from Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview I* LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. 1 LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW I PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview I, 9/ 18/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview I, 9/ 18/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. 2 NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY AND JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Lawrence F. O'Brien In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Lawrence F. O'Brien of New York, New York, do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on September 18, October 29, October 30, December 4, December 5, 1985; February 11, February 12, April 8, April 9, June 25, July 24, July 25, September 10, September 11, November 20, November 21, December 17, December 18, 1986; April 22, April 23, June 18, June 19, July 21, July 22, August 25, August 26, September 23, September 24, November 3, November 4, December 10, December 11, 1987 at New York, New York and Cotuit, Massachusetts and prepared for deposit jointly in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library. (2) The tape recordings to which the transcripts relate shall be in the possession of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and shall not be available for use or review of or by any source during my lifetime and for a period of time thereafter ending with the 10th year anniversary of the date of my death. At such time, access to the tape recordings by researchers shall be permitted but only for the limited purpose of background use, and researchers may not cite, paraphrase, or quote therefrom under any circumstances. (3) During my lifetime, I retain all copyright in the material given to the United States by the terms of this instrument. Thereafter the copyright in the transcripts shall pass to the United States Government. During my lifetime, researchers may publish brief "fair use" quotations from the transcripts without my express prior consent in each case, but no other quotations from the transcripts shall be published, except with my express prior approval in writing. (4) Copies of the open portions of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be provided by the library to researchers upon request, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. (5) Copies of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be deposited in or loaned to research institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library or the John 3 Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. Signed by Lawrence F. O'Brien on April 5, 1990. Accepted by Donald Wilson, Archivist of the United States, April 25, 1990. Original Deed of Gift on file at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705. ACCESSION NUMBER 92-12 4 INTERVIEW I DATE: September 18, 1985 INTERVIEWEE: LAWRENCE O'BRIEN INTERVIEWER: Michael L. Gillette PLACE: Mr. O'Brien's office, New York City Tape 1 of 5, Side 1 G: Let me ask you first to review some of the episodes at the 1960 [Democratic National] Convention and particularly Lyndon Johnson's selection as vice president. O: As they headed into the convention, our game plan, to secure the nomination over that two-year period after Kennedy's re-election to the Senate, was based on utilizing primaries selectively. We felt that we had to be awfully concerned about the party pros accepting a Catholic nominee, for obvious reasons. It presented difficulties, too. As it turned out, that was exactly the case. So we attempted to very carefully orchestrate our primary effort and my recollection is that we wound up in seven primaries. We negotiated out of some major primary states--California, Ohio, Pennsylvania--in a variety of ways; we'd stay out if this happened or that happened, and whatever commitments could be made for the future, favorite sons in some instances, like [Michael] DiSalle in Ohio, Pat Brown's activities in California and the rest. But the effort was to build up within the party a recognition that Kennedy could be a strong candidate for president regardless of the aspect of his religion. And in doing that we really were fortunate because of the seven primary states, three or four of them were rather easy marks for us. Avoiding major states where we required a great deal of money and organization was very helpful. And the primary focus in terms of national attention and party attention really became Wisconsin and West Virginia. The Hubert Humphrey efforts in Wisconsin and West Virginia did elicit a great deal of media attention. And the West Virginia primary, where it was predicted Kennedy would lose but he ultimately won, really was the catalyst that moved us forward. So then we had to focus our attention on the party pros, whether it was Michigan, Ohio, California, Pennsylvania--the major delegate states that we had some degree of entree to. It was very difficult because, interestingly enough, it wasn't a matter of liking or disliking Kennedy. It was a matter of self-preservation among the pros, and the most difficult people to deal with in the final analysis, as we headed toward Los Angeles, were Catholic pros. David Lawrence was governor of Pennsylvania; Mike DiSalle was governor of Ohio; Dick Daley was the kingpin, of course, in Chicago and, therefore, Illinois. In each instance there was deep concern--Bill Green was a powerhouse in Pennsylvania, also--that the nomination of Kennedy could bring down the ticket in their states, the governorship or a Senate contest or a local contest. So [we had] to persuade them that while they thought Jack was a nice guy and all the rest, the political reality was 5 O'Brien --Interview I --2 that he could be a winner and, consequently, could indeed be a help to them in their individual state efforts to maintain party control. So, going into Los Angeles, we had continuing question marks. My recollection is that Mayor Daley did not join the Kennedy effort until Los Angeles. David Lawrence and Bill Green still were concerned. Pat Brown was off again, on again. He had an Adlai Stevenson situation in California. We weren't locked in. But, nevertheless, once we had completed our primary route in those seven states--and that included Maryland, Oregon--we were able to organize quite well in all of them. They were doable in terms of our resources, and we were successful. And in the process, as I said, we had elicited a terrific amount of national attention and, obviously, a great amount of professional Democratic Party people's attention. So we developed a system of checking and rechecking every delegate. Bobby Kennedy and I jointly put together an organization for Los Angeles in which every state delegation was assigned to a Kennedy person, and that Kennedy person, whether it was Abe Ribicoff or John Bailey or whoever--and there were a large number of them then--would literally live with the delegation. That was the contemplation; regardless of whether they were delegates from their own states, they would literally live in the hotel where the delegation was located that they were assigned to monitor. So each morning for several days prior to the opening of the convention, we would meet at our headquarters in Los Angeles and each of these assigned people would go over, name by name--it was a rather tedious task--the delegates of the state or states in a couple of instances, two or three small states put together, that they were responsible for. So we got to caucuses--the route that Lyndon Johnson and other candidates were obviously following in Los Angeles--going around to the various caucuses. I remember particularly the California caucus--still trying to lock up those last pieces. But we had a pretty clear idea that we had the nomination. Now, it could be taken away. You could have dissipation of delegate strength, particularly if you had a major party leader that had a change of heart or change of mind. But the objective was to win on the first ballot. G: Did you feel then that if it didn't go over on the first ballot that you might have some erosion? O: Yes, we felt that that would create a danger and certainly make it much more difficult. I remember the California caucus, because while you had candidates--we had Scoop [Henry] Jackson, as I recall, Stu Symington, we had a number of them, and we had Lyndon Johnson. Jack Kennedy and I were returning to our hotel from the California caucus when I told Kennedy in the car that the Johnson delegation had extended an invitation to Kennedy to appear before the Texas delegation. I immediately followed up by saying, "Of course, there's no point to that. First of all, you're not going to gain a darn thing. Secondly, you'll 6 O'Brien --Interview I --3 get into a direct confrontation," because Lyndon Johnson would appear jointly with him and it might cause problems. And I attempted to persuade Kennedy not to do it. I felt that there was no valid point to it. Kennedy thought about it. His first reaction was "yes, I've got a lot of other things to do." But it was a long trip in; I think we were out in Hollywood somewhere at this California caucus--you know the travel problems on the roads in Los Angeles. And the more Kennedy thought about it, the more intrigued he became with it. He then concluded before we got to the hotel that he was going to appear later that afternoon before the Texas delegation. It kind of intrigued him. I therefore had lost the argument. My argument was obviously based on what I thought was political reality, delegate counts. So he did appear, and from that came the long-remembered comment that Kennedy made that he thought Johnson was certainly the greatest majority leader the Senate had ever had, and he, Kennedy, was going to do everything possible to ensure that he continued as majority leader. And so nothing negative occurred, we gained no delegates, but it achieved a dimension of publicity. The Johnson-John Connally effort to stop Kennedy--which was an obvious effort I would have been making if I were with them--was intense. And our continuing delegate counts showed that we were withstanding that effort. We then had the unexpected. That was the appearance of Adlai Stevenson and Eleanor Roosevelt at the convention in an attempt to swing the convention with the enthusiasm of the moment. However, the efforts we had expended over that long period of time stood us in good stead because, again, there was no erosion. So when the actual balloting started, we were very confident that we were going to win on the first ballot, and we did. In fact, I think, as I recall it, we were within three votes of our head count when the roll call was completed. Then, at that moment, after the nomination, Kennedy chose to appear before the convention that night even though he was to formally accept the nomination at that stadium the following day or a couple of days later. But through this entire effort, we had had no serious contemplation of a running mate. G: You'd never talked to Kennedy about that before? O: Oh, you know, there were a lot of names out there and I guess we probably talked at one time or another about eight or ten possibilities. So I think the enthusiasm of the moment, the culmination of a couple of years of effort, the fact that we had achieved the nomination was so overwhelming to all of us that we just didn't focus. So after that long night, we all went to bed in the early hours of the morning, I received a call from Kennedy early--it probably was 6: 00 a. m. or something like that--to immediately join him in his suite. So I hastily dressed and went down to the suite, and there were several people there, of course, Bobby, Ken O'Donnell, and now I don't recall the others. And I don't recall specifically how this had taken place over a matter of very few hours, but Jack Kennedy had made a decision that he'd like to have Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. 7 O'Brien --Interview I --4 I don't know what came first in terms of whose great thought it was. There were those that later claimed it was their thought; Joe Alsop claimed that and Phil Graham claimed that. But I think in the normal course of events, Jack Kennedy came up with this idea, because I think perhaps he was probably the first to focus on "Are you going to be a footnote in history as a nominee for the presidency or are you indeed going to achieve election?" And you had the South and the Southwest; you had this whole problem of bringing a high degree of unity in terms of the ticket to this campaign effort, and it was a stroke of genius. I can't lay any claim to participating in it in terms of it being a stroke of genius. G: When Kennedy mentioned this, were these the elements that he cited? O: Basically, he felt that it would achieve great balance on the ticket and that now we had just come off within hours of, not a bitter struggle, but certainly a vigorous struggle with Lyndon Johnson, who was our prime opposition as we got to the close-out of the nominating process. G: So you're convinced that the offer was not intended as one that Johnson would decline? O: Oh, no, we were not at all sure he'd accept. No. In fact, it caused turmoil, off-again, on-again activity over a period of a couple of hours. Johnson was in his suite, as I recall--it was just below Kennedy's--and Sam Rayburn was there and others. It was a matter of some time elapsing and I believe that there was, during that period, [the feeling that] no, he won't accept. Sam Rayburn was absolutely adamant that he not accept; a quote attributed to him is "I'll shoot you, Lyndon, if you take this," something to that effect. He felt very strongly about it. G: Let me ask you to go back to that suite, the Kennedy suite, and the initial meeting when the proposition of asking LBJ to serve as the nominee of vice president. What was your reaction to it? O: I was stunned. Because I guess whatever little thought I ever gave to the second place on the ticket, I don't think I ever focused at all on having your major opposition wind up your running mate. Now, obviously, that's something that's happened many times in American political history, but somehow or other if I ever really gave more than a fleeting thought to Lyndon Johnson, it would be in the context, "Heck, Lyndon Johnson would not accept second spot. He's the majority leader of the Senate. He isn't going to sacrifice what he has to be on this ticket." So I never gave it any serious thought myself. Maybe I was thinking of Stu Symington or whoever. G: Was Symington your own personal choice? O: I didn't have one. There were half a dozen people that obviously would be the people on a list that you would ultimately select from. None of them were stick-outs in the sense that, 8 O'Brien --Interview I --5 boy, this has got to be it. But see, Lyndon Johnson was another dimension. He wasn't one of these fellows that really never had a chance to be nominated but had gone through some of the exercise and, consequently, had reasonably high national visibility and therefore could be on the ticket. Now this was entirely different. Of course, part of the problem was that some of our most ardent supporters in acquiring the nomination would be nothing short of appalled with a decision of this nature, in the event Lyndon Johnson accepted. That wasn't a happy task that Jack assigned his brother, Bob, who was to go up and visit with Governor G. Mennen Williams and Walter Reuther, and advise them of the decision. G: Was this at that early meeting that he asked his brother to--? O: Once it was determined that Lyndon Johnson would accept the nomination, there were a couple of assignments. I remember, because immediately as part of that you had to think about your own supporters and what their reaction would be, and I guess you would direct your thought process immediately to Michigan, to G. Mennen Williams and to Walter Reuther. They were very liberal. They were certainly in leadership roles in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Reuther as the head of the UAW obviously was a very prominent and important force in the activity that brought about the nomination. Bobby was charged with that duty, and Bobby was not at all enchanted with the selection of Lyndon Johnson. G: What was his reaction? O: As mine, I think he was shocked, probably for different reasons. I'm going back twenty-five years, but I would react in terms of trying to put the numbers together right away rather than any of the philosophical views or the rest. But there had been some fairly bitter moments in the process. As for Bobby Kennedy, it was his nature to strongly react pro and con to most things. I think that he perceived attacks on his brother Jack as highly personal as far as he was concerned. G: So he felt this should eliminate Johnson? O: Yes. So Bobby first had to accustom himself to this, and then take on the job of smoothing some of what would be obviously ruffled feathers. G: How did the discussion go between the two Kennedy brothers, can you recall? O: Some of that discussion was just between the two of them. G: Really? O: Yes. G: By the time you came, was this still being debated? 9 O'Brien --Interview I --6 O: No, this was off and on, but Jack would go in the other room, Bob might go in another. You know, this was one of these totally unstructured situations. Everybody, I think, was in somewhat of a daze. The whole thing was unfolding, and as the minutes went on, will he or wouldn't he if he was offered? And then he's offered, would he take it? No, he won't, and then the word would come back, well, no, he's not going to take it, and then, well, he'll think about it some more. This sort of thing just went on and on. The key to it all was that Jack Kennedy had made up his mind this was absolutely the right thing to do, and there were no alternatives. During the course of this activity, you got to the stage where Lyndon Johnson agreed to take it. Before this would ever become public knowledge--it was still confined to this room and Lyndon Johnson's suite--it was necessary to round up all of the potential vice presidential nominees one by one and have them come in and meet privately with Jack Kennedy, where Jack Kennedy would tell them individually that he had made his decision. Part of that brought Scoop Jackson to becoming national chairman during the campaign. It was just an unbelievable experience in every respect. It absolutely shook all of us, because to my knowledge, I don't know who might have whispered in Jack's ear or something like that. I certainly didn't. I know my mind was wide open. When I got that call that morning, obviously I knew the subject. The subject was now let's go over the list and let's get a consensus among the half-dozen of us that were intimately involved with Jack and the campaign and let's put this to bed, because we're going to have a session of the convention starting at noon and we've got to resolve this. I didn't go into his suite with any thought in my mind about Lyndon Johnson, not only that he'd be on the list, [but] there would be no list. It would be Lyndon Johnson. I did not know Lyndon Johnson intimately at all. Perhaps I had met him once or twice. But, anyway, people fanned out and there were tasks to do. You had to decide who was going to place him in nomination, who was going to second the nomination. Then the report back from the Michigan delegation was that they were totally displeased, and then there was the threat that this would be a floor fight. So that required all kinds of posturing on the convention floor and all kinds of assurances that we had everybody in place and that the motion to close the nominations and the motion to declare the election of Lyndon Johnson be made from the floor. I forget now, but Abe Ribicoff was a party to it in the Connecticut delegation. There was someone else; in case the chair didn't recognize one, they'd recognize the other. John McCormack was up on the platform with Rayburn. So all of this was part of what had to be done before the afternoon. At a point when things settled down in the suite, people moved out to carry on their tasks, including Bobby going up to whatever hotel it was to meet with Walter Reuther and the Governor. G: Soapy Williams? O: Soapy Williams. There were other assignments. You knew what your soft spots were. You knew there was going to be some strong adverse reaction. 10 O'Brien --Interview I --7 Then Lyndon Johnson came into the suite. And I remember that because Jack Kennedy took a call or went off into another room for a while, so that left Lyndon Johnson and me alone. At which point Johnson said to me just what I have stated, "You and I don't know each other well at all. I know of you and obviously you know of me. But I want to tell you something. In making this commitment, I am going to do everything humanly possible to help this man and to help this ticket. I am going to do everything physically and mentally that I'm capable of doing in the interests of this campaign and this ticket. And I want you and whoever else that handles this campaign to tell me what I should be doing, assign tasks to me. I don't care how difficult the task might be. Move me everywhere and anywhere you can. I am totally committed, and you're going to find that I am everything that you would want me to be in terms of being a running mate." It was a very impressive monologue. I was impressed. I started even then adjusting. I don't know as it had fully penetrated with me that, by gosh, this was a coup and this was something that was going to really have an impact on this election. But anyway, that's what took place, and I must say, throughout the campaign, Lyndon Johnson did everything he had committed to do. G: Who were the other people considered for the vice presidential nomination? O: No one had been, as I said, contacted even indirectly regarding it, and we had not had any kind of a formalization of discussion regarding it. But as I recall it, and I'll miss some names, but Symington sticks out, Scoop Jackson sticks out, Orville Freeman was another fellow on that list, also Humphrey. And it seems to me there were a couple more who elude me at the moment. When I say half a dozen, I think there were half a dozen names that were bandied about by the press as potential VP candidates. G: Were there any other southerners considered? O: I don't know of any. It's probably somewhat remote, but only because of his position and his early advocacy of Kennedy that the name of Terry Sanford might have come up. G: That's who I was wondering about. O: Yes. G: What in particular did you hope Johnson would add to the ticket's electability? O: I think first of all it gave what we like to term geographical balance. He was nationally prominent and he was from Texas; Kennedy was the nominee and he was from Massachusetts. Johnson, as majority leader and for other reasons obviously, had entree to the South and the Southwest. He was eminently acceptable on the ticket, and more than that, with some degree of enthusiasm on the part of any number of southerners. As for Kennedy, his strength was in the West, the industrial Midwest, and the East. And it 11 O'Brien --Interview I --8 seemed that they complimented each other in that sense, in terms of a campaign. There was no great disagreement between them regarding the issues and their views on where they might tend or hoped to go once they achieved election. G: Did you ever do a state-by-state breakdown of what numerically Johnson could add to the election? O: No. All of that might have been something we kicked around after the fact, but I can tell you that I don't think, even though I'm trying to reflect on it after twenty-five years, my reflections today would alter in any meaningful sense what actually occurred. It was out of the blue; there was an initial disbelief, there was concern on the part of Bobby about our supporters and their reactions. And then there was the problem of making sure that you kept a pleasant relationship with all the candidates or potential VP nominees. All of that was swirling around the suite. And you had a time frame. You had to try to smooth the ruffled feathers of a number of liberals in the Democratic Party that had supported Kennedy. You didn't have that kind of problem with a Dick Daley or a Dave Lawrence, or those people; they were political pros and it wouldn't take more than a few minutes for any of them to say, "Well, this sounds good." G: Was there anybody that served as a go-between between the Johnson forces and the Kennedy forces? You know, Jim Rowe and Phil Graham have been mentioned as people who shuttled back and forth. O: No, I don't think so. I think it was a relatively easy matter. There were people, I don't know how many people were around Johnson at that point, but I don't think the structuring of it in any sense ever occurred. In other words, "All right, you speak to so-and-so," or "You do this and you do that, and then you have him speak to Johnson or to Rayburn. "This just. . . . If you had had two days to plan this coup, I'm sure you would have had it well orchestrated and well organized, and everybody would know what everyone else was doing. But we, who had some reputation, at that hour at least, of being fairly good organizers and all the rest, found ourselves without a game plan other than "let's get him," which was Jack Kennedy's game plan. G: Jack Kennedy did go down to the Johnson suite that morning and talk with him. O: Yes. Yes. G: It's unclear exactly what was said, but apparently there was no outright, formal offer at that point, is that correct? O: It was a feeler, yes. G: It was a feeler. Okay. O: Yes. Because, you see, he had to wrestle, too, with if you placed it in a formal context 12 O'Brien --Interview I --9 and it was turned down, that could be adverse to this campaign. So how do you get to putting the thought across, avoiding the formalization, and yet getting the temperature? G: Did Kennedy come back from that meeting with the notion that Johnson would accept it? O: That he would be thinking about it. But Sam Rayburn got into that picture at some stage, and Rayburn was doing everything he could on the basis of their lifelong friendship to dissuade him. G: Now, Kennedy did talk to Rayburn at this point, didn't he? O: Yes. G: Do you recall the circumstances of that? O: No. There was just a lot of movement up and down the stairway. G: Then Robert Kennedy went and talked with the Johnson people--Johnson, Rayburn, Connally, and the like--and told him of the opposition to LBJ, particularly in the Michigan delegation, and suggested maybe that he consider the chairmanship of the DNC as an alternative to VP. Do you remember that? O: No. G: Do you have any--? O: No. No. And I can say this, in the group meeting with Kennedy present, there was never a reference to that. G: Really? O: No. Not in my recollection. Because I know, twenty-five years later, what my reaction would have been to that. I would have thought that was ridiculous, to put it mildly. I think it would have bordered on the insulting rather than getting the objective accomplished. G: Well, why would Robert Kennedy have done this? O: Robert Kennedy was not enamored with the whole concept. He had a responsibility to fulfill his brother's direction, and Bob was good at that, and as the years went on, Jack Kennedy never at any fleeting moment was other than president of the United States. His brother was the attorney general and his brother was his confidant and adviser, but the decision maker sat in the Oval Office and the decision maker sat in the suite that day. It took some doing, and obviously Bobby wasn't saying "I'm going to fight my brother" or anything, but it took some doing, first of all, to have Bobby get to the point of the 13 O'Brien --Interview I --10 accommodation, and then to carry out his responsibilities as a spokesman for his brother with Johnson, Rayburn, as well as Williams and Reuther and the rest. And I don't confine it to Williams and Reuther; there were others that were aroused, and there was the threat. I don't want to overemphasize the threat of a floor fight, but I must say when you're engaged in something like that you don't just overlook any possibility of difficulty arising, and the threat was made. We didn't contemplate that somehow or other they could defeat Johnson on the floor, but, obviously, we were contemplating how to avoid this. So before the Michigan delegation got into the act and there was a roll call, you had to plan something, because you didn't want to walk out into that convention with that kind of controversy if you could avoid it. G: It would have been an embarrassment. O: Of course. So, you see, this was not a simple matter. I'm talking about 6: 00 or 6: 30 a. m., or whatever it was, to noontime, when all of these things occurred--the fanning-out process around the city. G: Did Jack Kennedy ever seem to waver on Johnson during the course of this? O: Not to my recollection. G: This has been one possible explanation. O: Waver on Johnson? G: On his choice of Johnson as the nominee. O: I don't recall it. If that occurred, I didn't perceive it. G: All right. Now let me ask you to describe the anti-Kennedy propaganda that seemed to come from the Johnson forces. Was this, do you think, the genesis of the friction between some of the Kennedy people and the Johnson people? O: I suppose so. As it got to D-day, hour by hour the effort on the part of the Johnson people seemed to us to become more intense, more personalized. There were all kinds of rumors around and circulation of stories about Kennedy's health and that sort of thing. G: How could you trace these to the Johnson people? O: Well, we really tabbed John Connally and a lady whose name eludes me. G: Oh, India Edwards, yes. O: Yes. Whether rightly or wrongly, we felt that was the source and that Connally was a 14 O'Brien --Interview I --11 good bare-knuckle fighter and this was desperation. It was a little bit like it happened by sheer coincidence that I was being interviewed by Mike Wallace up in the booth at the time of the Adlai Stevenson demonstration. And Mike Wallace, in his inimitable style, started in saying, "Well, look at this! Look at this, I'm looking out the window of the booth. The aisles are jammed and the enthusiasm is great. You people have felt you had this set and now look at this. This could turn out to be a debacle for you." My only comment was, "Mike, why don't you look at the floor? The delegates are all in their seats. The people in the aisles, the demonstrators with the balloons and the horns and everything, all came from the balconies." And that was really what was happening and it meant little or nothing. But, of course, if you're a reporter, you're hoping that something like that will occur so it's a much better story. But on the Johnson side it didn't take that form at all. It was the difficult, difficult situation that you have when it's clear that your opponent has "pledges," quote, unquote, that indicate he's going to win that nomination and on the first ballot. How do you try to peel off some of that support? How do you try to disrupt this bandwagon? And that's really the position Johnson was in. You resort to whatever comes to your mind, I guess. I don't recall that I reacted to the attacks the Johnson people were making or the effort they were expending in a very, shall I say, personalized manner. I think that I had enough years behind me in politics to kind of ride with that. But there were those among us in this little handful of people who had not had that background. And, of course, you had Bobby, who was reacting much more strongly than I was because it was his brother they were attacking. G: Had he had a dislike for Johnson before this point, do you think? O: I don't recall. I don't think there was anything like a relationship or contact between the two of them that would have brought about any. . . . G: Okay. The health accusations are well known. What else did Johnson's forces promote, do you recall? Was there any anti-Catholic propaganda? O: I don't really recall any. I think that what happened with the Johnson forces, as Lyndon Johnson years later told me when we discussed a lot of this in a different context, was that he had a team out there dealing with delegates. He wasn't in primaries, but he had them fanned out across the country during that same period. These fellows would meet back in Washington and report on their findings and delegate count and Johnson felt his people had failed him because they had given him all kinds of reports over those months that gave him a true belief that he had a good shot at the nomination. I don't recall now, but I remember Johnson and I discussing specific states in conversations over the intervening years. G: North Carolina, Arizona. . . . 15 O'Brien --Interview I --12 O: Yes. And he said, "I got counts from my people, and then, my God, it was just the other way around!" He told me on a number of occasions that he thought truly that he had a good organization in the field with accomplished pros, and that their organized effort in the delegate hunt was productive, and their reports to him, which he insisted upon--I'm sure he did--being specific, were very encouraging. And he was truly taken aback to find there was so much air in all of this and that we somehow or other--this is [in] nonprimary states--had due to our efforts, as he pointed out, clandestinely really made an impact state by state on these elected delegates. He insisted that there were times when he had X number of delegates in certain states and somehow or other we were able to shake them loose. I don't know if he was giving us too much credit; I think he probably never had them. G: Anything else vis-a-vis Johnson at the convention? O: No. I think that he exhibited a little concern in that suite in the conversation about the upcoming session to nominate the VP. He was obviously totally aware of the disenchantment of some of those Kennedy supporters, the opposition indeed of a number of prominent Kennedy supporters. He exhibited to me, in the conversation, a confidence that we'd get that resolved, but it was clear, too, that he was concerned that having made this commitment it could turn out to be a debacle, and that would be not only devastating to us but to him, too. He did exhibit that. But I must say in the context of that discussion, he also went on to talk about what his role would be. Tape 1 of 5, Side 2 G: At the point that Johnson agreed to go on the ticket with Kennedy, did he have any requirements with regard to patronage or responsibilities as vice president? Did he want any conditions? O: Not that I'm aware of. None. I think that what transpired was that the assignments given Johnson, which he readily accepted throughout the campaign, were the rather traditional assignments of a VP candidate. A great deal of emphasis was placed on the train through the South and all of this sort of thing, but also a great deal of emphasis on the travel in the Midwest, in states like Indiana is a good example, where the nominee has the big street parades and all the rest. The VP candidate gets in there and speaks to smaller groups and hits a lot of the smaller communities that the candidate doesn't, this type of thing. Johnson, as I recall it, never had a complaint to make of any kind, and acquitted himself admirably. And at no time, and this went on beyond when I really got to know the man in the White House and the rest, was his loyalty to Kennedy questioned by me. I resented some of the writings of later years, indeed by some of my colleagues, that indicated that the relationship between Kennedy and Johnson was not of the level that some people might have thought, and that Kennedy contemplated dropping him from the ticket at the time of re-election. Never a word such as that was ever uttered in my presence. Never. 16 O'Brien --Interview I --13 G: Anything to the contrary that might--O: To the contrary, I cite one incident, as it never left my mind. I don't recall the circumstances of the meeting that was to take place, but we, by that I mean the special assistants--that would be Ken O'Donnell, [Theodore] Sorensen, and me, but probably more Ken O'Donnell than me--were involved. The instructions were that any meeting of a substantive nature that we were going to have in the White House, and that would involve, obviously, contemplation of messages to Congress or other decisions, automatically the Vice President was to be invited. If he was out of the country or something, perhaps it would be well to reschedule the meetings so he could be present. An occasion arose and we were in the Cabinet Room, and there were a number of us sitting there, and it had to do with some kind of domestic message. As I say, I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember the President sitting down. We just barely got started, and it hit him, and he said, "Where is the Vice President?" Everybody just looked at him. And it turned out we had neglected to notify the Vice President. Kennedy expressed his views in the strongest terms. G: What did he say? O: Well, he said in substance, "Don't let this ever happen again. You know what my rules are, and we will not conduct meetings without the Vice President being present. I want his input, and I don't want this ever to happen again, and I want to be darn sure that it doesn't." He couldn't have been stronger. That incident really, I think, exemplified the professional relationship between the two men. Now, I'm not suggesting that Johnson and Kennedy became social buddies any more than I was a social buddy of Jack Kennedy's. But in a professional sense, Jack Kennedy was extremely appreciative of Johnson's support, which was evidenced in every way. I had a relationship of fourteen years with Jack Kennedy; I wasn't at social events with him. We had a friendship of fourteen years, but my relationship with him was not one of an intimate buddy from college days or what have you. So in the Johnson relationship--they were two entirely different types of fellows; they accommodated each other. I'm not saying it was love and affection for Johnson, although I never heard Kennedy say a bad word about Lyndon Johnson in all of those years. But, certainly, as president he wanted to ensure that the role of the Vice President was as meaningful a role as could be provided and that he wanted the Vice President at his right hand. G: How would you assess LBJ's relationship with Bob Kennedy during this period, not the later period, but during this transitional [period]? O: I don't recall anything untoward in the early stages. I was involved between those two men at a later stage, but I don't recall anything in those early days. G: Writers have suggested a bad chemistry between the two. Was this at all evident at the time? 17 O'Brien --Interview I --14 O: Not at that time. G: Do you think that after the convention, when both the Johnson forces and the Kennedy forces were working on the general election, was there sort of a good feeling between the two camps, or how would you describe the working [relationship]? O: Yes, because I was responsible for the organization. I was national director of the campaign. Bobby Kennedy was the campaign manager. But as far as staff melding and all the rest of this, I have no recollection of anything other than upbeat. Following the selection of the vice presidential candidate, you selected the Democratic national chairman the day following the formal convention. We then met with all of our Kennedy leaders across the country before we left Los Angeles. We had schedules and material already prepared. We had an intensive briefing session with them. We then set up a series of regional meetings across the country to get to the grassroots, or as close as we could, of the party organization and the Kennedy activists across the country, in an organizational context. We toured the country, and we had eight or nine organizational meetings in a period of I think probably seven to ten days. We just flew across the country and met in all the major areas and brought in everybody we could from the surrounding areas or in some instances three or four surrounding states. We had representatives of all the elements of the campaign, the women's division and the Citizens [for Kennedy], Whizzer [Byron] White and people like that. There was a team and I'd conduct the meetings. We made every effort to put in place what really had been our organizational effort in Massachusetts when Kennedy defeated [Henry Cabot] Lodge all the way back in 1952. It was a basic fundamental manual we followed that maximized the potential. So off we went. The candidate went his way and we went ours, which is the way it should be. G: One final question on the convention itself. In your own mind, did you ever come up with a reason why Johnson agreed to step down as majority leader to accept the vice presidential [nomination]? O: No, I didn't. I think there was one probable misjudgment that Johnson made, and that was if he were no longer majority leader but vice president of the United States it would [not] significantly change his position and role in the Senate among his colleagues. That took place in the early stages of the Congress. Although I don't recall the details, apparently Lyndon Johnson made some effort to retain a formalized leadership position even as vice president, and he was advised, which I think he probably should have anticipated, that he was no longer a member of the club. It wasn't personal, but you're no longer a member of the club, my friend. And I think that bothered him because, and we'll get into it later, there were times when he made comments to me that indicated he was bothered by that. We then went on through the campaign and there was one element of surprise at Hyannis Port on election night, and that was the closeness of the election. I remember while flying to Hyannis election day recalling the Harris and Gallup polls and the others that showed Kennedy a winner a week before the election, which was comforting. They 18 O'Brien --Interview I --15 then started to close over that weekend, and they were quite close as of election morning. I was somewhat disbelieving. But as the night unfolded, it turned out, as we know, to be a very, very close election. It was a long night. As a matter of fact, when it was decided that we would go to the national guard armory in Hyannis and claim victory with all the Kennedy family and entourage, I went with the group, but I was still just a little uneasy. I didn't like the way this was turning out--the closeness of it. So I went into a side office while all of this excitement was unfolding and called Chicago. I didn't locate the Mayor, but I did talk to an election official or somebody who was in a position of authority, and my simple question was, "Has the count been completed in Illinois?" He said that it had just been completed downstate. While Daley had been accused of thievery over the years, we were fully aware of the games played by the Republicans downstate, so they tried to get the downstate vote in before the final count in Cook County. He said there were approximately 25,000 votes for Kennedy which as yet had not been officially recorded, and downstate was already complete. So we had squeezed out Illinois. I came out of the office and Ted White was standing there. Ted was a perceptive fellow, and he had gone through the entire campaign with us. He said, "I bet I know who you were talking to." And I said, "Who was I talking to?" He said, "You were talking to Dick Daley." I said, "No, I wasn't," which was a truthful answer, and I walked away from him. But that was an indication of my concern. G: The story goes that in later years Jack Kennedy at troublesome times would say he was going to demand a recount in Illinois. O: (Laughter) G: Do you think that Daley threw in some extra votes? O: No. Because we had the reverse of that, a very close margin, with Humphrey, when I ran the Humphrey campaign [in 1968], which went in the wrong direction. No, there was a degree of hanky-panky somewhere in Illinois, but I always felt that whatever it was--and I had no knowledge of it and if it indeed existed--it appeared to be in the southern part of the state, because they were very adept at that sort of thing. No, it was just a darn close race. You could look across the results and Illinois didn't stick out in any sense. You lost a couple here and there by small margins, you won a couple by small margins--more than a couple, it was a very, very close election. G: Texas was relatively close, too. O: Yes. G: Do you recall any of the problems there? 19 O'Brien --Interview I --16 O: No, that was Johnson's territory. We went through the whole campaign thinking that "Lyndon is going to carry Texas for us, just don't dwell on it. It's in his hands and we're confident," but it was close. The whole election, actually, when you think about it, was extremely close; closer than we had anticipated. We eked it out, that's about what it amounted to. And the fact of the matter is we lost twenty-one seats in the House in that election. G: Did you play any role in Kennedy's speech to the Baptist ministers in Houston? O: I was with him. Contrary to what was the prevailing view after the speech and I guess historically is the view, I never accepted the feeling that he had turned something around. G: Really? O: No. I was with him, and I remember being in the elevator with him and going to the hall. You could always depend upon Kennedy to acquit himself well. I saw so many occasions over those fourteen years of association that I certainly didn't have any feeling that it was going to be otherwise. Obviously, the Houston ministers conference was going to treat him cordially. There wasn't going to be any conflict. He'd make his presentation and leave. But I never accepted that it impacted on the election. I think that what happened on the religious issue is underscored by the West Virginia primary. Lou Harris was our pollster. That was prior to Lou Harris becoming a national pollster. And I remember he'd have a pad just like that one, and he'd do his polling, and we'd sit in the lobby of that Kanawha Hotel down there, and he'd go over his numbers and I would tell him about certain arrangements that had been made, to be slated with county slates I thought would be helpful, and we might adjust the numbers a little bit in that regard. But the fact of the matter was that the Sunday before the West Virginia primary we were rained out on a tour; it called for a plane tour and we were grounded. So Kennedy and I were sitting in the hotel and we were depressed. The conversation went along these lines: "Well, if we come within two or four percentage points of Hubert, maybe we can claim some sort of a moral victory, because everybody's predicting we're going to lose and the polls indicate we're going to lose." That was really our view, and the scope of the victory was very surprising to us. G: Well, isn't it correct that you got a lot of sheriffs behind you and other county [officials]? O: Well, we got the organization, because it is an organization state--but you have to remember that was their first presidential primary. There was no interest on the part of the pros. The last item on that ballot as far as they were concerned was the presidential primary. No interest. I remember talking to the clerk of courts in a county trying to get slated on the slate they'd have printed to pass out to the voters. I regretted what I said to him, because I suggested that a) I was confident that Kennedy would be the next president of the United States; b) I wanted him to understand that we would never forget him, that the White House door would be open to him. And he said to me, "O'Brien, stop there. I 20 O'Brien --Interview I --17 can work this out. He seems to be a nice guy and I don't mind him being on the slate. But I couldn't care less about the White House door. I don't know if there's more than a handful of people in this whole state [who've] ever been in the White House. But," he said, "I want to have you understand I'm not interested in the White House; I'm solely interested in the courthouse," and that was the story of West Virginia. But we worked hard at it and it was helpful to tie in to some of the county organizations around the state. But the fact of the matter was that later that Sunday afternoon, reporters had gone off on tours of their own during the day, and some of them had visited churches. Almost invariably the preacher or minister in his sermon spoke about the primary. And I guess, at least from what they detected, it was in the context of "let's not be what people think we are. We resent it." There was a distinct statewide reaction to this repeated media suggestion that because Kennedy was a Catholic he couldn't carry the state. Something had to happen in those twenty-four or forty-eight hours. Now, Kennedy had the debate, maybe there was a delayed reaction from the Kennedy-Humphrey debate, because Kennedy had acquitted himself extremely well in the debate. Kennedy had gone on television that Sunday. No script, just went on for the half-hour, and he talked about his heritage and his religion and his contemplation of the future and his country. You know, Kennedy was an excellent communicator. So all of those things, you see, probably went into the mix when Tuesday came. But there was great pride across West Virginia, interestingly enough, in Kennedy winning that primary, because they felt that an unfair weight had been put on them. I really believe to this day something had to happen to change the Lou Harris poll that showed us losing by six or eight percentage points, and we were hopeful that we might reduce the two to four, and we won strongly. G: Critics have argued that the victory was a result of Joe Kennedy having pumped a lot of money into the effort. O: I'll tell you, any money that was pumped into West Virginia I had knowledge of and made decisions concerning. And I'll tell you, the entire expenditure in West Virginia in that primary wouldn't have financed a Congressional election in Massachusetts. G: Did you feel that you had adequate financing in that primary? O: Yes, because it really was Kennedy at the mine shafts, Kennedy on the street corners, Kennedy with FDR [Jr.] traveling around. And what we found was that all over West Virginia you'd go into these homes, go into stores, and there was a picture of Roosevelt. That made an impact. No question that we tried to organize West Virginia, as we tried to organize anything we were ever engaged in. And we had Bob McDonough, that was the local Kennedy director, and he was very good, very dedicated, and did an excellent job. And there were any number of West Virginia folks with Bob that formed the campaign effort there. We had an extremely well organized campaign, because as I said early on, we're dealing with seven primaries in relatively small states. If you take New Hampshire 21 O'Brien --Interview I --18 and a couple of others that were walk-through primaries, or Maryland, we really had Oregon, Wisconsin, West Virginia. And West Virginia became pre-eminent off the results of the Wisconsin primary that preceded it. We had won Wisconsin, but the press across the country said that it was a moral victory for Hubert Humphrey because we hadn't come up to the press' predictions. We came very close to our own but not to the press' predictions. Bobby Kennedy and I had to hustle the next morning to West Virginia on the "Caroline" and meet with McDonough, and we traveled to four or five locations to reassure our own troops in West Virginia that indeed we had won the Wisconsin primary, and they were not to believe the media claims. I came out of West Virginia with great admiration for those people. Also, I think I learned a lot. I know Jack Kennedy learned a lot and he never forgot it. G: Well, the story goes that it was that experience that really made him aware of the poverty in this country. O: That's right. And you have to realize the breakthrough, and this was this man's breakthrough. Sure, there was an organization; there was O'Brien doing his thing or whatever. But the fact of the matter is that to see this man waiting in a mine shaft for those miners to come up all blackened and stick out his hand and say, "I'd like to meet you," and then visit with them. He had to break through. He had to break through. This didn't happen easily, but he did break through. They did accept, but not at the outset. It was a difficult task. G: Remarkable. Did you play a role in the television debates? O: Yes. G: What was your [role]? O: Well, the role was really in trying to take advantage of an opportunity in terms of early acceptance. Our absolute conviction, certainly mine, [was] that if we could get to those debates, Nixon would live to regret it. The total understanding we had [was] that Nixon felt completely otherwise, as evidenced by the failure of Nixon to go back and take a look at the Lodge-Kennedy debate in Massachusetts, and to take a look at the Humphrey-Kennedy debate in West Virginia. Nixon was very self-assured. The debates were something that we wished for and anticipated from the day the agreement was formalized. I was with him at all four debates. Jack Kennedy was a remarkable fellow and I had great admiration for him or I wouldn't have gone through all I did with him on these things. I never had a moment's discomfort when it came to Kennedy going one-on-one under any set of circumstances. He had a lot of guts. He was an extremely courageous guy. Really, it was just like with the Texas delegation; he couldn't resist it. Even if it might have hurt, he just couldn't resist it. He couldn't resist going to the Houston ministers conference. That sort of thing got his adrenalin flowing, and I think 22 O'Brien --Interview I --19 that without question, particularly in retrospect on the closeness of the election, those debates, or that debate really, the first one, had a tremendous impact. I had occasion to recall it recently. Some reporter called me. Apparently it's the twenty-fifth anniversary of the debate coming up in the next few days. And I remember it vividly. There wasn't that much planning. There were position papers and Jack took whatever opportunities he could between stops to brief himself. You know, you're pretty limited on how deeply you can get into it. But there was the regular briefing procedure with Ted Sorensen and others providing material. But that debate was not a substantive debate, nor did you contemplate it would be. You don't know what's going to happen. But the question is, what is the mass audience perception going to be? And when we gathered in Chicago for that debate, in that holding room Kennedy had already taken a look at the studio, just as Nixon had. Kennedy had suggested it was too cold in the studio and insisted they turn up the heat a little bit. As we sat in the holding room, I remember there were some sandwiches and tea, and Kennedy did pour a cup of tea for himself. Nobody else touched anything, Joe Kennedy, Ken O'Donnell--there were about five or six of us, including Ted Sorensen, I guess. I was a wreck. G: Were the Nixon people in the same area? O: No, they were on the other side of the studio. Time starts to run; now you're just checking your watch. And there were ten minutes or so to go, or probably between fifteen and ten minutes to air time. There was no outward indication at least of any Kennedy concern. He was very self-composed. But there wasn't a normal conversation taking place, and I really couldn't stand it, so I walked out of the room and strolled down the hall. Down the hall a short distance, I realized that was the door to the studio, so I opened the door, walked in, closed the door and stood there. There were a number of staff people, camera crews and all that, finalizing everything, checking the lights, et cetera. And I looked across this very large studio and noted a fellow pacing up and down alone, and it was Nixon. As I watched him, at one point he went over and checked the podium, where his position would be, and he went back. And even with my rather poor eyesight I could see that this man was heavily made up. He just didn't quite look like Nixon in a way. But clearly I was observing a fellow that was terribly uptight. Then the countdown over the loudspeaker began, and I am still standing there. Nixon hasn't left the studio. And the countdown came and I don't recall the exact minutes, but four minutes to air time there's no Kennedy. Three minutes to air time, there's no Kennedy. At which point I'm semi-hysterical standing there, and I'm just about to say, "God, didn't you hear the--?" And at perhaps two minutes to air time the door opened, Kennedy walked in, moved directly to the podium and stood. Nixon, looking ill at ease, took his position, attempted to speak to Kennedy--Kennedy nodded. And they were on the air. After that debate, I visited the press room. There were hundreds of press present, 23 O'Brien --Interview I --20 many of whom I knew, and I asked, "What do you think?" While they were relatively noncommittal, it was clear to me that the prevailing attitude was Kennedy had done a great job. He had won that debate; to what degree might vary from writer to writer. Then I went over to the hotel lobby, which was jammed with all the Daley pros, Dick Daley's organization, and I started to chat with some of them. Then it hit me, and I started to say, "What do you think the two major issues were?" Nobody had the faintest idea. There was fleeting reference to Quemoy and Matsu, but nobody there had any real idea of the debating points. The next day, it was the first stop in Indiana--Evansville--and the crowd at the airport was two to three times what we had experienced at earlier stops. In a few hours that debate had made a major impact. I was at all four debates with Jack, and all he had to do was just play out the other three. There's no question that first debate had a real impact. Now, there are those that say, "If you just read the transcript." And others will say, "Well, if you'd listened to it on radio you would have concluded it either was a draw or Nixon won." The fact is that it was the first, it placed every candidate from then on in a tough position on debates, to this day. Debates now take place at every level of politics all over America. People even started to debate empty chairs. The Jack Kennedy I knew and saw in action was a remarkable fellow when it came to a crisis. He came up to it. Typical of him was his handling of the Bay of Pigs. It was a disaster, and he, figuratively, went out on the White House steps and said to the American people, "My fellow Americans, I goofed. I have absolutely blown this. I let you down. All I can say to you is I hope I've learned a lesson. I pledge to do better in the future." My God, the polls showed his ratings went up off disaster, not down! So that really was the type of courageous man you were dealing with. While we had attempted at all times to be as organized as we could be in the political context, in the elections in Massachusetts, in the nomination quest and the election, we now focused on the future in specific terms, programmatically. I remember very well being with him at Palm Beach. He put together his cabinet. Each cabinet member selected then met with me, generally over dinner in my suite at the Mayflower Hotel, to review his role as a member of the team. I made it very clear that the President--G: What does this encompass, can you--? O: Everything they would be engaged in would focus on the President. The President's programs--i. e., legislative programs--would be a responsibility shared by every cabinet member. Each cabinet member would be in communication with us on the selection of all his top people in his department, and we would be advising him. Now, that was an integral part of the process. Some of these people were 24 O'Brien --Interview I --21 relatively new to me. Bob McNamara was a good example. I spent an evening in my suite at the Mayflower with Bob McNamara, telling him as best I could, as diplomatically as I could, the political facts of life as we saw them, now that he was a member of the team. And this fellow had not had an experience like that before. So, you know, you had to be very careful about how you presented it. It might take a few hours over dinner before you finally painted the whole picture. G: Were they all receptive to this element, dimension? O: Yes. I think in a couple of instances you had to be. . . . Some obviously not only were receptive, but they knew the name of the game, but there were others that just never had been in politics. Then, with all of that, while sitting in Palm Beach and the selection process is reasonably completed, we're talking about the White House staff, about relations with the Congress, and we look at, I guess they call it, the green book where it listed the positions in departments, agencies, starting with the White House staff, and it was like looking at a Christmas catalog. The President-elect and I are looking at this book, thumbing through it and discovering all of those goodies. We talked about the White House, and I think it again underscored our lack of basic understanding of the whole process, the separation of powers, in terms of how you deal with the Congress. Because I remember that the top special assistant to Eisenhower, Bryce Harlow, was special assistant for congressional relations. And then there was an administrative assistant for personnel and Kennedy suggested to me that we combine the two jobs, because we both understood personnel meant patronage. It sort of fitted, congressional relations-patronage, and the title would be special assistant for congressional relations and personnel. And we both thought that was a whale of an idea, and that's what happened. Tape 2 of 5, Side 1 O: --press relations and personnel, and we were busily engaged, among other things, or I was, in the upcoming inauguration, because there again, we wanted to ensure that all our friends and loyal supporters around the country had an opportunity to participate in this great event. So again we were involved in organizational activity. Simultaneously, I had to work on my assignment. I had no perception of it, no knowledge of it, even to the point where perhaps somebody might have to steer me toward the Hill. The fact of the matter was that all I could do and did was talk to a couple of people that had had some White House experience in Democratic administrations: Dave Bell, Clark Clifford, Charlie Murphy. They'd tell me about it, give me a feel for it, and relate how the President, President Truman, or [in the case of] Jim Rowe, President Roosevelt, handled their relationships with the Hill in the context of their legislative programs. There had been no formalization at any time; it was just sort of seat-of-the-pants. The President might make a call or send somebody to see someone. But it wasn't organized. I guess I wasn't shocked or stunned because I didn't know 25 O'Brien --Interview I --22 whether it required organization. We took the occasion to ask a couple of old hands that were knowledgeable to give us a written evaluation or analysis of this kind of activity. One was Clark Clifford, the other was Dick Neustadt. We did know that the first occasion for the White House to have a formalized congressional relations entity was under Eisenhower with Bryce Harlow. I hadn't met Bryce Harlow, and inauguration was upon us. Bryce Harlow had called me and had offered his services, which I deeply appreciated. It turned out after I did get to know him that he was just a really fine fellow. He was very helpful. But in any event it began to penetrate what Bryce Harlow's role was in this formalized congressional relations activity in the Eisenhower Administration. And it seemed to me, from what little I'd learned, in fleeting moments before actually going in the White House, that the congressional relations activity in the Eisenhower Administration had focused on blocking legislation, avoiding its arrival at the White House for a potential veto, because they were dealing with a Democratic Congress and they had no very meaningful legislative program of their own. So it was sort of, if you can call it that, a negative approach: see what you can do up there to stop Democrats from enacting legislation that we disapprove of. The Clark Clifford presentation, as I recall it, was [to] have a White House activity that was very limited in staff, was not involved in a public context, tried to avoid general knowledge of its existence, and did not engage the departments and agencies in joint activity. Let them (departments and agencies) handle their own matters directly with the Congress. Dick Neustadt chose to chat with me as part of a written outline that he presented and his view was just the opposite--that you should enlist the aid in an organized sense of everyone you could throughout the administration. This was a big effort--you were dealing with five hundred and thirty-five people--and as you would not have a large White House staff, you'd have to look elsewhere for support. And it wasn't because of any knowledge I had of what was going to transpire, but I guess by nature most of my life had been organizing and maximizing the potential. I knew some congressmen and senators, but not well, and only in the political context, certainly not in the legislative context. So I decided that we ought to try to build an organization in the executive branch. I had been forewarned by both Clifford and Neustadt that it was a very sensitive area. The separation of powers was there, and it certainly could be counterproductive if you didn't handle whatever activities you engaged in with an understanding of this great sensitivity, impact, or recognition of the constitutional provisions. In any event, none of this was in place come Inauguration Day. I had developed a list of possible staff people. Somewhere along the line Mike Manatos was brought to my attention. I contacted Mike and asked if he'd like to join the White House staff as the Senate representative. Henry Hall Wilson, similarly, who had been very active in the Kennedy campaign, very close to Terry Sanford, and a member of the state legislature in 26 O'Brien --Interview I --23 North Carolina--I asked him to join us. And I had a fellow that was associated with me and continued to be associated with me intimately over his lifetime, and that was Claude Desautels. These were supplemented from time to time by others over those years: Chuck Daly, who later was vice president of Harvard and the University of Chicago; Dick Donahue, a very prominent, very able attorney from Massachusetts and a long-time Kennedy associate. And there were others in later years, but basically the White House staff started with Manatos, Henry Hall Wilson, and Claude Desautels, my administrative assistant, and my long-time secretary, Phyllis Maddock. G: Was there anybody that you tried to get that you couldn't get to join the staff? O: No, and I really didn't know what to look for. You have to understand that this was from ground zero, and all of the organization that ultimately took place over the first few months of the Kennedy Administration, putting it in place and refining it, was not remotely in place or really carefully thought out by inauguration time. In fact, it was so, if you will, disjointed that we all went into the White House the day after inauguration and we didn't even have office assignments. I hadn't seen Bryce Harlow. I called Bryce; I was just stuck with the inauguration. Again, it was the politics of it. I didn't want any disappointed long-time Kennedy campaign leaders. And I concentrated on all of that, and Phyllis went over to the White House. I got to call Bryce and apologize that I haven't been back to him, and I was looking forward to sitting down with him. Well, Phyllis went over. He said, "Well, maybe some of the details of the way the White House operates I can go over with Phyllis." And that was very kind of him. She went over and spent several hours with him. That was the extent of my knowledge of it. I'd never been in the building, even as a tourist. So we walked in, with the staff, and looked around the two floors. I don't think I even knew the basement was there. And I found this corner office on the second floor, and I noted that there was space for two secretaries and a conference room, and about three offices. So I planted myself in the center office and my staff on each end. And that's how the office was established. Somebody then suggested that everybody on the staff go downstairs to the Fish Room, outside the Oval Office, to be sworn in. I didn't go downstairs. I was never really sworn in. (Laughter) Now what do you do, where do you go and how do you put this together? Well, I received this call from a fellow that was over in the EOB building next door--the old State Department. He introduced himself to me on the phone and said he was looking forward, along with the personnel staff, to meeting their new boss. And he knew it was premature, but inasmuch as it was snowing he thought he would get directions from me regarding my decision on whether or not to close down the federal establishment early that day. I was obviously taken aback, and I said, "Well, let me get back to you." So I called Phyllis in and I said, "Let's see if we can find what department of government has responsibility for the Weather Bureau." Lo and behold, there was a fellow by the name of Dan [Clarence Daniel] Martin, Jr., who was under secretary of commerce, who had been a staunch 27 O'Brien --Interview I --24 Kennedy supporter from California, and under him came the Weather Bureau as we noted in the table of organization. Well, that was a relief, because I knew Dan intimately, and I called him. And I said, "How are you doing?" "Fine." I said, "What decision are you going to make today, Dan, on closing the federal establishment?" Of course, he didn't know a thing more about what I was talking about than I did when this Lyons called me. "God, what?" I said, "Well, the Weather Bureau [is under you]." He said, "It is?" And I said, "Yes, you're responsible for the Weather Bureau. So you'd better just check on what the procedure has been in the past, determine whether the projected snowfall justifies early departure of the federal employees for their homes, and I'll give you the extension number of Mr. Lyons, and you can advise him on your decision." I hung up. In addition, there were half a dozen telegrams laying on my desk inviting me to various functions, get-acquainted functions, of federal unions, employee unions. It hit: personnel wasn't what the President and I had envisioned at all. This was the job of maintaining liaison with the various elements of the federal employee establishment, which was of no interest to me whatsoever. I then had Phyllis check with the printing office; it was too late to eliminate "and personnel" from my title in the Congressional Directory, so it stayed there for a year. And I never did to this day meet Mr. Lyons or any of the staff over in the EOB building. So with that, and with all of the excitement of this new experience, we scheduled the first leadership meeting with the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, the weekly breakfast meeting, four days after the inauguration. The first order of business in the House would be the vote on expanding the Rules Committee. So at the leadership breakfast, the President welcomed the leaders; pointed out that there would be a leadership breakfast on a regular basis, and we chatted for a while. Then the President said to the Speaker, "You have the vote on expanding the Rules Committee scheduled as the first order of business." The Speaker said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, we're going to vote tomorrow." And the President, I'm sure, assumed that everything was in order. It was a fairly routine activity in the house. Mr. Rayburn said, however, "I'm concerned about it." "Oh?" "Yes, as a matter of fact, I don't think we have the votes. It's very, very difficult, and we've had compromise after compromise on what to do with the Rules Committee, but now this expansion and the assignment of these new members to the Rules Committee would give us, as we saw it, just a majority, that's all, to bring your program to the floor." So whatever else was discussed at the leadership breakfast eludes me, and probably everything else that might have been discussed that morning eluded me because I was in a state of semishock. So after the leadership breakfast the President and I discussed this and it dawned on us that, my God, we can't let this go forward. So the Speaker was contacted. G: Did you call him or did the President call him? O: The President called him. And he came down again that afternoon, and as a result of the 28 O'Brien --Interview I --25 discussion he agreed to postpone it for a week. And if you want a cold shower, you've had it; if you wanted to learn how congressional relations are supposed to function, you're going to have a quick learning process, and we had to try to develop a head count. There were some close and friendly Democrats up there we contacted who we thought would be in a position because of their seniority to be helpful to us in trying to determine what the true story was. There was no head count or anything; Rayburn was worried--that was his gut feeling, and it turned out he was right, of course. So we got together with Congressmen Frank Thompson, Carl Elliott, Bob Jones, I believe, and went over every member of the House and their perception on how these fellows could be categorized at that point. Got hold of Bobby, and Stu Udall, [who] was a former member of the House and was now in the cabinet; got hold of Andy Biemiller of the AFL-CIO, and we tried to put together to the best of our ability a head count, and that head count showed that we would lose the Rules fight by at least seven votes, probably more. That was our most optimistic view. I have some statistics here, because I wanted to recall it. You take the breakdown of the House at the outset of the Kennedy presidency. First, we had lost twenty-one Democrats in the Kennedy presidential election victory. The coalition, so-called, of southern Democrats and Republicans was well known, and it had been effective in many ways during the Eisenhower period. My notes indicate the vote was scheduled for January 25 and it was postponed to January 31. That may or may not be accurate. G: That's what my notes show, too. O: At that moment, the House consisted of 174 Republicans, 151 Democrats, non-southern, 108 southern Democrats, and two vacancies. So clearly, the only way this could be put together was to get a minimum of twenty Republicans, as we tried to put numbers to this, a third of the southern Democrats, and a united non-southern Democratic vote. The southern Democrats had been subjected to a great deal of pressure and media attention back in their districts, to varying degrees throughout the South, opposing any change in the Rules Committee, Judge [Howard] Smith or the others. And I remember Overton Brooks of Louisiana saying that it was so difficult. After the fact he told me that he had been viciously attacked by his local media and he had a cross burned on his lawn. So that was what we were up against. But the time was utilized to the best of our ability. We didn't have the staff, you know, in agencies or departments of government; we just went at it, one on one, phone calls and what have you. During the entire course of that several days, we did not involve the President. The President finally made one call, and that was to the chairman of the North Carolina delegation, Harold Cooley, and he asked Cooley if he couldn't help--on the basis of our head count there was a serious problem with the North Carolina delegation. We felt maybe this was the delegation that might take a second look, or some of them. Cooley convened them--he'd agreed to do that--and I assume that he probably didn't exert 29 O'Brien --Interview I --26 any great pressure on them, but they did discuss the matter, discuss the President's interest, and Cooley then told the whole world that the President had called him. Then some of the media decided that if he had called Cooley, he must have been calling the world, which wasn't the case. But anyway, the effort was expended to the best of our ability, and the end result was that we won by five votes. And I believe that we got--what?--twenty-two Republicans. G: That's right. O: I had it broken down. Yes, twenty-two Republicans. We got thirty-four southern Democrats, which was close to one-third of the southern Democrats, and we got a solid additional Democratic vote, and we won by five votes. Now, first of all, as belated as our recognition of the seriousness of this problem [was], the effect a loss would have had on anything we attempted to do with the Congress would have been far-reaching, but we had salvaged it for the moment. If we had failed, there wouldn't have been, in my judgment, any Kennedy program during that two-year period that would have gotten to the floor of the House. The other aspect of it, however, was that with the effort we expended over about a week, with the closeness of the vote, with the anticipation that you were not apt to get twenty Republican votes in many matters up there, clearly we were faced with a very difficult situation, but at least we had salvaged enough so that we would have a chance to give it a real try in due course. But it was a lesson, and that lesson brought me to the realization that I'd better move as quickly and as vigorously as possible to put together an organized congressional relations entity in the executive branch of government. And so we proceeded posthaste. And that, as it unfolded, took the form of weekly, written, detailed reports that had to be submitted by noontime every Monday from every department and agency, reviewing what had transpired between their department or agency and the Congress the prior week, projecting what they anticipated the next week and beyond, and explaining to the best of their ability any failure of movement, and [they were] to be as specific and detailed as possible. We then, in our small staff, would analyze and evaluate those reports on Monday afternoon, compile the salient elements for the President's night reading on Monday night, and develop the agenda, at least the domestic side of the agenda, legislative side of the agenda, for the President for the breakfast meeting with the congressional leaders on Tuesday morning. In addition, the some-forty congressional relations people from these departments and agencies would meet with us regularly at our direction, in the White House, and we would review, face-to-face, the entire legislative program, so that all departments and agencies knew their responsibility and the responsibility of their 30 O'Brien --Interview I --27 respective bosses in the cabinet. It extended even well beyond their own departments and agencies, so that they were responsible, indeed, got specific assignments from time to time, for legislative matters that didn't relate to their department or agency directly. We then endeavored to orchestrate Kennedy's contact with the Congress, and that took a variety of forms. We put into effect briefing sessions with selected members of Congress, probably specific committee members depending on the issues at the moment, in the White House. Twenty or thirty members would come in, and the President would meet with them directly and review the specific matter of the moment. We had individual meetings with key members of Congress that would come in the back door, if you will, of the White House, not on the President's schedule: Bob Kerr, Wilbur Mills, people like that, on a regular basis. We would develop a program where every department and agency that had good news to announce, contracts in a member's state or district, or whatever--Defense Department contracts would be a good example--were to advise us of these decisions and the anticipated announcement, and we developed in the White House, on my staff, a procedure to notify "friendly" quote, unquote, members of the House and Senate, twenty-four hours in advance of these announcements from the department or agency so that they could get out their own press releases to their local media. How do you utilize the President? At this point I think it's worth mentioning that President Kennedy had spent four terms in the House, eight years; one term in the Senate, six years. He had been on the Hill fourteen years, but he had not been part of the establishment on the Hill. He had not been a total, full-time activist in that sense. He did not have the kind of seniority in either the House or Senate, obviously, to be a prime mover. He was very much junior to all his former colleagues, and how do you utilize him? The Cooley experience indicated that you would husband the President's direct intervention, that you never wanted to reach a point where the President's direct involvement would cause members on the floor to say, "Oh, I got another call from the President today." You wanted that member, if he said anything, to say, "What do you think, buddy, happened? I got a call from the President today." He talked to the President of the United States. And that, of course, was the way to go, and it was the only way you could maintain presidential impact, hopefully at a given moment under extreme circumstances. G: Was the key to doing that limiting the President's--? O: It was ensuring that anytime the President intervened, it would have an individual or collective impact. Whether it succeeded in accomplishing the purpose was another thing. But there would be a recognition on the Hill that you don't hear directly from the President, or the President will not call you down to the White House unless he is directly, seriously involved and this means everything to him. And you've tried to use every other source of persuasion to the fullest in every conceivable way before you bring the President into the act, and you try to avoid doing that because there will always be another time. If 31 O'Brien --Interview I --28 there's not a need for it, a perceivable need, then you shouldn't do it, and you shouldn't--my responsibility was to husband the President's time and effort, and the easy route was to say, "Here's a list, Mr. President. In your spare time why don't you call these thirty fellows? Or have them come down one by one?" It just didn't make sense; it would be counterproductive over the long haul. It would be meaningless ultimately. Just as a statistic, through this organized effort, in 1961, the first year of President Kennedy's term, he presided over thirty-two leadership breakfasts. He had ninety group meetings the first year in the White House, by personal invitation of the President, meeting directly with selected groups of members of the House and Senate. He had five hundred members, the entire Congress, at one time or another at coffee hours, which were informal. They weren't briefing sessions, they were just little social hours. We had a regularly scheduled ceremony every bill signing--we made sure that we extended personal invitations to appropriate members of Congress to participate in every bill signing. Every member of the Congress received a letter personally from the President on his birthday with birthday greetings. I took the occasion to send a letter to every member, too, on his birthday. That became an established procedure. I had the Sequoia made available to me to take out small groups of members at appropriate times--and this became a regular event--for a three-hour trip on the Potomac, where we'd have a buffet dinner and maybe an accordion player, at times, or a sing-along. We would leave the dock at 6: 00 p. m., return at 9: 00. And that became the greatest tool available to us, and I utilized it to the fullest. It became a great bore to be on that Sequoia for my wife for three hours, sometimes two and three times a week. (Laughter) G: When we talked last time, you made the comment, I suspect not in jest, that you felt that one of President Carter's biggest mistakes was selling the Sequoia. O: (Laughter) I guess you shouldn't say we were appalled. It isn't that big a thing in that sense, but I certainly reflected upon the Sequoia when I read about the President and his economy drive--all presidents have economy drives, but we'll get into those. President Kennedy had one and President Johnson had one. So Jimmy Carter had his, and the Sequoia was just a great help in maintaining this dialogue and improving this relationship and getting better acquainted, whatever way you want to describe it. There was nothing approaching it. For instance, I was in Washington just two weeks ago, and I was talking to some of our old friends. Two members that I talked to brought up the Sequoia to me and reflected on the times that I had invited them on the Sequoia. And they never saw it again. G: Well, you described at length how you found out about the White House proper, and allocated your own office space, and things of this [nature]. How did you become aware of the Sequoia and--? O: I became aware of it in the sense that it was one of two, as I recall, presidential yachts. And it was the largest of the two and therefore it could accommodate more people. And the recognition that it is a presidential yacht, the president can designate the utilization of 32 O'Brien --Interview I --29 it as he sees fit, and the president doesn't use it very often. So that moment it occurred, the light went on and I thought to myself, "It's too bad to have that yacht [and] staff over there on the dock somewhere. I can think of a way to utilize it, hopefully effectively." And I spoke to the President about it, and I had the free use of the Sequoia, unless the President was using it, on a designated time frame, from then on. G: Were there others that you had to negotiate times with, or did you have first dibs after the President? O: No, first dibs after the President. I don't recall any time being told that the Sequoia would not be available when I wanted it. G: Did you go out on it with the President first, before this, at least to become--? O: No. G: You just found out that the yacht existed and--? O: There were a couple of occasions with President Kennedy and President Johnson that I was on the Sequoia, not related to this activity but, no, all I knew was, hey, how many people can it accommodate, and how many people can be handled reasonably? They have a pleasant little trip down to Mount Vernon and have the salute and the music play and turn around and come back. And [you] utilize that three hours of confinement to make it as pleasant as you can, with food and drink, but also circulate and put little groups together on the Sequoia so that at the end of the three hours you've felt you might have made your sales pitch, hopefully effectively, and not to such an extent that you turn anyone off, so that they did leave feeling that it was a social hour but incidentally there was some conversation about some pending legislation that they were significantly involved with. G: Would you speak generally to the group or would you speak one on one to--? O: One on one. Or when you got with one, then you'd keep your eyes open and maybe you'd want to bring one or two more into that little corner of the boat for that little chat. G: Did you normally organize the trips around a legislative issue? Let's say if a bill was coming to a vote, would you get the people who were--? O: You tried to, but it didn't work out quite that way because you wanted to utilize it as often as you could. So there were times where you just tried to anticipate that you would be busily engaged with these fellows say a month or two from now, and it wouldn't hurt a bit to just get to know them better, have them know you better, and have a pleasant social evening with them prior to trying to convince them to be supportive. G: Say, for example, if you had a labor bill, minimum wage or something like that and you 33 O'Brien --Interview I --30 were working on this particular element, would you have lobbyists or people from, let's say, the labor movement, invited as well? O: No, this was confined. No, I wouldn't do that. I thought about that, frankly, but then I thought, "That's just takes away some of the niceties of the whole thing." So it was confined to my wife and me with one or two members of the White House staff, depending on the circumstances. And it was always a melding of senators and congressmen; you never did an exclusive either way, sort of balanced it that way. And really, it was an opportunity that was there, available. These people were all on standby on the Sequoia, just waiting for the President or under the President's direction, somebody to say, "Okay, tonight you're going out." But what else can you do? You see, in that first year, literally, as a statistic, President Kennedy had 2,500 individual contacts with members of Congress. Now, that's really from our records. That took all those forms that I enumerated, but that's direct contact: there's been a chat; there's been a briefing; there's been a visit under any number of circumstances. This doesn't include any contacts that we on the staff made at all. This was presidential. So at the end of the year we felt that we had utilized his time fairly. He and I had a standing sort of--I don't know how to describe it, but I'd say, "Mr. President, I've got three dates I'd like to put on the calendar for some coffee hours or briefings. I have a few dates, and I think we ought to get it done." "Well, all right, come on, level with me. How many dates and what are you involving me in?" He'd always agree. You know, I tried to make it just as light as I could and get by and say to Ken O'Donnell, "Okay, it's done. Put them on the schedule." But he was accommodating. I had to recognize we had our problems--it did involve his New Frontier program--but he had problems that extended far beyond that, and his time had to be properly utilized. And it couldn't be wasted; it couldn't be something to engage in small talk, it had to have some meaning to it if I was carving out of his schedule X amount of time over a period of weeks and months. And how do you supplement it? We came up with another idea, and this was all part of trying to do an organized effort. We decided to have Sunday brunches at my home. We had rented a house in Georgetown, and so that became a regular activity of ours. We tried to meld members of Congress and their wives with members of the media, and I was really surprised how successful they were, because it would be a simple sort of breakfast, a little buffet--just have a table and have some bacon and scrambled eggs and baked beans or something, and a bloody mary if you wanted it. That was the extent of it. And it would start at noontime and go just like any social time you have at your home, a couple of hours or so, and people would drift away. I remember the first one I had. There'd be a half a dozen media people I'd invite: Joe Alsop, who at that time was an extremely important member of the media; his column was extremely important to everybody. And I invited Joe, and Joe came, and Joe was so struck by the whole thing and the people he met that the next day he called me and asked 34 O'Brien --Interview I --31 me if I would include him in some future ones because he just enjoyed it so much and it meant a lot to him. He met people. What amazed me about those meetings was that, particularly on the House side, you had important members of Congress: Wilbur Mills, Al [Albert] Thomas, the fellow that was chairman of the Appropriations Committee from Texas--G: Oh, George Mahon. O: George Mahon. You know, another twenty of that level in Congress that--this is long before House reform. And to have a brunch and to have three or four fellows like that along with half a dozen, or whatever it was, younger members of the House and Senate, and have Walter Lippmann and Joe Alsop, people like that, saying to me, "Who is that fellow over there?" Or having Al Thomas say, "That's Walter Lippmann? I've never met him." Or "That's Joe Alsop? I've never met him." What I realized early on was that with all of these people reporting about Washington, particularly the more senior and more widely known columnists and senior reporters, a great deal of their personal contact and concentration was on the Senate side of the Congress. Tape 2 of 5, Side 2 O: The brunch [was part of] that continuing effort, again, I repeat the cliche: maximize your potential. And the objective--I'd have members of my White House staff at these brunches--we were trying in every conceivable way to get to know these people, to have some reason for contact. They talked about patronage, you know, as though you could control the Congress through some patronage device. And it was just not realistic; it never has been and never will be. First of all, it's very limited. Sure, Congress might recommend somebody to be an assistant secretary of something or other. Maybe six congressmen recommended somebody; maybe three or four senators recommended somebody. An ultimate decision has to be made and there are going to be nine disappointed people and one that feels pleased. That's a task that has to be discharged. What do you do in servicing these people or trying to ensure that they know that you care about them, you're interested in them, and you recognize their importance? And all of these things I've discussed are all part of it. Now, constantly, every day, I had reams of phone calls from the Congress, from members of the House and Senate, and sometimes it was a hang-up on a constituent inquiry; maybe a department or agency was aggravating the member because he couldn't get a response, that sort thing. And we were quick to do that. Every cabinet member knew that Larry O'Brien calling him called for an immediate response. G: You were sort of an ombudsman for the Congress then in terms of [inaudible]. O: You did; that was part of it, too. And it was just a part of trying to be as alert as you could, and as communicative as you could with these people. And oftentimes the day would end and you hadn't completed your phone calls, but all of us on the staff, four or 35 O'Brien --Interview I --32 five of us, would see to it that our phone lists were complete. And we knew that complete meant that that return call had been made, or attempted, even if it were six or seven or eight o'clock at night. No answer in the office, maybe you'd call the man's home. You tried to find some way of letting a man know that you did return his call, although you [had] missed each other, and not have that hang over. All of that was geared to the day, which was every day, that you were going to drop by offices. You'd walk in, and the staff would know who you were at least--you were from the White House. And the member would not be reluctant to see you, and in most instances, frankly, he would be pleased that you dropped by. Now, that drop-by may be at the time when you're trying to prevail upon the member to change his point of view and support you. People used to envision that that was some kind of a weapon that you could use or something, but it was human relations. And I'll tell you, out of every five occasions when we or any one of us would try to persuade a member to come aboard who was reluctant or a question mark or indeed, had indicated he was voting wrong as we saw it, I'd say four out of five times those efforts were personalized: "The President would appreciate it." And I remember [on] so many occasions, I'd say, "Gee, don't do this. The President's having a hell of a time as it is. You know it's tough up here." And very honestly, I think that was more effective than debating the substance. Now, they'd talk about constituents: "Well, I'd like to go along with you, but this is going to hurt me." We had the cardinal overriding rule: you never, never suggest remotely to a member that he should commit political hara-kiri to support the President. Understand, he was elected to office; none of us have been. There's only one guy downtown in that White House that was elected to anything and his name is Kennedy, and up there, there were five hundred and thirty-five people that have constituents and want to stay in office and you've got to be realistic, you've got to be understanding, and on the occasion when the fellow says sorry, but no, don't take it personally at all. There'll be another occasion when maybe it will be yes, or maybe, or I'll abstain, or I'll pair, or something. Somewhere along the line, if you stay with it, and you communicate and you get to know people more and more, there's going to be a greater tendency on the part of that individual to try to be helpful to you somewhere, somehow. As long as it isn't going to cause him great political harm, at least potentially. For example, foreign aid, which we will get to. Ultimately, and it took a long time to get into this, [we would] do an analysis of the expenditures of foreign aid money district by district. People disliked foreign aid but if you could point out to them over in Missouri that X number of dollars flowed into companies and to employees in Missouri of foreign aid money as part of that foreign aid budget, that could be helpful in suggesting to the members' constituents that it wasn't a giveaway program, that they got a piece of the action. Now, I don't know, but you kept trying to think of these things, to develop them. Then the most sensitive part of it, and that was the difficulty because you had to be so careful. When I started in the job, first of all, I didn't know Mr. Rayburn. I had to get to 36 O'Brien --Interview I --33 know him somehow. I would see him at the leadership breakfasts, I understood that, but I had to be up there and I had to see if I couldn't be a fellow who could drop in with some regularity and have a nice pleasant visit. And that applied to the Speaker on down through the key people in the Congress, in the House and in the Senate. G: Was Rayburn approachable in that sense? Could you set up an appointment and just go and--? O: At the outset it wasn't easy. He didn't make it difficult, but it was something that took him out of his normal pattern; here was this guy from the White House, you know. So I made the point when I'd make an appointment in advance, and I'd get the appointment but when I went in, I would play it as low key as possible and elicit from Mr. Rayburn conversation about Sam Rayburn and his life and his background and his experiences. And over a period of time it got so that I would drop in regularly, the blinds would be drawn; his eyesight was obviously deteriorating. He was using the spittoon and hitting it remarkably well, and he would talk about the Texas Rangers and the porch on his house that he used for an office, and all of the years, and how he tries to tell these members that you get this publicity in Washington, you enjoy the Washington social life, but you won't be here long if you don't remember back home and pay attention to back home, and all of this. Well, that's going on. On the Senate side, Mike Mansfield is extremely supportive and without my effort said to me at the outset, "This back room in my office suite, this room is yours to come and go as you please and have any meetings you want to in here." G: So was that your base on the Hill then? I was going to ask you about that. O: Yes. G: Did you keep any staff there or did--? O: Oh, no, no. G: Did you requisition some of their staff? O: No, on the Senate side, let's talk about Mike's role. Hubert was the number-two fellow in the leadership, but Mike was--I don't know whether I'd call him reticent--not a gregarious guy, let's put it that way, but very interested in the President's program, and he had been a Lyndon Johnson supporter for the nomination. But he was a staunch, loyal, just completely committed and dedicated supporter of the New Frontier program and Kennedy. And it was nice to be able to come into the back door of that room, and I would go and have a cup of coffee with him during the course of the day. Mike Manatos had the daily contact responsibilities, but I would be in with him [Mansfield], and depending on what was going on at the moment, he would arrange to have somebody go out on the floor and call in the appropriate senators, whether it was Bob Kerr, Clint Anderson, or what have you, so we could talk about our interests in the legislation, maybe 37 O'Brien --Interview I --34 talk about an amendment or whatever. And then he'd even have a group of senators come in at lunch from time to time, where he'd serve lunch and I'd sit there, and he'd say, "Okay, Larry, now you tell them your sad story," or "Go ahead." And I'd make my pitch. Now, my God, you know, that's of tremendous value. Well, in the course of this, and with Rayburn, it got so that I didn't make an appointment. I didn't have to. I would drop in, and I would say, "Is the Speaker in?" "Oh, wait a couple of minutes; he's got somebody in there. I'm sure he'll be glad to see you." So it became informal, dropping by. So then it got to the next stage. With John McCormack I had a personal problem, at least I envisioned it might be, because I had been a Young Turk back in Massachusetts in the Kennedy group that got into a big battle with the McCormack people over control of the party structure there. And being an arrogant young guy, as you're apt to be when you're young, I thought that those old geezers ought to be thrown out and we'd take over. And it became a real riot in Massachusetts, not to get into all of that. But that was in the background. So it was with a little trepidation that I would walk in to see John. Well, to the contrary, John couldn't have been more cooperative and pleasant and gave me advice right from the start. Carl Albert and Hale Boggs were tremendous guys, and Sam--you know, he was a little remote, but at least I had established some contact with him. And so had Henry Hall Wilson. In any event, you've got to take it to another stage, and that's where the sensitivity came in. It was unheard of, I'm sure unprecedented, to have a joint head count, [between the White House staff and the congressional leadership], House and Senate--to sit down, actually in a room on the Hill, compare notes on the members of the House and the members of the Senate, with the leadership of the House and Senate, the Democratic leadership, and work out a joint head count. Now you're getting perilously close to violating the separation of powers, and there was a little flak on the House side in that regard. Because as this moved along, Rayburn and McCormack would call in the regional whips, and then we'd go over the whole--well, you know, you might as well set up shop up on the Hill, you're just about at the verge of that. There was no outward indication of any disturbance about it, but, I can't remember who it was, finally I saw an item in a column one day that one of the whips had said that he had registered his objection to the Speaker or the leadership about the incursion of the White House--O'Brien and his people from the White House--who had moved into activities up there that he felt weren't appropriate or proper in terms of the separation of the Congress and the White House. But that blew over, and I never had it brought directly to my attention. So over a period of time and then through the Johnson period [there were] even more refinements, more activities, so that it was a totally accepted procedure. And it was unprecedented. It wasn't motivated by any great strokes of smartness or genius or anything else; it was purely trying to utilize what you had available to try to cope with your responsibilities to promote the President's program with the Congress. And how do you do it? You did it the best way you could and tried to personalize it in human terms. G: Tell me, what was the significance of the joint head count? Did that give you an added 38 O'Brien --Interview I --35 leverage because of the dynamics between the two? How did that work? O: Well, it was a cross reference and double check, for one thing, because you get to John Smith and we'd say, "Our information on John Smith is that he's right." The regional whip or the leader would say, "I question that. What's your source?" And then you go into that: "Because I feel that he has not made up his mind, that he's a question mark." So you go over name after name, and then [when] you get to the end of it, you have the number of rights, the number of wrongs, and the number of question marks. Then you get to what are the possibilities, and you put together a possibility list. Then you determine whether one of the whips or somebody else should be contacting the member, or somebody from downtown ought to be contacting the member again, or jointly you should be contacting the member, or the member should be asked by Sam Rayburn, and later John McCormack, who vigorously got into all of this, to come into his office to have a personal chat and McCormack would, incidentally, take on a lot of this. He would bring them off the floor all day long one-by-one to try to see if he couldn't sell them. So you pooled your intelligence. Now, you had an outside part of the head count and that was the White House outside, not White House-Congress jointly outside. And that would be head counts that we'd engage in that we would bring into the White House Biemiller and others in the AFL-CIO, maybe depending on the circumstances the teachers' federations or whatever, unions of one sort, or people that are natural allies, or allies in this given instance. Then you would bring them in and you'd work the head count there. That head count would be utilized after you refined as best you could the joint head count on the Hill. G: I see. But in these joint head counts on the Hill, would you have the House leadership and the Senate leadership there together? O: No, no. G: Oh, by joint you mean joint White House and legislative [liaison staff], but you wouldn't combine the two legislative sides? O: No. On the Senate side, of course, it was always much simpler. You know, it's again the numbers. So we'd sit in Mansfield's office on the Senate side, and Bobby Baker, who was in a key position in those early days, would join in the head count. And Mike would call in probably the chairman of the appropriate committee, or others, whatever, and we'd work out the head count of the hundred. Now, you're working out a head count of four hundred and thirty-five over on the other side and it can be much more complex. On the Senate side, you could get to that bottom line pretty well with the contributions. Baker was very good, you know. He was very knowledgeable and he'd just be around the floor and then he'd check out the ten or eleven and just see what the feel was. We would be talking to them directly. We had occasions, as you know, in these legislative struggles, to deal with the Republican side of the aisle. Ev [Everett] Dirksen, 39 O'Brien --Interview I --36 specifically, was dealt with with regularity. On the House side [we dealt with] Charlie Halleck, Gerry Ford, and a handful of others up there that were in key positions. At times you'd find a friendly member. [William] McCulloch was a stalwart in the whole civil rights struggle in the House Judiciary Committee, and he was the senior minority member of the committee. But you knew that you'd better not spin too many wheels. You knew that under normal circumstances the maximum number of Republicans that you could attempt to do business with in a New Frontier legislative proposal probably was limited to no more than thirty, and that was based on the districts they represented. And on the Senate side it wouldn't be any more than [a handful], if indeed it was a handful. [Jacob] Javits comes to my mind, because Javits was a New York congressman and therefore there'd be an inclination on the part of Javits--or John Lindsay when Javits was a New York senator or Lindsay a New York congressman. Now, Lindsay voted with us on some occasions because it was in his best interests to do that. (Interruption) It should be mentioned at this time that it might be well to consider the role of the Vice President in the legislative process, because apparently, and I never had direct knowledge of this but it was perceived by me, [he had some] sensitivity regarding the initial treatment he received in terms of his colleagues in the Senate and what his continuing role would be with them. I think that bothered him for a long time. I'll tell you that we never had a Senate head count in Mike Mansfield's office, or a substantive discussion with a senator or senators in Mike Mansfield's office, without requesting the presence of the Vice President, who was across the hall in his office. And the Vice President would come over and join us, because there'd generally be a group or something where we were sitting around a table. And he'd participate fully in all of the give and take, and the guessing games at times about attitudes, or the perception of why I thought [someone] might be for or against, and all the things that go into trying to develop a majority vote. But you have to remember, too, that in the Senate we had a much easier time. The Senate was strongly Democratic anyway, even though it had its composition of southern Democrats. The fact is that you had a pretty darned good shot at an up vote, a plus vote, most of the time in the Senate, if you put the work and effort into it. I'm not suggesting it was just a simple rollover, but it was just easier to handle, easier in the sense that the number of people you were dealing with, the Democratic-Republican breakdown in the Senate, and you had Mansfield and Humphrey in the leadership, both of them working arduously on behalf of the program. And the Vice President would participate in all these meetings, and his input was always sought and welcomed. But nevertheless, I was never quite sure--I never discussed it with the Vice President, or later President for that matter--but I always had the feeling that he was sensitive to what he perceived as somewhat of a change in the attitude of senators toward him, because he was no longer a member of the club. 40 O'Brien --Interview I --37 G: Was he more tentative than he had been before, do you think? O: Seemed to be or--yes. And certainly I didn't see any indications of personal effort along the often-reported, traditional, Johnson nose-to-nose, chest-to-chest persuasion. He had stepped back from that. But he was ever present and involved and interested. It didn't even have to do with the Senate. I remember on one occasion, when it had to do with I think perhaps Medicare, and we had that long bout with Medicare that extended into the Johnson presidency. We had Kerr-Mills; we had Wilbur Mills' reluctance to go with our program; we had the terrific effort being made by the American Medical Association and others to block all this; we had in Kerr, obviously, on the Senate side a very strong member that wielded a lot of power. All of this added up to an effort that extended, as you know, over a long period of time before we began to approach a breakthrough. I remember, and I believe it was in that context, at some stage I was talking to the Vice President, and I may have suggested to him that perhaps he could talk to Wilbur Mills, or three or four members in the House. It might not even have been Medicare, but I think it involved three or four key members of the House on this particular issue. This was in the White House one day, and we had just left a meeting in the Cabinet Room and were standing in the hallway. And he said, "Well, sure, I'll be happy to. I'll get hold of them. But Larry, I just wonder about my influence on them. I just wonder about my impact. I'm not sure that it really may mean as much as you think," something like that, that indicated to me that that was a feeling he retained throughout. When I first took over the task, he contacted me and we visited, and he at that time said he was fully prepared and would have the time to do it and he was located up in the Senate, to be a total participant in the effort and that he fully intended to do that. Which was great. And he invited my wife and I out to his house one evening and we spent a long evening just chatting. And it was clear--this was early on--that he envisioned that he could make a continuing significant contribution to the movement of the New Frontier program in the Congress generally and in the Senate specifically. And he undertook that with these head counts and these meetings we'd have and these strategy sessions we'd have. But I don't think he felt, as time went on, as comfortable as he had envisioned in this activity, or that he was really making the impact he had hoped to make. G: Do you think it was a result of that caucus where it was [inaudible]? O: I think that was part of it. It had to be. I never, as I said, was intimate with what took place, I was just on the periphery of that activity. But it became widely known that there had been an impasse of sorts or a degree of conflict, or that Lyndon Johnson had been diplomatically advised that he was not going to be playing the role he envisioned. G: Do you think it had to do with his own disillusionment with the vice presidency in general and perhaps--? 41 O'Brien --Interview I --38 O: No. I think that, no, it was more personal than that. It was that he was a member of the club for a long time, and somehow or other he was--what do they do with people on occasion? They become a member emeritus, sort of. You know, you're just not as intimate with us as you used to be; you can't be. You're in the executive branch of government, you know, therefore you can't be. This whole thing involved two very different human beings, Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, during an eight-year span at different periods, having the same responsibility and the same goals, objectives, whether it was called the New Frontier or the Great Society. But [they were] very different kinds of people. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but while I think of it, these meetings that I have described and these contacts that Jack Kennedy had, Jack Kennedy would not force the issue with a group of senators or congressmen or a mixed group in terms of securing their support. He would present his case, he would respond to questions, he'd engage in a vigorous exchange of views and all the rest, but he would stop short of sort of putting the finger on the fellow's chest and saying, "Are you with me? You've got to be with me," that sort of sales pitch. In that area, he didn't feel that degree of comfort or that "we're old buddies," you see. I mean, he knew them all, they all knew him, but he wasn't an intimate, really, of any of them in the final analysis. Maybe there were two or three congressmen or a couple of senators that he had close friendships with but it was there, he was the president of the United States and he had been junior among them, and it wasn't his nature, to use the vernacular, to put the arm on you directly, frontally. But he would vigorously present his views and his arguments. Now, Lyndon Johnson in the same set of circumstances, the same kind of a grouping or meeting, would make an effort, before that meeting ended, to really get a complete, total commitment from the individual or individuals within a group. It was a difference in approach. But you see, both men recognized that within the time limits imposed upon them as president, that it was of overriding importance to try to get their program enacted. Sure, you have foreign policy, you have crises, you have all the rest, but this is integral to the whole activity and integral to establishing a record and making progress. In both cases, with both men, I attended every cabinet meeting from day one with President Kennedy. The cabinet members sat at the cabinet table. Those of us [on the White House staff], the three or four or whatever it was that might be in there for a purpose as participants in the meeting, would sit along the wall. But the legislative program would be on the agenda every cabinet meeting, without fail. It would be on the formal agenda of the meeting. Therefore I would be a participant at that point in the meeting, in terms of discussing the progress, or lack of it, of the legislative program. When I became a member of the cabinet with President Johnson, it was a simple matter of moving from the wall to a seat at the table. But the item was still on the agenda--there was very little discussion of the Post Office Department in cabinet meetings--and when the item came up, I would handle the presentation. 42 O'Brien --Interview I --39 There was another difference. I would report at the cabinet meeting as a noncabinet member, with President Kennedy, on progress or lack of progress. And Kennedy would allow comments [from] the appropriate members of the cabinet, naturally, as we discussed these matters. And that was it. With Lyndon Johnson, when my end of it would be completed, he would literally point the finger at the specific members of the cabinet, about lack of progress. And he would want to know, not from me, but from whoever it might be, why. And "When's the last time you saw the chairman of the committee?" "Have you been up on the Hill recently?" and, you know, all of that. That was another added dimension, just the approach to things of the two very different kinds of men. Furthermore, at the leadership breakfasts, while Kennedy was content to have the full discussion of the legislative program and have Mike Mansfield and the Speaker and McCormack and whoever, or Humphrey, report on what they anticipated and when a bill might come up and what the committee progress looked like and all the rest of it, and you'd have a full-blown discussion, Lyndon Johnson wasn't satisfied with that. So we developed flow charts, and at each leadership breakfast somebody on the staff would get up there in the dining room and put those flow charts up on easels, show what progress had been made since the prior week, listing the legislation, having a big circular thing with a dial on it or whatever. Then everybody would have to turn to the flow chart and stare at it while the President wouldn't only verbalize this, but he would actually specify percentages of progress to date in terms of the overall program, what percentage of bills were out of committee, what percentage of bills had passed either house, either body, and so forth. So that was an additional refinement, which is a reflection on the man's approach to things. G: How did the flow charts get started? O: I don't remember. I think I had the Defense Department--we got some department to make these flow charts. I really don't know. I think it was my reaction to President Johnson, frankly, that he would be so specific. The general discussion, fine. But then he'd be so specific that it might be better to have flow charts. Well, flow charts, the first time we ever put them in the leadership breakfast, [it] startled the devil out of the leaders. Because they looked, and you were coming perilously close to where some leader might say, "Hey, wait a minute, I really don't work for you." (Laughter) "You're asking me all these questions, the man needs to know why the color hasn't changed or--" G: That's incredible. O: But that, anyway, is part of the role of the Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, in the legislative process and I think his personal perception regarding it, and the approach of both Presidents to the legislative process. G: Fascinating. You mentioned that you went out to his house for dinner, and that you met 43 O'Brien --Interview I --40 with him when you first got that job. What advice did he give you in terms of dealing with the Congress? O: I think he refrained from any specific advice. There were two other couples present. One was Bobby Baker and his wife, and I must say--it was a Texas congressman and his wife. Jack Brooks. I didn't think after twenty-five years I'd recall who was at dinner that night, but I think I have it right. The conversation after dinner really went along the lines of the struggle, the House situation, the Senate situation, the New Frontier program, the activities that we were jointly engaged in, and Bobby Baker's ability to contribute in terms of head counts and giving us counsel and up-to-date knowledge on what was transpiring. The Vice President--his office was up there and he was alert to everything and would continue to be, and the three of us would be in communication, along with Mike Mansfield, on a regular basis. And I don't recall that he ever said, "And here, A, B, C, D, is what you ought to contemplate doing." I think it was very general, but clearly, we're part of a very small team up in the Senate, the three of us along with Mike. G: You've mentioned that he did participate in those meetings, but do you think he was utilized as much as he should have been on the Hill? O: I don't know. I think he was kept advised of and privy to everything. He was kept abreast of what we might have determined was the current state of something, where the holes and the individual problems were, whether it was substantively with the legislation under consideration or with the member of the Senate or House that we were trying to persuade. He was privy to all of that. And I was not, frankly, other than I'll bet [on] a rare occasion--one I recall of asking him specifically--I didn't feel I was in a position to say to the Vice President of the United States, "Will you contact these five fellows?" On a couple of occasions it occurred, only in general conversation. My responsibility was to be sure that he was fully abreast of everything that was going on, and from that point on he would make his contribution to progress as he saw it. You know, you were not dealing around the table as with a cabinet member; you were dealing with the Vice President of the United States. Now, I would feel fairly comfortable--I would feel comfortable, I wouldn't say fairly--saying to John Gardner or Bob McNamara or anybody, "Here's what I think you ought to do, and you want to get back to that chairman and from what we've learned you've just got to--" you know, that kind of conversation, not arrogant or anything, but just sort of you're on an even keel, among equals, in a sense. But with the Vice President of the United States, it would not be seemly to say, "By the way, this is what I think you ought to do." He had all the facts, he had all the problems before him, he could make his own judgments on how he could be most effective. G: You've covered a lot of ground here, and I want to ask you to go back in some detail on some of the various facets of your congressional relations job. First of all, let's talk a little bit more about the Sequoia. I would like for you to describe, if you will, a trip on it. You mentioned some of the elements of it, but tell me how you would describe an evening. 