The Passage of Power (148 page)

“The facts are unclear”
:
Manchester,
Death of a President,
p. 271.
Johnson was to say:
Johnson,
Vantage Point,
p. 13.
“They’re going”
:
Katzenbach interview.

“Bobby started it”
:
Fehmer OH.
“I was”
:
Fehmer interview.

“As much as”
:
Holland,
Kennedy Assassination Tapes,
p. 24.
“Get Sarah Hughes”
:
Manchester,
Death of a President,
p. 272.
“I was all right”
:
Fehmer interview.
“Some of us did feel”
:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
p. 37.

Hammering began:
Fehmer OH II.
“Reclining”
:
Manchester,
Death of a President,
p. 310.
“In an effort”
:
Fehmer OH II.
“Something that left me stunned”
:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
p. 34.
“She was entering”
:
Fehmer OH II.

“It was a very, very hard thing to do”
:
Mrs. Johnson’s Diary, Box 1, “November 22,” pp. 6, 7; Holland,
Kennedy Assassination Tapes,
p. 23.
“Well”
:
Manchester,
Death of a President,
pp. 316, 317.
“She understood”
:
Manchester,
Death of a President,
p. 322.

“It was suffocating”
;
“kept looking out”
:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
pp. 34, 36.
McHugh, Kilduff episode:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
p. 34. Manchester makes this a vivid episode, but as Roberts writes, “There is a paucity of evidence that this conflict of plans generated the blazing controversy that Manchester later perceived” (Roberts,
The Truth about the Assassination,
p. 108).
“In a highly desperate”
:
“Testimony of Kenneth P. O’Donnell,”
Hearings,
Vol. VII, p. 454; Roberts,
The Truth,
p. 108.

“The huge figure”
:
Jack Valenti,
WP,
Nov. 22, 1993.
“Even in”
:
Valenti OH II.
“In a strange way”
:
Valenti,
A Very Human President,
p. 45.
“You see”
:
Busby interview.

“When I walked in”
:
Johnson,
Vantage Point,
p. 13.
“We are ready”
:
Transcript, “Tape recording between Lyndon B. Johnson, Jack Valenti, and Bob Hardesty,” March 8, 1969, p. 2, OH Collection, LBJL.
“Put the pool”
:
“Liz Carpenter Recollections,” p. 19, Box 4, Special Files, Assassination, LBJL.
“I want you on my staff”
:
Valenti,
WP,
Nov. 22, 1993.
“We can’t leave here”
;
“You must remember Sarah Hughes”
:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
p. 35.
“I could not imagine”
;
“Bobby gave me”
:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
p. 35.

“Almost whispering”
:
Charles Roberts, “Pool Report—Dallas to Washington,” Nov. 22, 1963, p. 1, Special Files, Assassination, LBJL.
“Johnson was adamant”
:
O’Brien OH VI.
“Thank God”
;
“standing tall”
;
“taking command”
;
“as many”
:
Stoughton interview.
Witnesses whose presence:
“Liz Carpenter Recollections,” p. 20.

“In itself”
:
Youngblood,
Twenty Years,
p. 129.
“Shoulder to shoulder”
:
“Testimony of Lawrence O’Brien,”
Hearings,
Vol. VII, p. 470.
“We can talk”
:
O’Brien OH VI.
“Noncommittal”
:
O’Donnell OH.

Reporters’ wild ride:
Sid Davis OH; Roberts,
The Truth,
p. 109.
“They don’t know”
:
Davis OH.
“We’ve got the press here”
:
Charles Roberts OH.

“Now we’re going to have”
:
Charles Roberts OH.

“In they came”
;
“Johnson particularly”
:
Judge Sarah Hughes, as told to Michael Drury, “The Woman Who Swore in President Johnson Recalls What Happened Aboard Air Force One, 2:38 p.m., Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963,” Box 2, Special Files, Assassination, LBJL.
He made sure:
Stoughton interview.

