Sarge?[note 2] 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.

Good morning, Mr. President. How are you?

I’m going to announce your appointment at that press conference.

What press conference?

This afternoon.

Oh, God, I think it would be advisable, if you don’t mind, if I could have this weekend. I wanted to sit down with a couple of people and see what we could get in the way of some sort of a plan. Because what happens, at least my thought is, that what happens is if you announce somebody or [unclear] somebody else, and they don’t know what the hell they’re doing or what the program’s going to be specifically and who’s going to carry it, then you’re in a hell of a hole—

We—

—because they all start calling you up and say, “Well, now, what are you going to do?”

Well—

“How are you going to carry this out?” And all that—

Well—

—and you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Well, just don’t talk to them. Just go away and go to Camp David. Figure it out. We need something to say to the press. We’ve got to say to them, and I’ve got to tell them what I talked to you about yesterday.

And you can just take off, work out your Peace Corps any way you want to. You can be head of the committee and have some acting operator. If you want Bill [Moyers] to help you, I’ll let him do that.[note 3] Moyers, currently an aide to Johnson, had previously served as Shriver’s deputy at the Peace Corps. I’ll do anything. But I want to announce this and get it behind me, so I’ll keep—quit getting all these other pressures. And I think you’re going to—you’ve got to do it. You just can’t let me down. So the quicker we get it behind us, the better and—

[Unclear]—[note 4] Shriver’s voice is obscured by Johnson, but he may say, “You bet, all right.”

You can talk to them as special assistant to the President a hell of a lot easier than you can talk to them just as Peace [Corps] administrator. And if they want to talk to you, you can tell them . . . [you] speak for me.

Yes. Well, Mr. President, [unclear]—

But don’t make me wait till next week, because I want to satisfy this press with something. I’ve told them we’re going to have a press meeting, and—

Well, let's just say this: Could I make one point—

—they’re going to have all these damn questions, and I don’t want to be indecisive about them.[note 5] End of 2021 revisions.

I understand. But I think that there is a point that’s worthy of your consideration. It’s this: I—Number one, I’m not going to let anybody down, last of all you. You’ve been terrific to me.

Second, this appointment, if it’s announced without the proper preparation with our people abroad around the world—as I tried to indicate to you yesterday, and I think Bill will confirm this to you, Mr. President—will cause an awful lot of internal [searches for word] apprehension.

Well, I’d [unclear]—

You [unclear] to the extent that I would like to have a chance to prepare the [Peace] Corps, not only my top people here in Washington, which I can do, but I’ve got four or five guys coming back here from abroad right now—

But that will leak out over 40 places, and why don’t I tell them that you are not severing your connection with the corps, that you’re still going to be identified in the corps, and the details of what you’ll do there will be worked out later, and you’ll announce them? But generally speaking, that I’m—

Could you say this? Could you say this: that you have asked me to study how this thing should be carried out? That’s the way that I did for President Kennedy when he asked me to look at the Peace Corps and to study how it should be organized and carried out. And that I will do that for you, and that based on what I have proposed, then you will make . . . make your move. Now, what I will propose, of course, is what you want to have done, but at least, it doesn’t look as if I have left the Peace Corps for—

Let me make it clear: Let me say that I have asked you to study this, and I’m going to ask you to direct it, but that does not mean that you’re losing your identification with the Peace Corps, and the—what responsibilities you’ll have with the Peace Corps you’ll announce at a later date.

Could you just say that you’ve asked me to study this and [unclear]–?

No. Hell, no. I—They’ve studied and studied and studied. They want to know who in the hell’s going to do this, and it’s leaked all over the papers for two weeks that you’re going to do it, and they’ll be shooting me with questions.[note 6] Several newspapers were speculating that Shriver would head the antipoverty effort. They’re already doing it. And . . .

And you could say, “Well, yes, I’m all set on that. Shriver is going to be the person to organize this thing. He’s going to study, come in with a report to me on what he wants to do with it within the next two or three weeks,” whatever it was, that “we spent a month getting the Peace [Corps]–”

I want to say that you’re going to be special assistant to the President and executive . . . the executive in charge of the poverty program, and how that affects your Peace Corps relationship: You’ll still maintain it, but you’ll be glad to go into that with them at a later date. At the present you’re working up the organization for this. What’s wrong with that?