44 O'Brien --Interview I --41 What did it entail? O: Well, first of all, I'm not familiar with yachts, but the Sequoia to me was rather an impressive yacht, or boat or whatever you call it. I recognized it as a tool that was highly usable. By the same token, at least on the first few occasions, it was a pleasant experience. I think the crew was composed probably of about seven people. It would leave the dock promptly [at six o'clock], or as promptly as we could. Sometimes there was a delay of ten or fifteen minutes while one of our guests and his wife hadn't arrived, but we found that guests arrived promptly as a rule. It would be very unusual for it to have any undue delay. There was never a declination of an invitation that I can recall on it. Maybe a fellow had a conflict on a date and asked to be considered the next time out, but I don't recall anyone saying, "Oh, that's nice, but I'm not interested." This had not been a boat that members of Congress were used to being aboard. The trip was carefully structured so that six o'clock was an appropriate departure time because an hour out you would probably be at the point where you would give a signal to start serving food. An hour and a half out, you were at Mount Vernon where this little recorded ceremony would take place with the flags flying, and [then] the boat would turn around. The first hour, generally, was sitting around, roaming around, just small talk, and everyone with a drink of one sort or another. Occasionally we'd bring an accordion player aboard, so you might have a sing-along, depending on the nature of the group as you got a feel for them. And sometimes yes, sometimes no, maybe it was just the accordion player, or maybe you decided to tell the accordion player to take a long break because it wasn't that kind of a group. But you tried to make everybody comfortable; it was a very pleasant boat to be on. It was roomy, and it had the two decks. Along about the end of the first hour, you had figured who you would like to chat with for a few minutes, to get things rolling. And you would make that effort. My wife would be visiting with the ladies, and I'd make the effort to have three or four individual or two or three-member group conversations to start to get the ball rolling on whatever I felt the subject or subjects should be. We would then try to build on that by enlisting more discussions or conversations which might wind up with six or eight members at the prow or somewhere having a chat. But not heavy, not heavy. I didn't envision one of those trips as a trip where I did a head count, that hopefully positions would be altered from what I perceived to be the positions of the various people on that boat before the trip started. I wanted to leave a good feeling. The follow-up would be with them in their office or elsewhere, so it was a trip not where any member would leave and say, "Gee, that damned trip, that O'Brien or some staff guy just was a pain in the neck." G: You didn't try to exact a commitment out of them? O: No, nothing like that. 45 O'Brien --Interview I --42 G: Okay. O: We'd talk about current events, current activities. You might switch it to baseball, and you might talk about any subject. And there'd be a little music playing, and then we had these little tables they could put up around. I think we could accommodate, for a buffet dinner, somewhere around thirty-four to thirty-six people fairly comfortably in the various parts of the boat. Then after dinner, the last hour of the trip, you'd probably stay pretty much social, because then there was a blending of the members and their wives, all sort of mixed together in what was truly a social occasion. Very light touch. Really what you were building was if the member enjoyed the trip, that was going to make it, hopefully, a little easier to talk to him about substance in a week or two. It was all just part of the "let's maintain contact" activity. Now, there would be times, however, as the boat approached the nine o'clock docking, where the conversations had taken a turn that I felt we ought to pursue it for another fifteen minutes or half-hour, at which time I would tell the captain not to dock. No one knew the difference. We'd just float out there and maybe dock at nine-thirty. The Captain would wait for my signal. Tape 3 of 5, Side 1 G: Did the congressman ever ask to have important constituents included or was it strictly a--? O: No. No, I don't recall that ever occurring. I think it was a recognition that it could be only a small group. It is sort of a White House invitation. I think there were a few occasions when a congressman would say, "Can I bring my daughter? My wife is back home," or something like that, but not to extend it beyond their own invitation. G: How about important supporters of the President, say, members of the President's Club or something like this? O: None. G: It was strictly congressional, or legislative? O: Yes. Yes. G: I see. O: I never contemplated extending it because--maybe I was wrong, I don't know--it seemed to me, first of all, this was government property. I'm sure that we on the staff never 46 O'Brien --Interview I --43 considered bringing anybody but the members of Congress aboard. G: In your own mind, as you look back over that span of years, can you recall specific occasions where you think that ride on the Sequoia might have made a member more favorably disposed toward a bill? O: I'm afraid I can't. I'll tell you what we derived from this, too, perhaps, that was very helpful, was discussion with a senator or congressman involved by committee assignment in the same legislative struggle. And to have exchanges of views, senator and congressman, relating to the Senate or the House, or their individual perceptions of the Senate or the House, or a senator's perception of the House or vice versa, while you listened in on it, was helpful. I think, frankly, conversations took place on that boat between houses in terms of those members that otherwise probably never would have taken place, and maybe understandings, not formal understandings, but better understanding of the relative views occurred. Now, that could have occurred up in the hallway on any given day, but many of these members, interestingly enough--it was like the media and the members at those brunches--the sort of void between the two bodies in terms of regular communication was interesting to me. Because you would have, once you got the discussions going, exchanges of views that clearly, as I recall them, were evidence that they hadn't discussed this before somehow, or they hadn't really had any in-depth discussion, if in-depth meant five or ten minutes on a boat. G: Was it an educational process for you yourself, finding out--? O: Yes. Oh, I think I got a feel of--as I say, no one was ever solicited to make a commitment on the boat. But I must say that there were nights that I left the Sequoia having probably a little different view of a member's attitude toward something than I otherwise would have had or that I previously had, that I didn't have it figured right. G: Were there ever any problems, either mechanical problems--I mean, did the boat ever break down or did you ever run aground or did you ever have problems with people getting sick or anything like that? O: No. None of those problems that I can recall. Nor did I ever have an occasion, with all of that activity, where you might have had a problem of having somebody leave the boat in some disrepair. (Laughter) G: Prematurely either. Well, now LBJ used it quite a bit, particularly toward the end of his presidency. O: Yes. G: Were you still able to use it as frequently under Johnson? O: Yes, I think that under Johnson, as time went on, there probably wasn't as frequent use--I 47 O'Brien --Interview I --44 don't have any copies of logs or anything--for a couple of reasons: one, he used it more often than Kennedy. Kennedy, incidentally, would use the smaller boat quite often. Secondly, the Great Society program was going like gangbusters and a great deal of your time and attention was devoted to the flow. It was moving so rapidly that it wasn't so much solicitation but working on the mechanics of getting committee activities through, and there was a great willingness to enact the program and a great effort expended. And we had some elbow room, to use a phrase, in the House after the 1964 election that afforded us some degree of comfort. It certainly didn't relax us but, my gosh, at least you had a reasonable break there in that tenuous situation that occurred on every major roll call during the early years. G: Let me ask you about another form of transportation, and that's travel on Air Force One and use of presidential jets. Did you utilize this as a way to have contact with congressmen and senators, to get credit--? O: More apt to use it as a way of recognizing them. Let's cite an example. If you're going to use Air Force One and you're going to Illinois, in the course of the day, on the ground you're going to be in two or three congressional districts and probably two or three nearby congressional districts and you have two senators. You're apt to just focus on that. The accompanying legislative party would be the people that appropriately represent the areas, the state or locality that you're going to. There probably were occasions when you--well, for example, if you were going to view a military display, a carrier, I remember an occasion like that, or going to a dedication of a major dam or waterway of some sort, in addition to the obvious members that would be involved, if it were on the carrier you're really then focusing on committees. If it were with Wilbur Mills and [John] McClellan and those people in Arkansas to dedicate a public works project, included also would be appropriate members, bipartisanly, of the committees that were involved in the consideration and ultimate enactment of the legislation that brought about the project. It was a very sensitive area, and you wanted to be very, very careful to not make a mistake. G: How could you do that? O: Well, that you didn't overlook some fellow that rightly belonged--and you know, it was brought to my attention in a little conversation I had with an old friend that I visited the couple of days I spent in Washington a few weeks ago, Jake Pickle. It's interesting, because with all of our effort to do things right and cover every base and ensure that proper recognition was forthcoming at all times, Jake started to chat with me about my time as postmaster general. I was sworn in as postmaster general in a little town called Hye, Texas, near the [LBJ] Ranch. And Jake went over to his desk--we were sitting near it--and he had this pretty, nicely-bound book, which was really a little thumbnail history of every post office in this district that for some purpose at one time he had distributed. And on the cover is a picture of my swearing in, because it was [in his district]. We were sitting around and talking about how that was typical of Lyndon, you know, that he'd think of going to Hye, Texas. And I got into reminiscing with Jake about 48 O'Brien --Interview I --45 Lyndon telling me about--the name eludes me at the moment [Levi Deike]--the postmaster in this little combination grocery store and post office in Hye, Texas, how this fellow was one of nine brothers and they had a baseball team and Lyndon as a young fellow was on a baseball team that played their team and they were competitors, and how finally then, I assume, Congressman Johnson probably had an opportunity to name a postmaster in Hye, Texas and how he named this fellow postmaster, and here he is, he's still there. This was a place where he mailed his first letter, and he used to love to come in as a young fellow when this fellow had this barrel cheese and you'd take this knife or scoop and take a piece of cheese and how he was looking forward now to going through this as part of the little ceremony, that out on the porch I'm going to be sworn in and the press, they were already out there. It was all lovely. This was going on in the motorcade getting to Hye, Texas, to the post office. So I was sitting with the President in his car, and we get out, and there's the postmaster standing on the porch along with the group to greet him. So the first thing, Johnson introduced me to him. He said, "Here's your new boss," you know, typical of the way the President would [talk]. He said, "Now, tell him who made you postmaster here." And the fellow said, "Jim Farley." (Laughter) It was unbelievable. You could not have written a script. (Laughter) The President looked at him, he said, "Well, it was great seeing you. Well now, let's go in and get some of that good cheese." There wasn't any good cheese in there; there was all that packaged [cheese]. (Laughter) And the President's trying to open up a package. Well, anyway, Jake and I were going through this, chuckling away. Jake says, "Look at that picture again." [Homer] Thornberry had been the judge by then, I guess, that swore me in, and there's various people in the picture. No Jake Pickle. Well, I don't think I ever knew or it ever penetrated with me. Jake said, "I was never so mad in my life. I wasn't invited! And it's in my congressional district!" And he said, "I got the word to him. He called me for two weeks; I wouldn't take his phone calls. I finally got over it, but I was bitter. That guy there was in the middle of my district. It was one of the biggest things that's ever happened in that area. You're swearing in a cabinet member. He's the president of the United States and, Christ, you don't invite the congressman!" And I thought to myself, boy, no matter how much effort you make, as we're talking about Air Force One and the Sequoia and trying to keep all of this in some degree of balance and trying to avoid or at least minimize the number of mistakes you make or the number of hurt feelings that you create and all the rest of it, obviously you don't get it all done by any means, but you try mightily to do it. But there was a great overriding sensitivity, and logically so, rightly so, to this whole area of recognition on the part of the White House. It was overriding. Talk about utilization, what did we have to utilize? The advance notices I've talked about and all the other things. And you keep looking for other ways of having this continuity of contact, 49 O'Brien --Interview I --46 this little bit of service that can be rendered. And we went to the White House tours. I remember it because there was a Republican holdover that was the tour director or something, and he was the brother of a famous general who was the military aide to Eisenhower. I forget his name now, a nice man. And somebody said, "Gee, you ought to throw him out." We hesitated to do that and didn't do that. He had been around there for years and it was sort of a career for him, so we put another fellow in with him, a friend, so that we would be sure that everything went right. And you know, it was an important matter for a member of Congress that he would have a group coming in or individuals that were very important in his district or state, and one of the things they liked to do while they're in Washington is visit the White House. They had an alternative: they could get in a long line that went for blocks and visit the White House, or you could have the VIP tour, which was a tour that was not a formalized thing but could be arranged in the morning. Well, we were very sensitive to that, very attentive to it, and God knows how many VIP tours we put together, groups from two to fifty. That was very important. If a congressman or senator couldn't get these important constituents, and I never knew of an occasion where they overdid it, say, "Well, I've got seven hundred people," that sort of thing. These were people that really were important to him politically, and he'd be careful because that was all logged, that was part of our record on contact with them. But we found that was very important. Now, that's a minuscule, minor thing in a sense, isn't it? But for that fellow to say to Jack Smith and his wife and their friends or whatever, "I've arranged something for you that nobody else has." So there again, we had no hesitancy, very frankly, when the fellow who was not supportive at all called for a VIP tour, to tell him sorry, but we don't have the space that morning. G: Was there a genuine space problem with those tours? O: No. G: You didn't have a scheduling problem at all? O: No. G: Even at a late date you could squeeze somebody in if you--? O: Always arranged to do it. Now, another aspect of it, too, what else is there? There are also invitations to the White House dinners and important functions. G: Were these to congressmen themselves rather than to their constituents? O: Well, yes. I didn't get into that. I would get slightly into the big contributor list because I had a knowledge of it from my-- 50 O'Brien --Interview I --47 G: The campaign? O: The campaign. But really what would happen over at the other wing was there would be an allocation, not just hard-bitten, but [from] Bess Abell and the people that were working on this. I would submit a list of a dozen, or a list of eight or ten, to these functions. No, we were allowed to fit in some--say, what would the accommodation be, seventy couples, a hundred and forty people, whatever those functions are--ten or twelve of our folks there. G: Did this element of congressional liaison, the White House dinners, change from Kennedy to Johnson? O: I don't recall it did. G: Let me ask you again about travel. How about the use of the smaller planes, the Jetstars? Did congressmen and senators want to be able to use those for travel and [inaudible]? O: Yes. There was travel. That was handled really on the Hill. G: Really? O: Yes. They would go to the leadership and the leadership would make the request of the Defense Department. There were occasions, I suppose, when we were involved, but normally these were--we had an example that was highly publicized recently, didn't we, of a fellow going to South America or somewhere, and it turned out he was the only member on the plane and the Speaker had submitted the request and listed half a dozen members. I don't know. G: Did you ever use air transportation to get members back for a vote where you really needed them to be there? O: Yes. G: Can you describe any of these? O: I don't remember the specific votes. It was more apt that we did it. No question about it. I can't with specificity detail times it occurred, because what strikes me the minute you asked me that was a sort of an en masse return, crisis returns, where members might have been back home or there was a break in the sessions. I think the Cuban missile crisis is an example where we had to just fan out planes across the country to get the appropriate members bipartisanly back for briefings. But there were times when we quietly got plane transportation from an air base or something for a fellow to get back to vote. G: Would that generally go through your office or would that go through--? 51 O'Brien --Interview I --48 O: Well, yes, that would, or through Mike Mansfield because we would note that, "Well, gee, this fellow can't make it. He's got a speaking engagement. If we could only figure out some way on transportation we could get him back in time for the vote. Otherwise commercially he can't." That sort of [thing]. It was rare, but there were times. G: Now, you had, in addition, Camp David and I guess later the LBJ Ranch, earlier Hyannis Port and maybe the Florida [compound at] Palm Beach. Did President Kennedy and President Johnson use these other residences to entertain congressmen and senators, to lobby them? O: No. No. G: Did you ever use Camp David for that purpose? O: No. I went to Camp David because we were authorized to use it, so I was there a number of times, but never with any members of Congress. No. The homes or residences of the presidents were never taken into account. If President Johnson had members of Congress down to the Ranch that was his own doing and for his own reasons and purpose. It had nothing to do with me at all. G: But did you see him using this as a lobbying device? O: No, I don't think so. I doubt it. I can remember being down there on a couple of occasions at the Ranch. There might have been a couple of old Senate friends there or something. I don't think that--if he did, I wasn't aware of it. G: Another element--of course, there are all kinds of appointments, but I'm thinking particularly here of administrative appointments to regulatory agencies. For example, some have suggested that this was a way to get Dirksen's cooperation so often; if you would give him a certain percentage of minority appointments to the federal regulatory commissions that he would play ball more. O: Well, if that actually took place, it took place between Dirksen and the President. G: Really? O: Yes. I would relay to the President requests of that nature. It would be a judgment that would be made solely by him. If you were at a level of appointment that was presidential and, again, at a high enough level that invariably you had recommendations, suggestions, from various sources, and if President Johnson had a particular arrangement with Ev Dirksen, I was not involved in it. Where we were engaged was [in appointments in the departments], but we gave up the process after a while and I notice each president and their staff seems to reach [that stage]. In the early Kennedy days we would [have], as I told you, these initial meetings with the cabinet members where it was made clear to them that all appointments at the top probably four levels or five levels emanated from the 52 O'Brien --Interview I --49 White House. That was all fine and that was all understood, but in no time at all you had a significant stack of folders of open appointments. We then would have a weekly meeting in my office that would include Ralph Dungan, Ken O'Donnell, Dick Maguire and me. I think there were four of us, but definitely Dungan and O'Donnell. And we'd take it on a case-by-case basis, each opening. Well, heck, our idea was to get rid of everybody that we felt didn't belong, and that would get you to a fifth level a lot of times. They were all schedule "C" appointments or presidential appointments, and we insisted up front, as I suspect probably every administration does and some undoubtedly have been more successful than I think we were, that there were two motivations. One, obviously, was these were significant patronage appointments. And secondly, we were intent that we were going to have our own team across government. Well, invariably in those folders there would be a folder, assistant secretary of commerce or even below that, whatever the title is, in commerce. And you'd have letters of recommendation along with outside letters of recommendation or political considerations, recommendations from members of Congress for constituent appointment. And you'd make an ultimate determination. You'd weigh it politically and certainly you'd weigh it in terms of competency and qualification, and that was first. Then if you got to that and say, well, this fellow is qualified; he'd stand the test, then you'd go to those who were supporting him, sometimes no one, if he was a thought of our own. And I'll have to tell you that we probably engaged in that for a number of months and [on] rather a formal basis, a weekly meeting, Friday afternoon. Hopefully we'd have a little spare time we could put to this. And if you had thirty or forty folders, the meeting would terminate and you still had twenty-eight folders, because you just didn't have all the necessary information and elements in place to make a judgment. And if it was a presidential appointment, it was going to be referred to the Oval Office, and if there was some political gain out of it, that obviously would have to be carefully structured. Also, you had the unfortunate aspect of all of this that if you were going to make a decision and it had a political element in it, there were probably four or five people, or maybe eight or ten people who were going to be grievously disappointed. That also had to be considered in the political context. What we tried to work out oftentimes was--if not top or even top three level of presidential appointments but a lot of these appointments or openings were involved--that if it was a disappointment to someone, John Bailey, who was national chairman of the Democratic Party, would notify the person that we're sorry but it didn't work out. If it was the favorable side of it, obviously depending on the importance of it, the President would notify the fellow directly or we would notify the member on behalf of the President. Then sometimes it was somewhat routine. All of that, in terms of its impact, very honestly, on the legislative program, in my judgment after my experience, is minimal. I think it's grossly exaggerated. It may be because of the way we went about it, but I can tell you that we drifted away from it. I can't honestly tell you today whether that process with that little committee--probably self-anointed, I don't know--terminated in any formalized sense. I think we just got sick of it. You had other things to do and you weren't accomplishing much. From Friday to 53 O'Brien --Interview I --50 Friday there was no real input, and really what it came to is making sure you didn't cause some political problems if they could be avoided. It all added up to--there were two things happened. For example, the experience I had one time. We were not satisfied with what we perceived the degree of cooperation to be in the Defense Department. And it went to a level that was important to us, but yet it wasn't overriding. This wasn't the President and Bob McNamara. But I talked to the President about it and decided that while McNamara--[ where] this activity would come directly to his attention, it worked smoothly. And McNamara in no way was trying to put people in place over there that rightly should be decided by the White House. But perhaps in the branches it wasn't quite that well understood. So it was decided I would call the three secretaries in individually--air force, navy and army--and I did. And one was John Connally--there was no better pro around. I had John in. John said, "If you ever run into a problem involving my outfit, just get to me directly because I won't tolerate [it]. I know this has got to be done professionally." Great. We talked about other things. My recollection is the army and air force secretaries needed a little advice. It was just a matter of saying, "Hey, fellows, keep an eye on things." But one of them gave me a lecture--he was our appointee--to the effect that I had to recognize, and, consequently, the President would have to recognize that his outfit is in place today, had been in place for years, and will be there long after we're gone. And that he wasn't about to be involved in any activities that could be construed as politics. I told him I appreciated his views and we said goodbye and I reported to the President. He wasn't there long. Now that sounds harsh and very political. It was very political, but not harsh. Because what happens is a president, a new administration, never gets a handle on the bureaucracy. That fellow in a sense was right; he applied it to his own department. But that is an attitude throughout the bureaucracy. "Listen, Ike Eisenhower is over there, Richard Nixon is there, Gerry Ford is there, Jimmy Carter is there, Lyndon Johnson is there, Jack Kennedy is there, I'm still here and I've got certain rights and I don't have to implement the policies of the current administration. I was here before they came and I'll be here after they're gone. I'm not in the political arena; I'm a public servant." You recognize, at the outset, the overriding importance that your policies and views be the views and policies of the entire executive branch of government. It's got to be one policy, and there's one boss, there's one leader, and he's been elected by the people. And you must be sure to dismiss where necessary, make adjustments where necessary, and make replacements appropriately. So there's a bit of political involvement, too, because you're going to be recognizing people that you feel you owe something to. In some instances you're not. But, overridingly, you want those people in every department and agency at top levels that have any meaningful decision-making to be in tune with the president and the White House. And I'm here to tell you that every administration has approached it in this manner. In all candor, some of it has to do with patronage, where 54 O'Brien --Interview I --51 you have all these nice jobs and, after all, they belong to you, or your people ought to be in them. But set that aside. Overridingly, how can you function if you don't have enthusiastic support for your leadership across the executive branch? And you're never going to accomplish it. I haven't had a conversation like this with people in other administrations that might have been in comparable positions. Indeed, obviously, I haven't had such a conversation with any former presidents. But my guess is that every new administration entering the White House has that in mind and feels it's a top priority--a first order of business and assumes that it can be done, in an orderly fashion, rather quickly--to have your whole team, at all the appropriate levels, in place across the board. Then after a few months, either you have a small army that does nothing else but monitor that activity, or it slips away and you go on about your business, your paramount assignment. Now I'll guess again. My guess is that the Reagan Administration has been more effective in accomplishing this than perhaps any administration in my time. And I say that because I have the feeling that there is an assigned group, clandestine if you will, that focuses solely on that aspect of government and that they have done it in a very systematic and professional manner. That's my guess. But I'm equally sure that short of that, having people--intimate staff, people close to you, a president--undertake this effort is doomed to fail. Maybe no harm has really been done, but it is not going to succeed as you envisioned it. G: Let me ask you about the congressional liaison representatives from the departments. Did you select those people or were they people selected by the cabinet officers? O: As we initiated this and I mentioned these approximately forty people across government that I considered part of our liaison process, I would say the vast majority of them were already in place and had been selected by the cabinet member with our approval. They would generally be at the assistant secretary level. Our concern, very frankly, was to upgrade their position in the table of organization because I was taken aback when we finally got to who they were and where they were in the table of organization, how closely they related and worked with the department head, and what their depth of competency was and all the rest. I found--and this was historic--that in some cases they were relatively low-level people that had little or no contact with the department head. Some worked under some assistant secretary and really didn't have the close, ongoing relationship that we felt was essential, because of our perception of the role of the cabinet member in the legislative process. And we were successful in a number of instances in upgrading to a higher level. But it was a problem. But as time went on and replacements occurred over the eight-year period, the level was raised in most instances and the quality was raised, because it had been built into the system by then. And you can't be a cabinet member trying to account for what hasn't gone right and go back to your office and say, "Gee, what's the name of the fellow that's the congressional relations guy here?" You'd better by that time have had enough sense to say, "Boy, I've upgraded and have the best man available and he lives with me!" 55 O'Brien --Interview I --52 G: Was there a problem of getting these people to reflect the White House view as well as the view of their particular department? O: Not really, because the White House staff, as small as it was, was involved directly with them. Say you had a farm bill and Orville Freeman is working arduously with his people to promote that farm bill, and it's difficult. Orville knew that we not only shared his concern, we were direct participants. We were working together; we were head counting and they were working with us each step of the way--subcommittee, committee, to the floor. We were intimately involved at each step. We would expect, therefore, that Orville and his people, when the time came and it was the foreign aid bill or minimum wage or whatever, would respond because of their close relationship with members of the Congress who were on the Agriculture Committee and would pitch in with us in an across-the-board effort to promote that legislation. So Orville Freeman and the others knew that the President was totally alert to progress or lack of it, that there was a full commitment--it was part of the Great Society program or the New Frontier program. But beyond that, he could look for help wherever it could be found from other departments and agencies who recognized they had a responsibility to Orville. He in turn would be helpful, when his time came, with the members of the Congress that he had an intimate relationship with. So you tried not to overlook any possibility of contact, any possibility of an inch gained in getting that vote. Therefore, I don't think at any time that we could quarrel about the attitude of the team. For example, when I sat in the White House and spent three or four hours every week or two with the forty people and the White House staff, I'd conduct the meeting and we'd review every major legislative item. Now, everybody is involved in the effort. They're all listening; they're all part of it, they're all taking notes. So when it got to agriculture, for example, I would say, "Okay, let's get on to this," and everyone knew that whatever contribution they could make to the overall effort was not only expected, it was demanded. G: Let's get back to the congressional side of the appointment process. I just assumed that congressmen and senators were much more interested in judgeships than they were other types of appointments. Is this correct? O: That was very important and a lot of judgeships came about during those years. There were increases in the number of judgeships, along with the normal attrition. G: Sure. Well, you had fifty new judgeships here in 1961, so. . . . O: Yes. There would be the political input, and my role would be to make known congressional interest as it was brought to my attention. The ultimate discussions regarding that would be between Bobby and the President. They would have a full awareness of the political repercussions. 56 O'Brien --Interview I --53 G: Did congressmen or senators ever withhold a needed vote on something or bottle up a bill until they got some sort of guarantee that their man would be appointed? O: I can't recall a specific instance; it might have occurred. Regarding judgeships, it might have occurred. Those were important appointments. Tape 3 of 5, Side 2 O: --a humorous aspect to it. There was a congressman named Mike Kirwan in the House that was a very interesting fellow--had an interesting background. He had the seniority to be chairman of a subcommittee of Appropriations. He had a favorite phrase: "You get the point I mean?" That was repeated often by Mike, who I thought the world of, got along very well with. But Mike had one hang-up in life; he wanted to build an aquarium in Washington. I never knew and I don't know to this day just what motivated him--whether he was just a lover of fish or what. Senator Wayne Morse made a speech out in Oregon, talking about public works projects of much significance to the state of Oregon that were in progress through the Congress. For some reason he chose to mention Mike Kirwan and his aquarium and how ridiculous it was. Well, somebody took the occasion to call it to Mike's attention that he had been ridiculed by Wayne Morse publicly and Mike Kirwan immediately took steps to block about three, as I recall it, significant Oregon projects in this committee. Wayne Morse had learned of that and became hysterical. We were depending on Wayne Morse in the area of education and he was most important at that time. Well, Wayne tried to apologize to Mike. It meant nothing and, knowing Mike as I did, I knew that once he established his position, you had a case on your hands. Wayne Morse brought his problem to our attention and placed it on the President's desk. So we had to get to Mike, and the President agreed to sign the bill establishing an aquarium that Mike would get passed. Well, you can well imagine the President. He couldn't think of one reason in the world to sign a bill of that nature, but he did come up with the one reason. We assured Mike that he had our full cooperation on the aquarium. Mike, in turn, after some more considerable thought--he left Wayne Morse hang around for quite a while--allowed as though he was going to release his hold, which he did, on the projects. Then the aquarium bill came down and I called Mike and said, "I'm pleased to tell you, Mike, as we discussed many times, the President is signing your aquarium bill." I thought it would be a simple thank you, "thanks for letting me know," but no, Mike said, "When is he going to sign the aquarium bill?" I said, "Well, I'll have to check," because that wouldn't call for a signing ceremony. He said, "I want to be there." So we established the time for the President to sign the aquarium bill. Mike was there to look over his shoulder to ensure that he signed it and have a picture taken by the White House photographer. We did avoid a public display, however, but that resolved Wayne Morse's problem and resolved a problem placed on our desk. Of course, the 57 O'Brien --Interview I --54 aquarium never was built. I cite this because it involved two very interesting and unusual characters, Wayne Morse and Mike Kirwan. But it's amazing what you could run into. I don't know about somebody saying, "I refuse to vote for this unless my man is appointed judge." I would think in most instances his man, if he met the qualifications of the bar association and was truly qualified, the appointment went forward. We had this foreign aid struggle, which was apparently a struggle that every president had engaged in from the time Congressman Otto Passman had control of the foreign aid bill. We ran into trouble, all kinds of trouble with Passman, and we found we ran into trouble with a fellow by the name of [D. B.] Saund, who was a congressman from California. That trouble arose because a VA hospital in his district was among those on a list to be closed, and rightly so. In fact, it was a fire hazard. But Saund was totally upset. He made it loud and clear that he'd do everything he could to oppose the legislation. We didn't have much of an alternative but to ride it out, but there was just an interesting little side bar to it. Saund had sent us a large, beautifully framed photograph that had been taken of the President and his grandson, I believe, for a presidential autograph, and it came to me. So Phyllis hid the photograph and Saund started to inquire about it. And we played out the string with Saund about "we'll look it up," and "sorry for the delay," and this went on and on and on and the photograph wasn't forthcoming. Saund became very disturbed but it wasn't really doing much for us. It was Phyllis' idea and I played along with it. Finally we released the photograph, but we let Saund stay upset for two or three months. It gave us maybe a little bit of personal satisfaction, but it wasn't a significant contribution to altering the situation. I'm trying to think back, but it would be pretty blatant and you might have your suspicions regarding a fellow's position on a legislative proposal. You might feel that perhaps he would foot-drag or maybe we'd have a problem with him because he wasn't going to get what he wanted, whether it was a project or an appointment. But, frankly, I don't remember an incident. Whenever it was reasonable and feasible, you'd accommodate a member. G: With the southerners on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, did you have trouble getting liberal judges and black judges cleared? O: Yes, to some extent. Again, I can't be specific. I wish I could go back into the files that might reveal some of this, but it was difficult because we often compromised. We often felt that we would have much preferred to have a more liberal appointee or a black appointee, and there were times when we were stymied. More and more, as time went on, there was stronger inclination on the part of the southerners to go in our direction. So to some extent, belatedly perhaps, too slowly, it came about, and to some extent at least it adjusted itself. Again, I don't know of a situation when an appointment or a project became such a 58 O'Brien --Interview I --55 direct confrontation that you totally capitulated to avoid the loss of a meaningful bill. I don't know of one that ever occurred in that context. Now, there may have been nuances of that, but it would not be good sense or good judgment really on the part of a congressman or a senator to take a stand that might become public on something like that. See, he'd have to be very, very careful to avoid that, and there's always tomorrow. What I found, even in despair or disappointment was that a member had the capacity to recognize there's always tomorrow. It is quite a decision to make on the part of a member of Congress to cut his ties, no matter how tenuous he might feel they are at the moment, or how disappointed he might be. It is, first of all, extremely poor judgment. Secondly, it makes no political sense, and thirdly, you have to assume he is reasonably realistic as he is a political animal. Consequently, that White House remains awesome at all times, and there is always tomorrow. You don't want to be in a position where you can't pick up that phone. G: Well, did you have a formula for naming Republican members of boards that required a certain split in Democrats and Republicans? O: Yes, we always looked for friendly Republicans or nonaligned. G: Did you? O: Yes. Where the law compels you to have a political balance on a board or commission, obviously you sought--G: Well, you had some Republicans in the cabinet, too. O: Sure. G: Okay. What about the problem of closing military installations and VA hospitals? You mentioned the one example. Was there a legislative relations element here? Did you have any flexibility, first of all? Could you leave something open--? O: We did, but you tried to move forward in those areas with some hope of some degree of success. Perhaps it would be piecemeal. But projects to a great extent are beyond the control of a president; they are often negotiated on the Hill. Until there is such a thing as an item veto, it will always be thus. The Christmas tree at the end of each session will be appropriately decorated. I sound like a cynic and I am in that regard. Unfortunately, I don't see an answer to all of that. I share Reagan's view regarding item vetoes. I think it's senseless the way this process is conducted. VA hospitals, I guess, are a good example. In the normal course of things, VA hospitals in some instances became archaic. They were underused. So were air bases, et cetera, and certainly I would never suggest that the maximum effort not be made to act in those areas. But I remember one situation during the President Johnson period. I paid my usual visit to Mike Mansfield one morning for a cup of coffee. Mike was a pipe smoker, 59 O'Brien --Interview I --56 and he clenched the pipe in his teeth. I didn't discern at first blush that Mike seemed to be even more reticent than was normally the case. We had become very close friends and had a very pleasant relationship. I went into the inner room and his fellow poured the coffee, and Mike said, "Okay," gritting his teeth, "explain it to me." It was my good luck I didn't know what he was talking about, and I didn't. One thing led to another. He said, "The closing of that hospital." I still was at a loss. And the conversation went on. It turned out that Ramsey Clark, who was on the White House staff at some point, had been designated by President Johnson to look into waste, and Ramsey had come up with a list of VA hospitals that should be closed. Apparently, the announcement of the closings was made and then Mansfield was visited by somebody to inform him that a VA hospital in his state was being closed. Mansfield had had no prior contact, there had been no discussion with him, and Mike made it clear to me that this was intolerable. I must say, I was sitting with a very angered majority leader. I frankly didn't know, so I called the White House in Mike's presence to be informed. The mistake had been compounded by not even telling the congressional relations office in the White House about this. At least that relieved me somewhat in terms of my personal relationship with Mike, because Mike finally was convinced that I didn't know and that he had hit me with something that I was completely unaware of. So then the story unfolded. The President [decided that] despite Mike's ardent support of the Great Society program and his position in the Senate, he could not be made an exception and there was no way that that hospital was not going to be closed. The task of the White House was to put together a team immediately to start publicizing the plus factors of closing these installations, including Mike's. We were going to undertake a media effort on this. So people were assigned all over the place to contact press and issue releases. This got to the boiling point, and so the House Veterans Affairs Committee decided to have hearings on the closing of the VA hospitals. And lo and behold, the Majority Leader of the Senate arrived to testify at the hearing in the House. (Laughter) And this went on. We had one of our regular meetings of the congressional relations people, and the President would periodically drop in to give a pep talk or sit in and listen to the deliberations. But he stopped in this night and lectured everybody in the room on the need to close these hospitals, that this was intolerable, and he was going to bring some discipline, some cost savings to this bureaucracy. Mike Mansfield was not at all persuaded; if anything, he had become more adamant. And the end result was that Mike's hospital was not closed, and I don't believe the program went forward to finalization. I'd have to check the records on that. But it's an example, I think, of how you may become stymied. You might be well motivated, as Ramsey was, and the President receiving his report was enthusiastic. Ramsey had found an area of cost savings, and he was right. But it's difficult. It reminds me of a conversation that President Kennedy had with Al Thomas. Al Thomas came in to see me one day and he, by that time, had become a very helpful senior 60 O'Brien --Interview I --57 member of Congress in terms of moving our program. We owed him a lot. He said they were going to have a testimonial for him in Houston, [honoring his] years in Congress. He allowed as though he'd be highly honored if the President would consider appearing. I, as Mike Kirwan used to say, got the point he meant, and when we finished the discussion I told him I would check it out and get back to him. I thought, he's here in the White House, why don't I just pick up my phone to the President and see if he's available and have Al drop by and say hello. So that happened and [they] chatted. I advised the President of Al's request and the President said that he would certainly take it into consideration and see if something could be worked out. But in the course of the chat--and Kennedy was awfully good at this sort of thing--something was said about the Hill and Jack said to Al, "Al, God, they think I've got a lot of power down here, everything going for me. You know that isn't the case. You know it's very difficult. But you know also I'm from Massachusetts, and I keep my eye on that state. I want my state to get its fair share of any goodies that emanate from the Hill. Now, you know, Al, that you can do a lot for my state now." (Laughter) And he was right. In that context there is a lot of power wielded on the Hill and it comes to the Christmas tree and it comes to the process. A well-placed member of Congress, House or Senate or both, or a well-placed group of members can get an awful lot done by way of expending federal funds for "meaningful activities" that a president can't get done. G: Is it fair to say that you would be much more reluctant to close a hospital or a military installation in Carl Hayden's state than you would, say, in H. R. Gross' district or something like that? O: Oh, sure. You mentioned H. R. Gross. Now I may be unfair to him, but I don't recall him in support of any proposals of ours, even indirectly. In fact, he would go to the ends of the earth to register his opposition in every conceivable way, often using parliamentary procedure. I would say if there was a VA hospital in Gross' district on that list, not only would Gross not receive the courtesy of advance notice of its being closed, he wouldn't receive the courtesy of discussing it after the fact. But fortunately there weren't that number of H. R. Grosses up there. G: Of course, Gross was not only negative but he was relatively powerless, I guess, particularly contrasted with someone like Hayden. O: Yes, he was. But you see, "there's always tomorrow" thinking manifested itself most significantly to me in an incident that occurred that involved the civil rights bill. If you needed to recall a lesson, an occurrence such as this does it forcibly. We were desperate, regarding the House Judiciary Committee, in an effort to secure a civil rights bill of some meaning from that committee to try to get it into legislative discussion and enactment. And we were stymied. Nick Katzenbach was deeply involved, and others in Justice. We were all involved in this. You had a situation on the committee where southern Democrats were opposed to 61 O'Brien --Interview I --58 any civil rights legislation. Republicans were disinterested. Non-southern Democrats, liberal Democrats, wanted a much stronger civil rights bill than we were trying to spring from the committee. Manny [Emanuel] Celler, the chairman, was being cooperative, realistic, trying to get a decent bill out of there. McCulloch of Ohio, the senior Republican, was very much involved and very positive in his efforts. So now you have a situation where there's sort of a three-way split. There was a liberal congressman from Chicago who on a preliminary vote had voted against the bill on the basis that it just didn't do the job as he saw it. He went back to Chicago for his weekends and he'd go on interview programs proclaiming to the heavens how he was going to block any civil rights bill that wasn't total as he saw it. I contacted Dick Daley, who obviously had named the congressman--you don't get elected, you got named out there in Daley's time--and explained to the Mayor what the situation was. The Mayor said he certainly was not going to tolerate that and would speak to him directly. The fellow chose to defy the Mayor, or continued to talk that way and would not cooperate. I must say after a few months, he announced he wouldn't be seeking re-election. While that was going on and we were endeavoring in every way to build a majority vote in that committee, desperation led us to, I guess, our old friend Charlie Halleck, the minority leader. So I had Charlie Halleck down to the White House, and the President explained his dilemma, asked Charlie if he could see his way clear to be of some help, and assured him it would be deeply appreciated. Charlie, to our great surprise, said, by gosh, he thought he could help and would. He set a time to report back his findings; [that] is the way he put it. He said, "I'll go back and check individually with my fellows"--the Republicans on the committee--" and see what I come up with." The time came, and we were on tenterhooks waiting to hear from Charlie. I was in the Oval Office, and I guess it was by noontime three days later [that he was to report]. Whatever it was, the time came and went, and the call didn't come from Charlie. Half an hour or more went by and as you have to carry this to the last inch, the President called Charlie to determine why he hadn't he heard from him. Charlie apologized. He said, "I had delayed the call because I had another contact I wanted to make, but I think I've been able to be helpful," and he specified that there would be a few additional Republican votes in support of this compromise civil rights bill. Charlie Halleck made a most significant contribution to getting that bill sprung from the committee. One congressman lost his seat in Congress because of his position. The point of the story is, there is always tomorrow, and who knows when the time might come when a member up there might help, even though you're poles apart. And with Halleck, I liked him, and Halleck was a fellow that enjoyed what Sam Rayburn used to call the Board of Education. So we'd get to a confrontation on the floor and Charlie would grab me shortly before the vote, when you're getting to D-day, and Charlie would say, "O'Toole"--and I don't know to this day why he called me O'Toole, but that was his nickname for me for some reason or other--" got you this time." I'd say, "I don't think so." And this kind of conversation would take place. I'd say, "No, I think we'll 62 O'Brien --Interview I --59 win by twelve." "No, you're going to lose by seven." I said, "Okay, right after the vote we'll have a drink together." "Okay." And we'd beat them every time. And we'd have the drink together down in the recess of the Capitol. Charlie would say, "O'Toole, I'll get you the next time." It was that kind of a relationship. You understood that Charlie was never going to give you a vote; Charlie's job was to block everything he could possibly block. Gerry Ford, who succeeded him as minority leader, wasn't a Charlie Halleck in that sense. He wasn't any more cooperative, but the relationship was a little easier and not as confrontational. And maybe there was a time when Gerry tolerated us getting something done that he might have been able to stop, you know, a vote here or there. But the only point of it all is that you never foreclosed the possibility, and when you talk about a legislative record, sure, you can do it statistically--and I did; I tried to put the best public relations front on it I could. But deeply and sincerely, in those first couple of years particularly, we were more than satisfied with the results stemming from our experience with the Rules fight and our continuing serious problems in the House. Every major vote was by a short margin. We lost a couple, amazingly not more than a couple of major roll calls, but we didn't win any by big margins, and it was a struggle every inch of the way. And when you do it as a statistic--and I've done it--the statistics of those first two years compared to the Eisenhower years were phenomenal. In fact, our first year was better than any year since Roosevelt. There were things you did that your better judgment should have led you not to do. There was a stage in the Medicare struggle where we--it wasn't the congressional relations group--were determined to light a fire under Wilbur Mills, and you lit the fire by going to the public. And you had a vehicle because you had the senior citizen organizations and you were going to have these massive rallies in various major cities of the country. I believe Madison Square Garden was the first stop, and we had the rally. The rally made little or no impact but antagonized Wilbur Mills. Subsequent rallies were dropped. The fact of the matter is that you were not going to sway Wilbur Mills, a congressman from Arkansas in a locked-in congressional district, by publicly attacking him. G: Sure. Were there other ways that you could reach members of Congress through their constituents? O: Yes, there were. We always were trying to enlist a constituent approach to the members. G: How did you do this? O: Well, what we did--and this was over a period of time. In foreign aid, we tried to provide every member with information regarding its impact dollarwise in his district or state. We then took on the task of trying to do a backgrounder on each member of the House, because our focus was on the House battles, to a great extent. It wasn't directly in our office; we assigned it to departments. But what we wanted to know, in addition to his bio, was what organizations he belonged to, what were the sources of his campaign 63 O'Brien --Interview I --60 support, what were his hobbies and social activities, what schools members of his family attended, where were they located, what were his basic interests, his religious affiliation. [We wanted] basic information that might lead us to individuals or groups in the district that he had particular involvement with to enlist their support and direct contact with the members. It was a refinement, really, of what we tried to do in other areas. Its utilization was not awfully broad, but there were times when it was of some help. It was also part of the effort to get to know him, to know about him, and his relationship to his district. He often had labor affiliations and some labor unions were stronger supporters than others. Some labor unions had particular weight in his district. You would have the DNC urge the international union to contact local union reps. But while we and the departments and agencies were engaged, the facilities of the DNC were utilized on an arm's length basis. But to get back to the statistical evaluation through the eight years; I recall finally in the Johnson years we sought items we didn't win to avoid batting 1000 per cent. We had to seek out something to give it a bit of balance or it would not be accepted by anyone. But that brings into play the art of the possible, the art of compromise. When the chips are down on a minimum wage bill not totally to your liking, [are you going to] say, "We're not pleased with it; we're not happy with it, it is not what we sought?" Or when Sam Rayburn asks, "What is your decision?" I'm not going to call the White House and call the President. The President early on--this was President Kennedy--had made my role clear to the Congress. Initially, some members would call him to engage in legislative discussions. He'd ask, "Have you talked to Larry O'Brien about this?" "Well, no, I haven't." "Well, you should talk to Larry." It didn't take long for them to recognize Larry O'Brien was not a messenger boy from the White House; he spoke for the President. Well, I did. If I used my head, I could speak for the President. But God help me if I spoke for the President and it turned out that I shouldn't have. So you made those judgments. Tape 4 of 5, Side 1 O: I wouldn't think for a moment, at that time, that I would respond as I did and have the President say later, "Why would you have done that? That isn't what I wanted, and to hell with them." So I said, "Let's go," and we went and we lost by one vote the next day. We recouped most of it by the time it got through the Senate and conference. But the point I want to make is this is the art of the possible, the art of compromise. Was this a half a loaf or more? I judged that day it was. What I didn't say when I said, "Let's go," was what I knew: "We'll be back for the other half of the loaf," and we were. So when you review the statistics, what was our record in 1961? We submitted fifty-three proposals and thirty-three were enacted. The point is that it was a good record. That's fine, but I don't want to gild the lily. It was an imposing, impressive statistic. It 64 O'Brien --Interview I --61 showed more action in terms of legislative enactment than had taken place for a long time, under the stress brought about by the loss of the twenty-one seats when Kennedy was elected president and the consequent problem of trying to unravel the southern Democrat-Republican coalition, which we succeeded in doing over the long haul. But it isn't fair for O'Brien or anyone else to proclaim these statistics without postscripting that it does not mean that if thirty-three out of fifty-three proposals were enacted, they were enacted in toto. They weren't, I'm sure. In many instances, the ultimate enactment signed into law at a bill signing ceremony might not encompass all the elements of the President's request. But it did represent significant progress. So you put that into the equation. It isn't just the batting average. Let's evaluate the content. That is the way the process works and that's the way it should be conducted, because all we could lay claim to, and not by public pro-pronouncements but internally, [is] that we had recognized that we had to build an invisible bridge over a chasm between the executive branch and the Hill. And it had to be accomplished, as again I repeat, simply in human terms, always recognizing the sensitivity of what we were engaged in and the potential for disaster. The bridging was one thing, but the violation of the constitutional separation of powers, even by remote accusation by one member of Congress, could destroy your effort. John McCormack, Sam Rayburn, Mike Mansfield, any one of those leaders, or indeed any whip in the House, or almost any member could proclaim that this was unacceptable, that it should stop immediately, and that the Congress should not allow itself to be encroached upon in any way by people from the White House moving into an area where they didn't belong. The door would have been closed. That's what you were dealing with. And it took time to get to the point where no one would consider such action. And then there were days, I'll tell you, when that little item that's on--I don't think it was a little item, it was in a column, and I'll tell you, that caused me loss of sleep. I had to be concerned when a member might say, "Wait a minute, I'm a regional whip and I've got to talk to my leaders. This is just unseemly, this guy O'Brien and his people getting directly involved in our internal discussions and head counts." Now, if that had been picked up, we would have been out of business. I guess never again will that be a matter of serious concern because I'm sure people would say, "That evolved in the Kennedy-Johnson era and became part of the system." [Some would reply], "Well, what are you talking about; I'm sure that's the way it always functioned." When I tried to determine how it functioned and I [was] told, well, Tommy the Cork would go up the Hill on his own when he felt like it or President Truman would call a member, and that was the extent of congressional relations, it was news to me. I never knew how it functioned. I had no background or experience in this area. I'd been on the Hill for two years as a young fellow, as an administrative assistant to a buddy of mine that was elected to Congress. "You managed my campaign," Foster Furcolo said to me. "I don't know anything about this House of Representatives. Why don't the two of us go down?" and I did for two years, and that was enough for me. I didn't have any interest in continuing. . . . So I came home and stayed home until Jack Kennedy 65 O'Brien --Interview I --62 remembered that we had met on a few occasions and decided he'd try to re-enlist me in politics. G: You mentioned at lunch that--you emphasized how much this consciousness was raised by that Rules Committee fight. Let me ask you to elaborate on that again. O: Well, it's probably difficult to understand--I guess it's difficult for me in reflection--that a president-elect and a new administration would engage in all the activities inherent in moving to president--inauguration day, cabinet appointments, establishing [or] possibly contemplating relationships in the whole foreign policy area, to have a concept of a New Frontier program, that basically would be advocacy of the elements of a party platform--and not focus completely on day one, recognizing that the Rules Committee traditionally had been the bottleneck for all liberal proposals, had successfully for years blocked every movement of a liberal nature, had to be altered in some way somehow or you were not going to be in business. And [you] get with your designated congressional relations assistant to the first leadership breakfast, now that you are president, and for the first time recognize that this change in the Rules Committee, which you are aware of is not going to succeed. You are sitting there with a whole New Frontier program that's just gone down the drain and you can sit and twiddle your thumbs for at least two years. And yet it didn't penetrate. Nobody had checked it. There had been no communication with the Speaker. There was no understanding of the Speaker's depression regarding the possibility of success. And people would say, "Well, how could you let that [happen]?" Sure, you had an inauguration and you went to the inaugural balls and named cabinet members and whatever else you were doing, but, for God's sake, why in that interim period wasn't a major effort mounted with the incoming Congress to ensure that there would be a change in the make-up of the Rules Committee? First, I didn't even know about it, I guess. I'm sure I didn't, because I didn't pay any attention. I didn't contemplate ever dealing with the Congress. After I was designated as the fellow who was going to deal with the Congress I didn't devote one hour to planning it, even to the point of not getting around to going over to the White House and meeting a fine man that I was going to succeed in that role, who had opened the door by contacting me and saying he was available to me for whatever length of time that I desired, to be helpful in a nonpartisan manner, because I was taking over a role that he was familiar with. And yet you sat there at the leadership breakfast and it was sort of, "Oh, by the way, you will be enacting this Rules Committee change." So the shock effect apparently was there, but it wasn't there immediately, or why did not the President of the United States say to the Speaker of the House of Representatives during the course of that discussion, before the breakfast terminated, "We must have a postponement of the vote." Obviously the penetration took a little more time than that. Then the desperation of the situation and the end result of this debacle penetrated to the point where you call the Speaker of the House and say, "You've got to come back down. I want to talk to you." And you have the talk, and Sam Rayburn, very 66 O'Brien --Interview I --63 honestly, didn't think there was any real hope to enact that rules change. The postponement was the first request that the new President made of him and, of course, he'd acquiesce to it. That was a rather harmless request, to postpone it for a week, a few days. But I'm sure that Sam Rayburn left that Oval Office saying, "That poor guy's got a lot to learn, because a few days isn't going to make any difference." G: Did you consider alternatives to enlarging the committee, possibly purging [William] Colmer? O: Those were discussed somewhere along the route, maybe internally in the House. Who in the new administration was engaged in those discussions I don't know and never did. Because what we had that morning was the expansion of the committee, which differed from removal of the chairman, or reorganization of the committee--thoughts that I assume had been considered by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, the Dick Bollings and the others. But if they were communicating any of that to the President-elect or his representatives, I certainly was not privy to it and consequently, I was oblivious. I'll tell you right now, even twenty-five years later when I think of it, when I think of what losing would have meant, my gosh! So you say, what were your reactions, what did you do? It was a scramble. I had nothing in place. The President now has this knowledge; he's gotten the postponement, and what do you do about it? So you have a few days before the lynching takes place. But how do you utilize the few days? And as I have described to you, I guess it just came to your mind to seek help wherever you might find it, and you learned a phrase that you probably never heard of in your life, or never paid any attention to, called head count. You learned that a head count is a dreary, difficult, tough process that you're going to be engaged in repeatedly over a number of years. There's nothing very glamorous about a head count. G: Did you have to get these counts directly from the members, or could you get it from, let's say, their legislative aide? O: Sometimes, depending on the legislative aide, you learned that some legislative aides could speak for their member just as the members learned that I could speak for the President. And sometimes many of those legislative aides could not speak for the member. There were occasions when you would get part of that count out of, for example, the AFL-CIO that had a real lock on some members. And if a commitment from Joe Smith was relayed to me or in the course of our meetings on the head counts, depending on who it was and who was giving me the message and who had made the contact and what conversation had ensued, it could be something that I would say, "Okay, let's go. Checkmark. Right." I'll tell you this, in every head count we were engaged in we were as conservative as we could be. I've used this cliche till friends of mine get sick of hearing me, because I have a tendency to do it and I'm going to do it again. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than grievously disappointed. It's just my nature. I'm not an optimist by nature; I'm a 67 O'Brien --Interview I --64 pessimist by nature. I like to think I'm a realist by nature. That's really how I rationalize in my mind, that if you tell me we're going to win something, I'm going to tell you several reasons why I don't think we will. It's a protective mechanism, I guess. The other aspect of this, too, the last thing I thought I would be involved in in the Kennedy Administration was the role that I finally had. It never entered my mind. I honestly think to this day it was in part Kennedy trying to envision how I could be helpful. I had an intimate acquaintance with him professionally, politically. It was probably not a bad idea that this little team stay reasonably intact; there were only three or four of us that had gone the distance and in whom he had total trust and confidence, and that's generally what happens with the White House staff. And then Kennedy is thinking, well, the Congress, that's an extremely significant element of what we're going to be engaged in, and O'Brien, politically, he's gotten along with people and he has wide acquaintances. I imagine that was in his thought process. Then the two of us, two geniuses, come up with "Well, we'll tie personnel in. Then we have the whole package and O'Brien runs the show." But if you were looking for a congressional relations guy, "O'Brien isn't suited for this." I think it was a matter of whatever was in Kennedy's thought process--on congressional relations, anyhow. I simply said, "Yes, well, sure, why not?" That's what it amounted to. There's one other aspect of all of this and I've tried to stay focused on it. Now that I'm in what amounts to retirement, I've tried to adjust to retirement. I think I'm entitled to it. My friends and associates can't understand how I could even contemplate retirement while everybody else in the world seems to be able to contemplate theirs. I don't understand that myself. But in any event, I had to compensate somehow, find a way to compensate, for basic limitations in my life. I am no great intellect. I think I'm an average guy with normal interests in family and in your country and what you have been taught to believe in. That is that every person is entitled to the fullest opportunity for education and progress in this country. There are certain basic fundamental commitments under our democracy. And that whether you are a precinct captain or a member of the school committee or the block committee or you're trying to erect a playground in your neighborhood for your kids, you've got to extend yourself beyond your personal ambitions and you've got to make a contribution. You owe it. It is a basic responsibility of citizenship in this great democracy. Both my parents were born in Ireland. They came here as immigrants. And my father would say to me, as much as he loved Ireland and was proud of being Irish, "Thank God that I was able to come here," and he appreciated every moment of it. And so did my mother, who worked hard as a young gal in Springfield. So you say, okay, you're no hero, you're just another guy. But recognize your limitations. Don't just accept them and do nothing about them and not try to improve yourself. That isn't the point. The point is that in the competition of life, in the competition of the political arena and the competition of government, you have a role and you must fulfill that role to the best of your ability. And there's probably one thing you 68 O'Brien --Interview I --65 can do that will bring you up a notch and make you more productive, and that is work harder and longer than the opposition, and if you do that, perhaps that's a compensating factor that makes the battle a little more equal. Maybe that opposition may be brighter, may be more innovative, creative, or whatever, but if you tackle the job and work harder and longer and have a total commitment, you're going to bring your level of performance up and you'll get into a fair competitive situation. That's what I've always believed. So when this darn thing came along, heck, how would you ever wind up being in congressional relations? Indeed, how would you ever wind up being postmaster general? That isn't a career opportunity. How would you wind up being commissioner of a major professional sports league? Was that something that you contemplated? Of course not. These things happen because I guess the ebb and flow of life are beyond your control. You make no plans. My career plans--I suppose if all this hadn't happened at an early stage I would have wound up practicing law in my home town. And I'm not suggesting I wouldn't be happy and probably even happier than I have been, but that didn't happen. But are you going to say to President-elect Kennedy, "Hey, hold it a minute. I haven't the slightest idea about congressional relations"? God, there must be a million people out there that have an intimate knowledge of the Congress, how it works, how it functions, its history and all the rest. But no, what the hang, if that's what he wants me to do I'll do the best I can and learn it as rapidly as I can. But the Rules [Committee] fight, as I told you, wound up not only in a victory, but somebody up there was on our side and particularly my side, because I'll tell you, months might have elapsed to accomplish what we reasonably accomplished in about thirty days. G: Do you think that Rules fight had a similar impact on President Kennedy? O: Yes. G: Did that suddenly cause him to be much more interested in legislative--? O: It startled, stunned him. Believe me, by the time the postponed vote came along, nobody had to tell us what impact that Rules decision would have on us. We had awakened. We had put away the tuxedos and all the rest and said, "Boy, oh, boy, it's the real world." G: Let me ask you a little bit more about that Rules fight and see if I can jog your memory with some questions here. You did get a lot of Republican support. O: Yes. G: What was the key to that? O: I think that for the most part if you--and I haven't done this in years, I did it then, but I believe it was twenty-two Republicans [who voted with us]. In each instance you could quite easily determine the motivation for support: it was their constituency. I'm not saying 69 O'Brien --Interview I --66 they didn't have a higher level of motivation, but the reality was their constituency and they tried to reflect [it]. Even though they had an R next to their name, they were what we would call Republican moderates. God knows what they would be considered in the context of a Reagan Republican Party. G: Here, I have a list of them. O: Yes. Every one of these fellows, I'll bet. Yes. G: Well, there's been some suggestion that Joe Martin was particularly helpful in getting Republican support. O: He could have been; he really was trying to be helpful. But I'll tell you, there are two turnaround districts in Connecticut where for several elections people were in and out like a revolving door. Because, remember, they had the single-lever ballot in Connecticut. Boy, did that switch that delegation. That would go from five-one one way to five-one the other way every couple of years. So I can see that--[ Charles] Mathias in Maryland we know. Mathias has been consistent through his whole career as a liberal. [Silvio] Conte, the same thing, western Massachusetts. [F. Bradford] Morse, the same thing in his district in Massachusetts. [William] Bates, I would put Bates with Martin. I remember these guys well. Conte is still there, and Conte and Morse were good friends of mine. It was like Javits as a Republican senator; he was a Republican because that was the opportunity he had to go to the House in the first place--take the Republican nomination. It was wide open there and he seized the opportunity. [Thomas] Curtis I can't account for. [Chester] Merrow and [Perkins] Bass, again, very heavily contested districts in New England. New Jersey, [William] Cahill; he later became governor, and [Florence] Dwyer. I don't recall the districts of [Frank] Osmers and [George] Wallhauser, but Cahill and Dwyer, they again were in the category of Lindsay, Conte. Oh, Cahill, as I used to say to him at times, "Why aren't you a Democrat?" You'll see the others: [Seymour] Halpern, Lindsay, [Paul] Fino. Those are the three Republican votes from districts where they had lucked out and were holding the seats and they were in the same category as Javits was statewide. Ayers of Ohio--knowing Bill Ayers, as I did, I can't account for him. [William] Scranton--very honestly, I thought Scranton was an outstanding legislator. He later became governor of Pennsylvania, and was a very classy fellow. Then he sought the Republican nomination for president and they weren't about to. . . . [Alvin] O'Konski was from a typical district. [James] Fulton and [Robert] Corbett, I'm not that familiar with them. And I'm not knocking it; there's a Joe Martin influence in here, but overridingly, of the twenty-two I think we can select fourteen to fifteen of those votes that would be votes that probably on several other occasions supported [the administration]. I would think all of those supported minimum wage, for example. Each one of those fourteen or fifteen 70 O'Brien --Interview I --67 would be supporting civil rights legislation. G: I'm going to ask you about some southern Democrats, too. Well, would you say that Rayburn worked with Martin more than you did? O: Yes. Now, during the course of those several days I don't recall any direct contact with Martin. G: What was Rayburn's role in the fight? What did he do? O: Well, I think you'll find it right here. You look at that Texas [delegation list]. Now, you look--[ Olin] Teague, [John] Young--G: Well, [W. R.] Poage. O: --[ Bob] Casey. You're talking about some real conservatives in there. G: Yes, that's right. O: Now, Brooks, [Frank] Ikard to some extent, Mahon, [Wright] Patman, Al Thomas, Thornberry, Jim Wright, I'd say it's half and half. Half of these fellows would feel that they had had enough of this coalition and they'd like to see it more equitable, and the others would be influenced by Rayburn. G: Do you think Rayburn called in a lot of chits across the board in the Congress to get this thing through? O: Yes. I neglected to mention that we kept Rayburn fully apprised of what our findings were, and the Speaker's office was kept almost hourly apprised of what our head counts were revealing. We would have a lot of communication. I initially did not know Rayburn intimately, but I must say that I was very intrigued with this man and, as the months rolled by, I formed a relationship that became pleasant and comfortable. And he gave a lot, you know, letting old Larry hang around. As you know, Sam wasn't a fellow that did a lot of talking; he wasn't overly verbal. But from the time that he postponed the vote [until] the vote was taken, I have no doubt in my mind that he did everything he could to try to secure support. Because there again, Rayburn was not in the camp of the Rules Committee leadership. He wasn't a liberal in the sense that we northerners look at liberals. But by the same token, he was, despite his opposition to Lyndon Johnson [going] on the ticket in Los Angeles, a great respecter of the presidency. And [he] recognized that national leadership emanates from the presidency. So consequently I cannot document to you what Rayburn did on the Rules fight except I know that he was fully committed. At the leadership breakfast--there's no question, because I was there--Rayburn was distressed, but just felt it wasn't doable, that it wasn't going to happen. 71 O'Brien --Interview I --68 G: Sure. Was there an argument that maybe we ought to compromise and try to--? O: There wasn't any further compromise. Where were you going? G: Well, Smith had evidently made some offers to compromise--O: Oh, I know, but--G: --to clear some of the bills or. . . . O: Yes. It would have been a big mistake to ever get into this deal with Smith involving X bills. I think I probably would have accepted defeat before I'd do that. He was a courtly southern gentleman and all the rest but you're going to put your destiny in his hands? Not the President of the United States that I knew. G: How did Smith resist this administration push to change the nature of his committee from conservative to--? O: Well, what he did, his observable resistance--well, I don't know as it was particularly observable; that wasn't the nature of Smith. As I say, [he was a] courtly southern gentleman, always very correct, but an adversary. He was like Harry Byrd; there was no way that he could intellectually or emotionally accept our concept of what was best for this country. And it just wasn't in the cards. In fact, I think there was a uniqueness about Virginia anyway in the political context that extended beyond just the southern Democrat. You know, they were in a world of their own, as was evidenced by Harry Byrd in later years. And yet in personal terms, it's just amazing, as I reflect. They were among the nicest people I knew down there, and I can remember flying with the President down to Harry Byrd's apple festival. We never missed an opportunity, even if the odds were a thousand to one against you; you might get somewhere, like the Halleck story. He couldn't be a nicer, more pleasant fellow, and his son [Harry Byrd, Jr.]--I saw him not many months ago; we had just a great reunion. I was very happy to see him and he seemed to feel the same way. So there wasn't any of this sniping, backbiting, meanness; at least overtly. It never occurred. I don't remember having a real mean argument with a member of Congress in eight years. But I must say--well, look at those with some of the same background, nevertheless, closer to Virginia than to liberal Massachusetts: Al Thomas, George Mahon, Carl Vinson. Carl Vinson became very supportive of President Kennedy. The walk in the Rose Garden was one aspect of their relationship. But Vinson, with his respect for the presidency, he stepped away from the B-70 fight. You know what really happened--after the first year you could discern it. With Kennedy, he was a really unknown with these fellows. Now, he's an attractive, youngish guy, and they didn't have any dislike for him, but he was a breed of cat that they didn't 72 O'Brien --Interview I --69 know. Like Carl Albert said to me one day, "I got to know this fellow and rapidly." Of course, he [Albert] was in the leadership. He said, "I got to love him. I'd do anything for him! Of course, I really didn't know him before he became president." And see, we can talk--and I guess I've talked inordinately about the organizational aspect of this and the team aspect, but let's not overlook what in the final analysis made it work and that is one man. Like the observers; I remember Ted White particularly. It was one of the most interesting election campaigns in history. White reacted accordingly, and White was fulsome in his praise of the Kennedy people, the so-called Irish Mafia. But heck, does that amount to--I always said, "What's the number you put on it?" in terms of victory. The contribution to that victory, the result of it can be attributed, if you had to use a statistic, somewhere between 93 and 96 per cent, probably closer to 96 per cent, to the candidate. There might be 3 to 4 per cent in there that could be attributed to organizing and maximizing the potential. And the same applied in the White House, with Kennedy sitting there with the twenty-one seat loss and all that and a razor-thin margin of victory and no mandate of any kind. His coattails didn't mean a thing to anybody who was in the Congress; that hadn't helped them get there. So it had to be his personality, his style, the way he handled himself. And I think that members, any number of them were impressed with Kennedy's reaction to the Bay of Pigs, and you can compare that to the reaction that Nixon had to Watergate. I mean, this is a man who had strong gut reactions--he had courage, he'd step out there, he had no hesitancy to admit failure, errors. And as these members got to know him, an affection for him grew. They liked him. And that's why I used to appeal to them on a personal basis: "He really needs you. Don't do this to him." I remember telling a congressman one day, early on, "Gosh, out there in that press gallery"--Clem Zablocki was the congressman, and it was one of those votes where it wasn't going to do Clem any political good and it might even cause a little political harm. McCormack talked to him and I was talking to him, and I remember the last thing I said when he was leaving McCormack's office to go back to the floor was, "Gee, Clem"--because he was an early-on supporter of Kennedy and I thought that was the kind of appeal you could make. We didn't talk about the substance of the legislation or anything else. I said, "Gee, out there up in that press gallery they have their pencils poised to give it to Jack. You can't--." I mean, listen, that would appeal to me. G: Sure. That's great. Let me ask you about some of the lobbyist groups, pro and con, on the Rules Committee fight. On the pro side you had the ADA, the AFL-CIO, the National Farmers Union. Did any of these groups that I've named perform an extraordinary role here? Were any of them particularly helpful? O: I can't specify the help, but they were helpful. I can be more specific about the AFL-CIO because Andy Biemiller's activity was more observable to me and we were sort of in tandem during this effort. The other activities might be less direct. But certainly the AFL-CIO had a real impact. 73 O'Brien --Interview I --70 G: Well, did organized labor have more machinery for involvement in this sort of legislation? O: Yes. Well, they do; it's the nature of their organization, a Washington-based organization, but Andy was a former member of Congress and a very hard-working, dedicated fellow that enjoyed widespread support on the Hill. He was well thought of and I found him consistently supportive on the subsequent fights--and there were many of them involving the AFL-CIO obviously--and he had a staff that was broader-based than the others. Of the lobbying groups, the AFL-CIO effort with Biemiller would probably have to be ranked as probably more effective than the others. I can't really document that but it would be my judgment. G: The newspapers indicated that LBJ did some lobbying as well. Do you recall what he--? O: I don't recall the specifics but there's no question about it. He shared our concern and recognized what the end result could be. G: What did Bob Kennedy do for the effort? O: He had a lot of contact with the AFL-CIO, with various labor officials--Tape 4 of 5, Side 2 O: --he traded on. G: You're talking about Stu Udall? O: Yes. Concentrated on some long-time friends he had as a member of the House. Really, Bobby would be a natural for us, "Come on, Bobby. Boy, we're in another battle. Here we go. We thought we had a little honeymoon here, and bang." With Stu, he'd be thought of, as we sat there and tried to figure this out, because he was one cabinet member who was a former member of the House. And in trying to get a breakdown of the House, you went to people that already had a close friendship and relationship with the President and were--well, two of the three of them were from parts of the country where they could be effective. Elliott and Jones--they could be talking to their southern colleagues and see if they could pick up a vote here and there. G: On this particular issue did you get any complaints about the lobbying? O: I think everything happened so fast, frankly, I don't recall any complaints. It would be pretty hard to complain because those of us involved hadn't even been to the Hill yet, and it was moving so rapidly and that vote was coming, so there wasn't an interim period where people could start criticizing. G: Okay. Here is-- 74 O'Brien --Interview I --71 O: Let's hold that for a minute. G: You see the list of southern Democrats that supported this enlargement. As you look it over, there were what?--four from Alabama, none from Mississippi, quite a few from Kentucky, quite a few from Louisiana. O: Yes. Yes. G: Are there any names there that you recall a little personal arm-twisting? O: Yes, I talked to a lot of them personally, but whether you'd call it arm-twisting or not, I don't know, but any number of them. First of all, on the Alabama list you have Carl Elliot, right? G: Yes. O: Who was intimately involved, along with Jones. You see that one presidential call was nonproductive, to Cooley in North Carolina. Oren Harris of Arkansas, it must have been instinct with him. Not all of these, but just about every one of them were talked to individually by us as part of that several-day effort. G: How about Mills? How did you get Mills? O: I don't know. [Dante] Fascell, he's a little different, you know, Florida and that district; there'd be an inclination. He wouldn't have been part of the so-called coalition, anyway. Vinson was a stick-out because, see, Vinson had become intrigued with the Kennedy candidacy when we campaigned in the South, and he had appeared with Kennedy at a couple of major functions down there. And that's the nature of Vinson, a class fellow in every sense. On Kentucky, I knew them all. [Frank] Burke would be the most obvious supporter. The rest of them, I can't account for them other than their individual decisions on the basis of their personal views. I'm not suggesting that we turned all these people around. Our guess was that if the vote had taken place in the first instance, we would have lost by seven to fifteen [votes]. The best we could hope for was by seven, so really what you're talking about in this whole effort is that we switched a dozen people. And so, consequently, a good number of these people we're looking at now, these names are people that intended to vote in the first instance for the Rules change. Boggs, of course, was part of the leadership from Louisiana. Albert, part of the leadership from Oklahoma, and I'm sure [Ed] Edmondson would have supported us by the nature of his district. But with [Tom] Steed and [Victor] Wickersham I'm sure Albert accounted for that. Tennessee, well, [Ross] Bass might have been there. I think there's a combination in here and Texas. The most impressive part of this break-out is that it brought a third of the so-called southern Democrats to us, which we had to have. It was almost a third, as I recall. And a good 75 O'Brien --Interview I --72 portion of Texas would be Rayburn and Johnson--because that's a darn good vote for a rules change out of the Texas delegation. You turned [?] one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. G: You've mentioned that Elliott was intimately involved in this. How do you mean? O: Well, he had been one who agreed to sit for hours with us from the outset in evaluating each member of the House. That was a session I had over in the Mayflower Hotel and Elliott was supportive from the outset. He had been very strongly supportive of Kennedy in the election campaign. So Elliott and Jones, as I recall it, and Topper Thompson--Frank Thompson from New Jersey--were fellows that had had a direct involvement in the campaign. Elliott and Jones were southern. I guess our judgment probably was these were three fellows that would be hopefully willing to sit down and go over every Democrat in the House of Representatives, giving us an evaluation of what we could anticipate or what their pluses or minuses were in terms of our program. So that kind of detailed evaluation that took place was a clear indication that these fellows, Elliott, Jones particularly, Thompson obviously, would be most supportive. G: The lobbying against the enlargement, the NMA, the National Association of Manufacturers, real estate boards, and the chamber of commerce, anything extraordinary here about their lobbying? O: No. Frankly--we're talking about six days, I guess, from the time of awakening--I'm sure that I knew [but] I have no recollection of paying any attention whatsoever to what they were doing. Because first of all, whatever they were doing, so be it, there wasn't much we could do about it. To counter any inroads they might be making was something that we didn't have the luxury of time and manpower to do. So our total thrust was in terms of garnering enough votes for passage. I would think that probably the opposition lobbying groups were in the same position as the key players on the Hill that were in opposition to change--that they shared Rayburn's view, or Rayburn shared their view, that this was going to be relatively close but it would go down to defeat. So perhaps that enforced, brief period of intensive lobbying on our part didn't make that much of an impact on the opposition. I really wonder whether they caught up with it or recognized that it was creating some change. G: At the time of the vote did you think that you had the votes? O: At the time of the vote my recollection is that we thought we would squeak by. Now, I probably would have said, "We'll settle for one; we may get two, we could get five." And I might have even said there's a shot at getting a majority of seven to ten. It landed about where we expected it would land. We felt that with the question marks up to the last minute we could have a ten-vote margin, but we also were not totally confident we were going to prevail. If we felt we could get up to a ten-vote margin and we wound up with five, obviously we thought we might lose by a couple. It could be that kind of a. . . . 76 O'Brien --Interview I --73 G: Was there an awareness on your part of who would go on the committee once it was enlarged? O: I don't think we even got into that, because we had assurances that people would be on the committee that would be favorable to us and interested in our position. As it turned out, we had one fellow that went on the committee that became very difficult in another struggle at a later date. G: Was this [James] Delaney? O: Delaney, yes. G: What was Rayburn's reaction to the victory? O: He was, as his usual Rayburn style, low key, a little smile, a slight chuckle, pleased. G: Did he ever say anything to characterize what it meant to him or what it meant in terms of the Congress? O: No. No, I don't think we ever got into that. G: How about Kennedy? What was his reaction? O: Relief. A great sigh of relief. G: Really? O: Yes. And my best recollection of his comment [is], "Now we're in business." G: Is that right? O: Yes. G: Any other memorable reactions to it that you recall? O: Not that I can think of. I think the overriding reaction remains my initial reaction to learning about all this. (Laughter) I think probably while it was uphill after that, it in a sense was a little bit downhill. As far as my personal reaction, I didn't jump up and down with joy. I think my reaction was a melding of pleasure and relief. [Interruption] G: Let me ask you about the omnibus judgeship bill. We talked about this briefly in setting up the legislative agenda. This should be on the first page [of the outline of legislative issues] there. Do you have that? 77 O'Brien --Interview I --74 O: Oh, I see. Wait a minute. Yes. G: This was the opportunity to name almost sixty judges. Did you see this as a political advantage? O: Yes. We saw it as an advantage because we were anxious to adjust the courts, if we possibly could, to the fullest extent possible in terms of attitude and thrust. The additional judges would afford an early opportunity to bring to the bench people that would be--I hate to use the word because sometimes it isn't appropriately descriptive--conservative-liberal or people that have a point of view that would more closely approximate the President's point of view than those who were currently sitting, for the most part. It isn't something that is discernible in specifics; it's just something that would have an impact on what we accomplished in terms of interpretation and implementation. Therefore, the importance was there, the reality of being able to name a large number of new judges. It seemed to be eminently doable, frankly, because obviously many of the people voting for this increase would see in it some advantages for them down the road when the actual appointing process went into effect. G: Sure. Eisenhower had tried to [pass a similar bill]. O: So it's the type of legislation that you have a feeling political reality, if nothing else, will dictate its enactment. G: Sure. This brings me to the question of the division of judicial appointments in Texas between Johnson and Yarborough. Were you privy to this or did you help negotiate or accommodate? O: I was privy to it certainly. I heard a lot from Ralph Yarborough concerning it. We had a number of discussions. G: What was Yarborough's position? O: Well, Yarborough's position was that we should adhere to tradition, and the input of a senator who would participate in confirmation was tradition. And it was hard for Ralph to quite conceive of the role of a vice president, if he incidentally happened to come from Texas, in this process. It was a very touchy situation. As you know, the Yarborough-Johnson sensitivity was something that existed right to the end, the end being Dallas, and I suppose beyond. But just to focus on that period, it had a lot to do with much of the planning for the Texas trip. Al Thomas was pre-eminent in that decision to visit Texas, but Ralph's position was certainly well known to us and repeatedly voiced by Ralph. G: He had been a Kennedy supporter before Los Angeles. 78 O'Brien --Interview I --75 O: That's right. I wasn't in a decision-making role in terms of allocation, but I was dealing regularly with Ralph Yarborough, seeking his support, and trying, in my own way, to accommodate his sensitivities to the best of my ability to bring about some kind of equity. But I came to the end of that particular road in Fort Worth when I had the discussion with President Kennedy up in his room and found that the early [news] stories, the first day of the trip, had been headlined Yarborough-Johnson. I decided, with Kennedy's knowledge and acquiescence, to see if I could find Yarborough before the motorcade formed to go to the airport to go to Dallas. That's all part and parcel of my involvement in all of this. It went to the legislative program; it went to the patronage, it went to the perceived slights, from Yarborough's point of view, and perceived unfair handling of some of his problems, and that was all an ongoing situation. I stepped outside the hotel door and he was there; he had come down early. So we talked and I told him that I recognized his affection for the President, his support of the President, his high regard for the President, all the rest, but what he wasn't recognizing was he was doing the President harm and would continue to harm the President during the course of this trip by his actions in not sharing the car with the Vice President. There were several buses of press, and the press were already aboard waiting for the principals to come down and form the motorcade. And I said to Ralph, "You just look at those buses and you're the story. There's no way you'd want it, I wouldn't think. And that's grossly unfair to the President." Yarborough didn't say too much, kind of mulled it over in his mind, and he said, "Well, fine, I'll get in the car." That was about it, and just within a moment, the Vice President came out and I quickly stepped over to him to advise him that Yarborough would be riding with him. G: What was Johnson's reaction to that? O: He nodded, but I don't think he said anything. G: I wonder if he was surprised. O: I don't know. You had to get this done quickly and, of course, what happened as a result of all that is that when I got off the plane at Dallas and the Vice President and the President were working the fence, handshaking, Ralph sort of standing there, I did not go to my designated car. I hung back to be sure that I saw the two of them back in the car, the Vice President and Yarborough, for the trip into Dallas. But then again, I guess, with my approach to things, I wanted to see it with my own eyes and hope that nothing might have occurred in the intervening half-hour that had changed it. And they got in the car and then I had to hasten and jump into a car that was handy, one of the open cars, and that car contained three or four, maybe five--it was crowded--members of the Texas delegation. G: Oh, congressmen? O: Yes. 79 O'Brien --Interview I --76 G: Who did make the decision about the division of those judgeships? O: I don't know. G: Was it Kennedy? O: I don't know. I don't know how it was worked out. G: Was there ever any consideration of letting Yarborough name all of them? O: I'm not aware of that either. I don't recall--and it's pretty vague in my recollection--that there was a feeling on the part of the Vice President that he was prepared to accept that kind of a solution, to let Yarborough name them all. I think that Lyndon Johnson hung in there somewhat through this, and I know this much, that the President was very anxious to accommodate the Vice President while recognizing the really inherent historic rights that the Senator had. It was a tough one. But as to the ultimate resolution, I was not involved, I don't believe, or I would recall it. I was involved with Yarborough from time to time on other patronage. I don't even remember the details; it might even have gotten to postal patronage, you know. He was very alert to what he felt were his rights. You did have a man on the one hand that was a staunch early supporter and a United States senator. On the other hand, you had a fellow that had agreed to go on the ticket and made one significant contribution to victory. Somehow, somewhere, you had to reconcile all that and come up with some kind of a solution that might have both sides kind of reluctant regarding the conclusion, but nevertheless, even if it was with reluctance, accept it. But overall, the omnibus judgeship bill was not a matter of over-riding, desperate lobbying in a priority sense. There was a strong feeling from the outset that this would work itself out as it did. G: Okay, you've talked about the foreign aid bill at some length, and you did write about that in your book [No Final Victories]. O: I think it's worth adding a postscript--because Otto Passman was a chore. He aggravated the President no end. He aggravated the leadership no end. John McCormack would become totally exercised regarding Otto. He was elusive in terms of pinning him down. There were a number of occasions when we thought we had formalized an agreement and found that Otto didn't recognize that to be the case. He was emotionally involved to a high degree. He was downright impossible. I don't think there was a more difficult exercise in my years in the White House than the exercise that took place regarding foreign aid and Passman. He was no different with President Kennedy than he had been with his predecessor. And I'm trying to recall, and I can't, a meeting we had on this subject where there was bipartisan attendance over in the White House in the living 80 O'Brien --Interview I --77 quarters when we were trying to work this out. I can't recall a Republican leader present at that time that made the comment, perhaps it was Senator Dirksen, but the comment was made that he recalled vividly being at similar meetings with Eisenhower regarding Passman and that he drove Eisenhower completely up the wall to the point where Eisenhower had told the Republican leaders that he never wanted to see Passman's face again. He said he just drove him crazy, just exactly what he was doing with Kennedy. So it wasn't a matter of selecting Kennedy out for any reason. It was the terrible misfortune to have a man, by virtue of seniority, in control of legislation that he detested and who felt that his role was not to organize the legislation and resolve any problems attendant to it. Somehow his role was to kill it all if he possibly could someday, and that made for a very, very difficult situation. If you asked me to select one member of Congress, House or Senate, that caused the President and the White House the most difficulty, interestingly enough I'd have to designate a democrat--I think small "d"--named Passman. G: How did you deal with him? O: I don't know as I ever did. I had a lot of contact with him but I never felt that I was dealing with him. I guess it's like anything else. When I first became acquainted with him I anticipated being able to deal with him, and as time went on he wore me out, too. He was impossible. There was a bright moment with a Charlie Halleck, and there were other things that happened, and you never, as I've said repeatedly, foreclosed a possibility, but with this man it was just an intensive, almost bitter struggle to the end. It just complicated our lives, because he accused us of all kinds of activity to exert pressure on him. I don't know whether he construed us to be a bunch of devils incarnate or just the horrible enemy or what. As for John McCormack, who was in many ways a living saint and who somehow could find good in everyone, the worst thing I ever heard him say was, "I hold him in minimum high regard." Passman just drove him up the wall, too. G: (Laughter) Was there any pressure that you could apply in other respects? O: None. None. He was in a world of his own. Why a man who had that view regarding foreign aid wouldn't at some point say, "I don't belong here in this discussion and debate and I can better serve my constituents in some other area." But I think that he would never contemplate that because he really, truly felt that he was driving nails into the foreign aid coffin and someday he'd secure the lid. G: Did Passman have a counterpart in the Senate that was troublesome? O: No, I don't recall, no. See, there were two areas that you had to confront on a regular basis. Foreign aid was one. There wasn't really anybody that I know in the House that was voting for foreign aid because he really was enamored with it. It was well understood by all, including your loyal supporters, that foreign aid was a burden, that nothing was to be gained by way of constituent support or political support out of supporting foreign aid. 81 O'Brien --Interview I --78 What everybody had to weigh was to what degree it was adverse to their political interests. That didn't mean there weren't a lot of members that didn't recognize its validity and the necessity. But it was a burden. The other burden was the debt ceiling. And the debt ceiling is where the opposition party would have a lot of fun with you. The only thought you had through that miserable exercise was that sooner or later there had to be an increase; they couldn't avoid it. But no one wanted to vote to increase the debt ceiling, and my guess is that roll calls would reveal that we may have been close to zero on Republican support for a debt ceiling increase. But those were the two areas that had built-in problems and you had to work on those two necessary legislative actions, recognizing that there was no real constituency. G: In foreign aid President Kennedy did introduce the concept of a multi-year approach to it, and this was criticized as back-door spending. O: Yes. G: How did you deal with this issue? O: Well, actually our motivation was obvious. Was there some way you could avoid this battle regularly? It started all over again about a week after you took a breath, it seemed. That's the way it was and it was awfully frustrating, so you felt at least you could take a shot at maybe trying to avoid an annual fiasco. That was our motivation and our approach. (Laughter) G: On issues like this, did you ever ask for more than you thought you could get, thinking that they were going to cut something? O: Sure, within reason, but you'd always go on the up side because you just anticipated that at best you would be in an area of dollar compromise ultimately anyway. G: The creation of AID was that year, too, and again you had the multi-year funding question. O: Yes. Well, actually, multi-year funding you approached as sort of what have we got to lose and, who knows, maybe you might luck out, at least in part, because it was the route to travel anyway. It made sense. But that didn't mean that it was persuasive. G: There was a very close vote in the Senate on that AID measure, an amendment by Styles Bridges to prohibit any military aid to any countries that traded with communist countries. O: That's right. G: And you defeated that by a two-vote margin in the Senate. Do you remember that vote? 82 O'Brien --Interview I --79 O: I don't remember the specifics of it, but Bridges really put in a major effort on that. He really did. He fought for that vigorously. I don't recall Bridges during that time being so totally involved in anything comparable to the effort that he expended there. He really made it very difficult. G: Did you sense the China lobby at work here? O: Yes. Because he pulled out all the stops that he was capable of pulling out. The record shows that he came awfully, awfully close to achieving his goal. I don't recall whether we anticipated it to the degree that it unfolded at the outset. Maybe we did, but I doubt it, because it became so intense it was surprising to us, as was the close vote. It's funny, when you mention Bridges and ask for recollections of someone, and this is no personal reflection on Bridges, but the one area of Bridges' activity that immediately comes to the forefront is this very exercise. I don't recall anything else particularly. While Bridges was obviously not a supporter, I don't recall him playing important or decisive roles in opposition. I mean, I don't think that he had that much weight in the Senate. But in this instance, he had, as it turned out, a very appealing argument. G: Well, he must have died shortly thereafter. I mean, he died during this period. O: Yes. G: Okay, you talked about Saund of California and the closing of the VA hospital there on AID. Passman evidently made a point of criticizing the administration lobbying on that measure, and even cited that LBJ had brought in Ayub Khan from Pakistan to give pep talks. Was this the case? O: I don't recall that it was the case at all, but I must say, anything that came to Passman's mind, I'll tell you, he articulated it. Passman could envision that the entire administration had dropped everything that it was engaged in and its sole effort was to defeat Passman. You could have suggested anything to Otto Passman and he would be a believer, saying, "They're doing this, that, or the other thing." I mean short of--G: He said Shriver visited every congressional office on the Hill. O: He's right. G: Shriver did? Why Shriver, because of the Peace Corps? O: Yes. And Sarge Shriver applied to this effort every fiber of his being. I had become acquainted with Sarge way back in 1952. At that time he worked for Joseph Kennedy in the Merchandise Mart, and he was on leave to us in the Massachusetts Senate campaign. And I recall very well that he was a man of inordinate drive and capacity for work. He 83 O'Brien --Interview I --80 had a high degree of enthusiasm for whatever he was engaged in. And I will say this, that Sarge was as effective an administration official on the Hill as anyone I can think of. He was indefatigable. As you see, I'm a great admirer of his, because not only did he do that on the Hill, which I personally observed and was involved in, but every assignment that he's had. I've also noted that through his private sector life, he's applied the same effort. He and his wife have done just an outstanding job of organizing and directing the Special Olympics. It is one of the best programs for the disadvantaged that's ever been created, to the degree that I made a point, as commissioner of the NBA, to ensure that a major portion of our public service announcements that we had available to us on national television were devoted to the Special Olympics, along with contributions that players and coaches and others in the NBA made over the years. I wanted to say all that because Sarge Shriver to me in a lot of ways epitomizes what is termed a dedicated public servant. It was brought into focus in this effort, and that wasn't the only time Sarge tramped through the corridors up there. G: I'm sure we'll get to a lot of his help later when we get to the poverty program and other things, but in addition to this foreign aid measure this year, can you recall any other lobbying that he did? O: Well, on the whole Peace Corps obviously. I think a great deal of the success is due to Shriver and the reaction to him on the part of the members up there. There would be any number of occasions when I would be chatting with a member and he would reflect on his contacts with Sarge and how impressed he was with him. I think that, you know, if you could have had twenty-five Sarge Shrivers around, life would have been probably a lot more comfortable. G: Did both Presidents Johnson and Kennedy recognize this talent? O: Yes. Very much so. I think that President Johnson had his difficult moments trying to evaluate the various members of the Kennedy family, but with Sarge he saw early on a fellow that was outstanding. He held him in high regard. Tape 5 of 5, Side 1 G: --purged from the subcommittee. O: In the first place, as far as the White House was concerned, we weren't in the business of issuing threats or encouraging purges. If, indeed, we would ever contemplate something like that, the last fellow that we would involve ourselves with in that regard would be Otto Passman, because it would have given him great joy; his martyr complex would have been further spotlighted, and he would have had great pleasure in making public pronouncements in this area forever. So, no, Otto Passman was, as I said, a very unusual guy. He was unique; he was 84 O'Brien --Interview I --81 not well regarded among his colleagues. He was considered a bit of an off-beat character. He had this foreign aid hang-up and he had a great deal of control over foreign aid legislation. I have no knowledge that Passman was a contributing factor in any meaningful sense in any other area in the Congress. G: Did LBJ ever have any formula for dealing with him, or did he--? O: Not that I recall. I don't think there was a person in Washington who had a formula. Obviously the Republican administration had tried, and if he could aggravate Ike Eisenhower no end, then similarly aggravate his successor no end, and aggravate his own party's leadership in the House no end, I think that was it. There wasn't any formula to deal with Otto Passman. G: Okay. You mentioned the Peace Corps. Let me ask you briefly, apparently there was a little opposition to the Peace Corps, is that right? O: Yes. G: Where did the title come from, do you know? O: No, I don't. There was little opposition. It fitted in terms of the launching of the administration, the pronouncements of the new President, his aspirations and goals, and interestingly enough, it cut across the spectrum on the Hill. Members were early on, up front, intrigued with it. Which, incidentally, I must say was surprising to me. I don't remember specific members who expressed support for the Peace Corps, but I do recall that I was very much surprised with some of the early support and the sources from which it came. But I think you would again have to make reference to Sarge. I think that the reaction to Sarge personally was a very significant factor. G: How did Shriver end up with that assignment, do you recall? O: No, I don't. I don't [know] what conversations might have taken place within the family. I think that his reactions would be extremely positive in an area such as that. Re the members of the family--Steve Smith was in Washington for a while. I believe he had an assignment in the Defense Department, and there might have been another assignment. But I recall a conversation with Steve; Steve just didn't feel comfortable in Washington, in the administration. It wasn't his bent, and Steve really was anxious to go back to New York and the Kennedy Foundation. I remember having dinner with Steve one night, just the two of us. Our wives were on vacation. And you know, Steve is a very able fellow. But it was of interest to me that as he had a brother-in-law who was president of the United States, Steve could have carved out a career that would be meaningful in his brother-in-law's administration, but that didn't fit with him. G: Well, there still have been suggestions that Shriver was an outsider for the family, though, because he was an in-law rather than a--do you think there's an element of truth in that? 85 O'Brien --Interview I --82 O: Well, the family, that's--we could spend several hours on the family, because obviously I had ample opportunity over many years to closely observe the family, and that's a story in itself. But I think when you're talking about in-laws, male or female, you have to remember the Kennedy family is a very closely-knit family with a very strong-willed father who had views that he had no hesitancy to express. I think it was a natural evolvement that if you married into the family, you were expected to become part of the family's way of life, whether it was touch football or whatever. So in that sense you're an outsider, and you accommodate yourself to the family, and you become a full participant in the Kennedy family life, which was a very active life among all of them. They're all active in sports and all that sort of thing. I think Sarge would come by that naturally anyway, because he was an excellent tennis player--I shouldn't say was, I assume he still is. And Steve Smith was athletically inclined, had a great interest in sports, so the fit is there. I think where I saw resistance to being encircled by the family was with Jackie. And I can remember occasions sitting on the porch at the compound in Hyannis with Jackie, with touch football going on, male-female participation to the fullest, and other physical activities, and Jackie felt very relaxed not participating. I would be a nonparticipant and sit with her. And Jackie had an independence of her own in terms of what her interests were. She did not drop all her interests and assume all the interests of the Kennedy group. So you can get into a lot of discussion; that's why to say Sarge was an outsider, I don't accept. I think that that was a marriage, he and Eunice, that couldn't have been more perfect. You know, there aren't many almost perfect marriages. I remember at their wedding over at the Waldorf, while Sarge was an employee of her father, they had mutual interests from the outset in the Special Olympics and in other activities they have engaged in together. They are both very religious and, you know, it was just a darned good fit. G: You didn't see, then, any kind of cleavage between Shriver as an in-law and the Kennedy brothers as natural siblings? O: That became a matter of public discussion at the time that Sarge was selected as a candidate for vice president by George McGovern, and inasmuch as I was one of the two or three, whatever it was, being considered by McGovern to take over the role of Tom Eagleton, I had a very close look at all of that. And there was a lot of talk about how the Kennedys would feel about Sarge seeking public office as a candidate for vice president. I never found that there was any concern on the part of the Kennedys. But that was when a lot of people suggested that perhaps the Kennedys feel that only Kennedys seek public office; that if you're not a Kennedy, even though you're a member of the family, that's probably not appropriate. But I never saw any evidence of that. And Sarge did what he always does: as a candidate for vice president he never 86 O'Brien --Interview I --83 stopped running for vice president. He just devoted every waking minute for months to that effort. I don't know, it's hard for me to listen to all the stories, because some of these stories are repeated and repeated until they become, supposedly, factual. And I've often sat and thought, well, that isn't the way I saw it. And I felt on many of these occasions that I was in a position where I could view it, and that isn't the way it was. But that's the way media portrayed it and so be it. End of Tape 5 of 5 and Interview I 87 [ Part 2: "Attached Text" ] *Pages 1--67 from Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview II* LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. 1 LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW II PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview II, 10/ 29/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview II, 10/ 29/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. 