It is a sad letter, part boast (he hobnobs with the great), part disappointment they do not heed him), part confession (in August of 1967, he is no longer writing, he has to put ideas down on a tape for Robert McNamara to pocket). It seems to me that the rejected ones were the most important.” Recently he telephoned to say that he had put my suggestions before the field men-that they had accepted some of them and rejected others.
I couldn't, so I made a tape of it, which he took to Vietnam on his last trip. They listened and made no comment but McNamara asked me to write it down. Then I saw McNamara, Rusk, Humphrey and several others and went over the ground again. He listened carefully, asked a few questions and asked me to stay over and meet his men at noon. “I don't know whether or not I told you,” wrote John Steinbeck to Elizabeth Otis, his friend and literary agent, a year before his death, “but the last time was in Washington and staying at the White House I had a long and early breakfast with the President and I told him what I thought we were doing wrong and made suggestions for correcting our errors, all based on winning this war.