96. Diary Entry by the Ambassador to the United Kingdom (Bruce)1
[Here follows an entry unrelated to Vietnam.]
At 11:30 I saw the President. We were alone for the most fascinating hour and a quarter I ever spent in Government. I came prepared to propound certain views, in accordance with a sketchy agenda he had requested. I never got to first base, for I was tagged out as soon as I started to run.
I expected to give him a review of political, economic, and financial affairs in Great Britain; advance ideas on how to keep ANF-MLF negotiations going in a low key; suggest he have a talk with Jean Monnet; speak about NATO and De Gaulle; and oppose a possible invitation to Sukarno to visit the United States. I did have a chance, during the morning, to speak to the last item; the President said he had no intention of inviting Sukarno, he had merely sounded out the British on the suggestion. We had, also, some conversation on the Congo, Nasser, arms to Jordan and Jewish objections thereto.
He started off by telling me, in considerable detail, of his plans for retaliation against the North Vietnamese. I confessed my ignorance of [Page 213] the area, but he insisted on my expressing an opinion on certain contingencies. I told him I hoped American ground troops would not be used in North Vietnam in the absence of massive attack by Chinese soldiers; but that we would be able to attain our objectives by air strikes. He said that General MacArthur, when the President visited him a day before his death,2 had passionately warned him against the use of American ground troops in Asia.
I have the impression that the President, so adept in the use of power in domestic politics, has been considering carefully how to exercise it in international affairs, and has reached certain conclusions that will be manifested in forthcoming decisions. He bitterly resents indignities against our establishments and officials abroad, such as burning of libraries, stoning of Embassies, and the rest. I think we may expect stern responses in the future to such actions.
After some conversation about his badly needed and imaginative programme to “make America beautiful,” he reverted to Vietnam; he displayed a thorough familiarity with the types and numbers of planes operated by both sides there, the strength of guerrillas, rangers, partisans and regulars thus far engaged. During all our talk today, from time to time he made calls through the telephone switchboard in front of his chair. Once it was to tell the Pentagon to shift a squadron of aircraft nearer Vietnam, others to inform Senators Dirksen and Mansfield what instructions he had lately sent to Saigon, another to State approving a severe rebuke to the Kremlin regarding the attack on our Moscow Embassy,3 another to a member of the House congratulating him on the management of a Bill, another to Treasury relating to today’s Balance of Payments message. At intervals he gave orders on other subjects through two squawk boxes in the Oval Room.
[Here follows an entry unrelated to Vietnam.]
- Source: Department of State, Bruce Diaries: Lot 64 D 327, January-March 1965. Secret. Bruce had returned to Washington on February 8 for consultations.↩
- MacArthur died April 5, 1964.↩
- On February 9 a demonstration involving more than 2,000 persons, including Vietnamese and Chinese Communist students, took place outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in protest over the U.S. bombing raids on North Vietnam. The demonstrators hurled stones and other objects at the Embassy building, breaking more than 200 windows and badly damaging the facade. For text of the White House statement issued on February 10 regarding the attack on the Embassy, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, Book I, p. 170.↩