2 NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY AND JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Lawrence F. O'Brien In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Lawrence F. O'Brien of New York, New York, do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on September 18, October 29, October 30, December 4, December 5, 1985; February 11, February 12, April 8, April 9, June 25, July 24, July 25, September 10, September 11, November 20, November 21, December 17, December 18, 1986; April 22, April 23, June 18, June 19, July 21, July 22, August 25, August 26, September 23, September 24, November 3, November 4, December 10, December 11, 1987 at New York, New York and Cotuit, Massachusetts and prepared for deposit jointly in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library. (2) The tape recordings to which the transcripts relate shall be in the possession of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and shall not be available for use or review of or by any source during my lifetime and for a period of time thereafter ending with the 10th year anniversary of the date of my death. At such time, access to the tape recordings by researchers shall be permitted but only for the limited purpose of background use, and researchers may not cite, paraphrase, or quote therefrom under any circumstances. (3) During my lifetime, I retain all copyright in the material given to the United States by the terms of this instrument. Thereafter the copyright in the transcripts shall pass to the United States Government. During my lifetime, researchers may publish brief "fair use" quotations from the transcripts without my express prior consent in each case, but no other quotations from the transcripts shall be published, except with my express prior approval in writing. (4) Copies of the open portions of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be provided by the library to researchers upon request, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. (5) Copies of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be deposited in or 3 loaned to research institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library or the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. Signed by Lawrence F. O'Brien on April 5, 1990. Accepted by Donald Wilson, Archivist of the United States, April 25, 1990. Original Deed of Gift on file at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705. ACCESSION NUMBER 92-13 4 INTERVIEW II DATE: October 29, 1985 INTERVIEWEE: LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN INTERVIEWER: Michael L. Gillette PLACE: Mr. O'Brien's office, New York City Tape 1 of 4, Side 1 G: Let me start with a couple of general points that were raised by your papers. One, the problem of a congressman who is following a project through the various stages that it has to go through in the cabinet department and agency and BOB, and so he's fairly well abreast of each stage. Is it possible for him to learn, just through keeping abreast of it, the outcome before the White House does, or before you do, or the member that you want to notify first? O: Well, depending on his seniority in the Congress and, obviously, his direct relationship to the project by virtue of his committee assignment, that was conceivable and undoubtedly occurred. We made every effort to husband all of this information to impact it to the best of our ability and to the point where we worked out a program with the Bureau of the Budget, as well as all the departments and agencies, to try to get that first notice in there and to have the member--the friendly member--have the opportunity to make the announcement prior to the department, agency or any other governmental source. I think even the fellow that might have been tracking a particular project by virtue of his committee assignments, even under those circumstances, would probably not go public until there was a definitive, on-the-record decision. But I must say that if that were the case and he had the knowledge that you suggest, then our call to notify him would not have the impact that we'd like it to have. But I think those were unusual situations and I must say that it was a dangerous area in a lot of ways. I think our concern really went to a public discussion of this procedure. There was nothing basically wrong with it. We were not, in that process, endeavoring to dictate every decision in government. It was purely an effort to maintain and improve this individual relationship with these people. But you always had to be concerned that this could become a matter of public discussion and it could be reported in such a way that it would look devious. We had that occur. As I recall, it might have been the Wall Street Journal that made an effort to dig into these procedures and failed. There were a lot of denials of procedures internally, I'll admit to that. We carried it to a considerable extreme in the case of the two senators from Maine, Ed Muskie and Margaret Chase Smith. Bob McNamara became very exercised about this procedure, particularly when he was confronted by Senator Smith and accused of giving advance notice to Ed Muskie. Ed Muskie seemed to have statements in the Maine newspapers regarding decisions that were affecting the state of Maine; military 5 O'Brien --Interview II --2 projects, bases in Maine. She was on the committee and McNamara became so concerned about it that he went to the President and said that he thought that this procedure should be closed out because it was embarrassing. The President discussed it directly with me, and the President and I quickly agreed the project would continue, the effort would continue, the procedure would continue. It was obviously very helpful. But, in order to pacify Margaret Chase Smith, we set up a situation in which Ed Muskie sent us a letter objecting strenuously to some procedure under which Margaret Chase Smith, in his judgment, was given notice ahead of him when it should have been joint. That was made known to Margaret Chase Smith--Ed Muskie was concerned because he felt that she was getting preference because of the committee on which she was serving. That closed that out and we heard nothing further. But that one media effort to delve into this procedure, which didn't cause any waves, was just about all I can recall that occurred. Now, it depended on the district, too. Coming from Massachusetts--I was from the Second Congressional District--there was a congressman by the name of [Edward] Boland, who was a lifelong friend of mine, as a matter of fact. Just to apply this to the individual congressman, Boland would receive this twenty-four or forty-eight-hour advance notice and he would contact the newspapers and media in his district with a statement. And that would be page one news usually. Now, that was the nature of the district. The largest city in the district was one hundred seventy-five thousand, the city of Springfield, [and there were] a lot of smaller cities and smaller communities. And the impact was there and it, obviously, was of great assistance to the Congressman. However, you could be one of fifteen congressmen in the city of New York, and perhaps there's very little of this that was of any great help because in New York, just as any other major metropolitan area--but I think New York is obviously a good example--congressmen get lost in the shuffle. And their effort to get into print in New York is a very difficult one. So perhaps some project affecting Greater New York would be shared by so many members of Congress that it would very much lessen the potential impact. But overall it was a resource, it was as simple as that, and a resource that we [used] on a trial basis in 1961. [We continued] refining it operationally and indeed, mechanically, so this was an automatic, day-to-day procedure and encompassed everything we could put our hands on in the executive branch of government. As we refined that and noted how meaningful it could be in most instances, we were not going to relinquish that because of Senator Smith, or indeed Bob McNamara, who in fairness to him, did not have a political background. He was not as sensitive to the PR value of this in terms of an open door up on the Hill, if not the actual vote of a member in a given set of circumstances. But it was of concern to some of the people in the administration. I think an example was referred to in a memo [by] Elmer Staats. Elmer was a career fellow and he 6 O'Brien --Interview II --3 was at Budget and that would be a source in that you could be advised and counselled by Budget, [which] in turn would probably give you a little lead time in some departments and agencies at times so you could anticipate these opportunities. But there was a recognition on the part of the people there that this was something that we valued, that it was not in any sense suggesting to Budget or anyone else that they take action in any way. It was just after the fact that we wanted the information, but before the general procedural announcement and that was all. G: Yes. O: And they accepted that and recognized it and, consequently, even people that would not be politically oriented or not perhaps have direct concern about the legislative process were very cooperative and understanding. The guidelines were established and were confidential. As time went on and it became more refined, it became an adjunct of the operation of the Congressional Relations office in the White House that was as automatic as opening the doors each day. G: Well, how specifically did you bring all the departments and agencies into line in following this procedure? O: Well, you started with a basic premise, and I'm sure I'm going to be repeating myself on some of these things but editing will take care of it ultimately, I hope. But where was the starting point, what was the concept? First of all, and I think every president-elect and his associates go through this process and take it very seriously. Now that you have the reins of power, you are going to make every effort to ensure that the executive branch of government reacts to your interest, your goals. That means that you want to put in place in every important slot in government people who a) are competent and b) very importantly, share your goals. And that, over a period of time, has frustrated every administration in my judgment; actually placing these people in position. It frustrated us. But in the excitement of an approaching inauguration, the day the President named his cabinet and the rest, we were not oblivious to this. We didn't have it refined or in some documented form. But the President and I, and the President and all of us--the President-elect-- knew where we wanted to go and that the control aspect was going to be extremely important. We were going to exercise every effort we could to bring it about. For example, and I think this was without exception, as the President designated his cabinet members on the steps of his home in Georgetown, or whatever form was taken to make these announcements, immediately, that designee was advised that his first order of business was to sit down with me. At that time I was staying in the Mayflower Hotel, and I had arranged, whether it was just a one-on-one session or dinner in the suite, that there would be a solid, in-depth discussion of the goals and the aspirations of the administration and what we would envision from the White House to be the team role of each cabinet member. And it varied somewhat. Stew Udall would be very familiar with the procedure; there's no need to try to outline it or detail it to Stew, so you chat with him rather informally. With Doug Dillon or Bob McNamara, it would be necessary to review 7 O'Brien --Interview II --4 all this very carefully. These were men of high quality; you wanted to be absolutely sure they weren't, right at the outset after they're appointed, receiving suggestions that could remotely be construed as anything but a proper manner of doing things. But you really took off from one premise--everything focuses on the President. Every action taken, every department and agency must focus on the President. It's the President's program; the President is the boss; the President must at all times be cast in the best light possible. When negatives occur, the responsibility must be absorbed as much as possible by the cabinet member or whomever. There's only one program, and, while the effort will be expended by each cabinet member obviously in behalf of the program that directly involves his department, he has the responsibility to be part of the overall effort to bring about the enactment of the New Frontier program. It is essential that all top-level appointments be cleared by the White House. If the cabinet designee has an interest in making a recommendation in a given instance, it certainly will be looked at, and looked at carefully. There will be times, however, when the cabinet member will be informed as to who the President would like to see in a designated position in the departments and agencies, and that has to be an accepted procedure. And all of that, of course, was the beginning of an effort to bring under the direction of the White House as much as you could of the executive branch of government in the interests of the President. There were a couple of isolated instances that I recall where there was some slight resistance, or some resistance, to this procedure as time went on. G: Can you give specifics here? O: Well, interestingly enough, if a cabinet member had a political background--some did--there was an acknowledgement of this and acceptance of it. This wasn't anything surprising at all; this is the way the procedure would be and certainly should be. But if you did not have that political background and you were not probably as sensitive to this, then you had to adjust to it. The adjustment process wasn't difficult, because there again, you know that there's one boss and it's the president. Everybody is on the team, but it's the president you look to at all times for leadership. Your responsibility goes to the president in every aspect of the performance of your duties and responsibilities. That's nothing that isn't obvious. But the adjustment to it in a couple of instances was not immediate and there was at least what we perceived to be some foot-dragging. I think one member of the original cabinet of President Kennedy that had difficulty with it was the Postmaster General, Ed Day. Ed talked to me on a number of occasions and to others in the White House and he felt that "White House staff," quote, unquote, were interfering with the conduct of his office by making suggestions to him of one sort or another which he resented. G: These were like where to build the post office or jobs or--? O: Some of that, but even to the point of suggestions as to commemorative stamps. You can picture the pressures being exerted in that area at that time, and I learned it directly later on as postmaster general. I understood it, but it became part of my own direct activities 8 O'Brien --Interview II --5 for which I took certain steps by way of forming committees that were helpful. But if you, as the postmaster general, receive a call from Larry O'Brien, and it is suggested by Larry O'Brien that it would be in the interest of the President and the administration and our relationship with the Congress to have a stamp, of the fifteen or so commemorative stamps that were issued each year, and the Postmaster General felt that perhaps there was somebody else or some other entity that perhaps should be so honored, I think that perhaps Ed Day would feel, "I don't understand this, there seems to be politics in this." Well, of course, there was politics in it. But I mention Ed because he came from a business background. He was a senior officer in a major company. He came from the West Coast. He had a close association with Adlai Stevenson initially. He was an early Kennedy supporter. He was recommended to us when we were sorting out cabinet suggestions by some people on the West Coast. The President-elect had an interest in having a businessman in the cabinet to achieve balance. Anyway, as the process unfolded, Ed Day became the designee, to his utter surprise and amazement because he never sought the post. And I remember rather vividly Ed being asked to get on the earliest plane he could to come to Washington for a discussion with the President-elect, and [he] had no idea just what was to be discussed. Well, that was the background of it. Now, Ed Day was a very able fellow and, as a matter of fact, I believe stayed pretty much in postal activities in the private sector after he left the Post Office Department. But some of Ed's stated concerns became a matter of general knowledge in the White House and of specific knowledge to the President. There were discussions regarding Ed to the effect that he seemed to register more objection to this procedure than others and, after all, the Post Office Department was a source. G: Sure. O: But Ed I don't think really enjoyed being in that position. I can understand that. That was contra to his experiences in the private sector in the high-level positions he had held in the business community. He did not, of course, have the political background that would probably help in bringing him along on this process. Whatever the reasons were--and there was nothing personal and there was respect for Ed and I respect him to this day. I knew him probably better in later years than I did at that time, because we were in touch with each other on a number of occasions in postal matters in later years. But Ed chose to leave the cabinet. And I suggest that there were probably a couple of other situations somewhat similar, that you do have a little of that. I don't know whether arrogance was shown toward Ed. That would not be my way of doing things. As part of this communication process, it was well understood throughout the administration that a cabinet member would make himself available promptly in response to a Larry O'Brien telephone call. Now, that didn't mean that everybody on that White House staff could pick up the phone and call a cabinet member. Maybe others did and made attempts in their own way to exert pressures of one sort or another; I'm sure things like that probably occurred. And that would aggravate me. It would aggravate me, 9 O'Brien --Interview II --6 because I was in that position in later years. But if it was held to the President and his immediate designee, so to speak, the cabinet member should not react adversely. He might want to discuss it or he might even object to a particular appointment. If so, that appointment may not be made because, after all, you weren't going to foist upon a member of the cabinet an assistant secretary or deputy that was not going to work effectively with him. So a lot of give and take took place. This was not a matter of just calling him in and saying, "Here is your deputy, and here are your assistant secretaries." That was a matter of discussion and oftentimes those decisions were made jointly. I don't want to belabor that. I don't want, also, to suggest that we were all just nice folks, that we weren't a little hard-bitten, a little driven. After all, there was an overriding objective and every resource had to be put into play to achieve that objective. So I would say without question--and that applied over the years that I was involved with both Presidents, Kennedy and Johnson--that the understanding and cooperation at the cabinet level were good. There was a rare occurrence when--and I have certainly understood--for example, when Bob McNamara became concerned. After all, if I were up there before Maggie Smith--and Maggie Smith starts to berate me for a procedure that obviously was in place--and I'm sitting there saying I'm doing the best I can and "Well, I'm not quite familiar with that, I'll look into it," sort of thing, I can understand that if a fellow has had a long political background, he probably can play that one out. But if you don't and you don't really like the procedure anyway, you're apt to have strong views concerning it. But that was part and parcel of the initial effort to try to have as clear an understanding as you could, [but] that was a role the President-elect did not want to undertake. If he were sitting with a fellow who was ultimately his designee for a position in the cabinet--probably after consideration of any number of others and after the decision was made and the announcement was made--it wasn't seemly for the President to say, "By the way, Joe, I want to be sure you understand how this works and how it's played out." That was a role I could undertake. I had an understanding with the President-elect that it was simply in the context of explaining how we envisioned relations with the Congress and how efforts in the legislative program would play out and, also, that we had political responsibilities in terms of appointments and assignments. No one was going to be foisted on any of these people who was inept and not fully qualified. G: Well, in the case, let's say, of the Labor Department where you had a large interest group that was close to the Kennedy campaign, would they have more influence in the naming of subcabinet positions? O: If they chose to exercise influence, they could have more influence to some degree than perhaps other private sector entities. But interestingly enough, there wasn't that pressure. I think that went to the basic feeling of organized labor as reflected in George Meany's style--and he was the fellow that was in place during our years--and a desire on the part of 10 O'Brien --Interview II --7 Meany and organized labor and COPE to preserve an independence. And, also, when you think about it, [to] be able to react as they saw fit without being inhibited by favors rendered to them. There was not, as I recall it, any pressure points involving labor that impacted on the top-level designees in the Labor Department. I'm not suggesting that the President-elect might not talk to George Meany about who he had in mind as secretary of labor. I'm sure that you would not be naming people at the top level of the Labor Department if the AFL-CIO, or indeed the UAW, had strong objections to that individual. But that never occurred, because we were in a friendly climate and there were opportunities to name people that labor would have no objection to. As time went on, labor preserved its rights. We weren't at all times in accord. Even in battles over amendments to legislation, whether it was minimum wage, the whole Taft-Hartley efforts and all the rest over the years, there were times when labor was not enamored with our decisions or our actions. But Andy Biemiller, who was George Meany's key representative in the legislative process, was a former congressman who had been long with the AFL-CIO, was respected on the Hill and a fellow I found very easy to work with. He had a good understanding and he was a dedicated labor man. [Alexander] Barkan is another example of a fellow who fought labor's battles. They fought them with everything they had, intensively. But I don't think they wanted to be inhibited by any even indirect suggestion that "Hey, you shouldn't be in strong opposition to this particular action that's being undertaken, because look what we've done for you. You've got your pals in place in the Labor Department." They preferred it otherwise and that's the way it was. G: On the point that you mentioned earlier, the relationship between the White House staff and the cabinet officer, you've been both. And I want to ask, on the basis of both perspectives, was it ever a problem to establish whether or not the White House staff member was in fact speaking for the President rather that just himself or his own office? O: Not that I recall. While I can only speak for the Congressional Relations staff, or I guess I could speak generally, certainly, it seems to me--and I'm sure this occurred in any number of ways--that, for example, Ken O'Donnell, because of his acknowledged close proximity to the President, calling a cabinet or subcabinet member would be understood by that person as an authorized call. Certainly any call I made to the cabinet members, or they made to me, probably 90 plus per cent of those calls related to the legislative program, to requests of cabinet members to do certain things, make certain contacts, or discussions about progress or lack of progress in a given instance. Each cabinet member, I'm sure, or agency head, would not consider that a discussion with me was not a presidentially-approved discussion; that I was [not] in a role that was totally accepted as a spokesman for the President. That applied after a relatively brief period of time on the Hill, and I've reflected on that before. G: Yes. O: The operation on the Hill was far more sensitive than operating with your own colleagues 11 O'Brien --Interview II --8 in the executive branch. That kind of activity within your own group was no problem at all, but certainly on the Hill you had to be very concerned about how this would unfold. And certainly, if I were a member and if I had known Jack Kennedy while we had been colleagues and now he is the President, it would be kind of nice, if I wanted some action in a given area or I wanted to suggest legislation or get concurrence on some action I was going to take as a committee chairman, to just pick up the phone and call the President. Now, obviously, the reality is that no president is in the position to be constantly engaged in that sort of activity. But by the same token, if you're up there on the Hill, you want to test the procedure. You want to at least find out about this fellow O'Brien, who may not be very well known to you, indeed, determine if you can get a definitive answer on whatever you're seeking. And if he is totally supported by the President, you don't have any qualms about it, so there's no need to be going to the President. President Kennedy early on was sensitive to that, too, and he started to receive some of those calls and he would give them the same response, "Have you discussed this with Larry O'Brien?" "No, I haven't." "I'd urge you to do it because Larry is in the position to work it out with you and certainly he'll report back to me." There was only a very brief period of time when bypassing Congressional Relations and going directly to the source was really the case. There was an acceptance of that, and it was evidenced in a variety of ways, so I felt comfortable. By the same token, once that was established, another responsibility was placed on me and the people that worked with me. When you did make a statement or take a position you'd better be able to back it up, and you had to be sure of the President's confidence in you and your judgment. So you reflected on those factors when you made any comments or responses. But, initially, how do you go about something like this when, at the outset, you try to determine what resources you have, how broad and deep a team you can develop to carry on this task of promoting a program with five hundred and thirty-five members of Congress? You just try to ferret out these elements of resource and coordinate them. But, as I said, in the climate of the sensitivity of separation of powers, there lies the difference. You can exert pressure in the executive branch, and, if a fellow wants to defy you, then that's too bad for him. I would hope you wouldn't be arrogant in the process, because we were all on the same team. But there's that separation up there on the hill, and what you're trying to do is move in with people who are decision-makers who, hopefully, at no time will feel you are just being too wise, too smart, or too forward. That was really what it was all about, and a lot of it was trial and error. On reflection, I can't tell you when we decided that we would have regular meetings during congressional sessions in the White House with the top congressional liaison person in each department and agency. It happened relatively early, but it didn't happen Day One. And all of these other refinements--were we thinking of the use of the Sequoia in January, February, March of 1961? These refinements came bit by bit as you tried to implement the process you had established. Before discussing the role of the President, let me reiterate that the Congressional 12 O'Brien --Interview II --9 Relations process started with a president and a staff member he designated who were unsure of how it should be undertaken and unaware of the limited informal activities in this area in past administrations. From Day One, the need to husband the President's time and safeguard his influence became self-evident. You could not allow the effort you were undertaking to reach the point where direct contact with the President was simply a routine matter on Capitol Hill. Presidential contact had to be something that impressed a member of Congress and happened on rare occasions. When he received a direct call from the President or an invitation to come down to have a meeting with the President that was impressive and the Congressman or Senator reacted accordingly. If a member reached the point of saying, "Oh, hell, there's another call from the President," then you lost the single, overriding resource you had available to you. G: Sure. Was LBJ more inclined to have a day-to-day contact with members of the Congress than Kennedy was? O: I would say yes. With Kennedy I would try to husband his time by very carefully developing the effort that I'd like to have him make in a given instance. If that meant having six members of Congress to the White House because we have clear, definite information that they are very much in question and that only presidential effort could bring them into line, then I would make that request to the President. I would be very, very careful to make it only when I had determined we'd exhausted every possibility and there was one last opportunity and that was the President. I would make that request, and I would not be hearing from President Kennedy saying, "I haven't heard from you in a week about calls you want me to make or some social occasion or some meeting with a member. What's going on?" It was quite different. He would hear from me, and I would make the request. On every occasion, sometimes perhaps a little reluctantly, the President would undertake it. I think he felt that these contacts were kept to the absolute minimum, and he knew the motivation would have to be one of last resort--that there was a need for presidential participation. Now President Johnson would inquire. As we talked about legislative struggles and I would give him a current version of a head count, he would note that there were members who were not listed right and they should be, in his judgment. My job then became somewhat different, because I would want to keep him removed from direct contact as much as possible, again feeling if you do that around the clock there's no impact left after a period of time. While I knew that Johnson's intense interest in a program, obvious-lei, was motivating him and that there was no time day or night he wasn't prepared to charge in, I think his readiness to participate created a different kind of responsibility for me. And I tried with some degree of success-- G: Did you succeed in this way? O: Yes-- Tape 1 of 4, Side 2 13 O'Brien --Interview II --10 G: You were saying that there were times when you would even ask him if the President wanted you to make a call. Is that right, or he would ask you if he--? O: No, he would ask me if I wanted him to make some calls. I had to fight it a little bit because of his intense interest in the progress of the legislation. G: Was he more inclined to make calls that you didn't know about than President Kennedy would have been? O: He might have, although I must say that, to my knowledge at least, I don't know what personal or old friendship calls he might make from time to time, but calls that were aimed to the process, to vote-getting and the rest, he would talk to me about them first. He recognized this, and we had candid discussions. I'd say, "Mr. President, you just can't do this. There are twenty-two more we're working on, and we haven't exhausted this yet, and I don't want you [to] because it just isn't right, and I'd argue with him about it. And he'd say, "Well, okay, but let me know now. Don't let it go by if you want me to call, or you want to call those fellows down, okay, I'm ready." I guess the extent of it was epitomized by my call to him one morning, which I guess I referred to, in the early hours of the morning when I knew he was just awake. I had been up all night, and we had lost a battle in the House. But anyway we lost it in the early hours of the morning in a very tough struggle, and Charlie Halleck had prevailed. And you're depressed and you leave the Hill, it's four or four-thirty in the morning, and you're heading home and then you decide to not go to bed at all. But you owe it to the President to advise him of the negative as well as the positive, and so you wait dutifully till six-thirty, a quarter of seven, whatever it was, and you call the President and advise him. Then President Johnson is saying, "When did this happen?" I said, "It was the early hours of the morning." And he said, "Why didn't you call me? You should have called me and told me about it." Then I'll never forget, he said, "You know, when you're up there bleeding, I want to bleed with you. We have to share these things." I never got over that. G: Isn't that amazing? O: Of course, the last thing in the world I would have done is wake him up to tell him. (Laughter) I'm sure it was momentous at the moment, important and significant. It was so important and significant I can't recall the specific incident. But I think it typified the intensity of our effort at all times. He was just great that way, and obviously when a fellow says that to you, your boss, the President of the United States, you're not about to change your practice and say, "Well, now he has told me, 'Why don't you call me at three or four o'clock in the morning and wake me up. '" No, you're not going to do it, but I think it just underscored his personal involvement and his strong support for what you were doing. G: You were an old friend and ally of President Kennedy long before he assumed the 14 O'Brien --Interview II --11 presidency, and much less so with Lyndon Johnson. Were you as comfortable arguing with LBJ or trying to persuade him to do what you thought ought to be done? Was he as approachable to you in this sense? O: In a way probably even more so. G: Why is that? O: I think the nature of the fellow, his style, his personality. I think, as I keep referring for want of the use of a better word, the husbanding of presidential involvement. On the Kennedy side, I think that it was probably something that President Kennedy never gave any great thought to, that even on the group events and all the efforts we made to ensure communication that I've referred to in the past, I would try to work out a schedule where he would meet for social hours or with an entire group in an important matter. And I would try to schedule those well in advance and put them into his overall schedule. And it would have been a rarity--there were some occasions, but rare occasions--when I would disrupt his schedule and say, "You've just got to move into this now, and calls have to be made, or you have to see Charlie Halleck." Because that incident is one that stays in my mind, on civil rights. But with President Johnson I would not--let me go back a little bit. I don't recall that at the end of a day, you know, when you get to six, seven o'clock in the evening, or whatever, that President Kennedy was apt to call and say, "Well, I know all this activity has been going on. What's it look like?" With President Johnson, he would similarly know there was a lot of activity going on involving a vital piece of legislation on the Hill. But he'd call and want to know what's going on. And that would generally lead to saying: "Come on in. You've got to come downstairs." I was one flight over the Oval Office. You go down there and you might spend several hours discussing that and a myriad of other things until Mrs. Johnson would keep pleading with the President to go to the living quarters and have a bite to eat. So I felt very comfortable. I think that I enjoyed him, for one thing. I hadn't known him well, but in very short order I liked his openness. I was not a Johnson fellow. After all, after Dallas, you had two layers of staff for a while, until things melded reasonably well. Now, that didn't affect me at all on the Congressional Relations side, but I think that there were [conflicts]. You know, Ken O'Donnell was the appointments secretary, Jack Valenti was sitting right in the hallway there, and there was Walter Jenkins. The President's feeling in the transition was retain the Kennedy staff, but I also want my own people. I would think that in Ken O'Donnell's role, outside the Oval Office door and with a new president in there, it probably wasn't very workable. While with me, the fellows, the Johnson people, no matter what their assignments were, joined me at his urging in participating in the legislative effort. That applied to every Johnson person in the White House over the years that I was there. For example, Bob Hardesty became a key fellow. We worked out a system of 15 O'Brien --Interview II --12 trying to load down the Congressional Record with pro-Great Society comments of all sorts, placing them on the Hill for insertion. Well, that was another dimension. And Bob, who was an extremely able guy who had been at the Post Office Department, was very knowledgeable. Not only was he an excellent writer and very quick in developing statements for the Record--statements that we'd ask members to enter--but he also was good at seeing that they were properly disseminated. And as you know, our old friend [Jake] Jacobsen had a role in the White House which we didn't have in the Kennedy White House. He received delivery of that Congressional Record in the wee hours of the morning at his home, and had that Record completely reviewed and duly noted with clips so that the President could take an early-morning look at the results of all these efforts we're making. Now, you reach that point and then what else is there you can do? There's always something more you can add to this overall effort. But we'd get into head counts in tough times when it appeared close and it was a real drive to bring about success. The President would, for example, look over the head count of the Texas delegation, because he was always interested [in it], and he'd have very forceful and candid comments about everyone, particularly if there was a question mark or a "no" next to the name. (Laughter) Then the next thing you know, Marvin Watson and others would be on the phone calling old Texas buddies. You know, all of this was going on. There was no limit to the effort and no limit to what you might undertake within some degree of reason, to get back to my old phrase, to maximize the effort. Now, that was the Johnson White House and that was the Great Society program, and consequently, what did I want? I'm a member of the staff in one area of activity and you want presidential support for your efforts? Boy, you had it coming out your ears! (Laughter) You had all you could cope with and more by way of support. There was an army. G: President Johnson, though, did have a reputation for berating his staff. Was this a tendency that at times made you reluctant to confront him with something that you felt was wrong? O: Not at all. I guess there will be disbelievers, but I can tell you that in my years associated with Lyndon Johnson I never had anything remotely like a confrontation. G: Really? O: Now, having said that, I think people wouldn't believe it. But I would hear he had some heated discussion with Bill Moyers or George Reedy or whomever. Never in my presence. I mean I never was a witness to any of that. And I assume that I heard enough about that sort of thing that such occurrences took place. I can't recall meanness or nastiness expressed by the President. I must say that because of his personality and his openness--I've always had the 16 O'Brien --Interview II --13 reputation of being rather verbose myself and, Lord knows, Lyndon Johnson had that reputation, so the two of us together, on a matter that could be resolved in five or ten minutes could result in an hour of discussion. But it never posed a problem to me at all. I can say this: that whatever did not go right regarding the Great Society program and its enactment certainly was not due to any failure on the part of Lyndon Johnson to devote maximum effort to it. I'd have to take that responsibility myself, and there may have been occasions when perhaps I should have said to the President, "Why don't you make these calls?" which he would have done without hesitation. I really had followed the same procedure I did with Kennedy, that you go to the President and insert him into a battle only when every other possibility has been exhausted. I do remember--it was a discharge petition on District of Columbia home rule--I ran into that buzz saw one night. I was sitting in the outer office, the small office outside the Oval Office, with the President and we were going over this discharge petition. At this point the liberals, the Joe Rauhs and the rest of them, had given up on the Hill. They claimed there was no way you could get the necessary signatures on the discharge petition. Each time you came close, some people would withdraw their names. But I guess I mentioned the twenty-two--I don't know why it sticks in my mind--but there were twenty-two nonsignatories to the discharge petition that had no good reason not to sign. In the conversation with the President, I revealed this to him. We were talking and I had the head count in my pocket and here are these twenty-two. Now, these are twenty-two liberal Democrats. And this could make the difference. Well, I couldn't stop him. He proceeded to pick up the phone and gave the White House telephone operator the names of the twenty-two and chased them all over town. I don't recall he had caught all twenty-two by the time I went home, but he stayed with it. He'd have some conversations with them, I'll tell you. I thought, now we're going to have presidential involvement in this matter when there were probably other occasions when it could have been more significant and I had not [asked him]. But this was inadvertent. But once he saw those twenty-two names and reflected on a few of them, nothing could stop him. G: What would he say to them on the phone, for example? O: [He'd] say to them, "Come on, you can't do this. This is ridiculous. Listen, I'm putting you down. I'm sitting here with Larry and we're talking about this and there's no way you can. . . . Is that right, you'll do it tomorrow? Come on now." There would be little or no conversation on the other end; it was always sort of one-sided. He just worked them over and it succeeded. But the fact of the matter is, I thought later, "I don't know. Perhaps I should have picked my spots a little better." (Laughter) As I say, I didn't go to him. There's no way I would have gone to him and said, "Here's twenty-two names. I'm going to sit with you, and let's make twenty-two phone calls." Why, I wouldn't have deigned to do something like that! That's probably as good an example as I can cite of my association with him and the personal effort he would undertake. It was amazing to see it all unfold. And his conversations were figuratively nose to nose. If it was in person it would have been nose to nose, hand on the shoulder and whacking the back. He was 17 O'Brien --Interview II --14 verbalizing the same sort of thing on the telephone, and it was an example of the need to husband his activities. Because if he did that every night of the week, there might have been people on the Hill that didn't want to take his phone call. (Laughter) G: Let's go again to the question of notification of projects. It's clear from your files that this is something that members of Congress were keenly interested in, having that notification so they could get what you described as that front page story in the Springfield newspaper, something like that. I notice that sometimes even when you did give them advance notice that they might not get the word out before some of their competitors did. Was this a problem? O: It was a problem at times. G: And they would blame you, or they would blame your office even though they got the advance notice. They might not react as quickly-- O: Every minute of the day there's something happening somewhere, in some department or agency that can impact on this and be helpful. So you're doing all you can to keep your hands on every aspect of it. These calls became routine. And Claude [Desautels] or somebody in the office would call the member's administrative assistant and say, "Now we'll have the following information--just jot it down A, B, C, D--and your boss can make the announcement. He ought to make it promptly." And not to excuse inadvertency at times, we found that a lot had to do with the reaction of that person in that office. And then a member would learn that some colleague had made some announcement where they had adjoining districts or the mix was such that it involved more than one member of the House and, of course, you'd have the Senate. If you had a Democrat in the Senate, of course, he could be making the announcement on a statewide basis as the member was on a district basis. When those occasions arose, interestingly enough, it was often due to the inadvertency of the member's office, the failure to recognize the immediacy of it. Sometimes there was a scream from the member. Then the member would recognize that this called for action on his part to ensure that when that call was received, [the announcement was made]. After all, there were days when you might be making fifty calls and you had to spread it out. The person designated on our call list was the one that would get the message, and we'd advise that member, "That call was made at such and such a time"--it was logged--" and the information was provided." And it wasn't unusual for the member to check it out in his own office and find that's where it occurred. Now, there may have been times where there was failure on our part; I'm sure those situations occurred, too. But it was again to the best of your ability. And I would say the overall impact of this procedure far overrode any failures on our part or the member's office to follow through. G: Some Republicans accused you of more or less being secretive or withholding information from them. This was the charge that they made in this connection. 18 O'Brien --Interview II --15 O: Well, I guess the charge was valid. If withholding meant their office wasn't called, then that was withholding. G: Okay. Now, another dimension of this, and we talked about it last time, was the matter of patronage. I have a note that Dick Donahue handled a lot of your patronage. O: Yes. G: Tell me how this worked. O: Well, patronage, it took a wide dimension; it might even go to trying to get some clerk in an office promoted. There were many of these little items that might have been somewhat meaningful to the member or probably just a pain to the member that he wanted to get rid of in terms of some constituent pressures on him. It could run to all kinds of--it oftentimes had to do with postmasterships, rural mail carriers, lower-level positions in departments and agencies at the regional level, all over the lot. Much of it would be a congressman or a senator responding to a constituent by sending you a letter. And you had to make judgments, and Dick Donahue was excellent in this area. If that member sent a letter saying, "I am pleased to recommend John Smith, who is a most deserving constituent of mine, for consideration to be deputy assistant regional something or other in Omaha," Dick could--and that was as a result of conversation between Dick and me--pretty much construe that it wasn't of overriding interest. You would put it into the mix and you'd make an inquiry about it--I'm really talking about an amazing variety of recommendations. [If the check revealed that] it didn't make sense or was unfair to other employees or there'd be jumping a [grade], you wouldn't have any hesitancy to send a letter back or make a phone call, whichever way Dick wanted to do it, and say, this just isn't going to work. And you found that it was only the rare occasion that that member would put up a fight, but he wants something in writing saying that we've seriously considered [it]; there'll probably be another opportunity for John Smith in the future. Then he can send the copy of the letter, and so his constituent got a negative but at least the constituent knew that the member had made a plea for him. You might not think that would be the case, but most of the fellows on the Hill were realists. Now, if the fellow on the Hill said, "When you get a chance I'd like to have you drop by. I'd like to talk about a constituent of mine that you're just going to be so impressed with." Or which was more often the case, the fellow said, "I want to drop down. Can I set up an appointment and come down and visit you in your office to discuss this?" Then you're dealing with a serious case in terms of the interest of the member. Accordingly you may have to nudge this a little bit. Perhaps, if everything else is equal or close to equal, then it's going to work. However, in much of this our referral would be to the Democratic National Committee. While we retained the active interest in making a determination, we would be quick to say, "This is being referred to John Bailey." If the 19 O'Brien --Interview II --16 decision was negative and it was in an area other than just routine, a notch or two beyond or higher at times, John Bailey would be the one that would have to notify the member that this wasn't doable. So you're not really sitting with a documented, written check list of procedure. You're making political judgments, always having in mind the retention of friendship, the improvement of friendship and contact. And weighing all of this sort of thing, it's a difficult area. But often you would find that whether John Smith or Joe Brown in a regional office of the Small Business [Administration] or whatever was given this new assignment, it was not significant. Either one could qualify so why not do it for the fellow that the congressman was interested in? G: Did you ever have a situation where you desperately wanted a guy appointed because that was the formula for, say, getting an important piece of legislation passed? If you could do something for this congressman or senator, you felt like he would be right on an issue and--? O: No. I'll tell you, however, situations somewhat like that did occur from time to time. If it was clear to us that the appointment should not be made, the qualifications just weren't there, and it was just counterproductive to satisfy the member of Congress, we made that determination up front. We stayed with it. There were any number of times that we would deny the request. That just was part of the procedure. And you would try to do it in the best possible manner. You would always have it reflect some serious considerations, some thought, and you would be candid. You'd say, "Listen, it doesn't add up; the department head"--or whatever it might have been--" says that this man has been interviewed early on for this position [and] has been turned down for the following reasons," or whatever. If you ever allowed yourself to be lulled into that sort of procedure, it would be counterproductive and the wrong procedure to follow in the best interest of the President. Because invariably, even at somewhat lower levels, this is going to come back to haunt you and you shouldn't do it. It just isn't right to do it, and you just have to bite the bullet. We were biting so many bullets in that area, in patronage, all the time that you were inured to a return call saying, "I can't understand this." Inured to it, you had to be, because with that fellow up there on the Hill in that particular instance the answer is no, it's not going to be done. You're just hopeful that in follow-ups there'll be other areas, patronage or whatever it might be, where he's going to be pleased with your answers and judge you've been fair to him. You're talking about quality in government and competency and if you can't fulfill that to the best of your ability despite pressures, then you have failed. And you couldn't have a Dick Donahue or anyone else sitting there feeling that his job was to put the square peg in the round hole because some guy yelled at him from the Hill. You just couldn't do it. G: Did you ever want to effect an appointment and have John Bailey or the Democratic National Committee say no, that--? 20 O'Brien --Interview II --17 O: No, they weren't in a position to say no. G: Is that right? O: And that's no reflection on John Bailey. That was an area I had a great sensitivity to because, coming from political organization, I felt that the role of the Democratic National Committee should be enhanced, we should be supportive. I'll have to say that just wasn't the case. I think unfairly in the Kennedy period, and I'm trying to recall the Johnson period, the Democratic National Committee was cast in the role that the party entity seems to have been in historically. When you are the chairman and your party is in the White House, there's a world of difference. I was chairman of the Democratic National Committee when the party was out of office, and there's a role that you can develop in terms of being a spokesman on the attack of the incumbent administration. Obviously, there's no patronage involved if you're out of office, and you can perform that role. It's a role somewhat like the current role of Paul Kirk--trying to always seek harmony and develop programs as an out party. But once the party is in, [that role changes], and I've never quite understood that. I remember at that time at the early stages I was trying to make an effort--I don't suggest it was a very vigorous one--to be sure there was a continuing recognition on the part of the staff of the existence of the national committee and the need to have it a viable, functioning entity. But as time went on, you just sort of forgot the national committee was there. The national committee became a vehicle when we needed to cover something of a negative nature that John could take the rap for, or when we would feel that conceivably the national committee could have some impact, for example, in developing party interest and support out in the field for the legislative program. I think the committee was in a position to be helpful in that area, and I also candidly admit that we never utilized it as we should have. G: Let's talk about some specific kinds of appointments: ambassadorships; was this a part of the patronage process as well? O: Yes. G: Tell me what the criteria would be here. O: What you tried to do was to achieve a degree of balance between career appointees and non-career appointees. It's part of the attitude in the White House, and I don't know whether this had been the attitude of other administrations. If you had a fellow who had played a significant role in your campaign, he probably had a resume that would reflect a considerable degree of success in the private sector. Secondly, the fellow was expressing keen interest in being recognized, perhaps a direct request to be considered for an ambassadorship. Yes, the answer is that there were a number of political appointments to ambassadorships, reflecting the President's appreciation for efforts expended on his behalf. 21 O'Brien --Interview II --18 G: Well, what if the--? O: On the career levels, there was resentment. If you're a career foreign service officer and your ultimate ambition is to reach the ambassadorial level and you find that your opportunities are cut by 50 or 60 per cent by virtue of political appointments at the ambassadorial level, you don't appreciate the process. By the same token, those in the White House haven't any great concern about your lack of appreciation. So how much are you willing to take by way of adverse criticism generated by the career people or generated by the academicians and the rest that frown upon this process? You can take a good deal to fulfill what you think is your role in the appointment process. G: What was President Kennedy's view of this dilemma here? His own father had been an ambassador, and I dare say a political appointee. O: Yes. I think anyone that is not career is political, and whether it's because he was a heavy donor or whether he has great connections in the private sector, whatever it is, it's political. And there are only two designations: either career or political, and I don't think there's an in-between designation. I don't know as I ever had a conversation with President Kennedy as to his views in this area. You have in a secretary of state an understanding fellow; you'd better have an understanding fellow or he shouldn't be secretary of state. I don't envision it reaching the point in the foreseeable future where that level of appointment is based solely on career service. If you had no patronage at all, you'd be better off, let's start with that. And I think very frankly that any president would say, "I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to hear from anyone that has a personal interest in being ambassador or people advocating his or her appointment as ambassador, because that's a burden I don't want to carry." The fact of the matter is that the two presidents I knew were not that persuaded that the foreign service produces the quality and competency at the ambassador level that it thinks it does. So it goes beyond patronage. After all, the president can appoint anybody he darn pleases, subject to confirmation, and ignore the foreign service entirely. I think presidents have wanted to maintain some balance to have in some of the sensitive, key ambassador spots people that share his view on foreign policy [who are] not bogged down in the bureaucratic aspects of things. Now, there are small country ambassadorships that oftentimes are purely political, where you weigh it and say, "Now, there are no great conflicts that exist or will occur and this fellow wants to be an ambassador." I hate to even name a country, but some way-out place where he's never going to be heard from again until he sends in his resignation. To summarize, any president would prefer that there is no such thing as patronage. It's an overall pain in the neck; it may have an occasional plus factor but there's a lot of negative in it. You've got to remember the old saying in politics: every time you make an 22 O'Brien --Interview II --19 appointment, you've made one ingrate and created at least ten enemies. But it's there, it's part of the process. I think when it comes to the State Department, a president doesn't necessarily look at it that way. He is just not, and I think rightly so, that comfortable with the bureaucracy of the State Department that he's inherited. He's just not that sure the State Department is going to reflect his policies. It's the old story: presidents come and go, and I'm still here. When I advocated the removal of the Post Office Department from cabinet status, I realized, as a politician, all these thousands-- Tape 2 of 4, Side 1 G: --I think [?] that was all for the good. O: You might say, "Look at this list of openings where we can assign our friends and supporters to positions." I have never felt there was a plus factor in patronage. It's a way of political life. It's there. Somebody has to designate people to hundreds of positions at the third or fourth level. That has to be done, but as to the political benefit derived from it, I think it's minuscule. If you look at it coldly, I think a member of Congress would be reasonably willing to just forego all of this. I know that when I made the recommendations regarding the Post Office Department, surprisingly there was very little adverse reaction on the Hill on the grounds of patronage. I don't recall any great uproar in that regard, because I think most of those members feel as I do, "If I could only get rid of all of that nonsense." How in God's name do you ever name a postmaster in Yanktown, Ohio, without creating a bunch of enemies? Then the animosity extends to their relatives and friends and you gain nothing. It's something that you were kind of forced into and you have to do, and so one guy thinks you're a hero. You say for just the exercise of some kind of power, look at the price you paid. And it isn't worth it. G: Yes. Well, now, on the matter of ambassadorships, did members of Congress exert influence or pressure to have friends or supporters of theirs named to ambassadorial posts? O: I don't recall specifically. At least I wasn't involved. There might have been instances of that. Actually when it comes to ambassadorships, if there's a presidential preference I think there's a widespread recognition that this is the president's patronage. G: Yes. O: Subject to confirmation. You might get into a ruckus somewhere, and I'm sure there were occasions when the president couldn't care less who the ambassador was; he had nobody particularly in mind. I'm sure there must have been some senators that had people in mind and hoped they would be considered by the President. This is a presidential appointment in the real sense. You have a right to object to it in confirmation. 23 O'Brien --Interview II --20 G: You sound like it was a fairly isolated case. O: Yes. Now, you know Matt McCloskey was appointed by President Kennedy as ambassador to Ireland. Matt McCloskey was treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. He was an extremely successful contractor, had developed a major construction business in Pennsylvania. He was a dedicated Democrat. He was a significant fund raiser. He was a thoroughly decent, honorable fellow that deserved recognition for the services he had rendered and the efforts he had expended in behalf of the election of President Kennedy. And Matt McCloskey was of Irish heritage; that was incidental, but it sort of fit. How do you recognize your indebtedness and responsibility to Matt McCloskey? Matt isn't at your doorstep demanding anything, that wasn't his nature. But it was pleasing to suggest to Matt that he might enjoy being ambassador to Ireland for a period of time, and Matt reacted very favorably to it and went to Ireland, and incidentally was loved over there. But there you are. So that's patronage? Should some foreign service officer have gone to Ireland? Ireland is an ambassadorship, incidentally, that's widely sought for obvious reasons. One, it's a friendly country. Two, it's a country that does not request anything of the United States. Three, it has to be one of the finest embassies in the world. It's just a very pleasant place to be, with people that love America and Americans. Controversy and problems are almost nonexistent. It can be an enjoyable experience. So that was the story of Matt McCloskey. Now, some fellow might be designated ambassador to a newly-emerged Third World country with a population of a million, two hundred thousand people in desperate poverty. And you could have a fellow who is anxious to be an ambassador and has credentials. He might wind up there, because if he wants to be an ambassador that's where you feel you could comfortably and safely place him without being concerned. So what you get to is, do you sit there with a formula: X per cent will be career, X per cent will be political? No, I don't think so, but I think in the general weighing of this over a period of time, it has a degree of balance, never the way it should be in terms of the foreign service or on the political side, because suspicion of the State Department is rather strong in the political world, as you know. It's shared widely, fairly or unfairly. That is one department that the people who have political backgrounds have looked at with a jaundiced eye. That may not exist to that degree today. What I remember are members of Congress in key positions on the foreign policy side in their committees--I can think of John Rooney--who felt they were striped pants cookie pushers. And that's what you've got and really you're antagonistic to them. You exercise your power, because you just don't buy them, and that's unfortunate as the devil. So when you talk about patronage affecting ambassadors, you're saying, "Wait a minute. I'm not going to be overly concerned about some career guy whose nose is out of joint, or some of the third or fourth level State Department people who were there long before I got here and will be there after I've left. They can talk to some of these 24 O'Brien --Interview II --21 columnists and try to stir the pot, but I'm not going to buy it." G: If there were a really sought-after post like this Irish ambassadorship, would you get involved and help analyze or distill the competition, say if you have two or three people in the running for this job, and help make a decision on which one would be the most suitable? O: No, not really. My experience with that was Matt, but we had others over there. I could have injected myself into that sort of thing, but I really didn't. I remember a fellow calling me after Jimmy Carter was elected saying he wanted to be ambassador to Ireland and would I contact Jimmy Carter in his behalf. It was clear to me I didn't have that kind of relationship with Jimmy Carter. I was in the sports world at that point. This fellow was making a valiant effort to secure this post. If he were calling me, he must have been calling every living Democrat. And I don't recall who it was, but I do recall he wasn't named. But I think, in dwelling on Ireland, I'm talking about something that's unique, it's different than some of the others. I didn't sit with the President to urge the appointment of an ambassador or urge that a candidate not be appointed. Now, obviously I have gotten requests and I relayed them, but I did not insert myself into the ultimate decision-making process. I just didn't bother. But I do recall, though, President Kennedy naming an ambassador to Vietnam. He was trying to determine what to do with Vietnam and he came up with a brilliant idea: why not call in Henry Cabot Lodge, who he had defeated for the Senate, who was a Republican and a nationally-known figure, and see if he could convince him to go to Vietnam? He figured that would be helpful, having a widely-known Republican as ambassador to Vietnam. He's having these problems with Vietnam, and [it would] give it some political balance. Get him in, and it's taking a little gall on my part to even suggest it to him--I'm paraphrasing. The feeling among us is that Cabot would certainly not accept it, and I remember the President's reaction after he met with Cabot and he did accept. He was absolutely amazed that he would accept it. G: But it was your idea to--? O: No. G: Oh, it wasn't? Whose idea was it? O: I don't know. I assume it was the President's idea. But the reason that I recalled it was that Lodge went to Vietnam and shortly thereafter I received a call from Dean Rusk and Averell Harriman to tell me that Cabot had been in contact with them and wanted them to urge the President to send me to Vietnam to assist him in organizing the situation. Thank goodness they were friends of mine, and we agreed the message was not going to be relayed to the President because he might think about it for a minute! (Laughter) So that 25 O'Brien --Interview II --22 was as close as I came to foreign service. (Interruption) G: We were talking about ambassadorships and diplomatic patronage and there was a case that you did assist in with a Mr. [Salvatore] Bontempo, is that right? Bontempo, B-O-N-T- E-M-P-O. O: I recall the name, yes. G: This was a more minor position, but it was something that was apparently important to the Italian-American members of Congress. I think it was a deputy assistant secretary for something, and you-- O: Yes, I do recall that. G: --did advance that appointment. O: The background of that was that the Italian-American members on the Hill on a number of occasions had expressed their concern about, as they saw it, lack of recognition of Italian-Americans in important levels of the administration. And Bontempo was a name put forward by, I think, Pete Rodino and some of the others up there. That would be an Italo-American appointment. And I did react to their interest directly to the President, and this was worked out and he was designated. That really was not reacting to the thrust of the complaint. It was a rather localized appointment. It certainly did not impact on establishing a record of recognition. You have to label that as not so much an Italo-American appointment as an appointment that resulted from intense lobbying on the part of Pete Rodino and probably some others that were Italian-Americans, but that was about the extent of it. But this continued to be a problem. Not that we were reluctant at all to react to it. It was the old story: to find an appropriate appointee for an appropriate position. A fellow who had achieved some significant recognition was Tony Celebrezze who was mayor of Cleveland. Tony had become well known around the country and, certainly as we saw it, well known in Italian-American circles. The opportunity did finally present itself and my recollection was that it was secretary of HEW. And we, feeling that the record was going to show definitively that we had recognized the Italian-American in a significant way, carefully structured the appointment of Tony Celebrezze. To maximize this appointment and its impact on the Italian-American community, we should make sure that selectively we made confidential phone calls in advance to some of our friends, staunch supporters, to advise them of this. I believe it was probably Pete--obviously Pete Rodino would have been one of the [supporters]; he probably would have been first and foremost in terms of these phone calls. I talked to Pete, advised him of this upcoming appointment, which would be announced within a day or hours, asking that the 26 O'Brien --Interview II --23 call be kept confidential. And I was somewhat taken aback because Pete's--and this was also stated by others--reaction was "Tony is a fine fellow, but he's not really well known; he's not a national figure. He isn't really well known in the Italian-American community nationally." Well, talk about puncturing the balloon. Perhaps they felt "We're not going to succumb to this single appointment to the cabinet. We want to come back for more." That would be totally understandable. But, fortunately, when the appointment was announced and he took over, it was widely recognized in the Italian-American community. But I think our congressional friends just were not that impressed and I really anticipated this was going to be one of the most pleasant calls or series of calls I'd ever make, because there would be widespread approbation and I could even envision wild enthusiasm. But that wasn't the case. It sort of fell a little bit flat. But it wasn't the wrong thing to do by any means; Tony was a very able fellow and acquitted himself well in his post. So forgetting the ethnic aspect of it, it worked out well in any event. But it didn't get the job done. I think you had to have a sense of humor at that point and say, "Well, gosh, we sat around here really thinking we came up with a blockbuster and it turned out that it wasn't accepted as such." But there again, that's not an ambassadorial appointment. But what goes into the equation? We've been concentrating on appointments as ambassadors. We want to have our administration representative of our supporters and the party as a whole. And those in the Democratic Party are ethnic groups, whether it be Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, various ethnic groups, they're in there, too. So you're not confined in that sort of patronage process to saying, "Well, who are the largest donors to the campaign?" In one instance it might be a fellow that donated significantly to the campaign in terms of money or of effort. Or it might be someone who didn't necessarily play a significant role in the campaign but is representative of a group, and that way we're honoring the group. However, I think if you didn't have to be engaged in this at all, everybody would be better off and you could go about your business and not be making the enemies that you do make in the appointment process. G: Were appointments ever made to remove someone from the position that they were currently in? Let's say, if you had a member of Congress or someone who was a problem where he was, did you ever, say, offer him a judgeship or ambassadorship or something like that in order to get him out of the way? O: I don't recall a specific instance, but if there was an opportunity to do that, you would, and maybe we did. The name eludes me at the moment, but we had a fellow in Louisiana who had played a key role in the election process. There was a threat--and you take all threats seriously--that there would be a problem in terms of finalizing the electoral college vote of the state of Louisiana. I was at Palm Beach with the President-elect when we had this called to our attention. Someone in that delegation had decided to try to have some of the electors avoid voting for Kennedy and create some disruption, and that might cause some 27 O'Brien --Interview II --24 kind of legal fallout. We certainly didn't need that sort of thing. This fellow played a key role first in notifying us of the existence of this and then in resolving the situation so this didn't take place. In addition, he also had been a staunch Kennedy supporter from the early days in Louisiana, and that wasn't easy to be. But the aftermath was this man was named head of the civil defense. He took on his duties and he had some ideas on civil defense that there was nothing basically wrong with except that we couldn't supplement his ideas financially. This sort of drifted on, and then one day this fellow was discussing with me again some of his ideas for fallout shelters. He contemplated visiting the Pope to discuss the utilization of churches in the United States as potential fallout shelters. This was getting a little bit beyond us. He was well motivated and all the rest and he rightly felt we weren't paying enough attention. And I guess it would be hard to quarrel with that. He became disenchanted with his role, and we became somewhat concerned about the scope of the role he had undertaken. The net result of it all was he left that post and became a federal judge and, as far as I know, may still be sitting. So patronage can take all kinds of forms, but I don't recall saying, "Let's pull out from the group this individual in the Congress that is in a key position who is very troublesome and let's give him the high honor of promoting him to the judiciary or to an ambassadorial post, because then that will either create an opening that can be better filled or eliminate a problem." G: Did you ever consider an ambassador to the Vatican while President Kennedy was president? O: I don't recall any consideration. I not only have no recollection of that, but I would assume that that was not in our thoughts. I would also assume it was not in the presidential thought process either. If you reflect on our difficulties in education legislation on the private school issue and the sensitivity to it in the White House, I can't believe that anybody was sitting around talking about the Vatican. G: This was an issue you didn't need. (Laughter) O: There's an issue I don't think we would have touched with a hundred-foot pole under the circumstances. G: Okay, now let me ask you about patronage from a negative standpoint. Did you ever get pressure from members of Congress to try to get you to remove someone who was giving them problems in their district or someone that they found obnoxious? An enemy, a political enemy, in an important position either in their state or in their district that was causing them problems? O: Well, I don't recall anything like that at the national level. So going to the state and district [level], something tells me that situations like this probably did occur. In the 28 O'Brien --Interview II --25 normal evolvement of transition, you've tried to focus on the national level--departments, agencies, Washington-based, at the top and down three or four levels in these departments and agencies--and you haven't succeeded in completing that task, you [will] have holdovers at various regional and state levels of the federal bureaucracy that you haven't gotten to. In fact, [you] probably don't even know [they] exist. So, again, I am sure that there were situations of that nature where we were reminded by members of Congress that certain people were in place for a year or longer after we had taken office that should have been replaced. And you would act accordingly to replace these people. But the reason for the existence of that situation was just the enormity of the whole thing. But, yes, a congressman or senator would be very sensitive to that, because he or his staff, who had dealt with these people over a period of time, had found that they had no cooperation. And then to see that person still in that regional office in the bureaucracy at a level where the person could be removed and replaced, there would be cause, in political terms, for complaint. At the national level I don't have any recollection of senators or congressmen charging into the White House saying, "You've got to get rid of so-and-so, he's causing us great difficulty." But when you get to a lower level of the bureaucracy, where the appointment process still exists on a regional or local level, clearly when that was called to our attention we took action to replace that person with a, if you will, friendly person. But that would be something called to our attention and I'll tell you, with the limitation of two terms for the presidency, those people called to our attention would probably have remained in place throughout the terms of both President Kennedy and Johnson. As I've indicated earlier, we found it downright impossible to clean house across the board at the levels we had envisioned. Now, I think later administrations would probably have attacked that problem more efficiently than we did. By the end of the first year the effort we had undertaken, including filling existing openings, had not succeeded because we were unable to come up with qualified persons. It drifted away from us. We went into that second year saying, "I just can't devote any more time to that." It just disappeared and those people continued in place in many instances. If you couldn't fill obvious openings at the third or fourth level and you left those openings there month after month, clearly you couldn't get to removing people that should have been removed. G: You've mentioned earlier, I think, working at a government salary, and apparently salary was a consideration because Robert Kennedy in 1961 introduced legislation to raise the allowable salary for some attorneys in the Justice Department. Do you recall that legislation and--? O: Yes, vaguely. My recollection has been aided by a memo that I've seen recently. Bobby's motivation in trying to adjust salaries of lawyers in the Justice Department is something that I didn't quarrel with. But the reality of it should have been pretty obvious at the outset. There are hundreds and perhaps thousands of lawyers in government, and I found 29 O'Brien --Interview II --26 that when I became postmaster general there were some twenty-five or thirty full-time lawyers on the staff of the postmaster general, which I didn't realize until I arrived there. So to single out Justice Department lawyers and to try to adjust their salary just opened a Pandora's box. G: Yes. You indicated, too, in the memorandum that there were some jurisdictional problems in this issue in terms of what committee it would go to, I gather, and the Civil Service. O: Yes, that existed, too, but the whole idea. If I'm a lawyer over in the State Department or in Commerce or wherever and I see this effort to adjust the salaries and levels of the lawyers in Justice--lawyers in other departments are doing legal work, too--how do you justify something like that without it affecting the whole executive branch? And I assume if I'm an accountant, then I couldn't understand why lawyers should be singled out either. At a minimum, it's going to cause a great deal of rancor. As to the jurisdictional aspects, I don't recall specifically, but there were problems in that area, too. G: Do you recall the civil rights aspect to this, too, with the time of the Freedom Rides and--? O: Well, that was a part of it, too. There were people on the Hill that felt that you wanted to upgrade a bunch of folks that were busily engaged in monitoring their districts, as they saw it; that, of course, was very sensitive. And in reality, of course, there was a great thrust on the part of the department under Bobby, great emphasis placed in this area. And a great number of lawyers were engaged, and there was a flow of them all through the South. I suppose if you're sitting there and you're a conservative Democrat from the South and you've had a lot of comment from constituents regarding this activity, you're resentful. Then to compound it all, it is suggested that we ought to upgrade these fellows. I think reality eluded some people at that time. Taking a particular group of lawyers and upgrading them in terms of salaries would be disturbing to some members of Congress and many government attorneys. I don't know how you would expect to get widespread approbation. Tape 2 of 4, Side 2 G: [Did you] talk with the Attorney General about these problems? O: I don't recall specifically. Certainly some of the fellows on my staff and Nick Katzenbach or others over at the Justice Department must have discussed it. Because while it wasn't one of the primary legislative items on our agenda, clearly the problems that it was causing and the reactions that were emanating from the Hill would indicate there had to be some discussions of it. I don't recall them specifically. G: What tack would you take when you were having to deal with some of the conservative southerners about these issues? 30 O'Brien --Interview II --27 O: I think we never had any hesitancy to--there was never a thought that we not move vigorously to pursue equality and justice. That was a given. G: Even the southerners accepted this? O: No, not necessarily. They knew that we were engaged; they knew the position of the President and his brother, the Attorney General. He's a vigorous attorney general and hard-hitting. G: Well, yes, but-- O: That afforded an opportunity to complain about-- G: To err the other way. But you were the point man for the administration in that you were the one on the Hill, and when someone let's say like Jim Eastland or Jamie Whitten or someone would complain to you about working with the Freedom Riders or something like that, how would you respond to them? How did you handle the touchy issue of civil rights? O: Well, the fact of the matter is that it wasn't that touchy in that sense, because the Jamie Whittens and the rest of them at that stage, I'm not suggesting that they accepted all this or they were at all pleased. It was politically troublesome to them and all the rest, but it was within the framework of existing law and procedure and was the responsibility of the administration. Go back to that period--you're talking about 1962. The whole battle between southern Democrats and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party was ongoing, but there wasn't yet any meaningful civil rights legislation. You would sit there and say, "This is going on, but there's a limit to how much they can do or how they can do it, and they'll be fought every step of the way. We're not yet engaged in a major civil rights struggle in the Congress." That came later. Let's face it, the Democratic Party claimed to be a national entity, but party platforms were but a piece of paper. If you're a southern Democrat, you made your views known regarding the platform of the party. But all of that had not caused the ultimate disruption. The Democratic Party got away with that for a long time. They could have the semblance of liberalism, pro-civil rights and all the rest, the commitment, the pledges, the platforms, the enunciations on the part of northern leaders and liberal leaders. But the reality was it hadn't resulted in any meaningful action. So the stymying was effective and continued to be effective, and it resulted in a big brawl before it finally was brought about. So you had defections in the South, but the fact of the matter was in 1960 Jack Kennedy was an advocate of civil rights, meaningful civil rights. That was one of the commitments he made, and in addition to that he was a Catholic. And with all of that, he carried six southern states. G: Yes. 31 O'Brien --Interview II --28 O: You have to remember that at the time we went into the White House in January of 1961, there was a long record of southern Democrat-Republican coalition opposition to national Democratic policies. By that, I mean policies enunciated by the Democratic Party as a national entity. And that was an accommodation the coalition had reached and it was very effective, and they had, in addition to civil rights, stymied the progressive legislation in many areas and had done it very effectively. When we arrived, having won the presidency by a paper-thin margin after eight years of Eisenhower, that coalition was very much in place. We found that out in a hurry in the Rules [Committee] fight. And it took a lot of doing, over a period of time, before that opposition began to erode. G: While we're on the matter of civil rights in this early period of the Kennedy Administration, the 1961 period, was there a policy that cabinet members and others in the administration would not appear at segregated functions around the country? O: It was well understood. G: Really? O: No. G: You felt free to--? O: No, I don't think we ever approached that in those terms at all. G: Because I saw a memo in your files to indicate that someone--I don't think he was a cabinet member, but he was perhaps someone who was high up in the administration-- [was] wondering whether a function he was going to attend in Louisiana was integrated or whether it was segregated, because there seemed to be some question about. . . . O: I don't recall that, but I think it might have been in another context. I don't know. Perhaps he might have been tentatively scheduled to attend a function that was segregated. I say that only because I so vividly recall our problems in Louisiana, the northern vs. southern of Louisiana. It was awfully tough territory for us in the presidential election. And the degree of opposition to Kennedy in northern Louisiana probably was not surpassed anywhere else in the South. G: Really? O: Perhaps. I'm saying that because of my personal recollections, because I remember being in northern Louisiana as part of our campaign effort and finding that it was very clear that the animosity toward Kennedy was wide-spread. Not that anybody tried to hit me over the head, but it was obvious and affected those who deigned to support us. Our hope in Louisiana was that in New Orleans and the South, we'd be able to overcome what was significant opposition to Kennedy. So if we're talking about a possible visit to Louisiana 32 O'Brien --Interview II --29 [by] somebody in the administration, it might have been by a member of Congress to address an audience that might have been a segregated group. That would be a sensitive area to have one of our people appearing before a redneck group. It should not have happened, if it did, but I don't recall it. G: Back to the story of campaigning in north Louisiana, was the opposition an anti-Catholic opposition, do you think? O: Yes. G: Was that the key issue? O: Yes, very much so. G: Well, why did they support you anyway, or at least the state--? O: The state did. G: The state did, but why did--you even had people there who were willing to support the ticket but not-- O: Yes. Well, there were some. And again there was a meeting as part of our travels. I recall being present. I recall that the meeting was not particularly impressive. I recall that I spent little time there following the meeting. There wasn't anybody that suggested that I didn't have a right to be in northern Louisiana. But it was clear to us that we had a coterie of staunch supporters that were really putting it on the line by even acknowledging publicly they were supporting Kennedy in that particular area. And that was reflected, as I recall, too, in the Rules fight. [There was] a congressman from that area that was really berated by the press and had a cross burned on his lawn over his support of us in the Rules fight. So that was the intensity of it. It was strange to be in the same state and travel through the rice country and through New Orleans and have the enthusiasm and great crowds when Kennedy was there, or going back organizationally and having great meetings. It was as though you were in a separate state. But that was the situation there. G: I had one more question about patronage, and that regards a note that the patronage in New York City was done through the Mayor's office. Mayor [Robert] Wagner had a role in that, and Congressman [Leonard] Farbstein was very upset that the Mayor was controlling, or at least influencing--having a role in the patronage process. O: Yes, well-- G: How did it work in New York? O: Well, the Mayor had a role in it, that's my recollection. And the Mayor was very supportive. More than that, however, the party organization in the state of New York and 33 O'Brien --Interview II --30 in New York City was not, other than [in] isolated areas of northern New York--Buffalo is a good example--very effective. In many parts of the country the organization was in a state of disarray. That was not confined to the city of New York. To have some kind of organizational support, a mayor of New York is by virtue of his office in a strong position. He can put resources into a campaign effort. And if the city Democratic committee of New York is not strong, I think there's a tendency to move toward party leaders who are not dependent on party organization but have their own capabilities. And as I recall Bob Wagner, that would be the case. There's another aspect of that, too. On patronage, again--I reflect back to my home district to make the comparison--if Congressman Boland up in the Second District of Massachusetts had patronage of whatever degree in those various federal entities that might be located in his district, that was a very simple procedure and you were dealing with Eddie Boland. You might get a little touch of a Democratic senator. But you deal in New York [City] on any level of patronage and you don't--these congressional districts are all melded. No congressman in New York had anything more going for him than whatever seniority he had in the House, certainly at the local level. It is my recollection there were probably fifteen members of Congress in the city of New York, and there's one mayor. And the mayor is pre-eminent in terms of local politics. The congressmen, in several instances through the party structure in New York, the borough structure and all the rest, are designated like Cook County. And the mayors had an input into the designation. It would have been very natural, without recalling the specifics, for Bob Wagner to have input on patronage in New York. And the criticism of a particular congressman probably didn't impact greatly on us, because the political reality is obvious. We had six, probably, congressmen in New York that had seniority in the House that made them important in terms of the Congress. But there's little meaningful patronage involved that didn't cross congressional lines there and you didn't have a strong-man congressman saying, "Hey, you can't come into New York," or "You can't make a determination on appointments without me, and I insist that I make the appointments." You're very apt to look to a friendly mayor. G: Were New York City and Chicago fairly typical then of the mayors' involvement in the--? O: No, not really, because [Richard] Daley had both: he had control of the city in the elective office of mayor, and he had control of the city in the organizational office of chairman of the Cook County Democratic Committee. And he handled both jobs simultaneously. He spent time in the mayor's office and time in his office in the Cook County Democratic Committee headquarters. The only comparable organizational situation to Cook County would have been in Philadelphia with Bill Green who, as a congressman, really controlled the congressional delegation, controlled the activities of the city, and worked in close harmony with David Lawrence, who at that time was governor of Pennsylvania. I think, including Cook County, Philadelphia was the most effective Democratic Party organization in the country. It was the first organization, to my knowledge, that had everything on computers, that 34 O'Brien --Interview II --31 registered voters three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and had a million or two million dollar-budget for the operation of the city committee. I remember going to a meeting at Bill Green's request during our campaign and finding at that meeting that there were people at the door at desks and everybody attending had to check in, and that included every judge in Philadelphia, to be sure that his or her attendance was duly noted so that Bill Green would know who was present. There was nothing like that in New York. There was Joe Crangle and his predecessor up there in Erie County, Buffalo, and the Mayor of Albany who were extremely well organized and I must say well controlled and local patronage was fully utilized--not federal patronage, local patronage--to maintain an organization. But in the city of New York it was rather an amorphous situation, so if there was anybody in New York that could call shots it would be the Democratic mayor. G: But did you rely on the mayors quite often for this purpose? Were they--? O: I think when there were potential appointments coming up or openings of some degree of significance that would be based in New York that it would be very probable that--I don't think we would rely on the mayor or the mayor would have the final and only say. But certainly we would encourage the mayor's input and give it serious consideration. G: Now, I have another note on patronage that indicates that you avoided judicial appointments, that you yourself did not get involved in that. Is that accurate? O: That's right. Yes. G: Did you nonetheless have this pressed upon you by members of Congress? O: Yes, there were occasions, and I'd simply relay their requests or suggestions. I had no direct involvement, nor did I want any. Now, that was something that I did not envision as part of my activities and that I was far better off having it well understood on the Hill that I didn't have any significant input in these areas. G: If ambassadors were not considered congressional patronage, judgeships were-- O: Yes. G: --I suppose to a large extent. They really did take an active role in-- O: Well, sure, because of the tradition that you have a senator up there that would either put that slip in the slot or take the slip out of the slot. And you could have one of your appointees spend a long time in purgatory before he'd ever serve on the bench. So there was some give and take in that area, obviously, but that was not incorporated in the day-to- day patronage activities or an area that we might be engaged in Congressional Relations. G: It's amazing that you could keep out of that area. . . . 35 O'Brien --Interview II --32 O: Well, I think that it was understood. See, in both of those areas you did have the element of Senate confirmation and that makes a difference. Patronage beyond Senate confirmation is one thing, but when it entails Senate confirmation, then again you're going to make ten enemies to every one [friend]. I think the less it's related to Congressional Relations the better off everyone is on our end, or was. And it wasn't planned that way, it just evolved that way. G: And did it remain this way under Lyndon Johnson? O: Yes, as far as any involvement on my part was concerned, yes. G: Was it handled primarily through the Justice Department, is that the--? O: In the Kennedy period, the major input was Justice, yes. G: Did it vary under Johnson? O: I don't know. I say Kennedy period because Bobby obviously took an active interest in this whole area. Under Johnson, I'm not even sure how it evolved. G: Let's move on to public works as another, I guess, example of the carrot, and the carrot and stick Time magazine cover. How did you use public works as part of your--? O: Not nearly to the degree that people would envision, because we well understood that, overridingly, public works was an element of congressional maneuvering. We had limited say. That reminded me of a conversation that the President had with Congressman Al Thomas, and I think that pretty much summed it up. It was very pleasant and really in a humorous vein, but nevertheless accurately described the situation. The President pointed out to Al, in his key role in the House in Appropriations, and Mike Kirwan, in his key role in Public Works, he would hope that people like Al and those at a similar level with similar power in the House would keep him in mind because he came from Massachusetts and he'd like to think that Massachusetts would get a fair shake now and then in terms of projects or what have you that could be designated to a state. He would hope that Al and his associates would look upon him kindly and remember he came from Massachusetts, and they might from time to time just give him a little bit of the crust of that pie. You had probably ways of stalling implementation and you probably could find ways through failure to utilize funding that sort of after the fact could have some impact. But as far as the initiation of projects, in fact the congressional provision for funding projects, the whole story of public works and analogous items up there, we had limited impact. I think people didn't see it that way, and I read article after article about the heavy hand in the White House, the rubber stamp in the Johnson period, the rubber stamp situation in the Congress, and this was all supposedly due to some great power of the presidency that impacted directly on all these members, and that they just had to sit and 36 O'Brien --Interview II --33 worry and nervously play these things out because they'd have to fear that the President would come right down on their head. In the real world that wasn't the case. So when you're talking about the carrot and the stick, I'd heavily weight it to the carrot. I think that that was the way we approached it, because if you're a colleague and I'm taking care of you, you're taking care of me, and the next one's taking care of both of us, and it's all within the confines of the congressional process. It's pretty darn hard to be sitting down at the other end of the Avenue in the White House and suggesting that a particular project not be approved or that it not be funded. And all you have by way of a tool is you can do some things in the White House after the fact that would cause a member of Congress to finally wake up to the fact that you weren't overly happy with him. But that bore on the delaying aspects of it and other related areas. But I think, to sum it up, what should be understood by students and observers, particularly those that report much of this, I always separate out the viewers and the doers. I always did. I guess because the viewers used to disturb at times, because they had simplistic answers as to how government should function. They, also, to a great extent, had a misconception of the power of the presidency in terms of wheeling and dealing with the Congress. I always felt many of them never understood that a great deal of the motivation had to do with the substance of the legislative proposals and the innate good of the proposal in terms of its impact on our fellow Americans, and that part of that equation was the attitude of the Congress, individually and collectively, toward the president of the United States who was the advocate. They were finally the people that would dispose. So there was a stick of sorts, but not nearly as large and as heavily weighted as I think most of observers construe it to be. G: Was there a noticeable difference under Johnson as against Kennedy? Did Johnson tend to rely on the stick more than Kennedy had? O: I don't know. I don't think he had any more going for him with the stick. The stick was the same stick. Maybe he utilized it a little differently, I don't know. What is the stick? I've said this before, but I think it's a prime example of the weight of that stick and the effect and impact of it. And you go about closing VA hospitals and you proceed in such a way that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate is not advised in advance that a hospital in his state is on the list of the sixteen, seventeen, or whatever it was hospitals that were to be closed because they were archaic or under-used. Good, solid reason to close them. And the President of the United States and the Majority Leader of the Senate are in conflict immediately. I'm not suggesting that Mike Mansfield would have accepted that decision if he had been notified in advance, but the fact that he had no notification at all, and to proceed, as he saw it, arrogantly and arbitrarily to announce the closing of a hospital and leave him in the totally embarrassing position of being a senator and majority leader and not knowing it, incurred his enmity no end for a period of time. Well, it also got the President's back up, and the President made up his mind that those hospitals were going to be closed come hell or high water, and he devoted an 37 O'Brien --Interview II --34 inordinate amount of time and effort to bring that about and failed. And I think it's an example of presidential power in terms of the stick. Sure, if somebody on that Hill is causing you problems, and by gosh you're just sick of it, and that obviously happened on any number of occasions, the opportunity might present itself. And what form could it take? Maybe that fellow did get around to a very important constituent with a great deal of influence in his district, wanting certain recognition that you could give that fellow on behalf of the congressman if you cared to, and you denied it. Now, that's a stick. But, see, that sort of thing is there. That's probably an example. But I noticed in going over some notes, some reference to Jennings Randolph and a project being derailed after he had failed to vote in our interest in a very important matter. That occurred, I'm sure, and probably there was some indication that was rather blatant. And maybe if it was blatant at that time, and I don't recall the details, it probably wasn't the--it may have been counterproductive. So it's not that simple. I know that Jennings Randolph incurred our enmity to a great degree at a time. I know that we did everything possible emanating from the state of West Virginia to convince Randolph otherwise in that particular vote, and it failed. We know that it was a significant vote because if Randolph, as we saw it, had voted with us in that instance, the President of the Senate would have been able to cast the deciding vote, because it was that close. And we lost, and when you lose by a very narrow margin you're apt to take it to heart more than you would otherwise, dwell on it more and be more disturbed. I know that Jennings Randolph was not held in high regard in the White House for a period of time, and if that lack of regard because of that vote was reflected by derailing a project that embarrassed him and caused him problems, sort of so be it. But I'm not at all sure that it had a positive impact and probably was more our venting our spleen than being practical people, saying Jennings overall hasn't been that bad a guy and has voted with us more often than not and we haven't any great problem with him except in this instance, and the best thing for us to do is swallow this and go on and we'll have Jennings the next time. Now, that would be our normal procedure. So there were probably occasions when we, in fact, maybe even [acted] in a fit of pique. We were human, too. But I never got over--I repeated it ad nauseam to my own people, to the Congressional Relations people and anybody that ever cared to listen to me--that you never, never go to that Hill and try to convince a member of Congress to commit political hara-kiri. Every one of them had been elected to office. There's one guy downtown that's been elected; none of us had been. And have that in mind; whatever the elements are available for persuasion, do so in that context. If it's not in his interest in his district but not overridingly adverse to his interest, there's always the possibility that you can persuade him, or we can persuade him, or the President can persuade him. But if it is clearly something that's going to cause him serious political difficulty in his district and he tells you no, carry it out to the end, but try to understand. And there's always tomorrow. Tape 3 of 4, Side 1 G: --a problem with a VA hospital in Florida. 38 O'Brien --Interview II --35 O: I don't remember that. G: I don't know whether it was one that [Spessard] Holland was interested in or what, but it was a question where you had a difficult political problem there with a public work. O: With a project? G: Yes. O: It was a VA hospital? G: I think so, yes. O: I don't remember it. G: Okay. I notice in going through the files-- O: Before we get off this subject, I hope I've made it clear what I think of patronage and the real impact of patronage. I did have a situation one time regarding a senator that I thought was quite interesting. That was when Strom Thurmond left the party. He was, of course, a member of the Senate but he was no longer a Democrat. Strom came to see me and couldn't understand why he would be discontinued as a source for recommendations for postal appointments in his state and sat there and actually just refused to accept it. He had to finally, but I couldn't get over the fact that he would feel that, having left the party, he should remain on the roster. That was one fallout from patronage that had its humorous aspect. G: I read about an occasion in which President Kennedy appeared on a platform in California at a speech and simply wouldn't allow the local congressmen, or a local congressman, to be on the podium with him, because this guy had voted against foreign aid or had not been supportive of the administration or something like that. Do you recall that incident? It was a very deliberate-- O: I don't recall that incident, but we did have trouble with a member of Congress. I believe it was on the foreign aid program. It was of a serious nature. He went out of his way to oppose us and be of assistance to Otto Passman in his annual exercise. And that was due to a VA hospital. G: That was [D. S.] Saund, I think, S-A-U-N-D. O: Yes, Saund. We were limited in the use of the stick there, too. But that was very aggravating, because from our position this was a totally justifiable action we were taking. There was no merit to Saund's argument in opposition to this thing. And then to have Saund to go to your underbelly where anybody can take a shot at you--that's an easy one, 39 O'Brien --Interview II --36 that's a free one. And our resentment was strong. If that's the congressman that wasn't on the platform, I don't know, but it could well have been. G: Yes. O: Incidentally, you might overlook members at times. You didn't do it very often but one aspect of that would be who is going to fly on the president's plane. He's going to California and you're going to have a number of members of Congress. You would start with the Democratic senator or senators, the congressmen from the district or districts each instance that he was going to stop in. Then beyond that, of course, you have some leeway and you make some judgments. We would put together the list and try to recognize support beyond the call of duty. And then the reverse, there might be times when we neglected to think of somebody that might have enjoyed the trip or gotten some exposure from it, because we felt he hadn't earned that right. Now, there again, it's a rather small item, but there were times when it could be quite significant, because that was an area in which there was great congressional interest, no matter how they were voting. There was overriding interest in being part of the traveling party. There are a myriad of other things of that nature: how often you were invited to White House functions might have something to do with your voting record. But there again, those are the elements of the stick; it isn't a very large, heavy stick that you can wield. G: One memorandum involved Florida again and I think it was a request from the Hill to have the President come down to Florida to dedicate something or be there, and it was something that Holland was interested in. Holland I gather was even trying to piggyback on the President's friendship with [George] Smathers, and you, or someone on your staff, wrote that the President gets to see Smathers when he's in Washington, that that's not an excuse to go to Florida and dedicate this thing. And besides, Holland hadn't supported the administration at all. He hadn't been helpful at all so [you were] recommending against the trip. O: Yes. Well, we'd do that. In fact, that probably was construed by us as an opportunity to send a message. And we'd have no hesitancy on that. That was one where there was no real negative to it, you're right, because Senator Holland was a nice, gentlemanly fellow who I don't recall supported us in any meaningful way during my experiences with him. G: Now, last time you did talk about the foreign aid bill in 1961 but there are a couple of other items related to that that I want to ask you about. One concerns Wayne Hays; I have a note that he was very helpful on the floor in that fight. Do you recall specifically what he did? O: Well, that's what I recall, is help. Wayne was a colorful figure in the Congress. He was an outspoken fellow. He received quite a good deal of attention; he was quite aggressive. And when he got into a battle or showed an interest in getting into something to be of assistance to you, he could be helpful. He was the kind of a guy you'd just as soon have on your side rather than in the opposition on that Hill. I don't recall the specifics of his 40 O'Brien --Interview II --37 help; I recall that he was a help. Wayne would rather enjoy involving himself in debate and discussion in that battle because of the position of Otto Passman. G: Oh, really? O: That would be right up Wayne's alley; he'd enjoy just taking Otto on. You didn't have to go far to determine Wayne's views or positions. And if Wayne registered enthusiasm, it would be our tendency to enlist him in the battle and play some role in it. G: Kennedy evidently, as part of his strategy, sought quite a bit of help from the GOP on this piece of legislation. O: You had to. Foreign aid was a nightmare. Innately you're dealing with an item that comes up to haunt you regularly. It is a classic example of a responsibility to request legislative action when there's hardly a member of Congress that would have any concern about negative political fallout by opposing. Foreign aid was generally referred to as a giveaway. It was ridiculous. It's like the debt ceiling--a vote against increasing the debt ceiling, that's as safe as voting for motherhood. You vote against foreign aid, that's great, too. You can demagogue the devil out of both of those, and a lot of people did demagogue the devil out of them. So, consequently, in approaching foreign aid and the debt ceiling, but the focus on foreign aid, your appeal really came to "Hey, you can't do this to me. You can't do that to him. Come on, he may in some ways feel as you do about a lot of this, that there are elements of softness in this program and there's a lot of unfairness in terms of distributions." I think I mentioned it before. Our efforts in foreign aid even reached the point where we actually took the foreign aid dollars and broke them down district by district. We concluded that probably eighty cents of every dollar went into products or into services that were helpful and created employment in congressional districts. And we just took all the four hundred and thirty-five congressional districts, broke them down, and determined just where the money flowed. We provided this to members looking for a handle where they could say, "Yes, I voted for it because--," then try to get the local media to publicize the benefit to that district that might push the congressman a little bit. This was motivated by some degree of desperation. How do you handle a legislative item that hasn't any constituency really. G: No base. O: Compounding that, you had a person who had the reins of foreign aid in his hands, Otto Passman, who detested foreign aid but could not and would not step aside and let somebody else handle it. So you had an issue that had no constituency, a general tendency to ridicule it as a giveaway, and you had a fellow that had your destiny in his hands who had every intention to do what he could to destroy it. You put all that together and you've 41 O'Brien --Interview II --38 got a problem. G: Yes. O: I remember one of the meetings we had, a top bipartisan leadership meeting. [We'd] try to get away from the demagoguery and have the Dirksens and Hallecks say, "Oh, come on, we'll have a little fun with you and push you around, but there has to be a foreign aid program and we'll try to help work it out or at least not stand in the way of it." I think it was Ev Dirksen who told the President, "I remember a similar meeting, bipartisan, with Eisenhower. Eisenhower said, 'I want to tell you one thing. Don't ever, any one of you, suggest to me that I allow Otto Passman in this building. I never want to see that man again in my life! '" So there was that understanding that Otto Passman wasn't being a partisan at all, he was just against everything and everybody that was involved. G: I noticed that Kennedy did get a message of support on foreign aid from former President Eisenhower. Do you recall how that evolved, or was this part of--? O: I believe that in this area, as well as in other areas, the former President was helpful. There was a very pleasant relationship in the White House between my predecessor, Bryce Harlow, and all of us. And Bryce Harlow remained very close to Eisenhower. Eisenhower had a great deal of confidence in him. It was apparent to us that if you wanted to communicate with Eisenhower--of course you could president to president--just to feel things out or determine an attitude or potential area of help or assistance, Bryce Harlow was the appropriate person to contact. He was in that role on occasions. I communicated with Bryce Harlow, not specifically on the Eisenhower contacts, but on a variety of matters. We became friends and remained friends throughout those years, and I can't answer to this day but what I think of it. It was the night of the 1968 election and I was in Minneapolis. It was in the early hours when what was unanimously agreed by media to be a lost cause before the polls opened was turning out to be something otherwise, a relatively close election. G: Very close, yes. O: I was with Hubert and a call came which I did not receive immediately. In fact, there was a considerable delay before I received a note that this person wanted to talk to me, and it was Bryce Harlow calling from Nixon's headquarters. My curiosity was aroused but by the time I got the message, it was all over and in that mental state I never got back to the call. Several times afterwards I thought of it in terms of running into Bryce and saying, "I've just got to know why you were calling me that night." I'd still be curious about it. But Harlow was every inch a gentleman, and extremely bright. He had close contacts in the Nixon Administration. G: Yes. He served a similar transition function. O: Yes. So in response to the foreign aid and the Eisenhower support, I don't remember 42 O'Brien --Interview II --39 specifically asking Harlow to intervene with Eisenhower, but somewhere along the line you can be sure he was involved in that expression of support. G: Another element of this bipartisan support evidently was President Kennedy getting some of his high-level Republican appointees to help in the matter. Do you recall that component of it? O: Yes. You had some, not an inordinate number, but there were some acknowledged national figures that were Republicans that were in the administration, and they were communicated with regularly. I had occasions to talk to them, the President did, and we tried to utilize their potential whenever we could at their discretion. It was never an effort to push them into anything, but they were very willing people. An example of that is Doug Dillon; he was an active participant in some of our legislative efforts. G: I mentioned the note of the one example of the congressman who wasn't on the platform with President Kennedy. Apparently there was another one who, after not supporting foreign aid, found a federal project missing from the budget subsequently. A new federal building or something was deleted from the budget after that. Do you recall who that was or the specifics? O: No, but I certainly would not suggest it didn't happen. G: One interesting aspect of this whole executive-legislative relationship that I hadn't considered before was the navy. I noticed that you wanted to be notified of which congressmen were getting these trips by the navy to Guantanamo or places like that so you could keep tabs of what kind of perks they were getting, presumably. O: It wasn't confined to the navy. G: (Laughter) Well, why do you say--? O: The air force or--yes. G: Tell me what the range of these activities were. O: Traditionally the majority leadership will authorize travel. We said, wait a minute, the Defense Department and those airplanes and ships aren't part of the legislative branch. And while we were not going to go so far as to establish a procedure that there was no way a member of Congress could be on a boat or a plane without our approval, we were sure as the devil going to try to come up with some idea, some procedure where that fellow was made aware--by the leader that he went through, whether it was [John] McCormack or whoever it might be at the moment, [Carl] Albert--that the trip was approved or his presence was approved only because it had been relayed to the White House for consideration. I don't recall an instance where we denied it, maybe we did somewhere. But it was just another little piece of the action to remind him that, if we care 43 O'Brien --Interview II --40 to, we could have a procedure at the snap of a finger where the navy or the air force had no authority to designate and that it had to be approved at the White House level in the Commander in Chief's office. In other words, we are watching a little closer than you may think we are. G: Well, there were apparently a lot of congressmen taking these naval cruises to--I guess they were inspection trips or something of that nature. O: Still are. (Laughter) O: Yes, that was the extent of it. I wouldn't suggest that there weren't times that we didn't react, as I said, in a fit of pique or just a little bit of arrogance. But I don't really think that there was--there could have been but not to my [recollection]--a time when you carried it to the extent that you had really caused a problem that would be counterproductive and an enemy was made. I'd put this in the category of the VIP visits to the White House or social visits or inclusion in formal dinners or the Sequoia or the rest. We realized that a great deal of this went on and there was no White House involvement, they--the members--dealt directly through the naval liaison or air force liaison until they duly got a memo, "Get a plane in place and we're going to six countries in Europe." And we all know they're junkets and we all know that it goes on I think probably to a greater extent than ever despite the fact that there's been a lot of focus of attention on this over the years. G: Well, presumably this would be something that the leadership would exercise some discretion on in terms of-- O: Yes. G: --who deserved to go and who didn't. O: Yes, and we left it up to them. G: Is it correct that Sam Rayburn was very much opposed to a lot of these junkets, that it was very difficult--? O: Yes, he was. First of all, Sam Rayburn didn't take junkets. Secondly, he was a firm believer in constituent service, constituent attention. He'd say these "fellers" that become enamored with the Washington social life or seeing their name in some society column, by God, they'll keep doing that and overlooking their [constituents] back home and they're going to pay a price. This traveling around the world, doing all this sort of thing, no, he was very much turned off on all that. It wasn't because he didn't travel; he just didn't believe in that. He just thought it was a rip-off--most of it. I'm not suggesting that there aren't times when it isn't justifiable but, boy, there are a lot of times when it simply isn't. He felt very strongly about that. 44 O'Brien --Interview II --41 G: Do you think he felt that it reflected badly on the prestige of the institution, too? That that might have been--? O: Yes, that was part of it, too. The institution, in the final analysis, was Sam Rayburn's life--and his overriding pride in it and his great desire to at all times protect it. So anything of that nature that he considered negative concerned him. And I don't know what he said to his colleagues, but he never had any reluctance to being candid with me. We'd chat about it. He'd sit on his porch and see those constituents in his home district, and, by gosh, that's what it's all about. They've sent you here, you respond. G: The question of congressional travel, could it work in reverse? For example, if you wanted a member of Congress or the Senate out of the way for a vote and you knew he was wrong on an issue and it was a close vote, could you concoct a trip for him, an attractive trip to get him out of the way? O: Not really. That would be pretty obvious. But the reverse of that, however, happened often; we'd provide transportation for them to get back. G: To get back. O: Oh, yes. We utilized the military in that regard. If a fellow had a speaking engagement--of course, there was a lot of negotiation with the Congress, the House and Senate, in terms of the scheduling of legislation and the checking and rechecking on potential attendance in close votes--there were occasions where we'd provide military transportation to get him back. There were rumbles on the Hill at times regarding that, but we chose to get it done and worry about the fallout afterward. And there were times where we had no hesitancy to have it public knowledge--that was in crisis times. If Congress was not in session or something, there were occasions when we arranged rather massive military movements to ensure that those that the President wanted to meet with were available--the Cuban Missile [Crisis] would be a good example. [It occurred] at a point when they were out of session, and we had planes all over the skies making sure they were back. But on an individual vote basis, there were times we did that. G: On the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example--we'll get to that and I want to ask you about that in detail--but for now, how did you present it to them, or whoever called them present it to them? I mean obviously they wouldn't go into great detail over the phone. O: No, it's very simple. There was a situation that has arisen that just demands your presence, and the President has asked me to contact you directly and say that you must be here. Not an order, "you must be here," [but] "in your interest and the national interest, you must be present." And I never had anyone--I can think of a Republican senator from California. I remember it because a fighter plane brought him in from California and he had never had that experience with the helmet-- 45 O'Brien --Interview II --42 (Laughter) G: He what--he--? O: With the helmet on-- (Laughter) --and everything, whatever kind of plane it was. Kuchel. G: Thomas Kuchel. O: Yes. But they wouldn't question me on that. They knew that a call was not made unless it really, truly was urgent. And we'd make every effort with both presidents, but that sort of crisis occurred at times in the Kennedy period. And it was essential, as the President saw it, that the appropriate members of Congress be briefed and that each person present be solicited to express his views and comments or recommendations, if nothing but for the record. Not the public record, but the record, because we knew that when something like that occurred, you knew that the only comments would probably be, "Whatever you decide, Mr. President, we support you." G: I have an impression that perhaps Lyndon Johnson did, on occasion, plan a trip to a congressman's district to coincide with the need for him to be away from a particular vote or something. O: That could have happened, I just don't recall it. G: It was not a pattern? O: It was a pretty sophisticated operation, but it wasn't a pattern. It could have happened. It's intriguing. G: Well, I think in particular when some of the poverty legislation was up and civil rights legislation, didn't he go to Appalachia and take some of those members that might have been wrong on--? O: Yes, I do recall there was a trip of that nature. G: Was that a coincidence there? O: I don't know. It's a little intricate, really. I mean, people see through that pretty easily. If you have them in Appalachia today, you might find the vote has been postponed until next week. G: Yes. Okay, let's see. Let me ask you about the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. Were you 46 O'Brien --Interview II --43 involved at all in any of the administration's discussion? O: No. G: How did you learn of the invasion? O: I learned of it just prior to the President advising congressional leaders regarding it. I was present with him when it was in process and a debacle was imminent. I was not involved prior to that. And I became involved again because of the need to advise and the need to inform. So-- G: Well, describe the occasion where you were with him when it became evident that the plan was not working. O: I was in the group in his office. It was one of those informal things. It had reached the point where it was clearly a debacle. And my reaction was a pure political reaction, I'm sorry to say, but that was my gut reaction: "My God, we've been around here a brief period of time. We've just gotten our feet wet. We're trying to move things. The President is trying to exercise leadership, and this blow to the solar plexus has got to be politically devastating. [It] will set him back and the administration back significantly in terms of public approval." The CIA and the Defense Department before we arrived had been staunch advocates. I'm not suggesting, and I don't know, whether there was any great reluctance on the part of the President to go forward with it, but certainly their presentation to him was very, very strong. Their evaluation of it was all on the positive side from "highly professional people," quote, unquote. They had devoted a lot of time and effort to putting this into place. There had been communication between [Allen] Dulles and the top staff of the CIA and a half a dozen of us, the top staff of the White House. We had dinner one evening in a restaurant in Washington. This wasn't the subject, and it was sort of just to get to know each other. That didn't indicate there would be continuing communication, but this was a new administration, a new White House, and I think the CIA people wanted us to know who they were and they wanted to at least meet us. And that's all I knew about the CIA. But I did feel we were in for a devastating political situation in terms of public reaction. Jack Kennedy met difficulty and potential disaster in an extremely courageous way. He did what came naturally to him. Not due to any suggestion on my part, he figuratively stepped up to it almost like standing on the White House steps and saying, "My fellow Americans, I've completely goofed. I've really made a terrible mistake," wrong judgment and what have you. No indication he was totally disturbed with the advisers that he had inherited and the advice they had given him. Tape 3 of 4, Side 2 47 O'Brien --Interview II --44 O: He was extremely candid in accepting full responsibility. And to our utter amazement the next Gallup Poll showed a significant rise in support for him, which was a real lesson to me that I reflected on years later. I'd like to think I would react the same way in his position. I don't know. Who knows? But I think I'd be trying to figure out how, politically speaking, you could handle something like this. It's amazing about the public generally, and how they react. They reacted to his candor and his admission, if you will, of guilt, and it was a plus. Not planned that way, not conceived that way, and certainly not envisioned that way by me. On a later occasion, I saw a president in a position of his own doing, but nevertheless a position that was devastating: Watergate. And I've always felt, and I remember thinking about it at the time, as I was personally involved. I was the victim of Watergate. If this man had the guts, the innate character, to step out on those White House steps and say, "My fellow Americans, this is what I did and all I can say to you is I deeply regret it. I hold myself accountable for my staff or anybody in this government that did wrong, and I can only commit that I'll never allow something like this to happen again," he would have completed his presidency. We're talking about all kinds of procedures and patronage and negotiations with the Congress, but you cannot divorce the human element from all of this in the final analysis. It comes right back to that. G: While you were with President Kennedy was there any discussion of supplying the air support that was evidently canceled, the second round of that? O: No. I wasn't involved. G: Did you feel like there was a division within the White House with regard to how to handle the Bay of Pigs once they saw that it was not working, or whether some people who advocated--? O: No. No, I can't testify to comments that might have been made by other members of the staff. I certainly didn't have any specific suggestion. And it was a little bit like the meeting I described with the leadership of the Congress, the President, in the time of crisis. No one is going to suggest or urge that the president take this action or that action. I think you feel comfort in saying, "It's your baby, Mr. President." There's a tendency to reflect that Bobby directed Jack's mind. I can testify that wasn't the case. Jack was well able to make his own determinations and decisions, and he made them on so many occasions where I had involvement. He had great respect for Bobby, appreciated his advice and counsel. In the final analysis, he would make his decision, and, of course, into the equation would be Bobby's views. He greatly respected him, but Bobby didn't make his decisions. He made his own. G: What impact did the Bay of Pigs have on President Kennedy's own thinking about the reliability of CIA and military questions? 48 O'Brien --Interview II --45 O: He became quite cynical. He felt he had been entrapped. I think it left--not because we spoke about it at any great length however--an imprint in the sense that he had a degree of cynicism regarding recommendations that were forthcoming in the future. He had learned his lesson. G: Yes. O: "It's a fait accompli. Let's go forward." G: His explanation to the members of Congress during this period, any insights on that? O: No, it was no different than his explanation to the people. G: There's an indication that it may have even helped him in one respect in that the House did, right after that, approve a six hundred million dollar special fund for Latin American development, which I gather had not been considered that feasible before. O: Yes, that's right. I don't know as you could document that, but it clearly indicates that his handling of the situation was helpful. To what degree, no one will ever know, but there was a plus element in it. They read the Gallup Polls, too. G: Yes. Was Kennedy surprised by the Gallup Poll when it did show--? O: I don't recall any specific conversation. We were. I would assume he was. G: Let's talk about education legislation, which is a big item in each of these years. Do you recall the problem of sorting out all of the various elements, the higher education component, the parochial school aid, the medical school aid, and the public school aid at this point? O: What do you mean by sorting out? G: Well, keeping the different elements separated so that you could pass the ones that had the chance, and the priorities, which ones should come first, or packaging them. You had a tremendous range of-- O: Yes. G: In fact, this was one of the criticisms, that there were too many, rather than focusing your efforts on one. Let me ask you to discuss this whole area. O: Well, the reason there was such diversity goes to the depth of commitment of the president in this area, the very strong views he had regarding the federal role in the field of education, which all of us shared. I felt very, very strongly about it. But there were two 49 O'Brien --Interview II --46 areas that--there were a couple of others, but two--I sort of focused on: one was what we could accomplish to ensure reaching the goal of full educational opportunity; second was Medicare, for personal reasons, my own family and the devastating costs. You had that additional element in your thought process. The strategy on what came first and how it was segmented I don't think was really an initial strategy. It naturally evolved. You wanted to propose in just about every meaningful area of education. Could you encompass this in an omnibus package? Could you segment it and some pass and some not? I'll have to say that the impact of the religious problem was not confined to elementary or secondary [education]. My guess is I didn't envision the depth and seriousness of that impact initially. I recognized there was this sensitivity and we were not going to include any aspects of private aid and assistance. But how that would impact and undermine much of what we were proposing, I did not sense. We should have understood that if Kennedy, in launching this far-reaching program, had avoided any private [school] assistance and was not a Catholic, it would not have hit the way it did. We were not totally sensitive to it, because we didn't really dwell on any of this. We didn't say, "Isn't it a shame?" or "Shouldn't there be--?" We simply were constitutionalists. If you were tempted to work out something in this area, you were in no position to do so in any event. We were the beneficiaries of the expansion of the Rules Committee, for example. Out of that Rules Committee came at least one member that wouldn't have been there if we hadn't had an expanded Rules Committee, and he turned out to be a key to this problem. G: This is [James] Delaney, isn't it? O: Yes. I think we should have recognized it. Delaney's opposition, obviously, was constituent, and understandable. And yet he had a great affection for the President, total supporter of the President. Couldn't he overcome this in terms of saying, "In some way I'll go the route on this but you have to advocate next year something more," something by way of negotiation. But he was totally adamant. And part of that had to be that Delaney resented that this fellow Kennedy would ignore this entire area purposely because he was a Catholic. There was something very negative in all of this, from Delaney's perspective. And yet you have a tremendous commitment in this area. This is one that you are emotionally involved in--this whole education situation. So no matter what strategies were considered the fact of the matter is that the cloud over the whole exercise in my recollection--and I may be exaggerating this, there were other problems, of course--basically and fundamentally was that a guy had purposely ignored his own people, because he was embarrassed. And your defense, "Wait a minute, the Constitution is clear, the Supreme Court decision, everything is there," so it made no sense to try this. Oh, no, they're not going to buy that. They would have bought it from John Smith, but they weren't going to buy it from Jack Kennedy. It began to cause problems extending far beyond Delaney. The National Education Association public comments that were being made just exacerbated the 50 O'Brien --Interview II --47 problem. That then brought the private school sector, Catholics predominantly but others in the private school sector, into play with barbed debate and all that. It didn't create a schism perhaps because there probably wasn't unity of purpose. But it certainly eliminated up front any hope of a united effort on the part of the organized people in the field of education. You had a battle ongoing. There weren't that many of the same religion as Kennedy in the White House, but I think there was a perception probably that the White House was loaded with people like us, so-called Irish Mafia. But the fact of the matter is, if you looked at our representation, it probably would be comparable to previous administrations. But nobody ever paid any attention--we didn't, we never took a head count or anything like that. Who cared? That was our attitude. But I guess I have mentioned this before and I'm repeating myself, but I had to, even in the high good humor of Cardinal Cushing. G: [Richard] Cushing, wasn't it? O: In the very pleasant way that he delivered the message to me one night in Paul Young's Restaurant. He came over to my table, and you know the accent, you probably recall Cushing. G: Brogue, yes. O: I stood and greeted him. "How's Jack?" I said, "He's fine." "Well," he said, "I haven't seen him in a while." I said, "Oh, gosh--" "Well," he said, "I like him; you know, we've known each other all our lives. But I want you to tell him something. I don't want to embarrass him. I am in and out of Washington every now and then and sometime I'd like to drop by just to say hello, and he can bring me in the back door so nobody will know I'm there." He said, "Billy Graham visits quite often, and he should come in the front door and I think that's great. But just tell him not to worry about it, that if I could come by and say hello sometime at his convenience and he doesn't have to explain my presence." You know, laughing, kidding, sort of arm around my shoulder. So that ended the conversation. Cushing was never going to publicly cause any problem. There was none of that. It was just that he had a feeling that perhaps Jack was a little sensitive in this area. And not too long afterward the Cardinal was in and we all dropped in to visit with him in the Oval Office. All I'm saying is, and I don't want to exaggerate it in terms of the education battle, but I think that we were a little insensitive to reactions of people that were in significant positions. Not to dwell on it or make it the overriding issue, clearly it would be a mistake also to simply dismiss it, because it did have an effect. I don't remember the details, we had occasion I think the following year to extend some education programs. I found myself in my White House office with the representatives of the National Catholic Welfare Conference and the National Education Association and the AFL-CIO, and we were sharing assignments on head counts. 