Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency Secret Presidential Re

Would like to welcome you to the special panel echoes of the past, featuring my colleagues. Its quite wonderful to be here with everyone since he has been with us for years and years at the university of south carolina. For the next 75 minutes we will share with you secret white house tips we will look to explore the dynamics there and but also to relate them to contemporary development to see what kind of questions they prompt us to ask about contemporary dynamics about the history they contain, about parallels to todays events, about the practice of democracy itself just a word about the recordings. We were established in 1998. Our goal there were the only institution is to analyze and transcribed the secret president ial tapes that president s made from 1943 1973 thats from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon we do it outside as well because so much of our work these days but we publish our work through the university of the virginia press. It is electronic imprint the president s recording Digital Initiative excuse me Digital Edition is our publication. We also published snippets of conversations, kind of the greatest hits through north center dot or kick. We will be sharing these clips with you today and before we get going i just want to acknowledge a few people who have helped us along the way the National Historical publications and Records Commission and the National Archive Records Administration has been very generous and their support longtime sustain and we appreciate their belief and confidence in us and the work that we do. Carries guiding hand in everything that we do she keeps us honest so that we make a few mistakes as possible, and if there are any that appear today that sign me. And finally i would like to acknowledge Marc Saunders Mark Saunders was the director of the university of virginia press, the founder and motive force behind the electronic imprint and a close friend. Mark passed away suddenly this last weekend. It is a tremendous loss for all of us mark had the great vision for our program and taking us from press additions that we were public publishing with morgan that worked out very well, but mark assured us into the digital age, and we are deeply saddened by his loss we will miss his guiding hand. But in the spirit of what mark wanted, which was for us to be an important place and bringing this history to the United States and encouraging Greater Transparency in the workings of the government and presidency. We will push on, so we are pleased to be here today. To help us sort out the connections between past and present, nikki hammer, nicole hammer will be our guiding hand today, nikki this perfect for this job shes an assistant professor at the studies shes a member of this program and wonderful kollie she is also the editor and founder of the Washington Post made by history and podcast past and present. We are deeply grateful to niki for having her over here to moderate the session. Thank you mark im really looking forward to the panel. So you get to be a fly on the wall at the oval office to bring the 1960s and seventies and the times that Big Decisions were being made and thoughts were being hatched. And were going to hear a little bit of that we will start with mark who will talk to us a little bit about ands words, something that is incredibly. Constructing the model of the United States, Great Britain and international communism. Why dont you start us off . Excellent. The United States has been at war for 17 years most conspicuously of course barack enough canister but also and look house like somalia lebanon libya syria, collectively these engagements have been known as the war on terror the, global war on terror. Most recently President Trump in his state of Union Address refer to them as endless wars. President s proceeding trump recognized there in joints and sought to disengage in the midst of ongoing hostility. They did not do so willingly, necessarily or with the same amount of enthusiasm. But they sought to president bush and the status of forces agreement with the rock something he was led to pursue look to extricate the United States from iraq by december 2011 with combat forces out of the cities by the middle of 2009, and by summer 2011, u. S. Combat forces would be out of iraq president obama through his afghanistan review that took place in the fall and into the winter of 2009, he looked to begin the departure of u. S. Forces from afghanistan in the summer of 2011. And President Trump most recently spoke about withdrawal from syria in an announcement he made on the december of 2018 that had subsequently been qualify by the pentagon. This is not the first time in recent history that a president has sought to turn over the fighting in ongoing conflicts to local allies, particularly in the midst of the unpopularity of these wars and with a specific timetable in mind that goes to the shows shaded Term Organization with the process that Richard Nixon pursued to de americanize the war, wind down the american profile in vietnam and turned over fighting to the South Vietnamese forces. But this was not the only time that americans have looked to wind down the engagement. President kennedy did so in the summer of 1962, president john f. Kennedy began planning to get american troops out of vietnam drafts for such planning were produced in early 1963, were debated, we find that spring into may and into june, and they were presented to kennedy in the fall of 1963. On october 2nd, president kennedy was presented with a plan to get virtually all united combat troops not combat troops necessarily at the time they were military