Hello?

Hello?

Roy?

Yes, Mr. President.

Are you calling me or am I calling you?

You’re calling me.

I sure was, and I just wondered if great minds ran in the same channels, because the operator said that Roy Wilkins was calling me, and I just told them a minute ago to get the Secretary of State and Roy Wilkins.

You’re very kind. Mr. President, first, may I say, please, how much we enjoyed the party the other night, and thank you so much for inviting us.[note 1] Wilkins was referring to the official state dinner of 14 January for Italian president Antonio Segni.

Well, we enjoyed having you.

I want to do something a little unusual, and it’s going to get me in some trouble, but I want to get you behind me before I did, be sure I was doing the right thing. Nobody will know I ever talked to you but you.

Ed Murrow has quit. I want to bring Carl Rowan back from Finland and let him run this shop because he sits in the National Security Council, and it’s a higher job than the Cabinet—the Security Council is. I mean all the Cuba thing, all the Panama thing—in until 3:00 in the morning—the person can have it, [he would] be real powerful. He has to tell the Secretary of State what we say abroad. They made a big mistake yesterday saying we took a terrible shellacking on Panama. A government oughtn’t to say that about its own government before the decision’s even made.

Right.

He has good judgment. He’s worked with me around the world. He started out piqued at me and prejudiced toward me, and he wound up by being a real devotee of mine—I mean, a real friend. He doesn’t know a thing in the world about it. It may not work; some of them may quit over there. John McClellan is the chairman of the committee where he’s got to get his money.[note 2] McClellan (D-Arkansas) chaired the Senate Government Operations Committee. I haven’t talked to him about it.

But in my judgment it would put him on throughout the world—113 nations. It would give us the brightest spot we could possibly get. Of course, I’m trying to get the Department of Public Affairs—the housing thing—for [Bob] Weaver.[note 3] The widespread belief that Robert C. Weaver, a former chairman of the NAACP, would be the first African American to be appointed to a Cabinet position had played a key role in the efforts of southern congressional conservatives to block the creation of a Department of Housing. He’s just as smart as hell. [Wilkins affirms.] But I think while we’re waiting on it, that this would be a master stroke. Now, what’s your judgment of Carl and what would be your reaction? And tell me frankly.

Mr. President, he has excellent training as a newspaperman and is familiar with the media. The only chink in the armor I can think of so far as experience is concerned is that he lacks the radio and communications media and the airwaves.

Well, he’s a good administrator, though. He ran on my plane. He ran all of my press conferences around the world.

I don’t [unclear] he’s a good administrator, Mr. President, but he knows journalism soundly. He was raised in a good school—the Cowles school out there—the Minneapolis Tribune, the Des Moines Register, and the Look outfit.[note 4] The Cowles family owned the Minneapolis Tribune, the Minneapolis Star Journal, the Des Moines Register, Look magazine, and several other newspapers. John Cowles was a member of the Business Council that had dined with Johnson on 7 January. This is a good outfit.

That’s how we got him. Somebody suggested that I try to get one of the Cowles boys to do this, and that made me think of Carl. [Laughs.]

Furthermore, he’s a southerner. He’s a Tennessean.[note 5] Carl Rowan was born in Ravenscroft, Tennessee, and spent his childhood in McMinnville, Tennessee, a town southeast of Nashville.

Yes. Yes, I know that.

And my estimate is that there may be some griping and growling within the agency itself. There always is with people there who had their eye on the spot. And there may be some eyebrow raising among some of the southerners.

But I think Rowan is a good man and able to survive personal antagonisms and to build up good will for himself and for his agency—and, of course, for his country.

He’s humble, and yet he’s above all these little nasty cracks. I saw one or two things on the trip. But he doesn’t let somebody bark at him and bark back necessarily. He just walks with his head up and his chest out. . . . and I think that . . . I just want to be sure he doesn’t make a flop.

I’ll tell you . . . I’ll tell you one place you may have a painful stub. I don’t know on how serious it’ll be. He did a couple of articles for the Saturday Evening Post, or one at least—and you might have somebody check on that—which in my mind were honest articles and said things that should have been said. Whether I would’ve used precisely the same language, I don’t know. But it did arouse some antagonism among Negroes, who felt that he was too much on the white folks’ side. Now, I’m speaking very frankly to you—

Yes, well that’s—

—[unclear] want anything else, I’m sure.

That’s why I called you. I don’t want—

His articles in the Saturday Evening Post were deemed to be more blaming the Negro for his plight, or at least equally for his plight, than any outside influences. Now, I don’t know. You might have somebody check those articles again. You might ask Rowan, frankly, about them. I feel that they were honest and straightforward, but I probably wouldn’t have used some of the language he used.