51 O'Brien --Interview II --48 G: Is that right? One follow-up question on the Cardinal Cushing story. Did that subsequent visit to the White House that he made result from--? O: Not really. G: I assume that you told President Kennedy about this. O: I mentioned it to him, and we had a chuckle over it. It wasn't that serious and, as far as Cushing was concerned, there was a very warm friendship between the two of them. And it's like everything else. You're in there in the White House, you don't sit with a chart up on the wall, "When was the last time I saw Cushing?" or this one or that one. G: But do you think Kennedy was reluctant to bring him in? O: No. I think it was a matter of the Cardinal not contacting the White House. He hadn't contacted the White House in a period of time. If the Cardinal wanted to come in and say hello to Kennedy, he would have been ushered in immediately. I think it was a combination of that and the Cardinal giving me a little ribbing about "Gee, Billy Graham walks in and out of the front door, so tell Jack I'll go in the back door just to say hello." G: Now, [Francis] Cardinal Spellman was heavily involved in this education issue as an adversary. He was on Delaney's side. O: Yes. G: How did you deal with him? O: We didn't. I didn't. G: Did you get any help from Cardinal Cushing on this matter? O: I don't recall his involvement. I don't think the hierarchy ever really got to the point. We weren't really getting this job done in any event. Did it come to the point of massive confrontation, I think that really the way the dice rolled in this thing, you had a Delaney, you had a Hugh Carey that was trying to figure out ways to build a bridge, which was the way you'd try to handle this or any other matter. As far as Spellman was concerned, Spellman was known to be a conservative. He was assumed to probably be a Republican, although those fellows I assume don't walk around with their party designation on their sleeve. The only contact I ever had with Spellman was in terms of stamp collecting after I became postmaster general. But others might have talked to him. But I'll tell you, if you said to me at the outset, "Well, obviously there's some trouble brewing and why don't you see if we can't get hold of Spellman or have the President contact Spellman," I would have suggested, "Forget it." Spellman would have been in opposition to much of the Kennedy program that had nothing to do 52 O'Brien --Interview II --49 with the private schools and education. That's his track record. That wouldn't be Cushing's track record. He made no bones of being an avowed liberal. G: Two very different. . . . O: Oh, yes. G: John McCormack was known to favor the parochial school element. How did you come to terms with McCormack? O: Well, John McCormack did everything he could to try to bring Delaney into line. What would be overriding with John McCormack was the innate need for the program. And this was a Democratic Party program, and John McCormack at no time evidenced the concerns that Delaney evidenced. John McCormack was every inch a team player, every inch the supporter of the president; that applied to Johnson or Kennedy or any Democratic president. And he was not, and he always told me that, a person that would go public in opposition to a president even of the opposite party, [because of] his great respect for the office. But with Kennedy, he was just a dedicated advocate. So with McCormack and the other leaders up there, the effort was to convince Delaney to give us what we construed was the decisive vote. My recollection is that on one evening when we invited Congressman Delaney down to visit with the President that Tip O'Neill came with him. And the Delaney I knew, very honestly, he was a very forthright guy. He was a fellow that didn't quibble about position. You had it up or down with Delaney on any issue. And in this instance this fellow was adamant. Wilbur Cohen must have this in great detail. Wilbur, as I've told you before, was most aggressive, and had an innate knowledge of the subject and all its intricacies. We sat in my office on different occasions trying to develop strategies including a time when Hugh Carey was present with several of us and talked about loaning textbooks. So Delaney was a loner, because even those that shared his religious convictions were just intensely interested in moving this legislation. G: I have a press account that indicates that during this period there was a showdown between McCormack and Rayburn; McCormack wanting some inclusion of parochial school aid here, and Rayburn determined to get the public school aid to a vote first and get that cleared-- O: That could have happened. G: --and reportedly McCormack acquiesced. Do you have any knowledge of that meeting? O: No, because I had no problem with McCormack in this area. That would not foreclose McCormack, if he thought of it, going the route of Hugh Carey, for example. 53 O'Brien --Interview II --50 McCormack has strong religious convictions. And he followed his convictions to his credit. I'm not suggesting that McCormack would not have embraced the Hugh Carey proposal or similar proposals. He was not a constitutionalist in this. I think the reality of whether or not you could get enactment of education [legislation] was apparent to him. So I would not suggest that he and Rayburn didn't have that discussion. But what kind of inclusion? See, that's really what you were up against. What kind of inclusion? You have the religious aspect of this but let's face it, that isn't any different than conflicts that exist in any legislative proposal. How do you bridge them? If you sat and said, "Well, let's have a significant inclusion of private school aid." At that time you're going to lose the support of the NEA totally and a good piece of the Congress. So how do you build a bridge that keeps people in place for a roll call so you can get legislation enacted? That's no different than the effort to have a meaningful civil rights bill. It's all part of the process. G: One of the press accounts blamed Secretary [Abraham] Ribicoff for not being clear-cut in advocating the public school rather than public and private, and also for vacillating on the administration's view that there was a constitutionality of across-the-board aid to public schools. O: I don't recall. G: You don't feel that Ribicoff was a problem at the time? O: I don't recall him as a problem. G: How in the world did you--? O: What may be in some people's minds and what they say and do may be two different things. It's a program that we all had embraced up front. That's where you are. If you have some problems with this and you see some overriding negatives in terms of impact on the President as a result of a road you're going to travel, you should up front include that in the equation when the decision process is in place. You've put this on your agenda and there you are, and you have a variety of education legislation, you have a chairman of the committee, Adam Powell, that you may or may not find on any given day and you have all the rest of this. But I said perhaps it was my insensitivity or failure to recognize the dimensions of this problem as it would unfold. And I'm not trying to place my light conversation with Cushing in that category at all. I'm just saying that there were elements in here that I should have understood better than I did. And I had no problem with advocacy of education legislation that didn't include private schools. I'm a realist, and I might feel there ought to be some way to be helpful to private schools, but that wasn't what we were involved with. We had a proposal; it did not include private schools. Now you've got to make every effort to enact [it]. In the process of compromise, if somebody says to me, "Well, maybe we can get away with a little bit of private school," I'll buy that. It's the old story of maybe I haven't the whole loaf or maybe there's part of it that you prefer not to 54 O'Brien --Interview II --51 have, but, my God, does the end justify the means? And I'm sure I'd sit there, as I did with Hugh Carey that night, saying, "Great, I can see where this might help us move this." G: Well, there was even at the time a formula being discussed whereby you could, say, under NDEA money allocate some to private schools for science and medical research and things like that? O: Yes. Yes. They weren't buying. (Laughter) G: Was this offered at the time to get some of these advocates of parochial school aid to go along or wait--? O: We thought we were stating the obvious, that there was this area of potential assistance. G: Yes, but they didn't buy it? And what you're saying is you should have just been more explicit, is that right? O: I think that there should have been a greater attempt up front, and it would have called for the creativity of everybody. There should have been two things: one, the anticipation that this area could be very troublesome, and, secondly, a full exploration of any possibility of bridging in any conceivable way at the outset. It was difficult; it probably was impossible, but it wasn't completely explored. And I'm not faulting anyone. I fault myself, I guess, because as a Catholic I should have anticipated some of these people that I knew very well could be very adamant on this subject to the point where even their affection for the President wouldn't be enough. I don't think I envisioned that--that doesn't mean that we would have scuttled the program. But I think that we should have been a little better in tune with what we could anticipate, and conceivably the Hugh Carey type of proposal might have been in the equation in some earlier stage and that might have had some impact. But who knows? The fact is that the President was in an impossible situation in which to negotiate anything. Sure, you could say, "There's funding in another area that can be [used]," but that really. . . . And we all know that constitutional provisions, court decisions, are always subject to interpretation and review. You know, you're not really totally leveling--it's a little bit of a cop-out. And there are times when that's all right and it works, but in this instance it didn't. And I think really what's interesting about it is that it did bring into focus the power that could be exercised by a handful, indeed one person, at a given moment and that you had underestimated his strength of purpose--his commitment. Tape 4 of 4, Side 1 G: --ironic in a sense because the fight over the Rules Committee had been launched to eliminate that one-person control. 55 O'Brien --Interview II --52 O: That's right. But there wasn't any real fallout that I would call mean or bitter or rancorous. In fact, that includes Delaney. Delaney wasn't in there screaming or hollering; he was in there as a soft-spoken, adamant fellow that was not going to be--his view wasn't going to be affected no matter who talked to him. That's all, and accept it. Because there were other problems, you know, that the committee--so much of our legislation then and later was funneling into the Labor and Education Committee. And Adam Powell was certainly an extremely interesting guy to know. I got to know him intimately. But he could be an exasperating fellow and he could be particularly exasperating to a man like John McCormack, a straight-arrow fellow that was very businesslike concerning the function of the Congress, its various committees, its timetables and all the rest. And to find that one of his committee chairmen was elusive and difficult to pin down in terms of schedules tested John's temper on a number of occasions. But McCormack would, in meetings we'd have in his office that attempted to persuade Adam to a) schedule hearings; b) have a timetable for mark-up; and c) be supportive and available on the floor as an advocate when it was scheduled, all of that was in the context of the reverend. John would always refer to Adam as reverend. And he'd say, "Now, Reverend, this," and "Reverend, you must do that," and "Reverend, I ask you or plead with you to do this." (Laughter) And there was a little bit of humor to it all. So John McCormack found himself one Sunday morning in my office at the White House with Carl Albert and me because we can't find Adam Powell again. Through the White House switchboard we finally located Adam Powell in Bimini and really got him on the telephone, and there's the Speaker of the House of Representatives--I guess he was the speaker by then, he might have still been majority leader--pleading with Adam Powell to return from Bimini and saying, "Now, Reverend"--( Laughter)--and then saying to me, "He says he can't, hasn't any transportation." I said, "We'll provide the transportation." "Reverend, we'll have a plane waiting." (Laughter) And this is on a Sunday, and Adam was down there, whatever he was doing down there--( Laughter)--[ he] couldn't care less at the moment. And yet when he would focus, he was great. When he would focus, he was an impressive fellow. He really could conduct committee hearings and do his job. The problem was getting him to focus. And the net result of it is there was a lot of heavy leaning on the part of us in the White House on Jim O'Hara on that committee. G: Oh, really? O: We leaned on Jim excessively and Jim tried in a lot of ways to fill in for Adam in trying to move things along. And there were some stalwarts on the committee, too, several. G: There were strong personalities. One of the attributes that is accredited to Adam Clayton Powell was that he was able to keep Edith Green in line to some extent, to get her cooperation. Was this a problem and was he able to do--? O: Well, Edith had very strong views in this area. She was one of the original supporters of Jack Kennedy, as you know, and couldn't have been more staunch in her advocacy from 56 O'Brien --Interview II --53 day one regarding his candidacy, but in this area it was very troublesome to Edith to have any private school aspects to this. And there were other areas, too, where Adam--Adam Powell had a capacity to disarm you. He really did; he did with me. As aggravated as you would get, as frustrated as you would get, when you finally got Adam into the office or you were in his office, after a half an hour of Adam's storytelling you found you were warm friends all over again, everything was going to be halcyon, everything was going to go on schedule until the next time. But he had that capacity. He had some real leadership qualities and he had a great sense of humor. And he knew he was driving everybody mad and rather enjoyed it. G: Can you give me an example of his sense of humor? O: Yes. I had an experience with him one day. He came into the White House. For some reason, he was in my office--and I should divert for a moment. Adam, to my knowledge, was the only person that I ever knew that addressed the President as Jack. And he did on a number of occasions, which always startled me. I don't know whether it startled the President or not, but it startled me. But Adam had a purpose in most things he did. But he was sitting there and he smoked these long, thin cigars. He was talking about his church in Harlem. I guess in membership it was the largest church in America; I don't know, my recollection was something like ten, fifteen thousand, fourteen thousand, whatever it was, members of the church. And he said, "Of course, I have a semiannual census." G: Oh, a census of the congregation. O: Yes, a census. And he said, "I have this semiannual census," and he had just thousands of members. And I said, "Why would you have a census twice a year?" He said, "Well, there's a five-dollar fee when they do a census, and the church has to be supported." And he did, he had a tremendous following and [was] a tremendous preacher. And he would meld his Sunday services, and I think every cabinet member wound up preaching at Adam's church at one time or another. He would just really demand the appearance of these people. Then he got into some other area and it was obvious to me--he had a big smile on his face throughout all this and he knew that he was titillating me a little bit. I don't know how much of it was an exaggeration or just--and then he wound up, he said could he say hello to the President before he left. Well, obviously, he could say hello. I wasn't about to tell him the President was otherwise engaged. And we dropped in the Oval Office to say hello. To this day, I've never quite understood, or maybe I misunderstood, but he said to me, "Larry, let me finally say something to you. Always remember, where there's smoke, there's fire." And I remember I sat there and I thought, "I must have misunderstood what he just said." On the other hand, the son of a gun, I probably didn't misunderstand what he said, because he burst out into laughter. And he's laughing and I'm sitting there absolutely thunderstruck and I had no comment; I didn't know what in God's name you could say. And that ended the conversation. We went in and [said], "How are you, 57 O'Brien --Interview II --54 Jack?" to the President. (Laughter) And he gave him one of his thin cigars. Later on when I was out of [the government] and he was a former congressman, I'd see him occasionally. He was a sports buff, basketball buff, and I'd run into him in Madison Square Garden here. And even then he was wearing the T-shirt and the big medallion and chain. He always was an impressive-looking fellow and he always attracted attention. We would just kid around for a few minutes. He loved to tickle you, kid you, get you off balance. You didn't know quite how to respond to him. If you responded in kind, you might be in a real trap, so the best thing to do is just not say anything. But I thoroughly enjoyed him, with all his aggravations. G: What was Kennedy's attitude toward him? O: Liked him. G: Did he? O: Yes. G: How did he assess him? Do you recall what he--? O: Basically he understood, he knew what the problems were, what we were going through. He was kept fully abreast of all of this. But he couldn't refrain from a big grin, and some kind of kidding would take place. It was awfully difficult to have a serious conversation with Adam. G: Really? O: Yes, I mean he wasn't going to focus that long on anything serious. He brought his son in occasionally to White House ceremonies. He was a big, good-looking young man. I've lost track of him, but he was anxious to have his son get a feel for government, but I don't think the son ever followed that course. I don't know. G: LBJ and Adam Clayton Powell-- O: I don't remember about that. G: Did you ever hear Johnson talk about him? O: No, I don't recall. I think that there was a different situation, too. I don't recall also how much of the Johnson period Adam bridged. Do you? G: Well, let's see, I think-- O: It could have been all of-- 58 O'Brien --Interview II --55 G: --at least through 1966. Well, I think Perkins took over in 1967 or something like that. 1966 or 1967, some time in there. O: When was he defeated? Powell was defeated at some point by Charlie Rangel in the primary here. G: Well, I don't--but he was removed, wasn't he, as chairman of the committee and I think that took place-- O: Oh, he got in all kinds of-- G: --about 1966 or 1967. Perkins took over. O: No, I don't recall. Also, I do recall that the period we're talking about was an extremely difficult one for us, you know--always that handful of votes margin if you prevailed, always just on tenterhooks on anything major, and that applied in committees and the floor of the House. So the attention directed to Adam, and the role that we had to seek from Adam was so significant. He was the focal point at times of White House discussion and leadership discussion. Now, perhaps I'm not recalling Johnson's reaction to Powell only because perhaps it wasn't as significant a situation as it was in our days because of the change in the Congress. G: Sure. We'll take up that later. In this particular year, though, in 1961 you did get him to refrain from adding that antisegregation rider to the education bill. How did you do that? O: I honestly don't remember. I was trying to think of what we gave him, but I don't recall that we gave him anything. Maybe if you jog my memory on that. I think he played that out for a while--he wasn't a spoiler. Really, when everything is said and done, all the Adam Powell stories and all of his unusual behavior and all the rest of it, he wasn't innately a mean fellow at all. He could articulate his views very well and he was truly at that point one of the black leaders in this country. But he was not a spoiler, he was not mean, and his tendency was to be on the team, when you finally got him to focus. It was more focus than anything else. Now, he would take something like that, play out the string, just to get everybody into an uproar and then he would make a determination probably not to include it because that would kill the legislation. So he'd let it go. What did you give him? What was the quid pro quo? I haven't any recollection of a quid pro quo. G: I have a note that indicates here that perhaps he felt that Kennedy would withhold aid from segregated schools through executive action. O: Could be, I don't remember. G: You don't recall this being discussed? 59 O'Brien --Interview II --56 O: No. I'll say this. The more I think about it, there had to be a quid pro quo. It would have been foolish of Adam to let go of that weapon or just drop it without some kind of compensating factor. And that could be in the area. G: Well, he had brought up that rider every year, every time the school bill came up. O: Yes, I know it. He did a lot of things every year. But it's interesting, isn't it. There are people you meet such as Adam, who are unique in their way, in their attitudes and their actions and can be a source of concern and aggravation to you. But I think the absence of real meanness or deviousness makes if easier to put up with those people. There were people that I didn't overly respect, a handful of them. There were people that you were not overly impressed with. By the same token, there were many people that you were most impressed with. But I don't recall that I became embittered with any individual up there. And I think in the case of Adam Powell, in the final analysis, when you really focus on the record, Adam Powell made a real contribution. I really do. I think he outlived his position with the blacks in Harlem. I always equated, interestingly enough, the attitude of the blacks toward Adam to the attitude of the Irish toward James Michael Curley. So I related to a lot of this because we recognized, if we allowed ourselves to think about it, that James Michael Curley might be a rogue, but we refused to accept that or acknowledge it. We were very defensive concerning him, and we remained loyal to him, and why? Because with all of these aspects of Curley, he had great leadership qualities. He arrived on the political scene in Massachusetts at a time when people of my heritage were seeking someone that would have the courage to speak up and fight the establishment. And he did all that, and it was a breakthrough. But the very same people that admired [him] for all that, in a period of time lost admiration for Curley. They admired a new type of leader by the name of Jack Kennedy. But the man at the moment, at the time, performed a role in terms of breakthrough and recognition. That's exactly what happened with Adam Clayton Powell. He might have been somewhat of a rogue, as Curley was to some degree, but the fact remains that at that time and place he spoke out, he took on the establishment, he took on the anti-black members of Congress head on. He defied them. He did unusual things. He acted in an unusual manner. He did not conform to the precepts of the establishment. All of that was applauded by his constituency. And then the breakthrough to some degree occurred and then they turned elsewhere. A Charlie Rangel became the congressman from the same district, an entirely different kind of fellow with whom they are very comfortable in terms of representing them. So it's the man at the time, and I often--and I think I might have even mentioned it in my book--in my association with Adam would think of Curley because there was a lot of similarity in terms of-- G: He was really the product of an earlier era, wasn't he, and outlived that era? O: That's right. And outlived it. Yes. 60 O'Brien --Interview II --57 G: Describe his relationship with the southerners, particularly the older--this was at a time when segregation was still in. O: Yes. I was not privy to any relationship he had with them upon arrival in the Congress. I've heard a lot of stories about that. G: What? Can you recall any? O: Well, only that [when] Adam arrived, he was a very imposing individual on arriving at that scene. There was nothing about Adam--he had no reluctance whatsoever to step right up there and say, "Here I am, boys, take it or leave it, and that's your problem." (Laughter) "And I'm going to be here a while and you're going to hear a lot from me." (Laughter) I think perhaps by the time I got around to knowing Adam that some of that had toned down. I don't know. I never had any of the southern Democrats that I dealt with, and the senior fellows in the House or Senate, refer to Adam in any racially derogatory sense at all. I think by then they had become sort of accustomed to him around there. They might kid about Adam and Adam's travels and his social activities, but it was never in a racial context that I can recall. Even with all the problems that the leadership had with him, it never was in a racial context. None of that. It was more the fellow as he was, chairman of a committee, and he was unique. G: Did Rayburn ever talk about him when you had these talks with Rayburn? O: I don't recall, no. G: Could Rayburn, or later McCormack, employ any devices to keep him on the job and keep him from taking these treks to the islands or wherever he went? I noticed this was a problem even in 1961 and 1962, having him in town for an important committee session. O: Oh, sure. The President of the United States or no one else could contain Adam or handle him. But, see, Adam never resented your trying to find him and all that. (Laughter) He just remained aloof. So even when you found him, he just laughed. I can remember I chased him all over Washington night after night, and of course he had a staff all geared to avoidance. G: Really? O: Oh, sure. They would get messages to him, or they didn't really know where he had gone, or perhaps he was out to dinner. Nobody ever knew where he was. Nobody ever could find him, and you'd leave messages in every place you could imagine, and if Adam chose to, he might get back to you in a day or two, or he might not get back to you at all. You'd have to start all over again. (Laughter) And everyone obviously worked at it, but, as I told you, I think the best example of our inability to handle him was that Sunday when I looked around my office and saw the people sitting there, one purpose in mind: to get Adam Powell, find him in Bimini and get him back to Washington for the following day. 61 O'Brien --Interview II --58 No, I don't know how the senior southern Democrats felt about him. They never expressed it, nor did I detect any individual or collective effort to go after him in any way, either. G: He seems to have really run his committee with a strong hand, too. Was that the case? Did he--? O: You bet. Listen, Adam Powell was a very intelligent man, very bright when he put his mind to it. That was all, just put his mind to it. If that fellow didn't run off to Bimini, believe me, he would have gone in the history books as one of the great powers in the Congress, because he had the tools. When he utilized those tools, he was impressive. And again, I've repeated it often, but it's amazing, because it's an absolute reality. It was only when you could get him to open the kit of tools and use them, and it was hard. Hard, difficult as it could be. G: Was there anyone, say, a professional staff member on the committee that you relied on to help with Powell? O: No, there was no one on the committee that had any control over him at all or any authority to speak for him. He had an interesting office, the lights would be down low and music in the background if you walked in. He had a lifestyle of his own. G: (Laughter) One of the newspaper assessments of the first session of Congress stated that it was a miracle that the education bill emerged from the House committee intact. And the same article cited your efforts to get the bill through the committee. Do you recall what you did in working with different members of that Education and Labor Committee? O: Not in any detail, as I reflect on that period. It was a basically strong committee. There were some very able people on that committee. I don't know, I never tried to analyze or evaluate that. But if you think of a couple of the people I've mentioned, and there were others. . . . The communication with the committee was constant, not necessarily with the chairman, but constant. And as far as moving the committee one-on-one and head-counting the committee and that sort of thing, that wasn't the problem. There was a lot of work involved in sensitive but very meaningful areas. The committee had quite a plateful in those years. And it was necessary to have an inordinate amount of contact with the individual members of the committee, again because of Adam. You obviously couldn't depend on Adam to maintain full contact and personally head-count his own committee; he wouldn't devote the time and attention to that. And that's why I mentioned Jim O'Hara and mentioned Hugh Carey. And there were others; if I looked at the makeup of the committee it would refresh my memory. But I think probably necessity dictated that you handle that committee even more intimately than you normally would because of the lack of communication on a regular basis with the Chairman. So, other than that, I don't think there was any-thing unique or unusual, it was just a matter of degree in terms of the effort to spring that legislation out of the committee. 62 O'Brien --Interview II --59 G: Do you recall the issue of advancing the elementary [school] aid first and then the aid to higher education? O: No, I don't recall it. G: Do you recall Edith Green's position here? O: Not really. Reflecting on Edith, the only area that was troublesome to us was Edith's position on the issue we talked about. Edith otherwise was a stalwart in this area and widely recognized as an expert in the field. I don't want to call it an aberration, it wasn't; it was the strong view she had in the one specific area. But as far as the commitment to education that we envisioned, she shared that and very strongly. G: The strong view with regard to parochial school aid? O: Yes, but she also had a strong view toward education, toward legislation in the field of education as long as you weren't discussing parochial school aid in that context. She was very well thought of in the field of education, too. In organized education across the country she was held in very high regard. G: Well, I guess the teacher groups were very supportive of her, too. O: Yes. Well, that's really where you get to the NEA. G: You had an element of opposition from the southern conservative congressmen, the Dixiecrats, throughout the Congress on this. Did you have any strategy for making headway with them? O: Not any overall strategy, no. Some of that was basically opposition to the program generally, and there was a continuing sort of negative or opposition aspect involving some of those fellows that over an extended period of time you kept working on. But applying it to a specific proposal such as this area, there wasn't any unusual strategy. We used to maintain our batting average with them and I'm sure you probably have noted that it became almost a statistical concentration on our part. How many were there at the beginning? How many were there as time unfolded? And there was the knowledge that you had to reduce that opposition to a certain number before you would have any comfort in terms of a majority vote, and it really was reduced to that number, utilizing everything available to us, all the things we have enumerated. But the fact of the matter is, and I think that's worth reflecting on again, you have a President that went into office and the members of Congress were not, with rare exception, intimately acquainted with him. Granted, he had spent fourteen years in the Congress, but it was split between the House and Senate. His absenteeism in the House was well known. The senior members in the House really didn't get to know him well. 63 O'Brien --Interview II --60 Obviously, a John McCormack knew him but not because he was a member of the House. But there were very few exceptions. And as time went on and leadership breakfast led into leadership breakfast, week after week after week, you could just see the change. Sam Rayburn is a good example--the warm relationship that ultimately developed between those two fellows, the sharing of concerns about their physical well-being, the things that finally become subjects of conversation among people that feel comfortable with each other. Now, that's a long way from the Sam Rayburn in Los Angeles. Carl Albert right up front. The President took to Carl Albert immediately; he didn't know him well, he didn't know these people well, other than John. He knew Mansfield a little better. Obviously, he knew Hubert Humphrey more in combat than. . . . But I remember Carl Albert as an extremely impressive fellow, awfully, awfully able, and in no time at all we recognized that. The President would repeatedly say to me, "Carl Albert is such an impressive fellow." He says, "God, I'm really impressed with him." And there was nobody more supportive of Kennedy in those early troublesome days than Carl Albert. But, you see, that's where you came from, and how do you get to a point where Carl Vinson takes a walk through the Rose Garden and then has a change of heart, and he really had been placed in that position by a fellow on his staff. I remember sitting with him after the Rose Garden visit and he pulled back that demand he had in-- G: This is the RS-70? O: Yes. I mean that's the sort of thing that was happening every day. I keep referring to Al Thomas because of the tie-in to the visit to Texas. But these fellows became acquainted with Jack Kennedy. They really had never known him. He had three terms in the House. He was just another guy that came by once in a while--didn't hold any key position in the House. And as time went on, it was heartwarming to me to see this unfold, as he got to know these people. And that had so much to do with the progress we made. Like you say, you made a reference to some comment about my activities or the staff activities with the committee--the Labor and Education Committee. If there was any degree of success in that effort, I can tell you that I was dealing with people that liked the guy downtown; they liked him personally. G: There's one story that I read, perhaps you can put it in context and maybe amplify it. The story goes that President Kennedy would call a southern congressman after each wrong vote and not reprimand him or upbraid him, but simply say that he understood that the congressman had to vote that way and he realized that his constituency required him to do so, et cetera. And they would talk amiably. Then one time when President Kennedy really needed the fellow's support--he was heading a subcommittee--then Kennedy called him and elicited his support and didn't get his vote, but did get him to help clear the bill by getting other members of the subcommittee to do that. Does this sound accurate? O: Yes, it was accurate. 64 O'Brien --Interview II --61 G: Can you tell me who it was and what the--? O: I don't know in that instance; it could have been Mendel Rivers. But this was on a very selective basis, not a mass production sort of thing. Some of the more senior southerners were not people that were in opposition because of some deep distaste for the White House or anything like that. It was basically a reflection of constituency. And we felt there had to some day be breakthroughs with a number of these people. And on a very selective basis I would give a list to the President to make those calls. G: These would be calls after a vote to just chat with them and get to--? O: Yes, and in the cases where they voted against you, because you always kept looking down that road. You knew you had to break through sometime. You could sit and react adversely that day, but that wasn't going to cure anything, because there had to come a time when there could be breakthroughs. I mentioned Mendel Rivers, because Mendel Rivers had a very close and warm relationship with John McCormack. Mendel would say to me at times, "Well, in the final analysis, Larry, I'm a McCormacrat." And he liked the President. He was one of many who said, "I like that guy. I run into him, I see him down there at the White House. He invites me down, we shoot the breeze, and he doesn't push me around, or try to." And that was all the equation. You might have it reflected in a pair. You haven't gotten these fellows to the point where they're going to vote on the record in that roll call. There can be an abstention, something can happen. It wasn't an up or down "vote for me," or "if you vote against me, that's it." There were ways they could help if they had a mind to, and you had to cultivate that willingness to be helpful. And it was done in a variety of ways. The fact of the matter is that a fellow like Rivers, there were any number of others, could be of some real meaningful help and it would not be reflected in the record. G: Yes. Tape 4 of 4, Side 2 G: --perhaps a teller vote or something of this nature? O: Sure, all kinds of things. But in the Rivers situation particularly, that was a very close friendship, he and McCormack. And it was interesting, because Mendel was a mercurial sort of fellow. But he made no bones about his admiration for John McCormack and, as time went on, he acquired a very pleasant attitude toward Jack Kennedy, too. G: Well, I assumed that a pair was fairly automatic, that it was almost a courtesy that one member gave to another. O: Yes, that's right, but listen, a pair, there are ways where it can work. You bring that other member into interaction in terms of an ultimate roll call. It's an intriguing parliamentary procedure. You can do an abstention--you had commitments at times to await a vote after 65 O'Brien --Interview II --62 the second or third go-around. This was before the electronic devices and "if needed." Oftentimes the "if needed" didn't occur because we would survive without it. But if a fellow said, "I'll vote with you only if needed," then you've made some progress. G: That's an interesting concept, because in your papers, on your little tally sheets, I saw that a lot, "if needed." O: Yes. Now, who knows? The call went out "if needed" on occasions. On occasions it didn't. It was a gamble on the part of that member, too, who didn't want to vote with you. If the call came, and those people were all spotted on the floor, everybody knew what their role was. To hang back on roll calls, that's a usual procedure anyway. It took forty-five minutes for a roll call in those days in the House. And the fellow would step up and could make the difference. But more often than not, the need didn't arise, so the test wasn't ultimately given. G: Was there a tendency at all to overuse that and to say to a member that his vote was needed when in fact you had a pretty good margin? O: No. No. You would try like the devil not to overuse it, because you wouldn't try to call a fellow off the floor. This is operated out of the speaker's office. And you have the running count from the gallery and we have our people there, and then you'd call them off [the floor] and say, "It's clear that you're needed." I mean you don't use that just to position a fellow. And that was all you had a right to expect of them. So really what you needed was a Carl Vinson or someone to persuade a couple of members on his committee to get a bill out of committee in the form we wanted; to go along while not even putting himself on the spot. Because of his position as chairman, he could get people to do that. I guess that minimum wage struggle that I discussed at some point--I don't recall whether it was here in this context or otherwise--was a prime example of working together to try to salvage a meaningful bill. We could talk about the House almost exclusively, but the Senate was there throughout all this. But your problems in the Senate were less penetrating than in the House. So you had some elbowroom that you didn't have in the House, for one thing; the head-counting was much easier in the Senate than the House for the obvious [reason]. You had the same kind of leadership situation--intimate, close-in, mutual effort leadership in the Senate as you did in the House, with Mansfield and Humphrey and Smathers over in the Senate. You had the same kind of access and exchanges of information and all the rest of it, and you had, to some extent, the same situation where there would be the occasions when members of the Senate were not going to vote with you, that there was no way you could persuade them to, and you understood it. But there was some way somehow, and you'd sometimes suggest it. Because you didn't want to walk away empty-handed, so you'd suggest whatever might come to your mind. So oftentimes it was a little bit of informal assistance that was hardly discernible, 66 O'Brien --Interview II --63 but it was another grain of sand because you can't get away from it and it will carry on throughout our discussions. As I've said repeatedly--something I learned early on--there are a lot of bodies up here on the Hill, and it's awfully hard to keep track of them all, awfully hard to adequately service them in whatever way you can be of service. It's impossible to become intimately acquainted with every one of them, so you do have to determine focus as time goes on. But in the final analysis, the substance is important and nobody is demeaning that aspect, but the difference can be the attitude toward the president reflected by assistance in some form, minuscule as it may be on occasion, because of a general atmosphere of willingness to help if it's realistic politically to do so. No one among those we dealt with regularly up there--and that was a broad-based group, both the House and Senate--had any motivation other than to try to be helpful if they could, as long as you did not become arrogant, would not try to be self-important, and that you recognized their political problems. That was overriding--that you were sensible in your dealings with them and you weren't excessive in your efforts to persuade them. All of that comes into it, and how do you put that into a procedural manual. It's dealing with people--certainly it wasn't unique with us. Every president has engaged in the same activity to some degree, but what we did was broaden it, deepen it, and formalize it, and keep him abreast of the progress we were making, one-on-one or one by one. G: The outcome of the education measure, of course it was defeated that session, and Congress did extend aid to impacted areas and National Defense Education funds for two years. President Kennedy had wanted a one-year extension only. And he signed that measure with extreme reluctance. Can you recall that--? O: No, but that wasn't the only measure he signed with extreme reluctance. I don't recall the specifics of it. It really didn't represent that old cliche about "Well, we had to settle for half a loaf." I think we considered this a very modest portion of the loaf to the point where you wonder whether it was worth a damn and maybe you ought to rise up on your haunches and give it to them, hit them with it. But anyway. End of Tape 4 of 4 and Interview II 67 [ Part 3: "Attached Text" ] *Pages 1--64 from Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview III* LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. 1 LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW III PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview III, 10/ 30/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview III, 10/ 30/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. 2 NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY AND JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Lawrence F. O'Brien In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Lawrence F. O'Brien of New York, New York, do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on September 18, October 29, October 30, December 4, December 5, 1985; February 11, February 12, April 8, April 9, June 25, July 24, July 25, September 10, September 11, November 20, November 21, December 17, December 18, 1986; April 22, April 23, June 18, June 19, July 21, July 22, August 25, August 26, September 23, September 24, November 3, November 4, December 10, December 11, 1987 at New York, New York and Cotuit, Massachusetts and prepared for deposit jointly in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library. (2) The tape recordings to which the transcripts relate shall be in the possession of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and shall not be available for use or review of or by any source during my lifetime and for a period of time thereafter ending with the 10th year anniversary of the date of my death. At such time, access to the tape recordings by researchers shall be permitted but only for the limited purpose of background use, and researchers may not cite, paraphrase, or quote therefrom under any circumstances. (3) During my lifetime, I retain all copyright in the material given to the United States by the terms of this instrument. Thereafter the copyright in the transcripts shall pass to the United States Government. During my lifetime, researchers may publish brief "fair use" quotations from the transcripts without my express prior consent in each case, but no other quotations from the transcripts shall be published, except with my express prior approval in writing. (4) Copies of the open portions of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be provided by the library to researchers upon request, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. (5) Copies of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be deposited in or loaned to research institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library or the John 3 Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. Signed by Lawrence F. O'Brien on April 5, 1990. Accepted by Donald Wilson, Archivist of the United States, April 25, 1990. Original Deed of Gift on file at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705. ACCESSION NUMBER 92-14 4 INTERVIEW III DATE: October 30, 1985 INTERVIEWEE: LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN INTERVIEWER: Michael L. Gillette PLACE: Mr. O'Brien's office, New York City Tape 1 of 4, Side 1 G: Yesterday we were talking about President Kennedy and the southern members of Congress. Let me ask you to elaborate on the administration's relationship with Carl Vinson. O: I think the relationship as it progressed with Vinson was somewhat typical of the improvement in relationship that took place involving several senior southern Democrats. George Mahon would be an [example]. The better acquainted the President and these members became, the greater the tendency was on the part of the southern Democrat to at times even seek opportunities to be helpful without violating his established record and his constituency attitudes. Vinson in a sense epitomized the courtly South, the total gentleman who was at all times courteous to you, at all times willing to listen to your point of view, at no time react negatively. He was invited, as many of them were--senior southern Democrats--to the White House in various formats. So as the months progressed, Vinson and the President really got to know each other, and it was good, because the President admired Vinson greatly. I can recall Carl Vinson sitting in a discussion in the Speaker's office--Sam Rayburn was speaker--regarding the minimum wage bill. There was Carl Vinson, a senior member of the House, an important member of the House. His being there and participating in the discussion, trying to determine how you could amend this bill so that it could achieve passage in the House, was an indication of what was transpiring in a climate that was conducive to this kind of rapport. We made a decision regarding that bill and we lost by one vote on the House floor, and then recaptured most of this in the Senate and in conference. But I think when you had reached the point where Carl Vinson and others would become active participants in this, it was an indication of a growing attitude that "We'd like to find some areas where we can help this young guy downtown. We like him and we want to support him wherever we can." Now, this was not in the climate of an intensive, difficult, civil rights fight. On the civil rights legislation, as we were saying earlier, I think you have to say that while civil rights was in the fore-front over an extended period of time, the reality was the improbability of actual enactment of civil rights legislation that would impact tremendously on what was perceived, at least, to be southern attitudes that had been in place for decades. That's a somewhat different climate. 5 O'Brien --Interview III --2 You were operating in a climate where you're talking about education, setting aside any religious aspects that were involved in education struggles, where you're talking about medical research, or you're talking in terms of minimum wage or things of that nature. They were not individually and collectively proposals that were accepted with open arms by southern Democrats, certainly. They were proposals with a heavy liberal tinge to them. They did reflect the national party and the platform of the party. But [we wanted] to get these fellows involved rather than just in direct opposition, as in the old concept of the southern Democrat-Republican coalition. And now you have fellows, whether it's the [Albert] Thomases, the Mahons, the Vinsons and others--there were any number of them--with whom one way or another we're communicating and we're sharing problems. Not totally, however. They're not going to march to the House floor and stand up and wave their arms in support. But they had reached the point where they didn't want to be opposed for the sake of opposition. Rather, they didn't mind the President achieving some record of progress, and in that context and within those guidelines, let's communicate and maybe we can help. Now, we've talked about varieties of help and it took a variety of ways, but you get Vinson, and it became widely publicized, the walk in the Rose Garden. And it was for several hours, probably twenty-four hours, a very touchy situation. Vinson had made it clear that he was in opposition to this presidential request, that he was going to be sure that it wasn't carried through. The President was extremely upset, and you had a confrontation. Now, the confrontation is taking place after a period when there's a pleasant, friendly relationship that has developed. And the Rose Garden walk was a walk undertaken by the President and Vinson with no one else. But following that there was a determination to try to resolve this problem. I don't remember the details of it, but I remember that it was "let's draft a letter." Ted Sorensen was involved in that process. Then it was determined that Ted would accompany me if there was need to discuss the language and the wording and I would visit with Carl Vinson. Really, now in retrospect, you wonder why this was so significant and overridingly important, but in any event we all thought it was at that time. But I remember being in Vinson's office and he was the same Carl Vinson I had gotten to know, courteous and low-key. We discussed this. He had a staff man with him and it was Ted and I. And the conversation led to presenting the letter. I at least, and I think Ted shared that view, realized that the staff representative, and I can't even remember his name, who was a very key staff fellow with Vinson, was the adamant one. He was the one that was just absolutely adamant about any kind of compromise or adjustment, and even as Vinson talked, this fellow would move into the conversation in very strong protest. In fact, almost to the point where I didn't appreciate it. His views were unequivocal and there was no way of compromising it. Frankly, after a lengthy conversation, Vinson started to debate with his own staff fellow. As I recall it, the ultimate conclusion was that Vinson overruled the staff member, said that he found this acceptable and we would shake hands on it. He was pleased that this had been resolved in this manner. 6 O'Brien --Interview III --3 So we resolved that, what could have been a very serious setback for us in terms of our relationship with Carl Vinson. But I think it was a lesson, too, because it's an example, I guess, of what you would run into occasionally. You rarely could be sure of it. Because of the scope of the activities of members of Congress--particularly in the Senate, incidentally--there is a tendency over time to have great reliance on the fellow or gal who is close to you on the staff, a great reliance. It grows as time goes on because you haven't the time to be as deeply immersed in these issues as the people on your staff. That was a good example of it. In the low-key discussion phase--now also let's reflect back--we didn't accomplish that with Vinson that meeting; obviously the President had accomplished that with Vinson in the Rose Garden. Vinson had left the Rose Garden clearly having in mind, "I'm absolutely open to try to work something out and I want to." And the staff fellow felt this was his ball game and he didn't want to see it closed out this way. It became an ego trip for him. But there you are. The relationship continued to be a warm one between the President and Vinson. G: What did President Kennedy say to him in the Rose Garden? O: I have no idea. G: He never told you what they [discussed]? O: No, we never got into it, other than he said, "Well, you know, we had a pleasant chat." But I certainly didn't get the indication from him at all that Vinson had said, "Prepare a letter and let's close this out." Not at all. What he had gotten from Vinson was a willingness to consider some proposal that he might make. It was a darn important walk. G: There were two levels of issues on that. One was the suitability of the aircraft, I gather, whether it was any good, and the other was the prerogative of the President to advance this program rather than be directed--O: That was the key aspect of it, and that was what was so disturbing to the President. Vinson had confronted him in terms of presidential prerogative and he was going to see to it that the President was not able to exercise his prerogative. That's a dangerous area; that's touchy, that's difficult. And in the process perhaps the quality of the plane got a little bit lost. G: When you talked with Vinson later with the staff man there, did Vinson seem aware that the plane was not what it should be? O: I don't recall that we really got into the quality of the plane particularly. It had gotten to the point where this is now sort of public knowledge, this will be overblown, as Carl Vinson saw it. He wasn't trying to cause personal problems for the President. He respected the presidency and the office. But it would be misconstrued and it really got to, without verbalizing it, a man sitting behind a desk who it became quite clear was prepared to [say], "Let's just get away from this, let's smooth it over and go on. I don't want to be 7 O'Brien --Interview III --4 labeled in this way, and the President obviously is very disturbed with this matter. And my ego isn't flowing at all. Let's work it out." And to have him have to debate his own staff fellow to work it out was what I recall most vividly. I thought to myself, "God, if I were sitting with President Kennedy in a similar staff role, I'm not at all sure the President wouldn't look at me and say, "You've been around too long." It was clearly the role that this fellow had achieved with Vinson that hit me, that he could deign to keep insisting and rebutting his boss and basically refusing to acquiesce. It became a matter of Carl Vinson having to persuade his own man. G: Do you recall whether the staff member was on Vinson's personal staff or whether he was on the committee staff? O: I don't recall, and in fact I wouldn't be able to identify him now. I sure as the devil could have identified him for several years, though, and recall his name, but it eludes me now, because I never quite got over the role he was playing that day. Your fear was that this fellow's attitude and the position he insisted on maintaining can blow this up. G: How common was it for staff members to exercise this kind of influence over a member? O: Well, it was hard to identify but it was not uncommon. It was not uncommon, because we would try to identify staff people up there, committee staff people particularly, of course, as to their role and the extent of their authority and that went to their relationship with the chairman of the committee. And there were any number of very senior staff people. They were very much included in our regular contact on the Hill, and of course there would be times when you would deal directly with a staff person. It wouldn't be a common practice, but it really wasn't that uncommon for a staff person to [meet with us] if you were developing language or developing an amendment. It was generally in the context of the chairman's willingness to have it done and just work out the details. Very often this would be between the congressional relations person and others in the department or agency and the staff person. I think it would have been a mistake to ignore the role of senior staff people on some of those committees, and we tried to avoid that. As you know, some of them are very much career people and, interestingly enough, in the minority-majority aspect, you didn't get it in the House very often. But the minority staff member could be very senior, too, and obviously very knowledgeable regarding the activities of the committee and the legislation under consideration--more knowledgeable perhaps than any member on the committee, including the chairman. That remains the case today. I had an occasion not long ago on a matter of some interest to me and to the sports world to go down to Washington. I was asked if I would visit some old friends. So I went down and I selectively, because I could [only] spend one full day, had seven or eight appointments. I obviously went on seniority on the committee. But the prior evening, I took occasion to have dinner with the senior staff person of the committee, which was very helpful in terms of getting a feel of things. So I 8 O'Brien --Interview III --5 hadn't changed my practices. G: One of the press accounts in 1961 stated that Vinson was absolutely the key to the administration's success in that whole session of Congress, 1961. O: I wouldn't go that far, but I would place him right up there in the front ranks. I could count on my fingers the people that were key. I don't think you could go that far, because I don't think there was [any] one member of Congress that that should be attributed to. G: Are there any other areas where he was essential in legislation? O: I think, in general, on the legislation for which he was included in the leadership meetings on the Hill. And, interestingly enough, we've talked about a rather unique relationship that Mendel Rivers had with John McCormack. First of all, at that period in 1961, obviously the relationship that Vinson, et al., had with Speaker Rayburn was a very close one. If you look back on the record of McCormack's rise in the leadership--and he was very proud of this and repeated it constantly to me--his rise in the leadership up to and including the speaker's position was to a great extent due to the tremendous support he had from southern Democrats, even though John McCormack in his entire voting career had never voted against a Democratic Party proposal. But in personal terms, he had this great relationship and it was duly recorded in the support he had through the ranks as a leader. So with Carl Vinson, you had the obvious Carl Vinson-Rayburn relationship, but you had sort of a--I shouldn't say amazing; it's not amazing. But what you wouldn't anticipate [is the] relationship that McCormack had with all these senior southern Democrats, which carried on through McCormack's speakership. I think the surprise factor was if there was a consistent liberal Democratic voting record in the entire House of Representatives over thirty years, it was McCormack's. But it didn't seem to affect his relationship at all with these people; in fact, they supported him strongly. G: With regard to Vinson, do you think that his support of the administration was advanced somewhat by that Lockheed plant in Marietta? O: Well, certainly it wasn't adverse to progress. I don't know as I place a great deal of credence in that. Again, it goes back to our prior discussion and the whole broad so-called area of patronage and power. Carl Vinson's position in the Congress was such that he could exercise a great amount of power. That probably is a little comparable to Al Thomas putting the space program into Houston. I don't think anybody in the White House could claim that they placed the space program in Houston. So again it's the tendency to seek out. And I'm sure there were people in media saying, "Well, why is Carl Vinson"--particularly after the Rose Garden when everybody was just waiting for this big, total blowup--and, oh, the press in Washington would just have a glorious seven days at least out of this. I'm sure there are people saying, "Well, 9 O'Brien --Interview III --6 why? What does Vinson owe Kennedy?" Well, he didn't owe Kennedy anything in that sense. You have to remember one thing, and it's a statistic that I had brought to my attention on any number of occasions. I remember having dinner with Senator [Herman] Talmadge at his house one evening, just the two of us. We had a nice, pleasant evening, and with great glee he reminded me two or three times during that evening of the vote Kennedy received in Georgia in his candidacy for president re the vote in Massachusetts, and the statistic, I don't recall it now, but it seems to me he had a 60 or 62 per cent vote from Georgia as against a 58 or 59 or 60, whatever it was, in Massachusetts. You might say that was an aberration, but the fact of the matter was that he was very, very proud of that and so was Carl Vinson. See, these Georgians, they were southern Democrats, but there was no way you could suggest that those fellows in Georgia, or the people in Georgia, had any animosity to or any ill feeling toward a Catholic Jack Kennedy. By gosh, the record showed that they strongly supported him. So that was a little different than the statistics you could cite elsewhere, you know. So you didn't have these fellows sitting in the Congress with a concern about a constituent attitude toward Kennedy. Maybe his program and policies, but not in any--G: In discussions with President Kennedy, did he consider the Lockheed plant, though, a means of improving the relationship with Vinson? O: I don't recall that. I don't know what he considered, frankly, but we never deluded ourselves. We might try to get a little piece of the action or that sort of thing, but you were naive if you thought you were going to a Carl Vinson and remind him of the great progress he had made in behalf of his constituency which we could have derailed or that "he could not have done it without us." Even if there was some of that, you never tried to utilize it; that would be blatant and it could very well be counterproductive. The reality of the situation was that we recognized our limitations in this area, or put it the other way, that this whipping members of Congress into line through patronage, through public works, through this, through that, was a grossly exaggerated situation. G: Well, would it be fair to say then that the administration in the case of the Lockheed place really didn't have any discretion to put it anywhere else, that Vinson was exercising a power that he had? O: The only discretion you could have had in a case of that nature is if someone similar to Vinson was fighting Vinson. Then conceivably there might have been a grain of effort that could have been expended on behalf of one or the other. But I think what you would have done in a case like that, if there was a big battle being waged regarding Lockheed and its location, was to keep as far away from it as you could. G: Well, you did have another Vinson in a sense in the Senate, but he was also from Georgia, 10 O'Brien --Interview III --7 Richard Russell. Let me ask you to describe President Kennedy's relationship with him. I'm talking about during this early period, before the civil rights [legislation]. O: Yes. Well, Russell was a giant in the Senate. There was something about his demeanor. He was different than Vinson. G: How would you contrast them? O: Well, I think Russell was more reserved. I would not say in any sense that he was blunt, but you didn't have the easy conversational relationship with Russell--I'm applying it to myself now--as you would have with Vinson. You had the same degree of courtesy and all the rest. But my feeling now, looking back on Russell and the many times he was in the White House, he was a leader in the Senate and any crisis situations included Russell, his committee position. I think that President Kennedy looked upon Russell as somewhat of a giant in the Senate. I wouldn't suggest that President Kennedy was in awe of him, but I would suspect that he had the same reactions that I did, that it was easier to deal with Vinson than with Russell. I'm not too sure that if you had a similar situation and walked in the Rose Garden with Russell, that it might have worked out the same way. Russell was not an antagonist, none of them were. But Russell was sort of in a class by himself. G: Was he less likely than Vinson to support progressive legislation? O: Yes. Yes, that's true. I guess if you want to use the word, he was to some degree more conservative than Vinson. G: Was he ever helpful to you in your liaison role? O: On general legislation or specific legislation, I don't recall anything unique or unusual about his voting habits. I think, again, in the off-the-record, if you will, activities and his key role in the Senate and his key committee position in the Senate that he was not a negative force. I think if you got to the military in terms of legislation, you found that Russell was a solid fellow and was not negative or obstructionist. I think, without question, he took his role very seriously, and that was really his area. That was really what I think to a great extent absorbed Russell. So on the general day-to-day, week-to-week legislative activities, the head-count process and the rest in the Senate with Mike Mansfield, Russell was not a key factor. I mean the contact with Russell directly in all of the promotion of our program was limited. G: Was the Vice President used for his long associations with some of these southern committee chairmen? O: Yes. You know, we've touched on the Vice President's role, but I think it's worth considering it again, because I'm trying to be as objective as I can and I'm paying the price 11 O'Brien --Interview III --8 of trying to recall two decades ago. I don't think you can overlook the Vice President's reaction to what was an attitude on the part of the Senate as a whole toward him as vice president at the outset of the Kennedy Administration. I have to conclude that it was disappointing to him and a setback to him. He had to be surprised, because I don't think he would have tried to travel that route if he had anticipated the attitude that would be expressed. Then you go on from there--these are little things, but I think they go into the equation. The majority leader's office that he occupied in the Senate was a very elaborate office. He, as vice president, retained that office. I hadn't been on the Hill prior to all of this, but he not only retained that office, he spent a lot of time in it. Now, perhaps the record would show that that was phased out over a period of time, but I'm just thinking about my first neophyte reactions to all this when I went to the Hill. Mike Mansfield, as the majority whip under Johnson, occupied the appropriate office of the majority whip. He really was, I assume, designated by Johnson as majority whip; he was very much the number-two man, accountable to the Majority Leader at all times. But then you have to go beyond that, however, to Mike Mansfield's style, his nature. Mike was a very reserved gentleman, who I admire tremendously. I hadn't met a fellow who had served in three branches of the armed services, who had joined the service when he was underage and then came back from all of that and vigorously sought an education and became a teacher. He had no ego, none. I'm recounting this because I arrive up there to get acquainted and try to determine how all of this works. I guess my first reaction was, dropping into the Vice President's office, I thought it was the vice president's office traditionally, [and] dropping into Mansfield's office, that that was the majority leader's office traditionally. After a short period of time I became aware that wasn't the case. And you would get the nuances of some of these developments as time went on. While we are talking about Mike Mansfield, [I remember] I had occasion to go out to Montana with the President. I don't recall just what the purpose of the visit was; it was part of some trip. But that gave me the opportunity to meet, I recall, a brother of Mike Mansfield's, who I believe was a fireman in the town. The very modest lifestyle that was his background, the serious economic problems of the whole mining industry, all of this unfamiliar to me. You had to be impressed. And I was also dependent upon him for support and guidance, direction. I received that to the fullest and we achieved a very warm friendship. When we would get to a serious discussion regarding pending legislation, initially we would be meeting in Mike's inner office and we would always make the point of ensuring the presence of the Vice President. It was touchy. You would meet in the Majority Leader's office and then you'd advise the Vice President that this meeting was going to take place, it was going to include the following, and if his schedule allowed, would he join us? And he did. We would sit there; it would be probably Bobby Baker and a couple of other senators [concerned with] whatever the subject was at the moment. 12 O'Brien --Interview III --9 We'd discuss strategy and then go through a head count. I can remember there were those occasions. And the Vice President would participate, but certainly did not at any time take over any leadership role of the meeting. He made no attempt to do that. He would defer to Mike. In other words, he was participating like a key senator that had come into the office to discuss the specific legislation. I think it was fortunate, with the potential sensitivities that could have existed between the two men, that nothing like that ever occurred, because you didn't have a Mike Mansfield who really gave a darn where his office was or what kind of chairs he might have or anything else. It obviously meant nothing to him. But I think there had to be some feeling on the part of Lyndon Johnson of some degree of discomfort. I don't know. I obviously had no discussion with him and what I received any time I requested it from him was every effort he could expend, and that included conferring with former colleagues on important matters legislatively. So as a participant, whether it was [at] the leadership breakfast downtown or whether it was in the cabinet meetings--where of course at all times the legislative program and its progress or lack of it was a major item of discussion and always on the agenda--he was there and involved. I probably shouldn't dwell on this as much as I am because, frankly, I didn't consider any of that my business. I was not acquainted with the history and the personalities in the Senate. All I was aware of was that there had been some disturbance on the part of some people up there regarding what they perceived to be Johnson's idea of what his continuing role should be. I guess I've referred to it before in these early stages. I don't have the date, but I spent an evening with him at the home he had recently acquired. G: The Elms. O: And Bobby Baker was there with his wife, my wife and I, and a Texas congressman--Brooks. G: Jack Brooks? O: Jack Brooks and his wife. We spent the entire evening discussing strategies and how to go about congressional relations in a very pleasant session that extended into a very late evening. Clearly we were invited, along with Baker and Jack Brooks, who was an old friend of his, so the Vice President could give me a feel of things and an opportunity for briefings from a fellow who obviously knew the Senate intimately, Bobby Baker. But I'm not at all sure that the Vice President's comfort level was as high as it should be from that early stage of the changeover on. Tape 1 of 4, Side 2 G: In your papers there are reports from Mike Mansfield's office, I think from Frank Valeo, of these key meetings with Senate leaders to really thrash out divergent views on 13 O'Brien --Interview III --10 legislation. I was impressed with simply the fact that you obtained those, that you were privy to all of that information. O: That's another indication of the relationship that was established between the White House and both branches. That's a good example of it. I can't envision something like that taking place in earlier administrations. It wouldn't take place because nobody would conceive of the meeting notes in the Majority Leader's office being transmitted to the White House. It was unprecedented. But the fact is that Valeo, when he took over from Baker, conceived his role to be a bridge between the Majority Leader's office and the White House Congressional Relations office. There was constant communication. Mike Manatos would spend time with Valeo regularly, but you can be sure that those notes were not sent to the White House without the approval of his boss. Mike Mansfield just became intimately involved in the whole procedure. We had a share in--you know, this was one ball game. Mike had an approach to all of this that was interesting, and there may have been times when this kind of set me back a little bit because his approach was manifested--I don't know whether these notes reveal any of this or not--by Mike instructing Valeo to go out on the floor and bring in Senator X, Y and Z. And then [he would say], "Larry, you talk to him directly," and Mike would sit there. But he would leave it to me; it was my responsibility to carry the ball. That would be extended on occasions where there'd be greater significance attached to whatever we were engaged in. And I'm sure on more than one occasion Mike would say, "Here's what I'll do. Tomorrow I'll get all these fellows"--and we put together a list--for lunch in his office. I don't remember what the subject was, and it might have been the first occasion this occurred because I must say that I was a little nervous about the whole procedure. Here's a guy that's on a staff down at the White House and all of a sudden there are twelve or sixteen senators at this long table having lunch; Mike is on one end of the table and he places me on the other. We'd have one of those very mediocre quick lunches and Mike would say, "Now, you know what the subject is," or "We asked you to come in, and now I'm going to turn it over to Larry. Larry, you go ahead now." My preference, I guess, would have been for Mike to go ahead and I could chip in here and there. But that was his style. People might say he did it by committee, sort of, but everybody was included. There was no gossip, no secret, behind-the-wall stuff. You have a pitch to make, you're trying to get these votes, you're trying to get some unity, or trying to get this amendment adopted, or you're trying to get the feel. "Let's get them in here. Let's sit them down. Now you go ahead and talk to them and ask them." G: Did these luncheon meetings take place fairly often or was it--? O: That would be when it got to the point where the people that Mike felt should be involved in the discussion would be ten, twelve or sixteen senators. Most often [it was less]. I remember that little corner of his inner office, which was a large room. This fellow would serve coffee, and it was [at] a round table in sort of an alcove that would accommodate up 14 O'Brien --Interview III --11 to--there'd be Mike and I and three, four, maybe up to five or six senators as you spread the circle a little bit. The luncheon was not a normal procedure, but that was when you've got to communicate with twelve to sixteen members and you might as well get them all in. "Now, I'll get them in for you and have them sit down. I'm in accord with what you're trying to do and I will so state, but you've got to speak on behalf of the President." It kind of put me to the test a little bit, and I must say that I was a little tense about that sort of thing in the earlier days. And there was the basic problem that you could inadvertently or indeed stupidly cross that line one inch and not be suitably deferential and all the rest, and all of a sudden there might be some fellow saying, "Wait a minute, what is this? What's going on here?" G: Did that happen to you? O: No. G: Did President Kennedy believe that Mansfield was too pessimistic on legislative matters, too cautious? O: He knew he was cautious. Mike was a fellow that wanted to have things in place and have a total understanding they were in place before you took the next step. But I don't recall that President Kennedy considered that a negative at all. That again was part of his style. What he had in Mike wasn't an overly verbose fellow. With his pipe particularly, he might respond in rather clipped sentences. But he was a very direct fellow. You need not be concerned about Mike's attitude or position. If you asked what he thought the status or the hope or expectancy was, he would tell you. Now, there were times when that wasn't what you wanted to hear, and I think that you could construe that as meaning he's a pessimist by nature and he doesn't wage battle as aggressively or in the style that we'd like to see. I think what you would do anyway with a fellow like that is accommodate to his style and act accordingly, because you never had any question in your mind about his dedication and commitment. That was his style, and let's face it, the record we had on the Senate side would indicate that there was nothing wrong with his style. But his sensitivity, and we'll get to it later, regarding the White House role, mine specifically, was that I was totally accepted by Mike Mansfield. Whatever hour of the day or night I was in or out of his office, Mike was available and we'd chat, even if it was just discussing the weather or some sporting event, have a cup of coffee and chat. But I didn't realize until the situation occurred with the trade bill that Mike wasn't about to have his office overrun or the corridors overrun with White House or executive branch people charging around the place. That turned out to be a sensitive matter at one point. G: On the trade bill, is that right? O: Yes. Mike directed me to order our private-sector citizen trade people to remove 15 O'Brien --Interview III --12 themselves from proximity of the Senate Chamber, and [he] was not going to allow them to have the use of his inner office for discussions, as I had that use. I dutifully calmed all that down. There was nothing these fellows were doing wrong. They were all gung ho and aggressive and they were inadvertently making their presence too widely known, and their efforts were just too obvious and in too close proximity. It was all right for me to have the access I had, but I had to under-stand that just didn't include some army. Obviously I attended to that as diplomatically as I could, as quickly as I could. There was no further reference to it. But that is just an indication of the fellow's style. G: After LBJ became vice president, how important was Bobby Baker to the Senate operation? O: Well, first, Bobby Baker was known to the President-elect. Bobby Baker had, as I guess the record will show, a very unique role in the Senate. If you needed a head count, Bobby Baker would have a head count for you in a matter of hours. If you needed a projected attendance count for next Thursday, Bobby Baker would be able within an hour to tell you who's going to be present, who wouldn't be and why. G: Did this involve an extraordinary talent in itself? Was it simply a mechanical operation? O: No, I think it had a significant degree of talent in there. Obviously I didn't know Bobby Baker at all until I was introduced to him. But his role, which I did assume was the role he had under Johnson, was an interesting role. I was very interested in this fellow and these titles in the Senate, staff titles, although at first they meant nothing to me. You pick up a little bit each day and you try to keep as quiet as you can and be as observant as you can and try to put the cast in place. There wasn't any briefing session for me in all of this sort of thing; you had to pick it up as you went along. But the Baker role, for example, with Mansfield, that's when I met Baker, obviously. Baker was a fellow still doing what he always did. Mike would say, "We have a partial roll call; we have ten members who we have no idea where they stand on this," and Baker would be assigned to check them out during the day and come back with whatever intelligence he could to determine our follow-ups. And that was an integral part of the activity. I don't remember in the time frame when Baker departed and Valeo came aboard. You might jog my memory on that, but I don't know--G: 1963, I think, was when he left. O: Was it that late? G: Yes, I believe that's right. O: Because Baker got into all the problems he had and a change took place. I think it was Mike Mansfield's nature, too, that if he took over a post, took over as majority leader, that he took over staff accordingly and there weren't any decisive changes. 16 O'Brien --Interview III --13 Incidentally--the comparison between the two--Valeo carried on in basically the same task, but Valeo was, if you can put it this way, more of a student of the legislation, had a keen interest in the substance. I don't know what his background was, but he came across to you as a fellow that was quite knowledgeable regarding the legislative program in detail, while Bobby Baker was not that way. Bobby was more interested in the game, the way it was played, the ebb and flow and the give and take of votes and amendments rather than any great involvement in the substance per se. G: Did you have any opportunity to observe some of his extralegal activities, practicing law, or misuses of office while he was--? O: No. I don't recall--I'm sure I met Baker's wife on a few occasions. G: Dorothy, I think it was. O: Yes. But we didn't have any social contacts. Beyond his role and my role, I have no recollection of ever having dinner with Baker or having a drink with Baker off the Hill. I had no idea what Baker's extracurricular activities would be, if any, I'm sure during that period. I think as I discuss Bobby now, I do recall that he had a very close relationship, I'm not saying confined to one senator, but certainly with Bob Kerr. I remember it came across very quickly to me that his relation with Kerr and I'm sure others--and I don't know why I cite Bob Kerr but I think probably that's accurate--that while he had this relationship with a number of senators with his ability to communicate with them, that the relationship with Kerr seemed to be much more intimate than with the others. And let's face it, in dealing with the Senate, Kerr was a powerhouse up there. G: Why was he a powerhouse? O: I think through his own personality, frankly. He was very aggressive, somewhat dictatorial, demanding--not that he demanded anything of me--but all of this came through in terms of the personality of the guy. We made efforts to establish a relationship with him as we did with every-one else. I think it was more difficult; we were more uncertain. It wasn't to convert him to a liberal Democrat, but you just didn't get to the intimacy or the relaxed atmosphere that we did with many of the conservative Senate Democrats. I was not with the President when he visited Kerr's ranch on some occasion, but I remember Ken O'Donnell telling me--I think he and Dave Powers accompanied the President. I'm sure it was part of some trip. I would normally be on a trip involving congressmen or senators, but what-ever occurred, I wasn't there. But apparently Senator Kerr pointed out to them that he owned everything looking to the horizon and as far as the eye could see. Then the concern of Ken and Dave--I guess they probably stayed overnight--was that there would not be a drink available. I'm not too sure that one or both of them didn't sneak a little drink in with them in the anticipation that they wouldn't have a chance to have a cocktail. But Kerr was known to be a total abstainer. I guess he was probably a Baptist; I don't know, but followed rigidly the precepts of whatever his 17 O'Brien --Interview III --14 religious convictions were. All of that was in it, so I can't suggest to you that I established a high comfort factor with Bob Kerr. I tried. There was nothing negative, but I didn't have that feeling. I could deal with a lot of other senators much more easily than I could with Bob Kerr. But I guess Kerr's name came into this discussion because of Bobby Baker's relationship with him. G: Yes. Kerr seems to have been quite close to the financial institutions and also the oil interests. Of course, he himself was an oilman. O: I'm sure it's Kerr I'm talking about. I can remember a conversation with him and his describing his earliest stages as a lawyer and how he acquired his obviously significant wealth. As a young lawyer, in these early explorations, he became a recognized expert on the legal documents necessary to acquisition of these potential oil sites. But the key to it was that a lot of these--what they call them, wildcatters?--needed to have this legal work done and in most instances didn't have money to pay for it. So Kerr established early on this procedure that he would do probably hundreds of these agreements, and in lieu of a fee take a percentage of the action. And the law of averages played out over a period of years. It was quite interesting, and he was very proud of his approach to the practice of law and how he was thinking way ahead though he, too, didn't have any financial resources. G: One more question about JFK and the southerners: in terms of appealing to the South, the Democrats in Congress, he did increase price supports for cotton and rice and tobacco and some of these products. Was this a factor? How did this come into play in enlisting their support? O: Well, it was helpful. The record of the White House regarding southern senator interests was a pretty good one. We went along; we were sensitive to their interests. We worked with them and we achieved some pluses. I could not say we had a specific plus that resulted in a specific vote, but it helped in a general climate. But, you know, it's interesting. You're talking about Kerr and talking about Dick Russell, but you could talk about a number of others who by dint of seniority had achieved significant positions in the Senate. Envision the living quarters in the White House as part of our practice of having a group of senators invited in, perhaps ten or a dozen, carefully selected because of what might be pending. Obviously included, if it were ten or a dozen sitting in a semicircle in one of the living rooms of the quarters with the President sitting in a rocking chair, would be the Dick Russells, generally, the Bob Kerrs, sometimes bipartisanly there'd be the Ev Dirksens along with them. And there's going to be hopefully a sales pitch, because there was a purpose in having this meeting. You can socialize just so long and then get to the subject at hand, because these meetings probably wouldn't last more than an hour or an hour and a half in the late afternoon. 18 O'Brien --Interview III --15 The President would state his views. Now, here's a president of the United States sitting there who was, indeed, a neophyte in the Senate, very much junior, not in the power structure of the Senate. And here are all these fellows that he knows, but not intimately. It created a climate. At least in his mind he found it, I think, difficult. He would espouse his views and he could always articulate his views well, present his case, exchange some comments around the circle, but the bottom line to even informally head-count them, you wouldn't reach that point. He probably would have been more comfortable if he had never known them. I think that's natural. There was a slight reticence. I'm mentally pushing him because I want out of it all I can get, in terms of doing a little more head-counting tomorrow. But he would not attempt to put them on the hook. G: Did Mrs. Kennedy play a role in building bridges, ties to these senior members of Congress? O: No, not any individual effort in that regard. She followed the basic first lady procedure. She visited the Hill on rare occasions. I know she paid a couple of visits to the Senate. What do they call that, where they all get together and sew or whatever they did? There were carefully orchestrated invitations to White House functions, and she was always briefed as to the attention that should be paid. She did that extremely well with these members of Congress and their wives and would devote a good deal of attention to them. But on an individual basis, to seek or maintain contact, unlike Lady Bird, there wasn't that to any great degree. There again, she just didn't know these people, didn't know most of them at all, while of course Lady Bird knew them all intimately. But her role was basically confined to the traditional first lady role and there wasn't anything in terms of my end of the business that was unique or unusual, other than in the social concepts. For example, these meetings I'm talking about in the living quarters, you'd always make a point that she would be knowledgeable as to who was going to be there, and at some point generally [she would] come in briefly to say hello and shake hands with everyone and welcome them, but not participate in the discussions. There wasn't any time in my organized legislative relations efforts that I put her specifically into the equation. For example, I just thought about it, we were talking early on about the involvement of Mrs. Johnson, not only in beautification but her general considerable interest in the legislative program and its progress. It was not at all unusual for me to be chatting with her about matters at the moment which interested her a great deal, even little personality clashes, that sort of thing, a little scuttlebutt regarding the legislative progress. And it was not unusual for her to call me when she would be noting something transpiring and ask me what I thought or how was it going or was that factual that she had just read, something of that nature. I don't recall Jackie Kennedy engaged in that kind of activity. G: I suppose the tradition of first ladies was really more like Jacqueline Kennedy than Lady Bird Johnson. 19 O'Brien --Interview III --16 O: Yes, I would think so. And, of course, you go to Jackie Kennedy's interests: the arts, refurbishing the White House was a great interest to her. Her background and her areas of interest were such that they really didn't get to what she might have construed a little bit mundane, things such as head counts. (Laughter) G: You've discussed that minimum wage bill and have written about that in your book as well, so I won't ask you to repeat that, but--O: I'm not going to repeat any of it other than just to underscore once more that I think I used it often. I used it in the book and we've discussed it in great detail, because it contained just about all the elements in a legislative struggle, including a one-vote loss after all of the manipulation and maneuvering. I think it's a microcosm of efforts we undertook. It had all the elements in it. G: The Republicans charged that three of the Democratic conferees, [William] Ayres, Adam Clayton Powell and James Roosevelt, who had supported the administration bill, failed to fight for the House version. Do you recall that and what the problem was there? O: No, I don't recall specifics on that. That was the accusation and what was the ground for it? Was there a suggestion that they had some reason to drag their feet? I really don't know. G: I was going to ask you what the reason might have been. O: Yes. I just don't know. G: The bill in its final version did exempt federal workers, but I noticed that Kennedy included federal workers under an executive order. Do you recall that? O: In the various phases of compromise, exclusions became part of com-promise. Clearly one of the most difficult areas of exclusion that we were forced to accept were laundry workers. I don't recall specifics on federal employees other than the recognition that you could do a give-up in that area because you had a way of compensating for it. So that wasn't too tough. Or the persuasion on the part of friendly people trying to help us enact legislation that if we would accept that, it would be helpful in moving the legislation. We did have a recognition during the course of this that there was a way to resolve it. That was probably a little easier to give up than the laundry workers. G: Yes. O: Actually, when the bill was completed we probably had a half a loaf, maybe a little better than a half a loaf, but that was the philosophy we followed. We're not walking down from the Hill without taking a half-loaf, with the total commitment in our minds we'll be back for the rest of it. 20 O'Brien --Interview III --17 G: Was this strategy of using an executive order to get what you couldn't achieve in legislation fairly typical of President Kennedy? O: If the opportunity presented itself, there was a distinct awareness of it and no reluctance to utilize it. That was our view, and I'm sure that view was implemented on occasions. But we all had a pretty clear understanding of that. You might be stymied in a lot of ways and this great power of the presidency wasn't quite what observers thought it was. It can be awfully frustrating, but if you have this procedure available to you, you're going to utilize it without hesitancy. That was our attitude, and the actual implementation I haven't any great recollection. But I do have a distinct recollection of not only our awareness of it, but our desire to utilize it. G: Did members of Congress object to this? O: Oh, yes, that's one area where they'd give you a little bit of heat. But that was an area where we weren't going to listen particularly. G: Did they have any recourse? O: Well, I suppose long range in a variety of ways they could have some recourse, but that was the gamble you took. There was always a tendency of, sure, listen, if you've tweaked somebody individually or collectively or put their nose a little bit out of joint and they're not pleased with what you've done, a) they have to recognize you have the authority to do it. Secondly, to get even in any form is an indirect procedure that might manifest itself in some way somewhere down the road. But your expectancy was that--really in any important way--that would not occur, because there's always tomorrow and there's another subject to discuss. G: Richard Russell seems to have been one of those who was especially sensitive about government-created things that were not a result of legislation. O: Well, that's part of the Russell I was trying to describe. You have to remember that Russell was not unique in the sense that he did feel that, indeed, he was very well qualified to be president of the United States. I think the record shows that he had that feeling early on. But I think that is played out on the part of some senators by being inordinately sensitive to the executive branch activities, retaining, at least in their mind, the power of the Congress, the authority of the Senate, and the need to achieve advice and consent, approbation and approval in just about every instance. The presidential powers were limited to a greater degree than actuality in the minds of some of them. That's by the very nature of their seniority and their position in the Senate, and perhaps a little bit of feeling that they'd do a better job if they were there. G: One of the criticisms of using this form of action, executive order rather than legislation, is that it does not achieve for the measure the same status that an act of Congress would. 21 O'Brien --Interview III --18 O: Well, it's sure as the devil better than nothing. It might not achieve the same status, but there's a real probability it will achieve the same goal. G: Two other examples: one, the Peace Corps was established initially through executive order. Why was that? O: The Peace Corps bordered on the revolutionary in concept and initial reaction to that concept. If you think back on the Peace Corps, that was a little bit far out to a lot of people. If the opportunity presented itself to put it in place, you were going to seize that opportunity, because I think extended discussion on that proposal in legislative terms could have doomed it or severely restricted it. If you had a starting point, you could get into a position of saying, "Listen, here it is. Now let's talk about implementation and procedures" Even in terms of very liberal New Frontier legislative program, this would have to be termed unique. G: But once it was set up and once you did have the legislation, it was not apparently that controversial. I mean it passed easily enough. O: Amazingly so. It wasn't [controversial]. I'll give you my own reaction. I was surprised at the broad acceptance of it once it was in place. I felt it would be subject to conservative opposition and controversy. I think the early reporting of Peace Corps activities was very upbeat. I think it really extended beyond somebody saying, "Well, I'm a conservative," or a liberal. The uniqueness of it and, as far as I'm concerned, its progress and its record were surprising to me and very pleasing. But I must say there was some trepidation when we were first at the concept stage. Tape 2 of 4, Side 1 O: I don't know the current status [of the Peace Corps], whether it's at the level of involvement and intensity that existed during those early years or just where it is now. Do you? I don't know. G: No. Your papers reflect almost a struggle within the administration on the Peace Corps in behalf of its advocates to get it considered among the top priority programs to be enacted and an attempt to get the President to embrace the Peace Corps as really a top priority. O: Yes, that's true. G: Do you recall this issue and how it--? O: That's true. It wasn't a split with the administration in terms of whether or not there should be a Peace Corps or whether the proposal had great merit. It went to those that like to describe themselves as realists--that would include me--and those that we construed to be a little bit dreamers, and that would include a number of my colleagues. The problem with the Peace Corps within the administration was to upgrade it or have it 22 O'Brien --Interview III --19 at the level that the staunch, enthusiastic advocates wanted it and the level that we envisioned in terms of how many battles can you wage. There was certainly a difference in the temperature on the part of many of us, and I must say that I think I probably fitted in the category of the fellow saying, "Hey, I think it's great. It's just as impressive as the devil. Marvelous idea. But now, how do you get it into formulation?" And what are the priorities here? How many battles can you take on? I can remember Ken O'Donnell and I discussing this, because we were both practical; hard-bitten perhaps a little, saying, "You wouldn't quarrel with anyone about the merits of something like this but, gee whiz. . . ." So that was resolved by the procedure that was followed putting it in place. And I must say there was total accord on the part of all of us, no matter what our concerns were about putting it in place at the outset or the form of putting it in place. Indeed, it was a shining star in the firmament of our accomplishments. G: There was the issue of whether or not to include it as a part of AID or within the State Department or to establish it as a separate agency. Do you recall this? O: Yes, I recall discussions concerning it, but I don't recall specifics. I'm not persuaded even now that there was a great weight placed on putting it in the State Department. I think there was a feeling of independent status pretty much from the outset even in general discussions of the pros and cons. G: I have a note that Mike Manatos had been quoted as saying that LBJ had not helped to advance that legislation and that was very disturbing to Johnson, and he even called Manatos and called Bill Moyers. Do you recall that? O: No. G: Was he helpful on it? O: My recollection is he was. I have no recollection that Johnson didn't share the general view regarding it. It's conceivable that Johnson might have shared my view that this was a difficult task. But I would wonder about the supposed Mike Manatos statement. But when you think of the Great Society programs and the general attitude that Lyndon Johnson had toward matters of this nature, there's no question in my mind that he was in total accord with the concept and pleased with the results. But if he had stated that we might have some difficulties with some people, I could have been quoted accordingly. G: One of your memoranda indicates that [Sargent] Shriver and Moyers were practically living on the Hill, lobbying for--O: That's true. I've said this before, and I think it's worthy of [repeating]. G: You've talked about Shriver, I think, yes. 23 O'Brien --Interview III --20 O: Yes. Shriver and Moyers made a great team in this effort. My view [is] that these are two men of exceptional abilities. Shriver was the leader. What was so pleasing was you had two men that were extremely aggressive in promoting their views. You can have people that are wedded and dedicated, but then do you have this aggressive promotion and ability to communicate that can be so important in moving something in the Congress? And Sarge Shriver, I don't think I ever have a conversation with Sarge that I don't walk away renewing my admiration in his enthusiasm for whatever he's involved in. As you know, I give him high marks. And when you talk about Bill and Sarge on the Hill, I'm sure they wore out a couple of pairs of shoes in the process. G: A note indicates that they even made some progress with Otto Passman. Do you recall that? O: I would suspect the record probably doesn't indicate that, but then I'm saying that off the top of my head. But I'll give them high marks for trying. (Laughter) But if they made more progress with Passman than we did in foreign aid--well, any progress they made with Passman would be more than we made with foreign aid. But you know, it's worth commenting on that. That's an example of the activities of those two fellows. You'd have difficulty finding a couple of fellows in Washington, knowing Otto Passman and knowing his record and background and his attitude, that would deign to make the effort. And they made the effort, obviously, but maybe I'm being a little cynical and maybe the record shows otherwise, but if they persuaded Otto Passman in this area, I should have been back to Sarge and Bill Moyers to take over the foreign aid effort, too. They were a good team, those two fellows. G: Moyers was terribly young at the time. O: Oh, God, and I don't think--and there are exceptions to this--but that is drudgery, what I was engaged in. There were even attempts somehow that I've read or heard over those years to glamorize what I was engaged in. I was engaged in gut, hard work that hardly allowed you to ever sleep. You know, I loved it; I loved every minute of it. But if it were not an effort expended in the promotion of the New Frontier and Great Society programs, and you put it into another context and suggest to me I make a similar effort, there's no effort I can imagine in life that would have intrigued me to do what I did during those years. I lived and breathed it. You had setbacks and pitfalls constantly. You sweated out every darn vote on the Hill. It was endless. One struggle of that nature in a year would have been enough, but yet you were back to it day after day after day. And when Bill and Sarge were up doing what they did, that represented total dedication. That represented a complete commitment. To recognize that if you could only get the darn thing done and get a presidential signature on it, it was going to make a contribution to progress affecting a lot of people. My gosh, for any other reason, you'd say, "You've got to be crazy. I can 24 O'Brien --Interview III --21 find a better job than this." G: Let's move to the Area Redevelopment Bill. This has always been described as a fulfillment of a campaign pledge that President Kennedy made in the [1960] campaign. O: I'm sure it was one of a number of pledges that were made; a recognition of the problems that ought to be attended to in these areas. G: I was going to say, did it come out of that West Virginia primary? O: I can tell you that his commitment to West Virginia was total. Come hell or high water, he was going to repay the people of West Virginia a debt he owed to them because of the support they had given him, the confidence they had expressed in him. It was a topic of conversation on the part of the President constantly. G: Really? O: I don't think I can exaggerate his depth of commitment, and that there was going to be area redevelopment. There was going to be a focus on West Virginia. He would have the record show that he was responsive and recognized their problems. But the element of appreciation of their support for him was very much a significant part of all this. Of course, while you focused on West Virginia, you took it as extending through a whole region, and to other regions that equally merited some special attention. G: Paul Douglas was, I guess, the chief sponsor of the bill and the head of a task force to resolve this. Do you recall working with Douglas on this? O: Yes. I recall working with Douglas on this and on a variety of other matters, I think probably truth-in-packaging, truth-in-lending and other matters of that nature. I want to say that I've just described the drudgery of the job, but if you wanted to point to a significant element of pleasure in the job, becoming acquainted with Paul Douglas and working with him was one of the highlights of my experience in congressional relations. We've talked about unique and unusual people and I guess you would anticipate that in an entity called the Congress of the United States you're going to run into more than the normal number of unique and unusual people. That's how a lot of them got there. But Paul Douglas is a stick-out. There was one problem he had in the Senate, incidentally, and we might as well talk about it. It was a little bit perhaps the problem that Hubert Humphrey had in politics. Paul Douglas was construed by some people to be too soft because he was so nice and so decent and so honorable. And maybe that lessened his impact. He was not a wheeler-dealer. I might have discussions with other members of the Senate I wouldn't have with Paul Douglas on things we might do to bring certain things about, not of a devious nature but more the give and take of the political arena. But Paul Douglas was a 25 O'Brien --Interview III --22 man that rightly was on a pedestal as a human being. He was a marvelous human being and it was an absolute pleasure to go into Paul Douglas' office, whatever the circumstances were, to visit with him, to meet with him, to discuss the business at hand with him. It was an absolute pleasure. And if I had to sit down and list people that left a lasting impression, he'd certainly be on that list. G: On the Area Redevelopment Bill, there were several issues. One was whether the administrator would be directly responsible to the president or under the secretary of commerce. And Douglas did agree to accept the latter arrangement. Do you recall that? O: Not specifically. My best recollection is that initially you had a decided preference in that area. Now, if that was going to be compromised away in some form remained to be seen. But I don't recall Douglas--it might have been the case--objecting particularly to that. You put it in the context that he accepted. I don't know whether Douglas had a preference, but I don't recall Douglas having any serious objections. G: Now, the other controversy surrounding the bill was a question of back-door spending, direct Treasury financing rather than congressional appropriation. Here it seems that President Kennedy reversed himself in initially going along with the congressional appropriation and then seeking a direct financing. Do you recall that? O: I recall that there was a reversal, and the motivation for it or what was entailed in bringing it about, I don't recall. But that's correct, that the initial approach was--G: Do you think he felt he could get more money if he didn't have to--? O: I don't know. You could make some assumptions, but I don't recall it well enough. I think that you probably would have a preference to go in that direction anyway. And why he initially didn't attempt it and then reversed himself, I don't know. It's a little cleaner from the executive branch point of view anyway. G: One press account indicates that the success of this legislation was due to the way the southerners were handled. O: Well, I don't know that the way they were handled would differ particularly from the way we attempted to handle them generally in legislation. I think that you have an element here, though, that differs probably rather significantly from some of the other proposals where we attempted to work with the southerners. I think you had a lessened degree of concern; there was some, but a lessened degree regarding the fallout from implementing this legislation in terms of equal rights, civil rights and the rest. It was a different dimension, a different category. It really went to regions; it went to need, it went to programs. Regardless of what your views might be on some social legislation, you certainly would have a common interest in the need for federal involvement in areas like West Virginia, for example. My recollection was that this was a more comfortable battle for us than some of the others. 26 O'Brien --Interview III --23 G: Another legislative issue that I wanted to ask you about was the temporary unemployment compensation fight. Here you had the principle of pooling or sharing the resources among the states and then using the funds where they were most needed for unemployment situations. This was a real close battle; I think you won by two votes in defeating the [Harry] Byrd amendment to throw out the pooling principle. O: Well, that was the heart of it. You know, if Byrd had prevailed, what have you got? You've got a shell. G: That's right. O: Sure. And you know it isn't human nature to share. (Laughter) You have to get over that little hurdle. But without that pooling principle, really, what did you have? G: Describe what you recall of that battle. O: I think I just did, perhaps to the best of my recollection, because the battle really was focused on how do you convince people they ought to share. It's a basic human attitude that has to be overcome. And what are you faced with? It was a pretty simple process: listen, if you don't have pooling, we had nothing. We probably wouldn't be interested in the shell, because the implementation would be nonexistent or the possibilities of implementation. And Byrd was going to kill that bill. I don't know how you would describe it, but Byrd didn't envision anything particularly of interest [in it] to him and the state of Virginia. And Byrd would gravitate in that direction philosophically. I'm not talking about the sharing side or the pooling, but even though I've said it's a different climate, you're really not into social problems directly. You're talking about regions. You have a lot of automatic support from places that you wouldn't get support for other legislation. So you're starting to add that up and weighing it, and so it made it a little tough. It was more than a little tough. But the possibility of succeeding--you look at that roll call and you'll find it a very strange one, odd, for obvious reasons. You had people on this program that probably weren't working on anything else that you engaged in. And for the obvious reasons. Once you get into area or regional programs, then you quickly in your head count, just put them down right. Even though if you went back to the same fellow the next day, he might not even talk to you. (Laughter) G: The note I have indicates that there was considerable administration pressure to get this. O: You bet. As I told you early on, there was presidential motivation that extended beyond the ordinary. G: Labor Department estimates showed that nine states would really benefit from this, and these included Alaska, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, 27 O'Brien --Interview III --24 Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Is this where you focused your efforts to get the--? O: You bet. And you'll note in that list we would have liked to have had a few more large states, but we had some pretty large delegations in that list. G: Well, you got [Jacob] Javits and [Kenneth] Keating and [Hugh] Scott and [Clifford] Case and [Thomas] Kuchel. O: Yes. That, coupled with our established friends, squeezed it out. That's about what it amounted to, but even with those you list, however, we shouldn't let the record suggest that Javits and Kuchel and Case didn't vote with us on other occasions. But you take a thing like that. If you could have made the case that dire need would relate to nineteen states, you would feel that this wasn't any big battle; you could get this accomplished. But it was a close one. G: But you did get thirty-nine Democrats on that bill, and that's, I would say, a fairly high--O: That was probably a high-water mark. Not necessarily true, but when you consider the opposition and the closeness of the Byrd amendment, obviously you needed them all plus a few that joined the team briefly. G: Did you have much contact with Byrd? O: Yes. A fair amount of contact, pleasant and nonproductive. (Laughter) The contact extended to flying with the President in a helicopter down to his apple orchards or whatever it was and everything else imaginable. (Laughter) But not productive. By the time Johnson was dealing with him and we got him positioned on Medicare, that was probably the highlight. And the President positioned him very beautifully. Harry wasn't sure just what direction he was going or what had happened to him, but--G: This was when LBJ had the press conference and--? O: Yes, yes. Which had to be one of the most pleasant experiences I ever had. G: What did he do? O: Well, he just put the words in his mouth and left him on the record. And we chuckled for a good while after the fact. No, I don't think that [Harry Byrd] Sr.--I don't recall that he ever relented. Harry Byrd, Jr. was a carbon copy of his dad, with the additional factor that he was a little more with this century. But his personality was somewhat the same. Harry 28 O'Brien --Interview III --25 Byrd could be as pleasant a fellow as you'd ever want to meet, and he had fine apples, but he was in another world. You talk about conservatism. You have the epitome of it with a facade of pleasantness and courteousness. G: I wonder by the time of the Kennedy Administration how much he controlled that committee, his committee. O: Well, there was slippage. G: Who did you rely on in the Finance Committee? O: I don't recall anybody as a stick-out. I think that we combed that committee frequently. It was one-on-one almost across the board, because we were never naive enough to anticipate that there would be the slightest movement on the part of Byrd. So you had to go around him. That was a committee where you made no attempt to hide the fact you were trying to go around him. Now, there were other occasions where you tried to be very diplomatic and very careful because you didn't want fellows back-stepping any more than it was. That sort of thing was awfully hard to weigh at times. But with Byrd, as pleasant a fellow as he was, we had no illusions at all, and we knew that to work with that committee you had to work around Byrd to put together committee views that were difficult, because in almost every instance you were trying to convince members of that committee to override their chairman. And to a far greater extent than I think exists today, that was an awfully, awfully difficult thing to do. You're always faced with that dilemma. Knowing all that, recognizing all that, not being naive, you never allowed yourself to pass up an opportunity. You didn't say, "My God, why spend a whole Sunday after-noon down on that darn farm of his?" You know it isn't going to do a thing for you. But yet you say, "Well, if you don't come out, the day might come when you'll wish you had." I guess you just never foreclosed anything, but that was way out. Give you a basket of apples and that was about it. Or what was it, apples we were eating? Apples, and it seems to me we were eating strawberries or something, too. I don't know. I think probably the visit was worth it. I may have gone down there a couple of times, but I remember being there and leaving saying, "Now I've just been in another world. This is just beyond my comprehension and never the twain shall meet." (Interruption) G: Okay, I have two pieces of legislation here, the Juvenile Delinquency Act and the Youth Training Bill, which included the youth conservation corps that Humphrey was so enthusiastic about. Do you recall those measures? O: I don't recall them in any great detail. Those are measures that really were, to some 29 O'Brien --Interview III --26 extent, a carryover from the Democratic Party traditional position that almost goes back to New Deal concepts. I don't recall them in the context of the legislative struggle. They were in there, obviously. They had some priorities, but they were on a list of several measures that we were working on and it did reflect a particular point of view of Hubert. He was a very strong advocate and very much involved. But in the nitty-gritty of the legislative struggle, I have very little recollection. G: Okay. In the case of the Juvenile Delinquency Act, Robert Griffin, the Republican, wanted to limit the project to a pilot program in Washing-ton, D. C. His amendment was first accepted on a teller vote and then defeated on a roll call, a much larger vote; you had practically double the number of members voting. Do you recall bringing in the additional members? O: I don't recall the specifics, but it would fall in a normal procedure. The teller vote generally reflected just what that reflects, and if you lost a teller vote, you obviously had a prior head count. Teller votes were very, very troublesome to us always. It was always the problem of getting people involved. The member back in his office just was not going to react to anything other than the bells for a roll call, and even then you'd have to sweat out whether or not he broke off that constituent meeting in time to dash over and be recorded. I would say on that that the defeat--I'm sure there were other incidents of that nature--on the teller vote would not have shook us, that we had done our job in advance in terms of a roll call, that we had assurances, that we had the votes and that it would come to efforts that we did undertake--and they were very difficult--to check out absenteeism as quickly as possible, even right in the Speaker's office. And it was not unusual for people to jump on the telephones and call offices and all this sort of thing. But it was a tough one, to cover that whole army quickly in a matter of a forty-five-minute period. And I remember the forty-five minutes because we used to time some of these roll calls and they averaged about forty-five minutes. And that's all the working time you had on absenteeism or vote change. So rushing off the floor and having somebody grab a member and shoot him into the Speaker's office and try to convert him, you were up against a very difficult time frame. So on the vote side of it, I have no recollection of the vote. But, as you mentioned, the teller vote and the size of the ultimate roll call and the margin of the ultimate roll call, that would not have been an unusual occurrence. G: How did you know how a member had voted on a teller vote? O: Really didn't, except observation. You always had staff people in the balcony. We didn't have computers; you'd have a fellow with a pad, or more than one at a key moment. Observation and quick notes and dash down the stairs and into the office off the floor and do a recap, and try to come up with as much intelligence as we could. Hit or miss I guess is the answer to it, but you did the best you could and we never came up with a more sophisticated way of handling it. A teller vote, that was the toughest of all. 30 O'Brien --Interview III --27 G: Another measure passed by both the House and Senate was aid for dependent children. This was an emergency anti-recession measure proposed by Kennedy to make families of unemployed workers with dependent children temporarily eligible for public assistance. Did the administration, while billing this as a temporary anti-recession measure, view it in terms of a possible long-term, permanent reaction to--? O: Not that I recall. No, it was a reaction to the circumstances of the moment. In fact, my recollection would be pretty clear in that regard. I recall that measure and I have no recollection that it was envisioned as a foot in the door. G: Really? O: There might have been some people that envisioned it, but I didn't. G: Anything on the give and take of getting that through? Social Security benefits were broadened as well, and the reduction in the retirement age [enacted]. Do you recall that struggle? O: Well, I'd place that in the category--in terms of the breadth of the effort expended--that was major. That did go to short-term and long-range and had all the elements of a major effort. My recollection is this included a heavy involvement with Wilbur Cohen and his people. I think I'm accurate on that. But it was a broad-based effort with involvement to some degree of department and agency people that were not directly involved in the legislation. This was one where you broadened your base of operation as much as possible in terms of member contact. A lot of planning, a lot of thought went into that one. It was pretty far-reaching. G: Anything on the key to its passage? O: No, I don't think there was any magic there. I think it was launching as major an effort as you could, but I don't recall anything magic. Tape 2 of 4, Side 2 O: I know I'm accurate in this regard. Not because of your commitment but because of the realities of the situation, you couldn't put into play a massive effort every time. You had to weigh that somewhat. There were times when you carried out your effort as a team effort, and you did not call on people that normally wouldn't be in the process. Having said that, you feel, well, you had a lessened effort in some instances than others. I think it was just the reality of how much you could get done and how best you could do it. Also you weighed it on the basis of the opposition, actual or anticipated; the difficulties in the committee, the delay in getting a rule, all of those things went into it. So you would find times when you would have a legislative proposal that seemed to grow in urgency and attention through the span of the struggle, because the struggle 31 O'Brien --Interview III --28 itself engendered more effort and broadened your activities, and it became more intense. But sliding between the cracks from time to time were proposals of merit--obviously we considered all of them of merit--that missed at some step of the process and got lost in the shuffle, because of the very fact that you just couldn't cope with it all. See, our problem--and we keep talking about the House and rightly so. There was never an easy struggle. There wasn't when it came to the Great Society where you had some elbowroom and you had this massive program. There were some things that sort of just took care of themselves. And then you had the support side on the Hill that was greater than probably in the Kennedy period. And what we were faced with is, if you had fifty or sixty proposals, the chances were good that none of them, none of them, for a variety of reasons were going to walk through. So there is no such thing as an easy battle. There's no such thing other than a tough battle that will be decided on the House side by a paper-thin margin, that your only elbowroom or moment of relaxation would be in handling it in the Senate or in conference. So to suggest that what we tried to put in place--the utilization of manpower that I talked about originally--was effective to the fullest and it was maximized to the greatest possible level in every instance would be just gilding the lily. That wasn't the case. We just had one hang of a problem keeping up with all of this and finding ourselves sometimes trying to juggle four, five or six balls in the air. And when you're in that kind of a situation, you just sweat out every single darn thing. You're not nearly as effective as you'd like to be. That's why that Congress, even though the margin wasn't as great in the off-year election, all we did was get out of it even in terms of past statistics. In that Congress, under those circumstances it was just a major struggle in the House, and [even] with all the problems that we had in the Senate, in retrospect it was a smoother road for us. So it sounds cynical to suggest that if you're talking about a youth training program or whatever you're talking about, it's obviously meaningful or you wouldn't undertake it in the first instance. You're vitally interested in succeeding, but to suggest that it was subject to the same degree of effort and intensity as, say Social Security, is not an accurate reflection on what actually occurred. And really, to pinpoint specific meetings, specific negotiations, one-on-one contacts, and the ebb and flow of all this two decades later, without the benefit of all kinds of documentation is tough to do. I think what we are overlooking, too, is something like a trade bill, where you formalize the citizen effort. In reaching out for support throughout all this, we were constantly reaching beyond the administration, whether it was with the AFL-CIO or the National Education Association or various organizations around the country that had lobbying entities in Washington. We never overlooked that factor. Depending on the circumstances, the item of the moment was very detailed. There's nothing unusual about that, I'm sure. It was unique in the sense that we tried to do more than probably our predecessors had done in that regard. 