 So I'm going in a meeting at six o'clock and I want to get your judgment on We think That there's a strong possibility that there was a SAM site number six and seven We've known about five Photography was taken on the 20th and was read out in Saigon But they did not read out six and seven it got in here Friday night the night they knocked her plane out and our boys here Thought it indicated SAM site About 40 miles out much farther than the others Looks like this. They're moving them on out. You see if the ultimate they bring them on down the Best guessing and it's pure guessing as they study it from day to day is it was six and seven One of the others that launched The missile that knocked the plane down Friday night and the drone down last night It could have been a mobile one in the same general area But they saw the fire from this same general area which we got marked on the map, which is about 25 or 30 miles West I guess of the others Off to the left. I guess that's where something like the Hulk It's mobile. Yeah, that's what they think they think it's a mobile All of them are mobile, but they think it's we they say they mobile We don't necessarily contend they mobile, but we think it could be a mobile one or one that we would number six or seven now The recommendations vary Westmoreland says that they ought to take out everything simultaneously He's just really a firefighter You know South Carolina boy, and I guess he's been out there messing with him long enough. He's getting fed up with Sharp says take out He is the man charge of it all at Honolulu Admiral sharp. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He says take out The six and seven if you can find it nobody knows whether you find them or nobody knows whether you can hit them And if it's mobile, you don't know what you ever get it says take out six and seven at the minimum right away The Queer and the joint chiefs are real tough on taking out six and seven immediately They'd be glad to take out everything in the whole Southeast Asia But they really want to take these out. I don't mean to leave the impression that That they're limiting their recommendation six seven. That's what they're recommending, but they'd be happier if you took everything out McNamara thinks You've got to take them out and the quicker the better if you don't you'll send the pulse signal to russia that She can do this with impunity and she can move on down and pretty soon We'll have no planes in the air. We can't put them in there because they'll knock them out He is very conservative Notwithstanding what people think and he holds down the military a good deal. Did there were you of that opinion? Yes, I think the most of them think he's a hawk and that he's always raising hell to go to war I think he got military where there's though a somewhat few second scribing expression himself freely, but I don't think he's a Fire you didn't step in there. So they they expressed themselves fully to me. I've had them over here for Hours at a time all I've been going around table each one of them and Some of them are awfully irresponsible They just carry they were ready to put a million men in right quick and all that 500,000 general greens says and stuff like that on the other side Rusk thinks that we ought to go and take these sights out Ball and some of them have some doubts particularly ball and Goldberg I'm pretty kind of wobbling on both sides. I'm meeting at six o'clock. We think the Russians are manning We don't want to say that we don't want to buy to know that we hope it doesn't get published We hope it Well, we don't know but We don't want to put them behind the wall where they got to fight back if we can help it and that's why I'm trying to Hold down this play You see we agreed with them When we told what our defense budgets was we said now ours is two billion lower you lower yours and the dead When we cut out this nuclear production, I told you about last year You wondered why that man cut out fours running out of her ears when I first came in They cut out there Now then I don't want to come up and say I'm just gonna have a hell of a lot of billions of dollars because they've just been meeting and the Chinese People the russian people are still together And they're trying Vietnam's trying to pull the two back together And I think if any big dramatic announcement on my part, we'll throw them together. That's what our Russian experts think So in ten minutes five minutes They're coming in here to decide what to do about the Sam side The weight of opinion is pretty solidly on taking out six and seven tonight Like marriage just won't you don't know where six and seven no, but they've got pictures up where they are six and seven Yeah, yeah, yeah, they've got that Friday night They picked it up on the 20th last Friday night, which was The 23rd It got in here the pictures that they were in Saigon on the 20th. They were photographs 23rd. They got in here We read them out and read the sites that hell here's two extra Sam sites. We picked up five here six and seven But they're not sure that this firing although the firing looks like the boys identified it if their navigation is right The firing came from six or seven or a mobile which was at six and seven or in that vicinity Now anyway, all of our people want to go take six and seven out. I'd take a man one out well, I'll take a man one out because if you miss seeds and To happen out to get them You in the hell of a fix and I'd at least take out one other that I knew exactly where it was Well, you do I get you if you do I get you in the Hanoi area I get you in civilians. I'd get you in the world upset. I just can't do that on these others They're not bothering me my targets not a damn bet these two are right in line with all the targets I've got that's worth a damn I can't send my boys up there without knocking them down Hanoi ones don't bother me too much. I should get one other that I knew I could not Well, it's so well-known. I couldn't miss it. I'd get them all my part if I had my way because If they've got You know those things got longer range and you give them credit for they can shoot you forty fifty miles away And I'm a big question. I got to the side is do I don't know on six and seven you'd say yes What is the question? Yes, that answer that'd be yes But I certainly would get one other one that I knew