The voice on the line searched for answers. A chief executive with the fates of young GIs in his hands needed guidance. His country faced a weighty decision — scale back from a conflict in a distant land or double down with more troops, more planes, more bombing and more death and destruction.

The president solicited advice, and the voices on the other end of the static-filled line provided it. The odds are long, they said. The end-goal murky at best, they said. Yet to leave without something close to victory would look like humiliation for the United States, they concluded.

Those mid-1960s conversations between President Lyndon Johnson and his confidants showed LBJ wrestling over what to do in Vietnam. The recordings were Johnson's own secret initiative; the voices on the other end of the line — senators and staff — likely didn't know their words were being preserved.

Thank heavens they were.

A sampling of recordings broadcast last weekend on Bill Moyers Journal offered a glimpse into the agony every U.S. commander in chief endures. (The program is available online here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal.)

We can hope President Barack Obama, who is contemplating a similarly weighty decision for Afghanistan, has seen the broadcast, that he has factored the chapter of U.S. history labeled "Vietnam" into his options. While Afghanistan is not Vietnam, the framing over Johnson's decision bears a striking resemblance to the one our 44th president is expected to announce this Tuesday.

"I don't believe the American people ever want me to run. If I lose it, I think that they'll say I've lost, I've pulled in. At the same time, I don't want to commit us to a war. And I'm in a hell of a shape," Johnson says.

The president saw his options in Vietnam as leave, fight or create a global agreement to not meddle in South Vietnam's affairs.

"Now, of course, if you start running from the communists, they may just chase you right into your own kitchen," Johnson says in one conversation. Replace "communists" with "terrorists" and very little has changed over the past five decades.

Political concerns were also in the equation, as they must surely be for Obama. "Well, they'd impeach a president ... that would run out, wouldn't they?" Johnson asked Richard Russell, the Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia.

Johnson considered the lives of U.S. soldiers. He told National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, "I look at this sergeant of mine this morning. Got six little old kids and I just thought what in the hell am I ordering him out there for?"

Johnson queried Bundy about public opinion on Vietnam. "Did you see the poll this morning? Sixty-five percent of 'em don't know anything about it, and of those that do, the majority think we're mishandling it. But they don't know what to do. That's Gallup."

Last week, a USA Today/Gallup poll offered unwelcome news for Obama. Fifty-five percent disapprove of how he's handling Afghanistan; a little more than one-third approve.

Obama's expected policy announcement will come Tuesday during an address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His generals want more troops, as many as 40,000. Of course, generals usually want more troops.

Just as in South Vietnam, the United States' erstwhile ally in Afghanistan — the Karzai government — is unstable and largely corrupt.

Beyond that, the United States is in the grips of an economic meltdown and dealing with a conflict in Iraq, where peace and a functioning democracy remain ambitions at this point.

Steve Coll, author Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, wrote recently in The New Yorker that "purpose of American policy in Afghanistan ought to be to prevent a second coercive Taliban revolution in that country, not only because it would bring misery to Afghans (and, not incidentally, Afghan women) but because it would jeopardize American interests. …"

Bad if the United States stays. Bad if it goes away.

Sounds like what Sen. Russell told LBJ, "We're just like the damn cow over a fence out there in Vietnam."

Later, Russell predicted what ramping up U.S. military involvement will mean, "It'd take a half-million men. They'd be bogged down in there for 10 years. And, oh, hell no!"

History proved Russell correct 40 years ago.

We don't yet know how history will judge this commander in chief's decision about Afghanistan.