White House tapes show ambivalent side of LBJ

AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Newly released tapes of President Lyndon B. Johnson's telephone conversations in early 1964 reveal an administration struggling to form a Vietnam policy while keeping quiet about the escalating death toll.

More than 80 hours of Johnson's telephone conversations from the White House, spanning January to March of 1964, were released Friday on tapes and transcripts by the National Archives and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library.

The Democratic president was concerned about the future of U.S. involvement in the war, which at the time was limited to advice from the United States and training for the South Vietnamese army.

"There may be another coup, but I don't know what we can do," Johnson says on the tapes. "If there is, I guess that we just ... what alternatives do we have then? We're not going to send our troops in there, are we? " he asks aide McGeorge Bundy in a conversation on March 2, 1964.

Confers with McNamara

The tapes also reveal Johnson's reluctance to share with the American public information indicating the war in Vietnam had greatly escalated between 1962 and 1963.

He was recorded asking Defense Secretary Robert McNamara if he agreed that the administration should not disclose that the war was responsible for 20,000 Vietnamese deaths in 1963 compared to 5,000 in 1962.

McNamara responded, "I do think, Mr. President, that it would be wise for you to say as little as possible (about the war). The frank answer is we don't know what's going on out there."

McNamara later became a proponent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. But in memoirs released last year, McNamara said he left office thinking the war was a terrible mistake.

Vexed by media leaks

The tapes also reveal Johnson's concern over media leaks on matters of international policy. In January, 1964 Johnson complained to Secretary of State Dean Rusk about leaks to newspapers and told him he believed State Department phones were tapped.

"I'm wondering if our wires are tapped at all. Every time I say something to (the) State Department I read about it, and ... it's got me frightened to talk, to take a call."

In early 1964, the media was hearing rumors about presidential assistant Abe Fortas. No one had the facts yet, but Fortas had accepted a large gift -- a stereo system from a lobbyist. The story was going to come out eventually, but Johnson wanted to control the timing by having it leaked to the Washington Post in time for the Saturday morning paper.

Why Saturday? Johnson explained on tape, "I think any of them that break it Saturday won't hurt you ... nobody reads the papers on Saturday."

The tapes also reveal Johnson persuading House and Senate members to approve his "War on Poverty" program, congratulating those who supported it and offering generous federal assistance packages to members who had reservations about the program.

CNN Corespondent John Holliman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related sites:

• Lyndon Johnson - 36th American President
• Home Page for the LBJ Library

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