How are you, my friend?

Oh, good. How are you, Mr. President?

Well, you’ve been having hell, haven’t you?

Well, you’ve got all these boys out here. They—it’s because I’m, I guess, a Johnson man. The [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] rally on the week from Sunday was 50 percent Johnson—Johnson the killer, Johnson the destroyer of human life, Johnson the killer in Vietnam.[note 4] Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader in the civil rights movement; pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, from 1954 to 1960; organizer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957; co-pastor (with his father) of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1960 until his assassination on 4 April 1968; and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. On 10 July, King led a rally of an estimated 30,000 people at Soldier Field. “30,000 Hear Dr. King at Soldier Field Rally,” Chicago Defender, 11 July 1966. But I think there’s something that has to be dealt with very sternly and quickly, and that’s the formation of this national gang picture that’s taking place all over our country.

Mm-hmm.

I had a call from some of the mayors, and they wanted to call a conference to put it on your lap. And I told them, “Now, wait a minute. What the hell? Everyone tries to deliver the responsibility to someone else. There’s no point in that.” And they were greatly disturbed about [Hubert H.] Humphrey [Jr.]’s statement that the National Guard won’t solve anything, that if he were in the area, he’d act the same way.[note 5] Hubert H. Humphrey Jr. was the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from July 1945 to November 1948; a U.S. senator [D–Minnesota] from January 1949 to December 1964 and January 1971 to January 1978; Senate Majority Whip from January 1961 to December 1964; vice president of the United States from January 1965 to January 1969; and the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1968. Referring to the poor living standards in urban ghettos, Humphrey had said, “I’ve got enough spark in me to lead a mighty good revolt under those conditions.“ “Hubert Changes His Tune,” Chicago Tribune, 14 August 1966.

Mm-hmm.

And [chuckles] I don’t know where the hell we’re going.

Mm-hmm.

We’re out here trying to defend the national picture and trying to do everything when there’s $800 million held up with the urban renewal in Washington for all the cities of America because they haven’t got the money. And we don’t know if there’s anything about that. I don’t know why some of these Washington men are sounding off about the Guard. The Guard was called to save lives and to protect law and order.

I didn’t know Humphrey had said anything about the Guard.

Well, I think the mayors are goddamn tired of listening to people like Humphrey sound off. I was talking about the proposition. This was a speech in New Orleans today, and if he were in the area he’d act the same way. And if he were in Chicago, and I was the mayor, he’d be locked up like anyone else. Because that’s what his attitude is. Because I think we’ve gone a long way with the good Doctor [Martin Luther King Jr.], Mr. President. He’s not your friend. He’s against you in Vietnam. He’s a goddamn faker. He comes out here and he shows a picture of Watts. This has been going on for a year; it’s nothing new. And I confronted him with it the other day and told him, right in the meeting, and he refused. He said he didn’t know. I said, “Doctor, don’t give me that, you know. Let me give you the documentation. Here it is, here’s your people.” So this thing is, in my picture—opinion, a national subject. I don’t know how the hell we approach it.

Mm-hmm.

It’s the most dangerous thing we have facing our country. We got this whole goddamn poverty program all wrapped up in it. You got all—a lot of people in poverty, subversive as far as the national government on Vietnam, as far as the local government. It’s a complete test, as I see it, of trying to have law and order in government or trying to have this other thing take over with constant agitation, with criticism of the President on Vietnam, and the—both forces are very close together. And then also this very realistic national organization, which has become an extortion in all the big cities.

Mm-hmm.

They’re going in and telling the people, “You either pay us off or we’ll knock your windows out, or we’ll give you a Molotov cocktail [President Johnson acknowledges] or we’ll do something else.” We have identified some of these people. I don’t know, also, what’s wrong with the FBI because they say they have observers in all this but, hell, they—we never come up with anything.

Now, we know that they’ve come in here and we know that there’s different people acting and we know that there must be some money passed some place. We’ve infiltrated them, tried to. We got part of the story. And we’re getting part of it again. But it seems to me that we’re in a situation when it spikes in Cleveland. And I talked to the mayor down there, and it has the same connotations it is up here. It spikes in San Francisco, it spikes in New York, it spikes in the southern cities, and it all has the same pattern. And we’ve got a lot of organizations in our country that are breeding nothing but hatred of the President, hatred of the government, and open and armed rebellion.