advisers, but u. S. Soldiers out of vietnam by the end of 1965. In an effort to kickstart that process, 1000 advisers were to be withdrawn by the end of 1963 we know about this because of the pentagon papers, which has a section on this withdrawal, but we also know about it and much greater color and texture because of the Kennedy White house tapes, so what i would like to do for yunus to play a combination of tapes we spliced together from two meetings that took place on october 2nd 1963. One of them was a morning session, a relatively small session between kennedy and Senior National security advisers, and then an evening National Security council session, after which a Public Statement was made in the rose garden of the white house, indicated that the United States would be leaving vietnam by 1965 and that 1000 troops would be withdrawn by the end of 1963 the people. We hear from in this conversation or president kennedy, secretary of defense robert magnum era, National Security adviser george bundy, and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff maxwell taylor. It is going well the first three quarters we can take over the forces in conjunction we need a way to get out of vietnam lee forces when they are not needed i think it is wasteful and it case both their problems and hours it complicate split their problems and hours so that goes back to paragraph two, yes it does it is something we debated very strongly. I will just say this it is a major question we talked to 174 officers vietnamese and u. S. In the case of the u. S. I always asked when you can finish this job in the sense that you will reduce the insurgency two little more than sporadic incidents . I realized actually thats not necessary i soon there is no major factors, no new factors entering well lets say it anyway and then in 1965 it doesnt work well get out of the delta. Influenced of course. It look like we were totally optimistic overly optimistic and im not sure id like to know what benefit we got out at this time announcing 1000 i think this will be a great value to us. Many thinks that this conversation prompts beside robert magnum air being the win seemingly pushing this process, is the political nature that much of this is key to the way folks were feeling and congress to the flexibility of the timetable that kennedy seems to embrace along the white house statements certainly came out squarely and said we look to be out by 1965 it certainly seems to be hedging on that if it doesnt work out we will get a new state there are a host of other strategic reasons that canadas pursuing this withdrawal. One of the questions is whether he gets after what he really wants and that is something that nikki and i wanted to engage in briefly. The just initially one of the goals of this withdrawal and other withdrawals is to encourage your local partners to fight harder, better to tell them that we are not here forever that doesnt really seem to have happened as a result of the kennedy withdraw the local partners. Did not push on the way the administration wanted so changes to place in the short time he was around to see that. We know from went to place in early 1964 that it was not sustainable this is a question that we need. To ask as we think about time tables for withdrawals going for it. How effective are they . Our president s really able to sustain domestic Political Support that they want to get from these . It is unclear that kennedy was able to do that either. Is it really the case that youre going to do senior local allies and capabilities and skipping function that these withdrawals are supposed to provide . That would be my question. Youre like these people are really thinking about this. They have a strategy they have a set of theories these are very smart people engaging and what historians and americans have come to think of and the thing goes for you cant thank your way out of this. What is the lesson to draw about . I would say that it is a question that i have asked to the extent to which administrations have reflected on this that can use how much did they really look and understand because in kennedys case, i dont think they really thought terribly hard about the timetable i think particularly, because the 1964 president ial campaign was coming up. There was a concern that the United States was betting buck down a nation. Theyre looking for or not. Certainly going to engage but if you look at lets say the process that president obama had engaged in extended along review for afghanistan there was an initial search of troops in the spring of 2000. Nine but then in the late fall, excuse me late summer fall of 2009 and we know about this through serious era of welltimed leaks at the time, obama was bringing his National Security Team Together again and again and again. With this be a search of 30 30,000 troops . 40,000 . Or higher . Would we be going full count on insurgency . Would we be going for counterterrorism. This is all played out in the. Papers obama was doing something that i think the Kennedy Administration did not do, to think more rigorously about this. To bring in the stakeholders. One thing that neither of them seem to do sufficiently, certainly the canadian ministration could do, was to bring in congress. One of the questions of how do you get out of this is to think harder about how you get into them and to have a better grip on that which leads to all kinds of questions about the authorization for the use of military force which i think is a meter matter that we need to engage in. You vietnam or did not end in 1963 or 64. It led to a real shake up in u. S. Politics. President ial studies looked at problems of chops and industrialization, and found that and we we