mothers that will go with us in the war and … I’m just …a trustee. I’ve got to win an election … and then [I] can make a decision.” But he did agree to increase the number of American advisors from 16,000 to more than 23,000 by the end of 1964. He wanted his own team in Saigon, too. He made Maxwell Taylor his ambassador, and selected forty-nine-year-old General William Westmoreland, a decorated commander from World War Two and Korea who had served for six months as General Harkins’ deputy, to lead the American military effort. “Have we got anyone with a military mind that can give us some military plans for winning that war?,” Johnson asked McNamara. “Let’s get some more of something my friend because I’m going to have a heart attack if you don’t get me something… because what we’ve got is what we’ve had since ’54. We’re not getting it done. We’re losing,” A May 27th phone call with McGeorge Bundy made clear that Vietnam continued to fill the president with dread.
LYNDON JOHNSON: I just stayed awake last night thinking about this thing – the more I think of it … it looks like to me we’re getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me. I don’t see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we’re committed. I believe the Chinese Communists are coming into it. I don’t think it’s worth fighting for and I don’t think we can get out. Amd it’s just the biggest damn mess I ever saw.