well if I do I'd go into Hanoi They're all in a parameter of 15 miles from Hanoi and these boys getting off You're gonna hit the goddamn capital and you'll have them all in the war in 15 minutes my judgment when you go to Bombing Hanoi. I think they're trying to trap us into doing it I'll see I think they move a lot of government out of Hanoi Well, I'm just telling you what I think about these others. We'll debate that later. This one is right up now Yes, get them tonight for good Well, we think it we think it we think we're likely to miss we don't think we got a more chance to get them than the others The others mobile one of these five they got they may just have strips of ground It looked like a landing strip and have mobile ones that they move in just like a trailer and move out Just like a whole kid Okay, that's what I want to say and I'll talk to you later But all right now what I think I'm going to do on these are on this other thing Is I think I'm going to work out a deal where I extend I give what's more than what he needs in about three increments 30 40,000 each Send the division right away from down to Fort Benning and then Give three or four three or four right quick and then I mean that division right quick then do it in two or three increments between now and first December He knows he's going does he So We don't think it will don't think we'll ask for much money because we don't want to blow this thing I'm with you on that now. I'll get this one with John's Dennis by today. I didn't see a bit of need of We don't think we'll need any legislation We think we'll tell them to get the reserve plans ready and everything so up next year we do Then I'm gonna do everything I can with this you up the United Nations and everywhere in the world find a way to get out without saying so But if I can't do that January, I'll have to decide on reserve, but I don't think I'll call them up now I think it's too dramatic. I think it it commits me where I can't get out and it Puts me out there, but then I want to get right the moment. Does that make sense to you? yes, if Accepted that's the old Ho Chi Minh's argument that you that we ain't gonna stay in there We're gonna pull out it may ease the pressure that we might have had hope that Russia would put on to get him out What do you think they understand that language they understood it but then They understand that Well, if I extend in less than you know you're confident. I don't know what I extend if I put a hundred thousand out there, they'll understand it I'm afraid you'll understand it too much I don't have to have the reserves to do that and I'm gonna step up my draft calls double No, I'm not I'm not I'm not gonna try to send more I'm not gonna try to send more just gonna send a little less maybe Well You've been living with it every minute. I just live with it at night I never worked on anything as hard in my life. I've had every human man You know it driven me mad. I guess it's the only thing I've ever hit in my life I didn't have some quick answer to but I haven't got one to this I have thought from the time they started to a sample I said that we ought not be a mouse Should I have should I have the leaders in I want to have them in two groups the leaders first and then the foreign relations and foreign affairs and Armed services and all that group so I can get them in one room Then How much time should I have them before I make my announcement? You think I ought to send a message to Congress it just makes statement I'm not gonna leave any appropriation or any legislation about legislation and I don't need any and I don't need any appropriation About my decisions out there Can I just give a statement say I'm gonna send 30,000 the next few days and 30,000 more and be a total of a hundred thousand Be added and if I do need anything, I'll call you back and for don't show them call yourself back if you want to come And this is all I'm gonna do now. I Don't want to dramatize it and throw Russia. I don't care That's where you gonna play it I'd play it down, but I you wouldn't have a joint session on the actual fighting Because it goes on people over there bring the key. Well, I'm putting a hundred thousand in there Gosh, I've moved a hundred and fifty thousand in the last 90 days Is all the person got there yet? I don't know I don't know all I know is I've got 80,000 there And I've got a hundred. I've got a hundred thousand that I'm gonna authorize. I Don't know it has a mighty good psychological effect to call up some reserves. I Think this fourth Marine division has been sitting around expecting it for months. Yeah, but it upsets the hell out of them And they they immediately go to they're pressing them for commitments now that they're not getting from Russia And I don't want to force God knows I don't and I had in the last thing I want and things scared me was These damn beating the me's against gonna say well, here's your walk go ahead and take it and they quit fighting That's what I've been looking for them to do at that little old mustache fellow is only Television the indication that we ought to bite the war and it's so true thought of passed by the villages in the real God, that's the scared the hell out of me if they don't if they're gonna try to bite that kind of war I'm in favor getting out of that. They ain't gonna be not gonna really fight Cory and fought every inch of the way and increase that personnel for month to month every month even when they were taking staggering losses they were increasing their Units and Total numbers well these people are letting has run down They're not making any real effort over there now I'm got to get word out to all my other nations and I got to get word out to trying to get some more help Which I can't get from them. I've got to talk to the leadership Would you think it you don't think I ought to have a joint session? Do you? Don't you think I don't call up in reserve and all I wouldn't I wouldn't I'm not gonna ask any legislation Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't I see no kid would you send a message at all in just explaining what I'm doing Would you just make a television statement make a television television? I think to make some of the fellas up if you like the episode on the inside I'd call in some of it. That's what I'm on leading members of the committee. Okay. Thank you