Transcript
Edited by Kent B. Germany and David C. Carter, with Ashley Havard High and Patricia Dunn
See the daily introduction for 1964-06-23 [from the Norton edition]
Johnson began phoning parents with the news that the FBI had found no bodies in the burned car. Anne Schwerner had not accompanied her husband, Nathan, to the meeting with the President earlier in the day. Johnson reached her at home in Pelham, New York.
Mrs. Schwerner?[note 1] 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.
Hello, President Johnson.
Are you the mother of the—
Of Michael.
Yes. We have received word from Mr. [J. Edgar] Hoover that the investigation in the car indicates that there were no people in the car, and that it’s very likely that none of them were burned as could have been possible under the early information.
Yes, thank you.
And I have talked to the governor [Paul B. Johnson Jr.] there, and he is making all the facilities of the state available in the search. And they have seen some tracks leaving the car.
Yes.
And they’re going to try to continue. We’re flying people in from the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] tonight, and I just wanted you to know that, and that was a little hope that we didn’t have earlier, and I thought that we would enjoy it as long as we could.
[emotionally] Thank you so much, President Johnson. I appreciate this. Thank you very much.
Thank you, ma’am.
[emotionally] Thank you.
Bye.[note 2] End of 2021 revisions.
Cite as
“Lyndon Johnson and Anne Schwerner on 23 June 1964,” Tape WH6406.16, Citation #3882, Presidential Recordings Digital Edition [Mississippi Burning and the Passage of the Civil Rights Act, vol. 8, ed. Kent B. Germany and David C. Carter] (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014–). URL: http://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/9080047
Originally published in
Lyndon B. Johnson: Mississippi Burning and the Passage of the Civil Rights Act, June 23, 1964–July 4, 1964, ed. Kent B. Germany and David C. Carter, vol. 8 of The Presidential Recordings (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2011).