Flashback: Yes, Johnson Did Speak to the Nation Before the State of the Union: On Nov. 28, 1963 before Joint Session—But it Was Brief. Hubert Decides on 4-Pronged Strategy to Pass Civil Rights.

[More than 50 years of politics written for my kids and grandchildren].

Michael Miner of “The Reader” wrote to this website and said that as a young University of Missouri journalism student he is sure he saw Lyndon Johnson speak to the nation from a joint session shortly after the Kennedy assassination. I mentioned that Hubert convinced Johnson not to take up the flow of the nation’s business in an address but wait for the State of the Union occasion on the following January 8. Actually both Michael and I are right.

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Johnson’s craven sycophants, Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers, wanted to justify their existence as bootlickers by urging Johnson to take the reins immediately and stamp an indelible impress on the presidency by speaking with an air of command from the Oval Office. They wanted him to address the nation, express great sorrow but impact an unique Johnson imprimatur on the legislative agenda which had languished under Kennedy—particularly civil rights and the tax cuts with the Oval Office as site. It was this that Humphrey argued against saying that the time to unfurl new energy on the legislative agenda should be made in the arena where Johnson was most noted—at the State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. But it was obvious, and Hubert agreed, that Johnson would have to make some public presentation of the change in command in a speech to the nation. The sycophants wanted it to be made in an address from the Oval Office. This Hubert fought to the limit of his energy. He said that Johnson should avoid an Oval Office speech since the contrast between Kennedy’s presentations and Johnson’s would be so great. Hubert stressed that Johnson should go to a special joint session of Congress and speak from the rostrum in the House to show him in a usual congressional setting. Johnson agreed with Hubert and disagreed with Valenti and Moyers on these matters.

While Johnson occupied the Oval Office (as he had every right to do) he did a lot of work at his home in northwest Washington called “The Elms.” As a matter of fact he is recorded on tape as saying that his secretarial staff was making so much noise behind him while he was on the phone that he threatened to go to The Elms where he could use the phone and work without clatter. It was at The Elms on Tuesday night, Nov. 26 that he gathered with Hubert and his private lawyer and trusted confidant, Abe Fortas and worked on his speech to the Congress that was to be delivered the next day. Hubert and Fortas and Johnson finished the speech at 2 a.m. on the 27th. Hubert insisted that Johnson refer to his more than 30 years in the Congress so as to give the nation confidence that an experienced hand was on the tiller. And it was Hubert’s contribution to add the words which became famous for its calm and resolve: “Let us continue.”

The pertinent parts of the speech were masterfully written (with the exception of the windup), showing that in addition to all his other talents, Hubert was quite a speech-writer as well.

Pertinent parts: “All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today. The greatest leader of our time has been struck down by the foulest deed of our time…For thirty-two years, Capitol Hill has been my home…In this moment of new resolve, I would say: Let us continue….NO memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long…No act of ours could more fittingly continue the work of President Kennedy than the early passage of the tax bill for which he fought all this long year….I profoundly hope that the tragedy and the torment of these terrible days will bind us together in new fellowship, making one people in our hour of sorrow.”

The end strikes me as lachrymose because it is such a direct steal from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and it still rings tinny.

It goes: “ So let us here highly resolve that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not live—or die—in vain.” Awful.

Hubert’s 4-Pronged Civil Rights Strategy.

Johnson did his wheeling and dealing in some personal meetings and on the phone as captured on tape and in the book “Taking Charge” with editing and commentaries by Michael Beschloss, but the real lobbying and draftsmanship was done by Hubert day-to-day…and could only be done by someone in long personal meetings. In January, 1964, Hubert rapidly outlined four qualities that the drive must have. First, passage by the House of the civil rights bill (which was done rather duplicitously since a good number of the conservative House members were assured that the conservatives in the Senate would “take care” of the issue and see it would not be passed.

Second, civil rights proponents in the Senate should be bipartisan—none of this stuff of the Democrats running away with the ball even though they controlled the Congress. For that reason, Illinois’ Wizard of Ooze, Everett Dirksen would have to be consulted—and not just consulted but allowed to take a major part.

Third, the Senate proponents would have to be well organized. They would have to see that at least 51 senators would be present during the debates to satisfy the need for a quorum.

Fourth, Hubert would have to see to it that the southerners were accommodated whenever possible on procedural matters.

