. . . Rusk. I saw it [unclear].

All right.

[Unclear.]

Well, they thought it was all right. Just showed the right to petition.

Hello?

Dean?

Yes, sir.

I understand the Attorney General and Averell [Harriman] have been around looking at movies this afternoon and—[note 2] The venerable diplomat Averell Harriman was under secretary of state for political affairs and a close friend of the Kennedy family’s.

Right.

—got all concerned about this thing. Now, have you seen the picture?

I have seen it, and I’ve talked to people like Mennen Williams and Averell and others about it.[note 3] G. Mennen Soapy Williams, a Democratic politician from Michigan, was serving as assistant secretary of state for African affairs. I think it’s too bad that it be shown in its present form without being brought up-to-date and without being put into context, but I realize it’s a troublesome problem, and I think we ought to have a chance to talk with you about it if we can.

I don’t want it on my level. I don’t want to be deciding on what every damn movie is made that . . .

Mm-hmm.

[with Rusk acknowledging throughout] That they’re—Clark Mollenhoff.[note 4] Mollenhoff, the Des Moines Register Washington bureau chief, was perhaps the most scathing critic of Johnson’s involvement in the Bobby Baker scandal. The next year Mollenhoff published a book summarizing his investigation. Clark Mollenhoff, Despoilers of Democracy: The Real Story of What Washington Propagandists, Arrogant Bureaucrats, Mismanagers, Influence Peddlers, and Outright Corrupters Are Doing to Our Federal Government (New York: Doubleday, 1965). Now, he’s the one that started this, and he is a vicious, mean man who says he’s determined to destroy me. And I want it kept away from me just far as I can, and I think it ought to be kept away from people who haven’t got any business in it. I think the State Department and USIA ought to handle it and decide it on their own.

Now, I saw it, and I didn’t have that reaction to it. I saw it with all the Negro leaders, and their reaction was: It demonstrated the right of petition, and it was very orderly and very courteously handled. And it was not anything out of the way—no policemen shoving people around and knocking them down—but a right of peaceful petition and that most of the people in the world do not realize that in America the Negro has a right to come and petition and say his piece. And this demonstrated they did.

Now, they told me that they were going to show it at embassies to select groups of businesspeople where the ambassador thought that it would be helpful. I didn’t approve or reject it. But this Mollenhoff’s been going around trying to get the Republicans to protest it and trying to get the southerners to. And Bobby [Kennedy] got him on that board.[note 5] Robert Kennedy’s and Mollenhoff’s relationship dated back to Kennedy’s days of fighting against organized crime in the late 1950s, and in 1962, President Kennedy appointed Mollenhoff to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information, which oversaw the USIA. See the conversation between President Johnson and Marshall McNeil, 15 February 1964, in this volume. So, I think that the moment you touch that film, you’re going to have all the Negro groups in this country saying that you’ve . . . here’s a southerner suppressing it. That’s why I’m not going to get close to it. I think this is a booby trap that I’m getting led into, and I don’t want to get in it. And I want you to keep me out of it.

Now, the best thing I think to do is probably say to the ambassadors that this film is available for a special group of leading citizens, if you feel that it’s appropriate and helpful, because it just does one thing: It shows that they have the right of petition and these things can be handled orderly, and so forth. Now, I think if you canceled it, you’d really blow things. But I don’t . . . My judgment’s—I haven’t thought it through—my judgment’s not the best. I’m just giving you my horseback opinion.

My hope would be that they could update it. It was made before November 22, and there’s nothing in it about President Kennedy or your own interest in civil rights. And it does look, it seems to me, like a demonstration against the United States, and I think, in audiences here who know the background, it’s a magnificent picture. But for audiences who are very little informed overseas, I’m just concerned about it. But anyhow, I’ll get into it further, Mr. President, and—

Well, if you are concerned about it and don’t think it ought to be shown, why, say that to your ambassadors. Just say that it’s made for that, and if they think it’s all right to show to business . . . select groups, all right; if not, keep it. But we’ll probably have the issue before the Foreign Relations Committee because they’re already stirring it up up there.

I gather they’re wanting to see it, and at the moment they want [unclear]—

And we better get something for Averell and Bobby to be doing besides Africa.

[chuckling] All right, sir. I’ll see you over there in a few minutes.

All right.

All right.