Well, the problem with it is that—I want—is that it will knock the crap out of the Peace Corps—

Not if they tell them that you’re not severing your identification with the Peace Corps!

Then you say that I’m going to continue as the director of the Peace Corps.

Well, I’ll just say you’re going to continue your identification with the Peace Corps. Whatever identification you want, whatever you want to do with it.

I think it would be better if you would say, if you are going to, if you have to [unclear]—

Well, then, they—

—say that I’m going to continue as the director of the Peace Corps.

They’re going to say then, “Are you going to have him directing two jobs?” And I’m going to say, “I don’t know.” That’s the next question, you see. I’d say he’s going to continue his identification with the Peace Corps, in what capacity he’ll explain to you in great detail. But he’s going to see that it functions, and he’s also going to take on the poverty assignment.

Mm-hmm. [There is a four-second paused] Well, of course, you’ve got the sense of the situation.

I must say that I would prefer it, Mr. President, if I had 48 hours even to work with our staff around the world, so that they won’t hear this over the worldwide Voice of America or something like that.[note 7] Voice of America was a federally supported worldwide radio system that had begun during World War II. See Holly Cowan Shulman, The Voice of America: Propaganda and Democracy, 1941–1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990). They might [unclear]—

It’s not going to be anything but a compliment to you. They’re going to be proud of you. They’re going to be applauding you. Everybody is.

Well, if you’d ask Bill, he would confirm to you what I . . . the point I’m trying to make—namely, that there’s a . . . within the Peace Corps right now, there is a very great sort of a personal problem about me with a whole lot of the people who are in it.

I’m not taking you away from that. I’m just giving you a billion dollars more to work with. And you figure out how you want to work.

[Unclear] thinking about this last night, and I talked to a couple of fellows this morning, is that the returning, for example, returning Peace Corps volunteers could be of tremendous assistance—

Of course they could. They could be out here. You could build your organization out of a good many of them.

That’s right. But what I’d like to do is to get that—the way this is going to be so we—integrated, so when we announce something, we’re really ready to talk about it intelligently.

Well, I don’t think you can do that until you make this whole study and you come up with a message, and all that will go in the message. But I’m talking about the man that is evolving the organization and in charge of perfecting it right now.

Mm-hmm. [Unclear.]

And his name is Sargent Shriver, and he still has his identification with the Peace Corps, and he will keep it to such extent as he deems desirable.[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.

If you can’t run a 100-million[-dollar] program in your left hand and a billion[-dollar program] with your right hand, you’re not as smart as I think you are.

[Laughs.] The size—the money’s got—that’s no problem at all. It’s the people that I’m [unclear].

Well, the people . . .

I want to keep all these people for the government that are in the Peace Corps and bring them into any other program so that they [unclear]—

Well, that’s good. I’m not going to sever you from the Peace Corps at all. I’m going to say that you’re going to maintain your identification with the Peace Corps.

Mm-hmm.

And how much of the details you do, whether you hire them or sweep out the room, is going to be a matter for you to determine.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And I’m going to make that clear. But I am going to make it clear that you’re Mr. Poverty. And . . . at home and abroad, if you [unclear] to be.

Mm-hmm.

And I don’t care who you have running the Peace Corps. If you can run it, wonderful; if you can’t, get Oshkosh from Chicago [Illinois], and I’ll name him.[note 9] Oshkosh could not be identified and is presumably a generic name used by Johnson.

I can’t get anybody. The only guy that could possibly do it, Mr. President, is Bill. [Unclear]—

Well, you can write your ticket. You can write your ticket on anything you want to do there. I want to get rid of poverty, though.

Yeah.

And you can organize the poverty right from the beginning. And you’ll have to get on a message Monday. But the Sunday papers are going to say that you’re Mr. Poverty unless you’ve got real compelling reasons, which I haven’t heard. And I’m going to say that you’re going to maintain your identification with the Peace Corps and operate it to such an extent as you may think desirable.[note 10] End of 2021 revisions.