“Mrs. Kennedy wanted”
:
Hughes to Drury.
“Do you want?”
:
Davis OH I. Stoughton describes Johnson as “upset that Jackie wasn’t” making her appearance “faster than she was” (Stoughton interview).
“She said”
:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
p. 36.
“Your mind”
:
“Liz Carpenter’s Recollections,” pp. 23, 18.
“Had not known this man”
:
Sid Davis OH.
“Big.
Big
”
:
Stoughton interview.

“Now”
:
Charles Roberts OH, p. 17.
“Johnson particularly”
;
“Mrs. Kennedy wanted”
:
Sarah Hughes, as told to Drury.

“Something larger”
:
Valenti interview.
“I think I ought”
:
O’Donnell and Powers,
“Johnny, We Hardly,”
p. 36.
“A hush”
:
Charles Roberts OH.
“Cast down”
:
Sarah Hughes, as told to Drury.
“Absolutely steady”
:
Valenti,
This Time, This Place,
p. 28.

“Now let’s get airborne”
:
Charles Roberts, “Pool Report”; Sid Davis, “My Brush with History,”
American Heritage,
Nov.–Dec. 2003; Charles Roberts OH.

“Legitimated”
:
Neustadt,
Presidential Power,
p. 237.
“Illustrate how”
:
Verba, “The Kennedy Assassination and the Nature of Political Commitment,” in Greenberg and Parker, eds.,
The Kennedy Assassination and the American Public,
p. 351.
“Only two uniforms”
:
Truman,
Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Decisions,
p. 7.

“Violence was missing”
:
Schramm, “Communication in Crisis,” from Greenberg and Parker, eds.,
The Kennedy Assassination,
p. 3.
Oswald arrested;
“He also is being questioned”
;
“a definite”
:
ABC News, Newseum,
President Kennedy Has Been Shot,
pp. 127, 129.

The first detailed study:
Sheatsley and Feldman, “A National Survey on Public Relations and Behavior,” in Greenberg and Parker, eds.,
The Kennedy Assassination,
pp. 149–77. The study was carried out by a division of the National Opinion Research Center, and hereafter it will be identified as “NORC Study.”
Four out of five:
SRS-350 Codebook:
Kennedy Assassination Study,
November, 1963, p. 6, NORC Library, University of Chicago.

“Like a shock wave”
:
“The Day Kennedy Died,”
Newsweek,
Dec. 2, 1963.
92 percent:
Sheatsley and Feldman, “A National Survey,”
p. 152. A Gallup poll in Greece, reported on Dec. 15, found that “just 24 hours after the assassination, 99 per cent of Athenians were found to be aware of the tragic occurrence” (Sheatsley and Feldman, “A National Survey, p. 153).
166 million; 31.6:
A. C. Nielsen Co, “TV Responses to the Death of the President,” quoted in Schramm, “Communication in Crisis,” p. 14.
“Probably without parallel”
:
Greenberg and Parker, eds.,
The Kennedy Assassination,
p. 153.
“The first loss”
:
Schramm, “Communication in Crisis,” p. 3.
“For all practical”
:
Schramm, “Communication in Crisis,” p. 4.
Only 88 percent:
Sheatsley and Feldman, “A National Survey,” p. 159.
“When President Franklin”
:
NYT,
Nov. 24, 1963.
NORC survey timetable:
Sheatsley and Feldman, “A National Survey,” p. 151–51.

“Terrible responsibility
:
Jonathan Schell, “The Time of Illusion: VI—Credibility,”
The New Yorker,
July 7, 1965, quoted in Neustadt,
Presidential Power,
pp. 230–31.
“Lyndon Johnson’s ascent”
:
Graff, ed.,
The Presidents: A Reference History,
p. 595.

“Some”
:
Evans and Novak,
Lyndon B. Johnson,
p. 338.
“We came”
:
Manatos OH, LBJL.

