Home > The Sixties in America > McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara

Excerpt from "A Policy of Sustained Reprisal"
Memorandum to President Lyndon B. Johnson written by McGeorge Bundy, February 7, 1965
Reprinted from The Pentagon Papers.
Published in 1971.

Excerpt from "Recommendations of Additional Deployments to Vietnam"
Memorandum to President Lyndon B. Johnson written by Robert McNamara, July 20, 1965.
Reprinted from Our Nation's Archive.
Published in 1999.

"Our object in Vietnam is to create conditions for a favorable outcome by demonstrating to the VC/DRV that the odds are against their winning. We want to create these conditions, if possible, without causing the war to expand into one with China or the Soviet Union and in a way which preserves support of the American people and, hopefully, of our allies and friends."

When President Lyndon Johnson asked Congress...