 448–449)↩
- Reference is to telegram 5835 from London, June 3, in which Ambassador Bruce commented on a statement made in the House of Commons on June 3 by Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart. The statement dealt with Vietnam and was in line with the generally supportive position that the Wilson government had taken on the issue, despite an increasingly restive left wing within the Labor Party and growing uneasiness among the British public. Bruce noted, however, that, in order to manage their own party and the public, the Wilson government depended heavily on an undertaking from the United States to consult with them on any major changes in the policy or conduct of the war in Vietnam. (Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S)↩