LBJ Tapes Show Frustration Over Vietnam
New audio tapes were released Thursday from the final months of Lyndon Johnson's presidency four decades ago. They reveal a leader wrestling with the Vietnam war - and very much involved in the 1968 presidential campaign, even after he decided not to run, CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports.
Forty years before Democrats nominated their first candidate of color, President Lyndon Johnson told 1968 presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey that he should pick a Japanese-American as his running mate.
It was Sen. Daniel Inouye, who was awarded a silver star in World War II, and who lost an arm in battle.
"He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with Nixon with that empty sleeve. He has that brown face," Johnson said.
Humphrey, though he was one of the Senate's foremost liberals, balked.
"I guess maybe, it's just taking me a little too far, too fast," Humphrey said. "Old, conservative Humphrey."
The Vietnam War was tearing the country apart. Democrats wanted their convention platform to call for a halt to U.S. bombing.
From his Texas ranch, Johnson - whose son-in-law was serving in Vietnam - told an aide "no way."
"I'm telling 'em what our position is as Commander-in-Chief that I'm not about to stop this bombing unless they arrest me and take my power away from me," he said. "Because I've got some of my own right there and I'm not gonna shoot 'em in the heart. Not for a bunch of goddamn draft dodgers."
Johnson got his way, but the convention in Chicago was a disaster. He listened without comment as his attorney general, Ramsey Clark, blamed the police.
"It was a very disgusting moment in my judgment, Mr. President," Clark said. "I think it was caused by law enforcement."
But Johnson, who sympathized with Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, was having problems with his attorney general.
"Well, he doesn't see this as you and I see it," Johnson said
Daley argued that his police had been provoked.
"What are you gonna do if someone hits you with human manure in the face, are you gonna stand there?" Daley said.
Johnson did halt the bombing just before the election, which was extremely close. The morning after, Humphrey called to apologize for losing.
"I'm sorry I let you down a little," he said.
Johnson replied: "No you didn't, no you didn't, it's on a lot of other folks but not you. It's our own people in the party that created all the problems."
Today's tapes were the final release of Lyndon Johnson's phone calls - recordings that have provided an extraordinary insight into his presidency. Since LBJ, no politician has controlled the party so completely - and none is likely to do it ever again.