Vietnam War - Southeast Asia Johnson Administration National Security Council Meetings Records

Vietnam War - Southeast Asia Johnson Administration National Security Council Meetings Records

448 pages of official National Security Council (NSC) meetings summary records, dating from March 5, 1964 to November 25, 1968 of meetings significantly devoted to the Vietnam War.  The notes include meeting minutes, charts, maps, intelligence briefings, memorandums, attendance lists, press releases, agendas, draft statements, reports, cables, transcripts of press conferences, and clippings.

The abrupt transition of power to the Johnson administration brought no dramatic change in the formal role of the National Security Council. Like Kennedy, Johnson much preferred small, informal advisory meetings to large Council meetings supported by an elaborately organized staff. 

Despite his misgivings about the Council, Johnson started out convening it fairly regularly, about every 2 weeks on average during his first 11 months in office. The sessions dealt with a broad range of issues but were relatively brief in duration and, after May 1964, consisted largely of briefings. With the approach of the Presidential election in November, Johnson suspended NSC meetings, but then in early 1965 he shifted gears. From February 1965 through mid-1966 he convened the NSC almost exclusively to discuss Vietnam, doing so irregularly, then following a flurry of meetings in February 1965, infrequently. Several participants later charged that Johnson used the NSC during 1965 not to consult on Vietnam as he committed major U.S. ground forces but to "rubber stamp" decisions made beforehand. The other major foreign policy crisis of the period, the intervention in the Dominican Republic during April and May 1965, was not brought before the Council at all.

Johnson preferred his small, informal Tuesday luncheon meetings with the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Adviser, over formal NSC meetings and they became more prominent in his decision-making process. Those meetings grew to include his press secretary, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Upon succeeding McGeorge Bundy as National Security Adviser in 1966, Rostow came to grips the diminished role the NSC was playing in the Johnson Administration. He attempted to find a way for Johnson to make a more effective use of the NSC. He advised Johnson neither to pretend to use the Council meetings for making major decisions nor to focus on day-to-day operations. Instead he proposed regular, "anticipatory-type" sessions devoted to the discussion of complex problems requiring careful exploration before they were to come to him for a decision. Clearly intended to complement rather than challenge the primary advisory roles of the Tuesday luncheons and the National Security Adviser and his staff, NSC meetings for the balance of the administration considered a broad range of anticipated rather than pressing issues and gave little attention to Vietnam. NSC members now convened for reflective and educational discussions, rather than decision-making meetings.