With the Senate preparing to consider civil rights in March, Hubert decided to get away for a brief vacation. In the back of his mind as always was the thought that he could be chosen by Johnson for vice president later that year. In fact Johnson hinted broadly at it and told Hubert to organize a brains trust and take soundings. A brains trust was set up to meet frequently at Hubert’s home, composed of Max Kampelman, Bill Connell, a Hubert staffer, Ted Van Dyk, a 29-year-old public affairs officer for the European Common Market; Dr. Evron Kirkpatrick (Jeane’s husband, now director of the American Political Science Association; former interior secretary Oscar Chapman; Joe Rauh, Jr. vice chairman of ADA and Charles Brown, manager of Stuart Symington’s 1960 presidential operation. They decided that Hubert’s rival would have to be Bobby Kennedy and decided that by no means were they to be regarded as an anti-Kennedy group.

Hubert decided to take a brief vacation with Muriel in Bermuda before the big civil rights imbroglio would begin in the Senate. The brains trust ruled that he should go instead to Jamaica (“it’s the same sun, after all” said Kampelman) where the ambassador was Bill Dougherty, a former president of the postal workers union and close pal of AFL-CIO president George Meany. Dougherty arranged for Hubert to stop in Miami Beach on his way home and confer with Meany at the AFL-CIO executive council at the Americana Hotel. He was then invited to partake in the council’s secret strategy session where he filled the members in on foreign and domestic issues for 45 minutes—the only politician ever to do so. Al Barkan the political brains of the outfit, the head of COPE (the Council on Political Education) told Hubert, “Maybe I’m speaking out of turn since the AFL-CIO doesn’t take an official position during a pre-campaign but if I had my druthers I’d say it would be a great thing to have you on the ticket.” Later Meany was to pass the word privately as his views also.

Back in Washington Hubert conferred with President Johnson who for the first time directly alluded to the vice presidency, saying “if I had my choice, I’d like to have you as my vice president.” These were almost the same words Adlai Stevenson used to Hubert almost ten years earlier. Johnson sorely remembered when he lived under the Kennedys’ domination as vice president and wanted to be free of them—especially from Bobby whom he learned to despise. Yet on the other hand he feared eliminating Bobby from consideration because it would risk losing support from minority groups, Eastern liberals and Catholics. Of this the group he worried about most was Catholics who for a short time were so gratified to have one of their own as president.

Gene Toying Delicately with Connally.

At the same time, Gene McCarthy was perceiving Johnson’s dilemma about Catholics. So Gene responded with alacrity when he was approached by none other than John Connally. Connally believed Hubert would be poison for the ticket—too liberal, too antagonistic to the South and also a non-Catholic. Gene privately conspired with Connally and told the Texan that yes, indeed, Hubert was too liberal and moreover too strident about it. Betrayal of Humphrey enabled Gene to get even for Hubert’s not taking a pro-McCarthy position when in 1958 Gene was tussling with Eugenie Anderson for the nomination. Getting even is all you need to know about Gene McCarthy.

So at Gene’s immaculately subtle persuasion, Connally “came up with the idea” of McCarthy on the ticket: a Catholic, close to the South and to the oil depletion allowance boys and not carrying the old civil rights baggage Hubert did. As all intelligence in Washington gets around, Hubert soon became aware of McCarthy’s finagling around with Connally for vice president. But he couldn’t spend time worrying about that now since the big civil rights battle in the Senate was about to begin.

Hubert Runs the Civil Rights Show.

The Senate debate opened on March 9, 1964. To try to head off a filibuster although he knew it was coming, Hubert put on his Sunday face and faced the southern senators. He said, “We will join with you in debating this bill. Will you join with us in voting…after the debate has been concluded? Will you permit the Senate and in a sense the nation to come to grips with these issues and decide them one way or the other?” The request fell upon deaf ears and Georgia’s Richard Russell managed the filibuster. It began on March 30, the day after Easter—a filibuster that would last 57 days. Russell argued the bill was unconstitutional, that it would clap “dictatorial police powers” to the federal government. He decided there would be no compromise and called for the defeat of the bill in its entirety.

As Russell and the other southerners charged that the role of the Senate was being stage-managed in a backroom with Hubert, Dirksen and Bobby Kennedy, that was exactly what was taking place. I talked with Dirksen staffers later, who were in the backroom which took the form of a tough negotiation between management and a union. For accommodation sake the first meeting was in Dirksen’s office to give prominence to the Republican leader’s role in the negotiations.

I would like to suggest, said Hubert as they sipped coffee, “that we ourselves keep from submitting amendments at this time. We’re going to have enough amendments submitted from the floor and we have to save ourselves for consultation when these amendments are submitted to see if we can live with them or not. Bobby Kennedy agreed.

Well the hell with that, said Dirksen. I’ll be godamned if I’m going to be a part of a boilerplate operation. I’ll tell you right now that I have seventy amendments that we’ll have to thrash out right here or I’ll get up right now and say the hell with it.

No-no, I didn’t mean—Hubert began. Bobby gave him the high sign that the game would be lost if the Dirksen amendments were not to be discussed. So they were. All the while Russell and others were on the floor hollering that the fix was in and that a small group was trying to ramrod it through—which was exactly the truth.

