Just watched extraordinary Moyers Journal reviewing Johnson's conversations just after JFK assassination re Vietnam and it is chilling. He doesn't know what to do. Goldwater wants to 'bomb 'em off the moon,' in LBJ phrase and Johnson has to decide what to do before the election of '64. He has conversations with McNamara, Bundy, an ambivalent Richard Russell of Georgia, and it is all a bind the same way Obama has a bind in Afghanistan. Johnson doesn't see anything he can do to both look strong and give up the war which is clearly not being waged by much of a force in Saigon. All the same stuff there in abundance: can we get the South Vietnamese to fight better, can we do social work to prop up their institutions? And then, after the election, comes the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which allows a lot more American aggression which leads to bombing of the North. But the premise of the whole taped history is that to look weak is the deadliest of all sins an American president can commit. Can't find a way out except by going in, strong. Something like that. And McNamara who later recanted his advising ('We were wrong,' etc.) sounds like he has the best ideas. At one point, on the phone with Bobby Kennedy, LBJ tells Kennedy his advice is needed and he doesn't want to have to say that again. Bobby says McNamara and his team are the best, and LBJ should rely on them. But Goldwater in his '64 acceptance speech at the Republican convention sounds just like the hawkish right today, saying we have to stand tough and let 'em have it, we Americans do. Can't let them Taliban make a safe haven for terrorists to launch another attack on the US. At one point LBJ is quizzing McNamara as to whether the Chinese are coming in, and RM says no, he didn't think so. The courage, the political courage, the human courage to say no to escalating an unwinnable and morally destructive war is just so absent in these cases.

Troubling similarities in the current scene. Another recent PBS show studied traumatic brain injuries of vets returning from Iraq & Afghanistan. Terrible stories of complete debilitation, young guys unable to walk or talk, totally dependent on family and VA for care. It is just such a horrific story of our time, these wars, with the politicians having to stand strong or be kicked out of office. One wishes for a different world.

Bill Pearlman