—attention to anything, and we’ve got no organization. And I haven’t got the organization that could handle the bomb, here, Walter. The people who do that want to do it. You know what our limitations are. You’ve been … You’ve been with them. And they all have the right to do it. And I think that I can hold this thing together. I don’t believe there will be many attacks on the orders I issue on Tonkin Gulf if I’m not a candidate.[note 1] Johnson had received criticism for the timing of his 4 August announcement of U.S. action against North Vietnam in reprisal for the reported attacks on U.S. destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf, with critics charging that he endangered American pilots by alerting Hanoi to the impending strikes. Johnson also became embroiled in an argument with Arizona senator and Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater over Goldwater’s charge that Johnson was open to the use of nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia. See Conversation WH6408-22-4957 and WH6408-22-4962, 4963. And then I think the people can give the man that they want such a mandate that he might continue the good work we’ve done. And I don’t know who it’d be. I expect it’d be Bobby Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, or whoever they are. But I believe they can get along with the Negroes better than I can. I … It’s obvious to me that I haven’t got any influence on them. Here at the crowning point in my life when I need people’s help, I haven’t even got the loyalty of Ken O’Donnell, Larry O’Brien, my attorney general, or anything like that. So I just think that … I don’t see any reason why I ought to seek the right to endure [the] anguish that I … that I do endure. I don’t [unclear] I want that right. People, I think, have a mistaken judgment. They think I want great power. What I want is great solace, a little love. That’s all I want.

You have a lot more of that than you think you do—

Well, I don’t know. I don’t—I looked at every paper this morning. The New York Times had a “pallid platform that compromised instead of convinced.”[note 2] The editorial in that morning’s New York Times called the Democratic platform “pallid” and overly cautious. “Pallid Platform,” New York Times, 25 August 1964. And Jimmy Breslin’s column had those two pictures that they put up for me.[note 3] James Breslin was a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune. I never knew of it. I wish they didn’t have a picture of me in the hall. But it was the arrogance run wild. And I’m making every decision. Dave Lawrence went in room [unclear] up there and called me here, according to [New York] Herald Tribune. I didn’t know he’d ever call me.

I don’t think he has.

But [Hubert] Humphrey, everything you say to Humphrey—when he came in the other day, that’s all outlined, what all he’s doing to get Max Kampelman and all of them working on the Johnson compromise.[note 4] Max Kampelman, a Minnesota attorney, was an adviser to Humphrey. And this thing like that—I don’t think that … I don’t think a white southerner is the man to unite this nation in this hour. And I don’t know who is. And I don’t even want that responsibility.

But back to your question. This—probably oughtn’t to have told you about it, but I rather guess that [if] anybody’s entitled to know, you are—what I’m thinking. And I think that some of them will charge you with cowardice and not wanting to face up to it. But I’d just as soon be charged with being a coward than be charged with being a thief and charged with the things that they do say, being a manipulator and a conniver and a spendthrift—all the things that they say, every column.

I have tried, and I’ve had doubts about whether a man born where I was born, raised like I was raised, could ever satisfy the northern Jews and Catholics and union people. And I think that … You don’t think you can do that. And I don’t feel good about throwing Alabama out and Mississippi and making them take an oath nobody else is taking. And it don’t make me happy, either. And I don’t want to go back home and have my people feel—I don’t want to have to fight to carry Texas. I just don’t want Texas to have to say yes to me anymore. I’ve asked them the last time I want to ask them. And if you don’t know how that feels, well, you can go out there and start asking a man to please give you a quarter for a cup of coffee.

So I would say to them that you’re not going to call me because I told you last night that I thought it would be best, that people were talking, that all these folks were calling in. Paper said this morning that Governor Lawrence picked up the phone. That’s all untrue. But I think that they are men of wisdom, and this is their party. And I really, honestly just say, he believes that all of you got more at stake than he has. And he has great respect for these people. So what I would suggest is that you get them in together this morning. They ought to be meeting all day and thinking about approaches. And I’d suggest you get them all in and talk to them about it. And then get the consensus there. And then get another group of five, and then you can—[Texas Governor] John [Connally] can go and talk to [Georgia Governor Carl] Sanders and some of them. But I just don’t want Bill Moyer[s] calling me up and saying Sanders says that he’s going to walk. Because I don’t give a goddamn whether he walks or not.