Yes, [unclear] you see—I thought, as I looked over the papers, it seems to me that this is a thing which really ought to operate out of HEW [Department of Health, Education, and Welfare].[note 11] Later in the day in a conversation with Bill Moyers, Shriver told his former deputy, “We talk about wouldn’t it be great if I was secretary of HEW.” See the conversation between Bill Moyers and Sargent Shriver, followed by President Johnson, 1 February 1964, in this volume. I don’t mean right at this moment—

It can’t work out of HEW.

I understand. But I mean, it seems to me this is a [unclear]—

Well, you wait until we get by an election before we go to operating it out of HEW. We’ve got to get by this election. I’ve thought of all those things and got some good ideas on them, which you would approve of. But I’ve got an election ahead of me now.

Yeah. I—

What I want to say is that you—

—[unclear] talk to those Peace Corps people about [unclear]—

Well, you go talk to them. Talk to them.

[Unclear] guys just here in Washington. But this will be a bombshell—

Not if you—hell, it will be a promotion! You’ve got your identification with the Peace Corps. You’ve got everything you ever had there plus this. I don’t know what the—why they would object to that. Unless you’ve got some women that think you won’t have enough time to spend with them.

[laughing] No.

You’ve got the responsibilities; you’ve got the authority; you’ve got the power; you’ve got the money. Now, you may not have the glands.

The glands?

Yeah.

Listen, I’ve got plenty of glands.

All right. Well, I haven’t.

[Unclear][note 12] In this unclear phrase, Shriver seems to say, “Don’t you worry.” about that.

I haven’t. That’s one of my . . . I’d like to have your glands then.

Yeah.

But all you’ve got to do is . . . I need Dr. Brinkley myself.[note 13] Johnson was referring to a medical procedure performed by Dr. John Brinkley in the 1920s in which the doctor inserted goat glands into male patients in an attempt to boost virility. After losing his medical license in 1930, Brinkley opened a radio station in Mexico that broadcast into Texas and that he used to advertise medical cures of all sorts. Gerald Carson, The Roguish World of Doctor Brinkley (New York: Rinehart, 1960).

Yeah.

Some of those goat glands.

Yeah. Well you feel that you’ve got to do it this afternoon?

I think I ought to. I think I ought to. And I—

[Unclear] it’s—

I think that I’m going to keep you identified [with] the Peace Corps. I’m not—

How about Monday?

Because I’ve got a press conference at 3:00 [today]. And it’s announced.

Yeah.

And this is going to be the thing I tell them.

And I’m just going to say this: that we have a government that’s going to be strong and a government that’s going to be secure and a government’s going to be solvent and a government’s going to be compassionate. Now, I’ve looked over this thing very carefully, and there are going to be several departments involved, but I think that one man is going to have to be special assistant for the President that leads the way and directs it, and I’m going to appoint Sargent Shriver as a special assistant to the President and to be the executive head of the poverty program. And I’ve asked him to work on the details of the message and on perfecting the organization, and this does not mean that he is severing his identification with the Peace Corps. But what capacities he carries on there will be a matter for him to determine, which he will announce at a later date.

Now, that gives you both jobs.

Uh-huh.

And it couldn’t do anything but please everybody in Tanganyika or Panama, where you’re bragging about keeping those people. I don’t—

What if . . . Well, how about, just when you say “does not mean he’s severing his connection with the Peace Corps”—period? In other words—

All right.

—just end it there because then at least it says—

All right.

—that he’s still the director of the Peace Corps. He—

All right. All right. Then they say, “Is he going to handle both jobs?” Then what do I say?

Well, I think that you can say that if there’s anybody that can do it, he can.

All right . . . All right. I’ll do that. I’ll do—I’ll do that.

Well, I’m not—

Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that. Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll do that. That’s a matter for you to determine.

Yes, because I . . . the problem—I don’t want to overemphasize it or be just repetitious—but the thing is that Bill Moyers and Sarge Shriver, really, to 99 percent of the people abroad with the Peace Corps, are the personal leaders of this operation—

Well, don’t you think they’re not damn glad both of them have taken over the White House?

