Goldberg

A far more tempting option than wooing Fulbright came in using perceptions of the administration’s pro-Israel tilt to encourage Jewish liberals to reconsider their hostility to the administration’s foreign policy.

Such a strategy had embarrassed the President the year before, when the Jewish News Agency reported that Johnson had pressured

Nonetheless, Johnson revived the tactic in 1967. The State Department prevailed upon Israeli ambassador Avraham Harman to lobby senators against an amendment sponsored by Frank Church (D-Idaho) to eliminate a Pentagon fund used to distribute military aid without explicit congressional authorization. (The amendment passed anyway, by one vote.) And in this clip with Arthur Goldberg, Johnson urged the UN ambassador to reach out to liberals, suggesting that Senate conservatives were pro-Arab.

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President Johnson: Why don’t you get—come down and visit with some of your Foreign Relations [Committee] friends—

Goldberg: I will. I’m coning down—

President Johnson: Tell them what’s going on.

Goldberg: If this damn circus is over by Wednesday, I’m coming down for the cabinet meeting, and I’ll ask Bill Fulbright to have a little meeting over there, and I’ll talk about things.

President Johnson: Go over and tell them everything that’s happened, so they’ll know.

Goldberg: Sure.

President Johnson: We’re going to have to have them, because if you don’t, some of these Arab Southerners are going to take out on us. They’re already complaining a little bit, and . . .

Goldberg: Yeah. Well, I’d be glad to go in and talk to [Georgia senator] Dick Russell in the Senate, and a few others.

President Johnson: Oh, he really murdered us on—

Goldberg: What the hell was he so excited—was that a Tshombe business?

President Johnson: No, he just—they all got upset. That was kind of a warning, you know, for me not to do anything with Israel.

Goldberg: Yeah.

President Johnson: They wanted to use this—they knew my three planes weren’t going to bother anything.

Goldberg: Uh-huh.

President Johnson: They just wanted to show me that I can’t move without . . . and . . .

Goldberg: They weren’t so vociferous when Ike landed the Marines in Lebanon [in 1958].

President Johnson: No, no. they’re not. But they get awfully vociferous.

I think that we’re all right.

They’re just chewing up our aid program. We’re not going to have any aid program.

Goldberg: Are they?

President Johnson: Fulbright’s just so upset about Vietnam.

McGee

Aftermath

Johnson had persuaded Arthur Goldberg to give up his seat on the Supreme Court and become U.S. ambassador to the UN by holding out hope that Goldberg could negotiate an end to the Vietnam War. But the President gave Goldberg little leeway to act; by late 1967, Goldberg indicated a desire to resign. Johnson scarcely objected—he considered Goldberg too prone to leaks.

Among the replacements that the President considered was Wyoming senator Gale McGee—one of the few Northern Democrats to support Johnson’s Vietnam policy. This clip provides a good example of the “Johnson treatment”—in this case, a penchant for flattery. McGee ultimately resisted; Johnson appointed George Ball to take Goldberg’s place instead.

President Johnson and Gale McGee, 9 Dec. 1967, 11.00am

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President Johnson: I’m thinking about what’s best for the country.

Gale McGee: Well, that would be—

President Johnson: And I don’t know of a human that I think is as knowledgeable in this general field, that is not New York-oriented, that is as articulate, that I think makes as good impression on TV. And I’ve watched them all.

I think you have a little of the mold of a Wilson and a Lincoln combination. I think you have a little of the George Marshall and Sam Houston. I think you look a little bit frontier, and pioneer, and a fellow that’s pulled himself up by his bootstraps. But I think you have enough sophistication and articulation that you’re effective as hell.

Now, that’s my type of man. I don’t want one of these Adlai Stevensons. I liked him, but he’s not—to me, I always kind of felt like he had to squat to pee.

Goldberg, on the other hand, is the best negotiator I have ever known.

McGee: Yes.

President Johnson: He does just absolutely have hydrophobia.

McGee: Yes

President Johnson: And he talks a good deal when he ought to be listening.

McGee: Mm-hmm.

President Johnson: Now, you’ve got the great problems of the Middle East—and that’s the most dangerous thing. Vietnam is just chickenfeed compared to what the Russians are doing over there, and what may happen there. You’ve got this Cyprus thing that’s rough and tough.

President Johnson: Now, I wouldn’t agree, and I wouldn’t imply, and I’d think of several people if something happened to Rusk as secretary of state.

McGee: Yes.

President Johnson: But I would say right in the beginning that one of the three names I would think of would be yours.

McGee: Oh, my.

President Johnson: And I know you never have thought in those terms—

McGee: No.

President Johnson: But that’s the way we think.

McGee: Yes.

President Johnson: I don’t want that to enter into it, and I don’t want it to be an implication, because I just very likely would appoint somebody else.

McGee: Yes.

President Johnson: But that’s what we think.