John Hankey

You have to go through this with a fine-toothed comb to see what's there, but Gibbons, Bill Bundy, and Chester Cooper force Mac Bundy to tell the truth, that Johnson did NOT approve escalation before the Pleiku false flag; a central and prominent lie Bundy told, which appears in most books on Vietnam. Bundy's purpose is to point away from Pleiku as being decisive, in order to divert examination of the facts surrounding that attack, including 2 different official memos showing that the reprisals were planned the day before; and that Johnson told Taylor that the Brinks hotel bombing was an inside job. Mansfield suggests that this attack, Pleiku, was also an inside job: the attackers were in and out in 15 minutes and inflicted 150 casualties on Americans, with no losses of their own. Confused? Bundy planned a false flag attack on Pleiku, to force Johnson to agree to bombing of the north, and the sending of US combat forces, two moves he had resisted fiercely for 15 months. So. In order to divert attention from this fact, he has filled the historical record with the lie that Johnson agreed to the escalation BEFORE the attack on Pleiku. At this conference, Mac Bundy is forced to admit the truth, that Johnson refused to escalate, until the evening after the Pleiku attack.