it will walk us through to some of the insurgencies. We will get to the johnson and nixon tapes. Theres going to be in some of these tapes inaudible . Good afternoon everyone, to shore clips from Lyndon Johnson recordings that i want to share with you this afternoon. Was to contrast insurgencies of the 1960s around civil rights law the political insurgencys today. In doing so i would like to step back from our standard lets consider past and present more broadly. Profound challenge but in many respects a functional political establishment in the United States i would like to offer an important observation about what is different today or perhaps of Something Like what that contrast. Means the day after Christmas December 1966 lbjs president zelensky has really entered decline at this point. Hes facing increasing opposition to the war on poverty, the emergence of the stronger Anti War Movement and taking serious losses in the november mid turn elections during a long telephone conversation that day, with bill moye ors, president johnson turned to the question of how to encourage sir Sergeant Shriver to stay on as office of the director of the khanna make opportunity, the agency managing johnsons troubled war on poverty. Johnson indicated that he was not giving the budget that shriver wanted, and offered blunt statements about his perception of the tensions between funding for the war on poverty and the activist insurgencies. This is a clear indication of an establishment figures perception of the periods activism and what he saw as its cause. Im not anxious for him to stay. I would like for him to. I think he is the best man for it, and he has my support and my confidence and so forth and i would, whatever figure i give in the budget, i will fight for it as i did last year, but i cannot keep him from being the victim of bobby and rip cough and joel clark and i. Cannot keep him from being the victim of the comments that were out here yesterday giving poverty to. I think that is hurting poverty more than anything in the world is that these comments are parading and these kids with long hairs saying they want poverty instead of vietnam. I think that is what people regard as the great society. The second clip, spring of 1968 and to the fight of the democratic president ial nomination. With senator mccarthy of minnesota and senator kennedy had launched campaigns trying to channel the insurgent Political Energy the long, hairs the calm ease that johnson refer to against the president on march 23 1960, eight president johnson spoke with chicago mayor richard jay daily. This is the establishment they spoke about how they thought Bobby Kennedy could be deflate defeated by their network of mayors, governors and members of congress. Their confidence, march 23 1968 is striking. Their confidence in 1968 the committee to a man they said they said we welcome a primary let them come in hair president un dick you pennsylvania texas i dont think we will lose a single Southern State i counted the congressman last night. We have 160 and he has eight, from matches to sits and new york, and most of them are real extreme reform left wingers and and its a good thing, the more i think about it, i was trying to talk to him because i was giving him some sound advice. Everybody knew that. He doesnt seem to be going anyplace i dont know. Hes going to get a lot of treatment. He said all you will do is try to divide our party. Hes always got three or four pull tight but all weve got to do is this weve got to get the board of directors on this country of new jersey was just a solid as a rock. Weve got to get pittsburgh and philadelphia there are solid as a rock. We have ohara at the moment, he is trying to buy it off but we can take ohio, illinois pennsylvania and texas and new jersey. I think itll be a landslide. Of course despite their confident expectations of a landslide, lbj would withdraw from the race a little more than a week later after that kennedy would be dead. The thing is johnson and daily werent really wrong. President Hubert Humphrey would capture the nomination over mccarthy and mcgovern at the convention in chicago which of course was tremendous lead disrupted by protests. Discussing more on this conversation i would argue the outcome would have been no different had the contest in fact been between johnson and Bobby Kennedy. Ultimately, despite trying to channel this energy from the activists of the period, both Bobby Kennedy and mccarthy were themselves establishment figures former turn 80 general and brother of a slaying president and the other a senator. Both of them or trying to capture the anti war civil rights insurgency johnson reacted. To the establishment that johnson and daily discussed in the second conversation, partly this is the limits of the clinical strength of the insurgency itself. After all, if nixon wins the election that fall but also, they were not really of those movements. They were ultimately part of the establishment themselves. Not really part of the activism or the insurgency. This is the broad contrast i want to draw to our current movement. We to, live in an era of insurgencies but in contrast to Bobby Kennedy, eugene mccarthy, donald trump succeeded in 2016 and part because he could position himself to some degree of authenticity at least for his core audience, as an outsider figure, not just mobilizing, but actually representing the populist and certain resentments and anger against the countrys political establishments. What that energy actually meant of course, we can discuss and debate and Bernie Sanders represents a variant of the same thing. So here we are today, facing the 2020 election that will test trumps continued ability to ride that po