Hello?

Mr. President?

Yeah.

Walter and I deliberated several minutes before about whether or not to call you with this information, but he thinks and I think we should.

Secretary [Dean] Rusk called me a few minutes ago, oh, 30 minutes ago, and said, “Could you come over right away? I need to talk to you.” I said, “I’ll be right over.”

I got there, and he brought me into his office and closed the door and said, “Two stories have reached me which I’m not sure are accurate or not, but have come to me by means which command my ear and which therefore, I think the President ought to know about. I don’t want to be pressed,” he said, “please, on how they got to him—but I think that the President should know, and I thought you were the one to tell him about them.”

Number one, Joe Pulitzer—Pulitzer, I don’t know his first name—Pulitzer is talking about how, after his meeting with—over here, he came away shocked that he was read materials, and others there were read materials, from the confidential files of a government employee.[note 2] Joseph Pulitzer Jr. was the editor and publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This profoundly disturbed him and shocked him.

The second story is that the Hearst [newspaper] people are having great pangs of conscience today because, having been offered this material earlier by a White House aide—and the Secretary [of State] said the name of the aide was not given to him; if it had been, he would have given it to me, but the aide was not mentioned—having been offered this material by a White House aide, they now have [Pierre] Salinger’s denial that the White House was involved in it. And they are discussing—the Hearst people are discussing if they should not have a story which says that they were offered the material by the White House. They’re having pangs of conscience, that they know otherwise, and isn’t it decent journalism and honest journalism to say so?

Now, the Secretary closed the conversation, which lasted about six minutes, by saying again, “I do not know how authentic these stories are, but they have gotten to me, and I feel an obligation because of the great awesomeness I hold for that chair over there that he sits in for him to know about them.” And I said, “Thank you, Mr. Secretary, very much.”

What does he think you ought to do about it?

He didn’t have any suggestions, but Walter and I talked, and we said, “Should the President know this?” And then [we decided], “Only if he can do something about them.” And we decided that on number one, that nothing can be done. On the Pulitzer story, nothing can be done.

On number two, however, if it’s not true that this material was offered by a White House aide, and Walter does not know who in the world could have done it, and I know that I don’t know who could have offered it to anybody in Hearst—

I don’t believe that’s right. I believe that, from what Walter told me, that [Deke] DeLoach [at the] FBI told him that he might tell them that this guy was no good, and Walter told him not to—[note 3] Cartha “Deke” DeLoach was assistant director of the FBI.

But—

—that we didn’t want it leaked.

That’s right. But DeLoach is not a White House aide, so Salinger’s statement stands.

And Salinger said, “I’m positive it was not,” so he’s speaking only of his own knowledge. But as far as I know, nobody has done it.

Right. So far as Walter and I know, no one has done it. And Walter was wondering if a call to—

Now, I’ve never had any file. I’ve had that summary that you had.

Right.

Which is not a part of the file, which is just pure notes that they said they didn’t give the Senate committee, although there were facts about this fellow that would seriously put him under question. But I didn’t know that Pulitzer had ever been shocked by getting the background of truth of folks like that.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[Pauses.] Now, go ahead.

Well, do you think that the only course of action would be to have Walter explore with Dick Berlin if they really are having pangs of conscience?[note 4] Richard Berlin was the chief executive officer of the Hearst Corporation.

I’d tell Dick Berlin exactly what the Secretary said this morning and saying that’s what they’re saying, and as far as we know, we don’t have any files. Now, be sure we don’t have.

We don’t.

And all we’ve had is . . . we’ve had an interpretation, a summary, that this fellow is no good. And that’s the net of what I told Mr. Pulitzer.

All right, sir. I’ll go back to Walter right now.

And . . . I don’t think, though, they can much—I think the more they make out of this, the more they’ll put [Don] Reynolds . . . have the facts come out about his file.

Mm-hmm. Well, the Secretary assured me he intends to discuss this with no one else.

