LBJ--New Tapes

At another point in their call, Eisenhower turned back to events of his administration, urging the President to revive the Johnston Plan. (The President seemed more interested in eating.)

But Kosygin wasn’t interested—while Eisenhower and Johnson shared a bit of triumphalism about the current situation in the Middle East (we heard the second part of this clip in class).

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Dwight Eisenhower: As I study this problem, there’s two in the Mideast—two problems—that have got to be settled before there’s ever going to be any, even a modus operandi there in the Mideast. One of them is water, and the other one is these refugees.

Now, they can be tied up, it seems to me, if we could set up a scheme of a corporation, a world corporation, something like they started out with the Suez Canal, or this atomic thing in Vienna [IAEA].

Suppose our government bought 51 percent of the stock, and then we built, in succession, three great big salt purification plants along there in the Levant, the eastern Mediterranean. And to sell the stock to bankers all around the world, and so on. Make the water problem there—I mean, a water solution—make it so attractive that both sides would be almost compelled by their people to take it. [The President chomps on his food.]

For example, I’ve been talking to some of these AEC people—scientists, scientific people—they say that without too expensive a thing, you could put 500 million, or up to a billion, gallons a day, and water much of Israel, Jordan, Egypt east of the Suez, and some of Syria, probably.

Well, now—you see, we had that old Jordan River thing [the Johnston Plan] that you could do something—

President Johnson: I broached that to him this afternoon.

Eisenhower: Did you?

President Johnson: I didn’t get any comment. I told him that our people had talked to me about it just before the meeting.

Eisenhower: Yeah.

President Johnson: He said, “Well, I just want to say this. I don’t think we can talk about anything else until you get the troops withdrawn.” He said, “We’re referees in a fight, and you’ve got to get your man by the nape of the neck, and I got to get our man by the nape of the neck, and you’ve got to separate them and put them back in their corner.” [Eisenhower chuckles.] He said, “Then we can talk about other things.”

Eisenhower: Oh, well, about their man, though—they have to pick him up and revive him. [Both laugh.] That’s the difference.

President Johnson: Well . . .

Lyndon Johnson was a President unusually sensitive to the domestic impact of his foreign policy decisions.

So it came as little surprise that the President was concerned with how Middle Eastern affairs played on the domestic front. In this clip from the Dirksen call, Johnson complained about how American Jews such as Goldberg and New York senator Jacob Javits were poor representatives for the Israeli cause.

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Everett Dirksen: They read me a long cable tonight, that covered that [Saudi King] Faisal meeting.

President Johnson: Well, I have that. We got that in our intelligence. It was very good. His people told it to us, too. And the Kuwaits [sic] have been pretty good.

Dirksen: Yeah. So they have.

President Johnson: The Arabs cannot unify behind anything ever except the Jews.

Dirksen: Well, now—

President Johnson: And if the goddamn Jews had behaved, and be quiet, and let you talk for them or let [Majority Leader Mike] Mansfield talk for them, or let somebody else—instead of Goldberg and [New York senator Jacob] Javits and all them . . .

That just sets them afire when they get up—

Dirksen: Yeah.

President Johnson: They just get afire.

Dirksen: By the way, you didn’t forget to tell [Undersecretary of State] Nick [Katzenbach] to get on Jack [unclear], did you?

President Johnson: I told Nick to come talk to you, and get your judgments on it. He’s not for the resolution.

Dirksen: No.

President Johnson: He thinks we oughtn’t to have any resolution.

Dirksen: Yeah. Well, Jack [Javits] was working like a goddamn eager beaver, you know.

President Johnson: Well, he wants to, and I can understand his concern. I’d be worried if it was Texans. But it’s not wise. That’s not the best thing,

Dirksen: Yeah.

President Johnson: Because somebody else . . . You know, it’s a man that’s a fool that is his own lawyer.

Dirksen: Yeah. But the hell of it is you can’t talk him out of it when he gets these ideas. And then he just scours that goddamn [Senate] floor.

President Johnson: Yeah.

Dirksen: Saying, “Will you join with me in this resolution?”