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ment. In fact, it was not this simple. Many of the
opponents of the war were criticizing the president
for not prosecuting the war intensely
enough.f''" In a survey of Democrats voting for
Eugene McCarthy in the primary in New
Hampshire on March 12, anti-Johnson "hawks"
outnumbered anti-Johnson "doves" by a factor of
three to twO. 2 0 1
CU) The problem for the administration
wasn't public opinion; it lay in the fact that the
offensive forced President Johnson into a strategic
dilemma about the course of the war, the one
he had hoped to avoid from the very beginning of
the American involvement. On 9 February, barely
more than a week after Tet began, the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earl Wheeler,
cabled Westmoreland in Saigon with the suggestion
that since the United States was not prepared
to accept defeat then he should ask for more
troops.i'" Westmoreland obliged and cabled
Washington with a request for 206,000 more
troops. He also asked that the reserves be mobilized
and that he be permitted to invade Laos,
Cambodia, and North Vietnam with ground
troops! This request would be the realization of
his strategic plan to cut off the Viet Cong insurgency
from Hanoi's troops and supplies by physically
occupying a line across the DMZ into Laos
and into Cambodia with American troops. All of
this was part of his planned "Operation Total
Victory."
CU) To meet these demands, President
Johnson realized that the United States would
have to go to a complete war footing by calling
up the reserves and activating National Guard
units. It would spell the end to his beloved Great
Society social programs. The costs of an expanded
war threatened the fiscal condition of the
United States. Besides that, these actions would
be tantamount to political suicide: He would
have to publicly admit that the end of the war
was not in sight, after all. It could go on for many
more years. There was no guarantee that the
Congress or the public would accept the proposal.
On 10 March, the troop request was published in
the New York Times. More calls came from
Congress to reevaluate America's policy.
CU) Looking for some advice Cor consensus)
President Johnson, taking a suggestion of his new
secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, convened a
group of notable Americans known as the "Wise
Men." This group, which included, among others,
former Secretary of State Dean Acheson and
General Omar Bradley, was to review the current
course of the war. 203
CU) This was not the first time that President
Johnson had sought the opinion of this group. In
early November 1967, when Johnson was
wrestling with the first signs of large public dissent
with the war's progress, he had charged this
same group to review the situation. They gathered
in the Old Executive Office Building across
from the White House and were briefed by government
experts on the military, diplomatic, and
intelligence aspects of the war. Given this singular
source, their first findings were hardly unexpected:
that U.S. policy was on the right track,
but that American public opinion was the problem.
20 4
CU) In late March, the Wise Men again met
and listened to another cavalcade of administration
briefings. This time their reaction was far different.
A surprising number had admitted that
their prior support of the war had changed.
Under relentless, harsh questioning by the Wise
Men, the administration's optimistic demands,
outlooks and reports on the war withered: the
206,000 reinforcements grew to a half million;
the war's end grew from "around the corner" to
five to ten more years; and the bombing campaign
was demonstrated to have not disrupted
supplies coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail nor
to have broken the North Vietnamese will to
resist. Even the Pentagon's communist casualty
claims were shown to be ludicrous.f'" Just as
important to their decision were a series of briefings
by the CIA and State Department which
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