Mr. President?[note 1] 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 just wanted you to know you are loved and . . . by so many and so much. I’m one of them.

Oh, Mr. President. I tried—I didn’t dare bother you again—but I got [Kenneth P.] Kenny O’Donnell over here to give you a message if he ever saw you. Did he give it to you yet?

No.

About my letter?

No.

That was waiting for me last night?

Listen, sweetie, now the first thing you’ve got to learn . . . you got some things to learn, and one of them is that you don’t bother me. [Kennedy chuckles.] You give me strength.

But I wasn’t going to send you even one more letter. I was just scared that you’d answer it.

[speaking over Kennedy] Don’t send me anything. Don’t send me anything. You just come over and put your arm around me; that’s all you do. When you haven’t got anything else to do, let’s take a walk. Let’s walk around the backyard—

Oh!

—and just let me tell you how much you mean to all of us, and how we can carry on if you give us a little strength.

But you know what I wanted to say to you about that letter? I know how rare a letter is in a president’s handwriting. Do you know that I've got more in your handwriting than I do in Jack’s now?

Oh . . . what—well . . .

And for you to write it at this time and then to send me that thing today of, you know, your Cape [Kennedy] announcement and everything.[note 2] On 29 November 1963 President Johnson signed Executive Order 11129 designating the NASA Launch Operations Center and Station Number One of the Atlantic Missile Range as the John F. Kennedy Space Center. On the previous day, Johnson had also acted, with the support of Florida governor Farris Bryant, to rename Cape Canaveral as Cape Kennedy.

I want you to just know this: that I told my mama a long time ago, when everybody else gave up about my election in ’48 . . .

Yes?

—my mother and my wife and my sisters—and you females got a lot of courage that we men don’t have. And so we have to rely on you and depend on you, and you got something to do. You got the President relying on you, and this is not the first one you had. So there are not many women you know running around with a good many presidents. So you just [Kennedy laughs] —you just bear that in mind: you got the biggest job of your life.

"She ran around with two presidents." That’s what they’ll say about me. [Both laugh.] OK, anytime.

[Makes kissing sounds.] Good-bye, darling.

Thank you for calling, Mr. President.

Bye, sweetie.

Good-bye.

Do come by.

I will.[note 3] End of 2021 revisions.