Dirksen’s amendments dealt almost entirely with enforcements by the Justice Department. He wanted lax enforcement and they were handed over to Bobby to look at. Dirksen and Bobby had a strange relationship. Bobby must have seen in Dirksen something of his own father because the amendments seemed to be much tougher for Hubert to swallow than Bobby who would lose a lot of power if the Dirksen amendments were to be adopted.

I’ll tell you, said Hubert after old Everett wheezed his way through the amendments, we gotta get a substitute bill. The substitute was run by Lyndon who didn’t like to do it but Hubert told him that it was either this way or no way. Hubert got hold of Dirksen but Dirksen gave him the same story. So the substitute bill was written. The main thing was that the Justice Department would be held back from intervening only unless there was “a pattern or practice” of discrimination and even then only after one who claimed he was being discriminated against would take it to the newly created Community Relations Service of the Justice Department and the EEOC both. And only after that as a last resort to the court.

If we do this, Hubert told Dirksen, we’re counting on you to round up enough Republican votes for cloture (ending the filibuster). Dirksen said he could. Dirksen was the best nose-counter in the Senate.

Hubert’s Personal Anxiety.

At that point Hubert was called away to an emergency phone call. It was Muriel. Their son Robert had been diagnosed with cancer of the lymph glands. He would have to go immediately to the Mayo Clinic where doctors would determine if they could knock out the cancer by chemo or would have to resort to an operation.

Hubert told very few about this. He calculated that this might be taken by Dirksen—a crafty negotiator—as a sign of weakness and the old man would press home his advantage (Dirksen was not known as a sentimentalist in negotiations).

While Hubert fretted and was unable to go home to be with his son, the substitute bill which won over dissident Republican votes was introduced on May 26, the day before Hubert’s 53rd birthday. He cut a birthday cake in Dirksen’s office and another one in his own office. He was unusually sober and haggard. He said he felt like he was 103 but he didn’t let on to his staff or anyone around him why he was worried. Dirksen took it that Hubert was worried over the bill.

Johnson was so tied up with other matters including what to do with Vietnam, that Hubert set the date to pull the plug on the filibuster—June 10. Hubert was working in his office the night before the cloture vote when Johnson called him and asked how many votes he had to shut off the protracted debates. Hubert said he had only 66—one shy of the required two-thirds majority. Johnson lectured him like a truant kid. Hubert finally had enough, being treated like a serf and burdened with worries about his son. So he told the 36th president that he could execute an impossible biological act upon himself and hung up. Right after that he got word from Dirksen who was working late in his own office that Dirksen had rounded up two more votes—Hickenlooper of Iowa and Williams of Delaware. Hubert called Johnson and the two made up. Johnson said that after this was over, Hubert ought to take some time off with his family.

Yes, Hubert thought, with the family. Here I’m not even home when all this is going on.

In the middle of all this, he talked to his son Robert on the phone. Robert was told he had to have an operation at Mayo. Robert said, “Dad, I guess I’ve had it.” Hubert almost passed out. He had been told by physicians at Mayo that Robert’s chances were good. He put on his old ebullient Hubert act and talked to the boy for an hour, expressing a vow that he would recover and what they would do when he got out of the hospital.

Then he hung up, terribly guilty that he wasn’t with his boy. He closed the door, told his secretary he was not to be disturbed, put his forehead down on his desk and wept.

At 11 a.m. the next morning, exactly the first anniversary of Kennedy introducing the civil rights bill and almost 16 years after Hubert’s civil rights speech to the Democratic National convention, the buzzers sounded and everybody rushed to the floor to vote. Hubert sat in the front row next to Mansfield and Harry Byrd. The longest filibuster in Senate history ended with a 71 to 29 vote for cloture.

Hubert couldn’t leave because he didn’t want to blow it. Nine days later on the night of June 19, 1964 the Senate approved the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 by vote of 73 to 27.

The night after the vote, Hubert flew to Minnesota to be with his son. The son recovered and was pronounced in good shape. On July 2 Hubert was back in Washington to witness the signing of the bill by Johnson.

At the signing, Johnson looked over his shoulder at Hubert who was crying out of nervous exhaustion and said: “This is for Hubert without whom it couldn’t have happened.”

But the dilemma for Johnson still existed. Whether to swallow hard and run with Bobby Kennedy, thus retaining the eastern liberals and Catholics, or to free himself of the Kennedy burden and pick Hubert, risking war with the South and alienation of the Catholics or to go with Gene McCarthy, which would likely mean keeping the Catholics, losing a bit of the eastern liberals but salvaging what remained of the Southern conservatives. Johnson began to ponder this seriously. Hubert started to get his old anxiety attacks and Gene? He just kept ambling around making under-his-breath wisecracks about Hubert and his penchant for emotionalism.