32 O'Brien --Interview III --29 And you adjust to the circumstances. When we get to the trade bill, for example, obviously your citizen effort has dimensions that wouldn't exist in most of the other legislation you were advocating. That was an entirely different team. There were individuals that were involved directly in that activity that you would probably never see again or had not worked with at a prior time. There's nothing very glamorous in all of this, or very exciting. G: Let me ask you about Medicare. That was brought up in 1961, and there's some indication that one of the reasons that Medicare did not advance farther was because the Ways and Means Committee was taking up other pieces of legislation. Is this [accurate]? O: Yes. That's right. They had a pretty full plate. They generally do, so that wasn't unusual. But from day one on Medicare, never did I envision ultimate, final failure. It was only a matter of time. G: Really? O: Because the guts of it, the substance of it demanded favorable action. It was inevitable, and the AMA could scream until hell froze over about creating a socialist state and this sort of stuff, but let's face it, you were getting to ultimately confronting Medicare. Off what? Not off a recently developed thought process that brought about area redevelopment and a number of other things. This was a carryover of three decades. There's nothing new about this, and it had taken three decades, as it did with Social Security before it was enacted. And under our process that occurs. Some of the most demanding areas of challenge at the federal level can be areas that take the longest to attend to. Then the other part of Medicare--you had Kerr-Mills, and you had the pride of authorship with Kerr and Mills. Bob Kerr had no interest in Medicare, and Mills would not have any interest in Medicare until we had the full-court press and he had the head count to show that it would be enacted. And that would be down that road. Meanwhile, Wilbur Mills wasn't making any admission that Kerr-Mills wasn't getting the job done or that it wasn't progressive legislation. So it wasn't that there was a nonexistent program and you're trying to fill a tremendous void. You had these other elements. You talk about the AMA. If we could overcome lobbying efforts in other areas, which we did, then the AMA certainly wasn't going to stop us over the long haul. So I don't feel that the agenda of the Ways and Means Committee at that time necessarily contributed to a delay in Medicare, because it was going to take time and effort and it would be prolonged. And we knew that, before you would get to D-day on Medicare in any event. So if there was an excuse that because of the heavy agenda of the Ways and Means Committee we hadn't gotten to Medicare, that would not be the reality of the situation. G: I saw some reference to the point that President Kennedy was even more eager to press 33 O'Brien --Interview III --30 Medicare after realizing how much his own father's medical treatment had cost after that stroke, and thinking that people of more modest means would be literally wiped out by it. O: Yes, that impacted on him. G: Do you recall your discussion with him on it? O: I recall a general discussion, because I had a discussion with him involving my father. I could relate to it even more than he could. But it happened in my family that my father had a prolonged illness extending over a period of some years, which financially devastated our family. It took all our resources. But we lived through that, continued our little business, and all the resources that we had ultimately went into my father's care. It was an experience that I had gone through, my family had gone through. So what more do you need to have it indelibly impressed upon you that this [is needed]? Because I could [relate to it]. Everything is relative, and Kennedy could, at his economic level, say, "People at a lower economic level must have a terrible time." At our economic level, there were any number of millions of people below our economic level that couldn't do what we did. It was impossible and it was destructive in terms of the family and, oh, it just was a devastating thing. It happened with Jack in his own family, and to his credit he was very sensitive to this. With Jack, it wasn't that "It cost the Kennedy family a great deal of money to take care of Joseph Kennedy over a number of years." No, his reaction was, "My God, it isn't going to financially devastate us, but what do other people do if they have a similar problem?" You know, there are things you get caught up in, and nothing impacted on me more in terms of my total involvement in it than Medicare. As a generalization, I was always vitally interested in education legislation for the basic reasons that I have described before, but Medicare was highly personalized with me and certainly personalized with the President. G: You've mentioned the AMA and their lobbying effort. Anything specifically that they did to--? O: Yes, the name eludes me, but there was a doctor in the AMA and I wish I could come up with his name. He was the point man and he became nationally known. He was an extremely articulate, persuasive super-salesman. He was constantly on radio and television and in the press carrying on the role of the opposition. He had a lot of impact. He got a lot of ink. I remember that specifically because it was an extreme aggravation to me. G: Really? O: Well, I never met the man, but he would cause me fits when I would read his views and 34 O'Brien --Interview III --31 philosophy, because not only was it totally contra to my beliefs, it was contra to the real world. It made no sense. So he got to me. Probably motivated me even more. G: When you would talk to members of Congress about Medicare during this period, did you feel like that they were under pressure from the AMA to--? O: Yes. The AMA was well organized. I think that if they put their mind to it, the medical profession can do an effective lobbying job. There's a relationship, a patient-doctor relationship, that's sort of traditional, and respect for the profession, maybe not to the degree today that there was then. A doctor was, at least when I was a kid, an eminently respected member of the community; you looked to him for help and assistance. And I think to put together, in the context of the AMA, a national effort that was a heavily financed, in those days certainly heavily financed, with an articulate spokesman along with all their regional and local activities, was very--they were tough adversaries. They didn't, however, have the capacity to expand to any degree beyond their own entity. I mean, as far as mass public reaction or mass support of the AMA position, that wasn't happening. But I think you'd have to say that at this stage of our discussion of Medicare, we're talking about the Ways and Means Committee agenda. And having stated our [position], there couldn't have been a greater commitment in our legislative program than our commitment to Medicare. Nevertheless, at that stage we had a long road ahead of us and we knew it. And it wasn't the AMA position, it was the fact that prior to our arrival, the Congress had made an effort to attend to this problem in some form that resulted in Kerr-Mills. You have Kerr-Mills in place and you have the very people that you're going to have to convert to Medicare that have their names on a program and pride in authorship. Even in a defensive context, you're selling a program, or trying to, where in a sense you're saying to them, "You failed." And I don't suggest that they were motivated in Kerr-Mills, frankly, because they felt it was a fair and equitable measure to attend to a major social problem. I think it was rather an attempt to divert. You often heard, "You've got to give it more time to prove itself." Well, that's an additional roadblock and a significant one. So forget the AMA but concentrate on the Congress and how you were going to overcome these roadblocks; it was a difficult path. Regardless of Wilbur and Kerr and the AMA, somehow, some way this was going to happen. It was inevitable. And I guess I used that phrase at that time, "as inevitable as tomorrow morning's sunrise." G: You mentioned the opposition lobby for the AMA. Who lobbied in behalf of the bill? O: Well, there was a group. There was the labor lobby, the liberal lobby and the various elements of it, the senior citizen lobby. It wasn't an army that had to be developed. You were able to edge it on to further activity, but it was in place. So on the lobbying side, the AMA was outnumbered from day one. 35 O'Brien --Interview III --32 G: Yes. Did you coordinate this whole lobby? O: Yes. And if we're getting to Medicare, we'll get to our attempt in the private or public sector, whatever you want to call it, to exert pres-sure on the Congress, which was a failure. G: Let me ask you to go into that. This was the speech at Madison Square Garden? O: There were several people in the administration who became involved. It was discussed, obviously, with the senior citizen groups, who are well organized. And despite my saying that it was inevitable that this would be enacted, they were suggesting to us that we weren't moving aggressively. We were getting little favorable reaction from Wilbur Mills, and certainly no favorable reaction from Kerr. There's an army out there; there's a constituency that's broad-based and national in scope. And we're not talking, again, about programs that might have civil rights sensitivity. This is in another framework. So there were those among us, some of them colleagues of mine, who became persuaded that you had to have this grass-roots, highly visible, figurative march on Washington. And, by gosh, Wilbur Mills or none of the rest of these people could resist that, and we'd just sort of roll over them. I was not one of that persuasion, but there was a strong view, and finally it came to actually formalizing a program that would entail a number of mass meetings across the country. I remained concerned about its effectiveness in terms of the people that we had to convert. And if you looked at the states these people represented and the districts they represented, this massive effort could conceivably not shake them at all and might harden their resistance. You might build a resentment toward this rather blatant effort to push them around. It was rather overwhelming within the administration. More and more, the people that were not engaged in congressional relations were of this mind. And there was enthusiasm for it among the groups that would be involved. Ultimately we signed off on it, and I did not register formal opposition to signing off on it. I had reservations, but no formal opposition. And I must say that I had to be impressed with what supposedly was in place and the organizational effort, which was separate from our congressional relations. The organizational effort, as at least was reported to me, indicated that this would play pretty well around the country. So we launched it in Madison Square Garden, and we may, I don't recall, have had a few other meetings of a similar nature. A well-organized New York effort produced the bodies; the speeches were made and a fair amount of publicity emanated from it. I tell you, it was less than a pebble in the ocean as far as the Congress was concerned and might be counterproductive. They had taken on, these well-motivated people, a task that was beyond them, frankly, to replay Madison Square Garden in twenty cities across the country. It faded quickly. All of a sudden I found that there was no one around urging this continuity, and it disappeared and was never heard from again. 36 O'Brien --Interview III --33 I think it taught some folks a lesson. There were times I was a little resentful of the attitudes of some of the observers. I'm not talking about media observers. I'm talking about administration observers that would have their own views on why we weren't making more progress, what was wrong with our operation and what they would do in its stead. Once in a while it was a little bit aggravating. This effort fell of its own weight. And because it fell of its own weight and the impact was minimal, it blew over in terms of concern I might have had about people's having their backs stiffened because of the arrogance of the administration in trying to push them around in this way. I think a lesson probably was learned, too, that if you're going to go to the people to try to stir the Congress, there are ways of doing it, as long as you decide up front that you're not going to put a cover on it. Harry Truman did it very effectively. President Reagan has done it rather effectively. I think a president can have some effect because he has every right to make his appeal to the people on behalf of his program. And he can hope that that would have an effect on the constituents or the member level. But in the organized concept we launched, the lesson learned is that it's somewhat of a dream. It is a massive undertaking and you'd better be absolutely sure there's no way it can fall of its own weight, because you're just going to self-destruct. I think most of my friends that were involved in this didn't really understand what it meant to march fifteen to twenty thousand people into twenty arenas over a period of six or eight weeks--the cost factor, the sheer organizational factor. If you did put on a pretty good show and you looked for the reaction over the next seven days and you couldn't find any, that's pretty bad. In congressional relations, we'd reach out to the entities that have a common interest and have some resources in place in lobbying the Congress. G: Who organized it? O: I believe that there was a national committee involvement in the organizing of it. There was a fellow named Dick Maguire who was probably one of the key fellows. I don't recall that it was a formalized group, but I think it emanated probably from Dick and some people that had made the recommendations to Dick. That's the best of my recollection. And it had the full approbation of the senior citizens groups around the country. G: What was President Kennedy's reaction to the Madison Square Garden speech? O: I don't think he had direct involvement and I don't think that he directed a great deal of attention to Madison Square Garden, frankly. G: Do you think he felt that it was not a success? 37 O'Brien --Interview III --34 O: I don't really know. It was a program that he had no objection to. It had been passed by him and that was fine with him. That would be just about the extent of it. I found no reason to even discuss it with Kennedy after the fact. G: Really? O: No. G: Well, was the administration sensitive at the time to the difference between speaking to a large arena full of people on the one hand and speaking to a television audience on the other? O: They felt that you were getting a little of both because they felt that it would be covered by local television. And if you went across the country, you probably came within the range of local television nation-wide ultimately, and there would be an extensive amount of coverage of the events and the planning of the events and local press conferences to announce the events. It just didn't play out that way. (Interruption) O: If you're talking about farm legislation in just about any of its aspects, you're talking to a fellow who considered farm legislation somewhat similar to a foreign language. I found myself basically substantively out of it, and I leaned heavily--we all did--on Orville Freeman and his people. We carried on our responsibilities. Henry Hall Wilson had some basic understanding of farm legislation and its intricacies. But I'll say as a group we on the Congressional Relations staff were lost. We could discuss substance on just about any piece of legislation. Most of it went to a reasonable understanding of the legislation and a sense of compromise that goes with the job. So you could get along, and you could get into some basic, substantive amendment agreements. But when it came to farm legislation, I just never felt comfortable with it. I decided that the best thing we could do on the White House staff in this area was to do our head counts, "Are you for us or against us?" without getting too far into the complexities, and then rely on Orville and that very good staff he had. I wasn't going to be around long enough or have enough time to become sufficiently knowledgeable in this field to be effective in the substantive side. G: Did you have to balance the interest of the various state delegations in the Congress, like the tobacco states--O: Oh, yes. G: --and the rice-producing states and cotton? O: Oh, yes, there was a continuing give and take--one hand would wash the other. There 38 O'Brien --Interview III --35 was a lot of that. G: What could the administration do for the farm state congressmen? O: Not a great deal beyond being advocates of what they believed in and sought. On executive action in the Department of Agriculture, there were areas where Orville could be helpful. Our advocacy didn't often conform with the Farm Bureau's views, but there's the other farm organization and the representatives of the farm areas in the Congress. My recollection of farm legislation is that all legislation would incorporate discussions in advance with the people that you were going to be dealing with after submission of the legislation, and you'd work on the message jointly. Oftentimes the messages were worked on jointly by staff people--our staff people and staff from the appropriate committees--to see if you couldn't get it into a shape that would be palatable. But on the farm legislation, I never participated in the development stages of the legislation. And I rather suspect that if you went back and checked it out, you'd find that a good deal--and this is what we considered a unique area of legislation--rested very much on the lap of the Department of Agriculture. Tape 3 of 4, Side 1 G: The measure requested by the administration was the supply management, an effort to implement some control over production. The agricultural interests, particularly the large ones, seemed to be opposed to it. O: Well, I think the problem continues. Corporate farmers re the family farmer? The interests of the large corporate farmer probably were best served by tax legislation rather than farm legislation. What do they call it, agri--? G: Agribusiness? O: Yes, it's called agribusiness. At that time, too--you're going back two decades--there were far more family farms than exist today. There was truly a farm constituency of significant proportions which was very vocal, very effective. The march on Washington of the family farmer is a tradition, and it can be awfully impressive. I saw it different times and I've seen it since. When they emerge en masse on Capitol Hill, it not only clogs the corridors, but gets the attention of the Congress. The lobbying power, and that's reflected in farm legislation, of the American farm community is extremely significant. We are now living in a period when there's great hue and cry about the demise of the family farm. Mortgage foreclosures appear on national television constantly. It's just amazing when you look at the statistics as to the percentage of farming in this country that is attributable to family farms and the tremendous change in agriculture in this country. This change was certainly in place, but I can't envision the corporate farm, the agrimanagement or whatever they call it. Often now these farms are simply conglomerates; it has little or nothing to do with the history of farming in this country. It 39 O'Brien --Interview III --36 has nothing really to do with the family farm, nothing to do with the city folks' envisionment of farming. But at that time it was more in the traditional concept, with a constituency that was highly vocal, well organized, and had a broad base of strong support on the Hill. Farm legislation had taken on all kinds of connotations. You get a little tobacco and a little cotton, a little bit of rice and you've got some mix. As I said, [there were] all kinds of give and take and one hand washing the other. How can you explain how you can have tremendous public concern regarding smoking, and at the same time have continuing concern that tobacco be subsidized at the taxpayer's expense? We've heard all these stories, but when you're dealing with farm legislation and what our role in the White House in congressional relations would be regarding farm legislation, it wasn't that it was insignificant. It was foreign to us and you had to look to those that were experts in this field to carry the burden. That made it different than the normal legislative struggle. G: You had a one-year extension of the emergency feed grains program that year, and this bill was passed in the House by seven votes that reportedly were obtained at the last minute. Do you recall that one? O: Who were the seven? G: I don't know, but there were four GOP members that voted for you and I know who they are: [Robert] Dole, Phil Weaver, Carl Andersen, Odin Langen. Also, you got the support of a lot of the Eastern Seaboard Democrats who normally opposed this kind of legislation. Do you recall--? O: Yes. I recall that it was another indication of the degree of support for the President that existed among eastern Democrats. I do recall that there were some of those fellows who had never voted for a comparable farm bill. This was a first for a number of them. Some of the other votes represented the effectiveness of the farm lobby. The farm lobby would have no effect on the Eastern Seaboard Democrats, to any extent. Frankly, it is easy to say the seven that were needed were finally there--they were converted--but it would not have succeeded without the support of the Eastern Seaboard Democrats who had no constituent interest to speak of in this area and had traditionally not been supportive. That was to support the President, it was as simple as that. Those votes really had little or nothing to do with the substance of that legislation. G: One of the press accounts noted that you ran into a last-minute revolt from patronage-hungry northern Democrats on this bill. O: Well, that would be an appropriate time for them to discuss patronage with me, because the pitch that we would be making to them is "you have to help the President on this one." You were not in much of a position to be persuading them on the merits. This was a 40 O'Brien --Interview III --37 matter of loyalty, of support for the President and that would be appropriate. It is an excellent example of votes from sources that have no constituent interest. On the basis that "You've got to help the President. This is the President's program, and now come on, it isn't going to hurt you any, and you can go with it." And that would inevitably in some instances lead into "Hey, okay, but wait a minute. What have you done for me lately? This is a two-way street." That's totally understood; that's part of the process. And, Lord knows, there might have been a few people tucked into position somewhere as a result of those votes. Or maybe we reopened some old files that we'd put on hold. (Laughter) But that was an acceptable practice. You didn't resent it at all. Fair enough. G: Was President Kennedy sensitive to this, too? Did he understand the need for this kind of give and take? O: Oh, sure. I'm not suggesting he lacked farm knowledge to the degree I did, but by the same token I don't think he ever would present himself as a farm expert. He'd know that the only way you could piece this together was to get some solid friends up there to give you one that was of no benefit to them. But, of course, it wasn't that tough, because you weren't asking them to give you one that was adverse to their interest. That was where you got into the tough situations. This wasn't nearly as tough to vote as foreign aid. G: Another measure that year was the Mexican farm labor law that was extended. This was a very close vote in the Senate, I think a one-vote margin. It was basically a measure to protect the wages of American farmers while providing for this imported labor. According to the press reports, LBJ worked actively for the defeat of the amendment which had the administration's support. Does this ring any bell? Of course, he was coming from Texas--O: I was going to say, "working actively" might be an exaggeration in the press report. I would accept that he was trying to be helpful on a regional basis. It's a difficult area and, as we know, remains a difficult area to this day. This wasn't an initiation of a program; this was something you're faced with on a calendar. This is a form of extension that we would like to have, and if even friends wanted to do a little adjusting in that regard, I don't think it would be of overriding concern to us. That's probably a pretty callous statement, but that's the reality of it. G: Was it unusual for him to take a position that was officially not the administration's? O: I can't recall any similar circumstance. In that case, you have to remember that he was reflecting constituent interests that he had been supportive of for a long time as a member of Congress. 41 O'Brien --Interview III --38 G: Yes. You've talked about the NASA program to the extent that Albert Thomas was interested. In 1961 here you started out with a smaller amount of money and it would get larger. Was this a purposeful approach, to expand it over a period of years rather than go in front asking for--? O: It was trying to recognize the possibilities. You wanted to establish a policy and build on it later. There were those curbstone observers who would suggest that's lacking in courage. But it would be a judgment, and in that case is a pretty clear one, that it would be far better to establish this and build on that. Because you could darn well wind up with no loaf otherwise. That's a very practical approach to it. That was weighted in a variety of ways from time to time. There were those that would suggest probably when we get to civil rights, that's the best example in the history of the legislative process, are you to be faulted because you did not demand the absolute, 100 per cent, strongly developed civil rights bill? And there were those that did just that. We got a lot of heat in that regard. Or do you open up this difficult area by some realistic approach that can ensure that you will accomplish an objective and you can build from there? That was the judgment that went into this equation and went into a lot of them. Incidentally, that fight would go on with regularity within the administration. I was involved in those struggles often. Just how far, how much of a bite are you going to attempt to take? And I guess there were those, frankly, colleagues of mine that felt, "Gee, O'Brien is always sort of backing up or compromising even before we start." You have to weigh those things. Now, I did it in the opposite direction when we got to the trade bill. Do you have an extension or do you have a new program? Frankly, the State Department was in favor of an extension. George Ball and I discussed it directly with the President and had it out. It was my judgment that it was doable, that we just cut out this nonsense, trying to stay alive--let's bite the bullet. And we did. So it isn't that on every occasion I was for withdrawal or limitation. I would be perfectly willing to carry on, just to get the adrenalin flowing, if I felt that was the appropriate approach. G: Any insights on President Kennedy's attitude toward the space program here? O: Yes, very early on he was awfully concerned about progress or lack of it in the space program. He became very much personally involved and committed. It intrigued him, attracted him, and again it's the old Jack Kennedy syndrome: the challenge. It wasn't the Houston Ministers Conference or the Texas delegation or Humphrey debates or what have you. This was a challenge: "Those Russians, we're going to get this job done and we're going to have national pride." I'm personalizing it because, as president of the United States, Jack Kennedy very early on was upset. He was intrigued, upset, enthusiastic and looking forward, and his enthusiasm, of course, was most pronounced when some accomplishments received national attention. 42 O'Brien --Interview III --39 G: Did he view it as a military potential as well as a scientific--? O: I don't really think so. Not that he was specific with me, but I think that there was a significant element of, "By God, they're not better than we are. They can't do this better than we can. I'm not going to sit here and be second class." And I think that would be the motivating factor. Then you go into the scientific. On the military side, I never heard any indication that he had focused his direction into this area because he felt that there was significant military fallout. Certainly the scientific potential was well understood by him. But knowing him as I did, I want to emphasize that. Everything was a fight and he loved to win. It was almost like a direct confrontation. It was, "Those guys are doing all this bragging, and I keep reading about how inept we are. I'm not going to stand for it." It got his adrenalin flowing. Oh, yes, he was very much involved in that area. G: Do you think the military would have liked to have had a larger role in the program than they had? O: Yes. Only by the nature of the military. G: Did this ever come up when you were--? O: Not in terms of our activities. I guess to some extent never the twain shall meet. I never felt that the military was really aboard. Maybe there were a lot of civilians in government that weren't aboard regarding the New Frontier program, but I never deluded myself into thinking anybody in the Pentagon other than our own people at the top gave a darn. So I think that it would be our natural tendency really to be reticent about accepting military demands in most things. We tried to keep them a little bit at arm's length. G: Your files seem to reflect by 1962 an increased White House interest in the NASA contract activities. That these contracts were getting larger and there was a lot of potential for political considerations there, because in some cases it apparently didn't matter who got the contract. Do you recall that aspect and can you elaborate on that? O: Yes. I'd like to elaborate on it. I can tell you that there was a recognition of the political potential. And once there was a recognition of it, there was an attempt to implement where we could and be helpful where we could, and we became very much involved and probably to an inordinate degree, because that isn't an area you're supposed to get that much involved with. But we didn't consider that sacrosanct or untouchable at all. In fact, it was very much a part of discussions regarding contracts and how they might relate to legislative progress. G: How did you get this recognition to begin with? How did it come to your attention that NASA was awarding all these contracts? O: It came to our attention because it represented a relatively new area. This not only 43 O'Brien --Interview III --40 showed rapid growth, but it would have continuing rapid growth and we're going to be up front and keep a close eye on all of this. And this could be a meaningful tool. We just can't sit idly by and let all this happen without seeing if there isn't some fallout that's advantageous to us. So we were very sensitive to it. G: Did you meet with Jim Webb and educate him on it? O: We met with Jim Webb often. Not necessarily me all the time, but Jim Webb was a constant visitor to the White House. The communication was regular over that period of time. G: Did Jim Webb make a lot of these decisions in terms of contracts and location of facilities? O: Well, he had input, and Jim Webb was a very able guy. He was a good administrator, very attentive, and we were impressed with him. And I think what impressed me was that he had a sensitivity to our problems and a desire to be helpful. It was like John Connally saying to us, "If my department isn't functioning in the best interests of the White House and there are some ways that we can do better, all I need you to do is tell me." And Jim Webb was of that school. G: Do you recall how Webb was selected as administrator? O: No, I really don't. I don't think I knew Jim Webb prior to selection. G: Was there ever any discussion of an alternative to going to the moon, or should we go to the moon, or anything of this nature? O: I don't recall any discussion about whether or not we should go to the moon, no. As far as I was concerned I knew that's where we were headed and that was our objective. And I don't know as that was a matter of great debate. I would not have had any doubt in my mind about the President's view. G: He shared that? O: Well, the President's commitment to the whole thing. G: Let's see. We've got--( Interruption) O: --the extension [of the Civil Rights Commission]. It didn't turn out to be just a simple process. There was an effort to dismantle this in a sense. There was a variety of efforts in that regard, because the opportunity presented itself, at least in the minds of some of the fellows on the Hill. So we had to fend off a variety of suggestions and efforts that would, if not eliminate it, leave it ineffective, certainly diminish any activity. My recollection is 44 O'Brien --Interview III --41 we succeeded in fending all that off. G: Yes. O: I don't think we wound up with anything overridingly negative in the extension, although there were probably some pretty close calls there, though. I don't remember the details. Does the record reflect that? G: Well, the Republicans seem to have been in favor of a longer extension, a four-year extension. Was the administration, on the other hand, concerned with keeping the Democratic Party relatively united on this? O: I mean, I don't think we wound up with any overridingly negative aspect in the extension, although there were probably some pretty close calls there, though. I don't remember the details. Does the record reflect that? G: Well, the Republicans seem to have been in favor of a longer extension, a four-year extension. Was the administration, on the other hand, concerned with keeping the Democratic Party relatively united on this? O: That's right. I think that some of the Republican support for the extension was callous. This afforded an opportunity to play some games, and games were played. When you think of extending an existing com-mission, the Civil Rights Commission, why should that create serious problems really? But it did. Weren't there attempts to restrict the activities of the commission? There was something else in there, too. There's no indication of that? G: I don't see it here. I'll check it though. Anything on the reorganization of the regulatory agencies? The White House submitted a whole--I guess Newton Minow and some of the others, maybe Jim Landis had come up with a series of reorganization packages. O: Actually, Jim Landis was brought into the White House for that express purpose. He was a long-time associate of Joe Kennedy's and had quite a reputation in the general field. That was launched as a broad-based attempt to correct and reorganize and improve. It was very broad, and Jim's mandate was to go right at all the regulatory agencies and come up with an overall omnibus proposal. He devoted a good deal of time to that. And what was the motivation? The obvious. There was a dire need. It was pretty messy. Very messy. G: Some of these proposals encountered a terrible time on the Hill, didn't they? O: Oh, sure. And we were not naive about that. Listen, you're getting into the territory of fellows on the Hill, their little prerogatives. They're comfortable with a lot of these things, and all of a sudden you're trying to shake the tree. That inevitably was going to be a very 45 O'Brien --Interview III --42 difficult situation and that motivated at the outset [our plan]: let's not go at this piecemeal. Let's get the best fellow we know or can find and give him free rein. It really is going to be spinning wheels if you're going to do a piece of this or a piece of that, or correct a measure here or correct a measure there. You've got to go to the regulatory process in all its dimensions and evaluate it and recommend what action should be taken to improve or correct. So you have taken on some task [inaudible]. G: Yes. Newton Minow had referred to the television programming as a vast wasteland and said there was nothing sacred or permanent about a broadcast license. Did this give you a little bit of heat on the Hill to work with? O: It gave us some heat on the Hill, but I loved it. (Laughter) Because he was stating a fact. I think I've had an innate sort of resentment--well, it isn't resentment, but I don't think I appreciate some of the arrogance of the communications industry. It was clear to me that [if] you receive a television license, you've received a right and a privilege that is revocable. So in the commercial context you derive a great deal of profit from this, but you should never feel that you have an exclusivity that isn't subject to periodic scrutiny and under certain circumstances revocable or think that you are General Motors--you're not in the private sector. You've got a license to use the public airwaves. I see CBS people down there testifying as though somehow or other they created the airwaves and somehow or other they have a corporation that's analogous to the automobile industry and that there is no continuing public right in this or no governmental right in terms of this authority granted to them by license. So having said all that, you can picture that as Newt made this comment, he couldn't have been more accurate. G: But the plan was defeated something like 320 to 77. O: (Laughter) I think that's one instance that [we thought], let's put it to a vote and we anticipated defeat. I think some of us were motivated, a little differently in that instance. I know I was. I just don't appreciate the granting of public usage of public property, and then have people after a period of time determine that it's exclusively theirs. And somehow my right as a citizen to the airwaves has been just eliminated. I don't accept that sort of thing and I do resent when I see somebody testifying in an arrogant manner that somehow ownership was acquired by simply a piece of paper given to them as a privilege they have as a citizen. That is not subject to inheritance. Each time this crops up I have a tendency to get my dander up a little bit. Tape 3 of 4, Side 2 O: --beyond the normal corporate procedures. 46 O'Brien --Interview III --43 G: Yes. Did President Kennedy share your attitude? O: I'm not sure that he did. I know this, that President Kennedy thought very highly of Newt Minow, and his regard for Newt Minow wasn't dissipated in the slightest as a result of that comment. G: The SEC plan, which was opposed by the New York Stock Exchange, was rejected in the Senate by a roll-call vote. Here apparently the opposition centered on the commission's delegating some of its decision-making power to subordinates so that you would have lower-level people making [decisions]. Do you recall your efforts to clear this reorganization plan? O: The problem with the contention of the opposition was that there was some merit to it. I think there's always a resistance to delegating authority down. I think there was a valid criticism. Now, maybe structurally and administratively it should be done. I'm not suggesting that it wasn't meritorious in that regard, but I think the very concept that there's going to be significant decision-making down three or four levels is a matter of concern. I think at that time, our advocacy was obvious and we did what we could on it. You think about it and there's an argument that can be presented. It's not in the context of "How can we find a way of gutting the administration?" Now, maybe I'm exaggerating that, and I'm not suggesting there wasn't that motivation. I repeat it only because it is a little different than most things you were faced with. There was that element that to a lot of people made sense. It's a little hard to argue. You can argue it administratively, but how far do you go in creating little kingdoms? G: The Republicans seem to have been relatively united in opposition to most of these reorganization packages. O: Yes. I think that came naturally. [It lacked] the inherent appeal that you need in some of these things to shake solid opposition. This wasn't an overriding, major attention-getter in the political context or in public dimension, and [there was] sort of [the feeling], "we're going to stay with tradition." That came rather naturally and I think brought about the unity you described. We didn't have much of a constituency, other than claiming that it would be more effective; it's more businesslike, it's a better approach. There's a big yawn out there while you're engaged in that kind of an effort. In fact, on something like that, the New York Stock Exchange would not be considered part of the constituency of a liberal Democratic administration. I think there would be a tendency to view the New York Stock Exchange as supportive of a reorganization process. I wonder why they couldn't be more effective than they were. G: Yes. 47 O'Brien --Interview III --44 O: After all, the New York Stock Exchange, that's the heart of the business community. That was Jim Landis' area of greatest expertise, of course, the SEC. G: You had the highway bill that year which was passed. O: Yes. You could put that under the general category of public works. G: Was there any way to promise or suggest where the highway funds might be spent? O: No, just a general conversation that would always be in the context of a number of alternatives, nothing specific. You could always anticipate and hope. G: Did members of Congress make their support contingent on their getting a federal highway or--? O: Not observably. And if they had that in mind, some of those members were in a position to get it done whether we liked it or not. G: What was Wilbur Mills' role here in the highway bill? O: I don't recall. G: One of the press accounts indicates that he deserves a lot of the real credit for the passage of this legislation in 1961. O: Well, I think just being supportive of it would have a real plus factor. And that would indicate that he was more than supportive of it. I don't recall the specifics, but when Wilbur Mills was aboard, you always remembered two things. One, you were on the verge of success or it appeared that way, and you could prove the case to Wilbur that you had done your homework and the ducks were in reasonable order. And secondly, he had a personal commitment and personal reasons for being supportive or helpful. He was very much a realist. G: The administration proposed continuing a four cents a gallon tax on gasoline and increasing the taxes on heavy trucks and excise taxes on tires. And here you were opposed by the trucking industry. Do you recall this? O: I only recall one aspect of it, that prior to formalizing the proposal we were clearly aware of where the opposition would come from and to what degree it would impact. That that proposal was going to have widespread opposition from the industry, and traditionally always has. So that was all part of the equation. G: You did have some regulation of billboards in this measure, which-- 48 O'Brien --Interview III --45 O: Rather modest, as I remember. I think, again, there was a little bit of the "let's get the foot in the door," maybe you could get your foot in the door. The billboard [issue], even at that stage, was becoming a matter of some discussion. Not only in the administration, you'd hear a lot of negative comments regarding the proliferation--and rightly so--of billboards all over the highways. We were sensitive to that and person-ally felt that way. It was sort of a natural reaction, and at some point we decided that maybe we'd see if we could get something started. G: Senator Kerr opposed this effort to limit or control billboards. O: Yes, and you know something, we couldn't understand it because he didn't have a billboard in sight out where he lived. (Laughter) I'm only being facetious. G: Was he regarded as a supporter of the billboard industry? O: Yes, it was understood. G: Why was that? O: I don't know really. You know, it takes strange turns. The billboard industry has muscle. There's a lot at stake and it's a big business. Also, they know they're in an area that people aren't particularly enamored with. Most people don't get overly excited about it. But certainly you're not going to have a lot of people jumping up and down and saying, "Gosh, I'd love to see more billboards." I'm not sure that there's been a complete handle on that to this day. Certainly Mrs. Johnson had very, very strong views in this area. G: Was this apparent while LBJ was vice president? O: I don't recall that. G: Okay. I have a few miscellaneous things I want to ask you about: JFK's trip to Europe in May of 1961, his meeting with de Gaulle, his meeting with Khrushchev, the summit in Vienna, meeting with MacMillan. Did you have any involvement in any of these? O: No. G: Okay. O: No, that was a rather natural evolvement in the context of our recognition that his election had brought about the beginning of a new era. For example, when you think that when Kennedy became president of the United States, he was truly representative of a new 49 O'Brien --Interview III --46 generation. He, among the world leaders, was of a new generation. You have de Gaulle and Khrushchev and MacMillan and Churchill and the rest. And at some point in terms of your leadership role in the whole policy area, you have to make your presence known. And it was carefully orchestrated so that there would be this exposure to the established leadership of the western world and the establishment of Kennedy as not only a world leader by virtue of election as president, but a world leader in terms of his own personality and presence. G: Did you ever talk to him about his meetings with these people later and his attitude toward--? O: No, other than fleeting comments about the Khrushchev meeting, which was quite disturbing to him. G: Oh, really? The Vienna [summit]? O: Yes. G: What did he say, do you recall? O: Well, I don't think he felt particularly comfortable about it, was a little taken aback with this fellow. He had a negative reaction to the meeting and he had a newer view of Khrushchev as a result of it, and didn't feel that the meeting accomplished. G: Did he ever talk about de Gaulle? O: No, not to me. G: The Berlin Wall, were you involved in any of the deliberations there? O: No, I joined the last leg of the trip in Ireland and only because he--see, this wasn't a trip that had any involvement with the legislation or congressional activities and I had no role in it. He suggested to me, however, that in view of my heritage, why didn't I meet him at the airport in Dublin and travel the three days in Ireland with him. That finally resulted in a whole planeload of people going over. G: Really? O: Everyone that could actually or remotely establish any Irish heritage wound up getting his or her name on the roster. It probably was Air Force Two because it did have some sleeping accommodations, and [the roster] included one or two of Jack's sisters. Jack Anderson got hold of the--G: Manifest? 50 O'Brien --Interview III --47 O: Manifest. And published the names of all of us in his column as another example of squandering taxpayers' money. But I did join him in Ireland and stayed through the trip. He went on to Italy and I went there informally, stayed with the Italian side of the trip, too. But I was not on the major aspects of the trip. I must say that the appearance in Berlin has had staying power to this day. It was one of the most remarkable public appearances of any figure in history. And I don't believe that those that were involved envisioned that kind of impact. But that was the highlight to him, I think. And in personal terms, not as president, the highlight was clearly his visit to Ireland. He became emotionally caught up in the visit. I was with him throughout the visit in the helicopters at each one of these stops, including the homestead of his forebears, an aunt still living there in this thatched-roof cottage. At the end of that trip he never got over it. He continually brought it up. G: Really? What did he say about it? O: Well, the wonder of it all. There must have been more people that saw Jack Kennedy in Ireland than the entire population of Ireland. The smallest little by-way stop that you helicoptered into, you'd find thousands of people grinning and roaring and screaming and this went on for three days. Then it culminated as he departed the airport. It was Shannon. And they had this youth choir sing "Come Back to Erin." It just absolutely broke him up. He got the recordings of all this. He'd play the record and reminisce. He was probably third-generation Irish. It wasn't as intimate as my relationship with the country would be. But his pride in his heritage just overwhelmed him. It had nothing to do with foreign policy; it was highly personal. I got a kick out of him. He loved to reminisce about those days. But the major attention-getter was the Berlin stop. G: What did he say about Berlin? O: Not much to me. I mean, it was all pretty obvious; there was nothing much to say. The comments he made to me regarding the trip were on two or three occasions in reference to Khrushchev and his experience with him and his reaction to it. It was quite negative. They were later on to confront each other, in any event. G: Yes. Did he feel that his Berlin speech was a big success, though? Did he [comment on that]? O: Yes. Nobody anticipated he wouldn't be enthusiastically welcomed in Berlin, but the extent and depth of it was remarkable. That's one of the best pieces of film I've ever seen. I've noticed in any retrospective involving that Kennedy era, inevitably they have that 51 O'Brien --Interview III --48 sixty seconds in there. G: Do you recall his sending LBJ to Berlin to receive the troops as they marched--? O: Yes. Nothing other than the schedule aspect, and his unavailability for a period of time in the legislative side. Nothing in terms of the sub-stance of the trip. G: The Vice President also went to the Far East that year. O: Rather extensive travel that year. G: That's right: Vietnam, China, Indonesia. Was Johnson reluctant to go to Vietnam? I understand that the President had to persuade him to go. O: I really don't know. I can tell you this. After the fact, the President was extremely pleased with the Johnson trips, both trips. He felt that he had acquitted himself well. There was never any second-guessing or any criticism of any aspect of it. And some aspects of that trip were quite sensitive. G: Which ones in particular? O: The Vietnam end of it. That whole trip. You had to be very careful and very diplomatic in the way you handled yourself. G: Was part of that mission to press reforms on the South Vietnamese government, on [Ngo Dinh] Diem? O: Yes. I couldn't say that that was the overriding factor, but certainly that was one aspect of it. G: Do you think that that trip changed LBJ's attitude toward Vietnam or toward Diem? O: I don't know. I just never had discussions with him that would qualify me to have an opinion. I don't think we had any extensive discussions after the fact. G: Yes. The President's sister and brother-in-law [Jean and Stephen Smith] went along on that. Why did they go, do you know? O: I don't know as I can comment on that either. Other than the participation of the family in a variety of ways in the administration was apparent: Bobby as AG; you had Eunice [Shriver] quite active in making appearances here and all the members of the family. Again, you have to reflect on the Kennedy family. It was that way in the campaigns and it was inevitable that it would follow a similar pattern in the White House. In the campaigns every member of the family played a role, and it was not just a routine or a cameo role. They were very actively engaged. We know Sarge Shriver's role and for a relatively brief 52 O'Brien --Interview III --49 period of time, Steve Smith's role. Jack Kennedy's approach would be to afford them an opportunity to participate and have experiences. I don't think I'd read anything more significant than that into it. G: Anything on Kennedy's trip to Latin America in December 1961? O: No, I wasn't on that trip. I didn't travel with the President unless it related to congressional activities. That was of my own choosing. I would have enjoyed going on some of those trips, but I knew that that would impact adversely on my own activities. But I do have to make one side-bar comment about that Latin American trip. Lo and behold, sometime after that trip, I believe it was the National Review, which wasn't a periodical that I was in the habit of reading [carried a piece on it]. A clipping from the magazine was brought to my attention in which Buckley stated that Larry O'Brien on the trip to Latin America had embarrassed the President no end, and that he had chosen to visit nightclubs in off hours and rather raucous activity. I haven't been to Latin America in my life, with the President or otherwise. Well, it's a rather minuscule item, but by the same token it was so highly personalized that I thought that this man Buckley would regret making this error; somebody had misinformed him. So I'll drop him a courteous note. And I did. I was sure he would want to know that I was not with the President, nor indeed have I ever been to Latin America, and I would appreciate whatever he thought was appropriate in terms of correcting the record. And that was it. Never heard from him. Never had the courtesy of saying, "Well, I'm sorry that that happened." So that's my recollection of the Latin American trip. That's as close as I came to being involved with it. G: As long as we're on the subject of your press coverage, I want you to recount the occasion in which you received that Time magazine cover story and the background of that. This was September 1961, I believe. O: Yes, I guess so. Well, that resulted from the observations of the Time magazine journalist that was assigned to covering the Congress. He had been in place for some time: Neil McNeil. He and an associate of his had on their own--and I had had no discussions with them--apparently concluded the new or differing congressional relations activity involving the White House, the thrust of it, was worthy of some in-depth review. I learned later they would have a group meeting in New York projecting their Time covers well ahead, and making a group decision as to the cover. My first recognition that this was in the offing was Neil asking me if I would join him for lunch at the Time magazine building. I had a pleasant lunch with a group of people on the magazine. The discussion was informal, related to congressional relations, what it was about and how we engaged in it. I noted an artist was doing a sketch. He worked on this sketch pad during the course of the lunch. I guess about that time they started developing a cover story, because I was questioned by Neil at some length. I had 53 O'Brien --Interview III --50 no knowledge of who else he was talking to, but obviously there was a great deal of contact with various people as part of the cover story. They devoted what seemed to be an inordinate amount of attention to that activity, because it seemed to go on for a period of weeks, to the point where at a given weekend Neil asked me where I would be on Saturday and Sunday. In the meantime, Newsweek decided to do a cover story on four of us in the White House. They set up some camera work for a cover photo, and it included Ken O'Donnell, Ted Sorensen, I can't recall who the fourth one was--it might have been Mac [McGeorge] Bundy--and me. We went through that process over at the White House, out on the lawn. I was told that the cover of Newsweek was to appear in a certain issue. It turned out that the issue Newsweek contemplated for that cover was identical with the issue that Time contemplated for my cover. And Newsweek dropped their cover. G: Sure. O: I have to assume that they decided to drop it at least for the time being because it would relate to the Time cover. And it turned out okay. When you get a number of follow-up calls and the questions that you're asked become unbelievable--back to your birth--you begin to have real qualms. Therefore, when the magazine came out, it was with great relief and I imagine that's a normal reaction, that you found nothing really devastating and accepted it at that. But it was surprising what Luce had accomplished in that, because the aftermath, it went into the thousands of Time covers mailed to me for my autograph. I was asked if I had some idea how many, because they kept record, I guess. And I forget, Phyllis [Maddock] or whoever was just loaded with them for months. It turned out these are people that had a hobby of accumulating [autographed] Time magazine covers. In fact, as recently as six months ago I had a cover sent to me. Somebody had forgotten to take care of it in their portfolio." Neil's such a marvelous fellow and as a result of that involvement we became well acquainted, and we would anyway on the Hill as the years unfolded. So he went out of his way to do something that I really appreciated. He got the original painting, had it framed suitably, and had a little luncheon at a restaurant in Washington and presented it to me. And I recognized later on that that was not the usual procedure. I received a request from Time for the loan of the painting because they were going to ship a number of original covers to some traveling display of Time covers in South America. My recollection is I didn't send it to them; I was fearful I wouldn't get it back because I knew that I didn't have the right of possession in the first instance. There was another fallout later. At a leadership breakfast with President Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, there was an exchange between them. The President said, 54 O'Brien --Interview III --51 "Hubert, have you that invitation to go to this Henry Luce soiree in New York on the fortieth anniversary of Time magazine? All the cover subjects." Hubert [said], "Yes, I got that." "There's no way they would get me to go to that--the way they've treated me." Hubert, of course, was in total agreement with him. G: This is President Kennedy? O: Yes. And it was just sort of a passing comment, but it alerted me. I had received the invitation. I had not acknowledged it, but I'm sure at that point contemplated that this would be a nice experience, to spend three days as the guest of Henry Luce in New York in the variety of functions. But Hubert was in total agreement with Jack Kennedy that they weren't going to honor that occasion by being there, and that was enough for me. So I declined. I think the only surprising thing about the cover was that the activities in congressional relations in the judgment of the Time magazine people justified a cover. But there was one other fallout, and this has another humorous aspect to it. Tape 4 of 4, Side 1 Within a couple of years of the 1961 [cover], it couldn't have been any longer than that, I received a call from Neil McNeil and he said, "We are going to be discussing upcoming Time magazine covers and you will be under consideration for a Time cover. Where are you going to be in"--a certain time frame. I said, "I'll be in Rome at that time." He said, "I'll give you a ring, because I'm sure you'll be curious as to the decision on a second cover." So I said, "That's nice, Neil," and went about my business. Sure enough, I got a phone call from him. And he said, "You're not going to be on the cover. We had quite a discussion in-house. It came to a choice between you and another person, and it was decided that we'd go with the other person, which would be an entertainment cover rather than a political cover. So you were a finalist. Are you curious about who beat you out?" I said, "Yes, who is it?" And he told me it was a very prominent actress, a singer, movie star, I think British--Julie Andrews. So I had the satisfaction, if I were being beaten out of a cover, to be beaten out by an attractive and talented young lady. That was the story of the magazine cover. G: There was another element that you mentioned when we discussed it before, that Neil did give you the raw file on that--O: That's right, too. At some date after this appeared, Neil sent me the raw file. He thought that I might enjoy [reading it]. Whatever number of words are used in the cover, then obviously there's probably five or ten times that number in what is submitted for consideration. He sent me the raw file, or a copy of the raw file. I'll have to say that I don't recall really reading it carefully. I filed it and I'm sure it was included with the material I forwarded on. I guess I would have liked to have read it recently just for the 55 O'Brien --Interview III --52 fun of it, but I haven't, and maybe I'm better off. Maybe there were some comments in there that I wouldn't have appreciated. But anyway, I think the painting, the raw file, and being an advocate of a second cover were a reflection of Neil's reaction to the activities we were engaged in, which he was obviously in a position to closely observe on a day-to-day basis. And that certainly was appreciated, because Neil did on many occasions tell me that he thought it was effective, and you always appreciate a comment of that nature. So let me say that I consider Neil a very objective reporter. (Laughter) G: What impact did that Time cover piece have on your work on the Hill? O: Well, there was a widespread recognition of it. I don't know what the impact is of Time covers currently, but it had become something that did attract attention. The Time people had placed so much emphasis on it over the years and had so many of these related events that tied in with the cover. Of course, they have a large readership. So there were a lot of humorous, pleasant comments around the Hill for a brief period, just a fun sort of thing. I don't think it had any particular impact in terms of the business at hand. G: Do you think it advanced your work, or do you think it was--? O: I don't know. It may have given a little credibility to it. I don't know. There wasn't anything discernible that I can recall. G: What did President Kennedy say about it? O: He made reference to it when it came out, just sort of a positive comment. He thought it was awfully good or something to that effect. He also made an additional comment. As I reviewed in my book, we had had a Kennedy-Furcolo-O'Brien situation years earlier that was rather sensitive, and a Kennedy-Furcolo confrontation which was indirectly part of my involvement with Furcolo at an earlier time, at least it was construed to be. It was widely reported in Massachusetts on that occasion and left a lingering of animosity between Kennedy and Furcolo. That had long passed, but Jack's reaction to the cover was, "I bet Foster Furcolo will love this when he sees it." (Laughter) He got a big chuckle out of that. In any event there was nothing unpleasant about the whole thing, no fallout in terms of what was written that would cause any concern. G: I don't know what the circulation of Time was at the time, but I assume it must have increased your public recognition just on the street. 56 O'Brien --Interview III --53 O: I suppose so. I think the mere fact that Luce developed this fortieth anniversary concept--it obviously included a tremendous number of true notables, not the Larry O'Briens. It was a major event in New York. It was a major attempt and an expensive effort on the part of Time to further promote that cover concept. Imagine calling all these people in from around the world, and getting a number of them. Neil told me that he thought this was one of the great ideas of all time, to have the Time cover become almost part of the language. That of course had a lot to with the general promotion of the magazine. G: So my impression is that President Kennedy did not insist that his aides have a passion for anonymity. O: No, there was never any discussion of that. You came to your own conclusions that applied to me and my staff. We had a responsibility to communicate with the press, because, after all, we were promoting a program and you had a lot of press contact. But you did not take speaking engagements or go on talk shows or that sort of thing. Media attention, if it was directed to you, was of no great value to the President or to the program. So you had to weigh that. Obviously, with the political writers, you had constant communication with them, but it was rare to accept a speaking engagement. Certainly you did get into the profile stuff. That would happen from time to time. The Time cover would be an example, and your concern on the Time cover--conceivably it might even help promote the program, depending on how it turned out--became rather personal. You go through this sort of period and you just hope that it doesn't turn out badly. That's about what it amounted to. G: On a different type of publicity, I noticed from your files there was a question of cabinet officers and others in the administration appearing on Kenneth Keating's television program in New York. A whole list of cabinet officers and administration officials had participated in this program, and there was a decision made that this was not in the best interest of the Kennedy Administration, to advance Kenneth Keating's--O: Actually that decision was made as a result of comments emanating from New York Democratic politicians and some on the Hill. But there was a building resentment and it eluded us because you're not paying that much attention. And actually if a cabinet member can find a forum somewhere to advocate the program, he ought to be doing it. We were really pushing them to be out there as advocates. Some of them didn't care much for that kind of--some had to go to some remote areas and make speeches and submit themselves to terrible travel problems in order to fulfill some of those obligations. But we felt--and incidentally Lyndon Johnson felt--that's part of the job of the visible members of the administration, the cabinet members. But in the Keating instance, that was not a remote. We had no objection to cabinet members going on the program and that would include a congressman or senator's back-home television or radio programs. That went on all the time. But in that instance 57 O'Brien --Interview III --54 with Ken Keating, the Democratic Party people in New York would find administration officials as guests of Keating, and complaints were registered with us. And we reacted to the complaints because, after all, in the political context they were valid complaints. G: I have about three appointments I want to ask you about. One, John Connally's appointment as secretary of the navy. Do you recall where the impetus for this appointment came from? O: No, not really. I made an assumption, obviously, that the impetus came from Lyndon B. Johnson. Now let's assume that, and that's a valid assumption, that Johnson would be interested in Connally having a role in the administration and Connally would be interested in that. John Connally was a worthy adversary at Los Angeles, as Hubert Humphrey was a worthy adversary in West Virginia. In the early stages of the administration I was living at the Mayflower Hotel. John was staying in the Mayflower on a long-term basis. We saw a fair amount of each other. His entrance into the administration was a natural evolvement, as far as I was concerned. I had input in a couple of cabinet appointments, because I had objections to what was contemplated. If I felt that something might develop not in the President's best interests, then I would fulfill a responsibility in that regard. With Connally, there was no element of great surprise that he was entering the Kennedy Administration. Those of us who were political intimates of the President thought it was a good move. John's role, until he chose to leave to take the governorship, was just what you'd expect--a cooperative member of the team. G: There was opposition to his nomination on the Hill: Yarborough, [William] Proxmire and Wayne Morse. Do you recall dealing with that? O: No, not particularly, nor do I recall that we were overly impressed. I do recall the objections, particularly the Yarborough one and it was obvious why. That was part and parcel of that continuing problem. But it wasn't anything that shook us at all. G: How about Robert Kennedy's appointment as attorney general? Did you have any consultation role on that at all? O: No. I was aware of it before it was announced. My reaction to it was one of some surprise. And I'm not sure that I totally accepted it as the appropriate thing to do. That would be in the context of what kind of general public reactions you would get to appointing your brother to the cabinet. I anticipated that there would be some adverse reactions. Bobby was willing and enthusiastic about doing it, and I didn't question his competency. But I did wonder, again in the political context, whether there might be some adverse reactions. It was like the concern that the President had expressed to me when Teddy was 58 O'Brien --Interview III --55 going to run for the Senate. We discussed that at the time. Jack had some concern regarding that. He felt that perhaps Teddy should consider some other office initially. He did not want to suggest to Teddy that he refrain from a political career. But he wondered about reactions, and that was a quantum leap, to go into the Senate. He was going to have a primary contest that would again renew the old McCormack-Kennedy problems. And the President did discuss that with me and wondered if Teddy might seek some statewide office, state treasurer or secretary of state or what have you, as a stepping stone. But it wasn't an overriding concern. He kicked it around: "What do you think; what adverse aspect might there be to this?" It was hard to determine, and I didn't see any great difference; if you seek an office, you seek an office. If it's a statewide office, it's not the United States Senate but it's the secretary of state of the Commonwealth or whatever. Sure, there's a great difference in the level of the office, but by the same token it's got some of the same elements, too. So he said that perhaps I could chat with Teddy regarding the matter. And I'll have to tell you that I decided not to; I never did discuss it with Teddy. I think it was too personal. It involved members of a family and that, as Eddie McCormack used to say to him, "If your name had been Edward Moore, you wouldn't be in this position." His name was Edward Moore Kennedy. If it didn't involve members of the same family, of course, it was an obvious thing for the fellow that's engaged in the political side of things to do. So he didn't evidence an overriding concern, but he did say that he wondered whether that was the right thing to do from Teddy's point of view, to make that quantum leap, that there might be some resentment. Teddy went on, went through a vigorous, hard-fought primary and then was, as we know, elected. But at the time that Bobby was named by the President, I had no discussion with the President. Obviously, the President, if he did consider reactions, it didn't dissuade him at all. And there wasn't, as I recall, anything of any significance. G: Do you think that the President's father had input into any of these cabinet appointments? O: I would think not. I'll tell you why. Because the President's relationship with his father was one of mutual admiration. It wasn't long after I became acquainted with the family that I realized Jack was the senior member. He was first among equals because of the date of his birth and the death of others in the family. He was obviously, in Joe Kennedy's mind, the heir, the man of destiny. He was the fellow he was looking to in terms of the presidency. I had an experience that brought into focus how each one handled the other or dealt with the other. Joe Kennedy was a strong-willed fellow who voiced his opinions without any hesitation, had definite opinions in business matters. He had definite opinions in political matters, too. And he was very protective of Jack, and I got into a conflict on a 59 O'Brien --Interview III --56 matter with Joe Kennedy. It was in 1958. My judgment on this run-through election against a fellow named [Vincent] Celeste in 1958 [was] that it would be useful to have the largest margin of victory in the history of the state. In other words, put in a major effort. We could do it, because we had retained contact with the Kennedy organization, a massive organization of people across Massachusetts who were still relatively young, aggressive, and interested. We could move that group into a campaign comparable to the 1952 campaign against [Henry Cabot] Lodge, and mount a campaign that would establish that record. That in and of itself might be usable when you got to the primaries and the presidential election. My motivation was primarily that we could utilize these people who had been sitting for six years with their affection and commitment to Kennedy maintained at a high level. And why not? So I developed a campaign in detail. It would include a carefully planned, perceptibly vigorous, aggressive campaign on the part of the candidate. The overall view of the campaign would clearly indicate that this fellow had taken nothing for granted, that he appreciated the sup-port in the state and went out and made appearances. It was carefully put together and what it amounted to was ensuring the activity of all these people and responding to their activity by more than a token appearance on a part of a candidate who was going to be re-elected. Jack and Jackie were in Europe, but he knew that I was going to have a presentation to make to him immediately upon his return. It would be very close to the kick-off of this campaign. We were to meet in an apartment here in New York in a building that Joe Kennedy owned. Jack and Jackie were returning by boat in New York. Well, that morning, in anticipation of his arrival, Ken O'Donnell was there and there could have been one or two others. Joe Kennedy was there and we were sitting around chatting. We got to the subject of the campaign, and I told Joe Kennedy that I had this campaign program that as soon as Jack arrived and was in the mood to do it, we could all go over it and get comment. He said, "Could I take a look at it?" I gave him his copy and he looked at it. He said, "Oh, my God, you're going to kill him." He reacted very strongly. He said, "God, you can't do this to him. You know, this is just unfair to poor Jack," and this went on. He wasn't violent, but he was certainly very strong in registering his objections. Well, I wasn't about to accept his objections. We had the arrival time of Jack and Jackie and Ken O'Donnell and I decided to go down and meet them. So we greeted them, and quickly briefed him on what had transpired. He had no idea of the program, hadn't seen it. And I said, "I just want you to know this so it doesn't hit you straight out. This is going to be a topic of very serious and prolonged discussion. I'm not asking you to react at this point; you don't know what I'm talking about, but I did want you to know that there are storm clouds." So he said, "Fine, I'll see you in a while." So we met, and we started to go through the campaign outline and Joe Kennedy 60 O'Brien --Interview III --57 again expressed to Jack what he had expressed to me, that this just can't happen, it'll kill you; why go through all this effort and so forth. So Jack is sitting there and he's not commenting, but he's thumbing through and finally gets to his decision. He said, "Dad, why don't we try out the first phase of this, just to see how it goes? We won't go public with this overall program. We'll just go through the first couple of days or phase of it and see how it goes and then we can get a better feel for it and I'll have a good feel of whether I agree with you or not. Let's do it that way." It was a compromise, obviously. So with great reluctance Joe Kennedy was kind of forced to accept his son's decision. We're going to start to implement it. It called for the visit to the high school, the high school auditorium and the school band at 10: 00 a. m. and then move on at 11: 15 to the next community. It was a pretty busy first day. Lo and behold, we got to the first stop not far from Boston. This first day or two would be just in communities around Boston. I look up in the balcony and who is sitting there but Joe Kennedy and Frank Morrissey, who later became a judge, very close to the Kennedys. [They] literally had gone out to this town to observe directly what transpired. And I'm sure he showed up at the next event, or the third event of the day where he was spotted in the crowd. Well, whether it was the first night or the second night of this--we did it in stages; then you'd have a break. And, really, it looked imposing on paper. It would do the job; the perception would be there, but it had been very carefully handled to husband his time and yet leave the impression we wanted. They had an apartment in Boston, and we're going to all just wind up in the apartment that evening at the end of the day's activities. So Jack said to me, "Larry, don't get into an argument with Dad. Whatever he says, just listen it out and we'll all stay calm." And sure enough, we got in the apartment and Mr. Kennedy was there and he made a couple of snide comments, but nothing more than that. And I stayed briefly and left. Jack went on and we did the whole venture. But I told that story because I think it gave you a sense of Jack's respect for his dad and his dad's affection and total commitment to Jack. But in the final analysis Jack had reached an age in life, and accomplishments in life, where he'd be willing to listen but his dad wasn't going to direct him or make his decisions for him. And I wasn't going to make any decisions for him either. He'd make his own judgment on whether or not he felt that he wanted to go through this task and that would be determined by whether or not he thought there was any real value in it. We had a replay of the 1952 campaign and we accomplished that modest objective. I guess I'm repeating myself, but we're on the subject. At a later date I was taking a swing through the state to have contact with our Kennedy secretaries and some of their Kennedy committee members in the various communities. There's a score of communities on Cape Cod, and we always made a particular point that you went everywhere. That didn't mean that Jack Kennedy went to twenty communities on Cape Cod; he'd go probably to Hyannis and we'd have a regional meeting. But I would, in fairness to these people, show up and chat with them. It was part of the political, public relations aspects of the campaign. It was suggested, by Joe Kennedy, why not stay at the Compound rather 61 O'Brien --Interview III --58 than a hotel? He was going to be there and the family was away. So I stayed there and Joe Kennedy was there and I received a few phone calls before we went to bed, just check-out calls on my travels for the next day around the Cape. I'm not an early riser and I hadn't scheduled myself to start at dawn, but Mr. Kennedy was an early riser, and I was in a bedroom on the ground floor off the foyer which was actually Jack's bedroom. I could hear through the door around six-thirty Mr. Kennedy on the telephone with someone; maybe it was somebody calling me. "As far as I know, he's not up yet. I don't know what time he gets up, but he's got to be up pretty soon, because I know he's going to travel a lot today. I expect to be talking to him soon." Well, the voice was so loud it got me up, and after I got dressed he was waiting to have breakfast, so we had breakfast together. You have to picture the breakfast table. It was the dining room, and he was at one end of the table and I'm at the other, and there's a void of several feet in between. We have a pleasant chat before I depart for the day, but what left a lasting impression on me was one statement he made. He said, "You know, Larry, Jack is destined. He will be president of the United States. He is destined to be president." I accepted that, except as I'm wending my way around the towns that day, it did enter my mind that if destiny is the determining factor here, I'm wasting a lot of my time, because there's no need for any of this. (Laughter) But I found Joe a very interesting fellow, and I don't pretend to be privy in any intimate way to the relationship between Joseph Kennedy and Jack Kennedy, other than these little fleeting incidents. That gave me a feel for Jack's respectful acknowledgement of any comments his father was making. At all times, he was very respectful to him, and appreciative, but he had reached the point in life, which his father should recognize, too, that he makes his own decisions and he'll make them rather independently of anyone else. "I appreciate your point of view, but--" he makes the decisions. And that was an instance of it, and all he wanted from me was not to be a wise guy or get into any kind of exchange because there was no need for anything like that. Tape 4 of 4, Side 2 G: --in the father's sense of destiny for his son, did Jack Kennedy have a similar sense of destiny? O: I never detected that. Jack Kennedy was very much a realist. There was no question about ambition and that ambition was far from fruition. It was a long, long road and you couldn't even see the road signs from where you were at that point. But the effort would be made some day. I'm sure he did not for one moment conceive of himself as a man of destiny. G: But that ambition itself translates into a certain level of that, just the fact that-- 62 O'Brien --Interview III --59 O: Yes, but it's an ambition that has been shared by many others through history. It wasn't that unique. G: How about you? Did you feel that Jack Kennedy was destined to be president? O: I didn't feel he was destined to be president, but I had two thoughts. One, I felt that he was well qualified to be president; I'd have no concern about that. And secondly, I felt that he would be an eminently attractive candidate in every respect for the presidency. And I was persuaded that with all of that, like any quest for the presidency long range, it has an element of a long shot in it, and everything has to work right or it isn't going to happen. So I had no feeling of destiny. You just go on the roller-coaster ride and you're going to come to the finish line and don't be concerned about arriving there. I wouldn't even deign to think along those lines. G: A couple of other appointments: Robert Weaver to head the housing agency. Some of the extreme conservatives raised questions about whether or not he had ties with left-wing communist organizations. Do you remember that? O: Yes, I remember some of that. My recollection of Bob's background is somewhat vague, but I do recall that an appointment of this nature required very careful review--all the aspects of normal consideration plus the sensitivity of a black coming into a very key cabinet post. This man met every check-out. There were some mean, carping comments made regarding him. We were not only extremely comfortable with Bob, we were extremely pleased that he had come to our attention and he was joining us. That was a feeling we all shared. G: Sarah Hughes' appointment as federal judge. Here was a case where she was actually over the age limit, the informal age limit I guess, that had been set up. O: My only contact with Sarah Hughes was at the swearing in on Air Force One. I don't believe I knew of her existence prior to that. That was a historic moment, also in personal terms for Lyndon B. Johnson, a moment that he, his family and friends would always remember. Why was Sarah Hughes selected by Lyndon Johnson? I don't know the background of it, but clearly his regard for her was to a degree where he had no compunction about overlooking the age problem. G: You don't recall Rayburn pressing for that nomination either? O: No. G: One other thing. In August of 1961 President Kennedy and LBJ reached an agreement on the vice president's assumption of duties in the event of presidential disability. Do you recall that question and their discussions on that? Were you involved in that in any way? 63 O'Brien --Interview III --60 O: Not directly. I do have some recollection of being present or to some degree a participant when some general discussion took place regarding that. I'm sure that occurred, but nothing beyond that, no. End of Tape 4 of 4 and Interview III 64 [ Part 4: "Attached Text" ] *Pages 1--52 from Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview IV* LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. 1 LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW IV PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview IV, 12/ 4/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview IV, 12/ 4/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. 2 NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY AND JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Lawrence F. O'Brien In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Lawrence F. O'Brien of New York, New York, do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on September 18, October 29, October 30, December 4, December 5, 1985; February 11, February 12, April 8, April 9, June 25, July 24, July 25, September 10, September 11, November 20, November 21, December 17, December 18, 1986; April 22, April 23, June 18, June 19, July 21, July 22, August 25, August 26, September 23, September 24, November 3, November 4, December 10, December 11, 1987 at New York, New York and Cotuit, Massachusetts and prepared for deposit jointly in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library. (2) The tape recordings to which the transcripts relate shall be in the possession of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and shall not be available for use or review of or by any source during my lifetime and for a period of time thereafter ending with the 10th year anniversary of the date of my death. At such time, access to the tape recordings by researchers shall be permitted but only for the limited purpose of background use, and researchers may not cite, paraphrase, or quote therefrom under any circumstances. (3) During my lifetime, I retain all copyright in the material given to the United States by the terms of this instrument. Thereafter the copyright in the transcripts shall pass to the United States Government. During my lifetime, researchers may publish brief "fair use" quotations from the transcripts without my express prior consent in each case, but no other quotations from the transcripts shall be published, except with my express prior approval in writing. (4) Copies of the open portions of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be provided by the library to researchers upon request, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. (5) Copies of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be deposited in or loaned to research institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library or the John 3 Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. Signed by Lawrence F. O'Brien on April 5, 1990. Accepted by Donald Wilson, Archivist of the United States, April 25, 1990. Original Deed of Gift on file at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705. ACCESSION NUMBER 92-15 4 INTERVIEW IV DATE: December 4, 1985 INTERVIEWEE: LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN INTERVIEWER: Michael L. Gillette PLACE: Mr. O'Brien's office, New York City Tape 1 of 3, Side 1 G: Let me start with one note that I have from last time that you were going to talk about, and that is a discussion you had with Joe Kennedy in the Oval Office about the New Frontier programs. O: Actually, it was a brief discussion, and it was en route from the living quarters over to the Oval Office. Joe Kennedy expressed some concern about his son Jack's liberalism. He suggested to me that I ought to keep an eye on things and do what I could to make a contribution to steering his son right. Obviously Mr. Kennedy had begun to focus on the New Frontier program and its elements and he wasn't that excited about some aspects of it. He never got into any specifics, but I got a kick out of the discussion, because it reflected probably Joe Kennedy's innate conservatism. It was now divorced from a political quest, a battle for the White House, and had gotten to the reality of attempting to enact a specific program. I made no specific comment that I can recall, and the conversation terminated when we reached the Oval Office. That was a passing commentary that I thought was indicative of some concern that the father had about the direction his son was taking. If you reflected on it from the outset, that was the direction we were all going. So Mr. Kennedy would not be influencing that direction in any event. G: Was the President aware of this concern, do you think? O: No. I never made any reference to it and it wasn't important. I think it was just a little indication that father and son weren't necessarily on the same wave length in terms of a domestic legislative program. G: Throughout the administration, did Ambassador Kennedy have any specific concerns or interests, do you know? O: No, I had no contact with him of any meaningful nature, other than that commentary that he made during that walk. What contact he had with his son at any time regarding his son's activities I wouldn't be aware of, and there was never any reference to Mr. Kennedy in any discussions about our programs. G: Okay, in 1962 you had a change in leadership in the House with Sam Rayburn's death, and 5 O'Brien --Interview IV --2 I have a note that indicates that it was difficult for you at first, because you did have a less experienced leadership in the House initially, and you had to cultivate new intelligence sources and develop a closer working relationship with John McCormack. Is this correct? Can you elaborate on it? O: No, I don't think it probably is, because basically there was continuity. Our activities with Sam Rayburn were really part of day-to-day involvement with the leadership, and you had McCormack, [Carl] Albert, [Hale] Boggs. Then at the death of the Speaker and the succession, you have McCormack, Albert, Boggs, and I don't recall there was any difficulty. I think it moved along quite well. As I may have mentioned earlier, I think there were two or three surprise factors, all pleasant, that occurred when we entered the White House. One was Sam Rayburn's support of President Kennedy. We shouldn't call it a surprise; it was a pleasant turn of events, because it happened quickly and despite Mr. Rayburn's concern about the ticket back at Los Angeles. The second was John McCormack's acceptance of my role immediately, even though I had some involvement in some political conflict back in Massachusetts at an earlier stage. So I was somewhat concerned about John McCormack's reaction to my presence. And that posed no problem. Well, then I think the third, as I mentioned before, was the emergence of Carl Albert in terms of his leadership role and Jack Kennedy's recognition of his abilities. They quickly achieved a warm relationship, and the President was very impressed with Carl. Carl from the outset became a very key person in the movement of our program. By the time McCormack succeeded Rayburn, we were well in place. We were working effectively with the leadership and with the members generally in the House and the Senate. The [Mike] Mansfield-[ Hubert] Humphrey situation had worked out extremely well, along with George Smathers, so we were quite comfortable, and if there was any adjustment after Rayburn, it probably would have been solely the open-door access to the Speaker's office, which continued under McCormack. That probably gave me a little thought when McCormack succeeded Rayburn, because I had reached the point where Speaker Rayburn and I had what I construed to be a very pleasant relationship. It was extremely comfortable. John McCormack moved into the Speaker's office, and that relationship continued, and McCormack's activity on behalf on the program was total. So we spent many, many hours in the Speaker's office working on the program. G: Were the administration proposals in 1962 more liberal and more controversial than they had been in 1961, do you think, as a whole? O: I don't know, I'm just trying to reflect on the movement of the program. We were subject to attack in varying degrees by liberal entities of the Democratic Party. I don't know whether it was monthly, but it was a newsletter the ADA [Americans for Democratic Action] developed that was attacking the President specifically in the area of civil rights. They felt there hadn't been any movement. But when you consider the commitments to civil rights, Medicare, and other proposals, the movement through 1961 into 1962, up to 6 O'Brien --Interview IV --3 the 1962 congressional elections, was a continuing movement into more difficult areas in terms of ability to enact the legislation. So in that sense I suppose you could consider 1962 more difficult than 1961. G: I notice from your files that your operation even lobbied to get administration supporters on key committees. For example, Representative [John] Riley died and there was a vacancy on one of the key House committees. Your office helped find the appropriate guy to fill this slot and even looked around for someone to run for Riley's seat back home. Was this fairly typical? O: Yes. I don't think by that time we had any hesitancy in becoming involved in matters of this nature, and we certainly didn't feel that we should be inhibited in any political activity we might engage in. How effective it was might be questioned. Certainly we had a very great interest in committee assignments, because throughout this period we were walking a tightrope and it was essential for us to take advantage where we could of every opportunity that might give us a little additional strength on the Hill. G: Certainly one of the biggest successes you had was the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. O: Yes. That represented a tremendous amount of effort over an extended period of time. You would have to consider it a major success, and it did entail the utilization of all the tools that we felt were available to us in moving a legislative proposal. G: That was an example where you really mobilized public relations. Can you elaborate on that? O: My recollection is that we formalized a citizens' operation, and I say "formalized." This wasn't a matter of utilizing existing entities that might have similar views, which was a more typical situation if you were dealing with the AFL-CIO or other entities, i. e., teachers' groups. They were in place, and you shared a common interest and you would try to work together as effectively as you could. In this instance, it was a matter of developing from ground zero a major private-sector effort, coordinated fully and organized completely in the advocacy of this legislation to supplement what we were able to do. This is in actuality the best example, I guess, during that period of the extent of effort that was involved in trying to bring about a favorable decision in the Congress. It was major in every sense, and my best recollection is that from the start there was some serious question on the part of some members of the administration regarding any movement of this extent. I hope I'm not recalling this in the context of some other activity. But I think there was an up-front State Department concern. My recollection is that George Ball, I believe, was in the forefront as far as State Department advocacy was concerned. This initially called for a decision by the President on whether we would go the distance or whether we would try to simply have an extension of existing policies. Is that correct? 7 O'Brien --Interview IV --4 G: Yes. O: Because I do recall, up in the living quarters, a decision-making meeting regarding the administration's approach. George Ball strongly advocated that we seek simple extension. I had attempted to make some preliminary checks on the possibilities in this area. There had been some informal discussions. And I felt, while I wasn't seeking any more problems than we had, that this did have potential for success if we bit the bullet and went for a complete new approach and package. So that left Ball advocating simple extension and O'Brien advocating to the President that we move into this with all the vigor that we could give it. And the President, I guess, mentally flipped a coin and said, "Okay, let's go." That, of course, was the launching of what turned out to be a very extensive effort, and that brought into play the organization of this committee. The man that headed it was Petersen. G: Howard Petersen? O: Yes, Howard Petersen. He had wide recognition as an "expert" in this field. He had prior experience that would lead you to feel he could develop the kind of organization that was envisioned. He was given a lot of leeway: "Go ahead, it's yours." He had a staff that he developed, and ultimately, in the context of the battle in the Senate, this citizens' group became an integral part of that battle and brought into play individuals and entities around the country as advocates. It became sensitive, however, and you can't ignore the human element in any of this, I guess. You can sit and draft it and develop it and organize it, and then you have to consider the reactions of people that are key to ultimate success. I was placed in a rather difficult position as this unfolded, because the vigor of Petersen and his cohorts reached a dimension that antagonized Mike Mansfield, and that made it difficult. This apparently went on for a period of time and I didn't focus on it or relate to it; I probably was oblivious to the whole matter. But Petersen and his people were on the Hill a great deal; they were in the offices a great deal. That was fine, but they were also in the corridors off the Senate Chamber a great deal. And finally Mansfield pleasantly but definitively told me that he didn't appreciate their involvement in the corridors on a day-after-day basis. While I had access to his office, and my staff had access to his office, he didn't feel the activities of this entity were appropriate in terms of decorum, I guess, or attitude. Perhaps there were some personality clashes. In any event, it was necessary for me to try to wind this down, to diplomatically suggest to the folks involved that they lower the temperature, that they use a great deal more discretion, that "pulling lapels" in the corridors outside the Senate Chamber was not acceptable to the Majority Leader or the leadership generally. It worked out, but it did exemplify that, with all the activities you might engage in legislatively, you had to be sensitive to the personalities involved, the people you dealt with. And in that case, I had not given it enough attention. Obviously we were very pleased downtown to have all this 8 O'Brien --Interview IV --5 support and, as aggressive as it could be, it was fine with us. But if it was going to cross a line that might make it counterproductive, then that was a danger signal, and we consequently had to attend to it. I don't recall specifically any confrontations with Petersen or his people, but I do recall that I alerted Mike Manatos, who was up there regularly, to see to it that people on Petersen's staff were advised to be more low-key, and I had a conversation with Petersen at one point on this matter. It was not overriding, but it's just an indication that's worth citing that this isn't all push button. It never was. You did have this separation-of-powers situation that might crop up sometime, and it might be harmful. After all of the relationships that had been established, you never were in a totally assured position that it could not be disrupted overnight by virtue of some key person becoming disturbed with your activities. That was always scary. In that instance it had the potential for a real confrontation, but that sort of drifted away and we went on about our business. G: Was this the first time you had organized this sort of support group? O: As I recall it. Really, the motivation there was that while there were groups and key individuals around the country that would be supportive, you didn't have the long-established, broad-based organization to incorporate all the private-sector activity that could be put into play. So it lent itself to establishing a private-sector group, but yet it was under the aegis of the President and the executive branch. It received full support from us and became sort of semiautonomous, and it was given a lot of leeway. It was an attempt to ensure that every possible area of support was brought into play in what hopefully would be a coordinated manner. G: Wilbur Mills was a key player in this legislation. Can you recall your conversations with Mills with regard to it? O: Not in any detail. Wilbur Mills was a key player, period, through all our years there, and you were always aware of the absolute need for us to keep in total and constant communication with him, and probably more than that--keep him apprised of what you were doing. There again it gets to the sensitivities, although there was never any problem with Mills in that regard. There was a problem with Mills at times in convincing him of our positions. Mills was always an extremely conservative fellow in terms of legislative movement. I don't recall the degree that Mills embraced this proposal at the outset, or whether he moved into support of it on a gradual basis; that pretty much eludes me. The fact is, he was very key to it, and clearly what was at stake called for us to give Mills every bit of attention we could. G: How about Bob Kerr on this issue? O: Yes, there again, Kerr was very key in the Senate. Our relationship with Kerr I cannot say was as intimate as, say, with Mills. I think again it was just the nature of things or the style of the fellow. I don't know as we had many let-your-hair-down, deep philosophical 9 O'Brien --Interview IV --6 conversations with Kerr. It was more maintaining contact, recognizing his role in some areas of the Senate. And, of course, we have the whole Kerr-Mills situation as part and parcel of our relationship with him. I think, clearly, that was an area where the private-sector group, the Petersen group, could develop a great deal of contact and did. G: How did you get organized labor to support this measure? O: Persuasion. I think, on balance, there was a recognition that this had the potential of being a plus factor. Labor looked on this proposal early on with a jaundiced eye, and that was understandable. But as it was pursued, labor came to the conclusion that, in general, enactment could indeed be favorable to their position. G: There was an adjustment assistance section of this bill. Was there an accommodation there to make it more--? O: Yes. I have no real recollection of any negotiation in that area, but that was a form of accommodation, sure. G: Were there any other key compromises that advanced the passage, anything for, say, the lumber industry or the oil industry or textile bloc? O: Oh, I think that there were some adjustments made as we moved along. I also don't recall that it was that unique or unusual in terms of major legislation. As you moved through the legislative process and the amendment process and, as you say, the adjustment process, that was a pretty normal approach to any legislative proposal. As we're talking, I think of what's transpiring down there now in tax reform. That would be pretty typical of the legislative process and the executive-legislative combined roles in a major area. G: Okay. Let's talk about the farm bill. This was one where you lost a close vote in the House by ten votes and had some of your administration Democrats absent. Do you recall that? O: I don't recall it in detail, but I know, as I think I've mentioned before, farm legislation kind of eluded Larry O'Brien and the staff. It was pretty foreign to us, and we had a tendency to lean more on the department than we probably normally did. I mean by that, have the department take the leadership on the Hill--Orville Freeman and his associates. That was because we didn't feel that comfortable with the substance of farm legislation. We found that you could get very deeply involved in highly technical aspects of farm legislative proposals that made you somewhat uncomfortable. You could negotiate and deal on amendments and changes in language on just about everything with some comfort and with some feeling of understanding and knowledge of the subject. But when it came to farm legislation, maybe I'm only applying it to myself, I found that no matter how much research I did or how much study I put into it, I still didn't feel comfortable with it. In addition to that, Orville was a very aggressive secretary. He knew his subject, 10 O'Brien --Interview IV --7 he knew the substance, but individually he was very aggressive and worked arduously as an advocate. When I think of Orville Freeman I think of the word guts. He sort of epitomized that. He would go charging into the fray, never deterred by the odds. His commitment was complete and he carried out his commitment personally. So you'll find that in the ebb and flow of legislative activity, House and Senate, farm legislation would be construed by us to be to a considerable extent in Orville's hands. We would become the supportive element, while in other major legislative proposals we were in the lead and the department would be supportive. In terms of that particular battle and the loss in the House, I do recall it, because you recall any loss of that nature; I don't think you ever forget them. That isn't in the forefront of my mind to the extent of the loss on minimum wage, because that was a one-vote loss. But it continued to haunt us, nevertheless, because there was absenteeism, as you pointed out, and there was a ten-vote, something like that, loss. So that's hard to take. It's hard to take on the part of the chief executive and everybody around him. G: You had a united Republican opposition in the House; I think [Phil] Weaver was the only Republican that voted for it. O: Yes. It took on some of the element of Republican opposition to the debt ceiling or foreign aid. I guess our largest margin of Republican support in the House was in the vicinity of twenty or twenty-two votes, and that was on the Rules [Committee] change. I don't know as we ever achieved that level again on hard legislative proposals. We could count on about a dozen House members who, because of their constituency, would be supportive. But when you get to a farm bill, that constituency has eroded. For example, I think of a liberal Republican, John Lindsay, in those days, and there were others, about a dozen. And yet you get to a farm proposal and that affords them an opportunity to record themselves with their Republican leadership with no adverse political effect back home, so it makes it even tougher to put a majority vote together. And it did. Farm legislation is very, very tough. G: The big problem seems to have been the defection of a number of liberal Democrats. O: Well, there again, I never could quite understand it. You had the Farm Bureau, which we construed to be conservative and a powerful entity, clearly representative of the big farmer, the corporate farmer. Then you had the other farm group, which really was representative of the small farmer. I mean, that's probably an oversimplification, but that was basically what you were coping with. The Farm Bureau had a real impact on the Congress. Historically, it continued to have and it was very difficult to put a majority together with the Farm Bureau on your back. On reflection, maybe that was part of my concern about farm legislation at the outset. It was built-in opposition to our concept of farm legislation that was well organized and effective and it could chip off in strange ways in strange places. Yet you step back from it and you could see that, if you were a liberal congressman who perhaps 11 O'Brien --Interview IV --8 would like to balance your voting record, this was an opportunity. If you were a, as we called them, moderate Republican, this was also a splendid opportunity to balance your voting record. The constituency, while it was a significant constituency, when you broke it down by congressional district, the blood and tears over farm legislation was geographically limited and it all added up to a difficult process. You didn't have your natural private-sector constituency or any enthusiasm. You didn't have COPE and the rest of them hustling around. So it was tough. G: Do you think that the defection of these liberal Democrats was related to anything else, such as disappointment with not getting some other program or projects advanced? O: I don't recall any specific instance of that, but I can tell you that you were always alert to and sensitive to those problems. The realities of the process were that you were not going to maintain total enthusiasm on the part of every actual or potential friendly member at all times and you were not going to just have a massive cave-in and have your decisions in the White House dictated by the Congress or members or groups of members of Congress. So there were times when some of our best friends on the Hill were disappointed, and perhaps instances where they were grievously disappointed in our decisions. That could go to advocacy of a project or it could go to appointments in the administration. That's what you had to live with. We've reflected on some of those, on foreign aid, and I'm sure they occurred. And we never had any great difficulty. If everything was equal and it was a matter of making some decision--say it was an appointment and you did have what we construed to be a choice that was basically a coin flip--we would mentally flip that coin in favor of the member. But there were any number of occasions when that situation didn't exist, and we didn't have any hesitancy making the decision against the member's interests. [We would] explain it to him in the hope that he would go on to continuing support. There was always tomorrow and there might be another occasion, and most members reacted that way. G: Otis Pike complained that his arms ached because they'd been twisted so much by the administration on this bill, so there must have been some pretty good lobbying going on. O: Oh! Listen, that was a valid complaint, I'm sure, on the part of Otis. Otis was a very bright fellow, very able fellow, very attentive to his duties. I became well acquainted with Otis Pike over the years, and I'll agree with you. Otis also was an extremely candid fellow, and you could anticipate from Otis some expression of exasperation if you were overly persistent. But it was generally in a pretty friendly atmosphere, it wasn't mean. But Otis--he would be a good example of a fellow we were trying to convince. Why not? No harm. Nothing adverse back home. You won't pay any political price and you can be helpful to the President, the usual approach. And, frankly, that's just an isolated example of what went on all the time. There was an acceptance of vigorous arm-twisting, I guess, in general. But to suggest that we ever let go, no. We couldn't let go. Otis could ultimately say no, but he'd have to say no a dozen times perhaps before we accepted it finally as no because we couldn't afford the luxury of doing otherwise. 12 O'Brien --Interview IV --9 G: The point that Pike seems to be making is that there was perhaps more aggressive lobbying on this measure than there was normally. Was this the case? Did you put more into it, do you think? O: It could be, for the reasons I've cited, because we knew that the uphill struggle was a little steeper than in most cases. The elements that we could depend upon, that were hopeful in climbing that mountain, were simply not there for the most part. And as I say, Orville would have been aggressive. Otis could actually be reflecting probably a series of Orville Freeman visits and you could be accused of acting too aggressively. I'm sure there were those that felt that from time to time, but I think that you'd rather take that gamble--Tape 1 of 3, Side 2 O: If Otis felt that there was a greater degree of aggressiveness, if you will, in this instance than perhaps in other efforts with him, I'd accept that, because obviously in many other areas there would be no need to be that aggressive with Otis. And perhaps we did cross that line. But you're dealing with five hundred and thirty-five individuals, and you can eliminate a number of them up front. Once you did that, you pared down the number of people that you were going to work on or with and accepted the realities of 100 per cent opposition on the part of a number of members. You didn't spin your wheels, you accepted that. That left you with X number of people to deal with, which was still a very large number. If you reflect back on the southern Democrat-Republican so-called coalition that existed and had been in place for some time, the record shows that you did pare back that southern Democratic opposition little by little, and you probably eliminated about a third of that opposition over a period of a couple of years. That was reflected in roll calls; more reflected, however, in behind-closed-door activities. But say you add to that the lack of interest or concern for farm legislation on the part of many members, then you've got a major problem. G: You've discussed the nature of farm legislation, but here did you have to balance the various farm blocs or farm state groups, like the wheat farming, tobacco farming, cotton, and all of this? O: Yes, that further complicated the whole procedure, though. What was in it for the tobacco farmer? What was in it for the cotton farmer or the wheat farmer? How did they fare in terms of the package? And putting all of that together and trying to enlist support, well, it's not any more complex really than some other legislative proposals as you move along. Our approach to the legislative process was one where we were accused at times of being too soft. Trying to use your continuing day-by-day head count to give you a base of expectancy, how much were you going to have to negotiate in order to enact the legislation? The fact is that rarely is a legislative proposal that emanates from the White House totally enacted without the change of a word or a comma. And how much of the original proposal was actually in place by the time the President got to either vetoing it or 13 O'Brien --Interview IV --10 signing it? We felt you measure it in terms of a loaf of bread. You went up seeking a full loaf. [If] you returned with an enactment that presented you with a half a loaf or maybe a little more, were you going to say, "I refuse to accept that half-loaf," or would you pull up your socks and say, "Okay, that's a half a loaf that we have in the pantry. We'll go back on another occasion, the next session or whatever, to seek that half that we missed the first time around." And I don't think there's any other realistic approach to all of this, because if you sat there adamantly refusing to accept basically in toto the proposal you had made and you prefer to settle for nothing, then that isn't a very realistic approach. But in the process of doing that, of course the administration from time to time was accused by the observers as being too willing to accept partial victories. We didn't look at it that way. We knew it was a partial victory, but we also did not foreclose completing the circle at some future time, and that was part of the ongoing, continuing process. G: Did defeat on this close vote affect your procedures any? For example, were you more inclined to do last-minute head counts, or check on absentees before a vote, or--? O: Well, I don't recall specifics regarding this, but the checking on absentees in the House was much more difficult than in the Senate because of the numbers involved. The effort was a major effort on our part. With all the other problems that you were faced with, the assurance that the timing of a vote or the scheduling on the floor would coincide with an attendance check-out so that we'd be assured of maximum attendance was all part of this process. And to a great extent you were dependent upon the leadership. If the information through the whips as to attendance was accurately compiled and every effort was made to do that, then Rayburn, in his time, McCormack, Albert, et cetera, even whips would go to work on individual contacts to ensure attendance. It was difficult and, of course, that got you into pairings and things like that ultimately. But on the Senate side, not that it wasn't difficult, because how do you persuade a member to skip some speaking engagement, particularly if it's a fund-raiser or a long-time commitment? And to try to develop a schedule that minimizes absenteeism was always haunting us. But we had the full cooperation of the leadership in both the House and Senate in that regard, so that contributed to limiting this problem. Also, it wasn't unheard of for members to decide to be absent, and no matter what you might say to them, whatever excuse they were going to give for being absent really went to their desire not to be recorded. If you were faced with that, you never accused them of that directly. But [if] you had a feeling that was the case, then forget it. That's a loss to you. G: But after this vote, was there a specific recap of what you needed to do in order to be successful in the future? O: There was always a recap and we had very few losses. You know, as we're talking, the interesting aspect of this is that we didn't lose many roll calls up there, in fact, a handful. That's why it was always a shock, because there were very few of them. That would get 14 O'Brien --Interview IV --11 us into our Monday-morning-quarterback state. We would immediately go over in great detail where we went wrong, what happened and why did we fail. We could do that in great detail because those occurrences were very rare. On the farm bill, as I say, there were unique aspects to farm legislation. It went to constituencies; it went to looking at those districts, looking at the farm population and its locations across the congressional districts, across states, and its potential impact politically, recognizing that you were somewhat more limited in your potential in farm legislation than you were in most other legislative proposals, because the area of disinterest was a little broader. And after that defeat, I do recall that we dwelled on it to perhaps an inordinate degree, because we considered any defeat devastating. G: I'm just wondering what came out of this experience in terms of the evolution of your operation. O: I think, again, it's like going through a schedule if you're a sports team. What went wrong? It's almost comparable to looking at the films. You didn't have the films to look at, but you sure as the devil had your head counts and records and details as to degree of contact and effort and all the rest to review. And a setback such as that would alert you to the fact that you weren't doing the job to the fullest. I don't think it brought about the introduction of new elements of contact and effort, but it certainly brought a great sensitivity to utilizing this kit of tools more fully than we had been. G: How did President Kennedy react to the vote, do you recall? O: I don't recall, no. I don't recall any conversation with him particularly on it. G: Now, later that year you won, by almost an equally close vote, the vote in the House on the conference report on the farm bill. O: Yes. G: And this was a very narrow vote; I think it was 202 to 197, with a lot of late voting and last-minute switches. Do you recall why you were successful there? O: Yes. On the conference report you're back in business. Now, what did the conferees decide? What is the package at that time? But there again your goal was enactment. But on the conference report, you have the opportunity to go back to fellows that were reluctant or departed the scene or were negative. You've got another dimension there because they already, some of them, have a recorded vote. Now they've got a nice balance in the voting record. To persuade them on adoption of the conference report, you have a little more elbowroom, and it's reflected in their roll call. And I think if you went over the roll call one by one and went back to the original roll call, you would find that there were some conversions. There again, John Smith at that point, who voted against House passage of the farm bill, could, with a degree of comfort, vote for the conference 15 O'Brien --Interview IV --12 report. Now, why? The conference report contains elements that didn't exist in the original proposal. It's been subject to negotiations between the House and Senate conferees. There are some things in there that he can latch onto for justification, and he can ultimately come down on the side of adoption. That means that that ten-vote loss on the first go-around can be converted into what turned out in that instance to be a very narrow approval of a conference report, because there was just that much elbowroom. There's the opportunity for fifteen or twenty possible conversions there. G: When a conference committee is shaping the compromise, is it mindful of what it takes in each legislative body to get it to pass, do you think? O: I don't think that's overriding, except [among] friendly conferees. But it's compromise, that's what a conference is about. There's an ultimate compromise of some sort. And, of course, you're very attentive to the conference. You're leaning on those in the conference that are friendly. You're on the phone a great deal, you can be in the corridors a great deal, you can be in members' offices a great deal, working on elements of compromise, whether it's language, whether it's drop this or accept that, quid pro quo. All of that goes into play. But in following the legislative proposal, it's just as important to be on top of the conference and the conferees in order to get the best package you can. So it's an endless process of communication that started with the initial committees of the House and Senate as this moved through the legislative process. But on the conference, you'd have it in mind, and sure, friendly members might say to you, "Well, if we give on this it might be helpful in getting the report adopted." You hear a little of that, but you hear pretty strong advocacy. G: Was it more difficult for your office to keep track of the legislation when it was in conference, or how would you--? O: No, we would focus on the conference. G: How would you do that, through the--? O: Direct communication with friendly conferees. And actually, now with your resources, you're in a better position than you are generally with the legislative process. Now you can focus on a relative handful, and you can focus on the friendly fellows that are going to break their butt for you in conference, and you can work directly with them. You really can pare away, phrase by phrase, word by word, section by section, and battle it out. And you're in an awfully good position because your communication is almost minute by minute, because it was not unusual for conferees to take a little recess and call us or we'd have somebody in the corridor to talk to them. G: To what extent were, say, House conferees bound by the version of legislation as it was 16 O'Brien --Interview IV --13 passed in that body? O: Well, they feel constrained, obviously; that's the normal approach. But there again, how constrained does a friendly conferee feel? And that fellow that's friendly doesn't have great difficulty in edging beyond. You're generally not in bad shape in a conference. You can make some gains. I think the minimum wage bill as it finally turned out is an example. You come back to the House and Senate with the conference report, and you can have a conference report adopted in the House that may be closer to the bill that was defeated than you would envision. That's all a matter of intensive negotiations. As I said, it's something that can be extremely meaningful when that final legislation is evaluated. Even with a defeat, you should make some gains out of a conference. How significant, of course, is dependent upon all these things I've said, but there should be a plus factor in that conference. G: This carries the process back a step farther, and that is the naming of the conference itself. Tell me how that worked in reality. O: There again you're dependent upon the leadership [and the] committee chairman. If the committee chairman is friendly your chances of having a pretty decent representation are quite good. He can't jump all over the lot; he can't go to the lower rung of this committee and go past some fellow with seniority who has the desire to be a participant in the conference. But he can make an adjustment here and there that can be helpful. But it's not overriding; he can't stack the conference. G: He can't do that? O: No. G: Does it have to reflect basically the vote? O: Well, from his point of view, it better be reasonably acceptable or he's in for some problems with his own committee members. But he can make a judgment here and there that could give you a little edge. But he can't stack it and say, "Okay, now we're going into the conference; we're going to fix everybody's clock. We're coming out of conference with our initial proposal." If you did that, you'd probably be subject to defeat on the floor again anyway. You're aware of the designation of conferees, if you're doing your job, the moment the designations are put into effect. G: Did your office have any input in suggesting conferees? O: We wouldn't be reluctant to, no. But there again it would be informal. 