What . . . what does he think about Reynolds?

Secretary Rusk thinks that no doubt, this man is an irascible character. He does not think the White House should be giving this material out, which he’s sure the White House hasn’t been. And I said, Well, that’s exactly right. And you know, he thinks it would really put you on the spot, whether you had done it or not, if the White House had given this out, and I assured him that that was not the case. And he said actually people around town didn’t believe we were putting it out, that [Drew] Pearson has his sources elsewhere.

I think somebody ought to tell Pearson. Now, you didn’t give Pearson anything, did you?

Uh . . . I read him the summary.

Yeah. Well, didn’t he have it?

Yeah. Oh, yes, sir! Yes, sir. He had everything, Mr. President. He had the full thing. It is an unequivocal statement to say that Pearson had everything before he even talked to us. In fact he called on Sunday night to ask to bring them to you to show.

In fact, he got furious, Mr. President, literally furious, and said, “Goddamn it,” he said, “here I am trying to help the President, and he won’t help me.” What he wanted was for us to call [Eugene] Zuckert and tell Zuckert to let Pearson quote verbatim from this report.[note 5] For discussions of General Zuckert’s involvement, see conversations between President Johnson and Robert McNamara and between President Johnson and Bill Moyers, 3 February 1964, in this volume. And we wouldn’t do it. He just said, “You know, I just can’t understand it. This man Reynolds is trying to destroy the President and destroy Walter Jenkins, and the President, goddamn it, won’t let me help him.” Six seconds excised under deed of gift restriction.

[Pauses.] So, in those terms, I think we’re safe. The only thing that really bothers me about this conversation is that Pulitzer would be spreading around—and apparently he must be—this story and, secondly, that Hearst might do a story which says they were offered it by a White House aide when in fact they were not.

Well, I’d have Walter call Dick Berlin and tell him if they were offered it, we want to know who offered it, when, and how. We know nothing about it.

All right, sir.

We know that we have received information from newspapermen themselves that said this guy is totally undependable and is psychotic. And newspapermen asked us to help obtain authority to quote; we refused to do it. And have Berlin get right on top of it and stay on it.

All right, sir.

Is Walter on with you?

No, sir. I’m in a private office. [Pauses.] I can get him in here.

I think that I’d do that.

All right. Hold on just a minute, Mr. President. [Pauses.] He’s coming, Mr. President.

Otherwise, it’s quiet up here. I told Pierre this morning that we had good, straight coverage on the Guantànamo news, both on television last night and in the papers this morning.

Just a minute. Here’s Walter. I’ll get on the other line.

Hello?

Yeah. I think, unless you know somebody that did do this with Hearst . . . As I understood it, Deke offered to do it, and you told him not to.

That’s right, and he confirmed that yesterday. In fact he was saying it in context of the fact that “too bad anybody would say that we helped with this because”—

I’d tell him that you understand this morning that Hearst got pangs of conscience that it was offered to them, and so on and so forth. And I think he ought to tell him that it’s never been out of his hands and that he had thought about talking to them about it, and we told him that he couldn’t talk to anybody.

And that we’ve never had the State Department file ourselves, or the Air Force’s file. That all we’ve been told was that this guy was no good. We’ve had a bunch of general statements. And that that is true, that we’ve done that, but we haven’t offered it to Hearst or any other newspapermen. Then I’d call Dick Berlin and tell him to get to the bottom of it, check in to see who his Washington people are that are saying this, without it coming from you. Just tell him what the Secretary of State said this morning, and see if they are figuring on doing something like that—before they do it.

All right.

I’m sure, though, that that’s just being quoted because that’s about what they told you. They told you that Hearst was getting ready to write, that Hearst had been offered it, and they called him and asked him, didn’t they—New York Times?