[laughing] Yeah. If they—

I remember in the day—

I’ll tell you one thing: They know that nobody ever did that with you there. [Laughs.]

I remember one day when I came in here, when they had you completely out of the White House and over in the State Department.

I remember. You took care of it.[note 14] In March 1961 President Kennedy proposed placing the Peace Corps under a new foreign aid framework that was supposed to centralize the activities of several of the State Department’s international aid programs. Johnson, as chairman of the Peace Corps National Advisory Committee, had worked with Shriver to convince Kennedy to help the Peace Corps maintain its independence. Shriver had written that “in a very real sense Lyndon Johnson is a founding father of the Peace Corps.” Without Johnson, “the organizational charts would have looked better” under one agency, but “the thrust of the new idea would have been lost. The new wine needed a new bottle.” Sargent Shriver, Point of the Lance: The Need for a New Kind of Politics, Education, and Public Service—At Home and in the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 15; “Special Message to the Congress on Foreign Aid,” 22 March 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1962), 1:203–12.

All right. Well, they’re—don’t you worry about . . . The people are not ever going to get worried when you’re going up, my friend—not your friends.

Yes.

And this is not a demotion for you.

Yes. Well, I appreciate that. I think it’s terrific that you have the confidence in me to do it. It’s just that I wanted to have a little time to work with some [unclear]—

Well, you’ve got all the time you [are] going to between now and—From here on out, just go to work with them.

Yes.

But you’re Mr. Poverty, so take it and run with it.

[softly] [Unclear] there’s been an awful lot of stuff. Wow.[note 15] Shriver may have said “Well” instead of “Wow.”

[Pauses.] Get—Figure out where you get your best people and where you’re going to get them, and figure out who ought to be on that committee of seven. I would think it ought to be the [Secretaries of] HEW, Labor, Interior, Agriculture; that’s four. You are five. Attorney General’s six. And maybe Commerce, I don’t know. I wouldn’t think State or Treasury would need anybody on it.[note 16] Johnson had been toying with this committee idea since at least late January. Budget Director Kermit Gordon had begun arguing for a small, independent antipoverty agency. See the conversation between President Johnson and Kermit Gordon, 29 January 1964, Kent B. Germany and Robert David Johnson, eds., The Presidential Recordings, Lyndon B. Johnson: The Kennedy Assassination and the Transfer of Power, November 1963—January 1964, vol. 3, January 1964 (New York: Norton, 2005), pp. 968–71.

You think that there’s got to be this committee?

Well, I think that you’ve got to have them as an advisory board, that you can say the President wants you to do this, and then the head of the agency can make them give you that money that you use.

Because I think—you see that . . . I . . . one of the great things that’s made the Peace Corps possible is the fact that we’ve had the authority to run something ourselves [unclear]—

Well, I’m not going to have any—I’m not going to have any government by committee.

Well, that’s [unclear]—

I’m just going to have a . . . I’m going to have a Cabinet committee that—with the power lodged in the executive director, or whatever you call him in your bill. That’s where the power is going to be. I don’t expect [the committee] to run the poverty program any more than we–[the] advisory committee ran the Peace Corps.[note 17] As Vice President, Johnson had chaired the Peace Corps’ 33-person advisory committee. But—

As long as—

I think you do have to tell the Attorney General that the President has said to you that he wants this done in the field of juvenile delinquency, and I think it has a little more effect than if you just say, “I’m executive director, and I’d like to see this done.”

Well, I think . . . Take the title executive director; that’s not a very good banner.

Well, get it, whatever you want to—director or . . .

I think you’ve got to have . . . Well . . .

What are you going to call it?

Well, I don’t know. I haven’t [unclear]—

Well, you’re the director of the Peace Corps—

That’s right.

—and you’re the director of poverty. Do you want to call it director of the poverty program?

Well, I was thinking . . . We had a paper, that’s why I was—

You’ve done pretty damn well with this director of the Peace Corps title.

