Lyndon Johnson and Roy Wilkins on 6 February 1964


Transcript

Edited by Robert David Johnson and Kent B. Germany, with Ashley Havard High and Patricia Dunn

See the daily introduction for 1964-02-06  [from the Norton edition]

Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, talked to Lyndon Johnson on the phone more than any other black leader. In this call Johnson asked for Wilkins’s opinion about a controversial film produced by the United States Information Agency on the March on Washington. Several southern politicians had complained to Johnson that it presented the South and the United States in a bad light, while over the past few days Robert Kennedy had begun to express his displeasure from another angle. Johnson also took the chance to review the status of the civil rights bill.

President Johnson

Hello?

Roy Wilkins

Hello?

President Johnson

Roy, how are you?

Wilkins

Mr. President, I’m fine. And I enjoyed your speech last night [at the Kennedy Foundation dinner], very much.

President Johnson

Thank you. Sorry I didn’t see you.

Wilkins

Well, I knew you were seeing plenty of people, and I was glad to be there and to listen to you.

President Johnson

I called you yesterday afternoon but missed you. I guess you were on your way home.

Wilkins

I think I was on my way to the dinner, probably. I got the message afterwards.

President Johnson

Yes.

Wilkins

We left a little early in order to get there in time. We live out in Queens, a little distance away.

President Johnson

I’ve got a real difficult problem I want to talk to you about confidentially, and I don’t want you to ever repeat it to anybody, but I want to get your advice on it, and it’s for the good of the nation. If you’d let me talk to you on that basis.

Wilkins

I’ll be—you want me to come?

President Johnson

No. No, I’ll just talk to you on the phone.

Wilkins

Very good.

President Johnson

This film has gone out to 415 places.

Wilkins

Has it?

President Johnson

The Attorney General and Averell Harriman saw it last week and started a hell of a roar in Washington about it and said it will destroy us, that it had nothing in there about peaceful petition, or Kennedy talking to them about meetings, and nothing about the President. Had a good many places [where] there’s poor production, and it ought to be reworked and reedited.

He [Robert Kennedy] called up one of my assistants and just kind of ordered it done almost. I told him I thought I’d be misunderstood if I did that. And I didn’t agree that the film was good in some respects, and I would have improved it, and I would change it, and I would add to it. And I would put the President and Kennedy in front of it and let him make a statement on constitutional rights, and put myself in the middle of it and so forth because it’s not going to do very good to selected business groups in these various countries if it hasn’t got a little more explanation or sex appeal than it just got.

Wilkins

Yes.

President Johnson

Just people shoving and marching.

Wilkins

Yes.

President Johnson

Even though they’re peacefully marching, it’s not good. He thought there was one bad part where there’s a Negro girl, I guess, with a white boy and had her head on his shoulder, or vice versa. I don’t know.

Wilkins

I don’t recall that, but if so, I think that probably could be eliminated.

President Johnson

And so, the Secretary of State, I told him to keep it away from my label. I didn’t want to be passing on it. The Secretary of State asked the embassy to give him their reaction on how they could use it successfully. The Attorney General called back again yesterday and said he just wanted to emphasize that he thought this would destroy us in this country and hurt us.[note 1] The Daily Diary contains no record of this call with Robert Kennedy.

[with Wilkins acknowledging] Of course, [Clark] Mollenhoff is making a big issue of it. He’s on that advisory board of the USIA.[note 2] Mollenhoff, the DesMoines Registers chief Washington correspondent, was a strong critic of the administration and had been a member of the United States Advisory Commission on Information since 1962. He hates me. He hates everybody nearly. He’s almost a mental problem. And he hates Carl Rowan.[note 3] Rowan, an African American, was a former journalist and ambassador to Finland whom Johnson had named to succeed Edward R. Murrow as head of the U.S. Information Agency. For Mollenhoff’s personal crusade against Rowan, see the Washington Post, 21 February 1964. Carl [has been] traveling around, and he doesn’t know much about it. He’s in Europe now—going to be in Finland.

Now, what’s the wise thing to do about it?

