Nation: How Clifford Helped Reverse the War Policy

What had happened to Clark Clifford? The question inevitably arose in Washington as the Secretary of Defense began taking his own distinctive line on Viet Nam, notably in his public rebukes of the South Vietnamese regime. Even officials high in the Johnson Administration were uncertain whether he was acting with the President’s assent—or out of sheer foolhardiness. Some speculated that perhaps the President had grown passive as his term drew to a close and was simply allowing his Defense Secretary to take charge. Others were convinced that the President was in full agreement with what his longtime friend and adviser was trying to do. Whatever the cause, it has become increasingly evident—and never more so than last week—that Clifford has been a prime force in arresting the ever-growing U.S. involvement in Viet Nam and turning the nation toward disengagement. TIME’S Hugh Sidey describes how Clifford managed that feat:

WHEN he went to the Pentagon in March, Clark Clifford was cast as a hawk. That was largely because Lyndon Johnson had told and retold the story of how Clifford, in the fall of 1965, had argued against what was to become a 37-day bombing halt over North Viet Nam. But the casting was misleading. Then chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Clifford was opposed to a pause in the bombing principally because of its timing. The U.S. then was just beginning to build up its forces, and could ill afford the sudden upsurge in infiltration from the North that would inevitably accompany a halt in the air raids.

Clifford took office in the wake of the Communists’ Tet offensive, and his first job included evaluating a request from the generals for 200,000 more troops. For two weeks, he examined all the angles with the same care that had made him one of Washington’s most successful lawyers. Finally, he decided that a further buildup was madness. A subsequent trip to Saigon confirmed his suspicion that South Viet Nam’s government wanted no part of a peace that would oblige them to risk political concessions and curtail the comforts of U.S. military protection and cash.

He became an all-out advocate. In the privacy of Lyndon Johnson’s bedroom, at policymaking luncheons on Tuesdays, in the upstairs dining room of the White House and at meetings of the Cabinet, Clifford pressed his view relentlessly, singlemindedly—and often singlehanded. He was opposed by such experienced, committed experts as Secretary of State Dean Rusk, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Security Adviser Walt Rostow. He also had to face down the President’s enigmatic silences. At stake, he believed, was the survival of the U.S.

The smooth lawyer was trying his greatest case. It was, said one who observed it, “the gutsiest performance I’ve ever seen or ever heard about.” For seven months the argument raged. Johnson said little, but he was listening. Clifford threw all his weight behind arguments that persuaded the President to order the partial suspension of bombing of North Viet Nam on March 31 to get talks with Hanoi under way. Again, Clifford’s view held sway when bombing was halted altogether on Oct. 31 in an effort to rescue the negotiations from stalemate.

Convinced that Saigon had become the tail wagging the Washington dog, Clifford spoke out last month and again last week when he saw the negotiations heading for an interminable deadlock. There is an undeniable and heavy risk in Clifford’s position. He has no assurance that Hanoi really wants a settlement, or that the enigmatic enemy would honor a troop-withdrawal agreement. In dismissing Saigon’s concern over protocol, moreover, he overlooks the fact that, as Henry Kissinger pointed out, the “choreography” of such negotiations “is almost as important as what is negotiated.” Still, he pressed his arguments with rare force.

There is yet another risk in Clifford’s course, and that involves his longtime friendship with Lyndon Johnson. For if history proves that Clifford was right in 1968 to take the initiative in steering the U.S. toward disengagement from Viet Nam, it must prove that the President earlier was wrong—not necessarily for becoming involved, but for having let the involvement spiral out of control.