You see the picture in Life magazine last week of Watts? They’re training kids 9, 10, 11 years of age how to operate, how to do all this guerrilla warfare and all this. And I really think that there’s a very acute national picture that has to have some adjustment. Your men came in Saturday, John [A.] Doar from civil liberties and Mr. [Roger] Wilkins from the Community [Relations Service], and I said to them, “Well, is the Justice Department doing anything about this gang picture all over the country?”[note 6] John A. Doar was a key attorney and local liaison in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights from 1965 to 1967. Roger Wilkins was U.S. assistant attorney general from 1966 to 1969; became director of the Community Relations Service (CRS) in 1966; and worked as a journalist for the Washington Post from 1973 to 1974, earning a Pulitzer Prize. The CRS was the racial conciliation service that President Johnson had moved from the Commerce Department to the Justice Department. Well, they didn’t know. “Well,” I said, “isn’t it about time someone would start to look into it to see the relationship of one gang to the other, to see the way that people come from the poverty programs in New York into Chicago, agitate the trouble and start it? We’ve identified it. And we’ve named it. And we’ve pointed it out. The press come out today again in our city with a complete report on the organization known as RAM, R-A-M [Revolutionary Action Movement], which is the pro-Castro outfit that came back from Cuba, operating out of New York.[note 7] Fidel Castro was prime minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba from June 1961 to April 2011. The Revolutionary Action Movement was a small black nationalist organization founded in Philadelphia in 1962.

Now, they’ve been messed up in your outfit?

Oh, sure. Of course, they—what they do is move all around the country. [President Johnson acknowledges.] We have to do some—we’re—our fellows are in there, our precinct captains, our workers, they’re all in and out of there, and they’re trying to get more and more information. It’s very cleverly done. It is not—it isn’t something that’s crudely done or uncouthly done; it’s done with a lot of intelligence. And we’ve been trying to infiltrate this outfit to find out who are the people [a television starts playing loudly in the background] who are giving the orders. We identify a half a dozen of them. Beyond that identification, you can’t go any further. But if they arouse the young people between 9 and 12 years of age, which they have in our city—I’m told the same thing in Cleveland, the same thing in Los Angeles—to this lawlessness and disorder, we’re going to be in one hell of a shape. But—

[speaking over Daley] What shape have you got King in? Is he about ready to get out?[note 8] King, Daley, and other Chicago leaders reached a compromise agreement on King’s demands in late August 1966.

Well, I don’t think so. I don’t know, but after all, he started this thing out here. He started on a Sunday. And 200 of these young fellows from a gang outfit stood out in the field [at Soldier Field] [television noise continues in the background] and wouldn’t get off. And kept hollering about black [unclear] and Uncle Toms and Johnson and Daley and everyone else that—and they wouldn’t get off the field. And then all the . . . what . . . [unclear] fortune is that they, the same outfit, the Commies and all that, are tied up with the anti-Vietnam. And then the religious leaders and all them are all out on the civil rights.

We’re having a hell of a time to define between civil rights as civil rights. Hell, as I said to them, “No one has done more for you people than President Johnson.” And I said, “Who do you think supports Johnson? People like myself and people like the Democratic Party of Cook County. Now, for you to come in here and start asking us about the next vote in the Congress, it’s ridiculous. Why the hell don’t you go some place and ask them that haven’t been voting with Johnson?” [President Johnson acknowledges.] And I said, “Doctor, the demands you presented to me—31 demands—you could have presented them any place, any city in the country, including your own city of Atlanta.” And he said, “That’s right.” And I said, “Well, why are you presenting them here?” “Well,” he says, “The reason we’re presenting them here is you’ve got such a fine city, such a wonderful city. You’ve given so much opportunity to our Negroes. Forty-seven percent of the Negro population is in the middle class.” “Yeah, but,” I said, “you never say that. You never say it publicly. You’re appealing to these people that are responsible for a lot of this trouble.” And when I put it on him, on this . . . his people, we had the documentation. We got it, his tapes, you know, we got records and everything else. His people have been in there for a year, and frankly and honestly behind the whole picture, Mr. President, I really think there’s a hell of a lot of politics.

Mmm. [speaking over Daley] What do you think it is, Dick?

