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Getting into Line. To members of Congress, the President let it be known in no uncertain terms that he was getting pretty tired of criticism. The legislators fell all over themselves getting into line. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield, who several times in the past had suggested that the U.S. ought to get out of Southeast Asia, now rose to say that the President had acted "as Commander in Chief with great courage, firmness and restraint. President Johnson can be counted upon to continue to work with complete dedication on this problem." Idaho's fuzzy-cheeked Democratic Senator Frank Church, who had been making a lot of headlines with his calls for withdrawal, got the word from Lyndon, now retorted ferociously to a relatively mild propaganda speech by Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin. Cried Church: "Kosygin calls not for talks but for surrender. He will never get that from the United States!"
Legislators who had already supported Johnson's Viet Nam policy now did so more forcefully than ever. Notable among them was Connecticut's Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd, who in a 2½-hour Senate speech said: "Whether we decide to abandon Southeast Asia or to try to draw another line outside Viet Nam, the loss of Viet Nam will result in a dozen more Viet Nams in different parts of the world. If we cannot cope with this type of warfare in Viet Nam, the Chinese Communists will be encouraged in the belief that we cannot cope with it anywhere else."
Salt, Pepper & Garlic. To demands that he make a public statement "clarifying" U.S. policy toward Viet Nam, the President had Secretary of State Dean Rusk hold a news briefing to reiterate what Johnson himself had explained many times before. The U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, said Rusk, "is an obligation under the 1954 agreements, under the 1962 accords on Laos, and under general international law." It was underwritten last year by a joint resolution of Congress, passed by a 502-2 vote (the holdouts: Oregon's Democratic Senator Wayne Morse and Alaska's Democratic Senator Ernest Gruening) authorizing the President to take "whatever measures necessary" to protect the sovereignty of South Viet Nam.
The U.S., said Rusk, is not blindly opposed to negotiating about Viet Nam. But it will enter into negotiations only on the prospect that North Viet Nam will agree, in an enforceable pact, to withdraw its own aid to the Viet Cong Communists in return for U.S. withdrawal. "Concentrate," said Rusk, "on the meat of the matter. The meat of the matter is that Hanoi is sending these people and these arms into South Viet Nam contrary to every agreement and contrary to international law. Now if that problem is grappled with, then we can get into details. We can consider whether the meat involves a little salt and pepper and a dash of garlic."
Ready to Go. The President himself eschewed words, confined himself to action orders. For the first time, U.S. pilots and crewmen in U.S. B-57s and F-100s swept out in repeated sorties against Viet Cong emplacements in South Viet Nam. This time there was no talk of Americans being in South Viet Nam on a mere "advisory" basis.