1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

Q: Was the question of authority here at all?
MILLER: Yes. SS was a very lively cockpit of ideas, and we had the best information,
available because we’d get the full materials and evidence prepared for the briefings for
the secretary every night. Each night he would look at the reports of the bombing runs, of
the Ho Chi Minh Trail, how many dead, how many bombs dropped, how many airplanes,
etc. We would see all of this information – the same data going to the Secretary. We
knew exactly what the secretary was getting, and had a hand in preparing the material he
was using, so we knew the official reality. This document and reality, was reinforced by
seeing the war on the ground during trips to Saigon and elsewhere, in Asia. We knew the
views of our own highest officials like Ball and Bundy, and Hubert Humphrey and so
many people; McNamara, of course, and the others who were going out to Vietnam
repeatedly. So, we knew the reality, and the reality was far from what our leaders hoped it
would be.
Q: Was there the equivalent to almost a dissent channel, or was there anything of that
nature?
MILLER: Oh, yes. There was a lot of dissent channeled. There was easy and direct access
to, in the case of Vietnam, to be able to talk to George Ball about Vietnam. I talked often
to Ben Read about the contradictions between evidence and policy. I had good
conversations with both Bill Bundy and Mac Bundy. There was an internal debate. There
was no constraint about thinking or talking privately about Vietnam policy. There was,
however, the expectation of support for those who were carrying out policy. I did so until
it became, in my case, intolerable, and I left, but that was after I had gone from SS to
another assignment. President Johnson created by Executive Order a coordinating
committee under George Ball. Lyndon Johnson fully supported the SIG (Senior
Interagency Group) idea that all foreign policy issues at the deputy secretary level to be
cleared and coordinated by State. It was the last time the State Department was in charge
of foreign policy.
Now, the case, of course, is that all the foreign policy and defense committees are chaired
by the White House, and that’s been the case since Kissinger, but under Dean Rusk and,
particularly, George Ball, the under secretaries committee handled all the foreign policy
except for those things that were being directly and personally addressed by President
Johnson himself or by Secretary Dean Rusk.
Q: What were you doing with this committee?
MILLER: I was the staff. The executive secretary, Harry Schwartz, had been my political
counselor in Tehran. I thought he was a terrific guy, a wonderful, curmudgeonly
character, very smart. He had served in several White Houses as the State Department
representative on the NSC, so he knew the NSC structure, all of the NSC lower had
history. He was a highly sophisticated, very complicated, man married to a lovely Spanish
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