No, they didn’t tell him that they had been offered it. They told me that New York Times—[Cabell] Phillips[note 6] Phillips was covering the Baker scandal and had written the article in that day’s New York Times critical of the Johnson administration’s handling of the Reynolds file. New York Times, 8 February 1964.—had called Denison [John Denson],[note 7] In January 1963, Denson had been named editor of Hearst’s Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Before that he had been editor of the New York Herald Tribune. Wall Street Journal, 10 January 1963. one of the—their editor in New York—and then later the—

[aside to Moyers] What’s his name, Bill?

—Hearst and had understood that we had talked to them about killing the story. But it had nothing to do with the leaking part of it at all. And that Denison [Denson] didn’t know anything about it and that Hearst denied it.

Well, I’d tell Dick that and tell him to find out if there’s anybody that claims to have done it. We’ve never heard of it. And we don’t have the files, but we do know that he’s a very unsavory character, and they don’t object to Bobby Baker’s unsavoriness coming out, but I guess, anybody that’s against him, it’s terrible.

See if Dick can find out what about it.

All right, sir. He called me yesterday just to visit a little bit and said, “Now if you-all, in light of these calls, if you-all have any further, any questions about anything,” said, “you call me or Eddie [Weisl]. Don’t ever call anybody else.” And I said, Well, “we never have.”

Well, I’d just call him right back and tell him, “Here’s what the Secretary of State said this morning: that Hearst was having pangs of conscience; we’re supposed to have Hearst in and gone over all of this with him, and so on and so forth.”

All right, sir.

But I think that this [unclear] . . . probably just Phillips’s flap following around what he’s heard. And I would imagine, some of the New York Times told Phillips this. I mean, Phillips told some of the folks that told Rusk, don’t you imagine?

I would think so. Now, of course, the Post has got a story on it, and the New York Herald Tribune. I haven’t seen it anywhere else.

Now, what do they use, the same story as Phillips’s?

No, not nearly as complete as Phillips’s. They don’t go into supposed calls made by people in this office as Phillips does.

Say what?

Phillips talks about calls from this office. The Post doesn’t do that. Their headline is, who did the leak? They kind of just [do] a general review. The Herald Tribune is a story quoting Reynolds, in which Reynolds quote . . . said, “Reynolds has changed from the attacked to the attacker and is now accusing the White House of having done this job on him,” and quotes Reynolds as saying he knows it was done by the White House.

The Herald Tribune story is actually the best story of all.

Oh, yes, by far.

See, the Herald Tribune was—This is an interesting fact, Mr. President. The Herald Tribune is one of the papers that asked us—they asked me—for this information. I said, “I don’t have it, and if I had it, I wouldn’t give it to you.”

Well, I’d remind them of that, Bill.

Yes, sir.

And also, their man [Douglas] Kiker asked Dick Nelson to get it for him.[note 8] Kiker was the White House correspondent for the Herald Tribune. He said, “I know that there’s something like that exists.” So Dick came over to dinner where I was, all upset by the call, and said, “What do I do about it?” I said, “Just call him back, and tell him that he can’t have it, and we don’t have it, and we’re not interested in it,” which he did.

And Kiker subsequently told me that he thought we were making a mistake in not getting it and putting it out.

[Pauses.] Well, I imagine I can release nearly anything in any file I want to, can’t I?

You can, Mr. President, but the releasing of personnel files could have a tremendous effect on the government operations and confidence of the people in the government [correcting himself] confidence of the public in the government. You can release anything you want to.

Well, I think we can take the position we can, we haven’t, and [as] a matter of fact, we asked that it not be . . .

[to visitor] Wait a minute, I’m trying to talk, James!

Now, I have not talked to Jerry [Siegel], but Jerry knows better than anybody the extent that I went to to try to keep it from being done.[note 9] Counsel and vice president of the Washington Post, Gerald W Jerry Siegel had worked for Johnson in the Senate. I asked Jerry to even talk to Pearson’s lawyer to talk to his own lawyer to go over it and try to reach a conclusion that it couldn’t be used legally—it was libelous. And Jerry knows that very well. I don’t know whether he’s told that to . . . if anybody.

