Who did you tell on Secret Service we was going?

The only man, Floyd Boring, the only one I talked to.

Who is Floyd Boring?

He is one of Jim Rowley’s men on the White House detail.[note 1] James J. Rowley served as chief of the United States Secret Service. President Johnson despised the Secret Service’s encroachments on his freedom of movement. Transcript, Marie Fehmer Chiarodo Oral History Interview III, 8/16/1972, by Michael L. Gillette, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, p. 5.

All right. See if you can get the son of a bitch on the phone here. Those bastards, I’m going to have to quit telling you I’m going [unclear]—

Mr. Boring?

Yes, sir.

Why in the hell do I have to be humiliated by giving y’all a day’s notice I’m going to New York? You’ve had the mayor announce up there publicly now that I’m going.

Oh, my God [unclear]—

And I’m not going to tell you a goddamn thing because y’all can’t keep a secret, you’ve got to tell every cop in the world. Now, I’m going to start leaving at 4:30 in the afternoon if you keep doing me this way.

All right, sir.

I just—How do you expect me to operate? The mayor got up and made a public speech today at lunch announcing my arrival in New York. And I told Jack Valenti to tell you–all and keep it just as confidential as you can.

I know that, sir.

Well, call the chief of police up there and tell him you damn near got fired on account of it.

All right, I certainly will, sir.

And just tell him that we cannot do it, and if he wants to keep us out of New York, keep out. And quit announcing how many men he’s assigning to me.

All right sir, I’ll do that.

It’s causing trouble all over the country, and I’m just going to get a law passed or something that, by God, will make it a felony for you fellows to tell this.

All right, sir.

I give you a little notice and then you, by God, you just go wild: You’ll have 5,000 up there standing man–to–man with a gun [unclear] and drawn. And it’s the damnedest disgrace I ever saw with all those little tin soldiers lined up there. I asked Bob Wagner the other day, “Why have you got 200 men here at a helicopter? [Pauses.] They’re liable to fall down and let a gun go off and kill themselves.” But now, when he gets up and starts announcing it in a public speech because I wanted y’all to have a chance to tell your wife or get a suitcase tonight—

Yes, sir; yes, sir.

—if you need it. And then you–all go tell them, and then they tell the mayor, and the mayor tells the world.

I’m going to call—

So I’m going to try to cancel my trip out. Tell him there’s nothing definite on it at all and that I’m in the humor of not going at all if you have to tell him.

I’m sorry this happened—

And you just—well, you just tell him—I’m sorry too, but it keeps happening. This is not the first time.[note 2] For earlier examples of Johnson’s irritation with the Secret Service, see Johnson to James Rowley, 3:32 p.m. and 5:05 p.m., 13 May 1964, in McKee, The Presidential Recordings, Johnson, vol. 6, April 14, 1964–May 31, 1964, pp. 630–32, 669–70.

Yes, sir . . . yes, sir.

Last time they had 5,000—they gave out an announcement—5,000 police to guard me. I don’t want stuff like that. [Hangs up.]

Yes, sir.