But that would be the answer to the question that you called when you raised. And I would give it my best judgment that they will not win on a minority report of [Edith] Green’s.[note 5] Oregon Congresswoman Edith Green had proposed that the convention divide the votes of delegates, both from the regular Democratic Party from Mississippi and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, who pledged their loyalty to the national Democratic Party’s nominee. E. W. Kenworthy, “Alabamians Push into Convention,” New York Times, 25 August 1964. I do not believe that you can read Chicago and New York and Massachusetts to—and I rather think that this [Mississippi] Freedom [Democratic] Party was born in the Justice Department.

I don’t agree with you on not winning, but …

Well, maybe not. I don’t know the votes. You-all know them. But I just [unclear comment by Jenkins] —I know the issues, and I just don’t believe that you can ever carry a beer election in Blanco [Texas].[note 6] Blanco was a small town near Johnson’s boyhood home and his current ranch in the Texas Hill Country. [Chuckles.] It’s a prohibition town, and I just don’t believe that there’s … I talked to [Democratic National Committee Chair] John Bailey this morning. I just believe there’s so much hatred of Mississippi that nobody’s really going to want to get on a roll call with them. And I think they’ll run just like quail when you—

Dave Wilentz called me just a few—just before we started talking, and said that he had heard what the state coordinator had given him as a figure for New Jersey on this, and he said, “If that figure’s true, then the governor [Richard Hughes] and I will both resign.”[note 7] David Wilentz was a power broker in New Jersey’s Democratic Party. They said, “If we can’t do better than that for our President, then we oughtn’t to be here, and says that we can.”

Well, you just tell them they don’t need to because I don’t want to.[note 8] The Presidential Recordings Program revised the following section of text in 2021 for inclusion in The LBJ Telephone Tapes, a project produced by the Miller Center in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to commemorate the library's 50th anniversary. I really . . . I do not believe, Walter, that I can physically and mentally—I—[Barry M.] Goldwater [Sr.]’s [R–Arizona] had a couple nervous breakdowns, and I don’t want to be in this place like [T. Woodrow] Wilson.[note 9] After suffering a debilitating stroke in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson finished his term as an invalid. And I do not believe I can physically and mentally carry the responsibilities of the bomb and the world and the Nigras and the South, and so on, and so forth.

Now, there are younger men and better-prepared men and better-trained men and Harvard-educated men, and I know my own limitations. I just don’t believe that I have the physical and mental strength to carry them. And I think the time to make that decision is while they’re there and not after they go home. [Pause.]

And I’ve thought about it a good deal this morning. And I haven’t written a statement in 20 years! But I’m just getting ready to write this one. I just got one more sentence on it, and I told them to have a helicopter stand by, and I’ll decide during the lunch hour. I’m going to meet with the [National] Security Council. And I’ll decide during the lunch hour what I’ll do about it and either come on up there or call in a press conference here.

You have any idea which would be better from your vantage point?

[Pause.] I would . . .

From my standpoint, it’d be better here, because you don’t have to . . . you don’t have to go through any of the handshaking and the folderol. On the other hand, you kind of hate for your managers, you know, the folks that are for you, to hear it through the press. [President Johnson’s voice seems to quiver.] And . . . [Pause.]

I think that if you were going to do it . . .

If I’m going to do it? I’m going to do it. I told you that.

All right. Well, then, I . . . then it wouldn’t make any great difference [unclear].

All right. That’s what I think it will be. [Lady] Bird [Johnson] thought that I ought to go up there, because it wasn’t quite right to hold them up this long and have everybody guessing. And I think I’ve got to decide on the vice presidency today, ’cause [Hubert H.] Humphrey [Jr.]’s [DFL–Minnesota] just being interviewed every ten minutes, and that’s a whole thing. And it’s undignified.

Yeah.[note 10] End of 2021 revisions. Pretty hard for it not to come up at the convention because I don’t know if I agree with you, but I expect it’s [unclear] somewhere.

I know, but I’m not going to go through with him for four years if I had to. [Pause.] All right.

All right, sir.

Hmm?

I [unclear]. Well, I’ll go ahead and handle this … this thing here.

OK.

All right.

All right.

Sir—

[abruptly] Bye.