Word: marigold
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...personally kind and shamelessly sentimental. In his garden at Sterling, Va., he tended prize roses, poinsettias and camellias. Each year, in his most floriated prose, he beseeched the Senate to designate the marigold as the nation's official flower: "It is as sprightly as the daffodil, as delicate as the carnation, as aggressive as the petunia, as ubiquitous as the violet and as stately as the snapdragon." He was one of the last national politicians who dared allow his eyes to mist when he spoke of the "fa-lag" and "coun-tray," and, in a way, the emotion...
...Kraslow and Loory illustrates one rule of executive decision-making: when an executive organization is not nourished by presidential concern it wilts. Harriman had neither the President's ear nor a security clearance which would have permitted him to do his job. Harriman did not even know of Marigold after it began to pan out. Johnson would have been protecting himself by keeping Harriman informed, but his central concern in December 1966 was not peace...
...many case studies in The Secret Search, the author's treatment of the Marigold initiative is most instructive and most exciting. The account of this abortive attempt at arranging talks occupies a full third of the book, and Benjamin Read, chief assistant to Dean Rusk and one of the few people in government who has access to the full story, has assured one faculty member here that the account of this incident from late in 1966 is "90 per cent" accurate...
...Marigold initiative was killed by two sets of bombing raids on Hanoi during the most delicate phases of the diplomatic effort. Cynics may find this hard to believe, but the first set of bombings--December 2 and December 4--were mistakes and nothing more. As The Secret Search relates, only one official in the vast web of American government, a deputy assistant Secretary of State, happened to know about both the military's plan to bomb Hanoi and the peace initiative; and he was buried away in the State Department bureaucracy with no decision making power, and, due to security...
...STORY of the second set of bombings--December 13 and 14--make Johnson's attitude even clearer. On December 4 the Polish Foreign Minister delivered a clear warning that the bombings might hurt the Marigold initiative though he refused to guarantee that he was speaking at Hanoi's request. Johnson was now aware of both the bombing plans and the danger to the peace talks. He chose to go ahead with the bombing. Kraslow and Loory speculate Johnson had decided that by now Marigold had little chance of succeeding, and that if the North really wanted to talk, one little...