Well, you ought to call him and tell him that you see where you’re supposed to be leaking it. He knows better than anyone else you didn’t do it and refused to do it. That as a matter of fact, when we heard that Pearson had got it from the Air Force, we expressed the hope that Air Force . . . that he wouldn’t use it.

Any of you have any idea where he got it? Did he get it from Zuckert, you think?

He told me, Mr. President, that he got it from a major, and he said, “I’m not going to tell you who, and I’m just not going to tell you.” But he said, “I got it from a major.” But he said, “I could not have gotten it if it had not been for Zuckert’s help.” Now I don’t know whether he meant the major went to Zuckert or whether the major subsequently told Zuckert and Zuckert said OK.

I have purposely not . . . Well, I talked to Zuckert, but I didn’t ask point-blank because I thought maybe it was better for me not to know.

Does Zuckert know about it?

Oh, yes. He told me that the Secretary of Defense had jumped all over him about it.

What did he say . . . what did he say he had done?

He said the Secretary of Defense had come and talked to him and told him that he was under the impression that it came from there and said that he hoped it hadn’t and had given him the devil about it. And . . .

What did he say?

I don’t believe he said. He said just . . . just said he took it, that’s . . .

Is that where it came from?

Well, I don’t—He did not say that, but I’m sure it did because the things that he had in his column were not in any other file. [It] just had to. The first column.

Pearson showed me what he had from the Air Force, and it was a long, lengthy, thermofaxed copy of what could only be an official file headed by the Department of—United States Air Force, and then lots of this official gobbledygook. I haven’t even seen that until I saw it from him.

I hate it like everything, but it’s kind of hard to get mad at somebody who, even mistakenly, perhaps was trying to be helpful.

Yeah. I think the position I’d take is number twofold with Berlin: that first, we didn’t release it, we didn’t want it released, we didn’t think it was in our interest to publicize the fellow or to recognize him that much. We don’t think so now. We’d have given anything if Pearson hadn’t have run it. Pearson’s libel lawyers called us, and we told them that we hoped it wouldn’t run. And that’s the extent of our knowledge of it.

All right.

I’d tell Berlin that, and I’d tell Jerry that again and tell him he ought to remind his friend Mr. [Al] Friendly that we not only didn’t give it to Pearson, but we didn’t want Pearson to run it.[note 10] Alfred Friendly was executive vice president and managing editor of the Washington Post. Pearson got it from the Air Force, and a major in the Air Force.

Pearson is quoted—

When Pierre told us about it, we told him we hoped it didn’t run.

All right. Pearson is quoted in all the stories this morning with a rather good statement. He says that he absolutely did not get it from the White House and that, further than that, the White House was uncooperative and . . .

Flabbergasted.

Flabber—Well, that was the third statement. That they were uncooperative, and then that they were flabbergasted when they saw what he had—when he showed them what he had.

What story is that quoted in?

That’s in all three: New York—the Phillips, and in the Post, and in the Herald Trib[une].

[Pauses.] Well, maybe Pearson better open up on the Times and the Trib being willing to publish what’s—

He did.

—against Baker but what—Today?

No, no. [Chuckles.] He had a good statement. He said, You know, I’m not surprised that my competitors are upset about this, which implied, you know, that they were really acting because they didn’t get it.

Yeah.

His column—about half of his column’s on it again this morning, though.

What does he say?

About the same thing, just kind of boiled down. It’s from the Air Force file. [Pauses.] He doesn’t comment on the—

What I don’t understand is why people like New York Times and Phillips and the Washington Post would want to protect a guy like Reynolds. They’ve been exposing these types of people all through the government, always. Now, they must have a conspiracy to wreck us, or they wouldn’t be upset about it. And this must have hurt them and hurt them with the committee. Does Reynolds sound like he’s hurt?

