The Passage of Power (152 page)

“He’d be with them forever”
;
“he was with us”
;
“master and slave”
:
Caro,
Master,
p. 866.
“Not then, no”
:
Talmadge interview.
Had asked Russell:
Margaret Shannon,
Atlanta Journal and Constitution,
Nov. 24, 1963; Gilbert C. Fite,
Richard B. Russell, Jr.: Senator from Georgia,
p. 404.
Something that had to do:
Caro,
Master,
“We of the South” chapter.
“Everywhere you looked”
:
Sidey interview.

“In the most important”
:
Evans and Novak,
LBJ,
p. 349.
“It was”
;
“his only”
;
“Most striking”
:
NYT, WP,
Nov. 28.
“Grandeur”
:
Amrine,
Awesome,
p. 182.
Johnson emerges:
NYT,
Nov. 28.
“It would have been”
:
James Reston, “The Office and the Man,”
NYT,
Nov. 28.
“Hardly believe”
:
Kilgore interview.

“No one doubted”
:
Mary McGrory, “Johnson’s Path”; Doris Fleeson, “LBJ and Congress,”
NYP,
Nov. 29.

“It was like”
:
Caro,
Master,
p. 583.
“Across”
:
Newsweek,
Dec. 9.
“Something different”
:
Reston, “Office and the Man.”
Johnson’s speech:
David Lawrence,
NYHT,
Nov. 28.
“Established himself”
:
WP,
Nov. 28.
“For the tradition”
:
Time,
Dec. 6.
“Not a fluke of history”
:
NYHT,
Nov. 28.

All dates 1963 unless otherwise noted.

“The atmosphere”
;
“Russia was not”
:
Johnson,
The Vantage Point,
p. 26.
Very dangerous”
:
Transcript, Nov. 29, “To Mike Mansfield; President Johnson joined by Dean Rusk,”
The Presidential Recordings,
Vol. I, pp. 241–42.
“With that single”
:
Johnson,
Vantage Point,
pp. 25–26.

Congress was circling:
BS,
Nov. 26, 27;
WP,
Nov. 26.
Eastland would say:
Caro,
Master,
p. 867.

His first suggestion:
Holland,
The Kennedy Assassination Tapes,
pp. 90, 91; Max Holland, “The Key to the Warren Report,”
American Heritage,
Nov. 1995;
WP,
Nov. 26; Murphy,
Fortas,
p. 116.
Fortas was later:
Jenkins to Johnson, Nov. 25, p. 2, “Ex FG 1—Nov. 23, 1963–Jan. 10, 1964,” Ex FG 1, LBJL; Murphy,
Fortas,
p. 117.
A “ghastly”
:
Murphy,
Fortas,
p. 116.
“Texas justice”
:
TPR,
Vol. I, p. 148.

He quietly gave:
Carr, in announcing there would be a state Court of Inquiry, said “he had not discussed” the Court with the President, and technically that may have been accurate. But he had discussed it with Cliff Carter, who, after conferring with Johnson, told him, “Good idea, but purely a state matter. Can’t say president asked for it” (Carter to Johnson, Nov. 24, 1963, Special File, Assassination, LBJL).

Learning that:
Murphy,
Fortas,
p. 117.
He himself made:
Transcripts, “10:40 A.M., to Joseph Alsop,” pp. 149–56; “10:30 A.M., to J. Edgar Hoover,” pp. 145–47; both Nov. 25,
TPR,
Vol. I. As Holland points out in
TPR
(Vol. I, p. 148), “there is no record of a phone call from Johnson to Graham,” but McCone, after talking to Johnson on November 26th, wrote that “The President personally intervened, but failed with Mr. Al Friendly and finally ‘killed’ the editorial with Mrs. Graham” (John McCone, “Memorandum for the Record,” Nov. 26, 1963, “Meetings with the
President—23 Nov 1963–23 Dec 1963,” Box 1, John McCone Memoranda, LBJL.
Post
editorial:
Nov. 26.

Executive Order:
“EXECUTIVE ORDER No. 11130—“Appointing a Commission to Report upon the Assassination of John F. Kennedy,” Nov. 30, 1963,”
Public Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64
(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1965), 1:14.

“Men … known to be”
:
Johnson,
Vantage Point,
p. 26.
Robert Kennedy suggested:
Johnson, “Reminiscences of Lyndon B. Johnson,” Aug. 19, 1969, p. 17.