Wilkins

Mr. President, I—

President Johnson

They’re demanding it be shown up in the Senate. The Republicans are all going around telling all the southerners that the first thing Carl Rowan’s done is put out this inflammatory film.

Wilkins

Yes.

President Johnson

Of course Carl’s had nothing to do with it.

Wilkins

That’s right.

President Johnson

Doesn’t know anything about it.

Wilkins

That’s right.

President Johnson

[with Wilkins acknowledging] And it hasn’t been run anyplace. It’s just at the processing stage now, to see if they want to use it and where it can be helpful. It seems that we frequently send films to embassies, and if it’s appropriate in Finland, he’ll call up the head of the American-Finnish Association, invite him into dinner like the ambassadors invite you in and show a little film. If it’s not appropriate, they just file it in the film file.

Wilkins

I understand. Mr.—

President Johnson

Now, I don’t want to get caught in there and have—

Wilkins

I don’t blame you.

President Johnson

—some demagogue or say that—

Wilkins

No.

President Johnson

—Johnson is against, he’s canceling out, he’s suppressing, he’s censoring. At the same time, the Attorney General’s kind of proven himself in this field, and I don’t—

Wilkins

I would use that. I would use that. My reaction is that if the Attorney General felt so strongly about this that he advised you twice on it, and his position vis-à-vis this whole issue is fairly unassailable, that there’s nothing—

President Johnson

Just let [Dean] Rusk withdraw the film and edit it as the Attorney General thinks, and the President [unclear] be in it, and show the right of peaceful petition, and kind of illustrate it.

He said it has no point to it now, that it just shows a mob shoving.

Wilkins

Yes.

President Johnson

Marching back and forth. But if you would have the President giving the Bill of Rights, and a little explanation, and maybe a picture of Lincoln and some of his statements, and maybe Johnson’s Gettysburg, and have a paragraph there.[note 4] On Memorial Day 1963 Vice President Johnson had delivered an address for the centennial commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg (written largely by Horace Busby). In inspiring remarks, he observed, One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage. The Negro today asks justice. We do not answer him—we do not answer those who lie beneath this soil—when we reply to the Negro by asking, ‘Patience.’ In a reference to the 1963 events in Birmingham, Alabama, Johnson said: Our nation found its soul in honor on these fields of Gettysburg one hundred years ago. We must not lose that soul in dishonor on the fields of hate. Remarks of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 30 May 1963, press release, Box 80, Statements File, Lyndon B. Johnson Library.

Wilkins

I’m all for that, Mr. President, and I think your safest—not safest, because you’re not hunting for safety—but your strongest position is that your Attorney General has made this recommendation, and nobody can question his credentials in the civil rights field. And nobody can question his interest in this country because of the missions that he has performed, and he’s presumably in a position to know what would be the greatest image for the United States abroad.

I would certainly depend on my Attorney General for that, as full justification for any steps and alterations you might want to make.

President Johnson

And then tell him, when he gets back, for him to just make recommendations to probably this deputy of Carl’s . . .

Wilkins

Yes.

President Johnson

That they’ve got in there.

Wilkins

Exactly. I would . . . I think you have a strong talking point, and . . .

President Johnson

See, I don’t want to get in the position—

Wilkins

I don’t—

President Johnson

—or even get him to get me in a position to where while he would be approving of what I’d say—

Wilkins

Yes.

President Johnson

—the Negro leaders, Martin Luther King, might be denouncing me.

Wilkins

No. No, I don’t think—if they use Johnson at Gettysburg, or any other of your quotations, and a bit of JFK’s, I don’t see that that would incense or arouse any Negro leaders that I know of. And we know—we suggested ourselves that this could stand some reediting.

President Johnson

That’s right.

Wilkins

And some pointing up of the right of petition. I think we used the same phrase. So that our position on that is very clear.

President Johnson

You forget about it and don’t say anything, but I think that’s what I’ll do, and that’s—I just wanted to do a little heavy thinking on it. Just kind of . . .

Wilkins

Very good, sir.