Well, everybody that talks to me thinks that he’s hurt. I mean . . . Then I guess I’ve gotten 25 letters in the last two days saying, “Hurrah for Pearson. This ought to end it. Glad they exposed this guy.” Stuff like that.

You better have a long talk with DeLoach and see that he’s following through on all these leads in the State and Air Force file. I asked you to do that yesterday, but I’m afraid you didn’t get to, did you?

No, sir. I’m not sure that I . . .

To talk to DeLoach and just tell him to be sure that there is in the FBI file that Congress will ultimately get all the material that’s in the Air Force file and all the material that’s in the State Department file. And any leads that they can get from it, they ought to interview him about.

All right, sir.

Don’t you agree with that?

Yes, sir, I sure do.

Well, check him and see that he has. See that you stay close to him, Walter, every day.

I do. You know—

Talk to him and—

The director’s [J. Edgar Hoover] coming to lunch on Tuesday.

All right. Tell what . . . Tell him what—Hearst is having pangs of conscience. Say we haven’t talked to him and remember what he said: We’re not going to. But talk to Dick Berlin and Deke DeLoach both about it.

All right, sir.

Mr. President, and Walter, there may be reason not to do this, but I would hope that if at all possible we could avoid saying that this came from the Secretary of State because he doesn’t get into things like this—

All right.

—and he’s doing this, I think, because he really wants to help out.

[Unclear] with that statement.

Yeah, I think so.

I can just say from a reliable high official.

I think that’s coming from across the street, though, and some of this stuff is being brought to him to try to destroy the confidence around among the Cabinet.[note 11] This was possibly a reference to Robert Kennedy and the Justice Department. Because otherwise he wouldn’t be getting it. What purpose would anybody have in going and telling him? Do you follow me?

Yes, sir.

I follow you, yes. They wouldn’t have any purpose, really, because no one would suspect that he would immediately call over here to tell us. He would not be considered a source of information for the White House on matters like this, and so you could make the assumption that therefore, the person who told him had in mind an effort to cause him to not believe in the administration, to lose confidence in us.

Well, I’m . . . This doesn’t disturb me. I’m more worried about the reaction Mr. [Fidel] Castro is going to have.

I’ve asked the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and USIA [United States Information Agency] and [McGeorge] Bundy to call you with anything they get on . . . in terms of how he is reacting, as soon as they get it.

All right. Now . . .

They’re sending down—

I told you, Bill, what to do about that picture, didn’t I? That movie?[note 12] President Johnson was referring to the USIA film portraying the March on Washington.

Yes, sir.

I told somebody what to do.

Yes, sir. You told me.

Did you tell Rusk about it?

Yes, sir. I told the Secretary—

What’d he say?

—about it, and he said that in view of the fact that they sent out this cable, which he thought was a damn good cable, asking the posts to look at it and send their reports, that we would be appear to be hasty if we immediately drew it back. Let them get some of these reports back and then say, “Well, we want to therefore revise the film in light of your comments in the field,” and draw it back.

All right. But it’s not going to be shown?

No, sir. They will not—It will absolutely not be shown until they have requested permission to show it from here and—

All right. All right.

Anything else?

General [C. W] Clifton was in a few minutes ago.[note 13] Clifton was a White House military aide. Said they were planning to send a Jetstar down tomorrow morning with a bunch of papers that Bundy thought ought to get to you, reading material—

Tell him that I’m just shocked that they have two Jetstars down here with this big plane. We just can’t be sending that much stuff.

I didn’t know they had any.

I’m going to be back tomorrow night.

All right.

They have them down there now?

Yeah, I had two here yesterday with me.

The reason—

I only had 26 on my plane.

The reason that he told me they did that, Mr. President, is to get you out to the ranch.

I’ve got a plane here that I can fly out to the ranch in. I can get a helicopter out of San Antonio. And I can drive out here in 30—in an hour anyway, so it’s just outrageous. Just tell him that, Walter.