“Whose judicial ability”
;
“We had never”
;
“to me”
:
Johnson,
Vantage Point,
p. 26.
Richard Russell personified:
Caro,
Master,
“A Russell of the Russells of Georgia,” pp. 164–202.
“As close to”
;
“that did not prevent them”
;
“firmness”
;
“things were more complicated”
;
“a demonstration”
:
Caro,
Master,
pp. 372–81.
“Oh, I would too:”
Transcript, “1:15 P.M. to Abe Fortas,” Nov. 29,
TPR,
Vol. I, p. 261.
Nor were these:
Reedy interview.

“Extrajudicial bodies”
;
“The service of five justices”
:
Warren,
The Memoirs of Earl Warren,
pp. 356–57.
Tarnished the Court’s:
Evans and Novak,
Lyndon B. Johnson,
p. 337.
“I was sure”
;
“Would have been chaos”
;
“told them”
;
“I considered”
:
Warren,
Memoirs,
pp. 355–56.

Russell’s reasons:
Fite,
Richard B. Russell, Jr.,
pp. 405–6; Goldsmith,
Colleagues,
p. 101; William Jordan, Reedy interviews.
“Oh, no, no”
:
Transcript, “4:05 P.M. to Richard Russell,” Nov. 29, Vol. I, pp. 291–300.

“Only the two of us”
:
Warren,
Memoirs,
p. 357.
“And you’d go fight”
:
Transcripts, “8:30 P.M. to Thomas Kuchel,” Nov. 29,
TPR,
Vol. I, pp. 354–55; “8:55 P.M. to Richard Russell; President Johnson joined by Albert Moursund,” Nov. 29,
TPR,
p. 367. In his “Reminiscences,” Johnson has a slightly different version (p. 16): “I said, ‘I know what you’re going to tell me, but there is one thing no one else has said to you. In World War I, when your country was threatened—not as much as now—you put that rifle butt on your shoulder. I don’t care who sends me a message. When this country is threatened with division, and the President of the United States says you are the only man who can save it, you won’t say no, will you?’ He said, ‘No, Sir.’ ”
Tears came:
Transcript, “8:30 P.M. to Thomas Kuchel,” Nov. 29,
TPR,
Vol. I, p. 355.
“Mr. President”
:
Warren,
Memoirs,
p. 358.

“He didn’t want”
:
Transcript, “5:10 P.M. to Everett Dirksen,”
TPR,
Vol. I, p 313.
The 1952 breakfast:
Caro,
Master,
pp. 475–76.

warren heads:
NYHT,
Nov. 30.

The country felt:
Max Holland, “The Key”; Holland,
Kennedy Assassination Tapes,
pp. xvii–xxi; Bugliosi,
Reclaiming History.
By 1983; 2003 poll:
Gallup News Service, “Americans: Kennedy Assassination a Conspiracy,” Nov. 21, 2003.

“Brought us through”
:
Johnson,
Vantage Point,
p. 27. Johnson said in his “Reminiscences” (p. 17), “I shudder to think what churches I would have burned and what little babies I would have eaten if I hadn’t appointed the Warren Commission.”

The stalemate:
Caro,
Master of the Senate,
pp. 63 ff.
“In a way”
:
Byrd,
The Senate 1789–1989, Vol. I: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate,
p. 477.
“As when”
:
Douglas, quoted in Byrd,
The Senate,
p. 597.

Did not carry over:
See notes for Chapter 12, “Taking Charge.” Also Giglio,
The Presidency of John F. Kennedy,
pp. 286–87.

Never, however, had so many:
“Dates Appropriations Bills Have Been Cleared for the President, 1951–1963,”
Congressional Quarterly,
Dec. 6, 1963, p. 2135.
Four had:
“Committee and Floor Action on Appropriations, 1961–63,”
Congressional Quarterly,
Dec. 6, 1963, p. 2134;
Cong. Record,
p. 22620. “More than ever before, the appropriations process in 1963 was characterized by delay,” the
Congressional Quarterly Almanac
said (p. 132).
“The longer these bills”
:
Cannon,
Congressional Quarterly,
Dec. 6, 1963, p. 2133. The showdown in the appropriations process was called “unprecedented” by the
Congressional Quarterly Weekly,
Dec. 6, 1963, p. 2131.
“This Congress has gone further”
:
Lippmann, quoted in Johnson,
The Vantage Point,
p. 34.
“A scandal”
:
Life,
Dec. 13, 1963.
“Least productive”
:
Shannon,
NYP,
Dec. 1963.
“Logjam”
:
Then Majority Leader Scott Lucas and Russell both use that term in 1949 in referring to it. Caro,
Master,
pp. 216–17.