Oh, yeah, they—well, just tonight, even [William F.] Billy Graham [Jr.] said the whole thing in Chicago is a politicalized issue, because every goddamn time they come in, can you imagine presenting some demands for a civil rights leader by asking me about new precinct captains in certain sections of the city?[note 9] Reverend William F. “Billy” Graham Jr. was a Baptist minister and evangelist, and friend of the Nixon family. New precinct captains! I said, “Well, this is—is this a civil rights demand? Or is this a political demand?” And then they have the fellow with them that’s one of the specialists, a consultant of the church federation; he’s a Republican Ward committeeman. And I said, “Well, Senator,”—his name is Senator Robinson—“The Democratic Party of Chicago must be doing pretty good towards the Negro or we wouldn’t be winning the elections we’ve won for the last 20 years.[note 10] Daley may have been referring to Chester Robinson, the leader of the West Side Organization that was part of King’s coalition. Robinson was instrumental in the call for a march in Czech-dominated Cicero and then the eventual decision to stop the march after the compromise. Donald Janson, “Civil Rights Dissidents Postpone Open-Housing Demonstration,” New York Times, 28 August 1966. And for you to come in here and start telling me, as a leader of the Democratic Party, who we should select as precinct captains, I just wonder, Doctor,” and I turned to Dr. King, “how this fits into the civil rights program.” [Pause.]

And I really think that this whole thing is planned throughout the nation, and I think it’s going to happen in every large city, and I think they view the police department to—on this police brutality all out of proportion. I think you got weak mayors like [John V.] Lindsay that folded up on the police.[note 11] John V. Lindsay was a U.S. representative [R–New York] from January 1959 to December 1965, and mayor of New York from January 1966 to December 1973. In 1971, Lindsay became a Democrat. Well, he’s turned the whole thing over to them. What the hell is happening in the department, no one knows. And our fellow says, who I have great respect for—[Orlando W.] O. W. Wilson—that “if you break down on this civilian police force, this is the first step in the breakdown of law enforcement on the local level.[note 12] Orlando W. “O. W.” Wilson was superintendent of the Chicago Police Department from 1960 to 1967. And when you get that,” he says, “you have lawlessness.” And he says, “How are you going to get policemen to enforce the law or to try to cope with some of these riotous situations if they’re going to be constantly confronted with a civilian police force?” And I stood up with [unclear]. They wanted a civilian police force, and I said, “Well, gentlemen, why don’t we stop [a television becomes audible in the background] [unclear] making the general charges against these fellows? Why don’t you document it, Doctor, or anyone else, and bring the name and the place and the incident, and then let’s have it investigated? But don’t be saying that our entire police department—14,000 men—are all brutal or beat up people and all that. They don’t [unclear]. But what about all the police who are injured? What about the police captain that was shot in the back standing [unclear]?[note 13] In the disorders of 12–14 July, a police captain had been shot. “CHICAGO: Riots Sweep Through West Side,” Los Angeles Times. [Pause.] They’ve been . . . they’re whipping it up pretty good.

Do you think that you got things [in] pretty good shape in Chicago?

Well, as good as they can be, but we need some kind of federal help to shut off this gang situation. This gang situation in New York, in Los Angeles, in Philadelphia, in Cleveland, in Pittsburgh, in Detroit, in San Francisco, is no good. And if it’s allowed to go unabated, if it’s allowed to go and fester the way it is . . . The majority of them are headed, as you know, by ex-convicts: dope pushers, robbery with a gun, all of this kind of business. And there—something has to be done, Mr. President, on the sale of the guns. We—Outside [in] the suburbs—in the city we have control—but what the hell, in the suburbs that are—you go out to all around our suburbs and you got people out there, especially the non-white, are buying guns right and left. You got guns and rifles and pistols and everything else. There’s no registration; there isn’t a damn thing. Something has to be done under this gun law because, you see, the same thing happened in Cleveland that happened here—snipers shooting off the roof at police. Well, where the hell did they get the weapon? There’s no—and, you know, you’ve—they’ve got trouble with this national gun law but after the president’s [John F. Kennedy’s] assassination, someone ought to do something.[note 14] John F. “Jack” Kennedy was a U.S. representative [D–Massachusetts] from January 1947 to January 1953; a U.S. senator [D–Massachusetts] from January 1953 to December 1960; and president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination on 22 November 1963.