All right.

Tell him that I just think it’s outrageous to have two Jetstars to fly me down here to fly 50 miles to the ranch. Let’s don’t make an issue out [of] it where it gets in the paper, but let’s just stop that kind of managing.

All right, sir.

Dale Meeks could have met me in my own plane, and Colonel Wright could have brought me up in the helicopter that I fly in all the time.[note 14] These men were pilots for Johnson. Tell him to get this helicopter checked out down here so I can use it.

All right.

Major Wright’s helicopter.

All right. Now . . . On the one that’s supposed to come down tomorrow, I have a reservation on American [Airlines] in the morning, but I thought if it was going anyway . . .

Yeah, that’s all right, you can go in it, although I’m afraid if they do, they’ll be saying we’re coming to the funeral in the plane. But if it’s got to come anyway, why, come on and do it.

Well . . . All right. And . . .

But I think it’d be better if it came this afternoon late.

All right. I’m sure it . . .

They can do that, yes. He said it can go anytime.

Because then it’s got to get stuff that can be acted on because I’ll be back there by the time it gets here almost tomorrow.

That’s good.

All right.

Who’s going to come on it, you and who else?

No one else that I know of.

Then just sit down and have a good story with him about this plane, shipping business. We only had 26 on our plane. Assuming they’ve got to have a backup, that’d be one Jetstar.

All right.

I think the backup could be the newspaper plane.

You don’t—

Don’t you think that Pearson’s denial, then, pretty well answers for us?

I do, although they don’t give it much play: They give it down in the stories.

Bill?

Yes, sir, I do. Although Republicans and critics will say, “Well, of course you’d expect him to deny; that was his source.” But the average man is not going to think that because Pearson’s statement is strong.

Mr. President, I would like to suggest that you really keep pressure on Bundy and Rusk and [John] McCone and others to press forward on what we can do about Cuba, about subversion, espionage, and intelligence.

Now, there are two reasons for this. One: I think we’ve got to do it. It’s necessary. Cuba has to be dealt with.

But second, the Attorney General did not miss any opportunity yesterday, either in the session he had last night in the Cabinet Room or in the Situation Room where we were for two hours before coming in there, to say, “You know, we’re slapping at gnats. The big problems are subversion and the training of guerrillas for Africa. Nobody’s giving any thought to that. Nobody seems to be concerned about it. Nobody seems to be interested in it, and nobody seems to be able to come up with policy on it.”[note 15] The recent pro-Communist overthrow of the traditional Arab-led government in Zanzibar had been particularly troubling because of reports that the leaders of the coup had been trained by Castro forces. A month earlier the New York Times had reported that a group calling themselves the Fidelistas had been training insurgents. New York Times, 14 January 1964.

And if we don’t keep active on this, sooner or later we’re going to start getting some newspaper stories saying that the President is more interested in gnats than he is the big problem and that—

Well, tell Bundy that, and just tell him that, to appoint he and Bundy and somebody in the State Department—the three of them—to come up and see what we do about this subversion.

All right, sir.

Tell them I want the Attorney General and Bundy and somebody from the State Department—maybe Averell Harriman, whoever Rusk wants to designate.

All right, sir.

To get to work on and see what we do about this exportation of subversion from Cuba.

All right, sir.

And also tell Bundy that I want to really press them again, along the line of that wire, and see what they’ve got to report on our offensive out there.

All right, sir.

In Vietnam.[note 16] On 16 January 1964 Johnson had approved OPLAN 34A, which was designed to gradually escalate action against North Vietnam.

All right, sir.

Now, this is just an idea that’s just come to me: If you—

Do those two things, now, by . . . conversation that you keep this morning.

Right. If you want the appearance of staying in closer touch with Cuba and of staying on top of the situation, you might, since the plane’s coming down, ask Bundy to come. That’s my—

That’s what I was going to say—

That’s my suggestion, not his. He’s not looking for a trip.