That’s right. I tell you, we had an idea, Mr. President—I showed it to Jack [Kennedy] when he was alive—of a whole new approach toward getting people interested in doing things for their country. Not just the Peace Corps abroad or the domestic Peace Corps at home, but it fits in a lot with what you’ve got in this poverty program. That’s what I really want to go back and propose to you—

All right. All right.

—that you come out with a program which includes this but which involves people in a very bigway . . .

All right.

And it brings . . . it gives a place for the returning Peace Corps volunteers. They come in and work on these local programs as well as help in the financial—

All right. Now, what do you want to call it? What do you want me to say? That I’m . . . what—

Well, that’s why, to tell you the truth, I don’t know because I haven’t had—

Well, I’m going to say “director” until—

—[unclear] few hours to think about it.

I’m going to say “director” until you put it in the bill otherwise. When the bill’s drafted, you can put whatever you want to. You can put “executive vice president” or anything you want to.

Oh, no, that isn’t what I meant. I meant the magnitude, sort of what we were sort of hoping to accomplish [unclear]—

I’m going to say that I’m going to ask you as a special assistant to the President to take over the direction [of] the poverty program—period. And then you can work out whatever title you want.

Yeah.

Is that all right?

[Laughs.] Well, I tell you, I would have much preferred to have had 48 hours [unclear]—

Oh, I know—you’ve had 48 weeks. You’ve known this all the time. I’ve been . . . It’s been in every paper in the United States.

The trouble—You see, I’ve been away, so I hadn’t read anything about it until—

Well . . .

—you gave me these things last night. I didn’t know beans about it because I’ve been overseas—

Well, you don’t need to know much. You just go ahead and do it. And you’ve got your Peace Corps now. They can’t be mad at you. They’re all going to be with you. And besides, you’ll have a place for every damn one of them when they come back.

Yeah.

You’ll have . . . You’ll have an international Peace Corps, one abroad and one at home.

See, if somebody says to you, “Boy, is he going to run the Peace Corps?” you can say, “It seems to me that the returning Peace Corps volunteers are exactly the kind of people who can help in the attack on poverty in this country.” Or something so that there’s some link—

All right.

—between these things.

All right—I’ll do that. I’ll do that.

And now, about Bill [Moyers]. Is it . . . Bill can come back if we need him [unclear]—

Well, just as l[ittle] . . . just as little a time as you—just as little as you can spare him. I need him more than anybody in the world right here. And you need him here too. He’s good for Shriver here.

Well, I agree. It isn’t that, and I know that he’s very valuable to you. But I just don’t want this whole damn thing to go down and—

Well, it’s not—

—[unclear] for example, I’ve got . . . speaking, you know—Well, [unclear] I don’t want to give you a whole lot of crap about it, but—

No. You can find some others. I can’t. He’ll help you and work with you, and he’s on your team. He reports to you—

[Unclear] for example, he couldn’t come take on the active direction of this thing while I’m doing the other thing?

Not and run the White House too. And that’s what he’s doing now. He’s in there writing up what we’re going to say on Cyprus, and he’s trying to say what we’re going to do about this plane they shot down [in East Germany], and he’s trying to explain what we had in Panama.

What about Mike Feldman?[note 18] Myer “Mike” Feldman was deputy special counsel.

No, now, don’t go to raiding the White House. Go on and get your own damn talent.

The trouble is, he’s got—Bill’s got three of my people in the White House now.

Well, but they’re not people that you have to rely on. Peace Corps . . . Hell, you’ve got a babysitter for—

Do you really need Mike?

You’ve got a babysitter for every ten! [Shriver laughs.] Christ’s sake, if your wife—if the Kennedys had—They wouldn’t have this fortune if they had as many babysitters as you’ve got in the Peace Corps. You’ve got 10,000 people, and you’ve got 1,100 administrators.

I’ll tell you one thing: I’m glad that you’re not over in the Congress asking me questions.

Well, that’s right. I’d just say there’s not a Kennedy compound that’s got a babysitter per ten. And you’ve got it in the Peace Corps around the world.

All right, I’ll see you later, and good luck to you, and happy landing.

Well, I . . . I . . . OK. Thank you.

All right. Bye.