17 O'Brien --Interview IV --14 G: Would you usually be successful in this respect? O: There again, if you're dealing with the committee chairman, and you could have a little leadership impact in that, the speaker, majority leader and all that communicating with the committee chairman, it all could add up to having an impact, yes. G: Do you think that conferees would be chosen with the notion that they would support a particular aspect of the measure? In other words having some sort of conditional appointment to the committee: "You're being named to the conference, but it's understood that you will help us out on this one." O: We would recognize what the expectancy was, the potential of a conferee's involvement in our interests on the basis of our record with him, which has been established through a lot of communication, not only the voting record. You may have a fellow in conference with whom you feel fairly comfortable but who opposed you on the record. He may be a little help in terms of developing the conference report. You never foreclosed that. How many members are you dealing with that had their feet in concrete in total, complete opposition to your proposal? The variations of opposition are always there; the degree of opposition is always there. The constituency problem involving the member must be recognized. So in that context, a little grain of additional sand in that glass might be forthcoming on the part of a fellow who was not committed to total opposition to you, even though the record shows that he voted against you. (Interruption) G: Okay, we finished the farm bill. There were some amendments to the Sugar Act in 1962, and here you had a case of lobbying by representatives of foreign governments. Was this a problem? O: Really, what it came down to, as I recall it, is the basic allocation out there in the Senate that I don't recall having any particular input [on], except in one situation. In talking to the President one day, it was brought to his attention that Ireland should have a quota. I never knew the details of it, but he thought he'd like to do something that would be helpful, as he put it to me, to a country that never asked for anything and you had no problems with. So the key activists in establishing the quota on the refining--that's a good word for sugar, I guess--package were Bob Kerr and Clint Anderson. They were among the key ones, in any event, and I met with them in Mike Mansfield's office. I thought I was attending a tennis match, because they were on opposite sides of the table and I was sitting between them. They were bouncing back and forth various quota allocations and fairness in distribution. I injected the President's interests in including Ireland in the list for quota. I don't remember what the quota was that was suggested, but in any event it was approved and Ireland was included. And that was probably about the extent of my direct 18 O'Brien --Interview IV --15 involvement in those negotiations. As for other countries and all the lobbying that was taking place, I don't recall any particular contact with us. It is conceivable that Mike Manatos might have had some involvement. G: Yes. The percentage for domestic producers was increased also, do you recall--? O: I don't recall any specifics, no. G: I've always heard that the politics were fairly intense on sugar quotas. O: Oh, yes. I don't think that Senators Kerr and Anderson were awfully concerned about what, if any, White House interest there was in a country by country quota. It was more a matter of a great pile of sugar and how you are going to allocate it in the number of segments that would bring about what would be considered basically a fair quota determination. The only new element that was introduced into it by me was the Irish quota. Interestingly enough, I don't recall what the quota was, and I am assuming as I'm talking to you that it was put in place and remained in place. I guess I'd have to check the record for that, but I'm pretty sure that's what the ultimate result was. G: Did some of the congressmen and senators have a personal interest in one particular quota or another on sugar? O: Yes. That wasn't the only conversation I had on the subject, but other conversations that I don't recall specifically were obviously very general. I wasn't negotiating quotas directly with them up there. But among themselves they certainly were, and it was very important. I remember that, even in that meeting I referred to, this was an extremely important matter to Kerr and Anderson, and they were not alone in that regard. But I don't, as I said, recall that we got into the parceling out particularly. There might have been some State Department involvement along the route. G: Was Harry Byrd involved in--? O: I don't remember. But I should emphasize that this was not the exclusive domain of Kerr and Anderson, but they were in senior positions. They had obviously a personal interest in this, and it was clear to me that they had been contacted by any number of sources in the process. G: Okay, the Manpower Development and Training Act was a program that was passed this session. Do you recall that? O: I recall its passage. You'd have to jog my memory, I think, on any aspects of it. G: Let's see, I have a-- 19 O'Brien --Interview IV --16 (Interruption) O: The House passed this Manpower Development and Training Act overwhelmingly, and I was interested in noting the vote of 354 to 62. I guess that to some extent the overwhelming vote was due to some changes that were adopted, recommended on the Republican side, which really went to state-level contribution to funding and cost. That cost-sharing probably contributed to that aspect of it. But it was voice-voted, the conference report, and clearly there was relatively smooth sailing for the proposal throughout. I don't recall that there was any overriding problem. Of course, it was subject to amendments, but the President when he signed it called it the most significant employment legislation since 1946, and that was probably accurate. But at least it was very significant, because it was a three-year program to rehabilitate unemployed workers, which incidentally seems to be a continuing problem. It's never-ending because we are faced with that problem currently. But it was one of the easier tasks that we were faced with. I don't recall the Senate action, but it was obviously comparable to the House action in terms of strong bipartisan support, and it was bipartisanly proposed in the first instance. G: The Philippine War damage bill was defeated, 171 to 202, in the House; that was a close one. Do you recall that? O: No, I don't, really. G: Well, there are indications that many of the bill's supporters were confident of its passage but that you were not, that you thought it was going to run into trouble. Apparently there was a problem with the tobacco area congressmen, [Harold] Cooley and others. Evidently there was some interrelationship in the tobacco states not supporting this measure and something that had happened there in the Philippines. Do you recall--? O: No, I don't recall that. I don't think I have any notes on this. G: No, I don't think there's anything there. You did have a post-mortem on that one and drew three lessons from it, which I'll quote: 1) a full last-minute whip count, even on minor bills; 2) don't allow debate to be separated from the vote; and 3) be more wary of bills left over from a previous administration. So would you focus on those three conclusions? O: Yes. I suppose when you look at a heavy legislative schedule, there's a tendency probably to place a level of involvement and interest on each legislative proposal on the basis of what you construe it to be in terms of importance to the overall package. For example, the New Frontier program. In this instance, I would have a feeling that it fell under that category, that there was a late head count, there was a lack of attention, and perhaps when you refer to tobacco interests we probably weren't focusing on that or were totally aware of it. But we got derailed where I'm sure we felt we shouldn't have been derailed and that proper attention would have avoided defeat. Again, it's a matter of never foreclosing the 20 O'Brien --Interview IV --17 extent of effort you put into every legislative item. If you have several balls in the air, there is the natural tendency to focus on the basis of what you conceive to be the relative importance of each measure. This would conceivably be in the category of one that we would in the overall picture be considering of lesser importance, therefore, we gave it less attention. But if that were the case, and defeat would indicate it was, then clearly we failed to bring into play the various elements of the executive branch that could have functioned in this area. Beyond that, I don't recall any specifics. It was one of the rare defeats. I do recall that it did not bring about a great deal of negative press comment, which might be the case with another piece of legislation, but it certainly would be of concern to us. Having a defeat of that nature, in a sense, was probably unpardonable, because in the big battles and the major struggles you knew that you were in a paper-thin situation at best, and you should have been able to pick up some of the slack on things such as this legislation and not have it become a negative in terms of your record. But it happened, and I am sure as time went on I like to think that our activities improved and that our programs to bring about enactment were better administered. And if you didn't focus on defeat when it occurred, then you were making a terrible mistake, because you should learn some lesson from it. It's bad enough to be defeated; if you haven't learned any lessons then that compounds the error. G: What was the hazard of separating the debate from the vote? O: I think that separating the debate from the vote probably had to do with the broad range of foreign policy to focus exclusively on the legislation, not to have it as a vehicle for a broad discussion in other areas. Oftentimes you get into discussion and debate and you're up against the subcommittee, committee, Rules Committee [in the] House, and Senate committees. It's an involved process. You get to conference, conference reports and what have you to bring about ultimate enactment. If you get it bogged down in not directly related discussions and debates, it can lessen the possibility of enactment. And that was always a problem because a great deal of the debate and discussion oftentimes was not directly related to the subject at hand. For example, on the sugar bill, you not only had this great Senate interest, but you had House interest, you had Harold Cooley and people in key committee positions involved. You had the domestic side of it on the allocation and the way the program would evolve. Something involving the Philippines could get into a great discussion back to the very beginning of recognition and the current relationship, which is a continuing problem. We tried to stay with the basic proposal and not allow it to get unwound. 21 O'Brien --Interview IV --18 Tape 2 of 3, Side 1 G: Let's talk about the Communications Satellite Act. This you did discuss to some extent in your book, the phenomenon of having to break a liberal filibuster rather than--O: Yes, that was a very interesting experience, and that's in reality what we were doing. We found some of our traditional friends were in an adversarial position. And our advocacy did fly in the face of views of our liberal friends--the whole private-sector aspect, independence of operation, lack of what some considered to be essential oversight, giving a lot of authority and decision-making to what amounted to be a private entity comparable to a major American corporation. And you know, that just flew in the face of some of our friends. I can understand, and I understood then, why some of our liberal friends would say that this is really a giveaway to AT& T. This is not a Democratic Party position or a liberal position and some of them became very exercised about it. G: Kefauver introduced another bill calling for government ownership. O: Yes. Well, Estes Kefauver obviously belongs in that group we're talking about--staunch administration supporters who felt that this was an aberration and who would be disposed to correct this mistake in judgment and this error that we were attempting to compound. G: Did you get involved personally in the battle for cloture on this? O: Oh, yes. This, of course, is a good example of working very closely with the leadership and key members. Mansfield's involvement was really total in this. In fact, this caused internal conflicts among Democrats in the Senate. One fellow that was particularly incensed and was extremely active in opposition was Wayne Morse. And there were moments when Wayne Morse and Mike Mansfield exchanged some pointed comments. It was very unique in the sense that the opposition we were trying to overcome included a number of the staunchest supporters of the administration. G: Ralph Yarborough was against it, too. O: Yes. And of course Morse was a fellow that if he was going to take a position in opposition, you could expect he would be totally involved. G: Did the administration consider revising its stand to--? O: No. I think any revision of any significant degree would have just altered the whole concept. What could you have done to ameliorate the situation or to tone down the opposition of Morse, Yarborough, et al.? You would have to go back to the basic, and that is that it should be a governmental entity and not related to private-sector administration. Short of that I don't know whether there was really an area of real 22 O'Brien --Interview IV --19 potential compromise. You went to the basic thrust of the proposal, and if there's opposition to the basic thrust of the proposal--and that was total opposition--where do you compromise? You had to carry it. Once you were in this battle and committed to it, then you had to go the distance, even incurring what you hoped was the temporary enmity of some friends. G: Now, it seems like the [National Aeronautics and] Space Council had recommended this course, and Lyndon Johnson, as chairman, was involved in that stage. Was he also involved in helping advance the legislation? O: Yes. He was very much involved, because not only was it an administration proposal, but he had an early involvement through the entity he headed. So it got to the point where he considered that he had a personal stake in this. You realize that cloture was invoked under those circumstances, and just glancing at a note, it was the first cloture, I think, since 1927. So it was a rather historic occasion and, as I say, it had that additional dimension that you were trying to run over some traditional friends. G: I believe you mentioned in your book that southerners, many of them had a habit of not voting for cloture, but that you did persuade a number of them to not vote at all. Can you recall this effort? O: I don't recall the specifics, but that was part of the effort. Those people were quite strong in their support of this concept. But you got to cloture and that was another matter. There was an awful lot at stake. If you were going to succeed in invoking cloture, you were altering the course of history significantly, and the southern Democrats for the most part were obviously strongly opposed to that. Any efforts that were made in that area generally were efforts to move legislation that they were opposed to, and they weren't--some of them--about to participate on the record to invoke cloture, because they would rather be able to point to their historic position regarding cloture at a later date on another matter. But if you could adjust the numbers to being it about and some of these people that were very strongly in support of the legislation could avoid having a record or breaking, if you will, their record of opposition to this concept of cloture, then that was the route you could travel. So, consequently, you had two elements: you had some southern Democrats in strong support of the legislation, but strongly opposed to cloture in principle. Could they now be helpful in moving the legislation and still avoid breaking their long record of opposition? That made it tricky. This was extended beyond a normal head count. This was really in another category, and it required the involvement of the proponents and the leadership to a great extent. And it wasn't a typical Mike Mansfield approach to get into public debate in opposition to some of his own senior party members. Yet he took that on and engaged in this battle directly. Mike always attempted to achieve a consensus and avoid these conflicts that might leave scars. In this instance there was only one route to 23 O'Brien --Interview IV --20 travel. But I think in that context you have to also remember that Wayne Morse was not a member of the team, so to speak, in the Senate. He was--what's the word that's eluding me? G: Kind of a maverick? O: A maverick. Wayne, in the strong positions he took in the discussions--and he debated this matter interminably--wasn't necessarily drawing additional support to the opposition. In fact, it probably was lessening that to some extent. So I wouldn't want to suggest that we considered Wayne Morse at that time to be a fellow that had a power structure built into the Senate. He didn't; he was a maverick. He didn't bring to himself support because of strong relationships in the Senate. So you were dealing with a maverick and that was undoubtedly helpful. G: We have the UN bond election that year; there was a deficit of $113 million. I guess the UN, a number of members, hadn't paid their assessments and you also had the fact that the UN had had those operations in the Gaza Strip and the Congo. O: Well, I think back to that time. There was not a deep commitment to the United Nations in the Congress. There's always that concern that we were paying far beyond our fair share. I'm not saying there was some overriding opposition to the United Nations, but certainly there was an attitude in the Congress that we were doing too much, being taken for granted, paying far more than our share, and UN results were not very impressive. And, as you point out, we were concerned about some UN activities in that period. Adlai Stevenson was deeply involved, and I recall cabinet meetings where Adlai Stevenson was--I don't know I'd call it emotional, but bordering on it--an advocate that we should not make waves, that we would be totally committed to the United Nations, that it was not in our interest to cause any ructions, that we should avoid that. And that did not impress everybody in the administration. I don't know as it impressed me particularly, sitting there listening. But in any event, I think our approach to this was somewhat like our approach to foreign aid--that you couldn't present a case of total justification. But on the other hand, no matter how put upon you might feel, in the final analysis you had to go along. G: You had another effort to invoke cloture that year, which was unsuccessful, and this was with regard to a bill to bar literacy tests in voting in federal elections. Do you remember it? This was something the Justice Department was sponsoring. O: Yes. Perhaps we felt we had established the precedent for cloture and that we could carry on in that area. I think you'll find, however, that the Justice Department advocacy was strong, and the leadership from the Justice Department was such that an effort was made that probably otherwise would not have been attempted because it was not very realistic. But, nevertheless, it was undertaken and we failed. But Bobby Kennedy and Nick [Katzenbach] and the rest of the fellows in Justice felt very, very strongly. 24 O'Brien --Interview IV --21 G: Do you think they were unrealistic about its chances of passage, or do you think they simply wanted to take it as far as they could in establishing a record? O: I don't know. I think it would be unfair to say it was a matter of callously attempting to take it as far as you could to establish a record. The motivation was pure. I think the unrealistic part of it was that you could carry it the distance and follow the route of cloture. It just wasn't in the cards, but I don't think that suggests that they didn't make a major effort, and I wouldn't suggest that any of us felt that it was unimportant in any sense. It was very significant; it was very meaningful in our view. That view wasn't wide enough. The Justice Department under Bobby during that period was very aggressive. As we in the White House looked at the departments and the advocacy of legislation, there was never anything but an all-out effort expended from Bobby through the top staff level in the department on the Hill in all matters pertaining to the department. Of course, this was what we saw, in most instances. But it varied from department to department, depending on the leadership of the department, just how aggressive some departments were as related to others. But Justice was right up there at the top in terms of promotion of programs. G: Do you think that Kennedy thought that this bill might in fact pass? O: Yes. While we were being attacked by the ADA and others for failure to move aggressively in the broad area of civil rights, we were playing around the edges. This would be an example of our knowing during that period that we were not as yet in a position to take a real shot at an overall, broad civil rights bill. We were trying to chip away, and we tried to do it through departmental actions, executive orders, pieces of legislation that did involve civil rights, and we moved more in that direction while the major civil rights struggle was still on the back burner. G: How about the effort to establish the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD? O: Well, that was a major effort. That had a high priority, and it was a full commitment on the part of the administration. G: Was it generally known that Robert Weaver was intended as the head? O: I don't recall that up front it was. I think that it had become generally known on the Hill before the matter was closed out, and it was of concern to some of the members up there, obviously. I think there was some recognition at the outset that this might be a position that would be filled by a black, and I think that had gone beyond an early stage of discussion to a feeling that indeed that was the case. If this department was created, that would be what would happen, and in that context Weaver's name came into play. 25 O'Brien --Interview IV --22 G: At one point, didn't President Kennedy make an announcement that Weaver was his--? O: Well, I believe he did only after it became so widely known that you either made an announcement or you issued a denial, that you couldn't just let it simmer. G: You were unsuccessful in the Rules Committee, and there you had two people that normally would have voted with you, [James] Trimble and [Carl] Elliott. Do you recall that? O: No, and particularly in the case of Elliott I don't recall what his problem was, because Elliott was an early-on supporter. In fact, you'll recall that we leaned on Carl Elliott a great deal all the way back to the original Rules fight. So I don't recall what his opposition was. G: My note here indicates that because of the reapportionment decision, all the congressmen in his state were having to run at-large, and that--O: Yes. That's exactly right. G: Do you recall that being a factor? O: You're exactly right that Carl had to pull back in his advocacy, and his support of the administration lessened because he was in for a battle for survival. He felt reasonably comfortable--he was an awfully solid fellow anyway--with his district in terms of being one of the first southerners to come into observable strong support of the administration. But you're right that it came to that point, and it coincided pretty much with this. G: Did Elliott demonstrate a similar pullback on other votes as well at this time? O: I don't recall that he did. I do recall this, now that my memory has been jogged in terms of the at-large problem, that we had fully understood Elliott's problem, and there was not an attempt to pressure Elliott during that period. This fellow had shown his support in so many ways, strong support, that we were anxious that he continue in the Congress. We were not going--and that was understood among us--to attempt to twist his arm inordinately under those circumstances, and we had a great deal of sympathy for his problem. G: My note indicates that Trimble would have voted for you if his vote would have made a difference, but without Elliott you couldn't--O: Yes, that was the case. G: Was it? 26 O'Brien --Interview IV --23 O: Yes. But that's something you take at face value. There were instances where a person would tell you he would vote if his vote made the difference. You accepted that, and I'm not suggesting that wouldn't have been the case. But I think we would have felt a little more comfortable if he had just voted, whether it made the difference or not. G: Did you have examples where someone said, "I will give you my vote if it will enable it to pass. I don't want to give it to you if you're not going to win with it," and then have them turn around and not give it to you if it was pivotal? O: That's interesting. That, I think, goes to the heart of the matter in terms of the human element, the professionalism. [With] the understandings that you had, the handshake agreements, no record of a commitment, a person could walk away. If the chips were down and this commitment had to be carried out, we always felt very comfortable about that. It's very interesting to go through those years--and that's a good example--and I should have no doubt that Trimble would have been there. I have no recollection, I'm sure the record will show that, of a person going back on his commitment. And that's awfully interesting, when you think of the makeup of the Congress and how representative, really, the House of Representatives is in actuality of America as a whole. It runs the spectrum; you have some rogues in there and some dedicated people and a lot of people in between. But, you know, it was always understood that a commitment is to be fulfilled and your failure to fulfill it would leave a terrible mark on you that might carry over beyond even the administration you made the commitment to--that your word would be in question. And that's the last thing a member wanted to have happen, among his colleagues or in dealing with the White House--that his word was not kept. So I have no recollection of anybody going back on his word. G: Did the reapportionment decision affect other congressmen as well as Elliott, do you recall? O: I think it had a particular effect on Elliott, because Elliott was unique in that delegation. The fact of the matter is, he was generally regarded as the most liberal member of that delegation and, therefore, in terms of a statewide contest would be low on the totem pole and have a difficult time. Certainly it didn't apply to a similar degree to anyone else in the delegation. (Interruption) G: Okay, we've got the administration's tax revision proposal, which was an issue both in 1962 and the following year, in 1963. You had the investment tax credit provision and the defeat of an administration provision for withholding interest and dividend income at the institution. This was an issue of some controversy. Do you recall that? O: Yes. That was very controversial. 27 O'Brien --Interview IV --24 G: Why was it so controversial? O: The normal tendency is to avoid imposing further regulations and rules. In that period it wasn't quite comparable to what occurred in later years. I don't know as it was, for example, a matter of widespread concern that there was a great deal of tax cheating, nonreporting, and it took many years after that before rules--in fact, very recent rules--started to be put into effect that would provide this information to IRS. I guess many of these recent rules and procedures have been brought about by the computer age. The ability to garner this information was pretty much nonexistent at that time. That was a far-reaching proposal. G: The opponents included Paul Douglas, [Albert] Gore, [William] Proxmire, Harry Byrd, at least in opposition to the investment tax credit. O: Well, this was construed by some of the liberals as a pro-business proposal. It was, and they reacted to it. It was in the form of some sort of a handout to business. G: This bill did have both pro-business and--O: Yes. G: --non-pro-business elements to it, I guess. O: Yes, it did, and it was construed to be that. Hopefully it could attract support from a variety of quarters, and in each instance the proposals made economic sense. Good government hype in the business sense. G: Anything else on this particular bill? How about dealing with the--? O: No, the withholding and the investment tax credit were the key. G: Anything else on dealing with Harry Byrd here? O: No, I don't recall anything specific on Byrd. G: Okay. Padre Island National Seashore in Texas was a measure sponsored by Ralph Yarborough. Anything on that? You also had a broader land conservation fund program that was proposed that year that you had some trouble with. Do you recall that? O: I recall having trouble with it. Beyond that I don't recall. G: I think that this was designed to set aside and while it could be purchased at a reasonable price, and one of the sources was the tax from motorboat fuels, and I guess some of the marine lobbies were opposed to it. It was also the question of states acquiring their own 28 O'Brien --Interview IV --25 comparable lands. O: Well, of course, you not only had this boat fuel tax, but you also had the Highway Trust Fund concern, and that caused problems, too. G: This was something that in later years was successful and expanded significantly. O: Yes. Well, there again you were plowing new ground, bringing forcibly to the attention of people what was happening regarding public lands, park systems, the wilderness. The interesting thing is that it became more and more a matter of national focus and serious attention, and a lot of things happened while we were still in Washington. It's hard to believe that boat taxes and the highway fund would be destructive in terms of invoking meaningful legislation, but I don't think that would be necessarily the case anymore. But at that time what you were faced with was the lack of commitment to the concept of preservation. Therefore, these peripheral private-interest areas could have a great impact, far less impact in succeeding years, succeeding administrations. You didn't have an army out there charging into Washington to preserve wildlife, parks, wilderness. I don't think there was an understanding at that time that gave you a terribly strong lobbying group. You had the traditional lobbying elements, but not a public awareness. Tape 2 of 3, Side 2 O: --effort has always been expended and was expended by us to bring a concept into being. Even if it were not an overly impressive package, you opened the door and you got inside the door. And you would build on that, and that was what you had in mind. I think if you had a proposal of this nature and you were talking about land conservation and wilderness and you said something to the effect that this was a national program to seize land, for example, and used words of that nature or have some eye-catching title, then Mrs. Johnson would be absolutely right. That could be counterproductive. So blandness was an acceptable procedure. Actually, your advocacy in areas such as this often extended beyond what you realistically thought could be accomplished. You tried to keep the proposal as broad as possible with the idea in mind that the potential for enactment is there. If that should succeed, then you could always build on that later on. G: The National Wilderness Preservation System did not pass either that year. Do you recall that? O: I recall that we ran into all kinds of problems. I recall nonpassage but I don't recall much beyond that. You had in this, too, some deep concerns about presidential power, executive branch power, re congressional power on the decision-making aspects if the legislation was enacted. The Congress generally granted authority with reluctance, preserving 29 O'Brien --Interview IV --26 elements of oversight or elements of actual decision-making with the Congress. You had to anticipate that because that was natural. You could have the administrative responsibility, but you probably wouldn't get all the authority. The Congress would be interested in retaining at least a portion of that authority for its own purposes. So you were always flying in the face of that. Actually, Wayne Aspinall, who was key in the House, gave up on this at some stage. The opposition was too overwhelming. G: President Kennedy also promoted the acquisition of Point Reyes National Seashore in California and Sagamore Hill National Historical Site in New York. Anything of legislative interest on either of those? O: It was the incorporation of proposals that obviously had met with favor on the part of the members of Congress that were directly affected. It would have been no more than that. G: Okay, another area of fairly new legislation was the Drug Amendments of 1962 that increased government supervision of the drug industries to ensure safety and effectiveness in both prescription and over-the-counter products. O: Well, this was a reaction to a lot of concern in this area. G: The thalidomide problem and--O: That's right. And that attracted a great deal of attention. It imposed upon the manufacturer reporting procedures and controls that hadn't existed. There was a time frame to allow the government to review and make determinations on the use of drugs, and there was drug labeling to have it less complex and more easily understood by the consumer. Then there was the research side. It was an all-encompassing proposal that reflected serious problems and a growing public concern in this area. It was, frankly, overdue. There hadn't been enough attention directed to this problem, and we tried to put together a proposal that would reassure the public and provide much better surveillance, control, and decision-making. The drug industry was in the position of having a pretty free hand at that time, and it was just not in the public interest. G: Kefauver charged that there had been a secret meeting between HEW staff and staff members of the Judiciary Committee to soften the bill. Do you recall that? O: No, I don't recall a meeting. Of course, Kefauver was in the forefront of advocacy and was there long before we were. I think he went back to the prior administration in this area in attempting to bring about legislative action. So he was deeply committed. I'm not suggesting he exaggerated the possibility that a meeting took place or what transpired at that meeting. I just don't recall ever being privy to any such meeting. 30 O'Brien --Interview IV --27 G: On the Senate side, Margaret Chase Smith supported you. O: Yes. G: She was the only Republican to do so. O: Yes. G: Do you recall her--? O: Her reason for support? G: Yes. O: No, I don't. I don't know whether she had personal experience that would bring her to that position. She was there, and that was a rarity, for Margaret Chase Smith to be in support. And my recollection is that Senator [James] Eastland was probably the leader of the opposition throughout this effort in the Senate. G: Did you get a feeling that the drug industry was lobbying--O: Oh, sure. G: --hard on this one? O: Yes. They were very, very much involved. They put the full-court press on. G: How did they do that? What specifically--? O: They wrote to their friends in the Congress, and their friends oftentimes had business relationships in their district, their states, or drug manufacturers in various states, their own national organization. It was a rather strong lobbying effort. But the advantage was clear. The advantage was that the climate was right. It was pretty darn hard for the drug industry to make a case that this was undue imposition upon their rights and privileges. There wasn't a national crisis, perhaps, but certainly there was a great deal of attention being directed, media attention and general citizen attention, to the drug industry and these problems. So we were in good shape in that regard. The climate being right can be very helpful, but generally you can't plan that. The ebb and flow of public concern is to a great extent beyond your control. G: Another area that pitted business against the administration was the steel increase that year. Do you remember that? Were you involved in President Kennedy's deliberations on how to deal with that issue? 31 O'Brien --Interview IV --28 O: Yes. You talk about poor public relations and the occasional, at least, ineptness of big business in its failure to not only recognize the public interest but to defy the public interest. That's as good an example as you can cite. To go through intensive management-union problems over an extended period of time, which resulted in really no increase in income for the employees, and management then proceeds to raise prices on steel is about as defiant an act and as poorly conceived an act as I can recall. There was a very strong White House reaction to all that. G: Tell me how President Kennedy reacted to it when--O: He was--how best to describe it? He was incensed. And I think that's probably mild. G: Really? O: Yes. G: Were you around him during this time? O: Well, yes. The temperature kept going up. (Laughter) G: Let me ask you to go into this in detail and describe it. O: Well, you have to remember this would be the gut reaction of a Jack Kennedy. All he could see was [this happening despite] all his efforts to suggest to business that he wasn't anti-business, that he represented all elements of our society, that he had made efforts in a variety of areas to prove that case, and that wasn't because he was trying to kowtow to business but he felt that he was the president of all the people. And to have a major industry--and focused on one individual in that industry, really, Roger Blough--and to have them defiantly, as Jack Kennedy saw it, upset the economy and have no consideration whatsoever for anyone but themselves. Now there aren't many do-gooders around, but I think the way this was done, the dictatorial, arbitrary, defiant, go-to-hell attitude of the industry, just aroused him no end. It concerned him personally, as much as it concerned him as president, because he just couldn't envision that people could go that far. And if, by God, he was in any position to do anything about it, he was going to try. And I recall that resulted in a confrontation. G: Was he surprised that this had happened? O: Oh, yes. G: He didn't expect it? O: He reacted like many of us did at that time: "What kind of characters are these people?" 32 O'Brien --Interview IV --29 In addition to everything else, it was completely uncalled for. If they wanted evidence of the arrogance of some in our society, you had it in this instance. So the presidential concern was obvious. You didn't want steel prices rising at that time. And there was no need to increase them. But on a personal basis he resented the attitude and the arrogance of the industry. You had a fellow that was quite exercised about the whole matter. G: Had he had a good working relationship with Blough before this, do you recall? O: I don't know as you would call it a good working relationship. Blough and his associates were apt to be adversaries. The administration had not shown any anti-business bias, in fact, had been very responsible. And that was considered true by many of the leaders of the business community. You had the Business Council, which the President made an effort to upgrade and have play a significant role. That all deteriorated as a result of this. G: Blough was a member of that. O: That's right. It became clear that our effort to work with the business community had been jeopardized. G: Were you with Kennedy when he discussed the range of alternatives for response in this instance? O: This was a matter of not one single discussion; this sort of permeated the atmosphere. G: Well, was he just furious that they had done it? O: Yes. I think it was impossible for any of us to come up with a justifiable reason to take an action of this nature under those circumstances at that time. Completely uncalled for. G: Yes. He did denounce the action publicly, and did he talk to Blough privately, do you recall? O: My recollection is he did. G: Can you recall that conversation? O: No. My recollection is quite clear that he did. G: How did the Congress feel about the hike in the steel prices? O: Well, it basically followed the party line. The more liberal members of the Congress reacted pretty much as the White House did. Others didn't react particularly. It just followed the pattern that you'd anticipate. 33 O'Brien --Interview IV --30 G: Sure. O: If you did not have blinders on in terms of recognition of public responsibility or good economic sense, you couldn't find an iota of justification even on the business side, other than pure greed. In the Kennedy Administration and later on, despite the sincere efforts of Democratic presidents to take into account all elements of society--and that obviously includes the business community--you found that that didn't eliminate rather strong opposition to the party. But you could not with any great confidence just join hands with the business community. You always had to remain at arm's length. G: Anything on your own advice to President Kennedy on this matter? O: No, I don't think there was any need for advice from anybody. G: Really? O: I think his gut reactions were shared by all of us. G: Was this the sort of thing that would get under his craw for a long time, or would it be just a--O: Not for a long time, because--G: --temporary explosion, or what--? O: I think as we go along and we discuss the personality differences between Johnson and Kennedy, as exercised as he became, it was rather typical of Jack Kennedy. The feeling in the cold light of another dawn was, "So be it. Let's go on." He did have the capability of becoming quite exercised in any incident which he construed to be unfair press. There was an occasion in the days of the [New York] Herald Trib[ une] in which he instructed Pierre Salinger to adopt a policy of avoidance and lack of cooperation. If you knew Jack Kennedy well, you wouldn't carry out that mandate, because a few days later if you did carry it out, and he learned of it, he would become exercised again that you would have taken him seriously, as that was an explosion of the moment. He did not have the tendency, in my fourteen-year relationship with him, to dwell on a matter that he considered unfair. With Lyndon Johnson that was not the case. He had comparable experiences, but he had a tendency to retain them in his mind, not to forget quickly and dismiss totally. There was a difference between the two men in that regard. Lyndon Johnson at times would react more in sorrow than in anger. Maybe he erupted; he never did in my presence. But it would not be unusual for him to bring up the subject at a later date. With Jack Kennedy, the chances were that he would go on to other things and you wouldn't hear anything further from him on that particular subject. In this instance I don't recall 34 O'Brien --Interview IV --31 that it was a subject of discussion over a long period of time. There was an eruption, there was an action, there was a reaction, and there you are. G: What did he say privately, do you recall his words? O: No, I don't. I wouldn't deign all these years later to recall his words, but I do have a clear recollection of a fellow that was damn mad. And when Jack Kennedy was damn mad, his words could be rather sulfurous. G: Nothing else on the congressional attitudes in this regard? O: No. G: Okay. How about LBJ on this issue, did he get involved in this matter at this time, when he was vice president? O: I don't recall, no. G: Apparently there was a jurisdictional argument between Carl Hayden and Chairman [Clarence] Cannon over who would call the conference committee meetings with regard to the Kennedy budget, and it delayed this budget for about three months. Do you recall that issue, if he did anything to help it along? O: No, I don't recall any of the specifics. G: Okay, let's see. We've got the Medicare bill that year. Of course 1963 was really the big year; 1962 was the year of that rally in Madison Square Garden. You've discussed that and the problem with Wilbur Mills. Do you think that more rallies, perhaps local rallies in key places, would have been more useful in selling this legislation? O: As we were commenting a short while ago about the climate being right, you can't anticipate that you don't have that kind of weather reporting facilities. The judgment had to be whether this would build a fire under Wilbur Mills. After all, that was the concept of rallies and senior citizen organizations. This was to impress Wilbur Mills, and you had to have concern that would be effective. What do you weigh on that scale: a) Mills' position in the Congress; [b)] his overriding importance to you as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee? Then you weigh his political status back home, and if you look at Wilbur Mills' district, Wilbur Mills' repeated re-elections to Congress, without any meaningful opposition, you're faced with a fellow who is knowledgeable, has been involved in this area and he has pride of authorship in the Kerr-Mills program. You've got a heavy weighting of a scale on the side of don't undertake anything that might incur the enmity of Wilbur Mills. The objective is to have him on your side someday, and maybe you can bring that about. But can you bring it about with a blockbusting effort that hits him over the head and forces him into a position of having to 35 O'Brien --Interview IV --32 acquiesce to your views? Does political reality indicate that is a goal that can be achieved? From my perspective, the legislative perspective, I would weigh the scale heavily in that direction. You had a large army of senior citizens organized around the country who were totally committed to Medicare. You had political leaders who were wedded, as we were, to this proposal and were dedicated to bringing about enactment. So I'll have to say that it would reassure our Medicare constituency that we were not floundering and our commitment was total. Hopefully in that process we would not incur the enmity of Wilbur Mills or have rallies where people would be standing on their chairs denouncing Mills, that sort of thing. It was pretty tricky, and I guess the way it balanced out, the decision was to go with the rallies. Really where it floundered was in the organization. The obvious launching would be in New York in Madison Square Garden. It fell of its own weight. Two things happened: it did not have any great impact in public recognition, and it had no impact on Wilbur Mills because nothing much occurred that would be brought forcibly to his attention. So it sort of faded out. But it was an example of our deep concern, our frustrations, that we weren't moving more rapidly. It took decades to enact Social Security, which was a Democratic Party commitment, and it finally was enacted. It didn't do much for me to say repeatedly, "It's as inevitable as tomorrow morning's sunrise. We're going to enact Medicare, come hell or high water, while we're here." In any event, that aspect of the effort was not very productive. G: You by-passed the Rules Committee that year ultimately by having Clint Anderson and Senator [Jacob] Javits add the Medicare rider to a welfare bill. O: Yes. G: Was this common, to by-pass a committee by using this rider technique? O: No, it wasn't common. That effort represented evidence of the commitment of Clint Anderson and a handful of others. With our support the effort was undertaken, because at that point there was no other discernible road to travel. G: Was it Anderson's idea, do you recall? O: It probably was. It depends on which minute you're talking about, who suggested or who reacted. It was a joint procedure, probably initiated, by Anderson. I would suspect that we would not have been attempting to urge Anderson to take that action. It would be rather Anderson suggesting that was a role he was prepared to undertake it with our full 36 O'Brien --Interview IV --33 support in the process. Tape 3 of 3, Side 1 G: Do you recall any other instances where that was done? O: No, I don't. G: Do you think that there were other instances where--? O: In our time? I don't recall. G: What were the hazards of doing it? O: Well, there was little loss factor there. Again, the hazard was an obvious one--incurring the enmity of Wilbur. Our judgment was that that wouldn't encourage enmity, that in his own way he would appreciate the effort we were making. You were really, let's face it, trying to by-pass him, too. But that was not fraught with any great danger. I think that is evidence of our frustration throughout that period. It was thought out, we were all in accord, and the effort was made. Throughout this Medicare struggle it has to be recalled that the AMA [American Medical Association] was extremely active and heavily financed. There was a real view in the medical profession--it's hard to believe--that enactment would bring about a socialist society and that they would become, as doctors in Great Britain, under the control of government. The scare aspect of it as promoted by the AMA and its lobbyists was far-reaching. You would find during that period, in a doctor's office, all kinds of literature in opposition to Medicare. This was a tremendous effort. As it turned out, it wasn't adverse to the medical profession. You have to recognize that doctors generally speaking are not political activists. They're not that involved, they're not that knowledgeable, frankly, about the political process. They can be easily persuaded by their own organizations that this is horrendous. The exaggeration of the ultimate impact of this was ludicrous, but there were thousands of doctors across this country that felt otherwise. When you're talking about the Anderson move and talking about the rallies and all the rest, we were engaged in one whale of a battle. You had to credit the opposition with a well organized, heavily financed war against it. Obviously they had been effective, because they had derailed this proposal for one long time. G: You lost by just a few votes. Apparently Jennings Randolph, as you described in your book, was the key to this. O: Yes. I know I've described it in the book. There was a great deal of resentment. We reacted very strongly to Jennings Randolph. And as I indicate in my book, we tried to respond in kind. So that's evidence of the strong reaction you had. 37 O'Brien --Interview IV --34 G: Randolph evidently wanted very badly to have some appropriation for West Virginia, help out some money there. O: Yes. G: I have a note here that indicates if you could have gotten Randolph to vote with you, you would have gotten Hayden, too. O: Yes, that's right. With Carl Hayden there's no question in your mind that he would fulfill such a commitment. At that point, Senator Hayden lived in close proximity to the Senate and arrangements were carefully made for transportation of Hayden to the floor, if needed, all with his approval. There were those who suggested afterward that that was an exaggeration of the situation, that Randolph's action didn't cause a total disaster because if he had supported us we still were short. And certainly Mike Mansfield was personally involved; this was all in place. G: What do you think would have happened if Randolph had voted with you? Then it would have gone back to the House, I suppose, in some form. O: Yes. G: What would have happened then? O: I don't know as we would have brought about enactment at that time. I would say the odds did not favor it. G: Had you done any study on--? O: Not a great deal. That would have been a direct confrontation with Wilbur. Our anticipation was that if we were ever in that position, then we were going to just shower Wilbur with everything we could in terms of the high regard we held for him and his opportunity to take a historic action that would benefit millions of Americans then and in the future. Wilbur's power in the House was such that until there was a personal willingness to go forward, there was no way it could be accomplished. The House wasn't about to fly in the face of the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. G: Okay. We've got some education legislation, and the first one I want to ask you about does deal with medical colleges. This was a bill to provide aid for medical school education, both in terms of facilities and in terms of scholarships for medical students. O: The scholarship aspect of it was the most controversial. And the unavoidable was present, too: church-state. It never was easy. 38 O'Brien --Interview IV --35 G: I have a note that Judge [Howard] Smith refused to release this bill until the college aid bill was dead, that he just bottled this one up until the other one was defeated. Do you recall that? O: No, but I'm sure that could well have been the case, because in the college aid proposal you not only had construction aid, you had heavy scholarship potential. And that, of course, underscored the church-state problem. While that would not be directly reflected in this program, I'm sure that Smith would not want to have the precedent that favorable action be taken. That would seem to me to open the door on overall college aid. Smith's thought process was "I don't want to let this go to favorable action until I'm assured that college aid bill is dead." G: Apparently the college aid bill was also tied in with the vocational aid, too. O: Yes. You know, there were people saying it's an endless series of proposals in the field of education. We're getting sick these proposals hitting us in different directions; it's an overload. That was a form of cop-out on the part of some. There was an expression that we were too heavily involved in this area and that we ought to focus our attention on one meaningful aspect of it and not be trying to cover the waterfront, which I guess was a valid suggestion, but that wasn't the way we approached it. We had these various programs in mind, [they] had been on the drawing board, and our decision was that they called for specific legislative proposals. I think if you got into an omnibus situation, it would have just complicated the process further. G: Within the House Education and Labor Committee, was there a split with regard to which measure would be brought out first? O: I recall it was Jim O'Hara, who was as knowledgeable as anyone on the committee and as committed. There were others. Hugh Carey was on that committee. I don't know about a split, but certainly there was a great deal of discussion about what kind of a timetable should be developed and how these items should move out of committee. I don't recall the specifics of it, but there was some confusion and concern relative to this. G: Okay. Anything else on the education matters that year? O: No, I think, as we continued our attempts to move in this area into all levels of education, we had taken a swing at just about everything we could in the field of education. The overriding frustration was the obvious one, that you just continued to have elements of church-state. It didn't have the impact it did at the elementary, secondary [levels], but it was there. You were also faced with, in trying to peel back opposition, additional opposition which went to basic, fundamental government involvement and encroachment, as some saw it, in the field of education. It had some civil rights connotations, at least indirectly, too. It was all part of the mix. 39 O'Brien --Interview IV --36 Our areas were the areas of civil rights, Medicare and medical research. We had firm views and strong commitments in all those areas. How to fulfill them was the difficulty. And the roadblocks--you could anticipate some of them. I'm sure it was no surprise to us that Judge Smith decided not to allow that rule to come forward until college aid was dead. But you'd battle it out on a day-to-day basis. Setbacks, yes. But progress, yes, too. G: Was it frustrating to have a bill lingering in a committee throughout the session and then not have it brought forward in time to pass it? O: Very much so. G: Tell me what you did to get around this problem. O: We were very much concerned at all times about the timetable. That was always a subject of discussion with the leadership at every leadership breakfast, with every committee chairman. We tried mightily to spring legislation out of committee and Rules, or out of the Senate committees on a timely basis to avoid having it move to another session or to another Congress. When you got toward the tail-end of a session--and those sessions were prolonged in just about every year I was around there--they were prolonged in some instances through Christmas. That imposed great difficulties. There again, cooperation with the leadership was an important element. While we might directly be dealing with the chairman of a committee, the leadership would move into it, and that was awfully important to us, to have Rayburn in the early days, McCormack, Albert, call the chairman in, the senior members of the committee, and have us meet with them about schedules. Schedules, schedules, schedules. That took as much time and attention as any other aspect of the process. G: I guess in the Education and Labor Committee it was even more of a problem with Powell being absent all the time. O: Yes. We've discussed Adam. Our friends on the committee would do everything to be helpful. But doing everything they could couldn't get to the point of tying a rope around Adam Powell and dragging him into a committee session. That frustrating aspect never ended, because you might have it out of committee and have a rule and you had to be concerned about Adam being on the floor. I don't remember the specific bill, but I do recall that there was one, at least, where Adam was not on the floor for debate and O'Hara had to take over. G: Could you get a bill out of a committee if the chairman was not around? O: Oh, it's possible. But it was not in the process. G: Did you have a magic date by which time you had to get a bill out of committee in order 40 O'Brien --Interview IV --37 to get it passed before the end of the session? O: If you're asking what we would do if we passed the date whereby it was realistic to get a bill passed before the end of the session and would that mean we would drop our effort to get the bill out of the committee, the answer is no. G: Really? O: Our approach was to keep plowing ahead, even if you reached the point of saying, "Well, we're making this effort, we're on the verge of getting it out of the committee. But if we get it out of the committee and get a rule, or we get it out of the Senate committee to get it on the calendar, it's probably not in the offing during this session." That would not deter us in our efforts to move it anyway. There's got to be some value in that movement that could be utilized later on. G: But generally in terms of the span of time, by what date would you need to have something out of a [committee]? O: There really wasn't any specific date, because inevitably, as each session started, the session hardly got moving when people would start talking about when it was going to close out. And there were always the projected dates when it would close out. Of course, those are the days when you didn't have the August recess, but you had all kinds of informal, unofficial vacation periods--and they still have them, despite the August recess--of Lincoln's Birthday, which meant another week; Easter, which meant another week or ten days; Washington's Birthday, which would be another week; Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners, which would be another week; Lincoln Day dinners, which is another week. It was just terribly frustrating. So if they'd say, "Well, this session should end by Labor Day," we never sat there anticipating that it would end by Labor Day. And you never, therefore, established a calendar and said, "If you don't get a rule on this or get it out of committee and Mike gets it on the calendar by August 1, you have to forget it this session." Heck, you could be in that session on New Year's Eve. Those projected dates for closing out a session were never met. It was interesting, because there were two elements you have to bear in mind. One, this was all prior to the reorganization in the House--reform in the House. The position you were talking about, getting a bill out of a committee without the chairman's approval or presence, the position of a chairman was totally by seniority. He was all-powerful. That was what you were faced with. That was the case and remained the case until there was some elements of lessening of power. The unbelievable situation, unbelievable to us at that time, finally occurred where a member with the seniority was not chosen by the caucus as chairman of a committee. That was all part of reform. So that's an important element to keep in mind as you discuss the legislative process through those years. G: Did you often obtain a discharge petition or attempt to obtain one? 41 O'Brien --Interview IV --38 O: Oh, there were some attempts. The one that comes to mind that we worked on arduously was in the period of President Johnson, the District of Columbia home rule [bill]. The President was deeply involved in that discharge petition. That one comes forcibly to mind. There were obviously other discharge petitions attempted. But the weakness of that effort was the obvious one--not only were you trying to secure signatures on a discharge petition, but you were trying to retain signatures on a discharge petition. It wasn't that unusual for someone to sign a discharge petition and then at a later date remove his or her name from the petition, so to get the required number of signatures at a given moment was a monumental task. G: You had a foreign buildings act that year that died when the House and Senate couldn't get together in the closing days of the session. Do you recall that, and did you make an effort to get that cleared before--? O: Refresh my memory on it now a little bit. G: I don't know if I have a note on that one. Okay, you had a welfare reform bill that was an important legislative achievement that year. O: An important element of our legislative efforts that year. Of course, this is the one where Abe Ribicoff took the lead and we achieved a solid final result. This is the one where someone suggested that maybe it was Bob Kerr [who] slipped a little deal for Jennings Randolph into the bill to compensate him for his vote on Medicare. G: Do you think that was accurate? O: Probably. We probably had to swallow hard at that time. G: One of the big controversial changes was an increase in the federal share of the welfare payments. Do you recall that? O: Yes, that's right. Well, you know, along with that we also wanted to tighten the rules and procedures [in order] to lessen abuse. So it was a balanced proposal. We would play a greater financial role at the federal level, but by the same token we would try to significantly tighten up the abuse area. That was the balanced approach. G: How about the acceleration of public works? Do you recall that? This was a measure designed to boost the economy. O: That was the basic idea. At that point, we felt this could be helpful, because the economy was not in great shape. There had been some sagging, and this was a proposal on our part to help strengthen it. G: I have a note here that says that John Blatnik, who was chairman of Rivers and Harbors 42 O'Brien --Interview IV --39 subcommittee, was postponing hearings on the omnibus rivers and harbors authorization until after the public works bill was sent to the White House. Was this a common development? O: Yes. That wouldn't be an uncommon procedure. Again, it reflects the role of a chairman. G: Okay, there were some important appointments that year: Byron White to the Supreme Court and Arthur Goldberg to the Supreme Court. Do you recall why those men were selected, how they were selected? O: Well, "Whizzer" White was very much involved in the Kennedy campaign. He headed a Citizens for Kennedy effort and was part of the team effort in the primaries and the convention and the election. He'd become a close associate of all of us and had become socially close to the Kennedy family, particularly Bobby and Ethel. The staunchest advocates of the appointment of Whizzer White to the Supreme Court, in my recollection, were Bobby and Ethel. Of course, we were all in accord. I had nothing to do with his appointment. It was a Kennedy family appointment. I remember we were all very pleased with it because we held him in very high regard. Arthur Goldberg had performed an important role with the administration from the outset. He had acquitted himself well. He had a fine reputation not only in the legal community, but he was well thought of by labor. He had therefore broadly based support. I don't recall the ultimate decision on Goldberg other than, as in the case of White, Goldberg's appointment was widely applauded. Neither one of them presented any difficulty in confirmation and they were considered appointments of high quality. G: Was there anyone else that the President considered as an alternative to either of these two, do you recall? O: I don't know. I can't recall anyone that was considered as an alternative to Whizzer White. On Goldberg there might have been others considered, but I don't recall because, again, that was an outstanding appointment and widely accepted. Obviously, those that weren't enamored with the appointment of Arthur Goldberg would be those of a conservative bent that recognized his liberal tendencies and his pro-labor positions. But neither one of those appointments created any meaningful controversy. G: Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Second Circuit. This was after a recess appointment in 1961. Do you recall this move and the significance of it? O: The significance was apparent. There again, I think the President had the luxury of having a potential appointee in that position who was extremely well regarded and had achieved a national reputation. Consequently, there again, it would have been very difficult to register any significant opposition to Marshall's appointment. G: Some of the southerners opposed him. 43 O'Brien --Interview IV --40 O: Yes. I mean other than the obvious. G: Was this an effort to get him in line for a Supreme Court appointment, do you think? O: Not to my knowledge. If it was, I was unaware of it. I think it certainly was part of the effort to bring recognition to blacks at a high level of government. That was an effort that was part of our commitment. G: You had three other appointments of some interest: John McCone as CIA director. McCone had refused to divest himself of a million dollars in Standard Oil stock. Do you recall that? O: Other than that controversial aspect of it, no. G: Matt [Matthew] McCloskey as ambassador to Ireland, do you remember that? O: Yes, I remember that because Matt had been treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and the campaign. He had been an early staunch supporter of Kennedy. He was of Irish heritage. He had achieved great success in the private sector, had developed a major construction company in Philadelphia and expressed a willingness to serve as ambassador. We thought that it was an ideal appointment. There again, I don't recall anyone registering any unusual objections to it. G: How about [J.] Lindsay Almond to the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals? O: I have no recollection of that appointment. G: Okay. We also had the Billie Sol Estes case breaking that year. O: Yes. G: You've got something there on that. Tape 3 of 3, Side 2 O: Billie Sol Estes and the problems attendant to him became a matter of great controversy, raging controversy I guess you could call it, and had attracted the attention of committees of both the House and Senate. It was focused on by John McClellan in depth. There were all kinds of accusations. There were attempts to tie Estes to Lyndon Johnson. There was the feeling that these hearings brought about the ultimate defeat of a couple of senators [congressmen], [H. Carl] Andersen of Minnesota and [J. T.] Rutherford of Texas. Orville Freeman came under fire. Freeman had appointed him to some advisory committee even after some of the charges had been explored. The whole thing took up a great deal of time and brought a lot of attention. There was the suggestion that there might have been a 44 O'Brien --Interview IV --41 death [murder?] involved that McClellan dwelled on. All this added up to a lot of media attention. And while neither committee came to any final specifics on their investigations to prove, or disprove for that matter, a lot of the theories and a lot of the accusations, it was a matter of great interest. And it was not very helpful in terms of the administration. This is in 1962. Of course, there were subsequent activities involving Estes at a later date, but at that time it was a media feast. G: Did you ever meet Estes? O: No. I never did. G: What was President Kennedy's attitude toward this situation? O: I don't recall ever having any discussion with him regarding Estes. It really didn't fall into my area. Pretty much what occurred concerning Estes through that period was a matter that I too read about and heard about rather than having any direct information. I certainly received no guidance in terms of the committees or anything else; this was completely out of our area. G: Did you have an indication of how Lyndon Johnson was tied into this, to what extent? O: No. And I'm sure I never had any discussion with the Vice President on this subject. G: Do you think LBJ was concerned about it? O: I just don't know. G: Some people have said subsequently that this was one of the things that made him vulnerable to the administration, the fact that he was tied into it, if only marginally. O: "Vulnerable" meaning that the President was concerned about his possible relationship with Estes? G: Right. O: I have no awareness of it. It certainly never came to my attention if, indeed, the President did have that view. G: Anything on Jerry Holleman's resignation here? O: No, other than the fact that he acknowledged receipt of some kind of a contribution or payment by Estes and resigned. That's all that I was aware of. G: Anything else on the Estes [case]? 45 O'Brien --Interview IV --42 O: No. As I say, that phase of Billie Sol Estes, and indeed subsequent phases, I had no direct or even indirect involvement with that I can recall. I never met the man and it was out of my range. G: You were on the political side as well as the congressional side. How do you screen out someone like Estes who is making a lot of contributions and trying to establish friends in the administration? O: I not only did not know Estes, I was not even aware of his contributions. Estes never came to my attention during the campaign or subsequently. What motivated Orville Freeman to designate him as a member of this advisory committee or who recommended him to Orville, I have no awareness of. I would say that if this fellow and some of the activities had been known to me, I would certainly have been very leery of involving Estes in the administration. But I can say that by virtue of knowledge that I acquired at a later date. The chances are if Estes' name had been presented with background that indicated he had agricultural expertise and there was an opening in that area and he was a significant contributor to the party, I think those would all be matters that you would look at in a favorable light at the time under the circumstances. G: It does seem to have been somewhat easy to acquire inscribed photographs and warm letters of thank you--O: Oh, that's easy. The photographs particularly are easy. I always thought that there was too great a tendency on the part of public figures to distribute their photographs with personalized remarks. The use of those photographs can be potentially devastating, depending on the circumstances, I guess. I always thought that it was too free and easy to respond to a constituent who requested the photograph and inscribe "To Joe, with warm"--and I've done this myself--" warm personal regards" and sign your name to it. [If] it winds up on the wall somewhere for the scrutiny of somebody that the constituent is dealing with, it can certainly be misinterpreted. We found it to be the case with correspondence generally. That can be [true] at, I guess, the congressional or any political level, but certainly at the presidential level it can have particular sensitivity and calls for great caution. The way we proceeded with a great deal of the White House mail was by use of autopen and acknowledging receipt of letters that would be supposedly referred to the President's attention at some time and [thus] avoid the presidential signature. And the presidential signature as an actual signature was rare. That's not done necessarily to have somebody, like Estes apparently, utilize anything and everything by way of presenting himself. It was partially the problem of maintaining communication where you have massive amounts of mail, and secondly, having in mind the sensitivity of misuse of acknowledgements of letters or photographs or autographs. So if you're saying that Estes accumulated a fair amount of this material, he's not the only one I've ever heard of who did that. I've been in offices where it astounded me to 46 O'Brien --Interview IV --43 find the walls replete with autographed photographs that would make you wonder whether the person sitting behind the desk really had that intimate an acquaintance with all those people or whether it was a matter of active solicitation. I have always refrained from having photographs of public figures on my wall. G: Do you think that there was an attempt after Estes to tighten up on this and check out people? O: I don't recall. Where we were directly engaged--by "we" I'm talking about Dick Maguire and Ken O'Donnell and there were others who had some role or involvement in this general process--we tried to be sure of the facts before we got involved with any individual or got involved to the point where we were suggesting the individual be considered for a position in the administration. That's a very sensitive area and you wanted to be awfully sure that you had done a good job in that regard. G: Let me ask you about the 1962 congressional elections. O: I think that as we approached those elections, with the significant loss in 1960 and our efforts in 1961 and 1962 to establish communications and associations and friendships on the Hill as part of the legislative process, we were not looking forward to the off-year elections with any great anticipation, because we all recognized the historic record that incumbent administrations suffer losses in off-year midterm elections. We made a great effort through the [Democratic] National Committee, in association with House and Senate campaign committees, to be helpful to friendly members seeking re-election or friendly candidates seeking to oust unfriendly members. Our role in that regard was to a great extent the role of providing, where we could, visible support. There were occasions when that would mean direct presidential support of a candidate. There was the effort to provide the candidate with all the background and material we could that might be helpful to him in promoting his candidacy. There was the assignment of any number of members of the administration to functions in states and congressional districts across the country which might be helpful to the candidate. There was the attempt to come up with highly visible speakers at the candidate's fund-raising functions back home. There was a good deal of that, and we tried to orchestrate it, organize it and implement it to the best of our ability. We did not have any significant funding for all of this. What we had to offer was to do everything we could as an administration to be helpful in every conceivable way. We received innumerable requests of that nature, and we tried to acknowledge all of those requests to the best of our ability. With all of that, we looked toward the election with some trepidation, because if it was going to follow the historic path, we could darn well be back to where we were before the Rules fight. So that brought us to election day, which was another work day for us in the White House and for the President. But, obviously, we were anxiously awaiting our fate 47 O'Brien --Interview IV --44 as an administration. The first returns came in from Kentucky, and a friendly congressman in the Kentucky delegation was defeated. I believe it was [Frank] Burke. That was a real cold shower, because he was an excellent representative--very bright, very able, very progressive, and very supportive of the President. That was the first news we had of that election that night. I went into the President's office and advised him of the defeat. There was about an hour's lapse, because Kentucky had an early closing. Those were the first results you'd get around the country. The President shared my concerns, saying, "This is a bad start. This would indicate we may be in for a long and very troubling night." That didn't turn out to be the case actually. When the smoke settled and everything was reported, I believe we did suffer a very minimal loss, perhaps four or five, which we accepted. We had been fearful throughout that it would be a greater loss than that. So we found ourselves in approximately the same position we had been in over the first two years going into the next Congress. I think there were some slight adjustments that would indicate we might have a slight overall gain by analyzing and evaluating the switch in membership in the House. But there was nothing to give us great comfort that we had achieved any elbowroom that hadn't existed. Nor was there anything by way of a setback that made us feel we were out of business. G: Yes. I think the GOP picked up two seats in the House and there were four additional Democrats in the Senate or something like that. O: Yes. It was a wash from our perspective. We didn't suffer a loss and we didn't have any significant gain, and in the face of the normal off-year situation we fared okay. G: Did President Kennedy participate in some of the primary races where Democratic incumbents had been helpful to the administration? O: Regarding his participation directly in the congressional district or within the state, there was some of that, but I must say that I'd have to go back and check records. As to general participation, the answer is yes. We did a film, and my recollection is that each member could participate with the President and do a quick film that could be utilized back home. We also developed statements to be utilized by the candidate in his printed material. We did everything that you could imagine that was available for us to do. The direct presidential participation was limited, but there was some. I don't recall specifically just where he went and what appearances he made. The first year he did go to New Jersey in support of [Richard] Hughes, who was the candidate for governor. That was an election in 1961. He was in Connecticut in support of Abe Ribicoff, and there were other trips, but I'd have to go back over his schedule in order to refresh my memory on those. But, in summation, whatever was available to us by way of advocacy and support was not only freely given, it was brought to the candidates across the country. And the President's willingness to participate to the fullest [degree] possible in support of our friends in and out of the Congress--potential friends if they could oust incumbents--was all done, and it was done on a reasonably organized basis. 48 O'Brien --Interview IV --45 G: Where did you draw the line in deciding whether or not to support an incumbent? O: You would not decide not to support an incumbent unless there was something overriding, and I'd like to cite an example but I'd have difficulty because an incumbent was an incumbent with a D next to his name almost regardless of his record of support. First of all, an incumbent who had been nonsupportive was not interested in taking your suggestions in his re-election campaign. Now, a person who at times might have frustrated you, disappointed you, but [who] had an interest and felt it was a plus for him to have publicized presidential support, that was given to him. We always figured that if he came back he'd do better the next time around. G: Did this ever put you in the position, though, of supporting sort of an old-guard Democrat against a reformer or someone that you might have found more to your liking on issues? O: No, we'd take an old-guard Democrat as against a Republican. G: Well, now I'm talking about a primary here. O: Well, we had no involvement in the primaries that I recall. I don't think there was an incident of a really heavily contested primary involving an incumbent that was brought to our attention. There might have been an isolated instance. But when you recognize that [of] the four hundred and thirty-five members of the House, a realistic appraisal of election prospects will bring you clearly to no more than and probably a little less than one hundred contested congressional districts. That's where all the focus is. It is extremely difficult, bordering on the impossible, to oust an incumbent in a party primary. I would say in just about every instance of a contested election there was an urgent request for presidential support, because those that didn't care about presidential support probably didn't have any contested election in any event. They would be conservative to ultraconservative southern Democrats who would prefer the President not say anything favorable about them. So, therefore, you weren't really in any difficult situation in making judgments and decisions. But it's of interest, I think, that an analysis of the House of Representatives in elections every two years over the last probably several decades, certainly over the last two or three when I became directly involved in national politics, shows the contested districts you have to reach to say, "All right, here are the hundred districts we're going to focus on, up or down, in or out." In other words, it shows whether you could oust the Republican incumbent or whether the Democratic incumbent was in for a difficult fight to survive. So that's where you are. In the Senate, it can differ, and, of course, in the Senate only one-third of the senators are up for re-election every two years. So to be of help isn't that difficult because your area of focus is considerably narrowed. You're talking about a maximum of thirty-three senators, and probably ten of those [are] in a meaningful contest either way, to oust or to re-elect. You're talking about a hundred congressional seats either way, to oust or re-elect. That's why when you get a loss in an off-year--an incumbent administration loses a significant number of seats in the House--you've lost those seats out of a hundred. That's some turn-around because if you lose twenty or thirty 49 O'Brien --Interview IV --46 seats, you've turned around a third of the contested seats. G: One of the senators elected that year was the President's brother. Let me ask you to recount what you know about his candidacy and how it evolved and your role. O: I didn't have any meaningful role, but I followed it with interest and had one discussion with the President at a very early stage. G: Can you recall that discussion? O: Yes, early on when there was some comment or some indications that Teddy was going to seek a Senate seat, the President did discuss it with me quite briefly, but he expressed a concern. His concern went to the obvious. First of all, Teddy was very young; he was just at the age where he would comply with the constitutional provision on age in the Senate. If he ran, he was going to get into a hotly contested primary with John McCormack's nephew, and here we go again. The President had no objection to Teddy pursuing a public career. He considered that a rather natural evolvement. But he did wonder aloud if maybe Teddy shouldn't consider running for a state office in Massachusetts, secretary of state or state treasurer, whatever, as a starting point rather than the giant leap effort into the Senate. He suggested to me that perhaps I should have a chat with Teddy and explore that aspect. I dutifully listened and departed the scene and made up my mind before I closed the door that I wasn't about to discuss this with Teddy. This was a family matter pure and simple and I didn't feel that I should inject myself in it, and I didn't. The result of it all was, of course, that Teddy did get into a hot primary contest with Eddie McCormack. As that unfolded, the President became a very, very staunch advocate and followed it very closely and, typical of the family, hoped for a victory and forgot, I'm sure, any concerns he might have had about launching in the first place. Teddy was, of course, successful and he came to the Senate with an initial problem of acceptance because of the circumstances entailed in his election and his relationship with the President. Teddy, to his credit, did everything possible, one-on-one throughout the Senate, to present himself, to become acquainted, and to seek acceptance. And he did it. I wasn't present at these meetings, but he devoted just about every waking minute until time to take his seat in the Senate to making these contacts, establishing these relationships, having these conversations, social visits and what have you, with every member of the Senate, with, of course, emphasis on the Democrats. In no time at all, interestingly enough, I would pick up from the Senate very favorable reactions to Teddy and a broad base of acceptance. I think it was due really to his own personal effort to become an accepted member. It certainly was helpful to him and to his future in the Senate. G: Did you have any role in the campaign at all? 50 O'Brien --Interview IV --47 O: No. G: Did President Kennedy fear that it might alienate McCormack? O: I don't think that probably was a fear [after] our experience with McCormack off the prior confrontation we had over the state chairmanship of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts. John McCormack's reaction to all that and his attitude concerning it was so upbeat and so pleasing to all of us that we would anticipate he would not react any differently in this instance, and there wasn't any differing reaction. These two young fellows just went and fought it out. One of the great lines from that primary was [from] one of the debates when Eddie McCormack said to Teddy Kennedy, "Your name is Edward Moore Kennedy. If your name was Edward Moore you wouldn't be here tonight." I guess that was quite accurate. G: It seemed that the White House likened its role in that campaign to the sending of advisers to Indochina. Had you heard that expression? O: No, I hadn't heard that expression, but I could tell you there wasn't any even arm's length involvement on the part of the White House. G: Really? O: Not to my knowledge. G: Okay. Is that the way that Ted Kennedy wanted it? Would he have appreciated some [help]? O: Oh, I don't know. I was not party to any discussion of this nature, but it's just stating the obvious--there should not be a discernible presidential role in the election because that would certainly border on, if not bring about, a counterproductive situation. G: Now, was there also a voter registration campaign tied in with the 1962 congressional elections? O: Yes. We put together what we considered a major effort that was in cooperation with COPE and others. The problem of the party historically, to go right to the heart of it, is voter registration and voter turn-out. Overridingly the majority party in this country for a long period of time [was] the Democratic Party, and you lost impact if you didn't maintain a vigorous voter registration drive. The problem with the voter registration drive is it just has to be grass-roots to have an impact. The most impressive voter registration that I ever saw in the country in my political years was in Philadelphia where the Democratic city committee conducted a registration drive that went on every day of the year. It was budgeted, financed, professionally handled, and the end result was obvious. That was the best organized voter registration I had seen anywhere in the country, to this day. And it has to be grass-roots because it is probably the least interesting aspect of politics. It's 51 O'Brien --Interview IV --48 grubby work; there's nothing exciting or glamorous about it at all, but it's vital. That, coupled with maximizing your voter turn-out, is the answer to victory more often than not. Of course, that was part of my upbringing from the very first stages: how do you show strength and achieve results if you can't involve people in the election process? In order to do that you just have to go out and work at it one-on-one, door-to-door, not only to get them registered but to get them to vote. So there's always an effort undertaken, and the O'Brien manual from its beginning emphasized voter registration. But the reality of voter registration is manpower and willingness to do grubby, detailed, nonglamorous work, and the ability of people to direct that kind of work and enlist people to do it. So it's never something that you feel that you fully accomplish. There's always a big gap between objectives and goals and the reality of accomplishment, and that remains the case to this day. That's why really at the national level on voter registration, your efforts are to lessen the restrictions on registration, make it easier to register, like post-card registration, which have always been Democratic Party advocacies and always been opposed by the Republicans for the obvious reasons. So any attempt--and we were engaged in many of them over the years politically--to increase voter registration was conducted vigorously at the local level and continues to be, I'm sure. So the answer is that we were involved in all elections--and that would include 1962--in voter registration efforts, but for the most part at the national level. The Democratic National Committee was to provide programs and ideas and try to persuade people to initiate or enlist them in carrying out programs of this nature at the local level. End of Tape 3 of 3 and Interview IV 52 [ Part 5: "Attached Text" ] *Pages 1--51 from Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview V* LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. 1 LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW V PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview V, 12/ 5/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview V, 12/ 5/ 85, by Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. 2 NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY AND JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Lawrence F. O'Brien In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Lawrence F. O'Brien of New York, New York, do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on September 18, October 29, October 30, December 4, December 5, 1985; February 11, February 12, April 8, April 9, June 25, July 24, July 25, September 10, September 11, November 20, November 21, December 17, December 18, 1986; April 22, April 23, June 18, June 19, July 21, July 22, August 25, August 26, September 23, September 24, November 3, November 4, December 10, December 11, 1987 at New York, New York and Cotuit, Massachusetts and prepared for deposit jointly in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library. (2) The tape recordings to which the transcripts relate shall be in the possession of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and shall not be available for use or review of or by any source during my lifetime and for a period of time thereafter ending with the 10th year anniversary of the date of my death. At such time, access to the tape recordings by researchers shall be permitted but only for the limited purpose of background use, and researchers may not cite, paraphrase, or quote therefrom under any circumstances. (3) During my lifetime, I retain all copyright in the material given to the United States by the terms of this instrument. Thereafter the copyright in the transcripts shall pass to the United States Government. During my lifetime, researchers may publish brief "fair use" quotations from the transcripts without my express prior consent in each case, but no other quotations from the transcripts shall be published, except with my express prior approval in writing. (4) Copies of the open portions of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be provided by the library to researchers upon request, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. (5) Copies of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be deposited in or loaned to research institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library or the John 3 Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. Signed by Lawrence F. O'Brien on April 5, 1990. Accepted by Donald Wilson, Archivist of the United States, April 25, 1990. Original Deed of Gift on file at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705. ACCESSION NUMBER 92-16 4 O'Brien --Interview V --1 INTERVIEW V DATE: December 5, 1985 INTERVIEWEE: LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN INTERVIEWER: Michael L. Gillette PLACE: Mr. O'Brien's office, New York City Tape 1 of 3, Side 1 G: Okay, I want to start with some miscellaneous topics to finish up 1962. O: All right. G: Let me ask you first about the John Glenn space flight. Anything on that from your perspective that you recall? O: Not from any direct involvement, but I was intrigued with the reaction of the President, Jack Kennedy. The pride as president that finally we'd accomplished something in our quest to move up to the Russians and his personal reaction was one of great excitement. The result of that was John Glenn became a personal friend and was involved with Bobby and Ethel [Kennedy] socially. When John was initially seeking office, it coincided with a period when I was [Democratic national] chairman, and he came to me to talk about the role of the Democratic National Committee. I had to advise John there was no financial support; we had no resources for that. That was a surprise to him. Over a period of time we became well acquainted. I toured the state and John toured with me. John was very disappointed that he had not received strong support from the Kennedys in this quest. It surprised him; it disturbed him. I felt that there was a degree of political naiveness being shown by John at that stage of his career. He had, from his space period to his political launching, been successful in the private sector. But he presumed that friendship and association automatically brought political support and he didn't seem to understand that there are political conflicts, that Kennedys are oftentimes caught in situations where there are others seeking a nomination, where there are other interests. And there has always been a reluctance on the part of the Kennedys to step directly into the campaigns of others. Perhaps these people exaggerated what value there would be in it, in the first instance, and secondly, if you become deeply involved with one, you must become deeply involved with others. All of that was understood by me but not by John. G: Was this primarily with regard to a primary? 5 O'Brien --Interview V --2 O: Yes, it was in the primary, as I recall. The fact is that the Kennedys generally and the President specifically became very much enamored with John. He was very much a hero to them. Whizzer White had an outstanding background as a scholar and as an athlete, and that was the kind of style the Kennedys admired, the hero thing. I think that was part of the quick and ready acceptance of Whizzer into the inner social circle, and with John Glenn even more so, obviously. So he became very much a part of their social life. G: Were you around the President at the time of the space mission? O: Yes, I was, but I don't have any specific recollections. It was a big moment for the President. The President was very much concerned about what he construed to be our failure to recognize the realities of the future in space and that we had been derelict in that regard. And of course there was the other element, too; he resented the fact that the Russians had made the progress they had made. G: Did these successes in the space program help you on Capitol Hill in terms of selling the NASA budget? O: It was of help. Could you measure it? I couldn't measure it, but it was, because there was a change of attitude. An upbeat situation was created and it was to a considerable extent because of Glenn, and that was helpful in general. The success of this particular venture was a contributing factor to creating a better atmosphere. The foot-dragging aspect seemed to lessen to a degree. G: LBJ was accused of grandstanding for publicity during Glenn's subsequent trip to New York and the ticker tape parade. O: Yes. G: Do you have any thoughts on that? O: Oh, I don't know. I remember that he was--I don't think that was the only time he was accused of grandstanding. He had a style and a flair that lent itself to critics' fault finding. I think there was an occasion when he visited the Pope in which some people criticized his approach to the visit or the gift. But that was his style, and I don't think Lyndon Johnson ever was reluctant to envision where the camera locations were and he had a way of moving front and center. It came naturally to him. I could see nothing wrong in it. He wasn't alone in that regard in the world of politics by a long shot. G: The White House did not resent his efforts to--? O: No. If there was any resentment I never heard it, and I have a feeling that I would have picked that up. As I've mentioned before, whatever the motivation, Kennedy was totally committed to ensuring Johnson's involvement in all phases of activity--as I pointed out an incident where he wasn't present at a meeting, and there had been a failure to notify him 6 O'Brien --Interview V --3 and the President was very disturbed about it and gave orders to all of us that this could never happen again. I don't know whether Lyndon Johnson felt that he was totally involved. I never had those kinds of conversations with him. But his assignments often were basically--it's true today [of] the role of the vice president: you do some foreign travel; you are the number-two fellow that fills in the gaps, you're called upon by the president to engage in a lot of activities, including membership on various committees and commissions. Some of it I imagine isn't awfully exciting or indeed pleasant at times, but that's some of the--it's a terrible way to describe it--somewhat grubby tasks that a vice president is charged with. And Johnson had always been number one. As majority leader he came across as number one, and whether number two was something he accustomed or adjusted himself to, I don't know. But I do know the President's view regarding the Vice President and what his role was to be. And it came out later, after Dallas. Some of those resentments on the part of some of the Kennedy people toward Johnson probably didn't exist, or if they did, were kept close to the vest. My close associates, some of whom resented Johnson after Dallas, were rather negative about him. I don't recall them having that attitude [before], or if they did, they didn't express it when he was vice president. It's hard for me to determine, because I had a difficult time--I've discussed it before and it will probably crop up from time to time--following Dallas. I had to cope with some strong views on the part of close associates which, in my judgment, really made no sense. There was no ground for some of the attitudes and some of the views expressed. It went on for a period of time. It was bothersome, because I on the one hand wanted to retain these friendships and long-time associations. On the other hand, I felt a sense of responsibility. However, if you're feeling that way and you're not comfortable, then get out. Hell, there was nothing to lock you into having to go through with something that was bothersome to you. But in the vice presidential period, as I've said repeatedly, my personal association with the Vice President was a pleasant one without any rancor or difficulty. In fact, my association with him as president was similar. But what he might have inwardly thought about his role or about us, I have no idea. I read with interest an excerpt you have of a conversation that he had with Ted Sorensen, and my impression of that--I glanced at it last evening--was [it was] an attempt on the part of Johnson to place on the record his concerns about the lack of progress legislatively. I thought it was a very interesting document because there wasn't one complete sentence uttered by Sorensen throughout. It comes across to me as a calculated move on the part of LBJ to place on the record his views and his willingness to cooperate, and his feeling that perhaps he isn't being fully utilized. There was a series of statements which sounded to me as though Ted wasn't afforded an opportunity to make any comment. G: Was that typical of a conversation with LBJ during that period? 7 O'Brien --Interview V --4 O: Not that I ever had with him, no. G: He didn't tend to--? O: And interestingly enough to me, I think much of what he was saying to Sorensen should have been directed to me. Some of the area of that discussion really was an area in which he and I should have had the discussion. But I never had that kind of a conversation with Lyndon Johnson. We had any number of conversations, obviously, over the years, but I don't recall anything like that, and I have to assume that conversation was held in his office because it was recorded. G: It was a telephone conversation. O: Oh, was it? Yes, I noted that. Anyway. . . . So what hit me is that perhaps during that period, unknown to me, he was concerned about his role and concerned about the Kennedy people not treating him properly. I don't know. G: He does seem to have been restive. O: Yes, he was restive. As we have said before, he was troubled by the attitude in the Senate at the outset. It left him with a nonrole up there, and yet he had clearly decided to have his base of operation continue on the Hill, his vice presidential office. That would be his main headquarters. As time went on, it just wasn't working out. G: I wanted to ask you to talk for a moment about his role as chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. This was a situation where apparently his budget was drawn from various departments and agencies, rather than an appropriation from the Congress. (Interruption) Okay, we were talking about the President's Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity and specifically the nature of funding for that operation, since it didn't go through the appropriation process. Was this a source of irritation to southern members of the Senate and the House? O: To some degree, as I recall, yes. It was a unique procedure. It was doing an end run. I don't think it affected us particularly or deterred us, but there were some expressions of a negative nature. I would think that Lyndon Johnson in that kind of a role would find it challenging and interesting. I was always impressed with his obvious sincere commitment to equality, and I guess people thought back to his youth, his experiences during the Depression, and would understand his commitment. There was always a tendency on the 8 O'Brien --Interview V --5 part of many liberals to question Johnson's commitment to civil rights. Yet every action he took during my years with him, every effort he expended, and every word he ever uttered, even with just the two of us, clearly underscored his total commitment in that area. It used to be a little bothersome to me, frankly, to have people question it. I remember, for example, in the District of Columbia home rule discharge petition effort, that Joe Rauh and other ADAers gave up that fight on the Hill, and I could understand it. They had worked it over and couldn't get to the necessary number of names and finally threw up their hands. Lyndon Johnson didn't throw up his hands and, to the utter amazement of Rauh and his cohorts, put it across the line. And it was his personal effort that brought that about. G: What did he do specifically? O: I followed the usual procedure in all legislative struggles. You worked on a discharge petition as you would a head count, and you made efforts to secure signatures on the petition just as you would try to secure votes. Somehow or other we couldn't get there and I would always avoid direct presidential intervention until there was no other alternative, following the policy of husbanding the President's time and effort so that it would always have an impact and not become just a widely accepted, day-to-day situation on the Hill. So I finally had my list of twenty-two--I believe that was the number--members who should be on that petition and weren't. And typical of that list was a woman named Edna Kelly, who was a congresswoman from New York. She hadn't signed. And it was a carefully put together list. These were twenty-two who, if this were a liberal legislative proposal, you would fully expect to be supportive, but in this instance there was an avoidance, for whatever reasons. I happened to be in the outer office [to] the Oval Office, talking about things generally, and I mentioned that we had found liberal friends were sort of throwing in the towel and yet we had these twenty-two targets that we were still working on. He wanted to know who the twenty-two were, so I pulled it out of the inside pocket of my jacket and showed it to him. He promptly called the White House operator, the names were all given and the directive was to get them on the phone promptly wherever they could locate them. I don't know whether he went through the whole twenty-two, but I suspect he did, because he had gone through half a dozen. He was frustrated because this was in the evening, it was difficult to locate some of them. I remember Edna Kelly particularly, because with Edna there was no way that she was ever going to avoid signing that petition once he had her on the phone. There was a rather lengthy conversation with all the pleas that Johnson could make and all the cajoling. But that was kind of effort the President of the United States was expending on a discharge petition involving home rule for the District of Columbia when he should have been over in the living quarters having dinner. But it underscored, to me, once again his commitment in this area. This wasn't civil rights but it had all the elements of it, obviously. So there was no question about his commitment. I felt very strongly about that over the years, because I think to this day there are people that would suggest 9 O'Brien --Interview V --6 otherwise, despite the record. But I guess that if they still suggest otherwise, there's no way you could ever convince them. They don't care to be convinced. They've made up their minds. But this man has never received the credit he deserves in this area. And equal employment was something that fit him. G: How would you assess the work of that committee? O: Well, my recollection is awfully vague on the results, but my recollection is it was spotty. Maybe that was due to the structure. G: Let me ask you about the administration's effort to do away with discrimination in the Defense Department. This was an area where Adam Yarmolinsky in particular was involved. Can you elaborate on that? Do you recall that? O: Other than state the obvious, that there was a keen desire to put a real effort into it and that was undertaken. There again, as in all matters involving the federal bureaucracy, you found yourself frustrated, and I don't remember the details other than we found over the years that it was difficult to get a handle on the bureaucracy. Our system didn't provide for assured continuity that would have the appropriate people administer as they should, because they'd feel that you wouldn't be around and they'd still be there. And that affected you constantly, to the point where you turn your back on the whole thing and accept the inevitable. That can go to equal opportunity as well as to any other aspect of the conduct of government. To build a fire under departments and agencies of the government is a difficult process, and I don't think any president has ever had anything but a lot of frustration regarding it. But if you're looking at a defense establishment; you're looking at the military, you're looking at millions of people involved in and out of uniform. You had to try to do it administratively or attempt to. You knew that you were going to have great difficulty and frustrations, but that shouldn't deter you from making an effort. G: Did the southern members of the Congress object to the effort? O: I don't recall widespread objection, but I do recall nit-picking and questioning. Members of Congress would attempt to put roadblocks in your path, seriously questioning some of the activities. It didn't become a war, formalized by resolutions or committee actions to block activities. G: The President signed an open housing executive order. Do you recall that? O: I don't recall the details of it. Everything you could do in the executive branch that could circumvent or avoid the legislative process and bring about progress in the general civil rights area was undertaken. It was a matter of how creative you were. You knew you were still not in the position to bring about civil rights legislation. You were resorting to executive orders and other actions, faced with a lot of negative comment from liberal 10 O'Brien --Interview V --7 friends who construed activity of that nature to be an avoidance of the civil rights struggle rather than an effort to do whatever you could while you waited your time. G: Did President Kennedy pursue the executive order because he felt like it was not feasible to get the same thing accomplished legislatively, was that the--? O: Yes. As that legislative program unfolded--and we've discussed it [before]--the reality of meaningful civil rights legislation, the reality of the problem was recognized. Now, we could have demagogued the hell out of that, and there were people that suggested it. There were people who you felt you could ultimately persuade to join the cause when the time was right. And if you focused on a civil rights bill early on, you were doomed to defeat at that stage. A lot unfolded which was not in existence at that time. You would carry on this struggle and not succeed and in the process derail most of your legislative program, because it became a single-effort legislative struggle focused totally in one area. So we resented suggestions from the observers on the curbstone that we were not committed. That's a bit like how far do you pursue the rallies to build the fire under Wilbur Mills on Medicare? Those are judgments. Our judgment certainly proved to be correct, because we had a reasonable degree of success in some very important areas over the first couple of years, and we hadn't unduly antagonized a lot of people. You're trying to create friendships. But to suggest that the administration wasn't committed to this ultimate goal was grossly unfair. The struggle went on and on. As we know, it even became a major struggle in the House Judiciary Committee ultimately, and that was with a much improved climate. G: On this particular area, for example, of open housing, had you done a fairly extensive head count to indicate what your chances of getting legislation approved or not getting it approved were? O: I don't think we had done an extensive head count. We had discussed this with key people on the Hill, committee and leadership people, but we didn't get to a head count, and it would have been difficult if not impossible to get the head count without something to count, something in hand. G: Yes. But you got a sense from that that the legislation wouldn't work? O: Oh yes, coupled with a feeling that something could be accomplished through this device. G: The leadership made the suggestion for an executive order? O: I don't think they made the suggestion, but the leadership was in accord. There was a feeling that this was a good move to make and it could be productive. 11 O'Brien --Interview V --8 G: Was there any fallout from the southerners after the executive order? O: I don't recall. I think if we were able to pursue the record or go back to the Congressional Record or to old clips, you'd probably find there was. Inevitably there would be some negative fallout. But there again, you felt pretty comfortable down there with that sort of thing. So there was griping from sources that you'd anticipate. And we had a little arrogance, a little "so what, this is a procedure that is available to us and we're utilizing it and you can gripe if you want to." G: You've discussed the University of Mississippi crisis in your book, but let me ask you to elaborate on that, if you will, and describe your own conversations with the President about that, also any conversations that you had with members of the Congress. O: Well, I don't know as there's much beyond what I said in the book. My direct involvement was minimal. The involvement, again, would relate to maintaining communication with appropriate people on the Hill as this unfolded. I don't know as there's much I could add beyond that. G: A couple of the points that you stressed in your book: one, the fact that the President felt like he had been misled by the authorities there in Mississippi, I mean specifically the Governor. O: [Ross] Barnett. G: And two, the long delay in getting troops on the scene. O: Well, those were the elements that I was familiar with. I was there. I guess it's time to introduce again the human element. All of these well conceived, organized efforts that are undertaken depend on proper implementation. I remember two aspects of it: one, the President was persuaded that Barnett had not leveled with him and was attempting to manipulate him; and secondly, the military establishment was ineffective. I guess if you did it in the form of a movie or a play everybody would roar with laughter, because here's the President of the United States trying to find out where the troops are, where the general is that's responsible, and almost desperately trying to find somebody in authority to give him an answer. While this well-laid plan is supposed to be unfolding, it's in complete disarray and you have the main actor in the cast down there giving you a total con game. You put all that together and you're in a pretty frustrating situation. There's the President of the United States who everybody assumes pushes buttons and things happen. But for the life of him he couldn't find the troops and he became completely disenchanted with Brother Barnett in the process. So it was a mess. (Laughter) G: Was he in contact with Secretary [Robert] McNamara during this? O: Yes, he was in contact with everybody he could think of. I forget the general's name, but there was some general who was supposedly superior to the general missing on some 12 O'Brien --Interview V --9 highway somewhere, and the explanations became ludicrous. The fact of the matter is that the Pentagon couldn't find the troops either and the threats of what was going to happen down there if Barnett didn't straighten out were rather meaningless, because we were removed from implementation. Through those hours, you had a fellow sitting in the Oval Office with all this power supposedly, commander in chief of the armed forces, trying to cope with a bureaucracy that just had been put to a test and was in complete disarray. Tape 1 of 5, Side 2 G: Did you think that the delay was intentional at all or that it was simply incompetence? O: I don't think they could read highway signs. (Laughter) It was that bad. I can laugh about it now, but I'll tell you, there wasn't any laughter in the Oval Office while this was unfolding. G: Was Robert Kennedy involved? O: Yes. G: What was his role in this? O: Well, he was just going along. I think Ken O'Donnell was there and probably a couple of others, and we were just beside ourselves. We decided to remain relatively mute, because anything we would say would probably cause the President to become even more disturbed. It went on and on. In the meantime, as each phone call ended, there was a roar in the office about "where the hell are we and where are they, and can anybody get me somebody that can give me an answer?" G: What was McNamara's explanation? O: I don't recall. I don't know whether it was. . . . (Laughter) Nobody had an explanation. I think everybody was running for cover. G: Did the President explore other alternatives for getting a quicker response, like trying to get men from another military institution? O: No, I don't recall that--G: Was there any alternative? O: I don't think there was. The assignments had been made. That general has been assigned his task. He has his troops. God, if he can't find the location, who can? G: Was there a lesson that came out of this? Or was there any modification in order to lessen the response time? 13 O'Brien --Interview V --10 O: I don't recall that. I think the lesson that came out was similar to the Bay of Pigs lesson. Just don't dream that, with all the charts they put up on the wall and all the game plans that are developed, it's going to work out the way they tell you. It just doesn't seem to happen. And you've seen it occur. It occurred in Carter's effort to get the hostages out. It seems that every time you get into one of these engagements things go awry. I think it's sad, but maybe it's the size and scope of the whole thing. The bureaucracy is so overweighted that it's beyond. . . . G: Were there any discussions with the Mississippi delegation in Congress during this time? O: I don't recall that. G: Or Senator [James] Eastland or [John] Stennis? O: Not at this period I'm talking about. There couldn't have been, because the President was otherwise engaged, and we all were. There was an effort to keep in communication with the people on the scene down there, the Justice Department side of it, and assuring them that things were going to work out, while [Nicholas] Katzenbach, or whoever, was peering out into the horizon. G: Okay. Another episode that you discussed in your book was the Cuban Missile Crisis. But let me ask you to focus specifically on the congressional briefings and the discussions among the members of Congress. O: That was a fast-breaking situation over a very brief period of days, I guess, going back to the first awakening on my part, first knowledge I had that something was amiss. I was with the President in Chicago and our schedule called for us to go on to Wisconsin. And the President did not make me aware of this crisis at that point. G: Why do you think that was? O: He was keeping it very close to the vest. It unfolded rather rapidly and became serious quickly. His determination was to cancel the rest of that trip and return to Washington, and he came up with the excuse that he had a cold. And in my presence he called Pierre Salinger in and said to advise the press that "We're going back to Washington. I just don't feel well; I have a bad cold." And that's all Salinger knew. I went back with him, and I was on the helicopter with him from Andrews [Air Force Base] to the White House. He was very pensive en route, had very little to say. And when he alighted from the helicopter, he charged into the living quarters. I went about my business. And whether it was hours or a day, I became aware of what was transpiring. G: How did you first--? O: It must have been in general conversation in the Oval Office. When the military aide to 14 O'Brien --Interview V --11 the President was instructed to carry out the procedures of the movement of government to the Catoctin Mountains, there were a number of days involved there. I was designated as one that would go with the President and I was allowed to designate one other person who would go with me. Things were worsening. The surveillance of Cuba was being carried out. There were meetings in the Cabinet Room. McNamara was doing the briefing, and others were called in by McNamara to assist. There were blowups of the installations. There was the evidence of the further shipments toward Cuba. This unfolded hour by hour. It is my recollection the Congress was in recess. To have the leadership and the appropriate committee members briefed and alerted to all of this became a logistical problem. You were, on the one hand, unable to indicate even the nature of the crisis or refer to it as a crisis, but yet you had to impress upon Ev Dirksen and the rest out there in the hinterlands that there was a need for immediate return to Washington. G: Did you make these calls? O: I made some of them directly and my staff [made] others. G: Tell me how you could persuade them to come back without revealing the urgency of it or the nature of it. O: Simply, they'd have to accept that I was making the call on behalf of the President and it was imperative "that you return to Washington immediately in whatever manner will get you here the fastest, and I'm not in a position to discuss it any further, but the urgency is underscored and therefore the President must have your presence." Nobody would question beyond that. G: They were all quickly [inaudible] in response to--? O: Well, they knew this was a very unusual procedure and they came in from around the country. One member was a senator from California--G: [Thomas] Kuchel. O: Kuchel never got over it because he was put in a fighter plane and brought to Washington. The Congress is going to be informed in detail of what has transpired, where we are and what the end result can be. So the briefing was full in terms of the blowups of the installations and the recounting of the current status of the freighters that were moving further missiles into Cuba. All of that was detailed without withholding anything. This was the President conducting the meeting. G: He did the briefing himself? O: No. He just called on people to brief. And this went on for a fair length--it took a while 15 O'Brien --Interview V --12 to complete this briefing and to ensure that you hadn't left any element out. This was a complete briefing. And then as you would in other briefings, you would go around the table, and there were a number of people in the room, because not only were the cabinet chairs occupied but chairs were pulled up to the cabinet table and there were people sitting along the wall. So you had probably twenty or thirty people in the room. Then the President went around the table and asked each member to comment. He would appreciate their advice and counsel. The comments varied. Most of it was noncomment. Most of the reactions were to the effect that "Whatever you decide, Mr. President, you have my support." There was some reference to "Is there any way of moving the marines into Cuba?" and that got into a discussion about where they were and what would it take, and my recollection was you were talking about fifteen thousand or something marines. To move them into Cuba would take X number of days, which you could conclude meant perhaps more than X number of days before they'd ever see the shores of Cuba. That sort of drifted out of the conversation. G: Was there also a fear that once you got them in there you might have a hard time getting them out? O: Well, [we] never pursued it because it was clear you couldn't get them in there anyway and this wasn't a realistic approach. It sounds a little ludicrous, but actually there was a serious discussion. I don't think the President took it seriously, because obviously the President had given thought to the marines going into Cuba or what courses do you have? But in any event, it was a repeat of what I had seen or heard before. In that setting you're going to have collective reaction that will be "I support you, Mr. President. I have confidence in your judgment and decision. Whatever your decision is, you have my support." You don't expect anything more than that. Interesting to me is, with all the carping criticism of the White House and the president on the part of the Congress, under those circumstances there isn't any desire on the part of members of Congress for a share of the burden. This is the role of the president of the United States; this is the awesome responsibility we give him. You're perfectly willing at that point to say, "He has that responsibility. All I can do for him and am willing to do for him is support him in whatever he does. I'm not otherwise involved." So to a considerable extent those kinds of meetings are pro forma, even though at that moment you have as serious a matter as you could have on the table. It still follows the same pattern, and it's interesting to observe that and to recognize and understand it. There are times when that would happen, when I'd say to myself, "Yes, but boy, you don't hesitate to criticize and second guess the President or to complain that he doesn't communicate with the Congress, and that he should have the advice and consent of the Congress on all these matters. It all disappears when it's the moment of crisis." And that was the moment of crisis. It was not exaggerated. G: This was a briefing with the House and Senate leadership? 