“I always felt sorry”
:
Moyers, quoted in Miller,
Lyndon,
p. 336. On another occasion, Johnson said, “I came into office by assassination—knowing that I was living under that burden” (Johnson, “Reminiscences of Lyndon B. Johnson,” August 19, 1969, transcript of tape recording, OH Collection, LBJL, p. 26).
“A Texas murder”
:
Manchester,
The Death of a President,
p. 228.

“I wish our leader”
:
“The Senate: A Crisis in Leadership,”
Newsweek,
Nov. 18, 1963.
And now the other bills were being held up:
As the Kennedy administration may have been starting to realize. Speaking to Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, about why the tax-cut bill wasn’t making more progress through Mills’s committee, Kennedy asked him what would induce a committee member from the South who might otherwise favor the bill to oppose it? Mills replied that opponents would “get him”—get his vote to oppose the tax bill—by saying that in return they would oppose release of the civil rights bill from the House Rules Committee. “Let’s take a fellow … who was prone to vote for the tax bill.… How would they get him?” Kennedy asked Mills. “I mean, what, would be the offer on civil rights that would get him?”

“Block it in the Rules Committee,” Mills replies (Reeves,
President Kennedy,
p. 623).

In his last press conference before his assassination, Kennedy was asked, why, in addition to the tax-cut bill and the civil rights bill, the foreign aid bill had suffered its “worst attack … since its inception,” and “several appropriation bills are still hung up in Congress for the first time in history this late. What’s happened on Capitol Hill?”

“Well, they’re all interrelated,” Kennedy replied. “I think there is some delay because of civil rights—that’s had an effect upon the passage of appropriation bills. There isn’t any question.”
WP,
Nov. 15.

The legislative situation at the time of Kennedy’s assassination is summarized in Giglio,
The Presidency of John F. Kennedy,
p. 286; Dallek,
An Unfinished Life,
pp. 707–8. Tom Wicker, at the time of the assassination the White House correspondent for
The New York Times
and later head of its Washington Bureau, was to write that “while it will never be known to a certainty whether the Kennedy tax and civil rights bills … have been approved in Congress had Kennedy not been murdered … these bills were widely believed to be bogged down and stalled on the day of his death.… In the time allotted him, Kennedy never was able to lead Congress effectively” (Wicker,
JFK and LBJ,
p. 147).

“The first priority”
:
NYHT, NYT, WP,
Jan. 26, 1963.
The pace of the hearings:
The Kennedy Administration had been pressing for a vote in the Finance Committee to speed up the pace of the hearings, a vote to, in effect, repudiate Byrd’s tactics. The vote was held on November 15th. Exactly two members of the 17-member committee voted for it. There were twelve votes against it, and three members weren’t present (Reeves,
President Kennedy,
p. 658).

In an issue that hit the newsstands the week he died,
Newsweek
said “his legislative program was bogged down in the least productive Congress in memory” (
Newsweek,
Nov. 25, 1963).

“We are at the critical stage”
:
Burns,
The Deadlock of Democracy,
p. 2. The last section of his book is titled “Leadership: The Art of the Impossible?”
“This Congress has gone further”
:
Lippmann, quoted in Johnson,
Vantage Point,
p. 34.
“Sat longer”
:
“The Lethargic 88th vs. L.B.J.,”
Life,
Dec. 13, 1963.
“It has seemed impossible”
:
Childs.
“there was no assurance”
; Kennedy’s final press conference:
WP,
Nov. 15, 1963.
“Is, here and now”
:
Evans and Novak,
NYHT,
Nov. 24, 1963.
“A man who wore”
:
“Lyndon Johnson: His Life, His Family, His Ways,”
NYP,
Nov. 27–Dec. 2, 1963.
“trying”
:
Rauh interview.
“Mr. Johnson needs”
:
LAT,
Nov. 24, 1963.
“As the first southerner”
:
Shannon,
NYP.

“The eleven weeks”
:
Neustadt,
Presidential Power,
p. 240.
“If I am elected”
:
Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days,
p. 121.
“Faced the unprecedented”
:
Neustadt,
Presidential Power,
p. 258.