[IP] Ellsberg: "I wrote Bush's war speech -- in 1965"
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-
ellsberg3jul03,1,6463178.story?track=mostemailedlink
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-
ellsberg3jul03,1,6463178.story?track=mostemailedlink
IRAQ
I Wrote Bush's War Words -- in 1965
By Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg worked in the State and Defense departments under
Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He released the Pentagon
Papers to the press in 1971.
July 3, 2005
President Bush's explanation Tuesday night for staying the course in
Iraq evoked in me a sense of familiarity, but not nostalgia. I had
heard virtually all of his themes before, almost word for word, in
speeches delivered by three presidents I worked for: John F. Kennedy,
Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Not with pride, I recognized
that I had proposed some of those very words myself.
Drafting a speech on the Vietnam War for Defense Secretary Robert S.
McNamara in July 1965, I had the same task as Bush's speechwriters in
June 2005: how to rationalize and motivate continued public support
for a hopelessly stalemated, unnecessary war our president had lied
us into.
Looking back on my draft, I find I used the word "terrorist" about
our adversaries to the same effect Bush did.
Like Bush's advisors, I felt the need for a global threat to explain
the scale of effort we faced. For that role, I felt China was better
suited as our "real" adversary than North Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, just
as Bush prefers to focus on Al Qaeda rather than Iraqi nationalists.
"They are trying to shake our will in Iraq — just as they [sic] tried
to shake our will on Sept. 11, 2001," he said.
My draft was approved by McNamara, national security advisor McGeorge
Bundy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, but it was not delivered
because it was a clarion call for mobilizing the Reserves to support
an open-ended escalation of troops, as Johnson's military commanders
had urged.
LBJ preferred instead to lie at a news conference about the number of
troops they had requested for immediate deployment (twice the level
he announced), and to conceal the total number they believed
necessary for success, which was at least 500,000. (I take with a
grain of salt Bush's claim that "our commanders tell me they have the
number of troops they need to do their job.")
A note particularly reminiscent in Bush's speech was his reference to
"a time of testing." "We have more work to do, and there will be
tough moments that test America's resolve," he said.
This theme recalled a passage in my 1965 draft that, for reasons that
will be evident, I have never chosen to reproduce before. I ended by
painting a picture of communist China as "an opponent that views
international politics as a whole as a vast guerrilla struggle …
intimidating, ambushing, demoralizing and weakening those who would
uphold an alternative world order."
"We are being tested," I wrote. "Have we the guts, the grit, the
determination to stick with a frustrating, bloody, difficult course
as long as it takes to see it through….? The Asian communists are
sure that we have not." Tuesday, Bush said: Our adversaries "believe
that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a
few hard blows they can force us to retreat."
His speechwriters, like me, then faced this question from the other
side. To meet the enemy's test of resolve, how long must the American
public support troops as they kill and die in a foreign land? Their
answer came in the same workmanlike evasions that served Kennedy,
Johnson and Nixon: "as long as we are needed (and not a day longer) …
until the fight is won."
I can scarcely bear to reread my own proposed response in 1965 to
that question, which drew on a famous riposte by the late U.N.
Ambassador Adlai Stevenson during the Cuban missile crisis:
"There is only one answer for us to give. It was made … by an
American statesman … in the midst of another crisis that tested our
resolution. Till hell freezes over."
It doesn't feel any better to hear similar words from another
president 40 years on, nor will they read any better to his
speechwriters years from now. But the human pain they foretell will
not be mainly theirs.
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/