Fulbright

At the same time, the Middle Eastern conflict presented an opportunity for the President to appeal to elements of the Democratic base disaffected by his Vietnam policy. In this clip with Foreign Relations Committee chairman Fulbright, perhaps the most powerful of the Vietnam dissenters, Johnson stressed the evenhanded aspects of his policy.

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

President Johnson: If you will look at my speech, with the fellow coming over here—

J. William Fulbright: I think that your speech was OK. I liked it. I [unclear] as a matter—

President Johnson: I sent you a copy of it; I don’t know whether you got it—

Fulbright: I got a copy, and I heard it this morning. But I think that the part where you stood up to Israel by saying you still believe in territorial integrity was pretty damn good.

President Johnson: Well . . .

Fulbright: I was afraid they was going to put on a lot of pressure on you—

President Johnson: And I said, “A little humility,” too. I said. “We’ve got to have a little humility in this operation.” And—

Fulbright: That’s right. Well, I thought—

President Johnson: I’m trying to balance this thing as much as I can—

Fulbright: I thought you did—

President Johnson: We’ve got a reasonably good reaction from the Arab world. And we got an awfully good reaction from the Congress. Dick Russell told me tonight he thought it was as perfect an operation as he had ever seen.

Fulbright: Well, I thought it was.