Katzenbach says LBJ was "essentially uninterested" in world issues and "saw foreign affairs in domestic political terms." Thus, for Johnson the war "was motivated as much by fear of domestic political consequences if territory was lost to the Communists as it was by any serious calculations about the consequences of the loss in terms of national security."
In line with previous accounts, Katzenbach explains that "LBJ desperately wanted to get out of Vietnam but was unwilling to just cut and run." Yet Johnson exhibited a furious intolerance toward anyone who publicly dissented from his policies. When Katzenbach, at LBJ's request, brought RFK to the White House to discuss peace negotiations, an "angry and irrational" president lashed out, accusing Kennedy of prolonging the war.
"You have blood on your hands," an "almost totally out of control" Johnson shouted.
"I don't have to listen to this, I'm leaving," RFK replied, and Katzenbach accompanied him out.
LBJ's behavior "worried me for a long time," Katzenbach writes, and no headway toward ending the war was made during the balance of Johnson's presidency.
Katzenbach confesses that he found his two years as undersecretary of State "terribly frustrating" and that 40 years later he feels "disappointment and sadness" over the Johnson administration's "failure to end the venture in Vietnam."
That latter portion of "Some of It Was Fun" is understandably not as consistently engaging as the earlier chapters involving civil rights, but Katzenbach, now 86, should be justly proud of a memoir that so acutely brings Kennedy and Johnson back to life.