16 O'Brien --Interview V --13 O: This particular one, yes. But there were other briefings and meetings in the Cabinet Room. There were a number of them, and they flowed together finally because you had the cabinet in; you had staff people sitting in. However, there had to be some planning before this period I'm describing, because General [Chester] Clifton was responsible for the movement, and he talked to me and to each key member of the staff directly, and we were given our orders. But I do recall that Clifton suggested that perhaps I'd want to take a trip out to see this installation under the mountain and have a better idea how business would be conducted, and I chose not to. I felt it didn't make much difference what it looked like; if that's where you were going, you were going. (Laughter) You didn't have an alternative, so why bother to spend several hours looking at it? But anyway, that certainly didn't occur overnight, making the determination how there would be an orderly movement by helicopter into this installation that was in existence for that express purpose. But to get back to that meeting, I will have to say it concluded with expressions on the part of every member sitting there in support of the President. Certainly every one of them recognized the seriousness of the situation. They were united bipartisanly when they left that meeting and appeared before the press. They were not discussing any details of the meeting or any aspects of the meeting, just that it was a matter of great import, extremely serious and that they had told the President they supported whatever steps he took in the national interest. G: Were there any in that meeting that proposed an alternative course of action? O: There might have been one other alternative of course. I envision Senator [J. William] Fulbright had some fairly extensive comment, extending beyond "you have my support, Mr. President." Not any lengthy comment. No one had any lengthy comment. I think probably Senator [Richard] Russell did. But one or the other may have discussed the marine aspect. G: What about the surgical bombing alternative? O: I think that was handled in terms of the briefing itself. In discussing the briefing, the situation at the moment was documented by the photos. They were briefed on what approaches were viable or could be considered or would be considered or have been considered. That was all in the briefing. G: Did any of them favor a bombing strike? O: I don't recall that. I don't think anyone, other than whichever members favored a land strike. G: Do you recall who brought that up? O: No, I don't. In fairness I think I recall who brought it up, but I'm not that sure so I better 17 O'Brien --Interview V --14 not attribute it. But that was the extent of it. The time frame eludes me now, because obviously the "crisis" was over a period of time--if you go back to General Clifton's instructions to prepare for movement of government and to Chicago, when the crisis had escalated while the President was out of the White House for a brief period. How many days unfolded before Khrushchev blinked, I don't recall now. But really that was the only solution. I think that a first strike on the mainland of the United States and its effect were clear on the basis of the briefing. It would affect about a third of the country. What would have been the result if Khrushchev didn't blink? You'd have to conclude that if he didn't blink the result would have been devastating. But it became a matter of leadership, strong leadership and courageous leadership. We got over the hump, but I think that in historic terms the President's handling of that situation and what resulted from the Bay of Pigs is worthy of comparison in terms of leadership and the way you respond, having a firm grasp and totally accepting your responsibility. After all, that's not unique with presidents. Harry Truman is still recalled as the fellow who made the decision on bombing, and they're still Monday-morning quarterbacking Truman forty years later. G: Critics have charged that because the President brought the nation to the brink of thermonuclear war that it was a reckless decision. O: Well, I dismiss that charge out of hand. The fact of the matter is that there was a concerted effort on the part of the Russians to mount this procedure in Cuba, and at some point you would have to make an effort to stop it. Other than taking it to the brink, I don't know what alternative you had. If that's the brink, it certainly wasn't reckless because those ships didn't turn around. The immediate next step obviously would be to turn them around. Would that result in action on the mainland of Cuba? Probably. But at what stage did you cross into being reckless? They were in place. They were detected. It was a proven case. This was the initial stage, but there was more to come and they were en route. I don't know when you say, "Well, now I'm going to have to be reckless." I think that falls of its own weight. G: There was a comparison of the U. S. missiles that we had in Turkey. Do you recall how this tied into the decision-making process and ultimately the decision to--? O: Not really. I vaguely recall the references to it. G: Did the President wrestle with his decision at the time? Do you think he had doubts about it? O: Throughout that, my observations--obviously I wasn't in the Situation Room--were somewhat peripheral. Because of my role, I happened to be present during some phases of this and I was able to observe him directly, and I have described his reserved attitude coming from Chicago and on the helicopter. I also remember vividly his general posture at that meeting and other meetings through this crisis. He was very much in command. 18 O'Brien --Interview V --15 He was not exhibiting outwardly any emotions. He clearly accepted his role and he knew where he was headed. He was going to see it through and there was no hesitancy. This man was in total control and total command. There was no sense of wavering at all. He had to see it through and he had to act in the best interests of the country, as he saw it, and he was totally prepared to do it and did. G: What was Robert Kennedy's role in this crisis as you observed it? O: I think basically a close relationship with his brother and considerable presence in the White House. G: Did he participate in this leadership briefing? O: I don't recall that, and because I don't recall it I would suggest he didn't. G: What was LBJ's role, do you recall? O: Well, he was obviously kept fully abreast of this throughout. What conversation took place between him and Kennedy during the course of this, I don't know. But his role--observable--was the role that Kennedy had carved out for him from the outset. He was very much on the inside of the whole situation. G: Did he have any discussion in the briefing? O: I don't recall that he did have any. G: When the crisis ended, do you recall President Kennedy's attitude then? O: No, other than it was business as usual very quickly and there was a sigh of relief. Everybody went about their business and quickly put the crisis aside. G: Did he see it as a trial, do you think? O: I don't recall that he did, and he never by any indication or conversation with me placed it in that category. G: I believe you've indicated in your book that you felt that although he, because of the crisis, was unable to complete his campaigning for congressmen, that the successful resolution of the crisis was a benefit to those who were running with his support. O: That was an assumption we made and the record would indicate it was probably a fair assumption. I don't recall what the polls reflected after the Cuban Missile Crisis, as I recall what the polls reflected after the Bay of Pigs disaster, only because I was far more interested in what would occur in the polls after the Bay of Pigs than I was in this instance. In this instance there certainly wasn't a minus factor, while in the Bay of Pigs there was a 19 O'Brien --Interview V --16 gaping hole which I thought was going to be disastrous to us. It proved otherwise in terms of public opinion. I think the qualities of leadership go to the perception of the individual, oftentimes not his actions, but his attitude, his ability to communicate, his acceptance as a leader by the public. Generally all that is in the equation, and Kennedy had the benefit of that despite the Bay of Pigs. There was a growing support for the President across the country. It was wave after wave and there was no question in our mind that he was going to go into a reelection drive in awfully, awfully good shape. G: I have a couple of items that I just want to wind up with relating to general aspects of your congressional relations. There's some indication that Pierre Salinger really didn't include enough on the status of legislation there and suggestions that perhaps you should give more regular press briefings of your own. How did you handle this? O: Yes, that did come up. I think there was neglect on our part in filling Pierre in, frankly. The role of that press secretary is such a unique role anyway, and we would have meetings that related to congressional relations with the leadership, not only the breakfast meetings but other meetings in the Oval Office. There were times when you'd say the meeting has ended; somebody ought to call Pierre and fill him in. We had a tendency, and that I think led to some of this criticism, of bringing key people into the White House privately. A Wilbur Mills coming in to visit the President would not be on the schedule. And we did that because we just did not want to have undue focus on some of these efforts, and oftentimes there was an effort to try to persuade Wilbur or whoever in a given area, and it could be counterproductive if it became a matter of public attention. So we went along that way and sort of drifted into that procedure. There was not in the Kennedy White House, at least in the early months, an impact on the staff generally regarding congressional relations. Not only was it new to me, it was new to everyone else, and it wasn't their department. This movement can take all kinds of directions and at various steps in the process can probably be a little bit newsworthy. If it is, the news emanates from the Hill in committee action or committee vote. So consequently, Pierre was not given a great deal of background for use in his briefings regarding the progress of legislation. It was more one-on-one interviews with members of the press that I would conduct, and that would be on request most of the time. Members of the press would call and you'd set up an appointment. Many of those discussions took place, and we never thought about it in terms of Pierre. That wasn't the only area in which Pierre lacked substantive knowledge; much of what occurred in the Oval Office was not relayed to Pierre. He was left hanging time after time after time in his briefings because he simply didn't have background information that would be helpful to him in making a response. There were members of the press that were very well aware that somehow or other he wasn't privy to the extent that a press secretary probably should be. That certainly applied to what activities we were engaged in in the legislative process. But there again, it isn't very sexy, those activities, and you weren't trying to block him off. What you were failing to do was utilize at appropriate times an 20 O'Brien --Interview V --17 opportunity to get press support for an effort you were engaged in. That was undoubtedly overlooked. But as time went on, that was corrected. Pierre and I would sit down and I would update him and suggest to him certain things that he might introduce into a briefing. And that would happen periodically when the circumstances indicated it. Perhaps there were some advantages to be gained on the press side that we weren't utilizing. The interviewing aspect was rather difficult, because about every reporter that I would meet with would conduct an interview on the basis that there apparently isn't anything happening, and put you totally on the defensive. There was that general attitude and it wasn't the case. Neil McNeil up on the congressional side saw that a lot of things were happening, and he was dutifully reporting it to his magazine. There were others like Neil, but they had to seek it out a little bit. We weren't really doing the job of informing. And I think we rather preferred it that way. My feeling was that if we were to develop over the long haul these relationships that we envisioned, the less public involvement in this, the better. Wilbur Mills comes in and you try to convince him of something, and you didn't convince him but he's going to think about it. Do you tell Pierre Salinger, "Well, Wilbur Mills was in and we were discussing Medicare again. He hasn't indicated movement in our direction, but he's still trying to keep an open mind and we'll talk about it again"? What's the value of all that? And if you do that, it's duly reported. Wilbur Mills is then questioned on the Hill about what took place, and I couldn't see any value in it. The negative side of it was that you got to the wrap-ups on what transpired or didn't transpire during the session. You were up against a press generally that had not closely observed the activities on the Hill, if they weren't on the Hill particularly, or you had columnists like Joe Alsop, Walter Lippmann, people like that. So there was a tendency to sort of pass it by or say, "Gee, I don't think there's anything really going on." You'd get a headline out of it, a feed on a minimum wage bill in the House, but you wouldn't get a lot out of a conference report on minimum wage ultimately being adopted that turned out to be very close to the bill that had been defeated. So that went on, and it was not exclusively on the Congressional Relations side. It was White House procedure and the President's approach to press relations and the role of the press secretary. And Pierre had a real problem, because Pierre was an able, aggressive guy that was generally liked by the press. He was darn good at his job. But you left him hanging more often than not. And Pierre would from time to time say to me, "I had that thrown at me and I couldn't respond. I don't even know the substance of the question because I've never heard about the subject." G: Did Salinger and his successors have the same problem under LBJ, do you think? O: As the records will indicate, we made a conscious effort to promote legislative progress in 21 O'Brien --Interview V --18 every way we could, and that was through the press office, too. But it was also through releasing memoranda to the President by me, a joint report to the President by [Joseph] Califano and me at the end of a session, contacting press people and inviting them in to discuss--Tape 2 of 3, Side 1 G: --in to discuss the annual wrap-up, you say? O: Yes. This became bothersome to us. We had a lot to be proud of; we had made significant progress. A dispassionate, objective look at the record would bring a reporter to the conclusion that it was a substantial record. That was being reported in those terms by members of the press from the Hill. But we finally at some point, Ted Sorensen and I, had a long session one evening at the home of one of the members of the press. There were probably about twenty press fellows there. We went through an entire evening presenting our point of view. There was a considerable degree of opposition, cynicism or skepticism to our point of view as the evening progressed. It got quite late and Ted became somewhat exasperated with some of those present. Finally a few of them departed and then Ted departed and I stayed. Things cooled off and calmed down, and I thought that night had been very worthwhile. My recollection is it was productive. I remember that occasion. There were others, but I remember that specifically, because I think what hit both Ted and I was that their opinions were in concrete. Yet as I went back over some clippings not many months ago, there were any number of favorable stories. I do remember a fellow that I had a great admiration for--we became very close friends--confessing his error, and that was a fellow named Pete Lisagor. Pete was class personified; he epitomized to me all that was good and great in journalism. Pete did his midterm story and it was quite negative. There was no progress, nothing seemed to be developing, and consequently it would be a nonmeaningful session. He got to the end of the session and just turned totally around on his own and contacted me and said, "My failure was not to be an observer, not to follow things more closely, just to listen to scuttlebutt and not pay much attention. Once I focused on the session and devoted some time to it, I recognized that my midterm story was not a fair one. I've corrected the whole thing and I'm going with the story. I think you had quite a year." Well, you appreciated that. As a White House correspondent, you're more apt to be concerned about the ebb and flow in the foreign policy area, in crisis areas, rather than this slow-moving, rather disjointed legislative process that requires a great deal of attention on a day-to-day basis in order to keep abreast of it. You're not doing that, nor is that your assignment. You're covering the White House, not the Congress, and it was looked at that way. Nobody was saying to Pierre, "Why don't you tell us more about the 22 O'Brien --Interview V --19 legislative process?" G: As time went on, did you increase your contact with the DNC? O: Not particularly. Both times when I was chairman of the DNC, we were the out party. The contact with John Bailey in those years was somewhat limited. John's role was a useful role to take the heat, and let you off the hook to some extent when you had to say no. Bailey at times would be the fellow that would say, "This can't be done or won't be done." When it came to the off-year elections, there was a great deal of contact with the DNC because John and his staff were looked to as people to implement activities involving the candidates. In 1962 they were very much involved and during that period John would be over to the White House in discussions with us. There was a time when someone suggested that we consider having the chairman of the DNC attend cabinet meetings. It never happened, but there was some suggestion along those lines with the feeling that it not only was unfair to the chairman, but it was not in our best interests not to utilize the entity more. Now, you have to remember also that the DNC was considered by the President to be a bit of a yoke, because the DNC was in serious debt. John would be hopeful that the President would get involved in fund-raising activity that would be helpful to discharge the debt. And that's a subject that the President chose to ignore. It would not be in the forefront of his mind. He had other things on his mind. So there's a tendency to consider the DNC a separate entity, although it could probably be utilized in some way that would be protective or helpful to the President. But short of that, it did not have an ongoing significant role in the administration's activities. That's basically, I think, wrong. From my own experience at a later date, if I were chairman and my party had the White House, I would fully expect that I would have a meaningful role and be a spokesman for the party. We had a tendency to go along with the nonrole in the administration of the party entity. I don't think it was devastating, but I think we could have shored up the party structure and probably have a greater impact at the state and local level than it has had over the years, if we had given some evidence that there was direct presidential interest and involvement and support of the chairman. But that wasn't forthcoming, and it was just ignored. (Interruption) G: Okay. At the beginning of the 1963 session of Congress, Senator [Thomas] Dodd criticized [Mike] Mansfield's kind, gentle leadership, contrasting it with LBJ's. Was the kindness and gentleness of Mansfield's style at all a handicap? O: No, it wasn't a handicap. Mansfield was a consensus fellow. He, to my knowledge and I certainly had a great deal of involvement with him over those years, would not attempt to dictate in promoting legislation or persuading his colleagues. He rather liked to have 23 O'Brien --Interview V --20 luncheons with them in his office or visitations in the afternoon. He was low key in that regard. He was very supportive of the congressional relations process from the White House. He looked to us to a great extent to carry out some of these efforts. It was just basically a matter of style. As far as we were concerned: a) we recognized it as his style of operation; b) he afforded us tremendous opportunity to carry out our activities in close proximity to the Senate. He was totally supportive of everything we were engaged in, and he was tremendously supportive of the President. So as far as our work on the Senate side, we felt Mansfield was a tremendous plus. Mansfield's procedures, which I alluded to on a previous occasion, would be, "I'm going to call the appropriate people in, we're going to have lunch, and then you'll present to them the President's views." And it would be done that way rather than Mansfield trying to hit them over the head individually. So I'm sure there was a great contrast between Mansfield's approach to his position as majority leader and Johnson's. I was not involved with Johnson as majority leader, so I didn't have the opportunity to observe the contrast, but clearly they were two entirely different kinds of folks. As for Dodd's comments, he would not necessarily be privy to all of the efforts that Mansfield undertook quietly and privately to move legislation. But as far as we were concerned, we were very comfortable with Mike. As I said, he was very supportive and extremely helpful, and our relationship was total--communication at all times candid and open. Along with Mike in those days, you had Hubert [Humphrey], who was very active up there regarding the program and its progress. So I don't share Dodd's point of view, but I must say that he would come from a different perspective than I would because he was making comparison between two leaders that he had been involved with while I was dealing with the one leader that I had come to know. G: Okay. Certainly one of the major measures that was submitted that year was the tax bill, a combination of a tax cut and tax reform. O: Well, yes, that was major, and it had a surprise element to it: a Democratic president making the proposal and the fact that he felt that enactment of a tax cut would be a stimulus to the economy. It was not the normal Democratic Party approach. But, of course, he was trying to bring about additional revenue by cutting off and reducing certain tax benefits, but it didn't come out as a wash really. It was basically in the final analysis a tax cut. And then--G: Excuse me. Why do you think that Kennedy did decide to take this route instead--? O: I think he accepted the view of some of the economic advisers that this was the best approach. It reflected a point of view that differed from the traditional among Democratic economic advisers. I don't recall what led him to this message, because when I came into the picture we were developing the message, and the thrust of the message was clear in the President's mind. I'm not an economist, and I was never wedded to any particular economic philosophy. I found, in the years I spent in the White House, I became less and 24 O'Brien --Interview V --21 less interested in the views of economic advisers because I found there were no two economic advisers that agreed on anything. And I think most presidents probably become frustrated because you never get a clear consensus. Basically, presentations are somewhat in disarray and you just don't know where to turn. So I think you have to probably use your gut reactions in making some economic decisions. You're advocating a tax cut in the midst of what at that time was considered a very serious deficit. And there were the conservatives on the Hill who said, "This makes no sense at all. You're reducing taxes and that is going to increase the deficit." Even if your judgment is right, this is a serious matter and they can't accept it. And it drifted along to the point of a tough fight and a close margin to avoid a mandate to reduce the budget. I think that as Mills tried to move this along, he got to a statement of policy saying, "Now, of course, the enactment of this legislation would bring about a presidential budget request to Congress that would be reduced." Ultimately that is really what happened, because by the time that we got to the end of 1963 the record indicates there was a feeling that you better not pursue it any further during the remainder of that session. But Johnson's budget presentation did reflect a several billion dollar reduction over the prior budget, which was responsive to the arguments that you bring about a tax reduction in the midst of an increasing deficit. So that was a major argument. G: Was Wilbur Mills the primary exponent of this? O: Yes. Whether he was initially or not, I don't know, but he certainly carried the flag. G: You organized an effort to get prominent businessmen signed on as a committee, a citizens' committee to promote this. I gather both [Henry] Fowler and Luther Hodges were doing the recruiting--O: That's right, yes. G: --and that they were having trouble finding distinguished business leaders who were in favor of both the tax cut and the tax reform, that they would favor the tax cut perhaps but not the reform. Let me ask you to elaborate on this idea of developing a citizens' support group and the problems you had. O: Well, we felt that could be an essential element in this as, first of all, this was not a normal Democratic proposal in terms of the Democratic Party and its posture traditionally. You felt that it should afford some support from the business community, and that there would be leaders in the community who would be in accord with this economic approach. You also recognized that that would probably turn out to be essential in garnering some bipartisan support on the Hill. So it was decided that it was worth a very serious effort, and the expectancy was quite high. You would have a rather impressive roster, blue ribbon, from the business community in support. The obvious people in the administration to undertake this task would be Luther 25 O'Brien --Interview V --22 Hodges and Joe Fowler, and they proceeded to undertake it and, to their surprise, ran into some serious difficulty in carrying out the effort. I frankly don't recall the end result or just how successful they were in garnering any prominent names. I think that everybody ran for cover. Nothing has changed; it's still the case when it comes to tax reform. I can remember having a conversation with Henry Ford on this subject and I don't remember that it was particularly productive. I remember there was a business dinner put together for Wilbur Mills to which I was invited. I was probably the only outsider there. It was hosted by Henry Ford and a few others. There were probably a hundred or so top business executives in America with Wilbur as the honored guest. I remember trying to circulate around that room, though most of these people were unknown to me, and trying to get acquainted. I suppose I did contemplate the possibility that we might find an occasional friendly voice there, but I don't recall that there was any success in that regard either. G: You did win a crucial vote on changing the 4 per cent credit for dividends over fifty dollars to a hundred dollars. Do you recall that vote? O: I recall it was close. Probably it was a one-vote margin. G: Yes, I think so. How did you get that [vote]? It was on the committee; it was 13 to 12. O: I think credit for that vote you give to the chairman. That's where the credit lies. But it's an indication of how difficult that effort was. To have Wilbur coping with a one-vote margin would indicate that he was having serious difficulty himself. G: The Republicans were launching a campaign of their own for cutting the budget, making speeches. Your paper seemed to indicate that you organized a counter to this with people like Carl Albert and others, talking about the hazards to national security, et cetera, if the budget was cut. O: Yes. We put an effort into that. That wasn't the only effort of that nature. It became more and more sophisticated as time went on, getting the leadership and appropriate members into the debate discussion, releasing statements. Rather than take that type of opposition, you began to further refine your legislative activities. It was a feeding process, however. You couldn't expect the Carl Alberts of this world to close their office door and start dictating a statement or issue a press release. You had to prepare all of that, and you should. They were willing to carry out the task, but you had to make it as easy as you could for them. We sort of moved into it as time went on. You could undertake a lot of things like that after a period of time. In 1961, if you were saying to the fellows up on the Hill, "Here's a statement I'd like to have you make; you could put it into your newsletter or you can put it in the Congressional Record or you can issue a press release," you'd have been gambling. This couldn't be something that was going to happen in twenty-four hours. It had to move along and time had to 26 O'Brien --Interview V --23 elapse until you felt reasonably comfortable saying to key people on the Hill, "Will you go an extra mile and make an additional effort?" Or say to them, "Can you be there during floor debate? I'd like to have you have some input on floor debate." Well, heck, you're reaching the point where you've got to be a little careful. You're trying to dictate the guy's life for him. And so you did that inch by inch, and if that inch worked out, then you'd contemplate the next inch. It wasn't crass or callous, it was a matter of a willingness to fully cooperate, and your end of the bargain should be to make it comfortable and easy to cooperate. So a lot of that, even by that stage, had begun to come into our thought process, and in this instance it's an example of the beginning of that kind of activity. As Bob Hardesty and others can testify to, it became part of the operation that Bob and his cohorts were busy preparing material to be funneled on a daily basis all over the Hill for insertions where you could get it. G: When do you think that operation really got into high gear? O: I think in the Johnson period after the 1964 election and the additional elbow room. We had gone around the circle a few times by then and become more sophisticated, more understanding. You've developed relationships. Now a few years have gone by. You just keep expanding. And when we get to the Johnson period we get into detail on a lot of this. G: But would you say this Albert speech, for example, was one of the first efforts here? O: Yes. G: You did have an input there? O: Yes. And with Albert, if you and I were sitting at that time saying, "Gosh, we'd like to have somebody speak up from our side on this and not let these fellows have this free ride," or "All right, who's the somebody you start with?" I'll tell you, without a moment's hesitancy, you'd say Carl Albert. Carl Albert's position regarding the President and the White House, by that stage, was such that our admiration for him and our recognition that this fellow was a dedicated member of the team had grown tremendously. In addition to that, Carl Albert had a quick mind. I saw so much evidence of that, and so did the President, at an early stage. His grasp of the substance of legislation was remarkable. I have known Carl Albert to spend an evening before floor debate on a major legislative proposal that he's not familiar with substantively and play a key role in that debate the next day on the floor, all because of his desire to be helpful and his desire to aid the program. Others had the desire and the heart, but they didn't have that other dimension. Carl could engage in vigorous debate on a matter that he had really little knowledge of twenty-four hours earlier. G: Was that fairly uncommon in terms of abilities of--? 27 O'Brien --Interview V --24 O: Yes, and understandably so. You know, when you think of the amount of legislation in progress, the tremendous number of subjects under discussion, and to have a fellow that had this ability to absorb. What's little known about Carl is that he was a Rhodes scholar. He had been the national oratorical champion. You'd get the finalists to Constitution Hall and this was a national contest involving thousands and thousands of high school students across the country. You got to this oratorical contest, and Carl Albert had won that. You know, there are qualities to this fellow--he was sort of small in stature, as you know, and not a blowhard at all. Very pleasant, rather reserved fellow. And yet there you had a real man. No one did more to help both presidents than Carl Albert. G: I would assume that his constituency was relatively conservative. O: That's right. G: Was it difficult for him to take this stand? O: I don't believe so. I don't know as he thought about it in those terms. The love and affection for Carl in his constituency was most impressive. I happened to go out there to dedicate a building at Carl's request, and I must say, I never spent such a day. This man was almost revered by everybody I met. By that stage, the highway in from the airport was the Carl Albert Highway. His voting record would not have adversely affected Carl's political career. That would be my judgment. I did have a very pleasant overnight out there, being presented by Carl at various functions. The people just loved him. G: Was this later when you were postmaster general? O: Yes. G: Well, let's focus on some of the reform aspects of this legislation. First of all, you had oil depletion; there were a number of people in the Congress that favored cutting back on the oil and gas depletion allowance, which was not done or at least to any extent. Can you recall this dilemma? O: There were no surprises. Those that favored and those who strongly opposed, you could have head-counted that up front before you ever submitted the message. G: Did the administration have a preference here? O: No, I think that what it came to was where would the votes land. There would be a give and take in that area and how did you come out with a plus? G: Did President Kennedy have any particular view of his own on this depletion? O: I don't really recall. I don't believe that he had any overriding view or I would have been 28 O'Brien --Interview V --25 aware of it. It was in an area that could be negotiated. G: Now, another reform that was proposed was the proposal to limit itemized deductions. Do you recall that? This was one where the administration was defeated on its proposal. Do you remember? O: Yes. Well, oil depletion would be in that category, too. But it went to what can you do in the context of tax reduction. You're going to reform some aspects of existing deductions to see if you can't increase the revenue side to partially compensate for the revenue loss. The drafters of the legislation would be seeking a laundry list of areas that you might work on and this would be one of them. You were adding to your up-front difficulties if you didn't show some reform, and that reform had to go to an increase in revenue. At no time do I recall we envisioned a package where the reform end of it would compensate for the loss in revenue through tax reduction and you'd come out with a balanced proposal, but you had to show some significant reform aspect. You ran into people saying, "My God, you've got an increased deficit and you're going for a broadly-based tax cut." G: The administration was criticized for backing away from the reform side of this. O: That's right. G: Wilbur Mills was evidently just furious about this. Do you recall how this evolved? Tape 2 of 3, Side 2 O: I don't recall in specifics, but I don't want to sound callous. If you back away from reform, it isn't because you were not strongly in support of reform, whether you're talking about oil depletion or any other aspects. Oil depletion could be focused on, and you try to present your case in the best light possible. On this you're going to get into the private interest and pressure group areas. The old story of the art of the possible: how much are you going to have to give in order to come out with a meaningful bill that accomplishes your initial objective to bring about a reduction in taxes to bolster the economy, in the climate of an increased deficit. So you can't tell up front how much of this you're going to have to negotiate. Wilbur Mills could say, "Listen, let's stop all this. I don't want any other changes in this package, and we're going to go the distance with it." But our experience with Wilbur would be when you got to the committee head count and you weren't there, that bill could drop over the side in a hurry. And then if you couldn't present to Wilbur up front that you had a more than reasonable head count that came close to ensuring passage, you would not have a bill on the floor. Wilbur Mills was noted as a fellow who did not go to floor action until he was assured he was going to succeed. So on the one hand, Wilbur might say, "You're giving away too much." On the other hand, you'd have to weigh that on the scale that was part of the process. Obviously you'd love to have a bill that remained intact and arrive at the President's desk, but that's not the reality of the legislative process. 29 O'Brien --Interview V --26 G: Did you talk with Mills about this aspect and the fact that he was disturbed? O: My recollection is that I did know he was disturbed. I can tell you it wasn't inordinate, or if he were that disturbed he would have told us where we could go. I remember sitting with Mills on any number of occasions. He was a baseball fanatic. He had game balls encased on the shelves. That was one of his great areas of interest. He was an enigma to many. As Gene Keogh, who was a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, said to me, "The day is going to come when I'll best Wilbur Mills at some point on some issue," and I said, "You never will, Gene, as long as you spend your weekends in New York and Wilbur spends his in the office, because he'll always know more about what's going on than you do." (Laughter) And that's the kind of a fellow he was. But I had the experience at a later date with another chairman, and at that point I was in the sports world. I was lobbying on behalf of the National Basketball Association on a bill that had something to do with tax on sports tickets, in the Ways and Means Committee, and I had Wilbur Mills' successor asking me if I could provide him with a head count of his committee so he could determine where his committee stood. Well, that really stunned me, because [in] my years with the Ways and Means Committee and with Wilbur Mills, that wasn't the way it [was done]. You might work a head count on his behalf but, believe me, he would never say he didn't know what was going on. He never allowed that to happen. I would say that perhaps off that eleven to twelve vote, Wilbur Mills might have concluded that this was subject to a little more negotiation. So I would not place too much credence in the suggestion that Mills was awfully disturbed with us. G: Some of the administration supporters in the tax reform voiced the com-plaint that they had gone out on a limb for the administration and had the limb sawed off when the President backed off. Was this a valid argument, do you think? O: Yes. It was unavoidable from our point of view. G: Can you tell me where and how the decision was made to cut back on what you could go with on reform? O: I can't in detail, but you never cut back or negotiated away anything unless you were persuaded that was necessary in order to ensure progress of the overall legislation. That was your motivating factor. You would regret that if in those negotiations you had staunch supporters who had been up front for an entire package, including all the reforms, and found that the limb of the tree, not the tree but the limb might have been sawed off. You had to live with that because ultimately it was an essential step to take in order to ensure success. G: There was a note in your papers after one vote on the tax bill in which nineteen of the 30 O'Brien --Interview V --27 twenty-one Democratic members of the Texas delegation had voted right, by your standards. The note was to congratulate LBJ and members of the delegation for having shown that degree of unity. Do you recall that effort and what was done? O: I don't recall the note, but I do recall that that was a case where there was direct LBJ involvement with the Texas delegation. G: What did he do? O: He communicated directly or indirectly with the delegation in an effort to garner support. That was an area in which he felt that he could be of some real assistance, and I'm sure that probably motivated my note. We probably never got the Texas delegation to that degree in support of our proposals; I would think that was probably the high-water mark. G: Do you think it was at all tied in with the oil and gas depletion allowance? O: I don't think that support would have been there if there had not been some give-back or withdrawal from the oil depletion side of it. G: But do you recall a specific accommodation? O: I don't recall. G: Okay. Anything else on the tax measure? O: No. G: Shall we go on to the civil rights bill? This is an area which you've discussed in your book, specifically Charlie Halleck and his role. O: Well, you see, we've discussed civil rights during our conversations and I think I made reference on a number of occasions to the right time, the right climate. As I recall it, we started that year with a rather modest civil rights proposal that was significantly strengthened in subsequent months. You can relate that to what was occurring out in the countryside. You're beginning to sense that this grassroots activity, this tremendous media attention, the leadership of Martin Luther King and the activity of others were beginning to build. You had Birmingham in there. You had all of this going on. So you started the year by saying, "We're going to take that further leap into the civil rights field." Then you no sooner had gotten that done than you began to note that there was a rapidly growing public interest, and that got you to strengthening your proposal. But with all of that, you haven't found daylight yet. And you got into a terrible impasse in the House Judiciary Committee. You had Congressman [William] McCulloch of Ohio, the ranking Republican, who to his everlasting credit as far as I'm concerned personally committed to meaningful civil rights legislation and actively engaged in bringing 31 O'Brien --Interview V --28 it about. You were flying in the face of the longtime supporters of civil rights that were on the committee, the liberal Democrats, saying, "Wait a minute, this is in our view not a total civil rights proposal, and we're opposed to it. We're going to have the entire civil rights pack-age as we see it voted on favorably, and we're going to vote against anything short of that." That fell right into the hands of the southern conservative Democrats on the committee, and the Republicans. They could see civil rights legislation of any meaningful kind would be blocked in the committee. You had Manny [Emanuel] Celler, who was chairman of the committee, not enamored with what was construed by the liberals as a fall-back position. G: He favored a more aggressive--? O: Naturally, and so did we. That wasn't a point of argument. Now we're getting to the realities of civil rights again. As this unfolded and it became a very heated matter, we went to extremes in our effort. Our position was if you don't spring a reasonable civil rights proposal out of that committee, where do you go from here? You've spun your wheels again. You've had this rise in temperature in the countryside in this area. You had hoped to benefit from that legislatively. There you have this tripod, if you will: you have the Democratic liberals in opposition; you have the southern Democrats in opposition; you have the Republicans basically in opposition. How do you ever bring this about? There was one congressman who was listed in that category who came from Chicago, and not questioning his commitment and his motives but questioning his judgment, we resorted to contacting Mayor [Richard] Daley. I called the Mayor and explained that--you're not a congressman from Chicago unless you were designated by Mayor Daley, and if you think otherwise then you're making a horrible mistake; you're going to be an ex-congressman in a hell of a hurry--we needed this man's vote for this compromise proposal. The President was in dire need of it if we were going to move civil rights, and the Mayor assured me that this would be relayed to the member. The member was a fellow that went home weekends. Another week went by and this is smoldering. He took occasion to go back to Chicago, and it was reported to us that he was on a television program in which he repeated his strong objection to what the administration was doing and he'd have no part in it. I don't recall that he voted with us, and I had no further contact with Daley and I had no knowledge of what transpired, but I noted a little later that the congressman announced he would not be seeking reelection. Whether that could be attributed to his failure to be supportive of his leader in Chicago, I don't know. I rather suspect it had a lot to do with it. But in any event, that's an example of just what we were faced with. Finally--G: But let me ask you, do you remember his name? Was it [William] Dawson? O: No, no. I don't remember his name. If I check the record, I'll find his name and if I check 32 O'Brien --Interview V --29 the voting record, I'll have his name quickly. I'm not reluctant regarding his name; it's eluding me at the moment, but my recollection is it was an Italian name. [Roland Libonati] Then it came to the point where Bobby Kennedy, Nick Katzenbach and everybody else involved, everybody is pounding doors and becoming awfully frustrated and we can't seem to get over this hurdle. McCulloch is being cooperative and so is Manny Celler. How do you get a majority vote out of the committee? Clearly you had to find some Republican support to go along with the moderate Democrats and overcome the handful of liberal Democrats. How could you piece this together? You needed several votes. The President and I discussed this. Our decision was to have the President contact Charlie Halleck. Now, Charlie Halleck was the minority leader; he was a conservative Republican. He was a worthy adversary. He was an aggressive, hard-hitting adversary. He and I had a pleasant personal relationship, but that had not deterred Charlie from opposing us at every turn of the road with a great deal of glee. Charlie had a nickname for me: O'Toole. To this day I've never known how that came about. We'd have little side bets supposedly, of a quarter or something, which were never paid off anyway. Charlie would say, "Well, this bill is coming up tomorrow. I've got you this time, O'Toole." And I'd say, "Well, Charlie, I'll make a bet with you that we'll beat you by ten," or something like that. Or "We'll get together after the vote and have a drink." "Okay, fine." Well, we'd beat him. I don't think we ever lost to him. Maybe there was one occasion. And Charlie would just come back for more, however, so we'd have to have the drink. Well, I had no interest in having a drink in the recess of the Capitol, but I'm not about to suggest to Charlie I'm not interested, so in I'd go. And Charlie would pour the drinks, a very heavy drink, and I'd always get into a chair where I could put the drink down behind the chair and forget it existed, and we'd have a conversation about the activities of the day and then we'd handshake and say, "Well, there'll be another time, and I'll get you the next time." Well, that was the background. There certainly was not anything I could look to in terms of potential support from Halleck on civil rights. But we have no alternative. There's nothing left. We've exhausted every possibility. So the President called Charlie, and he put it to him pleasantly. He said, "I need your help, need your support, and I wonder if you could see your way clear to talk to some of your colleagues on the committee and give us a hand on this." To my surprise and the President's, Charlie responded very well and said that he needed a little time and he would check the members of the committee and see if he couldn't persuade some of his Republican colleagues to join us. He even set up a time frame, "I'll get back to you by noon." Maybe it was noon the next day, maybe noon two days later, I forget, but I remember there was a deadline of noon. Well, I don't think we jumped up and down with joy, but that was a modicum of progress. Charlie at least had told us whether he would really do it or not. Who knew, but he told us he was going to make an effort to help us in this instance. The deadline came and I was in the Oval Office with the President and no call from 33 O'Brien --Interview V --30 Charlie. We let the deadline go by and we were really on edge. It went by probably a half an hour to an hour, and finally we were looking at each other and what are you going to do? You might as well place the call to Charlie. And so he did. And Charlie apologized first for not getting back by the appointed time but said he had been delayed in being able to make his contacts, but he could now advise us that several members of the committee had seen it his way and would help vote the bill out. Well, we were just amazed. I made reference to it in my book because I thought it really belonged there. The Charlie Halleck I knew over those years I always recall in that context. That to me compensated for just about everything else that he might have done in opposition to us, which he did rather unsuccessfully anyway so we were never embittered by it. And it was voted out in committee. G: What led you to seek out Halleck to begin with? O: Desperation. Absolute desperation. You've done everything--everybody was involved, the department, the White House, and God knows who else, civil rights leaders, you name them. Everybody involved had been on this case, and you can't put the votes together. I will say, undertaking a presidential call to Halleck on this subject under those circumstances was not motivated by any feeling on our part that we were going to have any success; it was in desperation. What else is there that we could conceivably do that we haven't done? And that's what motivated the call. The bill was reported, and I say to this day that was the moment when you could say, "You're going to have enacted into law in this nation meaningful civil rights legislation. It's now unstoppable." There was the feeling that it never could emanate from the House anyway, that someday maybe you could convert Ev Dirksen to civil rights and that you could get some kind of movement in the Senate. Somehow this would be worked out in a different direction. But once the House committee had acted, the record had been established, and the road was forward and it was just then a matter of how long a trip you had. But there was no going back. (Interruption) G: Okay, we're on the civil rights bill. Richard Bolling introduced a discharge motion which was criticized as a political move since there was an agreement, apparently [between] the Democratic leadership and the White House, to furnish enough GOP votes. What do you recall about that discharge? O: Well, we didn't favor it either. G: Why do you think Bolling did that? O: I don't know. Bolling was a very active member, was looked to by liberals for leadership, and he was probably responding to his own constituency. But it was not a move that we favored. In fact, it was of concern to us, because rightly, McCulloch and Halleck and 34 O'Brien --Interview V --31 some of those people could say, "Well, what's going on? Now you're making a partisan issue out of this when you wouldn't have a bill if it hadn't been for us. We understood that this bipartisanship that was shown in the committee would carry on through the process." All of that was valid. I don't remember having any conversation with Bolling. I may have, but I do know that that was a subject of discussion in the White House and that we were concerned about it. I remember specifically McCulloch reassuring him, telling him that we were not party to it. G: The motion failed, as I recall. O: Yes. That had to be a little bit of showbiz anyway, because at best discharge petitions, as we found out, are extremely difficult. I can't believe that a knowledgeable fellow like Dick Bolling would have any feeling that he could do this and have a success. So it had to be a part of establishing a record of some sort. It didn't make any political sense or legislative sense in our terms. G: You also had the dilemma of whether to tie the public accommodations section to the Fourteenth Amendment or to the interstate commerce clause. Do you recall the arguments here? O: No, I really don't. I recall the problem and, as you say, the dilemma, but I don't recall the proceedings attendant to it. G: It seems that your Republican allies favored one approach and the Justice Department favored the other, I guess the commerce clause. O: Well, the committee voted it out anyway, with the commerce clause, and that was a close vote, too. G: Okay. The liberal Republicans attempted to force a vote by bringing it up on the Calendar Wednesday--do you recall that?--in order to get the Democrats on record I guess for a vote. Albert adjourned the House to block that effort. O: I do recall, now that you've jogged my memory, that occurred, but there again, that's a little bit in the category of the discharge petition. You know, there's a little gamesmanship being played. That procedure, that Wednesday procedure, was doomed to failure from the outset and those that were participants knew that. Carl Albert had a simple procedure available to him and that was that. So I don't think that was of any moment to us. G: Okay. Now, in the Senate the public accommodations measure was referred to the Commerce Committee rather than the Judiciary Committee. Do you recall that? O: I recall its referral. How that came about I don't recall. G: How much discretion was there in terms of what committee a bill, particularly a 35 O'Brien --Interview V --32 controversial bill, went to? O: Well, you go to leadership again. Some of those decisions were beyond our control, our significant input. Oftentimes they had to do with committee chairmen; they had to do with members of committees, they had to do with the leadership. Unless it was going to cause undue harm, it was more jurisdictional, more of an internal matter you'd leave alone. G: Okay, let's look at some of the related events that you've outlined as impacting on the expansion of the legislation and the focus of the legislation. You had the confrontation with George Wallace at the University of Alabama. Were you with President Kennedy at any time during this phase and recall any of his own deliberations on how to deal with that? O: I recall being with him, but I don't have any recollection of anything specific. Not being with him through the whole course of it, but being involved in the sense of being present during some aspects. I don't have any specific recollection beyond that frankly. Obviously I recall the occurrence, but I don't recall anything that would add to the record. G: Okay, how about the developments in Birmingham? O: Well, that was really a Justice Department area of responsibility and it was vigorously pursued. There was significant presence and immediate action. The record was being established that Bobby and his associates were going to act as decisively as they could in matters of this nature and everyone should understand it. G: You've mentioned how some of these events helped shape the legislation. Let me ask you if they helped shape the President's own attitudes about what was necessary. O: To some extent unspoken but reflected in the President's actions is a sensitivity to events as they developed in terms of adding a dimension to the possibilities of enacting legislation. How much evidence did we have that this was enhancing legislative progress? You're dealing with a subject that has gotten a maximum degree of public attention, and when that occurs it should mesh. This was an added dimension that was not anticipated at the beginning of 1963. It certainly had to enhance the possibilities. As you go back over the record of 1963 on the House side, you have to conclude that it may have enhanced but sure as the devil it underscored the difficulties you had prior to January of 1963 and the impossibility of getting anywhere, which was what our view was in 1961 and 1962. We certainly at the outset of 1963 hadn't taken the total plunge. We were trying to move in the right direction. Then as events unfolded, we became more and more aggressive. G: Do you feel that President Kennedy was shocked by the violence that took place that spring and summer? 36 O'Brien --Interview V --33 O: Well, I know he was--I guess shocked would be fair, very much disturbed--because he made reference to this in conversations, his deep concern about it in human terms and as president. He was deeply concerned. By the same token, he and those around him recognized that it might in a strange way be affording an opportunity. But it was very disturbing and it was becoming more and more disturbing because it was getting out of hand. It was bringing about a national crisis. Obviously you couldn't sit around and tolerate this. You had to take whatever action was available as aggressively as you could. As far as Bobby was concerned through that period, I doubt that he devoted his attention to much of anything else. His strong right arms in this area--well, there were really two: Nick Katzenbach and Burke Marshall. All their time and attention was devoted to this mounting problem because confrontations were beginning to crop up regularly. I don't think at that time we were considering this as in the waning moments of a longtime struggle. It sort of had some of the elements of war to it. G: In August you had the March on Washington. How did the President react to this? O: Well, there again, as that March on Washington unfolded, it was an extremely dramatic presentation of concerns in an historic manner. That was the general attitude in the White House. This was an extremely important event in terms of American history. Tape 3 of 3, Side 1 G: The March on Washington and a number of the other events that summer reflected the leadership of Martin Luther King. How did President Kennedy regard King? O: He greatly admired him. Bobby articulated his admiration of King more than Kennedy did, and that doesn't mean they didn't share equally this admiration. But he saw in King a true leader. I think the effort that Bobby made on the President's behalf is a clear indication in what regard they held him. There were those trying to undermine King during that period and later, up to his assassination. There were all kinds of rumors and stories around Washington regarding King. There was a major effort to try to destroy him. I'm not talking about killing him, but destroy him, destroy his reputation. G: Was this the FBI primarily? O: Yes. It seemed to emanate from the FBI. I never got deeply into that area. It didn't involve me directly, but I would pick it up and you'd find people on the Hill suggesting that they had been made privy to information the FBI had regarding King. The White House itself supposedly had been made privy to information regarding King. That information could have only been from one general source. To some extent, I think it probably was encouraged in some quarters on the Hill. G: But since the FBI was at least nominally under the control of the Justice Department, couldn't the Attorney General have done something to eliminate this? 37 O'Brien --Interview V --34 O: I don't know how much evidence the Attorney General had of actual FBI involvement. Leaks can be, as we all know, carried out in ways that elude securing evidence. I don't really know what Bobby, what discussions he had with [J. Edgar] Hoover or what discussions Hoover had with the President. On rare occasions Hoover would ask to visit the President. Was it on that subject or just a courtesy call, I don't know. We have to remember, going way back before this period, Hoover's position in the FBI, which I was aware of back in the late forties. I was with a freshman congressman, Foster Furcolo, and we did the usual thing. You have this opportunity to do a little film for back home use in reporting to your constituents, and you want to get some dignitaries on with you to show that you are a person of influence. The first name on the list that we developed was J. Edgar Hoover, and J. Edgar Hoover was never reluctant to come to that recording studio on the Hill and do these bits for member after member, and every member wanted them. That kept improving his situation with the Congress. He was in one unique, unusual position. When he had reached retirement age, I never had in my mind the thought that some president was not going to announce that he was prepared to reappoint him. He had gotten beyond the norm; it was really a dangerous situation in a lot of ways, because he was beyond authority even from the White House. He was in a position that was downright scary. I probably met the man six times in my life. I had never had any discussions with him of any substance. As a young guy, I remember being present at that taping and being awfully impressed with him, and I think that was a view that most people had regarding this hero that was in every Crackerjack box. He was in a position to gain a great deal of information about a great number of people. Whether he ever utilized that information in his interests, which he was accused of often, I don't know. But going back to Martin Luther King, I guess that it's pretty clear. I always hesitate to report matters on the basis of learning third-or fourth-hand without evidence, then recounting it as fact, when I really don't know whether or not it's fact. I guess in this instance with Hoover re Martin Luther King, there's enough evidence on the record of FBI interest in King to indicate that Hoover was making a particular effort in that area. G: Did President Kennedy ever explore the possibility, do you think, of trying to retire Hoover or put him out to pasture? O: I'm not aware of it. No, I never had any conversation with him about Hoover. G: How about Robert Kennedy? Did he ever--? O: I never had any conversation with him either. I just don't know. G: Why do you think LBJ didn't share President Kennedy's admiration of King? 38 O'Brien --Interview V --35 O: I don't know that either. I'll have to say that I was not directly aware of the fact that he didn't share his admiration. It never came into a conversation I had with LBJ as vice president or president. But there was some undercurrent there I never tried to explore. G: It seems almost as if LBJ considered King a rival or a threat, whereas Kennedy did not? Is that possible? O: I don't know how it could be possible. It seems to me there would be no reason because of my conviction regarding LBJ's civil rights commitments. I can't conceive of a reason why he would not look favorably upon King. After all, he was engaged in what amounted to a peaceful revolution. I think some of King's activities helped contain other possible activities that could have been very disruptive. And his constant plea for peaceful actions within the law certainly was helpful. Something is eluding me, because I really don't know how Johnson could have envisioned that King was a rival; it's beyond me. G: Let me turn it around the other way. Did you see any evidence of an alliance or friendship between Johnson and King? O: No, but it could exist and I wouldn't be aware of it. I know that I never had any discussion with Johnson regarding King that I can recall. I never, therefore, had any recognition that Johnson might not feel kindly disposed toward him or supportive of him. I'd have no reason to think otherwise. And if indeed that were the case, I just honestly can't figure out why. Obviously, if he did feel that way there were reasons. What could they be? Just speculating, I assume Johnson was privy to whatever information Hoover had regarding King. Maybe that turned him off on King. I don't know; I have no idea. G: I wonder if it could have at all been a generational thing and the fact that Johnson was quite a bit older than King, whereas Kennedy was younger. O: I don't know that. But after all, there was a great change on the part of all of us. I mean, Negroes referred to themselves as Negroes in those days. There was a rapid change and there was a great sensitivity to how you reacted to black people, how you communicated with them. I've lived through it all; I'm old enough to have lived through it from the beginning. There was a matter of adjustment, and there was a sensitivity on the part of whites, a great sensitivity. Just how do you relate, how do you avoid any misunder-standing, and what is proper use of the language to the point of the proper handshake? I wound up with an organization that was over 70 per cent black. I would never have called a Negro a black as a young fellow; I would probably feel that if it ever came to my mind that was an insult. So I really didn't know just what the rules were, and you had to learn as you went along. So that could be a generation gap. And if you refer to some of the other leaders of the civil rights movement, some of those were not people that I felt comfortable with. G: Who, for example? 39 O'Brien --Interview V --36 O: I think the group in which--I can't even think of the name of it--the fellow walked around in overalls and disrupted my meetings in Miami and was belligerent and boisterous. He and a couple of others like him were floating around the country and I was not at all impressed with them. In fact, as John McCormack said, my position was I held them in a minimum of high regard. King was different totally. King exuded leadership. He could articulate his positions. He was a responsible leader. King could have lit a match any day and you would have had a national conflagration. He chose to go in the other direction and be very tolerant and even-handed as he pursued his course. I never knew King intimately. I may have shaken hands with him twice in my life, but I had to be impressed. I think part of being impressed with King was my feeling toward some of the others who were traveling a different road entirely. G: Do you think that King's opposition to the war in Vietnam was perhaps a factor in estrangement from LBJ? O: That would make sense because obviously, where the President sat, opposition to the war in Vietnam could disturb you and cause you to be damn mad. I for one did not appreciate King's view on the war in Vietnam. It had nothing to do with Johnson. I resented it. As long as King confined himself to the area that I accepted as his area of leadership, I was supportive. But when he decided to move into a so-called peace movement and articulate that aspect of his views, he lost me. But that was personal; I had a son in Vietnam and I wasn't about to accept all this garbage, whether it was Jane Fonda or King or whoever. Of course, there was a time frame here. If that attitude toward King existed before Johnson was president, that's another thing, if it was a longtime position he had. But if it was evidenced during the period of Vietnam and King's position on the war, then it does make sense. G: Looking over that civil rights bill that was ultimately passed the following year as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, I want you to contrast President Kennedy's approach to the legislation with President Johnson's. I'm going to load the question to a certain extent, because it seems, particularly from looking at that Sorensen phone call, that Johnson was much more inclined to press it in terms of a moral issue, whereas President Kennedy would advocate it in terms of a legal or an issue of justice. Do you think this is an accurate reading of the difference? O: I think President Kennedy would have had no difficulty pursuing civil rights legislation as a moral issue, as long as he never overlooked the reality that he was not going to get legislation at that time under those circumstances. There's a certain judgment that goes into this, but I think with Lyndon Johnson and his suggestions on pressing the issue come hell or high water, do or die, that's all well and good if you're trying to reinforce your position with the public generally in a political context, but if you are trying to envision just how you bring about legislation, I would argue with Johnson in that regard. And I 40 O'Brien --Interview V --37 would say that I don't think anyone can lay claim to having stronger views than anyone else in this area and this administration. It's a matter of how you accomplish it. How often have you seen the parades and the waving of the banners and chuckle and say, well, that's nice, and there'll be a lot of media attention and we'll see it on the evening news, but hell, it doesn't mean anything. It's not going to get the job done. I think his view was that if you pressed it as a moral issue and you were aggressively out front, that could lead you to legislative success too, so you'd have the best of both worlds. I would like to have shared that view. That's the natural course to follow, but I think if you have a responsibility to do everything that you can to bring about a law of the land in a meaningful sense, you have to carefully carve out that course and not be overly antagonistic to those that you hope someday may see it your way. And that's difficult. That's not the easy road, that's the tough road. It's all right to think back and conclude what was best to do and I'm not questioning his motives, but I would say to him, "Mr. Vice President, realistically I don't think that's going to get us where we want to go. In fact, it may delay where we want to go and may be counterproductive." G: Did you notice any difference in tenor from one president to the next on this bill? Was Johnson more inclined in his own mind to see it as a moral cause rather than an issue of justice or law? O: I would have to lean to concluding that he saw it more as a moral cause than just a law. I think he saw it as a crusade. It had the elements of a crusade, this great battle being waged for right and for justice. There's nothing wrong with that. And I don't think that was a point of view he adopted after he was president. There were clear indications from this memo that it was a view he had early on, that he was disturbed the administration wasn't reacting accordingly and that the President was not out there waving the banner in that crusade. I don't think it was political motivation. You could debate the pros and cons of this ad infinitum, but on the one hand I wouldn't for a moment question, and I'll repeat it again because I had all the evidence any man ever could have, I could never question Lyndon Johnson's commitment in this area. He was wedded to this cause. But by the same token, I would also not question Kennedy's commitment to this cause and that he was wedded to it. G: My question really addresses more what it says about each person's frame of reference rather than their goals or their commitment. It's basically their perspective and how they're thinking on this issue. O: I don't think I'm equipped to make a judgment on that point. Regardless of how the issue was approached or how it was handled, I don't think there would be an iota of difference in terms of the bottom line between the two men in that regard. I really don't. You know, it's a little like Jack and Bobby. If you were talking about this issue 41 O'Brien --Interview V --38 when you met with Bobby, you'd find Bobby bordering on the violent. He would be exercised and committed and you'd say, "That guy, he's going to go through ten walls to be sure this is finally accomplished." You would sit with Jack Kennedy and it wouldn't be the same conversation at all. Jack Kennedy would be far less emotional. But there wouldn't be one iota of difference between the two of them in terms of their attitudes and views and commitments. I think it's the personality of people more than anything else. Kennedy was the kind of a guy--it took me a long time to realize how much physical suffering he went through, with all my intimate acquaintance with him over fourteen years. In my early days with him when he was a candidate for the Senate, I would see him on crutches and then I would see him without the crutches. I would see him in a hotel room, when we were in the midst of a day of many events, obviously not feeling well, and I'd say nothing and he'd say nothing. He never had a conversation with me about physical problems other than on one occasion, and I never forgot it. Way back when he was in the Senate as a freshman and that back problem continued to cause him great difficulty, I wasn't aware of it until we had lunch in the Ritz Hotel in Boston--I believe it was probably a Saturday--when he told me that he was leaving after lunch for New York and he was going to be operated on against the view of his family, his father and others, who felt that he should not undertake anything as dangerous as that. He had been advised by the Lahey Clinic not to be operated on, but he wasn't going to live with it. Well, heck, I'm sitting there with my mouth hanging open, because I don't believe the extent of his problem had totally penetrated with me. I was taken aback that this man was saying to me, "This is it." I was just shook, and we parted and it was that following night on national news. It was announced that he had been operated on and had been given the last rites of the Catholic church. And off my conversation with him at lunch, I sat there thinking, "This is it." It took months to overcome that and go about his business. I mean, a fellow living that way is apt to be different. He wasn't a fellow that complained. I realized that over those earlier years I must have imposed upon him all kinds of activities, i. e., standing in receiving lines for hours, where he must have been suffering inordinately, and yet I didn't have any evidence of it, nor did he ever communicate it with me. And what had happened in the hotel in Springfield was that he caved in and I had to get a doctor to fit him for crutches. I made an announcement to the press that he was called back to Washington and canceled the rest of the schedule. That's when it began to hit me. Well, with all of that you have a fellow who comes from a little different direction than we do. Lyndon Johnson's nature was to be out front, articulate, and espouse in what was a colorful manner at length at times. You'd never have a conversation with Kennedy to the extent and length that you'd have with Lyndon Johnson on any subject. It wasn't his nature. When I was doing my book I couldn't understand why I could put together a long list of Lyndon Johnson anecdotes and stories, a man with whom I had a shorter association with than I had had with Jack Kennedy, and the Jack Kennedy side of the 42 O'Brien --Interview V --39 column was almost nonexistent. How could I know Kennedy fourteen years and have difficulty giving a balanced anecdotal aspect to this book? Well, it finally hit me that Kennedy was a great listener; he loved stories and he loved anecdotes. He loved to laugh. But he did the listening. That's why a Dave Powers was repeatedly asked to tell those stories, because even though Kennedy had heard them a hundred times he'd laugh again. But Johnson was the storyteller, Kennedy was the listener. And you get to civil rights and whether it's a moral issue. You can't avoid the very different personalities. I don't think that you necessarily come to the conclusion that they had different points of view. In the activities of these two very different people, we've reflected on the fact that Johnson would retain grudges, while Kennedy would do his thing with whatever grudge he had and then go on. Johnson rather enjoyed confrontation, but in a much different way than Kennedy. Kennedy enjoyed confrontation because he loved the battle. Whether it was a physical battle or a mental battle he wanted to wage it. And I have all kinds of evidence of that. I don't think Lyndon Johnson would approach a battle in that sense. He might try to persuade the Houston ministers; he might seize the opportunity to meet with them and hopefully turn them around. Kennedy would approach the Houston ministers in the sense of defiance saying, "Hell, I don't care if it's the Houston ministers, the Texas delegation, or whoever. Let me at them." And he would not dwell on the result; the action he was engaged in was satisfying. G: Whereas Johnson might dwell on the outcome? O: Yes. So what are you going to do with these two guys? We're trying to evaluate, analyze, try to come up with scraps of evidence or perceptions that might give us a lead, and all we have in common really is the two fellows held the same office. G: When you were discussing how Kennedy repressed, in this case, physical pain, I think what a contrast it must have been to LBJ, who seemed to just wear his heart on his sleeve and be pouring out all of his problems. O: Yes. G: Is this the case? Was it a--? O: Never with LBJ, and believe me, I never felt uncomfortable; I never felt uptight, I never felt in any kind of awe. I enjoyed him and I felt that as far as I was concerned we communicated well. I admired him particularly for his tenacious efforts in the legislative area, and the extent he would go to get across to you that he was supportive of you and that you could depend upon him. He wanted to be a participant and to share your problems as he expected you to share his. That wasn't Jack Kennedy. G: How so? 43 O'Brien --Interview V --40 O: Well, Jack Kennedy wasn't that kind of a fellow. I can imagine if I had called Jack Kennedy at three o'clock in the morning, as Johnson suggested to me. If I had done it Johnson would have thought nothing of it. It would have appalled me if I had contemplated doing something like that. Nevertheless, Johnson gently reprimanded me for delaying until seven-thirty to give him bad news. I should have called him so he could have bled with me, as he put it. (Laughter) Now, with Jack Kennedy, the greatest emotion I probably saw him [express] in the legislative context was the day I told him we lost the minimum wage bill, when he took the letter opener and stuck it like a dagger into the top of the desk. But that was highly unusual for Kennedy. Now, the Kennedy I knew may not have necessarily been the Kennedy that his social acquaintances knew. You have to remember that I was comfortable with my relationship with him--what I would have to term a professional relationship. There was no question that we had common interests and we shared common views and he knew the regard I held for him, because I wouldn't have made the sacrifices I did personally on his behalf if I didn't feel strongly. The other side of that coin is that he respected me and what I was engaged in or he would not have indirectly taken on his father, as I recounted one time, who objected to what I was doing. He wound up supporting me rather than caving in to his father. G: Well, let me ask you to go into this one area a little bit more. Who were his social friends? O: His intimate friends were fellows he had been in the service with. Red [Paul] Fay was one of them, and there were two or three others that I met. Red Fay I met often because he became involved in the political scene. The other friends were--the longest and closest was Lem [Lemoyne] Billings. I say the longest and closest because Lem Billings was ever present, and it was obvious that Jack enjoyed his companionship. There were a handful of others that went back to Harvard and his days at Choate. I believe Lem went to Choate, and there was a fellow from my home town I believe probably went that far back with him by the name of Reed [?]. They were truly longtime friends. Now, there's nothing unusual about that. Beyond that, you're talking about friends sought out by him who went to the PT boat, a little bit of Choate, and a touch of Harvard. But the PT boat was very important. I think that's what occurs, because it's interesting in my own son, who went to Harvard and was in the service, that the friends that he's retained over the years are apt to be the fellows he had an intimate association with in the service rather than the fellows he went to school with. Maybe the experiences you share are more deep and abiding than perhaps the experiences of school. I would be invited, my wife and I, to the compound from time to time. We visited there quite often, down at Hyannis. We would visit with Jack and Jackie after they were married, on occasion, and stay at their home in Washington. But I was not on the regular list of invitees for various social events. 44 O'Brien --Interview V --41 G: You mean at social events at the White House or before this? O: No. The social events at the White House were never social events; they were all business. We went to more White House black tie dinners than you could shake a stick at until we were so sick of them that we'd be the first ones out, down the back stairway through the rear entrance of the White House. I remember one night running into one of the cabinet members dashing with his wife--we bumped into each other. We had to laugh because we were both making a hasty exit before the entertainment of the evening. So, no, I'm talking events that would take place in McLean with Bobby and Ethel or things of that nature. That's the way it was and that's the way I liked it. I'll have to say that I didn't find much in common with some of those peripheral social acquaintances he had. The fellows that I met--the PT boat fellows and Lem and a couple of the others--I liked and I could readily understand why they were close friends. But when you got beyond that, whether somebody was being dumped into the swimming pool was of no interest to me and I would much prefer not to be involved. G: Was Johnson different in this regard in terms of--? O: I didn't have the longtime association with Johnson that I had with Kennedy and yet Johnson and Lady Bird reached out to Elva and me in a variety of ways. Tape 3 of 3, Side 2 G: You say you were included in activities that you--O: It was a relaxed atmosphere. I was in the living quarters with the Johnsons very often. I did obviously spend a lot of time with the President because he was a late night guy, in the office or over in the living quarters. Because of his keen interest in the activities I was engaged in, I would be with him. Mrs. Johnson was very thoughtful and kind to Elva; that was her nature. She would make a point of having contact with cabinet wives and staff wives. You shared their excitement at the weddings of their daughters. The same with Kennedy weddings, but I'm talking about a fellow that I didn't know nearly as well as I knew Jack Kennedy. So the whole thing was a very pleasant experience that Elva and I treasure. Elva, also, always enjoyed Jackie's company. But on the Johnson side the difference is that I was not a long-time acquaintance; I was not an intimate, yet you felt totally comfort-able. There was a sensitivity to staff people and a recognition of what they were engaged in. When I would sit around with him up in the Mansion, I didn't experience the high emotional levels that were attributed to him, flaring up at staff people, that were recounted often. After Dallas you had a Johnson staff and a Kennedy staff side by side in the same building. They could never be totally melded, and in fact there was an excessive number of employees, too. But I don't recall that Johnson could flare up and strike out. 45 O'Brien --Interview V --42 G: Was this something Kennedy was less inclined to do, do you think? O: Yes. I don't think perhaps you could find two more different people, the more we talk about this. G: Was Johnson more likely to involve himself in your personal life than Kennedy was, would you say? O: No. G: I'm thinking of all sorts of things ranging from your wife's activities to maybe in one case helping select a tie or showing you how to part your hair or something. O: No, there wasn't that closeness. I had to adjust myself to Lyndon Johnson. One of the early occasions--I never forgot because it was so unusual--was a dinner at his home where there were Jack Brooks, Bobby Baker, their wives, Elva and I, and the Johnsons. It was a cold night and I remember it started by Johnson feeling that we should see the house and the grounds. I recall he put floodlights on, and the grounds were barren and it was cold. We took a stroll around the grounds and he had music coming from the trees. That didn't end the tour, for we went through the house, through every room in the house, including every bedroom. As this went on, he pulled out a sport shirt with LBJ on it, and he said, "Now I want you to have this." Then he had a bottle of perfume for Elva and then he had something else from another room. I remember that whatever collection we had of these gifts, I put them on the table in the foyer and I felt uncomfortable about them. The evening progressed and it came time to leave, and he caught me. He was right, I didn't admit it, but the collection was all on the table. I didn't make an attempt to pick it up. He said, "Well, aren't you going to--?" "Oh," I said. He said, "No, you were going to walk out without them. You just were going to avoid"--or something to that effect. The son of a gun had me figured. So I hauled off and brought them home. (Laughter) Then I guess it was after Christmas--yes, Christmas of 1963--I forget who said, "The President wants you to have this as a little memento of Christmas." There was a beautifully wrapped box. It was a wristwatch, engraved. It was very nice. Then there was another occasion when I was at the Ranch and the President said something about the deer. Well, I had been able to avoid entrapment in hunting deer, and I was congratulating myself because some others who had no interest in hunting deer had been entrapped. I think he realized that he had not gotten me out on the early morning hunt, but I had to see the deer. He's driving the car and you go out bouncing over the fields. Finally we pull up and there are some deer in a little distance, and he said, "Now, give me a cigarette." So I gave him a cigarette and he opened his window a little bit, stuck the cigarette out and the deer came over and swallowed the cigarette. So we kept 46 O'Brien --Interview V --43 putting the cigarettes out and the deer just loved the cigarettes. You're sitting with him out there, well, I mean, who have I known in life that I'd. . . . This sort of thing was not that unusual, like the swimming pool incident, he and I debating some issue, and [Dan] Rostenkowski to his dying day will never forget the two of us standing there belly to belly discussing something intensely. Well, hell, forget the fact that by that time you had become--I hadn't, I had never known anybody like that among my friends and acquaintances. (Laughter) But you had to take it in the spirit in which you assumed it was meant. And I think the leavening factor in all that was Lady Bird. She was always so pleasant and so interested in things and so apparently happy to see you. It was just a very comfortable situation. G: Was he more inclined toward gift giving than Jack Kennedy, do you think? O: Oh, yes. In our early days there were a couple of occasions where Jack and I exchanged Christmas gifts, neckties or something, but that wasn't the norm. Nor did you even think about it in those terms. You might send each other a Christmas card and that was the end of that. It was a different atmosphere and a different approach. G: Do you think that regional differences explain part of this, Johnson being from the South or the Southwest and Kennedy from New England? O: Yes. I wouldn't be able to document it because I come from the same region that Kennedy came from, but I think that's part of it. I think there was a basic lifestyle that was different, too, and background, in terms of here's a fellow that had worked for the NYA. Jack Kennedy never worked for the NYA or anyone else. The Johnson family wasn't as large a family as the Kennedy family, spread out over the landscape. I never knew Johnson's parents, but I did know Kennedy's parents, their family activities and their approach to things. I suppose that if both of them hadn't been president you wouldn't think anything of it. But when you get a query about these two fellows to relate the two of them--your observations of them in the same position--it does bring you to the contrast. Another thing--and I think he more than half meant it--we had occasions where Johnson was pretty much persuaded that we had pulled a lot of fast dealings--we, the Kennedy people--in terms of the nomination in 1960. He had assurances from his staff people traveling the country, delegate counts and the rest, and he found that they were completely out of whack. Where he had delegate commitments, somehow we had gotten with those people and gotten the delegates away from him. And it was always in the context of admiration, despite my repeated assurances to him that I would be glad to claim that if it were accurate, but it wasn't, and we just weren't that skillful or politically astute. Lady Bird one night was reading The Last Hurrah, and she mentioned it to me that she was in the midst of the book. She said, "I've got to ask you. This is a novel, but I'm told that it's an accurate portrayal of politics with a significant Irish tinge to it in that era in Boston. Is that true?" I said, "That is factual. That's not a novel." She was disbe- 47 O'Brien --Interview V --44 lieving; she said, "Gosh, that's a bunch of colorful characters and all this stuff that went on." She said she was enjoying the book. Johnson was in awe of Dick Daley. Jack Kennedy could understand Dick Daley; they had a relationship. It was a natural evolvement in the political context. Daley could deliver; Daley expected in return to be duly recognized. But with Lyndon Johnson, a telephone call from Dick Daley was about as important a call as he could receive. He would be concerned about Dick Daley's area of interest at the moment and that Dick Daley would be pleased and satisfied. Johnson would be sure that whatever request was made was carried out. He said to me, "You know, I'm persuaded that you Irish politicians, you and Daley and those fellows, get together and you have one of those secret societies. You have one of these clubs somewhere and you meet regularly." (Laughter) "You've got this sort of communication network," and I'm sitting there laughing and I think he was half serious! He thought there was some additional element in the fact that we shared a common heritage that brought us into some kind of a clandestine organization. I thought it was awfully funny. I assume he was pulling my leg, but I think that there was a little touch of, I don't know, "there's something strange about you people, there's something I can't quite grasp." G: But do you think that ethnic heritage or political experience enabled Kennedy to, for example, understand Daley better than Johnson did? O: I think it's probably not so much understand him but know how to handle him. G: He'd been dealing with Irish politicians all his life. O: The difference with Daley--most Irish politicians would be a little more like Johnson, outgoing, story-telling, back-slapping--was that Daley was a Buddha. You could sit and talk with Daley and his voice level wouldn't alter. The communication would be somewhat limited because he would speak in brief sentences. He could express his position in about three sentences, no more than that necessary. He was a fellow that you looked at not necessarily with awe, but you saw that he was truly a boss, and you'd better believe it. G: Was Johnson really one of a kind or were there similar personalities among the senators and congressmen who were from the same region that he was? O: I think that some aspects of Johnson would be similar, but I think he was really one of a kind. Now, the average southern senator--I dealt with them and southern congressmen--I found that, running through my dealings with them, uniformly there was a level of--how do I best describe it?--they were always most courteous, always attentive to what you were saying, always ensuring that you were comfortable with them. The fellows that I would know best, in the Northeast, you walk into their office and they might neglect to ask you to sit down. But with a southern representative in the Congress, you were greeted by the staff with the utmost courtesy and pleasantness. You were always brought 48 O'Brien --Interview V --45 to the member without any undue delay. The member would express concern that you were comfortable and did you want to have a cup of coffee. And I think that's probably part of the makeup of the South, not only elected representatives. I enjoy them thoroughly, and to me, in the early days, this was a relatively new experience. I had gotten to know a number of these people in the political context but that was pretty much a rush in and out sort of thing. You didn't get to know them in the sense of having a lengthy conversation or a cup of coffee with them. Johnson had all of those elements, but along with it he had this style that certainly was not typical of southern members. He was one of a kind. He was a very unique guy. But the courtesies and the extension of effort to be sure that "have you had enough to eat?" or "would you like another drink?" or "are you comfortable there?" or "Elva, what would you like to do?" that sort of thing, I think you see much more of it in the South and Southwest than you do where I come from. Now, I'm not suggesting my own kind of people geographically are not courteous and kind and considerate, but it's just a different approach. It's a more relaxed [approach]. This doesn't apply to Johnson necessarily, but I always found it--well, not long ago I was in with Jake Pickle. I hadn't seen Jake in quite a while. Gosh, it's just sort of like old times. You walk in and Jake [says], "Oh, sit over here. Let's have a cup of coffee," and he did some reminiscing and we chatted. He was busy, I knew, and I wasn't trying to delay him but we had just a pleas-ant half-hour. That's the way they are, even when they were saying no to you. (Laughter) G: Do you think that the age difference between Johnson and Kennedy was part of the fundamental differences between them? Was Johnson more old-fashioned? He was older than Kennedy. O: I think there's some of that with all of us. I find that I'm having that experience now. I find that the arrogant wise guy I was during a period of my life I see in others of a comparable age now. Now I'm looking at it from the position of the elder and I'm very tolerant of it, in fact, without realizing that I'm one of the elders. I've had it happen in the NBA where my own staff was very young. I've always had a young staff over the years and in the NBA particularly. I was building a staff and I was looking for the young, vigorous bright guys that have a sports interest, and so consequently I wound up with a top staff that was different than my predecessor, all young. But this slipped every now and then. Concerning somebody in the league in my age group, every once in a while they'd say, "Oh, Christ, that old so-and-so. What does he know?" or "He's bordering on senility if he hasn't arrived." I'd see one of them look at me and realize, "We forgot the old man was sitting here." I think every young person has an element of that in him and it's natural. As you get to middle age, you begin to balance it out a little. Then when you get older, you are sensitive to the fact that you've got something to overcome in communicating with someone thirty years younger than you are. Life changes and lifestyles change and points of view change. Everything changes. My God, look at the changes I've seen in my years. 49 O'Brien --Interview V --46 G: As you moved from Kennedy to Johnson, did you feel like you were now working for someone who had perhaps a more old-fashioned view of the world around him or a less modern view? O: I don't think it entered my mind, because my view of the world around me might not necessarily be totally Kennedy's view of the world around him. We came from a different background. The only tie that Kennedy and I would have is a comparable ethnic background. He was a third generation and I am a first generation, so I didn't even think that was comparable. G: You don't think the generational difference was a factor in terms of--? O: I don't think there was a difference there. Jack Kennedy was in his mid-forties. He and I were only six weeks apart in age. We were con-temporaries. That brought us into the White House at, what, forty-one, forty-two?--something like that. How old was Johnson at that time? O: Let's see, he was born in 1908. O: 1908. God, there was only nine years difference, ten years difference between the two of them. G: Was Johnson a less secure individual than Kennedy, do you think? O: Probably so. But I think when you say that you have to quickly focus on the position he held, because I found insecurity apparent with Hubert Humphrey re Lyndon Johnson. And I'm not at all sure that that isn't the nature of things with the unique system we have. I'm sure that Lyndon Johnson would often wonder about whether or not Jack Kennedy was happy with him or happy with his performance. Now, under a different set of circumstances would he exhibit that kind of insecurity, I don't know. I think not, because he was, after he joined the Senate, pretty much in a position of being first among equals. But I can bet as we're talking that George Bush every day gives a thought to whether or not Ronnie Reagan is happy with him. Is there anything he did that might not please the President or anything he's going to do that day that might not please the President? I think there's a considerable sensitivity there. With Hubert that was his nature, the kind of fellow he was. He'd say to me, "Do you think the President feels I'm doing a good job? Does the President have any problems with me that you're aware of?" But I'll bet that that would be in the mind of anyone in that position. G: Did Johnson seem to have a less cohesive political philosophy than Kennedy? Was he more fluid or more perhaps. . . ? O: Johnson's political philosophy, his general political outlook and his views generally would coincide with mine. We used to say in Massachusetts, "You're born a Catholic and a Democrat." I think with Johnson we were both born Democrats, and Kennedy as 50 O'Brien --Interview V --47 well--traditional to the FDR concept and approach to social problems and belief in and commitment to the party. I would consider Johnson and Kennedy in that mold. You exchanged views with Johnson about the NYA and the CCC and Roosevelt and those weren't discussions I had with Jack Kennedy. I could equate with those. After all, I lived through the era of the WPA and I imagine our economic level in life was somewhat comparable. That wasn't the case with Kennedy. But there are people to this day that are disbelieving when I recount my period with Lyndon Johnson and recount it in the terms I do--what I considered a good working relationship, the way he and his wife treated me and my wife, the enjoyment I derived from the involvement, the effort and the results, the sharing of concerns and sharing of problems in a very warm and outgoing manner. I add it all up, and I'll have to tell you that I have no reason to ever remotely share the views of some regarding Lyndon Johnson who claim they had a long acquaintance with him and were negative regarding him. I don't think that you make judgments on that; you can only make them on your own experience. Now, if I had a limited experience with Lyndon Johnson and he was a casual acquaintance, I'd probably accept a lot of the stories I heard. After eight years of involvement, you certainly can make judgments. You're probably in a far better position to make judgments than a lot of people and it comes out a significant plus. I had this discussion with an old acquaintance--this goes back a few years now--a few years after his departure, and the bitterness had grown in this man, and there was no discernible reason. It just eluded me. G: This was a Kennedy man? O: Yes. We spent an evening on this subject. We didn't wind up in a mean confrontation, but we weren't far from it, because he could not for the life of him accept my evaluation of Lyndon Johnson and my recounting of my experience with him. He wasn't going to accept it, never would, and as I continued to recount he became more and more negative. I'm positive I'm right. And I think it's unfortunate, frankly. My reaction the next day when I told my wife about the prior evening was it depressed me and I felt sorry for him. I thought it was a sad commentary. But I guess Lyndon Johnson had the capacity to elicit strong views pro and con. G: Others have noted the difference in style between Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. O: Sure. There was a total difference in style. It went to dress; it went to areas of interest, it went to social life, the whole thing. They were completely different. I don't think you probably could find two more different fellows. Kennedy was idolized by many; he was a handsome guy, admired by women to an inordinate degree. He exuded that Harvard look and air, at least what people discerned as a Harvard look and air, and he had an accent that fitted into the pattern. Johnson came from Texas, from a little town, the basic farm belt originally, I guess. A world of difference in style. End of Tape 3 of 3 and Interview V 51 [ Part 6: "Attached Text" ] *Pages 1--61 from Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview VI* LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. 1 LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW VI PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview VI, 2/ 11/ 86, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview VI, 2/ 11/ 86, by Michael L. Gillette, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. 2 NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY AND JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Lawrence F. O'Brien In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Lawrence F. O'Brien of New York, New York, do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on September 18, October 29, October 30, December 4, December 5, 1985; February 11, February 12, April 8, April 9, June 25, July 24, July 25, September 10, September 11, November 20, November 21, December 17, December 18, 1986; April 22, April 23, June 18, June 19, July 21, July 22, August 25, August 26, September 23, September 24, November 3, November 4, December 10, December 11, 1987 at New York, New York and Cotuit, Massachusetts and prepared for deposit jointly in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library. (2) The tape recordings to which the transcripts relate shall be in the possession of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and shall not be available for use or review of or by any source during my lifetime and for a period of time thereafter ending with the 10th year anniversary of the date of my death. At such time, access to the tape recordings by researchers shall be permitted but only for the limited purpose of background use, and researchers may not cite, paraphrase, or quote therefrom under any circumstances. (3) During my lifetime, I retain all copyright in the material given to the United States by the terms of this instrument. Thereafter the copyright in the transcripts shall pass to the United States Government. During my lifetime, researchers may publish brief "fair use" quotations from the transcripts without my express prior consent in each case, but no other quotations from the transcripts shall be published, except with my express prior approval in writing. (4) Copies of the open portions of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be provided by the library to researchers upon request, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. (5) Copies of the interview transcripts, but not the tape recordings, may be deposited in or loaned to research institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library or the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, subject to the terms, conditions and restrictions set out herein. Signed by Lawrence F. O'Brien on April 5, 1990. 3 Accepted by Donald Wilson, Archivist of the United States, April 25, 1990. Original Deed of Gift on file at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705. ACCESSION NUMBER 92-17 4 O'Brien --Interview VI --1 INTERVIEW VI DATE: February 11, 1986 INTERVIEWEE: LAWRENCE F. O'BRIEN INTERVIEWER: Michael L. Gillette PLACE: Mr. O'Brien's office, New York City Tape 1 of 4, Side 1 G: [Let me ask you about some] issues in 1963. O: Yes. First of all, [I'll try] to summarize Kennedy and then we'll go to LBJ's style. The Kennedy I first knew was a fellow who had decided to run for statewide office in Massachusetts. As he traveled the state to become acquainted beyond his congressional district, he had a set speech, and this came off some world traveling. He never seemed to be at ease. As time went on and he made this speech more often, he seemed to relax a little more. But from the outset you could detect that communication didn't come easy to him. Of course, he was put to the test with Henry Cabot Lodge and he became much more politically expert. But in campaigns, in the primaries, and even later he had to work hard at the backslapping, handshaking phase of politics and the one-on-one outside of plant gates. While he became more adept at it and actually became widely recognized as an extremely capable communicator, particularly when he got to the presidential press conferences, the point I want to make is that from the outset it did not come naturally. In fact, it was a difficult task for him to accommodate himself to a relaxed attitude toward the street-corner campaigning. That reflected itself in the White House, when we were engaged in legislative struggles and had these various meetings. Jack Kennedy could not bring himself to strong-arm, members of Congress to secure their vote. He'd make his presentation and he was relaxed in that regard. He knew his subject, they liked him, and he had a great asset there. But you would finish one of these sessions with twenty or thirty members of Congress, and everything was fine except that you couldn't take a head count when they departed. There was one line you didn't cross and that was to say, "Now, let's go around this room, and where are we, and where are you?" Now, to Lyndon Johnson. I don't know how Lyndon Johnson was in his younger days or as a member of Congress. I didn't become acquainted with him until he was on the ticket with Jack Kennedy. But I heard about his efforts as majority leader and how hard he worked at it. I remember I was particularly impressed on election night when Kennedy was elected to the Senate that one of the first out-of-Massachusetts calls was from Lyndon Johnson, lining him up to support him for majority leader. Others have to 5 O'Brien --Interview VI --2 testify to how Johnson actually functioned as majority leader. I can only assume that it was reasonably accurate to say that he worked awfully at it; he knew where the bodies were; he wheeled and dealed in terms of getting legislative enactment; and he was considered very expert at it. He had achieved a great reputation as majority leader. Then as vice president, he of course had to adjust. He didn't have the muscle that he had as majority leader. That was made clear to him from the outset. He was in a different category and he was no longer really a member of the club. As we've discussed before, he felt that he would maintain basically the same leadership position with the Senate that he had had as majority leader. That was reflected in his early-on commitment to spend a great deal of time up in the Senate and to retain his majority leader office. In due course it became apparent that that wasn't working as he had envisioned it. So he had to adjust. His efforts in the legislative program were intense. His involvement was as full as could be. He enlisted everybody possible. There were times in the White House when just about everybody on the staff was involved in one way or another in some legislative struggle. [They would] have assignments from him or from me to work with individual members. I remember the Texas staff people in the White House working on the Texas delegation at various times. The leadership breakfasts would be comparable to the Kennedy period and were the same in terms of those present. Johnson's style didn't change, although there had been the vice presidential period when he had indicated to me on occasions that he didn't feel he could move people as he used to. He would try and he'd try mightily, and he'd get frustrated. But then as president, with great vigor, he moved back into the fray and started to devote a tremendous amount of his time and effort to the legislative program. If you had a Kennedy meeting in the White House residence with the appropriate members of Congress to sell them on support of a particular legislative proposal, you have the Kennedy meeting conducted the way I described it. The Johnson meetings, however, would move to that last mile, where Johnson would make an effort to individually determine the position of members present. And that would happen in the Oval Office. He was keenly interested, on a day-to-day basis, in progress. He and I had a tremendous amount of personal involvement. It was day and night, more than I had had with Kennedy. He would devote an inordinate amount of time to the sales pitch, and he would put it on a truly personal basis: "I'm pleading with you. You've got to help me. You can't walk away from this. Come on, you've just--" And that would get to the arm around the shoulder, the close proximity and the pitch that could be lengthy at times. A member would be pretty exhausted. And that was basically the difference in style. Johnson had that experience as majority leader, did not have the impact he envisioned as vice president--and no vice president really does--and in the role of president 6 O'Brien --Interview VI --3 he had the kit of tools--a bigger kit of tools than as majority leader--and he used them to the fullest. Through all that, he did have a tendency to take things rather personally. If someone on the Hill who he felt should be supportive [and] wasn't, that was a personal affront. He dwelled on it. That was his nature, as he dwelled on Vietnam and personalized Vietnam to the last pilot. Did he get back safely? It was similarly the case with the legislative program. I think probably the best example was the loyal support of Mike Mansfield for the program, and the conflict we got into with Mike Mansfield over the closing of veterans hospitals. Johnson became very disturbed with this. Those hospitals were going to be closed; the decision had been made that they were inadequate. But the pure politics of it was that one of the hospitals was in Montana, and we had a similar experience with an air base or some kind of a military installation in Montana. Johnson had White House staff busy preparing statements to be issued wherever possible, contacting press to see if you could get favorable editorial comment, all of it added up to exacerbating the situation with Mansfield. Mansfield wasn't going to take it. He was the majority leader and this was a constituency matter. And this went on and on. It was an example of the intensity of the Johnson effort, which would be reflected in the legislative program. Here, however, was an incident that was not a legislative matter, but a confrontation with a fellow who was in a key position in terms of your legislative program, and yet there wasn't a tendency to adjust or fall back. I guess you certainly can't fault the man for that; he was on the right side of the issue. But the reality was that you probably weren't going to be a winner, and that, I recall, was the way it turned out. Because of his nature, Johnson was not a fellow who was very well organized. He would put in hours and hours and hours, without any regard to mealtime, bedtime, or anything else. Mrs. Johnson was constantly trying to keep him reasonably in line, fearing for his health. But he would not hear of it. And that was something I observed directly, because I was with him very often, from wake-up time to bedtime. G: Typically, how would this occur? Would Mrs. Johnson simply come in and say it's time to have lunch, it's time to take a nap, or something like that? How would she do it? O: Yes. There was one incident which was typical of many. It was rather late in the evening, and we were in the small office off the Oval Office. I don't know what we were engaged in. She called a couple of times from the residence, urging him to come home; he hadn't eaten. Finally she came over--I remember she just had a sweater on--and said, "Now, Lyndon, you've got to break off. It's now 9: 00 p. m.." It was not a normal time to be busily engaged in something, and she was really pleading with him. He'd say, "Oh, Bird." And then finally she resorted to, "Lyndon, you know Larry's got a wife at home, and I'm sure she's waiting for him and it's now well past dinner time. Why don't you let him go home and you come on?" He passed that off; that didn't end it either. And that was not unusual. If we were in the residence she'd oftentimes come in and say, "Well, guys, it's 7 O'Brien --Interview VI --4 time to [quit]." And there were occasions when I would find myself in his bedroom while he was going to bed and we were still talking. That was the intensity of the whole thing. When you couple his total commitment to the Great Society program and what came naturally to him in terms of working with the Congress with the growing specter of Vietnam and his total concern regarding Vietnam, he had imposed upon himself a tremendous burden, without any semblance of programming. Kennedy would go over and take a nap or take a swim in the pool, take a couple hours break during mid-day, and he was pretty well organized. But Lyndon Johnson wasn't at all, and his tendency was to deal directly with everyone whenever possible on all matters. He had a great desire to be constantly informed. In comparison, Kennedy would leave things to his confidence in whoever was handling it. You move along, keep him informed, and use his involvement whenever you felt it was essential, but be very sparing, and careful and don't do it unnecessarily. On the other hand, you had difficulty keeping Johnson out of a lot of things that should be done on a staff level--our staff, the departments and agencies, cabinet members. The President need not be personally involved, but he would never accept that. I found myself carefully structuring my utilization of President Kennedy in terms of the New Frontier program, and he was never reluctant to participate. But I would go to him, or I would go to Ken O'Donnell and they'd go over his schedule and allocate specific times for various meetings on the program. With Lyndon Johnson it was the reverse. He felt that I ought to be using him more, that I ought to have him more deeply involved, that I wasn't informing him on an hourly basis. I guess it was summed up one night when we had a loss in the House in the wee hours of the morning. I've told that story. But I think, again, it's like Lady Bird with the sweater. You're drifting home, you're rather depressed, it was unusual to lose, and it was an all-night session and we lost it at three or four o'clock in the morning. And I remember wending my way home and stopping in a little sandwich shop and having something to eat, just sitting there at the counter, and then going on home. I didn't need anything to eat, it was just a matter of trying to unwind. Then I waited until 6: 30 or 7: 00 a. m. to call the President, knowing his habit as an early riser, and I wanted to wait until he would have awakened. I remember telling the President, and having the President ask, "When did this happen?" I told him, and he said, "God, you should have called me right then and there. When you're bleeding up on that Hill, Larry, I want to bleed with you." Now that is a good example of his involvement. There was an affection for Kennedy that grew. First of all, most members of Congress really didn't know Kennedy. He had been there only a short period of time, even though he had been in both the House and the Senate. His absentee record was well known, particularly on the House side. He never really was that interested in the House, and was anxious to move on when the opportunity presented itself. You would find people like Carl Albert, or indeed Mike Mansfield, who didn't know Kennedy intimately, had not had that kind of relationships with him. They knew Johnson intimately and they 8 O'Brien --Interview VI --5 had had years of intimate relationship with him. I think that that made a difference, particularly on the Senate side. If you had a group of senators--[ Robert] Kerr or [Clinton] Anderson, fellows with a lot of seniority--for a meeting in the White House Jack Kennedy as president was very junior to those fellows and he did not have a close relationship with them. Maybe that caused him to be a little reticent in and urging and pressing and pleading and cajoling. On the other hand, with those same people Johnson had known for a lifetime and had had all kinds of dealings, he had no compunction whatsoever to try to push and shove them. G: On that meeting in which Mrs. Johnson came in and pled with him to call it a night and come have dinner and let you go home, typically would he be discussing going over some strategy? Was it really a productive session, or was he just, do you think, holding court? O: No, he could get wound up and it might not by that stage be productive at all. It could be a matter of reminiscences, conversation, projections, and talking about individual members, perhaps. G: Did you have an impression that he just didn't like to be alone, that he just wanted people around him? O: Some of it was that, I'm sure. But I think more than that, he was so involved personally. It was almost as though he didn't want to have any sleep because he'd be missing something. He was completely involved. A conversation with Kennedy in my area of involvement would ordinarily not be overly long. You'd present the facts, he would respond accordingly, and that would end it. It would stay with the business at hand. With Lyndon Johnson it could drift off in all directions in terms of the conversation. An example again: leadership breakfasts. If you take Kennedy and then Johnson, you had the same leaders on Tuesday morning. Each president has had the same briefing from me the prior night for his night reading and then with me prior to breakfast. They would be businesslike breakfasts. You'd go over the program and projections. Now, at a Johnson breakfast--and after all, Johnson attended all the Kennedy breakfasts as vice president--it wasn't long before we were trying to come up with ideas to press the leadership harder. That got to flow charts and progress charts and memos on progress or lack of it, questioning them as to what the program would be the following week. They became more detailed, more intense. Johnson's style was to exert as much pressure as possible, while Kennedy was reluctant to go that distance. G: How much of this was the result of Johnson's personality and his style on the one hand, as opposed to your own seasoning in the job and the fact that you were each year gaining more experience and--? O: That was part of it. From the outset--the typical, I guess, O'Brien oversimplification--you're assigned to a job that you know nothing about, to deal with people few of whom you really know, and you are told that under the table of organization 9 O'Brien --Interview VI --6 you can have a three-or four-person staff. Well, you didn't have to be very bright to figure out from day one that you needed all the manpower you could develop. You very shortly recognized the sensitivity of what you were trying to do. That was overridingly important. You could commandeer the manpower in the departments and agencies, and you did have a power base in the White House. You could direct what people were going to do and how they were going to work with you, and that included cabinet level. Nobody was interfering with that; you had total support to do that. But by the same token, as you were making those moves and getting into these relationships with the leadership, ultimately leading to joint head counts, you were violating the concept of separation of powers, inherent and historic. And yet you had to get the job done. Well, Johnson was part of that. He saw it unfold. He'd be at the leadership meetings, he'd be involved all the way. All memos or anything involving legislative struggles, he was privy to. I don't think Johnson ever said to me, "Develop a flow chart." As time went on and you felt more and more comfortable with your relationships on the Hill, your concern lessened about having them bust wide open some morning because John McCormack or Carl Albert or Mike Mansfield or, in the early days, [Sam] Rayburn, would say, "Hey, wait a minute. You don't belong here." That would end it; there was no appeal from that. There were a couple of murmurs from time to time that had to concern you. Well, you'd gone past that. Now you have acceptance of a procedure that nobody was reflecting on being a potential violation. It was an accepted procedure. We were comfortable in the Speaker's office, in Mike's office. Now you have the Johnson style, and that leads you to be a little more daring. I'm not too sure that the first time we put up the flow charts that those leaders didn't sit at that breakfast and look and probably in their own minds say, "What the hell is this? Who do these people think they are?" I didn't hear any applause for the charts, but there you were, pointing to those charts, "This is what didn't happen last week that should have," and they accepted it. Johnson loved the charts, and he felt that kind of visual aid, if you will, can have a far greater impact than verbiage. I recognized that, but I wouldn't have dared the first couple of years to attempt something like that. As we moved along, it became more and more detailed and [there was] more and more pressure. At every cabinet meeting I would be recognized by the President to go over the legislative program. At the Johnson cabinet meetings, I'm devoting more time to going over the legislative program, and I'm getting more personal, talking about the department that doesn't seem to be moving that bill, and then the President [would] pick it up and ask that cabinet member why. All that happened when I became a member of the cabinet was that instead of sitting along the wall and then moving up to the table when it was my turn, I had a seat at the table and it was my turn. The individual effort expended by Johnson goes to his style. That was his nature. He was reputed to be a fellow that could blow his stack, to use the vernacular, regarding a 10 O'Brien --Interview VI --7 member of his staff. Interestingly enough, in all those years I never saw it. G: Really? O: Never once. I'd hear about it, and I don't know whether those stories were exaggerated or not. But it never happened in my presence. And I think there was a reason for that. I think with me, and probably other Kennedy people, Johnson wouldn't allow himself to get into that kind of a frame of mind. He would be interested in your wife and that she was included. Elva got to really love Lady Bird, and she was very much involved, which was not the case with Jackie. The situation was considerably different. G: In summing up this aspect, would it be fair to say that the refinement of your role would not have been as complete if Kennedy had lived and stayed on as president? O: Yes, well, I don't know whether I'd have ever gotten to flow charts. I don't recall how all this began to unfold, but I'd have to conclude that it was the Johnson participation in the legislative struggles that gave me the nerve to move into the increased pressure being exerted on the leadership, pressure being exerted on the cabinet. The presidential effort was so extensive, and the presidential style of Johnson was such that if they weren't going to challenge him when he was pushing them around, or trying to, then maybe I could be more aggressive than I had been. It's refining the procedure as months and years went by, and obviously to a great extent it had to do with the personal attitude of the President toward the legislative program and congressional relations activities. G: Was LBJ less secure as an individual than John Kennedy? O: Yes. G: How did this manifest itself? O: Is it fair to say insecure? I think that when you live with all of this, and you have two men back to back and you're really in the same role with both of them, you're probably there analyzing or evaluating. It just flows. But Kennedy was a fellow who I don't think sought confrontation, but he sure as the devil would never walk away from it. And I rather think that when it occurred, he enjoyed it. And he handled it very, very well. It was a family trait, and we've talked about it. With Lyndon Johnson, when the press would attack him--you'd get these negative pieces, mean [ones]--his reaction was one of great hurt. But it would reflect itself in conversation, "God, why would that fellow do that to me? I've always treated him well. I thought I was always fair to him. How could he be that unfair to me? It's just terrible." He wouldn't say it in those words, but that's the way he'd come across. He'd dwell on it and it bothered him inordinately. I guess we're all the same in that regard, we all like to be 11 O'Brien --Interview VI --8 loved. Maybe it's his outgoing nature that he'd let you know in his own way that he was personally hurt because somebody was attacking him. Jack Kennedy, in similar attacks--and he got his share of them---his reaction was more to say, "That son of a bitch. Who's he think he is?" He would be more aggressive on the attack, and spout it out with sulfurous language. But he always had that key word that I'd always wait for: "However--what's next?" With Lyndon Johnson it could come up time after time over a period of weeks perhaps, the same, "I still can't understand why he would do that to me. It's so unfair." I don't know, is that a difference of style or just a difference in personality? G: Do you think part of it could reflect a difference in understanding of the press, that perhaps Kennedy had a more--O: I don't think so. G: --realistic attitude toward the press than Johnson? O: No, I think Johnson felt that he had been kind and considerate and socialized with these fellows, he had done a good job of establishing friendships, and then to have one of them, as he saw it, turn on him, was a terrific affront. While with Kennedy, I think he was more realistic. In his own way, believe it or not, Jack Kennedy was tougher and harder. While he would have the structured press conferences and have the little sessions in the Oval Office with selected press from time [to time], I don't think Kennedy ever considered the press other than [as] worthy adversaries that you dealt with, and you succeeded because you were expert on your side of the table. The greatest contribution to that was Kennedy, with some reluctance, initiating that new phase of presidential press conferences, and finding from the first press conference that there was a terrific plus factor in it. It gave him confidence in dealing with the press that he was capable of engaging in what is a historic struggle and that he had a lot of confidence in his ability to succeed in it. While it wasn't that press conferences came easy to him--he was thoroughly briefed; he had a slight degree of tenseness in him--as each press conference succeeded the last one, you could see the comfort factor grow. I don't recall Johnson being inordinately uptight about press conferences, frankly. He had a great concern about his own personal projection, public projection at press conferences, where we got into teleprompters, which set of eyeglasses looked the best, and selecting a pair of eyeglasses backstage before he went on. G: Did you get involved in this, too? O: Not really, no. I'll have to tell you, I saw a certain amount of humor in the whole thing. There'd be a fellow with a case of eyeglasses backstage, and it became a big decision as to which pair. No, I didn't get into that. He never discussed his mode of dress with me that I 12 O'Brien --Interview VI --9 recall. And, of course, you work with what you have. Lyndon was a big sort of garrulous fellow and Jack was sort of neat and tidy. (Laughter) Let's face it, we've seen more and more of it since the days of Kennedy and Johnson and the advent of television, going all the way back [to] the Nixon-Kennedy debates, and the realization of that new, rapidly growing medium and what an impact it was going to have and how it would become the single most important vehicle in American politics. It sure has. Of course, it's gone the whole spectrum now; I think there's a certain amount of cynicism about a lot of this. But you have a president, as we're talking, who in that context, addressed the joint session the other night and said nothing, but said it awfully well. I sit and watch him with my wife and, after thirty minutes, my wife is really impressed. I didn't deign to suggest that maybe she and I could discuss what did he say, or what did he--( Laughter). I let that alone, because it's communication. Tape 1 of 4, Side 2 G: You say this ability of Kennedy's to communicate was not apparent at the outset. O: No. I think there were times in our smaller meetings, two or three hundred at a Kiwanis luncheon in Massachusetts in those early days when he was thinking of running for statewide office, that you would not have people leave and say, "Wasn't that an impressive performance?" I think that the first indication--and there again it was gut reaction on the part of Kennedy--of what this fellow was capable of was a confrontation with Henry Cabot Lodge in a debate. I remember it very well, because we never saw Henry Cabot Lodge again in the campaign and the three or four debates that were scheduled never took place. That was Kennedy's strength, and it was his good fortune that it was never detected until after he was president. Hubert Humphrey fell into the trap in West Virginia of debating him, and Nixon fell into the trap. So you have his capacity in one on one--he had complete confidence in himself. Then you add to that his ability to handle press conferences, which were a form of debate, and that's where his strength was. Frankly, if you go back and look at some of the tapes, I'm not sure you'd say in formal speeches there was great oratory. G: How did Johnson and Kennedy differ intellectually? O: They came from differing environments, and yet they had really the same sincere commitments. Kennedy was probably--not necessarily, but probably--more of a student. But I didn't see, if you go back over Kennedy's life, any great indications of that. He was involved in writing a couple of books. He was involved as a young guy with the formation of the United Nations. He did travel extensively. He did go to the London School of Economics. He was an above average, but not beyond that, student. 