notes to pages 210‒215 403
pressed him on what to do if the Chinese intervened other than to admit
“we have another ball game.” Langguth, Our Vietnam , 348–49, 355–56,
379–80. Interestingly, the North Vietnamese also worried that the United
States might push China into direct intervention. Hanoi feared that the
Chinese, once in Vietnam, might not leave readily. Vietnam had a long
history of resistance to Chinese control that remained much on the minds
of DRV leaders, notwithstanding their ideological affi nities with Chinese
communism. Schandler, America in Vietnam , 104–5.
- Robbins, Th is Time We Win , 25.
- British Prime Minister Harold Wilson also regarded the American
commitment in South Vietnam as misguided. When the United States
began bombing the DRV in 1965, he tried to express his concern directly
to Johnson, but the president refused a meeting. Langguth, Our Vietnam ,
342.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , 93; Langguth, Our Vietnam , 317.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , 83.
- For a description of the incident and how insignifi cant it seemed initially
to leaders on both sides, see Langguth, Our Vietnam , 299–301.
- Langguth, Our Vietnam , 305–7.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , 88; Langguth, Our Vietnam , 304. At
the time of Tonkin Gulf, Americans saw Johnson as better able to handle
the situation by nearly four-to-one over Goldwater if things got worse in
Vietnam. Robbins, Th is Time We Win , 43.
- Quoted in Herbert Y. Schandler, Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: Th e
Unmaking of a President (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977,
1983), 7.
- Langguth, Our Vietnam , 323–32, 337, 340; Hess, Presidential Decisions for
Wa r , 91–92.
- Langguth, Our Vietnam , 341–42.
- Langguth maintains that Ball undercut his own objections by promising
to support the president’s decision. “With that concession, Ball guaran-
teed that he could always speak and could always be ignored.” Langguth,
Our Vietnam , 377–78. Th is is overly harsh. Ball’s willingness to press
his arguments in the face of strong opposition from his bureaucratic
superiors refl ects well on his integrity. Th ere is no reason to assume that
Johnson would have decided otherwise had Ball threatened to take his
objections public or to resign.
- Brands, Wages of Globalism , 240; Langguth, Our Vietnam , 382–83.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , 98–102.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , 104–5, 107.
- Brands, Wages of Globalism , 239; Dallek, “Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam,”
147; Dallek, “Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam,” 149. However, Dallek adds
that once the high cost of the war became clear, Kennedy would have
found a way to extricate the United States.