All right. Now, do you think the community . . . What would be the reaction in the community to naming him? Do they know anything about USIA?

I think they would be proud. You see, they don’t have to know much about USIA—they know Murrow. And a man to follow Murrow, in their estimation, would make them proud. I think they know about USIA. I think enough of them have done broadcasts overseas, and they know that this carries our message abroad.

Now, let me ask you this: They tell me that we shouldn’t send a Negro to an African country as an ambassador. Is that true?[note 6] Four days later in a recorded conversation, Murrow would weigh in on this issue, saying “Some of the people he would have to work with in Africa would regard this as a sort of Uncle Tom gesture—not the more intelligent ones, but some of them would.” See the conversation between President Johnson and Edward R. Murrow, 20 January 1964, in this volume.

The Africans have strenuously denied it when we have confronted them with it. I don’t know whether it’s true or not. All I can say is that diplomatically they have said no. Some of them have been vehement in denying it. Others have said this is silly. And I don’t know exactly how they feel about it. I would say that if you made a uniform practice of assigning Negroes or such Negroes as you had to African countries, they would resent it, not—you understand?

I agree with that, but we’ve got them in Scandinavia, and we’ve got them in other countries.

That’s right.

And what I want to do is enlarge them a little more. They don’t have their 12 percent [in public office]. I’m not a percentage man, [Wilkins agrees] but until—if we can, find some of the top people in this country. I mean, you take—either of the Nabrits would be wonderful ambassadors to some country.[note 7] James Madison Nabrit, Jr., the noted constitutional lawyer and former dean of the Howard University Law School, was president of Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1965, Johnson would appoint him to the U.S. delegation at the United Nations. His brother, Samuel Milton Nabrit, a biologist and the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Brown University, was president of Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. In August 1966, Johnson would appoint him to the Atomic Energy Commission. Johnson may have had Samuel Nabrit on his mind because, the next day, he released a letter regarding a higher-education committee of which Nabrit was a member. New York Times, 30 December 1997; “Letter to Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner as to the Need for Public Institutions of Higher Learning in the District of Columbia,” 17 January 1964, Public Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1965), 1:145–46. But top men. I would like to get them up to where they’re at least in walking distance of the rest of us.

Exactly. And—

I can’t do it, though, if I’ve got 20 or 30 Latin American countries and 30-odd African countries, and they’re just barred because somebody says so. Now, I thought it was the Negro community in this country that was objecting to it. It’s—

No, they wouldn’t [unclear] like the Africans would object if it became a uniform policy. [President Johnson attempts to interject.] I don’t believe they would object. The Africans are the ones.

We’ve got one in Sweden now, a good one on my Scandinavian trip—a Negro.

Yes.

Now, so I’m going to try to have one or two. You might get one or two of the most outstanding ones that you know in the United States. You ought to have me a list of that. You better just go work, and if you want Whitney Young or somebody, [to] get me some real outstanding le[aders].[note 8] Young headed the National Urban League. The worst job I can perform is to name one that’s a failure.

That’s true. That’s very true, and I agree with you 100 percent.

And I don’t know this field as well as you do. I’m going to rely on you. So you get me four or five of the top ones that are like Bob Weaver or like Carl Rowan.

Very good, Mr. President. And meanwhile, I’ll make additional inquiries among the Africans.

You do that. You talk to anybody that you want to about Carl. Just say, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he succeeded Murrow?” and see what their reaction is. If you get any different reaction, call me, collect.

Very good. I’ll do that. I’m home today doing a little paperwork because Mrs. Wilkins is not well, and I wanted to be with her.

Well. Give her—

I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t in my office because I’m just loafing on the job.

No . . . Give her my regards. Tell her I hope it’s nothing Lady Bird gave her to eat that made her sick. [Laughs.]

Not a chance of that. Thank you so much. I’ll check on Rowan, I’ll check on the African nations. I’ll get you a list.

Now, this Italian president—he had more fun than you ever saw. He spent all day talking to me about it yesterday. [Laughs.]

Well, it was . . . We saw you going by on your way from the luncheon, I guess, back to Blair House.[note 9] Blair House, located a block from the White House, was used as a guest residence for the president, usually for visiting dignitaries and heads of state. We were among those halted on our way to the airport watching you go by. It was a smashing success—I’m speaking not only of the dinner but the entertainment as well. I think it made an impression on the Italians, too. Don’t you think so?

Oh, yes. Yes, he was just crazy about it. He mentioned it three, four times yesterday.

Well, this is good.

Thank you, Roy.

Thank you very much, sir.

Bye. Bye.

Good-bye.