13 O'Brien --Interview VI --10 With Lyndon Johnson I don't think you had that kind of involvement. Lyndon Johnson had a clear, total understanding of the impact of a social program on people who were in the lower level economically of society. I think that was a gut, heart feeling he had, because how many times did I listen to Lyndon Johnson talk about the New Deal period and his personal involvement. Kennedy didn't have personal involvement in that sense, but Kennedy had sought knowledge. There was another element which was reflected in the friendships that Kennedy had. They varied, which was interesting to me. Some of them, a handful, were by way of lasting friendships from school or the service. On the social friends--I don't know whether you describe friends as social friends--of which I wasn't one, they were apt to be in that kind of Harvard style, if you will. Yet on the other hand, intimate friends who he retained for a lifetime were in some instances rough-hewn, interesting guys that I thoroughly enjoyed meeting, although I met them only fleetingly, and those were the people he was in the service with in the PT boat program. He had experienced war and he had experienced a great deal of physical setback. He had physically suffered for many years. He had contained that in terms of anybody really knowing, including me, how much pain and suffering he went through. And that creates a different guy in a lot of ways. G: After your years working with Kennedy, would you ever be surprised by a decision that Johnson would make, or some of his reasoning or his intellectual thought processes? O: I don't know as I'd be surprised. I think that there were times, perhaps, when I felt that his personal involvement in legislative struggles had to do with the win and loss column. But I would be brought up short if I thought that. G: Can you give an example of being brought up short? O: While there's a pattern of this sort of thing, probably that one instance made more of an impact. It's a little bit like Lady Bird and the sweater that night; that was not unusual but it just stayed in my mind. I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again. It was the District of Columbia [home rule] battle to try to spring legislation from the Rules Committee. His complete involvement had to transcend win and loss columns. It was gut. It was a strong personal view he had. He wanted to move all civil rights legislation in any form, and he devoted all of his energies to those struggles. When you got into that sort of thing, there was an added dimension to Johnson's effort. And I think it goes back to his background; he knew the Depression. The age difference was not that great between Kennedy and Johnson, but it bordered on two generations. It was, really, in a sense. All the way from birth to your experiences, your education, your involvement. After all, Kennedy was a product of the eastern prep school, Harvard, and Johnson was the product of a small college in the Southwest, an aide to a congressman, a fellow who worked for a living, and who was enamored with the political process. Both of them were. But from his perspective he came up through the chairs--he, 14 O'Brien --Interview VI --11 Johnson--the hard way. The conversation I had with him when he named me postmaster general underscored that, as he reminisced about his efforts on the Hill. He ran an elevator and then he worked in a congressional office and he cited the comparison to what I had done. I had gone to night law school, I was not part of the Eastern Establishment, I had worked for a congressman as a young guy, I had struggled in the boondocks of politics, in the nuts and bolts of politics. I had worked arduously and I had made a contribution to the legislative program, and it was high time that the record recognize me by title. That was really his whole pitch, and I think he really felt that way, that he and I did have a lot in common, and we did. I was the son of immigrant parents. He wasn't the son of immigrant parents, but his years as a youth and the economic struggle and all was very much comparable to mine. G: Do you think he had a inferiority complex, particularly around the well-educated Kennedys, the New Frontiersmen? O: I don't know. It could be. But there again, I couldn't discern that because I wasn't in that category. I don't think that Lyndon Johnson ever looked at Larry O'Brien and said, "Gee, he's one of those Harvard types and comes from money and all this background, and he's had a pretty easy life of it." G: To what extent did the Kennedy White House, perhaps not the President himself, but the others, regard Johnson as a social or an intellectual inferior? O: There were those in the Kennedy White House who had a tendency to discuss him in a rather demeaning manner. But when I say "they," there were a couple of them and no more than that. The [Kenneth] O'Donnell-[ Pierre] Salinger-O'Brien-[ David] Powers White House didn't have that attitude. G: Really? O: Let's face it, though. There was a sensitivity to the Vice President's sensitivities. G: Will you elaborate on that? O: I think I have in the past. That was a reflection of the President's feeling, and I think again it was underscored by the President's anger when we had a meeting one day and the Vice President wasn't there. He inquired and found that he hadn't been notified. That's an incident, but that was the pattern. So I think you'll find there was a recognition that this big fellow was quite a sensitive guy and you wanted to be very careful not to hurt his feelings or incur his enmity. G: Did the hostile feelings to Johnson relate to a crudeness in manner or language or--? 15 O'Brien --Interview VI --12 O: As I'm responding to you, you probably detect a certain attitude I had toward the Eastern Establishment. And it is troubling, because we did have--not in key roles, incidentally, in the White House--fellows who looked with disdain on just about everybody and everything that wasn't Eastern Establishment. And it happened that in a couple of instances they were able and prolific writers. G: Okay. Let's go on into some of the issues in 1963. Last time you talked at length about the civil rights bill. I have just a couple more questions about it. First of all, there's an indication that you feared that the civil rights bill would cause a brawl in the Congress that would hamper other legislation. Is that right? O: Yes. I'm repeating myself, but you can't get away from this because that was the reality of the situation. I think the experience we had at the very outset of the Kennedy Administration in bringing about a change in the House Rules [Committee] had great penetration with us. Even with that five-vote margin allowing us to have consideration of our program, we were going to be walking a tightrope for two years at least, until a midterm election. If we were going to fall off that tightrope and mangle ourselves in the interest of pleasing some people who were supporters of ours, that was a totally unrealistic approach to legislating. Consequently, as the program was pressed, we often discussed the realities of a meaningful civil rights bill and what should go into ensuring that you would have one in due course. That really came to timetables, to testing other comparatively less meaningful legislation and our successes or failures. And we particularly resented the ADA in those days. There were others, too, questioning our commitment or our courage because we were endeavoring to be realists. It's like Medicare or anything else. We sat there in those first two years envisioning we were going to be there for another six, and envisioning that we're going to get to 1964 and knock the ball out of the park. We're going to be riding high, and we're going to get this whole job done. We're not going to get it done tomorrow or in the next few months. But we've got to establish a record of progress and a batting average that shows we're good at the plate. And if we're going to strike out half a dozen times on major issues right out front, then we might as well pack up our bags and go home. So I think the resentment went to these fair-weather friends who had no understanding of the process, couldn't care less, and are still doing the same thing and always have: issue their curbstone proclamations and demands. It's the difference between the viewers and the doers. So that was inherent in what we were attempting to do, and if you look at the timetable and if you look at the efforts expended up to 1963 and then later, we did it the right way. G: What was Robert Kennedy's role in the 1963 civil rights bill? Do you recall his confrontation with John Lindsay and--? 16 O'Brien --Interview VI --13 O: I don't recall that, no. He had a great involvement, but I can't really come up with specifics on it. His involvement was total, which I guess is the only way you could describe it. And remember, just as a sidebar, Bobby was not as patient as his brother Jack at times. G: Did he anger members of Congress, do you recall? O: I don't recall him angering members of Congress, but I do recall conversations with Bobby where he felt the Congress should react favorably more quickly than they were, in a number of areas. He found it difficult to hold, not his temper, but himself in in terms of the legislative struggle. He also found it difficult that you had to keep moving inch by inch and that you had all this opposition. It was such a task when right was on our side. G: Okay. Let's talk about the area redevelopment bill. Do you recall that? This was really transformed from one that was designed for the rural areas to one for urban areas. Do you recall that? O: Not specifically. G: Nothing on the area redevelopment? O: No, I'd have to go back and review that before I could discuss it. G: Okay, let's talk about foreign aid. You've talked about the opposition of Otto Passman in the previous years. Here you had a 34 per cent cut, the largest in a long time. President Kennedy had appointed a ten-man committee headed by Lucius Clay to advise him on foreign aid, the economic and military programs. O: The 1963 foreign aid? G: Yes, I've got some notes on it on pages 9 and 10 there. This was evidently tied in particularly with the Export-Import Bank and the wheat sale to Russia. O: Yes. Actually, when you look over the discussion of foreign aid that led to this big cut, it follows a pattern. While it goes into differing areas where a cut could be accomplished, the fact remains that foreign aid was something a lot of people wanted to take a meat ax to. And as I've said before, the two legislative proposals that basically had no sex appeal were the debt ceiling and foreign aid. There were no political pluses for members and it was fair game. Public interest in it, if any, was negative. Yet you had a responsibility to continue these programs. I think [with] this particular battle you can underscore the problem by the appeal that Kennedy made to Eisenhower. Eisenhower had lived with foreign aid, too. He had faced up to the same responsibility, only in his day it was the Democrats for the most part leading the fight. So my guess is that Bryce Harlow was involved in communicating with Eisenhower in this area, and it did some additional support. 17 O'Brien --Interview VI --14 But my recollections of foreign aid are all negative. I told you that at some stage we decided to break down foreign aid dollar for dollar and see what application could be made, district by district, to try to build friendly member support on a personal basis and give him something that he could use by way of a press release back home to justify his support. You had an impossible situation with it--I assume that was the Eisenhower record on foreign aid and it was the Kennedy record. Both had [Howard] Cannon and Passman. Until such time as you could break that logjam, you were doomed to using all the muscle and all the leadership involvement you could muster, and still, after the smoke settled, your reaction was never one of saying, "Now, we've passed a foreign aid bill." It was more, "My God, we'll get rid of that problem and think about some other things." I don't think we settled into a position of comfort until Cannon was gone and [George] Mahon replaced him. Mahon wouldn't play Passman's game. But, boy, you had a mess. I can remember, I think it was [Everett] Dirksen, when we had a bipartisan meeting at one stage in the White House, saying, when it ended, "This is a repeat of meetings I attended when Eisenhower was president. The very same thing, word for word almost, and the same name comes up constantly: Otto Passman. We had a meeting that Eisenhower called on this subject. The last thing he said to me was, 'Never, never will I allow Otto Passman to sit and talk to me again. I don't want to ever see him again, and I'm telling you, regardless of whatever happens to foreign aid in the future, I'm not going to go through this with that man. '" And we were exactly in the very same position, and that's why Eisenhower was willing to be of some help. But I was not directly involved in eliciting the Eisenhower help. Maybe this was the one year we did; maybe there was more than one year. But that really should never have been a matter of partisan debate. It deteriorated to a great extent because of one man who chaired the subcommittee and who had one goal in mind: destroy it. It was a nightmare. Even a John McCormack finally threw up his hands. I remember John saying one day that "This man has lied to me. I can tolerate anything. I've been in this House all my life. But a man abides by his word, and that's the tradition of the House. This man has lied to me." I remember John McCormack being so upset. He'd tolerate anything, but don't lie to him, don't make a commitment, which went to the numbers that were going to be agreed to, if you can't keep it. And Passman turned around and double-crossed him. It was terrible, frankly, to be dealing with foreign aid and the debt ceiling, because they were so time-consuming. You knew the debt ceiling was going to be raised, but you also had to fight the battle of significant cuts in foreign aid. The debt ceiling would be raised sometime, somewhere, somehow, because the government couldn't function otherwise. Yet you had to go through hell with the opposition to raise the debt ceiling. You devote so much time and effort to something that was inevitable. On the foreign aid side, a man was devastating the program, and what comfort did you get out of passing a foreign aid bill with a 34 per cent cut? It came perilously close to dissolving the program. 18 O'Brien --Interview VI --15 I don't think there was a better example of the influence and impact of one member of the House of Representatives at any time I can recall comparable to the Passman influence on foreign aid. You were dealing with an impossible person, a person who intensely disliked the program and, probably just as importantly, had no basic understanding or knowledge of what the program meant or what an effect it had. You were dealing with a person as described by John McCormack, and you're dealing in an area where you have, really, no meaningful constituency. G: Was there any attempt to remove Passman from a position in which he could--O: No. G: --frustrate the administration? O: No. Seniority was deeply embedded in the House in those days. That would have been a leadership effort. I don't recall any attempt to remove him. G: Okay. Anything on the test ban treaty, any recollections of that, your involvement with it? O: No, I wasn't involved in all the effort that brought about the agreement--[ Averell] Harriman-[ Andrei] Gromyko activities--until it got to the Senate. This was really not a legislative process as you would normally have. By the same token, interestingly enough, it was one of Kennedy's finest hours. He had made a couple of widely noted speeches in this area, and I think the Senate action that followed bordered on unanimity. G: Yes. Do you think that was partially the result of the effectiveness of the speeches? O: I think it led up to presentation to the Senate in great shape with a heavy emphasis on presidential leadership. G: I notice in the case of the civil rights bill in 1963 you were bringing to the President feedback of his speech on the constituents of members of Congress. Did you also do that on the test ban treaty? O: I think there were, to the best of my recollection, little or no overt, if you will, congressional reactions that were worthwhile. This was almost in a different area. It was followed avidly, but I think that the Senate simply stamped approval of a job well done in presidential leadership and I don't recall any negatives. The civil rights survey was entirely different. G: How characteristic was that, though, in terms of your monitoring the constituents' reaction to a presidential address? O: This would be unique. 19 O'Brien --Interview VI --16 G: Really? O: Yes. Normally, when it was going right, anything that the President spoke publicly about that affected domestic programs we would make an effort to monitor and to elicit reactions. In this area, this was really foreign policy and almost non-legislative. G: Okay, let's talk about the education legislation. This year the administration used a new strategy of submitting an omnibus bill with twenty-five education proposals in one bill. How did this evolve? O: Well, we found ourselves wallowing to a great extent in the field of education, sort of taking a bite here or there. If you were going to have public support or lobbying support, rather than playing one off against the other, if you could get an omnibus bill where you could bring together the various private sector groups, you'd ensure that each entity had some pluses in the bill. If you could avoid separations, you could have reluctant support for portions of the bill and enthusiastic support for others. And you'd have a reasonably united private sector effort. You were spread awfully thin in education, approaching it on a piecemeal basis, and how could you get to some sort of consensus on education legislation with the conflicts that existed, i. e., the NEA [National Education Association], the National Catholic Welfare Conference and other various groups. That'd be at least in part a motivating factor. G: Do you recall who originated the idea in this case to bring it in one bill? O: If there was one individual that originated the idea, it eludes me. I think it was a consensus that this was good judgment and common sense. G: [Adam Clayton] Powell introduced the measure in the House but later said publicly that he thought it had only a slim chance of passage. O: That was our Adam. Adam could say that one day on the spur of the moment, and he might be a different Adam a week or two later. G: What led you to abandon the omnibus approach and support separate measures? O: The real world. G: Really? O: Yes. It wasn't going to fly. We had given it a whirl, but we were going to have to break it up. They weren't buying. Tape 2 of 4, Side 1 20 O'Brien --Interview VI --17 G: Okay, eventually, though, five major bills were enacted, education bills. Let's talk about the college construction aid bill first. The big issue here was whether or not you would have aid to private institutions as well as public ones, isn't it? O: Yes. G: There seems to have been not only disagreement over that, but disagreement over whether or not to allow individuals and institutions to sue to test the constitutionality of it. O: Well, no matter how you tried, you just couldn't avoid this kind of conflict. It reared its head with regularity, and it's of interest that at least the NEA withdrew its opposition, but only if there was an agreement to a court test. I don't know whether that was progress or not, but I think it's an example in this college construction of the difficulties. G: There's also an indication that the Senate conferees held up the Senate consideration of the bill because they disagreed with the House conferees on the vocational bill, which was also under consideration, and LBJ was reportedly involved in securing a compromise here. Do you recall that? O: Well, I recall that we had an inordinate amount of discussion in this whole area, and this was an area of great interest to him. G: Was it? O: Yes. G: How so? O: I think education generally, and vocational education appealed to him, too. Go back to his background and his own experiences. I found that there were areas of Johnson's interest as vice president. But I found as vice president and president that his interest in the whole field of education was very strong. He was a firm believer that there was a governmental responsibility at the federal level to provide opportunity for education to the fullest degree to every American. The fact is that he was a total believer. Interestingly enough, and probably for the same reasons, I also felt very strongly about education. I would get caught up emotionally. Obviously you would in civil rights; obviously you would in Medicare. But with civil rights, Medicare, and the general field of education, that's where it extended far beyond a job, as far as I was concerned, or trying to achieve legislative success. As a youth the limit of educational possibilities was so great I had concluded before I ever got to the White House that those opportunities would not be opened without federal involvement and not limited to the state or local level or private sector. It was a little like Medicare. In my family we had actually experienced what the lack of Medicare would do to a family economically. You experience that and the time 21 O'Brien --Interview VI --18 comes when you can possibly add a grain of sand, you're motivated even beyond your commitment to a program. Lyndon Johnson and I had any number of conversations regarding education. With his experience in acquiring an education, my experience in night law school acquiring an education and seeing the effect of lack of education which is still the story today, I think you're apt to be involved beyond the norm. I know I would not have achieved the level of education that I did achieve if there hadn't been a little school on the second floor of the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, where I could go nights and work days. Let's face it, as you read the stories of the city of New York and see the dropout rate at the high school level, you realize that millions of these kids will never have a chance. It all goes to education. Because of my religion and the sensitivity of people regarding any private or parochial school involvement in these federal programs, I didn't resent it, I understood it. But I was constantly trying to find people who could come up creatively with ideas, forget the religious aspect. Close it out as fully as you possibly can but don't close out every kid in America on religious grounds. There must be some way of providing opportunity in education and not violate the constitution. So that was always in this mix. We ultimately got to a united effort in the field of education. That was one of the great moments I experienced, sitting in my office doing a head count with the NEA and the representatives of the Catholic Welfare Conference in the same room, working on the same head count. G: Was this on ESEA [Elementary and Secondary Education Act] or [the] Higher Education [Act]? Which one? O: It was in lending the textbooks. That was the [Hugh] Carey proposal. It reared its head--the religious aspect of this--at every level. So it didn't make much difference whether you're talking bricks and mortar or you're talking about lending textbooks. Well-meaning people worked arduously on both sides of this issue, and not-so-well-meaning people, of course, opposed you consistently along the route. But I do think in the final analysis we got into a posture, ultimately, of providing some meaningful educational benefits that blurred those lines and didn't cause a constitutional breakdown. G: On this vocational bill, there was a disagreement between the House and Senate conferees, as I noted, and the House evidently favored a distribution of funds on the basis of population, whereas the Senate wanted to use the per capita income basis. The other difference was evidently in the amount of money to be appropriated. The Senate wanted to appropriate more than the House. Do you recall these differences being adjudicated? O: Yes, they were compromised. I think it's fair to say that this was an area of involvement on the part of the Vice President. It stems from the conversations I recall he and I had in 22 O'Brien --Interview VI --19 the general area and his particular [interest in] vocational education. If you haven't worked with your hands, you've known people that did, in order to have some feel for vocational education. I really think it comes to that; there's nothing esoteric about all of that. G: I think this was something that LBJ pushed after the assassination. I think he was in the White House at the [time]. O: Yes, I think you're right. G: I was just trying to remind you of any discussions you may have had with him on this, in arriving at that compromise. O: No, I don't recall specific discussions. It's rather crass to put it this way, but I recall that efforts were made in a number of areas to get legislative movement in the climate following the assassination. It sounds crass, but I think a somewhat isolated item that had been pending for some time was the [cultural] center in Washington. We were not getting anywhere and yet there was a Kennedy commitment to this. It was a strong one, and he had committees working on it. I remember coming to the conclusion that we ought to name it the Kennedy Center, and that was what was advocated, and it went through the Congress. I don't think that the center would ever have been built otherwise. I felt if he were sitting there, he would have been in total accord. It was a practical, realistic approach. I cite that as an example of a climate. There was a little more feeling of accommodation, particularly for programs that were in process or were in advocacy. G: How did you implement this idea of naming it after President Kennedy? O: It was formalized that we were, effective immediately, advocating a center for the District of Columbia to be named after John F. Kennedy. We'd picked up on the pending proposal and just named it by presidential directive. Now you were dealing with a legislative item with the name Kennedy on it. G: Did you talk to the family about that at all? O: No. G: It does seem like an appropriate memorial. O: The fact is that it was an eminent fit. It was absolutely appropriate. But the cold reality is that's what assured success which otherwise probably would never have occurred, or if it had it would have been years later. G: We have the Manpower Training and Development Act for the training of hard-core 23 O'Brien --Interview VI --20 unemployed. The Republicans were attempting to reduce the funding for this program, and Sam Gibbons introduced an amendment that would cut the appropriation the same amount but actually very little over the following fiscal year and reserve the cuts farther into the future so that they could be amended later on. O: Yes. G: Was this done in concert with the administration, too? O: Yes, that's right. Actually that's one example of compromise, but sensible compromise. You're right that the motivation for the Gibbons amendment was that we could assure ourselves of first-year funding and that we could always come back. And that blunted the opposition to some extent. G: Was this a fairly common strategy? O: Yes. There were all kinds of variations, but that would be a good example of what I like to call the art of compromise. G: The Gibbons amendment was accepted by a teller vote, about a sixteen-vote margin. This was after it had failed on a standing vote by a very narrow--I think three votes. Do you recall that and how you were able to--? O: I remember I was up there. There was a lot of movement back and forth from the floor to the Speaker's office during that activity. That was not unusual, but in this instance this was ideal, because you were dealing with standing and teller votes and you could make those moves back and forth across that short hallway to the Speaker's office and prevail on people and talk to them, the Speaker, the leadership, Gibbons, and everyone else. And I believe that is a good example of making the difference. G: In this case, what would be the difference between a standing vote and a teller vote in terms of putting a majority together? O: If you fail on standing, you go teller. G: What is the difference? I mean, they're both unrecorded votes, aren't they? Or was the standing vote a recorded vote in some way? O: No, the Speaker could declare from the chair. G: Oh, I see. O: But if it's overwhelming, you've got a problem. Then there's always an appeal from the floor. And what's interesting to me on all of this is it never went to roll call, in my recollection. It's just normal; the opposition is ultimately going to carry this to roll call. I 24 O'Brien --Interview VI --21 was watching one the other day on the floor of the House, and it was clear that they were losers. When they got to roll call they were going to be more significant losers. But they wanted to build a record so they take it to roll call and absorb a lot of time in a losing cause. In that teller vote, you do have an actual count. You have go to the well, and there is somebody up there with a gavel making a judgment, counting around and saying, "Yep!" G: But there must have been an actual count on the standing vote, too, wasn't there, or how--? O: Yes, but you're counting from the podium. G: I see. It's not as precise as having--? (Laughter) O: Yes. And you make your ruling. When you ask for a teller vote, well, you file down and you count it. G: Is a teller vote more anonymous in that it's harder to tell how a member votes? O: Yes. It's harder than what, a roll call? G: Yes. Or how about a standing vote? O: Yes. With a standing vote, you're not going to be able to tell; it happens too fast. But on a teller vote, in a situation like that, there'd be at least two staff members in the gallery--my staff. And you're going to know. A fellow isn't going to be able to tell you afterwards that he voted for you if he had voted against you in a teller vote, because we were by that time accomplished enough. G: Now, another difference in this standing vote and the teller vote was the number of people voting was significantly more. What, almost fifty more members? O: Yes, because you were getting them out of their offices. G: I see. O: Sure. Now, in the normal vote, the presiding officer called for a division or a show of hands, really, or a voice vote. You could have forty or fifty people in the chamber. But in those days, it's not like today. The roll call could extend over forty-five minutes and you could hustle in those who hadn't voted, calling their offices. Now, of course, its the electronic procedure, which takes a roll call about fifteen minutes as against forty-five 25 O'Brien --Interview VI --22 minutes. G: Okay, next we have the proposal for a national service corps, a domestic peace corps proposal, and the provision passed narrowly in the Senate but was apparently not brought to the floor, or at least even to the full committee in the House, for fear because of the narrowness of the Senate vote it wouldn't pass. Is this correct; is this the reason, that it wouldn't pass? O: I don't know if that's correct. It could be. I don't recall it specifically, but that would be a judgment call. The best you've been able to do is move it to the subcommittee level, and you've got a long way to go in the House. Are you going to be able to expend that effort over a period of time or do you move on? That would be a judgment call. G: But how often did the vote in one house influence what you did in the other house? O: Not often. It was very unusual. Again, there must have been a hard Senate count to come to this conclusion. And as I say, I don't recall the conclusion, but if that were the case, that would be very unusual. There had to be other aspects to this that elude me at the moment as we review it, because a close Senate vote would not deter us from making a major effort in the House. There's something missing in this. G: Two Republican senators, [Jacob] Javits and John Tower of Texas, sponsored an antisegregation rider to this provision. Do you recall their motivation for doing so? O: It would be differing motivation. Jack Javits was unique in the Senate. He had been a Republican House member and Republican senator, because he originally went into politics [by] seizing a Republican nomination that was open in New York and was elected to the House. He was a nominal Republican with an "R" next to his name through his whole career in the Congress, but in reality he was a liberal. And that cost him in terms of influence in the Senate. He was not looked upon with favor by his Republican colleagues, and he was not considered really part of the Democratic liberal wing because he had the "R" next to his name. Now, in this instance, the Javits amendment would be from the heart. I think that John Tower would be realistic about it and understand how adverse an impact it could make if enacted on final passage. G: He thought it might kill the bill, if they could get it. O: Sure. So that was a strange duet in that instance. G: Aid to medical schools: here the administration substituted a provision for scholarships with a loan program. Do you remember that? O: I remember it was a feeling that would fly better, because there had been some indication 26 O'Brien --Interview VI --23 on the House side in committee that there might be potential for stronger advocacy on a loan program than scholarship. It's the idea that you're going to get the money back someday. However, the record doesn't quite show that. In the field of education, loans have been a troublesome aspect. Yet you can see that in terms of trying to legislate, it's conceivably more palatable to be saying, "Well, we're not just handing dollars to people under a scholarship, but we are simply loaning them the money and we have the legal right to have it returned. G: Initially the Rules Committee blocked action on the bill with a tie vote. O: When you have a member absent. The Rules Committee was never one that we didn't have to keep a close eye on, even after we had expanded it. G: [Howard] Smith and [William] Colmer voted with the Republicans against the bill and--O: They voted against just about everything, and we just had the eight-to-seven margin. You had to have eight bodies present at all times to--G: President Kennedy commented that the seven Democrats voted yes. (Laughter) Do you recall that statement that he made? O: Yes. That statement was widely publicized, and it was quite accurate. G: Was there any reaction to it on the Hill? O: No, not really, because, you could make a statement like that without fear of adverse reaction. The record was very clear. This reminds me of a senator that I hadn't thought about for a long time--Lister Hill. He was a committed fellow for whom we had great admiration. I say that because taking some of the positions that he did, particularly in this field, weren't necessarily reflective of his constituency. It's interesting because while some names come readily to memory, there are others that don't. Seeing the name Lister Hill just jogged my memory. You know, the guy was a big help at times and he was a statesman. G: Here you also had the question of whether or not to separate this measure from the other educational provisions, and some of your supporters objected to it, presumably because it wouldn't help the other ones pass if it were not part of the same package. O: In the ebb and flow of the legislative process, that's the way it worked. You go back to the beginning and you're talking omnibus. Then you're ultimately talking about splits, but what you're really talking about is the art of the possible. Those are judgment factors, and 27 O'Brien --Interview VI --24 those judgments are made as the story unfolds. If you had stayed wedded, you would have gone with an omnibus bill and gone down to defeat and said, "Okay, that's that. We'll try again." But if you're on the salvaging side, you look over the elements that were enacted. You have pretty good progress there, even though your initial idea was to have it omnibus. Yet that didn't work. G: Okay. Medicare. You wrote in your book that just before the assassination Henry Hall Wilson reported that an accommodation had been reached with Wilbur Mills, thereby allowing the Medicare bill to go forward. Do you recall that in more detail? Can you--? O: That's about as detailed as I can make it because Henry, as we had planned as part of our continuing effort, had this scheduled meeting. He told me after the fact that he had endeavored to contact me and then failed, obviously, to give me the good news so I could relay it. But contact wasn't made at that time. G: Was it the same formula that later allowed the bill to pass? O: Yes, basically. It was a significant turn. When he initiated that call, I'm sure Henry was beside himself with joy. It unfolded basically that way, but the coincidence stayed in my mind and Henry's mind. G: Did you feel during the course of that year that Mills was flexible or that there was a possibility--? O: It was hard to tell with Wilbur. I think if--and this is a big if, obviously--you had not had to cope with [the] Kerr-Mills [Act], it probably would have been an easier road. But having Kerr-Mills in place, the pride of authorship created additional difficulties. We've discussed before Clint Anderson's and others' efforts to try to resolve this in conference at one time. You had to almost get to the point of Mills concluding that Kerr-Mills wasn't effective. And you're asking a lot. You have the early-on power of the American Medical Association. You had Kerr-Mills as a stopgap effort to divert a major national effort. That was the motivation of Kerr-Mills. But when we had become acquainted with Mills--let's put it that way--and as time went on, we had quite a road to travel to get Mills to the position he had taken with Henry that day. But I always recall that--and this was consistent throughout in our dealings with Wilbur Mills--he would not allow a bill to go to the Rules Committee and the floor without being totally assured of passage. And our head-counting on Ways and Means legislation was as intensive as any head-counting, because it was subject to very careful scrutiny by Mills. There were two problems with Mills: one, to change his mind, and two, to assure him of adoption. But the other side of that coin was we always respected and understood, too, that you had assurance of passage with Mills as the floor leader. He invariably would have a closed rule. Thus, the major effort took place prior to floor action on a Mills bill, 28 O'Brien --Interview VI --25 or a Ways and Means bill. Now the first and obviously major step was to motivate Mills to develop a growing interest in the legislation. Wilbur Mills was not about to allow anybody else to lead the parade if there was going to be one. I respected all of that. Mills was as bright a fellow as there was in the House, as knowledgeable as any committee chairman in the House on legislation in his domain, and as hard-working a chairman as there was in the House. So he was among a handful of members of the House who it was absolutely essential to have in your corner. However, don't sit around dreaming that you're going to run over Wilbur Mills. That was totally understood by presidents and staff. When we were talking about educational legislation and the religious problem, it was conceivable that you could go on and on and not have meaningful educational legislation because of that problem. It isn't inevitable that you're going to resolve it to the extent that you have something meaningful. In Medicare it was different. We had felt for a long time that it was inevitable, and that the AMA did not have the muscle or the strength to block Medicare. Whether it was next month or next year, it ultimately was going to happen. That included Mills, being the practical, realistic guy he was. The time would come when he would have it our way. G: Alluding back to the pride of authorship, did Senator Kerr's death that year affect the legislation? O: I don't know that it did. You mean did it affect Mills' attitude? G: No, the chances of passage in the Senate, let's say. O: It's like civil rights. We felt in the final analysis that the chance of passage in the Senate would be greatly enhanced by first having passage in the House, and once you had that you were going to achieve ultimate success. With Mills aboard and House passage, Kerr was not going to stop the ultimate victory in this. Much has been written about Mills, some of it negative because of Mills' activities of a later date. From time to time Wilbur and I have a chance to say hello; it's on rare occasions now. But he was one of the most unusual members of Congress who I was ever exposed to. He had an impact on the Congress to a degree far extending beyond being chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. That was to change with his successor. His successor didn't control or [have the] hold on that committee and on the House of Representatives that Mills had. Wilbur is still practicing law in Washington. G: Oh, is he? O: Yes. Still admired greatly in the Congress, in the Treasury Department. And as you know, once he got over his personal problem, he has devoted the last number of years, on a voluntary basis, to trying to be helpful to people who have a similar problem. He travels 29 O'Brien --Interview VI --26 the country speaking with no fees trying to help. Tape 2 of 4, Side 2 G: --and we have the Hill-Harris bill, and a five-year program of matching grants for construction and staffing of community mental health centers. Here the staffing issue was a hurdle. Do you recall that? O: I thought it might have been related to the Senate action, the Javits amendment denying funds for segregated facilities, but I don't think it probably had any relationship to that. I really don't know what the staffing problem was. G: How about the Reorganization Act? O: That aroused concern to some extent from the previous action involving Bob Weaver. G: Did you have a sense on the Hill that this was an obstacle? O: Yes. The way the President announced who would fill the role really positioned a lot of people. And I think there was fallout that was somewhat lasting, and there were certain resentments. Of course, it was a sensitive area and continued to be, even when we're talking about the Javits amendment. You know, you have amendments constantly being defeated that would try to eliminate segregation but you hadn't reached that point yet. You want to create a new department, and then [when] you advise people who will be appointed to head that department, you get into a racial situation. Bob Weaver was carefully selected; no one could attack him on competency. So you get into a basic reorganization, and you get into conflict. And [it] came back to haunt you in a sense; I guess that's the only way to describe it. So you didn't get very far with it. G: How about the mass transit bill? O: I think actually, as is pointed out, the [Wayne] Morse amendment was very interesting, and I think it was interesting that it passed, under the circumstances. In any event, you had Senate enactment, and while you could press the House leadership to put a bill on the calendar, you could press them just so much. If there was a leadership feeling that the bill couldn't fly and you didn't have proof positive to the contrary, then there were times when you'd accept the leadership's decision. In this case, their decision was accepted. There must have been some overriding reasons for it, otherwise the leadership would have moved with the bill anyway. It wasn't a matter of reluctant leadership, it was a matter in this case of a leadership decision that was based on reality. But that was it; that was the end of the road for that battle at that time. G: Okay, the settlement of the rail dispute, do you remember that? 30 O'Brien --Interview VI --27 O: Yes, there were efforts made with labor to try to set this aside for a while. There were efforts to get a concurrence on arbitration, and what it amounted to was that you were trying non-legislatively to bring about a resolution of this. You know, Wayne Morse played a key role in this. G: This was the first time that Congress imposed compulsory arbitration to settle a dispute in peacetime. What did Morse do, do you recall? O: I'm trying to recall why Morse was so opposed. There was a lot of contact with Morse during that period and I don't have the handle on what the motivation was, other than Wayne Morse not needing a lot of motivation at times to be involved. The name Wayne Morse just permeated the atmosphere through this whole process. In any event, the effort succeeded, and it was strange to have two votes in opposition: Tower and Morse. G: Yes. It's an odd match. O: There were times when Wayne could get pretty far afield, but there was no question about it, he was an aggressive, articulate member of that Senate. That didn't make him a powerful member of the Senate, however. He marched to his own drummer, and we never felt we had a real handle on Wayne Morse. If it happened to coincide that he favored something that we favored, then you had a staunch advocate and probably at times too much advocacy. When he opposed you, he was a staunch opponent, and generally over the long haul you would find that he overplayed that hand, too. He didn't seem to be able to deliver on his positions, and it could be aggravating. In this instance, whether it was in principle or whether there was some other motivating factor, I don't recall. But I do recall that Morse was very much in the forefront of this whole struggle and debate. He became very much a minority in opposition, as the roll call shows. G: How did Morse's relationship with President Kennedy differ from his relationship with LBJ after the assassination? O: I don't recall that it differed. Morse was insistent and persistent actually, in being out front in any legislative matter of interest to him. There might be times when it would coincide with our position and there were times when it didn't. But Wayne was a victim of his own style. I did reflect in detail on his problems with Congressman [Michael] Kirwan regarding projects in Oregon and the price that Morse had to pay. But in the final analysis we had to pay, in order to resolve the situation, when we became mediators between a senator and a powerful congressman. Wayne at another time was interested in becoming president and ran in the Maryland primary, supported by the Teamsters. G: Did he and Johnson get along well? 31 O'Brien --Interview VI --28 O: I don't recall anything unique about their relationship. G: They had served together in the Senate. O: That wouldn't impact on Wayne Morse. He had his own views, his own ambitions, and his own view of his role. Basically, Wayne Morse was a liberal who under most circumstances would be supportive of your programs. And when you got into something like this, he was a problem. G: Johnson seems to have been less irritated by Morse's defections than those of other senators. Is this true or--? O: He'd be accustomed to them. G: Really? Because they happened more often or--? O: No, I think that prevailing upon Wayne on a personal, one-on-one basis would not be similar to trying to prevail upon most members of the Senate. Wayne was a different breed of cat and the usual efforts of persuasion would not be effective with Morse. Obviously Johnson understood Morse very well and realized that you had to take him as he came. G: Did you have any strategy for appealing to Morse yourself, or working with him? O: No, we've run into that one situation which I thought would have brought Wayne Morse onto the train for the duration. But that was just wishful thinking. In that situation you had Morse directly pleading with the President to intervene, to resolve a problem he had created himself. We did intervene, and in actuality Mike Kirwan never would have changed his view without us, because his affection for Jack Kennedy was tremendous and our relationship with him was a very warm one. He had his eccentricities, but he was a team player. But he also was very proud of his role as an important member of Congress, and no senator was going to impose upon him. I think once the problem had been resolved, Wayne went about being Wayne Morse as usual. G: You also had the extension of the temporary feed grain program. The bill passed in the House by a vote of 208 to 94 with all of the Republicans opposed, and in the Senate by a ten-vote margin after the Republicans attempted to amend it. Norris Cotton tried to filibuster it but could only get three senators to support him. Do you recall the give and take here? O: Other than Dirksen's role, to shut off debate. Javits once again, you'll note, contemplated an amendment, a civil rights amendment, which had become a pattern with Javits over this period. He either made such a motion or contemplated making such a motion on a number of legislative proposals. He had established that to draw attention to segregation 32 O'Brien --Interview VI --29 at every opportunity. In this instance he refrained from presenting the motion, as the record shows, because of the nature of the legislative proposal. I think the most interesting aspect that was the farmers rejected it by referendum after all that effort. (Laughter) This was the first time, I guess, historically, that [had happened]. G: Really? O: Yes. We had gone through the effort and the farmers rejected it. G: The first major House action after the assassination was on the cotton subsidy bill--O: Yes. G: --and McCormack, who reportedly pressured urban Democrats to show support for the President. O: Now--I had referred to it before--you're in the post-assassination period, and this reflects it. Even the passage in the House and the way it was handled in moving it to the floor reflects the leadership position that there was some value in urging support for the new President, and it was shown in the roll call. But by the same token, the Senate took no action other than routine hearings. G: Okay, let's talk about some appointments. Any insights you have on these: first, John Gronouski replacing Edward Day as postmaster general. Do you recall why Gronouski was selected? O: There were two aspects of this. I think I had made reference to the problems with Edward Day not understanding team role of a cabinet member. Ed came out of the business community--he was an officer of a major insurance company, an early supporter of Jack Kennedy and a long-time friend of Adlai Stevenson, which made his support of Kennedy all the more impressive at Chicago--and it was our desire to have a business-type member of the cabinet. This was either the last or near the last appointment made to the cabinet, and there was a lot of scurrying around to secure that appointment. I became awfully concerned about some people who were being urged upon Kennedy as postmaster general. I believe it was a state senator in California who was in the forefront, and it was anticipated that he would be named postmaster general. This would take care of a geographical balance. In fact the governor, Pat [Edmund] Brown, had actually prematurely announced the appointment of this man. It was my view, shared by Ken O'Donnell, that this was not an appropriate appointment. I think it fell back to Ed Day on the basis of our conversations and going to the President at the last moment and saying, "We have a Californian who is a business type, who was an early supporter, and this fellow fits the requirements." A call was placed 33 O'Brien --Interview VI --30 to Ed Day, who had no knowledge of any of this and was not a candidate. He was asked to get on the first plane he could, as the President-elect wanted to talk to him. The result was that Ed Day came to Washington, was offered the postmaster general position and accepted it. That satisfied me because I felt it was, whatever my motivations, a more rational approach to finalizing the cabinet appointments. It wasn't long before Ed Day felt there was an inordinate amount of White House involvement in the activities of the Post Office Department. I think he was taken aback when he was advised that certain people would be named as assistant postmasters general. He was taken aback when he was advised there would be a basketball stamp that I urged upon him. G: Was he seriously--? O: Yes, because he couldn't see any justification for it. But he was advised that we would have a basketball stamp. In fairness to Ed Day, he had not been exposed to this sort of thing. He was not a politician and he had little understanding of how the game is played. He became disenchanted. I don't know how long he served, but it was not a long period. In fact, you have 1963, September, that Gronouski was confirmed. He was appointed, certainly, well prior to that, which brings you to the length of time that Ed Day [served]--a couple of years. He became disenchanted and laid down the gauntlet that either he was going to run the Post Office Department without anybody involved or he wasn't going to stay. And that was his decision. So it came to, again, the political factors. A Polish-American was not highly visible in the administration. John Gronouski had achieved a considerable degree of recognition in Wisconsin. He checked out very well, he became high on the list rather quickly, and we were unanimous about him. And John became postmaster general on two counts: one, he was a highly respected and highly regarded fellow, and, second, he had a Polish name which we felt was politically helpful. So putting them both together, it seemed to be a very easy appointment to make, noncontroversial, and that's what it turned out to be. G: How about Henry Cabot Lodge as ambassador to South Vietnam? O: Well--G: An old adversary. O: Yes. Vietnam, even at that stage, was troublesome. It was growing in concern with the President and the White House, and this [appointment] was the President's idea. He thought back to Henry Cabot Lodge, and the President thought it would be good to have a highly visible Republican as ambassador. He mentioned it to me, and we concluded it was a great idea but that Henry Cabot Lodge would not accept it. In any event, the President called him in and to the President's surprise, Lodge accepted. Lodge was a very 34 O'Brien --Interview VI --31 decent fellow who had a sense of public service and obviously reacted to Vietnam as a challenge and an opportunity. Our prior judgment was that the fellow would not allow himself to be dragged into this mess, but he did, and he became ambassador. He wasn't there very long when he decided that the election process should be undertaken in a very democratic manner and you should work on stabilizing the government, I received a call saying that Lodge had, through the State Department, initiated a request that I be assigned to join him in Vietnam. I received this call, I remember, on a Sunday morning; it was either Averell Harriman or Dean Rusk. Dean Rusk, of course, was knowledgeable regarding it, and it was agreed that we would put a quietus on that in a hurry, that that [request] made no sense. I wasn't about to follow Henry Cabot Lodge to Vietnam to organize the political process. G: Did he want you in order to organize a campaign or to oversee an election or--? O: Yes, all of that. As it turned out, Lodge had become impressed with my abilities in those areas, and he thought it would be ideal if I would be working with him in this great effort. But it died aborning and the President never made reference to it with me. G: When the President was discussing the possibility of appointing Lodge, did he weigh also the merits of the appointment in terms of Lodge's abilities, or was it--? O: Yes, he was comfortable with Lodge and his experience in government. The most intriguing aspect of it was that Lodge was a Republican and a highly visible one. No one would suggest, "How could you ever come up with the idea of sending Henry Cabot Lodge to Vietnam?" People would say, "He's a respected public figure, he's known to be a Republican moderate, he achieved a good record of public service--." That was our problem, incidentally, in running against him in the first instance. It was hard to attack Lodge on his record, because his record reflected Massachusetts in those days. He had been defeated by Kennedy for the Senate, but he had also been the candidate for vice president. I don't know of anyone else that would have been superior to him on the record. But that's how it came about, and the only surprise factor is that he would accept it, because it was a difficult assignment, if not bordering on the impossible. G: How did you derail his request to have you go out there? O: It ended with that phone call--it might have been two calls; it might have been both Rusk and Harriman. But one or the other or both were kind enough to alert me that this request had been made, and if it had gone any further I would have declined. But it never did come to any point of discussion and it was just dropped out of hand. G: Anything on Homer Thornberry's appointment to a judgeship? 35 O'Brien --Interview VI --32 O: Other than the combination of Homer's very close friendship with Lyndon Johnson that went back for a long time, coupled with his general interest in leaving Congress and going on the bench. Homer was a very thoughtful member of the House. I found him a very pleasant person to deal with, and there were any number of occasions when he was helpful to us. I knew that Lyndon Johnson thought very, very highly of him and they were very close. Incidentally, he was selected to swear me in as postmaster general, which he did, on the basis of Johnson's friendship with him and also my friendship with him. G: Why did he want to leave Congress? O: I don't know. That's not unusual, to leave Congress to go on the federal bench. I think you'll find there's a record of a number of those appointments over many administrations. I think if you have an inclination to leave and try something else, either go back and seek higher office or go to the federal bench, if you're still interested in the public service aspect. G: Was it normally, do you think, tied to desire not to seek re-election, or if someone thought they were going to have a difficult race, that this was a way to continue to serve without going through those elections? O: It could be that. I remember a fellow, [Abner] Mikva, in more recent times who became a member of the federal bench. He was a congressman from Illinois. He was very much interested in public service, a very bright and able fellow. If the opportunity presented itself, he'd rather serve on the bench than serve in the Congress. Now, there could be a question of a close election, and there have been times, I can't point to one right now, when former members of Congress have been appointed to the bench. Let's face it, it's basically a patronage situation, and it's a high level of the judiciary. It's rather an interesting area of lifetime service and you don't have to be concerned about campaigns. G: How about the ambassadorships? You had Carl Rowan appointed ambassador to Finland. O: All I can say about Carl Rowan is that he had a long-time relationship with Lyndon Johnson, long before Johnson was in the White House or vice president, as I remember. I didn't know Rowan well. But I did know that the Vice President held him in high regard. In fact, I believe Carl Rowan did some work over the years in speech writing and assignments on commissions. But he was a fellow who everyone agreed was eminently qualified for this post. I don't recall any controversy at all about that. G: George McGhee, to West Germany? O: I'm not familiar with that. G: How about Chester Bowles replacing Ken Galbraith? 36 O'Brien --Interview VI --33 O: Chester Bowles was a highly regarded elder statesman who had the financial resources and the desire to continue in public service and was ideal for that kind of a role. It wasn't political debt, it was just a man who would be widely accepted in that role. G: FDR, Jr., [as] under secretary of commerce? O: We owed him. Not to go through the whole West Virginia primary again, the fact was that he was a great asset to us in West Virginia. We were, as I've said before, very alert to and sensitive to the affection and respect for the Roosevelt name throughout West Virginia. You could hardly go into a store or a home or an office without seeing a picture of FDR. FDR, Jr., joined us early on in the difficult period of that primary, and if he was interested we'd like to recognize his contribution in some form. G: Okay, you had some military positions. George Anderson was not reappointed as chief of naval operations, and Curtis LeMay was reappointed as chief of staff of the air force for one year rather than the customary two, and both of these men had disagreed with Secretary [Robert] McNamara in congressional hearings. Was this a case of disciplining two military figures who had been outspoken against the administration? O: It was a case of accommodating the Secretary of Defense. G: Really? Tape 3 of 4, Side 1 O: We were realistic enough to understand that the military was not going to conform totally with the views of the president. They had the same attitude you found to a great extent in the federal service, that presidents come and go. It would be disturbing to the secretary of defense to have someone go to the Hill and disagree with the secretary. That was our code. You could disagree with the secretary in the privacy of the secretary's office, but what we applied to civilians we didn't attempt to apply to the military. However, our code was that if you were in disagreement with the President, and his positions are overridingly contra to your views, you had no problem. You resigned. But in the military it's somewhat different, obviously. But that did not mean a person in the military was totally forgiven. That really was a reflection on the White House and, as we saw it, his loyalty to the commander in chief. Obviously I was aware of that and aware of the feelings that existed in the White House and the Defense Department. So this was a form of chastisement. G: Did these two men have support on Capitol Hill? Did you catch any flak on the Hill or get any opinions from--? O: I don't remember any great flak on the Hill, because it's not a usual situation for civilians in 37 O'Brien --Interview VI --34 the political world to extend themselves inordinately in support of military people. You don't have the same zest for fray that you would if this were some political figure who was being affected. And, of course, we know about Curtis LeMay in another context at a later date. G: Let me ask you about the TFX investigation. Here the Government Operations Permanent Investigating Committee in the Senate had been looking into this for most of the year. Did you have any insights on the awarding of that contract and pressures? O: Not on the awarding of it. I was familiar with the controversy and the whole [Roswell] Gilpatric-Fred Korth aspects of it. They were, I always felt, somewhat victims of that in terms of a very exaggerated effort to claim conflict and to muddy the waters. And there were conversations about the two of them, involving people on the Hill; I was not directly involved. That was really a battle between titans. It's worth noting, though. I bracketed Gilpatric and Korth, and my memory's been jogged. The accusations regarding Korth were of a much more serious nature, much more serious than Gilpatric. And of course the aftermath of it is that Fred Korth resigned. G: Anything on Lyndon Johnson in this connection? O: No, not that I recall. G: Let's talk about the Bobby Baker investigation. Here you had someone that had been in the employment of the Senate for a long time. O: Yes. G: Did you have the feeling when you were working with the leadership in those years that Bobby Baker was misusing his position? O: Let me track the Bobby Baker situation as I saw it. When I first became acquainted with the Senate, Bobby was front and center. He had continued the same role with Mansfield that he had with Johnson. He was reputed to be the most knowledgeable person regarding the Senate, its makeup and the characteristics of each of the members. He was a fountain of information, and he conducted head counts, jointly with us. I think the role of Baker would be underscored when, as I recounted, having dinner at the Vice President's home one night with Baker and his wife along with Jack Brooks and his wife, and the evening's discussion indicated clearly to me how key Bobby Baker was in the Senate. You'd be in the Majority Leader's inner office discussing a legislative proposal, head counting, possible amendments, scheduling, anticipating absentees and Baker was very much involved. I recall vaguely that Bobby, to maintain his relationships, would have all kinds of contact with senators in all kinds of ways. I recall that Bobby invited me to participate in a Sunday picnic, but for whatever reasons, I didn't attend. And that was the 38 O'Brien --Interview VI --35 closest to having any involvement with Bobby Baker off the Hill. The time came when the Baker situation was percolating. The initial stories were causing concern regarding Bobby. I was not aware at the time of what motivated the President, but at some point in a conversation I was having with the President, he started to question me regarding Bobby Baker, whom he also knew, obviously. G: This is President Kennedy? O: Yes. It was a discussion that led to, "Well, how often do you see him off of the Hill?" "Not at all." I was a little bit apologetic about one event that Bobby put on that I had neglected to participate in, because that would have been part of congressional relations. I didn't think much of it one way or another. All I thought was that the President was reflecting a keen interest in Bobby Baker, motivated more by curiosity than anything else. At a later date the President mentioned it to me again, and then told me about a fellow who had come to him to suggest to him--he was a journalist--that I had a relationship with Bobby Baker that should be looked into. The journalist was a friend of Kennedy's, and I thought a friend of mine, but whatever his motivation was, clearly it was to reflect on me without any evidence to sustain it. So it wasn't a matter of having to explain anything or apologize for anything and the whole matter was dropped. But I think the President felt that after he had had that first conversation with me he owed me an explanation. It wasn't that significant, but it was disturbing after the President revealed to me why he had questioned me. Bobby ultimately paid the price, and wrote a book in the process. If I had been associated with Bobby Baker for six or eight years rather than a relatively brief period of time, I probably would have gotten to know him much better than I really did know him. It would have been a very natural evolvement to have social contact, but it just hadn't happened. He was a very unusual fellow. He had built a strong base in the Senate. He was a caretaker of senators, which is part of the role. He was very sensitive to their travel needs, their habits and attendance or lack of it. They would oftentimes go to Baker and say, "Maybe we don't have to have the vote on Tuesday on this because I have to be in Cleveland." Then adjustments would be made, and protection of their record in the Senate. It was quite a role, and a role that had evolved, I assume, over the years, and it's interesting because his successor was a professional. He was a fellow who actually did the job as the job is outlined in the job description, and without any extracurricular involvement. G: Baker evidently used a little more imagination in the job. O: Yes. 39 O'Brien --Interview VI --36 G: Do you think the administration was aware of Baker's activities before the roof caved in on him? O: You mean the Kennedy Administration? G: Yes. O: No. First of all, Kennedy as a member of the Senate never became that well acquainted with Baker. He wouldn't be in Baker's province, in that sense. Baker played the strength of the Senate, the power structure, so Kennedy would know Baker, obviously. He might have contacted him to say, "I'm going to be absent. Could we vote some other [time]?" But he didn't know him intimately and had no preconceptions about him any more than any of us did. On the Kennedy side, none of us had had any involvement with Bobby. Obviously, in the campaign we had no involvement with him because he was one of Lyndon Johnson's field men. So we really didn't know him. G: There apparently was some degree of investigation and information from the Justice Department and the FBI regarding Baker's supplying senators with hideaways for their mistresses, and things like that in the Senate. Did this come to your attention or the administration's? O: No. It seems to me if that information was available to the Attorney General prior to all the public disclosures on Bobby, it either would have been made known to me or it damned well should have been made known to me. In any event, I never heard of anything. My guess is that whatever the Justice Department learned was all part of the investigation that broke early on with a connection with some company. I think, also, there would have been a responsibility on the part of the Justice Department to advise the Majority Leader if they had had any knowledge. G: Well, I think perhaps they did discuss it with Mansfield--O: They might have. G: --but I don't know. O: I don't know at what stage they would have. G: You know, there's a theory, particularly among Johnson supporters, that Baker hadn't really gotten into a lot of this trouble when Johnson was still majority leader because he was kept so busy by Johnson that he didn't have time to do all the extracurricular stuff. That Mansfield had a more passive, less aggressive style of leadership and therefore Baker had more free time to use this imagination of his. Do you think there's any validity to that? O: That could have been, I suppose. I can see that Mansfield's style differed from Johnson's 40 O'Brien --Interview VI --37 style as majority leader, and that might have afforded Baker some spare time. But I don't know, because if there was ever a straight arrow, it was Mike Mansfield. I can testify to that in all my dealings with him. I think that Mansfield inherited Baker passively. Baker had the job and he wouldn't throw him out any more than he would demand the majority leader's office and ask that the Vice President remove himself from it. G: How about Baker's law practice? Did you ever get any sense that he was using his private practice--? O: I'm not sure I was even aware he had one. G: Really? O: I have no recollection. Did he have a private practice? G: He had a law office, apparently. But you didn't see any conflict of [interest]? O: Supposedly the position he held in the Senate was full time. I assumed that was the case, and if he had a law office I wasn't aware of it. G: Getting back to his association with Senator Kerr and also his handling of campaign funds, political funds, there's some evidence that that money that he had, a hundred thousand, three hundred thousand [dollars], whatever it was, that it was actually campaign funds that he was distributing to various senators. Is this plausible, do you think? O: I don't know; I don't even recall that, frankly. I was trying, when you posed the question, to recall who the chairman was of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee at that time. I don't even remember that. Do you? G: Was it still Earle Clements, do you think? Or was this after Clements? O: No, I think it was after Clements. Russell Long? G: Maybe so. O: Russell Long was chairman at one point. What his role was with the fund-raising aspect of the Senate Campaign Committee and how money was raised and distributed, I have no knowledge. G: Did the administration see the Bobby Baker scandal as making Lyndon Johnson vulnerable in terms of the ticket? O: I don't think so. I think the Bobby Baker scandal, as it was so-called, had no adverse impact as we saw it on Lyndon Johnson. It certainly didn't impact on us. 41 O'Brien --Interview VI --38 G: There were discussions that fall with regard to the 1964 campaign, and you participated in a meeting on November 13, 1963, with the campaign group. I think Steve Smith was there, and RFK, and [Theodore] Sorensen, O'Donnell, [John] Bailey, [Richard] Maguire, and [Richard] Scammon, to discuss the 1964 campaign. Do you recall that and what--? O: Yes. Sure. G: Let me ask you to talk about that meeting and what you remember about it. O: We met informally to discuss the possible timetable to start seriously considering the 1964 election. The time had come and we would be carrying on the same campaign in 1964 as we did in 1960 with the same cast. Scammon would be there because of his expertise on polling and registration. I don't recall it as an intense meeting or a meeting with an agenda, for if there had been an agenda it would have been my job to produce it. It was a reasonably relaxed situation. Things were looking fine, the polls looked good, but we as always would not take anything for granted, and it would be necessary by the first of the year to start implementing our campaign re-election organization. We would get to that over the holidays. That was basically what the meeting was about. If it were any more than that I would be as sensitive, if not more sensitive, than anybody in the room as to the subject matter and the requirements for the future. It was construed by some, as an organizational meeting. It was construed by me as conversation of a general nature, and we would in rapid order be getting into the nuts and bolts of putting a campaign together. G: Were there any decisions about the 1964 convention itself, where it would be held or anything like that? O: I don't recall. G: Was it decided that Steve Smith would head the campaign or actually run things? O: I don't know about formalization. Steve's role in the prior campaign had been basically a fund-raising role. Steve monitored expenditures, monitored the fund-raising aspects of the campaign, and became involved directly in expenditures in terms of purchasing television time. That role would probably have been formalized in 1964 by Steve being designated chairman, because my best recollection is that Steve at that point had left the administration. G: Yes. O: He would be the obvious person in the room who could be designated in the campaign context, who was not involved in the administration and, therefore, who would not stand accused of participating in a campaign while on the federal payroll sort of thing. 42 O'Brien --Interview VI --39 G: Was there any discussion at that meeting of changing the ticket for 1964 and not having Lyndon Johnson as a running mate? O: No. If anybody mentioned that I don't recall it, and if anyone did, I would have thought they were a little bit off the wall. I never had any doubt in my mind about what the ticket would be in 1964. There were others who claim otherwise and have written otherwise, but it's just not factual. G: Did you ever hear any substantive discussion to the effect that Johnson wouldn't be on the ticket or shouldn't be on the ticket, by the White House? O: No. G: Did you on the other hand hear discussion that he would be on the ticket? O: I don't think I heard either way. That meeting was the first to focus on a 1964 campaign. There were people who were not keen about Lyndon Johnson and were not very realistic in political terms, who were part of the administration, as I've indicated before. Those people weren't in that room. G: Did you have any indication that Johnson might not want to run again in 1964? O: No. G: That he might want to retire? O: No. I don't know how disenchanted Lyndon Johnson was with the office of vice president. I say disenchanted because I can't envision a vice president not being somewhat disenchanted. Hubert Humphrey was to some degree. I'll bet every fellow who's ever held the post has found it a rather difficult area to function in, but how deep that was in the then-Vice President's thought process I have no idea. He certainly never indicated anything to me along those lines. G: Anything on the indictment of Jimmy Hoffa that year, in June? O: No, that was out of my area. All I knew on the Jimmy Hoffa situation went back to the antagonism between Hoffa and Bobby, back to the [John] McClellan Committee, back to Bobby's activities as attorney general, and the role of Edward Bennett Williams representing Hoffa. But the Hoffa matter and Bobby's role in it did not relate to the legislative process at all and never became entangled with it or had any impact on it. (Interruption) G: Let me ask you a little bit about South Vietnam in the fall of 1963. You had in November the assassination of [Ngo Dinh] Diem and his [brother]. Do you recall that and the 43 O'Brien --Interview VI --40 reaction to it on the Hill and in the White House? O: Yes. By that time, and the assassination underscored it--that's why I hope I'm reasonably accurate in my recollections--contrary to the prevailing view historically, there was a rapidly growing concern regarding Vietnam in the White House. It was not, as I recall, reflected particularly on the Hill. There weren't any great demands being made or expressions of deep concern. That came much later. There had been a growing involvement in Vietnam on the part of the Kennedy Administration. It was reflected a little, I think, in increased troop strength. There was a feeling of uneasiness on the part of those directly involved, and this continued right on to the end of the Kennedy period. It's not therefore accurate to suggest that Kennedy had made a decision to extricate himself from Vietnam, nor had he made a decision to escalate. But clearly there was concern, because somehow things weren't working out as anticipated even then. That was internal in the administration, and I don't recall any increasing concern or expressions of serious concern on the part of the Congress. That was the climate at that point. I think the significant part of Kennedy's motivation in getting Lodge to Vietnam was the way I described it--he was concerned about retaining bipartisan support, he was concerned that bipartisan support be highly visible. It is something that I can't carry on beyond that because it was having, at least in my recollection, no effect on my activities in terms of the Congress and the domestic program. It didn't relate. McGeorge Bundy was down in the White House basement, Dean Rusk was over in the State Department, Bob McNamara was over at Defense and the others in the foreign policy end who were involved directly in Vietnam, and they were all about their business. I did not have any direct involvement. What I'm stating is what I perceived to be the attitude and the concerns at that time, and I paid little attention to it, other than a citizen's concern of where this is heading and what we are going to do. Then you have the assassination. It's not in defense of Lyndon Johnson but this slowly evolving policy had a continuity to it. Of course it escalated and escalated and escalated. But when you suggest the President had reached a decision that right after re-election you pull the plug on Vietnam--he could have reached that decision unknown to me. I didn't discern such contemplation at that time. G: What was Kennedy's attitude toward Vietnam? What did he say about it? O: Not much to me, obviously. Probably as close as I came to any direct involvement was the Henry Cabot Lodge appointment. In cabinet meetings it was touched upon, but it was not the overriding item in cabinet meetings. It was much more than a burr in the saddle. I know Kennedy reflected on Vietnam a good deal, but all I'm saying is that whatever he might or might not have done if he were re-elected none of us will know. In terms of 44 O'Brien --Interview VI --41 history and accuracy, I have always felt a little uneasy when I hear these former colleagues' assumptions and statements and flat pronouncements that a game plan was in place to extricate ourselves totally and pull the plug on Vietnam at a given date right after the election. G: This is a what-might-have-been question, but in your own mind--and I'm sure you've wrestled with it--what do you think Kennedy would have done if he had lived? O: I really think that if it played out the way it did, over the succeeding couple of years, he would have found a way out. I think he would have found a way of disengaging before it became all-out. I really do. But that's only the nature of the guy, that he would have come to the conclusion at an early date that it was a lost cause. By the same token, that would mean that he didn't succumb to the blandishments of the military, as he succumbed to the blandishments of the military at the Bay of Pigs. As this was played out by Lyndon Johnson, he was a victim of a situation. I don't know what I'd do if I were sitting in that office. You keep having the [William] Westmorelands of this world, the acknowledged experts, the CIA, and your Defense Department with a game plan that isn't succeeding and claiming there's a need to add additional troops, but there's no question about the end result. Now you're getting that from your own people day in and day out. This became obviously the major topic of discussion at cabinet meetings, and I'd listen to the Secretary of Defense. In human terms, Lyndon Johnson was not looking for a fight; he wasn't looking to kill people. It was eating him up personally, but the fact remains that it was an utter failure. It was brought about by destruction of public support, and a massive job was done in that regard. Was it justified or did it border on the unpatriotic? I don't know. The fact is that the American people lost faith and lost heart. Beyond that, you have to have serious doubts that it would have ever succeeded even with the support of the American people, and I think that's the tragedy. Tape 3 of 4, Side 2 O: To state as a fact that Kennedy would have extricated himself from Vietnam the day after re-election is not valid. To say that Kennedy might at some stage of escalation decide that enough's enough, that's very possible, indeed it could be probable, knowing the fellow as I knew him. To say that Lyndon Johnson allowed it to escalate too far and it fell of its own weight, that's a statement of fact. But what motivated him to do it? What motivated him is what any man sitting in that Oval Office had to depend upon: advice and counsel of trusted advisers. And I don't think you can say, "Despite the unanimity of opinion at certain stages of this involvement of your advisers and counselors and experts, you should not have moved forward." You know, that's a hang of an indictment and I think it has a significant element of unfairness in it. That's all I'm saying. G: Were the cabinet meetings under Kennedy in late 1963 the same upbeat discussions of 45 O'Brien --Interview VI --42 Vietnam that you just recounted under Johnson? O: There were limited discussions. It was not considered an overriding element of discussion in the mixed group called the cabinet. G: But you talked about knowing Kennedy as you do and what you regard as his instincts, perhaps, that would have caused him if he had lived, to, at an appropriate time, if the situation deteriorated, find a way to get out. And yet earlier you described a confrontational tendency that he had to really face a problem head on. Can you elaborate on this instinct or whatever it was? O: All it would be is instinct. I wouldn't be able to get into his head then or now in terms of what he ultimately might have done. But I think when you relate this to his actions on the Bay of Pigs on the one hand and the Cuban Missile Crisis on the other, it is probable that something dramatic and decisive would have taken place, even though his natural tendency was to not only enter the fray, but see the battle through. G: I wonder if the projection can be related to a difference between his [and Lyndon Johnson's] association or relationship with the right wing or the more conservative elements that would have reacted differently, or would have reacted, to a pullout. Do you think that he had less apprehension of a conservative reaction to a pullout than Johnson would? O: Kennedy? I can't believe his thought process had gotten to that point. The fact is that during that period Kennedy was having little problem with public perception of Vietnam. I don't think he was under great pressures from the right to escalate beyond what he was doing, and he was not, as I recall it, under any great pressures from the left or the center to refrain from what he was doing. It was not the overriding problem that it became with Lyndon Johnson. G: Did Johnson later feel specifically that a pullout might encourage a new round of McCarthyism, such as losing China, a parallel, losing Vietnam? O: Johnson had a sensitivity to the degree of congressional support he had for his policies; which was reflected in the [Gulf of Tonkin] Resolution. They claimed afterwards that this was a charade and, of course, Johnson continued almost hourly to reflect on the vote in the Senate. What was it, two votes in opposition? G: Yes, Morse and [Ernest] Gruening. O: Yes. Sensitivity would go to any loss of that supposed support which was reflected in this overwhelming vote. He would constantly refer to the vote, finally to the point where it became less and less acceptable or less effective, not only to the public generally but to the members of Congress who were scurrying away and hiding in the woodwork. 46 O'Brien --Interview VI --43 G: Was he implying more to the vote in terms of significance than was actually--? O: I think the constant repetition reached the point where it was counterproductive. G: Do you have any insights on the administration's knowledge of and approval of the assassination of Diem or the CIA's role in that? O: No, I don't have any. G: Never talked to Kennedy about that? O: No. G: What was Kennedy's reaction to the coup? O: I don't recall. G: How about the Hill's reaction to it, do you recall any? O: If there was a great uproar I would recall it. G: Did you ever have the impression that Johnson was more supportive of Diem than Kennedy, or thought that--? O: No. G: Really? Okay. Now, you have written about the assassination itself in your book, and we've talked about the events that led Kennedy to Texas, the Albert Thomas commitment and things of this nature. But is there anything else that you want to add about the events themselves? O: I don't believe so. While I treated the assassination and the events surrounding it rather briefly in my book, that was a reflection of a problem I had in writing about it and I reached the conclusion that I should be as brief and as factual and specific as I could be. I have reviewed it and I concluded that there was really nothing I would add to it. Anything I could add now would be really peripheral, have no importance, and would be very incidental. G: Let's pick up at Love Field when you were returning from Dallas to Washington. You did cite in your book the instances that led to a lot of friction between the Kennedy staff and the Johnson staff, particularly one decision: the decision to take Air Force One instead of Air Force Two. You indicated that both planes were identically equipped. Do you have any explanation for why Johnson decided to take the plane that he did? 47 O'Brien --Interview VI --44 O: No, I don't, and at that time I don't think I reflected on it. I recall all of that period vividly. I did not react adversely to Air Force One. In fact, I don't think that Air Force One and Johnson's presence on it impacted on me particularly, due to our situation in the corridor in the hospital bringing the body onto the plane. Someone had taken the necessary step of removing seats opposite where Jackie, General [Godfrey] McHugh, Dave Powers, Ken O'Donnell and I were to sit, so that the coffin could be strapped onto the floor of the plane. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson on the plane had an element of surprise, in the sense we hadn't even thought about the successor. Our concentration was totally on what was transpiring at the moment. So there was an element of surprise. I am sure my surprise was not in a negative context: why isn't he over on Air Force Two. I'm sure Air Force Two wasn't in my thoughts at that moment. G: How about the decision to have the oath administered there, to wait for Judge Sarah Hughes and have it administered on the ground in Dallas instead of in Washington? O: First of all there was no need for an oath, under the Constitution. No one was thinking of that at the time, but that is the reality of it. Lyndon Johnson was president. Secondly, it was not a suggestion made by any of the Kennedy people that the oath be administered on the plane. That emanated solely from the Johnson people. They were in one part of the plane, I was in another for several minutes. The question was therefore not whether the oath need be administered. The question came to the specific language of the oath, and that was garnered from the Justice Department and transmitted. Then the decision to administer the oath before the plane took off caused the problems between the Kennedy and Johnson people. I don't recall any yelling or screaming. There was a feeling that "let's get out of here as rapidly as we can," and that feeling was based on the unknown. None of us obviously had any idea whether this was a conspiracy, whether Johnson was the next victim. That's why the plane was in an isolated part of Love Field. And now we've got the body on, let's get out of here. That was the overriding feeling. Johnson was adamant that the oath be administered by Judge Hughes. G: Why did he want Judge Hughes? O: I have no idea. I didn't know Judge Hughes from a hole in the wall. That caused delay, getting Judge Hughes to the airport, and that delay caused concern expressed by some, but I don't recall direct discussions. During that period is when I checked on Jackie, who was in the bathroom, to determine how she was coming along. When I went to check on her, in the bedroom there was a Bible that I picked up. People have said to me ever since, "Why did you--?" I don't know why I did it. There's such a thing as being out of it and not realizing what you're doing or why you're doing it. I've never had an experience comparable to that. 48 O'Brien --Interview VI --45 G: You picked it up and took it out to Johnson, is that--? O: Jackie said that she wanted to come out and join the group. G: Was this in response to a request that she come out there? O: Yes. I asked her first how was she feeling. She said, "I'm all right," or something to that effect. I said, "Do you want to step out here? Would you?" She said, "I'll come out." By that time I guess enough minutes had elapsed so that you're approaching the moment that the Judge has or momentarily does arrive, and this happens quickly because there's the card with the oath, and I simply handed the Judge the Bible. I never opened it or never knew whether it was a Bible or a missal. It had a cross on the cover. G: It was a Catholic missal. O: Yes. She took it, and he put his hand on it, and the oath was administered. I don't know how many minutes elapsed from the time it was determined that an oath was going to be administered and [the time] the oath was actually administered and we did take off. I'm sure there's a record of how long a period, but I never checked it. G: When you said that Johnson was adamant about having the oath administered by Judge Hughes in Dallas before you left, did you approach him about leaving right away, and did you try to get him to--? O: The subject of "let's get out of here," I don't know as I initiated it. I was part of it; I was standing there. Then there was a reluctance to leave, there was adamancy. It became clear that the oath was going to be administered on the ground. It seems to me that General McHugh was involved in some aspect of getting off. The crew was extremely anxious to leave and it would have been his responsibility to notify the crew. He was the military aide aboard. G: Did you speculate with LBJ on the possibilities of a conspiracy or an international thing on the way back or--? O: No. I don't recall that I did. G: What was your own thought? At the time, did you feel like it might be a wider--? O: I shared the anxiety of many of us to get out of there. It certainly made eminent good sense to be airborne as quickly as possible. After all we had gone through, a hassle in removing the body from the hospital in the first instance; we had gone through some horrible experiences and you were completely beside yourself. You had no knowledge of how this happened, who, where or what. We were in a state in which Ken O'Donnell and I knew the President was dead probably a half hour before we allowed the announcement 49 O'Brien --Interview VI --46 to be made to the world. We just stood there, refusing to believe it. So you can't be held accountable under those circumstances. Then to have a coroner decide the body can't be removed from that hospital until he okays it was just too much. So he was shunted aside physically, and we moved the body out of the hospital, into the hearse, jumped into a car and off we went to the plane. G: What was Johnson's demeanor, aside from the adamancy about getting the oath administered? O: I had a couple of conversations with him during the flight. I had a conversation in the corridor of the plane with Bill Moyers who acted, as you would anticipate, in a very responsible manner. Bill expressed his concern for Mrs. Kennedy and those of us in the rear of the plane and wondered what could be done or what he could do to be helpful. Bill tells me that my response was that our concern should be solely what is best for the country, that's our responsibility. Bill mentioned that in a public appearance; it took me aback one night while I was sitting in the audience. I was asked if I would come up and talk to the President on at least a couple of occasions. The conversations were general expressions of sympathy, regret and concern. Mrs. Johnson had a brief conversation with Jackie, at least one conversation as part of the swearing-in, and probably at one other time during the flight. Ultimately the flight settled down to those of us with Jackie sitting with her for the remainder of the trip, and Jackie expressing her concern about us, which was amazing to me. I think I mentioned that, because I'll never forget it. I couldn't believe that under those circumstances she would say, "You were the closest to him. What's going to happen to you?" What do you say? G: Were there any important decisions that were made during the flight that you participated in? O: Not that I recall. G: Johnson's statement at the airport or anything like that? O: From our perspective: you land, get the coffin off the plane, get it to Bethesda Naval Hospital. As soon as the plane landed, of course, the rear door was opened, and what was not available in Dallas was available there, and that was a fork lift. Bobby came charging through the plane, and the Secret Service put the body into the hearse, and off we went. G: Did you go with the hearse or did you--? O: Yes. G: Did you? You went to Bethesda? 50 O'Brien --Interview VI --47 O: Yes. G: Were there any other ingredients during the trip back or when the plane landed that exacerbated, say, the friction between LBJ and RFK? O: That resulted in exacerbating after the fact? G: Yes. O: I don't recall. The one action that was reflected upon by Bobby subsequently and did exacerbate it was Bobby learning of Johnson's insistence that despite the desire of the widow that we depart immediately, his insistence on staying to be sworn in on the ground, which was unnecessary. That bothered them a great deal. It seemed to Bobby, and to some others, to be rather callous and unfeeling. I don't recall talking to Bobby specifically, but it bothered him, and probably in his mind caused him to have a very strong feeling about the new President. On the flight back, which I assume was a couple of hours, you really had two groups. You had the group up front beyond the President's quarters, who were members of Congress and staff and others who were Johnson people, and you had this little group in the rear with the widow. G: Did Johnson come back to be with you at times? O: No. G: You were asked to come forward. O: Yes. I think Lady Bird came back; I'm pretty sure, as I recall it. G: There have been some recollections that Johnson's reference to Mrs. Kennedy as "Honey" was something that irritated some of the Kennedy staffers. Do you recall that? O: Probably. They didn't voice it, but it probably did, because that would be an irritant. That's not a word that they use. G: Yes. Did that bother you, or did you hear him use it? O: I don't remember hearing him use it. The expression of concern and sympathy and understanding was really from Mrs. Johnson, woman to woman. I think it was a gut reaction to be negative toward or antagonistic to Lyndon Johnson under those circumstances on the part of some Kennedy people. This terrible thing, this man has replaced him, and there's something awfully unfair about what 51 O'Brien --Interview VI --48 happened. This man has been killed. I don't think you probably dwell on the Constitution. The mere fact that he succeeded Jack Kennedy was an irritant to some Kennedy people from then on. Somehow or other there was some degree of responsibility on Johnson's part, as irrational as that might seem. I think that you're faced with abnormality in terms of human reactions. When I noted that the handles on one side of the coffin had been broken or bent, and you're in a hospital for several hours and an autopsy is being conducted, what would motivate you to say to Ken and Dave Powers, "God, we have to have a proper casket," and proceed to contact the Gawler's Funeral Home, get into a car and go down there, walk in and say to a man, "I want you to take us to your display room. I want you to take us to the middle-priced caskets in your display room." You get on the elevator and go up. "Now, show us the most modest, in terms of appearance, casket among these middle-priced caskets. The least--" What are you doing? Then you select it and say, "Have this delivered to the hospital immediately." And that's the casket he was buried in; that's the casket we got a bill for later on. People say, "Why did it come to your mind to say middle-priced, not the lowest-priced or the highest-priced, but the middle-priced?" I think what you were grasping for in your mind was he was one of the people; he was America. He was sort of typical of America, an average American. Then you get to the East Room, and Bobby is saying, "I'll leave it"--this is to Ken and I--" up to you whether it's an open coffin." So you walk into the East Room; you never open the coffin. You can't get yourself to do it. All of those things occurred, but are you dealing rationally under any normal [circumstances]? Of course not. G: Did Ken agree with you? O: Yes, we just walked away from it. Yes. So the handling of Mrs. Kennedy throughout this period in the living quarters and the Oval Office all played out, and there were those who felt rather strongly that it was mishandled by Johnson. I don't remember the details, but something about the furniture was removed too quickly from the Oval Office, despite the President's statements that she should stay as long as she pleased and there was no hurry. My guess is that at a minimum they were matters of perception. I think there again, you go through a situation where perhaps you had thoughts of that nature and didn't express them, and later in the light of dawn dismissed them because they weren't valid. But the situation existed and continued. On the staff level Lyndon Johnson made all kinds of efforts to try to meld a staff and to ensure the Kennedy people of his interest in them, and his total desire not to do anything that could be construed as unfair or unseemly. He went through that process to the best of his ability. But there was no way he was going to go through that process without people either privately or perhaps 52 O'Brien --Interview VI --49 publicly concluding otherwise. G: It was inevitable. O: Yes. G: Did you handle any of the liaison work between the Kennedy family and LBJ during that period in terms of the stay in the [White House]? O: No. What happened was that when we had the mass in the room near the East Room, at some point Mrs. Kennedy asked Ken and I if we would stay in the White House. Of course we immediately agreed, and we stayed through the funeral, at her request. G: Yes. Did your family come as well, or did you just stay? O: No, just Ken and I. G: Let me ask you about the conspiracy theories that have evolved around the assassination. They range from all kinds of theories. Are there any that you feel are plausible or have any--? O: No. I've never felt that it was plausible to contend there was a conspiracy. You can discuss the background of the assassin, his contacts and connections in his past, and you can discuss his motivation. That's all subject to all kinds of discussion, always will be, I suppose. But as to the act itself, I have always firmly believed it was the act of a single person, a single individual, who was clearly a marksman and did the job effectively. All the other theories notwithstanding, I've had no evidence ever remotely submitted to me that merits changing my view. Tape 4 of 4, Side 1 G: The recent one in particular puts forward the notion that the pathological evidence was altered during the autopsy at Bethesda. Anything on that? O: No. Our problem with an autopsy in Dallas was obvious. There was no way we were going to tolerate staying there one moment longer than was necessary, and that went to the swearing-in aspects. Our thought was overridingly, "Let's get out of here. Let's get our leader out of here." In that instance that was a normal human reaction. To have someone interfering with it was not acceptable, when you had a woman who had blood all over her suit, who had just lost her husband, and you're demanding that she sit in a chair somewhere. They said they wanted to get to some military installation where they could control the autopsy. My God, what difference did it make at that point? What were you trying to do? G: There's some speculation, of course, that the assassination was a retaliation for attempts 53 O'Brien --Interview VI --50 on Castro's life. Do you have any thoughts on that? O: No. You can debate the background of the assassin and his prior involvements and contacts until hell freezes over in support of that theory. I have no knowledge or evidence of that. That's my own personal conclusion--this was the act of a single individual. G: Did you ever talk to Johnson about that, the relationship between--O: No. G: --the Cuban operations and [the assassination]? Okay. When did LBJ ask you to stay on? O: On the plane. G: On the way back. O: It wasn't in that context. It was in the context, you know that I really need you and the country needs [you], which was an exaggeration. But it was very strongly presented to me that "we just have to go through this transition, you've got to be with me throughout this and we've got to fulfill our responsibilities. I have mine now, with the oath of office, but you have yours." My comment that I can recall was, "We can talk about all that later, or some other time." G: When did you decide to stay on board? O: I don't think that it was a matter of decision. It was a matter of going through a funeral and a burial, and recognizing that the following day there was pending legislation in the Congress, and I had the responsibility to monitor it. I came back from the service and took off the striped pants and the suit and got into a business suit and I made a real effort to apply myself immediately, not with any question of a long-term or anything else, but to apply myself. And Hubert Humphrey and Mike Mansfield, because it was a Senate matter, reacted the same way. As the weeks went on, along with Ken and Dave Powers, we devoted a lot of time and attention to Jackie, visited with her every evening over at the Harriman house. There was no help we could render other than companionship, which she seemed to appreciate and urged that we come by as often as possible. And we did, and that was daily until she was able to secure another home, and then we helped her with that and continued to see her regularly. I had a full understanding that you should fulfill your responsibilities. After all, you were still in the New Frontier program, and the appropriate time for decision, which the President could make or you could make or jointly make, would be when he was, as 54 O'Brien --Interview VI --51 we used to say, on his own, elected president of the United States on his own. Then it's his total ball game, this interim period is closed out. And that's when Ken and Dave Powers and I decided to submit our resignations. The result was that Dave was offered the position at the [Kennedy] Library, Ken decided to go back to Massachusetts and seek the governorship, and Johnson basically said, "I refuse to accept your resignation." He and I had several discussions and came to the agreement that I have recounted: that I would stay through one more session of Congress. This was on the basis of his urgent request, coupled with his argumentation that with the opportunity presented by the election and the additional seats in the House, we could now complete the New Frontier program and go on to his program. On reflection, and even when I committed this to writing I thought how arrogant I was, because he was the president of the United States and I said to him, "Under two conditions. One, that it is publicly known that I submitted my resignation. That's important to me, that in good spirit and with a handshake we'll close the book. And two, that it must be stated up front that I have agreed to stay for one session, the next session of Congress, and you and I have an understanding that we will not discuss any extension when the session ends, and there'll be no further conversation regarding the stay." And he agreed. It wasn't a pitch he was giving me that convinced me. I did see the opportunity to make a contribution to the completion of the Kennedy program, and it meant a lot to me. I really was convinced that I could make a contribution. That wasn't arrogance, it was trying to evaluate, after the experiences of the past years, dealing with the new Congress. Clearly he was right. I was in a position to play a role. By the same token, as I told him, "It's essential, as I see it, Mr. President, to put your team in place, to get past this band-aid Kennedy-Johnson staff and have a Johnson team that fits your needs, that's totally yours and is not a hangover from a prior period." And I think he agreed with that, but in my case for his own reasons he felt that he wanted me to stay, and it was clear he was anxious that I stay. It was also clear that I could make a contribution if I stayed. It was the appropriate time for the Kennedy people to leave, and leave with a good feeling all around, which I was fully prepared to do. This man had treated me eminently fair through that intervening year, and I found it easy to work with him and I found him very responsive to all aspects of the pursuit of the domestic program. I did feel very strongly and it made good sense to appropriately depart at an obvious time. There had been an obvious time after the assassination. But this most obvious time would not be subject to any second-guessing or wherefores, it was just an obvious step to take. It never entered my mind that it would result in my staying for any further period of time. I thought it was fair and my responsibility to him to state it. I went in to see him immediately upon his return from Texas. He talked to me on occasions on election night. I had toured the country, which we'll get to later. And we had discussed the election 55 O'Brien --Interview VI --52 returns three or four times during the evening of election. I didn't bring up the subject, obviously; it was simply, "I'll see you soon." And he was back soon, and I took the first available moment to meet with him. G: You said the discussions took place over several meetings. Did it take him that long to persuade you to stay? Did you initially--? O: No, I didn't say over several meetings, but there was more than one meeting. The discussion I just reviewed was the basic discussion. It was more than one meeting but it wasn't a lengthy period of time. The several meetings and lengthy period of time occurred a year later, at the end of that session. (Laughter) Or toward the end of that session, when he came up with an approach that did not violate the gentlemen's agreement we had reached with the handshake, because he never did discuss "now you've got to stay longer in congressional relations." This was a matter he decided during the course of that summer in anticipation of the end of the session, another dimension, as he saw it, a different area of discussion. Of course, afterwards, he reminded me that that also entailed staying with congressional relations. But that was later on. G: You described these daily visits with Mrs. Kennedy in the post-assassination period. What would you talk about? Would you reminisce about Jack Kennedy while you were there? O: Yes, some, but small talk. G: It must have been terribly difficult. O: Yes. She was great; she contained herself well. It was clear to us that right from the time we were on the plane, with Jack's body and through this, she truly wanted our companionship, and frankly, her comments on the plane as to her feeling toward us and how much we meant to Jack was a conversation that had never taken place at any other time. Her feeling was strong in that regard, and it continued until she moved to New York. Actually, it was my doing that communication lapsed. I remember being with my wife in New York on different occasions after she had moved here, and Elva would urge me to give her a ring. Meanwhile I had read about her effort to get out and around to the theater and what have you, different people escorting her, and I felt I would be intruding. I was wrong, as in later years I learned it was a little thickness on my part. I just didn't feel that she would want to be bothered, or [I felt] I'd be bothering her. I was very sensitive to the whole thing. Then the months and years rolled by, and we had a reunion at Ken O'Donnell's funeral. During that period we're talking about, Lee Radziwill, her sister, was with her at the Harriman house. I remember being with her one evening when a Johnson daughter came to the door with some gifts. 56 O'Brien --Interview VI --53 G: Christmas presents. O: Yes, they were Christmas presents. G: Anything on the renaming of Cape Canaveral to Cape Kennedy? Was this a personal wish of hers? O: I don't recall. I don't know how that came about. G: Did she have any requests of the new President during this period? O: Not that I'm aware of. She was remarkably thoughtful and concerned about others. If anything stayed with me through all these years, it's been that aspect of Jackie Kennedy, because I went with her to Arlington to visit the grave. G: It was shortly after the burial? O: Yes. Within two or three days, I guess. I went with her to visit the grave, and then she gave me a set of the American and presidential flags that were on standards at the time of his death. I guess with the various locations of the flags there were probably six sets of them. She gave a set to me, to Dave Powers, to Ken O'Donnell, retained sets for her two children, and I think there were maybe one or two other sets. I have those, and I thought that it was extremely thoughtful of her. That's the way she was; that's the way she reacted to all of this. I had limited social involvement with them over the years. There were a number of occasions, but it wasn't a regular sort of thing. I became acquainted with her before she married Jack, and Elva and I liked her very much. We were at the wedding, and we were with her when she got her engagement ring, and we stayed with them on occasions at their home in Georgetown when we'd go down to Washington. There was another world of social activity that I not only wasn't part of, I had no interest in, and so I think I was a little taken aback with the intensity of her reaction to me, along with Ken and David after the assassination. And [we] obviously felt the same in turn. As difficult as it might be conducting a conversation, it certainly was no chore to visit her evenings. I was anxious to do it. G: On the matter of staying on at the White House, did your decision to do so earn resentment from some of the Kennedy crowd? O: Yes, it did, as a matter of fact. There were three or four people who had some involvement in the administration and had been Kennedy loyalists over a long period of time from Massachusetts. It took the form of berating my administrative assistant. I was never confronted, but it was clearly there. G: Berating your administrative assistant? 57 O'Brien --Interview VI --54 O: Yes. I remember one incident. His name was Claude Desautels, and he was with me for years. He was in Duke Zeibert's restaurant having lunch, and probably in the general climate of a couple of cocktails at lunch, they told him what they thought of him and me in terms of staying with Johnson. Claude was very distressed when he came back and told me. That indicated that this was a subject of conversation, and there was all of a sudden a lack of contact from these old friends. It became a matter that troubled them considerably, because Bobby came to me and said he had heard or knew about some adverse comments being made. I respected Bobby greatly for it. He said he wanted to come by and see me, and he did. He said, "You have done absolutely the right thing and I would have thought little of you if you had done otherwise. I just want you to know my strong feelings on this. You're the custodian of the New Frontier program." It was appreciated. G: Was this while he was still attorney general? O: Yes. When O'Donnell was leaving, and there was a party for him at Duke Zeibert's. Bobby came by again and asked me if I'd join him and go to the party, which I did. What happens in life is interesting. Invariably that sort of thing occupies those on the periphery or who are not directly involved, because Ken O'Donnell and I had a continuing relationship. I was interested in his campaign, met with him on occasions, was a contributor to it. While we weren't the bosom buddies we had been for a lot of years, we had gone our own way and he never gave any indication of any disturbance. After all, he had chosen to seek office and I had chosen to stay. I think when anything like that occurs, it becomes a matter that seems to involve those who are not direct participants. The principals can generally handle matters of that nature while others seem to have difficulty. That's exactly what happened in that instance. Years went by and out of the four of these same people, three of them spent an evening at my home at Cape Cod. So it's no big deal. If your conscience is clear and you've done the right thing and you have not hurt anybody in the process and you wish everybody well, that's all you can do. I did wish Ken well and I did carry on. Reaction was part of the anti-Johnson feeling which had developed among some of the Kennedy supporters and stayed with them. I became part of that by virtue of just being there. It had no adverse effect on me, nor did it become some big confrontation. The only time it even came indirectly into focus was when they chose to take on poor Claude Desautels. If they felt that strongly about it, they had ample opportunity to take me on, but they never got around to it. G: How would you assess the performance of the Kennedy White House personnel after the assassination? O: Under the circumstances it went quite well. I had the easiest adjustment. There was a 58 O'Brien --Interview VI --55 task to do. It was ongoing, it was an unfinished agenda. And you were dealing with the Congress. In some roles, where you would be dealing almost exclusively with the President, great difficulty obviously would occur. A good example was the role of Ken O'Donnell, who was the appointments secretary just outside the door of the Oval Office, and you had Walter Jenkins, Jack Valenti. It was sort of a dual staff. At my end there was none of that. The Johnson people and the President just moved heaven and earth to make themselves available and be as helpful as they could. That was true of any number of Johnson people in the White House. It didn't pose a difficult personal problem at all. It just evolved and went on. But with Ken, Dave Powers--whose roles involved spending a lot of time with the President--it could not go on. And it made no sense. That's why I went in to him, when he was elected. (Laughter) I said, "Now it's all yours, your staff in place. It was just great, and the best to you." And frankly, it made all the sense in the world, and there wasn't anybody trying to hang on. There had been resignations prior to his election. There were departures from time to time. It was a matter of adjustment to a full-fledged Johnson staff, ultimately. It was a difficult period, and I think it was particularly difficult for Ken, because I know the President was concerned about him. He talked to me because Ken and I were very close, and I talked to Ken, and Ken found that at times it was very difficult. The President went as far as he could to try to keep this on an even keel. I remember he had a cold. He called me to the living quarters and said he was altering my salary. You could see a little humor in this, particularly the salaries in those days. He said, "I've made up my mind, you should be the highest salaried person on the staff. Now you're going to receive $29,500 a year, and the next one to you on the staff is at $27,500." I recognized that he was trying to further emphasize his acceptance of your work and his desire to have you continue it. I remember that on my desk at Christmas, that Christmas after the assassination, was a beautiful watch inscribed to me from him. And the $29,500, I think that's what it was, had its element of humor to it, because then he promoted me further to the cabinet at $35,000. (Laughter) By the same token, when I went into the White House with Jack Kennedy, the top staff salary was $21,000. If you were there because of salary, you were a pretty sad character. That never was a matter of discussion or review. But I cite those instances as examples of the effort, and he was probably making efforts to keep other Kennedy people comfortable. There were various social events that you attended--White House dinners--but that was not unusual. I had to attend--I say "had" because it became a bore to attend those over the years. G: How did Salinger make the transition from Kennedy to Johnson? 59 O'Brien --Interview VI --56 O: I was trying to recall, I think there's a missing element in my recollection on Pierre. Pierre became a United States senator for a brief period of time. He was appointed to the Senate by Pat [Edmund] Brown. He then served in the Senate for whatever period of time it was until he sought election on his own in California, and he won the nomination and then was defeated. I imagine that's where the trail ends as far as the White House is concerned. G: But in terms of being press secretary initially for Johnson after the--? O: When did he go into the Senate? G: Let's see. I believe it was 1964, wasn't it? O: I guess it was, yes. G: I can check. 1964 or 1965. O: Yes. It was 1964. Pierre was there just a matter of months, and I don't recall Pierre's problems, if any, of adjustment. Who did the President bring in? G: George Reedy. O: George Reedy. Then at a later stage Bill Moyers. George Reedy as press secretary, I suppose, coincided with Pierre's departure to the Senate. G: How about McGeorge Bundy? O: I have a vague recollection there, too, how long Mac stayed and when he departed. I recall Ted Sorensen departing, and Arthur Schlesinger left quickly. His role would not relate to Johnson activity anyway. On Mac Bundy, I simply don't recall. G: How about [Myer "Mike"] Feldman? O: I don't recall. He was under Ted Sorensen. Lee White stayed, and I think stayed throughout the Johnson Administration. Mike departed at some point; I just lost track of it. It was Ted and Mike and Lee; that was their department. Joe Califano arrived replacing Sorensen; I don't remember the time sequence. But he was there through the heady days of the Great [Society] program. I left in April of 1968. G: Anything else on the transition? O: I guess I repeat this ad nauseam, but I'm so firmly persuaded that the human element is so vital in all activities. You always hear of tables of organization and structures and they can range all the way from small entities to massive entities, but the White House is unique. It's a relatively small group in a small building, working intimately with the president, and it's limited to a handful of top staff. Our top title was special assistant. If 60 O'Brien --Interview VI --57 you look at the Kennedy White House, or the Johnson White House, and place different people in position, you're talking about the Mac Bundy role, the Ted Sorensen role, the Ken O'Donnell role, the Pierre Salinger role, the Larry O'Brien role. That's about it. You're working together intimately; consequently you have flowing from the president not only a lot of responsibility but a lot of authority--and it's highly personal, unavoidably so. The building lends itself to it. When you think of the awesome size of the federal government and the departments and agencies, I thought of that when I became postmaster general. There you have thirty-six hundred people on your staff, in addition to the seven hundred thousand people who work in the Department, and I don't know how many assistant postmasters general. That's all one department. Multiply that by the departments and agencies of government. Yet when everything is said and done, the thrust and the force and the heart of government emanates from that little building, and those who have the privilege of being associated with the president on a daily basis are truly privileged. With it, of course, comes tremendous responsibility. People say to me, "Well, you've had an opportunity to participate in various activities, not only in politics and government, but in sports. What really was the most meaningful role?" There's no question about it, it was as special assistant to the president, Kennedy and Johnson. Tape 4 of 4, Side 2 G: [The Johnsons lived at their home] for a period of days while Mrs. Kennedy remained at the White House. Did you go out to The Elms any during that period? O: No, I don't recall that I did. Incidentally, it should be mentioned, too, that I never, in the time I spent with Jackie Kennedy, noted any indication she was distressed about what you heard rumbled all over Washington--that supposedly she was pushed out or she was mistreated. Frankly, journalists participated in this, too. The adjustment for some journalists was difficult. A number of reporters and columnists in Washington