Matthew Brannon - Talking While Eating

Signed and numbered edition of 25 (+ 5 A.P)

President John Kennedy once said to former Vice President Richard Nixon, “It really is true that foreign affairs is the only important issue for a President to handle, isn’t it? I mean - who gives a shit if the minimum wage is $1.15 or $1.25 in comparison to something like this?” Nixon couldn’t agree more. But Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, who inherited the office at 12:30 p.m. on Nov 22nd of 1963 wasn’t so comfortable with the idea. While he succeeded in making Congress work like no one before or after and achieved the most forward domestic reforms since Roosevelt, the rest of the world would be his undoing. Especially a distant corner of the planet known as South East Asia. 

How one makes decisions says a lot about how one governs. Many of the events of the 1950s and 60s can be understood by tracing the different decision making templates of the different administrations. L.B.J. preferred close intimates upon whom he could insist on loyalty and control. The glacier of information concerning Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia would be condensed over and over again until it reached a private room of 4-6 men referred to as the "Tuesday Lunch Group.” The group of intimates would meet weekly in the Whitehouse Dinning room to decide matters ranging from general policy to bombing targets. What was to be America’s longest war* was an around the clock concern, but many of the most important decisions were faced over the Sheraton dining table aside Truman’s china set.

- M.E.B., 2017`