Lookin' out for LBJ

Thomas Nephew points out that the Bush Administration's arguments that the Presidential Daily Briefs are so inherently revealing that they can never --even in any redacted form-- be declassified.

The White House is supporting (or initiating) the CIA's refusal to declassify PDBs from the LBJ presidency. This represents a broad expansion of "executive privilege." While deliberation about and advice to the president is broadly immune from congressional or judicial scrutiny, the White House is arguing that the privilege now extends to information transmitted to the president. The National Security Archive has all the information.

Vietnam scholar Larry Berman is seeking access to several specific PDBs President Johnson received in 1965 and 1968. Berman is a kick ass scholar, a real hound dog investigator and a top-knotch writer. I highly recommend No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam.

But with Secretary of State Rice arguing that there is some kind of "deliberative privilege" in a cabinet department which justifies thwarting a legitimate senate investigation of the Bolton nomination, the Administration may end up doing to genuine executive privilege what Richard Nixon did; by attempting to inflate it at every opportunity they will end up eroding the legitimacy of the privilege itself, in the process harming the institutional legitimacy of the presidency.

Comments

[Thomas Nephew]

Side question: you seem to know this history and this scholar's research. Can you tell what Berman's specific research interests are here by the dates of the PDBs he's requesting?

Not that it matters; this stuff should be released, wholly or at least substantially.

Thanks for the link!

[Stygius]

I'm guessing Berman already has a good idea what is in them, given the requests are so specific. My guess is that it had to do with bombing campaigns.

The 1965 requested PDBs are a couple weeks after LBJ announced a serious increase in troop commitment. They may also touch on some Marine reprisals against a village that got a lot of media attention.

From that last possibility, My Lai occurred in the middle of March 1968. It was covered up for a while, so perhaps Berman is trying to see if LBJ was informed of the nature of the massacre while the truth of it was being suppressed.