Washington - President Lyndon Johnson had grave doubts about US involvement in Vietnam as early as May 1964, according to tapes of his personal White House conversations published in a new book.
In a taped conversation with his National Security adviser McGeorge Bundy, Johnson said Vietnam was not worth fighting for and called the conflict "the biggest damned mess that I ever saw".
Transcripts of the tapes are to be published this week by Simon & Schuster in the book Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964 by Michael Beschloss. The quoted conversation with Bundy took place about three years before American troop strength in Vietnam reached its peak.
