Proceedings for May 1996 carries a four-page narrative "The Day It Became the Longest War" by Lieutenant General Charles G. Cooper, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired).
Army General Harold Johnson; Air Force General John McConnell; Chairman, Army General Earle Wheeler; Navy Admiral David McDonald; Marine Corps General Wallace Greene "considered a massive air attack against Hanoi to be the quickest way to end the Vietnam War. In a private November meeting with them, President Lydon B. Johnson disagreed--strongly."
Seven years prior to Linebacker II, the Joint Chiefs were allowed fifteen minutes and forced to remain standing as LBJ listened--then cursed them and humiliated them.
The author was present at the meeting: "Normally, memories are dimmed by time--but not this one. My memory of Lyndon Johnson on that day remains crystal clear. . . .he whirled to face them and exploded. . . I almost dropped the map. He screamed obscenities, he cursed them personally, he ridiculed them for coming to his office with their 'military advice.' Noting that it was he who was carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders, he called them filthy names--sh__heads, dumbsh__s, pompous assh___s--and used 'the F-word' as an adjective more freely than a Marine at boot camp. He then accused them of trying to pass the buck for World War III to him. It was unnerving. It was degrading."
And this account is not from a Sunday School teacher or a soccer mom, but from the Marine aide holding the map as the Joint Chiefs tried to persuade the commander in chief to bomb Hanoi and mine Haiphong.
There followed the years of sanitized target lists described in Flight of the Intruder by Stephen Coonts.
LBJ, in my view, blew trillions on his "War on Poverty", as a thinly-disguised vote-buying scheme, at the cost of the strategic picture, and the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands better than he.
It has been remarked by North Vietnamese officials since the war, that they marveled in wonder at the fear of U.S. leaders that it would involve the Soviet Union and China in a major confrontation.
What folly borne of reliance on game-playing wonder boys like Robert Strange McNamara instead of the military leaders whose profession is to win wars.
Now we are engaged in a conflict more on the Patton principle that war is not about dying for your country, but making the other fellow die for his.
God Speed the Finest Fighting Force on Earth, and do bring Saddam's head home in a jar.