We thought so, but you can’t get the Congress to vote for it. These damn Conservation Leagues and everybody comes and—

[speaking under President Johnson] No, that’s right. [Pause.] Those guys, by God, when they see this thing that’s happening here, and they get the facts—and, you see, a lot of people are trying to put it under the [unclear] of civil rights. [President Johnson acknowledges throughout.] This isn’t civil rights; this is civil disorder. There’s no civ—what the hell? Out here, they’ve been voting—as I pointed out to the good Doctor—we had police captains, Negro police captains, 40 years ago in Chicago. We had chiefs of the Fire Department. Today, we have more Negro commanders in command of districts. Even they’re coming in and talking to me. We have more Negro commanders than any city in the United States. [A television becomes audible again in the background.] We have more Negro fire officers, battalion chiefs, [unclear] in the United States.

And we have a tremendous middle-class Negro. But unfortunately, as you know, the middle-class Negro is not relating himself to the guy down on the bottom of the ladder. And we’ve had all these programs of employment and all the things you helped us with that. Now, the—I don’t know what the hell more a guy can do. We have a thousand jobs tomorrow that are offered; we can’t get people to fill them. We’ve recruited during the summer, 5,000 summer jobs for young youths between the age of 16 and of 18. We’ve got 10,000 in the [Neighborhood] Youth Corps.[note 15] The Neighborhood Youth Corps was a jobs program in the War on Poverty. So, as you see, this what we’re talking about, in my opinion, is just plain lawless. And the disregard and the disrespect for the national government, for the state government, and using the police and the firemen—the police—the firemen were never treated the way they are in Chicago and in San Francisco and in Cleveland until lately, the stoning of the firemen. Well, here’s people that come in to help save lives, to extinguish a fire, and still because they represent some degree of law and order, they’re stoned, and they’re shot at, and everything else. They had to withdraw them from Cleveland last night, one of the big fires, because they were sniping at them.[note 16] Civil disorders occurred in the Hough section of Cleveland. This, to me—and I’m not an alarmist—is a damn serious situation for the large cities of our nation.

Yes, I sure think it is. I—

You can’t have the Kings and them running around talking out of both sides of their mouth the way they do. As I said to them at the meeting, “Doctor, you tell me what else we should do in Chicago that we haven’t.” I explained—“Well,” he said, “you’ve got to have a massive program. You got to go to Washington and—" I says, “Well, wait a minute—go to Washington? We could go to Washington, but will you tell me one additional thing that we should be doing but we’re not? We got the poverty program. We’ve got all the forces going on poverty. We got rodent control. We got insects. We took down a thousand homes—destroyed a thousand slum buildings in six months. We hope to destroy a thousand more in the next six months. You tell me what else we can do. We need to educate, but,” I said, “the trouble with you—with some of your people, and I’m not saying you—every constructive program we’ve come up with, they’ve been against it, and they’re with you right in this committee. They opposed me on the bond issue. They’ve opposed me on the improvement for slums. They’ve opposed me on the rodent and insects. They’ve opposed me on the neighborhood community centers. They’ve opposed us on poverty. Well, where the hell are we going?” I said, “If you—if all of these people are opposing you on all these programs and then you’re coming in here making these demands when you know they can’t be complied with . . .” See, the demands he put on my desk, they were at you and everyone else. Hell, there was 31 of them and out of them, only four applied to the city of Chicago. The rest of them applied to the federal government, the state government, the county government, and the real estate brokers. Well, what the hell have I got to do—the business men, the labor unions. All of this was in the demands.

George Meany and I were talking about you, and today he was in.[note 17] George Meany was president of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) from 1955 to 1979. He’s a great friend of yours, and he’s—

How is he?

—as I am. And I just told him I was going to call you this evening, [Daley acknowledges] just have a little visit with you. He’s doing fine. He got a bad hip. He’s been overseas and he just got back.

Yeah.

