I'm reading "Lessons in Disaster," by Gordon M. Goldstein. It's an account of McGeorge Bundy, his service as national security adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and his activities in support of the Vietnam disaster. It's very good. There's a brief, amusing passage that I want to reproduce here:

The Tonkin Gulf incident in August, '64, started the US on the path of escalation. A US destroyer in the Tonkin Gulf allegedly reported that it had been attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats (it was later shown to be a fraud). LBJ convened a meeting at the White House with Dean Rusk, secretary of state; Bundy, and Thomas Hughes, an intelligence officer. LBJ asked if there'd been any provocation. He was reminded that, months earlier, he'd approved sorties by South Vietnamese naval vessels against North Vietnamese islands in the Tonkin Gulf. LBJ replied:

"Well, it reminds me of the movies in Texas. You're sitting next to a pretty girl and you have your hand on her ankle, and nothing happens. You move it up to her knee and nothing happens. You move it up further and you're thinking about moving it up a bit more and all of a sudden you get slapped. I think we got slapped."

At that point Hughes wrote a note to Rusk: "Now that we know what happens in the movies in Texas, do you wish to continue to call this an unprovoked attack?"