Word: mcnamaras
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Wiesner. Well, you remember what happened to us on the ABM issue? In '67 we were invited by Secretary McNamara to come to the White House to discuss...
...head of DDR&E at that time. To a man we were opposed to both the big system and, as far as I recall, the smaller system too, some of us more vigorously than others. And he not only made the decision to deploy the small system, but McNamara then sort of misused, I'd say, our position there in support of the small system. I think that we may have had many reasons to feel ill-used, but I didn't think the President ever owed me anything. I wasn't supporting him for his own sake or because...
...after he got the telegram. Apparently Eisenhower was very much concerned and talked very vigorously to Johnson about it. I judge that that was the case because within less than 48 hours, each of us, Killian, Rabi, and myself, had a personal phone call from Secretary McNamara saying that he had been instructed by the President to state firmly that there was no planning, even contingency planning, to use nuclear weapons...
...discussion of it can be found in the Bantam edition of the Pentagon Papers (pp. 483-485) and in Document No. 117 (p. 502). The New York Times citing the original Pentagon study, emphasizes that the scientists' work was a major influence in persuading then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that the bombing of North Vietnam was ineffective in curtailing North Vietnam's military activities in the south...
...Viet Nam was the central tragedy of his presidency, Johnson confesses no doubts about the overall course he pursued. At a 1964 meeting with Maxwell Taylor, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara and other advisers, Johnson reports, "as one gloomy opinion followed another, I suddenly asked whether anyone at the table doubted that Viet Nam was 'worth all this effort.' Ambassador Taylor answered quickly that 'we could not afford to let Hanoi win in the interests of our overall position in Asia and in the world.' " The others agreed. Throughout his long narrative, Johnson blindly sticks...