Well, I’d ask him if he’d like to come and bring his wife and stay all night and talk to me about it.

All right, sir.

Say it’s got to come anyway, and why doesn’t he bring his wife, come down and go to church with us, and come back tomorrow?

All right, sir.

If she wants to come, do you have any objection to my bringing Marjorie or—[note 17] Marjorie was Jenkins’s wife.

No. No, I don’t know—

She felt awfully close to Louise [Kellam]. I think maybe we ought to come commercial, but I think we’ll . . . I think she may come.

No. No, I think that’s all right if you-all come late. Anything else?

No, sir.

All right, get those three things to him then. Number one, let Bobby and them study the exportation of subversion. See what you can get from General [Nguyen] Khanh.[note 18] Khanh had led the successful coup of late January in South Vietnam. Get a report from out there on it.

All right, sir.

And three, tell him [Bundy] to come down here.

All right, sir.

And let’s don’t be defensive or explain this to anybody or say anything, except Walter gets hold of Deke DeLoach right away and gets him over there and gets hold of Dick Berlin, wherever he is, and tell him what they’re putting out. New York Times is spreading it all around.

All right, sir.

OK.

See you later.

All right, sir. [Moyers hangs up.]

Now, Walter?

Yes, sir.

What you better do is type me up a statement. Just say that we have heard from . . . that there are government . . . there are official sources that claim that this fellow is [Joseph] McCarthy’s man, and [Pat] McCarran’s man, and that his record is not good, and two or three general statements about his record, so I can have that as a memo that I’ve been looking at.[note 19] McCarthy, Republican senator from Minnesota from 1947 to 1957, chaired the Senate’s Committee on Governmental Operations and led a famous crusade to ferret out undesirables from the government. Pat McCarran, Republican senator from Nevada from 1933 to 1954, had sponsored internal security legislation in the early 1950s and, in 1951, held hearings about subversive activities in the entertainment industry.

All right, sir.

Put that in my inside desk drawer.

All right.

Two-page memo.

All right, sir.

Doesn’t have to be too full, but just kind of a rewrite, but doesn’t quote anybody.

Right. Just from me.

I just . . . I wouldn’t say from anyone.

All right.

Just say the rumor is and gossip is. Then I’d say Pearson—Jerry Siegel called and asked for this, and here’s what he was told and . . . But that there is basis for this stuff: that he’s [Reynolds is] not a good, honorable character and the Air Force hasn’t turned over the stuff—did the Air Force ever turn over to the committee afterwards what they had?

No. They were going to, and then they got to reading the regulations, and they found out that they could not do so without your permission, and they went up and showed it to the committee, privately to [L. P.] McLendon, so that he’d know about it because they had furnished him wrong information earlier.[note 20] McLendon was counsel for the Senate Rules Committee.

Well, why didn’t we give them permission and let them furnish it all?

Well, I just don’t think that came up, and this was done at Abe’s [Fortas] suggestion, instead of having them give it to the committee, that we have them show it to them.

Well, I wonder if we don’t want to have McLendon ask for any information that State and FBI and others [have] on Reynolds and let it be furnished. Ask Abe about that today. I think—

I will. At that—

—that’s what ought to be happening.

At that time he didn’t think we ought to be giving permission for derogatory information about him at all.

I think we ought to give permission [for] anything the committee wants. I think if [William] Whitley will ask us for it, that’s the best way out of it.

All right.

And I think the Air Force and the FBI and State ought to be asked for everything they’ve got on Reynolds, and we ought to be asked if we’ve got anything, and we ought to be told we don’t have anything. All we have is rumors and columnists and newspapermen trying to obtain information, but we don’t have it.

All right, sir.

And we’ve never asked for the files. Have we asked for the files?

[definitively] No, sir.

All right. Let’s don’t ask for them. OK.

All right, sir.