But he feels about like—about this whole outfit about like you do. And about like I do. And I’ll check in with [J. Edgar] Hoover and [Nicholas “Nick”] Katzenbach and try to see if they have been able to [Daley coughs] piece any of this together.[note 18] J. Edgar Hoover was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1924 until his death on 2 May 1972. Nicholas “Nick” Katzenbach was U.S. assistant attorney general from 1961 to 1962; U.S. deputy attorney general from April 1962 to January 1965; acting U.S. attorney general from September 1964 to January 1965; U.S. attorney general from February 1965 to October 1966; and U.S. under secretary of state from October 1966 to January 1969. Hoover’s been working at it.

Mm-hmm. Well, there’s been a lot of them working, but goddamn it, Mr. President, we still got a good town. And they’re not going to—and we’re not going to do any rash—I’ll sit down with anyone. I told them tonight I’d sit down with—24 hours with anyone. I’ll sit down and talk to them. I’ve been out in the district during the middle of the thing, talking to people, and going into places, and going out there again tonight. And as far as I’m concerned, we’re going to do everything to save our city, and there isn’t going to be anyone that will take the stand. And I could see it at the meeting a week ago, Sunday, that anti-Johnson, Johnson the killer, Johnson this, Johnson that; it made you sick when you saw, you know, people carrying signs around of this nature, and especially after all the things you’ve done and what you’ve done for [unclear], and all the things I’ve tried to do and tried to stand for, especially, on this question of justice for all people and fairness for all people. What the hell? That’s the main thing you’ve been fighting for. And then to see them run on the goddamn foreign question. You don’t run away from people that are your friends; you stay with them. That’s what I’ve been talking—I talked to our leaders tonight in the convention, 80 of them, and I told them the same thing. I said, “We don’t run. We might be defeated, but we stand with Johnson on Vietnam. We stand for justice for all our people. And we also stand for law and order. And I’ll be damned if we let anyone take over themselves the running of the city.”

You’re just right as you can be, Dick, and I’ll support you. I’m sending you a little book—things, momentoes of when we were out there—that I think you’ll like. Some pictures for your library. [Daley acknowledges.]

On this other thing, this pretty big thing out there . . . when that decision’s made, if that ball bounces in that court, how’s the best way to get it out?[note 19] On 16 December 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission announced that a community near Chicago would be home to a new $375 million particle accelerator, called an “atom smasher” by the press. Ronald Kotulak, “How We Got A-Smasher,” Chicago Tribune, 17 December 1966. Just let the [Atomic Energy] Commission make a flat announcement?

What do you mean by that?

Well, on that atomic energy thing.

On the what?

That atomic energy thing.

Oh, I think it’d be just as well. If we can make—you can make the announcement, it would be wonderful.

Well, I think it’d probably be better on all the states, just let the commission, [unclear comment by Daley] if we could get them to do it, it’s 400 million [dollars], you know.

That’d be wonderful.

And it’s going to be the damnedest thing ever hit in the country.

Oh, yes, it would be.

And then I think we could all say we hadn’t had any conversations and just—

Well, fine.

—let the commission announce it direct if you—unless you have a better suggestion.

No, no. I think that’s all right. That’ll be wonderful.

I’m working on that end. I’m appointing some new men, going to swear them in next week.[note 20] On 1 August 1966, President Johnson swore in Dr. Samuel Nabrit and Wilfrid E. Johnson to the Atomic Energy Commission.

Oh, good.

It’s the biggest thing that’ll ever be here. And I believe that, back to that original conversation you had about everything going to California and New York, [Daley acknowledges] that I think this area—it would open it up for development a lot, and I think it would pull a lot of stuff in there.

Yeah, it’d help us quite a bit.

Yeah.

Well, [President Johnson attempts to interject] nice to talk to you, Mr. President.

It’s the biggest thing that the gov—

Keep up the good work.

It’s the biggest thing the government’s had. I’ll keep in touch with our friend here, and I’ll be calling you back. And you call me and tell me anything you think that you want me to do.

Oh, fine. Thank you, Mr. President.

Give my love to your wife [Eleanor “Sis” Daley].[note 21] Eleanor “Sis” Daley was the wife of Mayor Richard J. Daley since 1936, and the first lady of Chicago from 1955 to 1976.

I shall.

[softly] Bye.

The same to Mrs. [Lady Bird] Johnson.[note 22] Lady Bird Johnson (née Claudia Alta Taylor) was the wife of Lyndon B. Johnson since 1934, and first lady of the United States from November 1963 to January 1969. Bye.