“Archaic”
:
Kuchel in
NYP,
Jan. 8, 1964.
1949 civil rights fight:
Caro,
Master,
pp. 215–18.
Johnson had been one:
Master,
pp. 218–22.

His battlefield:
The southern strategy was explained to the author by, among others, Senator Talmadge, Thurmond’s aide Harry Dent, and Richard Russell aides William H. Darden, Gwen and William H. Jordan and Powell Moore, and journalists Neil MacNeil and John Goldsmith. And it was explained in detail by Senator Joseph S. Clark of Pennsylvania in a speech to the Senate on Nov. 21 (
Cong. Record,
pp. 22618–22). It also becomes quite clear during the conversations Johnson had
with senators, as when, on November 30, George Smathers says that the southerners were hiding “behind the tax bill—and hiding behind a lot of other bills, just on the pretense of being against them when the real fact is they’re against the civil rights bill” (
TPR,
Vol. I, p. 386).
“No one had had to”
:
Dent interview.
Filibuster and time limit:
Caro,
Master,
p. 216.

Even while; One of the eight:
Cong. Record
Nov. 21 1963, pp. 22621–22.
Congressional Quarterly Weekly,
p. 2132; Kenneth Crawford, “What’s Wrong Here?”
Newsweek,
Dec. 23. 1963.
“Unzip”
:
Califano,
The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson,
p. 126.
“Everybody”
:
Crawford, “What’s Wrong.”
Clark introduced:
S. RES. 227, Nov. 21, 1963.
“Unprecedented”
:
Congressional Quarterly,
Dec. 6, 1963, p. 2131.
“Already too much money”
:
Congressional Quarterly,
Dec. 6, p. 2133.
Russell’s own:
Congressional Quarterly,
p. 2133.

“Assembled”
:
Caro,
Master,
p. 845.
“Mongrel race”
:
Caro,
Master,
p. 194.
“Massive resistance”
:
Caro,
Master,
p. 845.
“The new civil rights legislation”
:
Richmond Times-Dispatch,
June 11, 1963.

McCormack and Smith;
“He won’t give you a hearing”
:
Transcript, “4:17 P.M. to A. Philip Randolph”; Transcript, “12:04 P.M. to John McCormack and Leslie Arends,” both Nov. 29, 1963,
TPR,
Vol. I, pp. 252–53, 300.
Trying to bargain:
NYT,
Dec. 5.
“No plans”
:
WP,
Nov. 1963.
“He [Smith] won’t do one”
:
Transcript, “1:30 P.M. to Robert Anderson,” Nov. 30,
TPR,
Vol. I, p. 381.
“We’re going to have to”
:
Transcript, “11:10 A.M. to Katharine Graham,” Dec. 2, 1963,
TPR,
Vol. II, p. 46.
“If we don’t”
;
“a miracle”
:
Transcript, “2:05 P.M. to George Smathers,” Nov. 30, 1963,
TPR,
Vol. I, p. 386.
“I couldn’t move”
:
Transcript, “Telephone Interview with Senator Russell Long, Aug. 23, 1989,” 14726, Room 109, shelf 1–5a, Heinemann Papers, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
“It was stalled”
:
Gordon OH.
“Two Virginians”
:
Richard Rovere, “Letter from Washington,”
The New Yorker,
Feb. 15, 1964.

“He’ll pass them”
:
Goldsmith,
Colleagues: Richard Russell and His Apprentice Lyndon B. Johnson,
p. 103.
“He said that”
:
Orville Freeman, “A Cabinet Perspective,” in
The Johnson Presidency,
ed., Kenneth W. Thompson, p. 143.

“Almost archaically elaborate”
:
Forrest Davis, “The Fourth Term’s Hair Shirt,”
SEP,
April 8, 1944.
“Apple-cheeked apple-grower”
:
William S. White, “Meet the Honorable Harry (The Rare) Byrd,”
Reader’s Digest,
April, 1963; see also Benjamin Muse, “The Durability of Harry Flood Byrd,”
The Reporter,
Oct. 3, 1957; and Wilkinson,
Harry Byrd,
p. 307. He is “the apple-cheeked archconservative” in Mooney,
LBJ,
p. 49.