President Johnson

[Unclear.] We’re doing mighty well in the House, I think, don’t you?

Wilkins

Very good. Very good. I was there yesterday for a brief time. I saw Congressman [Carl] Albert, the majority leader, and I saw Mr. [Charles] Halleck, the minority leader, and I took occasion to point out to him that in a speech in Dayton, Ohio, I had praised the Republican leadership—and Mr. [William] McCulloch in particular and Representative Clarence Brown—for their aid in this matter.[note 5] McCulloch, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, was a forceful advocate of the administration’s bill; Brown was the Republican representative from the Dayton, Ohio, district. And he said he hadn’t seen it, and I said I’d send a copy, and I’m getting ready to send him a copy of the Dayton paper right now, with that quotation in it.

And he [Halleck] obviously felt good about it. He said he was going to vote against the Meader amendment—to limit it [the public accommodations provision] to interstate highways.[note 6] Considered the most likely of the amendments to the bill to pass, the amendment, introduced by George Meader (R-Michigan), called for restricting the bill’s ban on discrimination in public accommodations to those accommodations located on interstate highways or other major roads. And he said, using some very colorful language, which I won’t use to the President of the United States, he said, “We’ve got to get out of here by Saturday.”[note 7] Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was the following week, and it was one of the traditional days for Republican leaders to make speeches and attend dinners. And he said, “I’ve just been up there to speak to the Speaker.”

He also, Mr. President, he brought you into it. [Chuckles.] He said, “I went up there to speak to the Speaker and have him get rid of these one-minute talks and get many of these privileged matters.” Then he says, “You know, every day the President of the United States sends a message over here. He wants us to do something. And they have to read it, and that takes up time.” And I said, “Well, you can’t—The President has got to get his work done too.” He says, I know it. He says, “But we’ve got to get out of here by Saturday.” [Chuckles.]

President Johnson

I told him if he didn’t get that bill passed before he appeared at the Lincoln Day meeting that they ought to laugh him off the platform because he and Howard Smith had their foot on Lincoln’s neck.[note 8] Howard “Judge” Smith, Democratic representative from Virginia, chaired the House Rules Committee. [Wilkins laughs.] And I think it made a real impression because he went right back and started doing something.

Wilkins

Yes. . . yes. Well, I talked to our people down there this morning, and they said they hoped to get to section seven by tomorrow afternoon.[note 9] In the final bill, Title VII was the equal employment opportunity section. It prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the legislation. I’m going down again tomorrow afternoon.

President Johnson

Yeah, we’re really going to have to start working on cloture then.

Wilkins

Yes. Yes, we—

President Johnson

We’ve got to figure out how we can get that bill past the Senate because we’re just halfway through. You spend some nights on it, Roy.

Wilkins

Yes, sir, I’ll do that. And days too.

President Johnson

Good night.

Wilkins

And days.

President Johnson

Thank you.

Wilkins

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Good-bye.

At 12:22 p.m., while President Johnson was speaking to Wilkins, the State Department received a phone call from the Swiss government. Swiss officials relayed a message that the Cuban government planned to cut off water to the U.S. naval base at Guantànamo. Four minutes later the Cubans made the announcement over the radio. Four minutes after that the State Department contacted the National Security Council office.[note 10] Arthur McCafferty to Bromley Smith, 10 February 1964, “Water Crisis/Cuban Fishing Boats” (2 of 3) folder, Box 23, Country File: Cuba, National Security File, Lyndon B. Johnson Library. Around the time that the State Department’s call came to the White House, President Johnson began a conversation with the president of CBS.

Cite as

“Lyndon Johnson and Roy Wilkins on 6 February 1964,” Tape WH6402.06, Citation #1906, Presidential Recordings Digital Edition [Toward the Great Society, vol. 4, ed. Robert David Johnson and Kent B. Germany] (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014–). URL: http://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/9040071

Originally published in

Lyndon B. Johnson: Toward the Great Society, February 1, 1964–March 8, 1964, ed. Robert David Johnson and Kent B. Germany, vol. 4 of The Presidential Recordings (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2007).