Personal Asides: Frank Nofsinger Deserves His Name in Bold-Face…Was--and is--Jim Thompson Blackmailed by Old George?...Fred Thompson’s Error…National Security will be the Key to the Election.

Frank Nofsinger.

Frank Nofsinger, a man I’ve never met, yet whom I regard as a very good friend—who lives in Connecticut—deserves to have his name emblazoned in bold-face because he answered the trivia question first yesterday morning, identifying the lyrics of a song correctly as “Mockingbird Hill.” Congratulations, Frank!

Jim Thompson.

If Jim Thompson isn’t and hasn’t been held under intellectual duress by Old George, he is the latest reincarnation of Mother Teresa—spending…what?...$20 million from his law firm on “pro-bono” defense…losing its chairmanship as a partial result…with his fellow partners taking cuts in their bonuses—all because of his undying fealty to George Ryan? Anyone who knows Thompson understands that’s not so.

And if you believe that there is no threat hanging over Big Jimbo’s head you are a naïf in Illinois politics, my friend. Either that or a slave to political correctness.

Fred Thompson.

Fred Thompson is all-thumbs where it comes to presidential politics. He’s made an effort to capture social conservatives but comes out strongly against a constitutional amendment banning abortion. All of us pro-lifers know that passage of a constitutional amendment, given the state of the culture these days, is extremely unlikely. But you mean to tell me that a nation which seriously considered—and narrowly defeated—the ERA would regard this propose amendment as outside the ball park? This leaves only two bona fide pro-lifers as serious contenders—Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Ron Paul is against adding a pro-life amendment.

Of the two, I pick Mitt. He’s my first choice anyhow.

National Security.

Far be it from me to suggest the Republicans are a shoo-in to win the presidency again—but I’ll tell you these things which I think are unassailably true:

o The Democrats have just about the weakest selection of candidates they have fielded since William G. McAdoo, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and James M. Cox fought it out at the convention in 1920 i.e. Woodrow Wilson’s son-in-law who was treasury secretary, his AG who was a Red-baiter and an Ohio newspaper publisher who had been governor. They picked Cox for the nomination. Today’s Democrats have a former First Lady who has intolerably high negatives, running ahead of her Democratic competitors but with a lot of negatives in the general election…a stripling, frosh senator who everybody seems to agree needs seasoning…an ex-senator from North Carolina who is a filthy rich trial attorney but who keeps prattling about two nations rich and poor, playing the age-old class warfare card while living in a mansion and getting $700 haircuts…a New Mexico governor who as UN ambassador tried to find a job for Monica Lewinsky to get her out of Washington…and a space cadet (Kucinich) who actually saw a UFO. The only reason the Drive-By media don’t picture them this way is that they’re hopelessly biased.



o National security is the odds-on favorite to be the central topic of the next election and only Hillary has a reasonable approach to it.



o The far-left Internet bloggers are the kiss of death for the Democrats because the party is forced to skew itself far left to try to appeal to them.



o The funny thing is: the country is ripe for change. It sorely wants a change. It’s fed up with George W. Bush. But the Democrats don’t give them a decent alternative. That’s a tragedy for this country because the Republicans are clearly wearying in governance. But until and unless the Left is driven out of the Democratic party, it appears there is no alternative.

Personal Asides: Good Question—How Long did Jackie Keep on Living in the White House?...Also Another Trivial Song Test (Turn Off Your Search Engines).

How Long?

Mike Miner of “The Reader,” brings up a good point that you will see in Reader’s Comments to “Flashback” two days ago… viz how long did Jackie Kennedy stay in the White House after the assassination of JFK? That’s not really my priority interest since I am writing about LBJ and Hubert but it’s still very interesting and I don’t have the time to research it. I have faith that blogger readers know all the answers—and this would be visible proof. Of course LBJ worked in the Oval Office but didn’t move into the living quarters for quite some time. Someone in the reading public out there may either know it or have bumped in to the fact.

In answer to some of your questions on this phase of Flashback (Hubert and Gene) here’s how I write it. They are drawn from

o My own memories and conversations over the years with those who were there—interviews with Hubert and Gene, with staffers who were part of their entourage.



o Which memories and yarns I check with books on Hubert and LBJ but most notably “Almost to the Presidency” by my old friend Albert Eisele (a former St. John’s grad who became press secretary to Walter Mondale and later editor of “The Hill” newspaper which covers the Capitol.



Trivial Lyrics.

I’m going to follow my old friend Frank Nofsinger’s advice and take a bit of a break from history stuff for a few days and do some inconsequential blogging. As per this. For the old people like me, here is a song that was first recorded by Burl Ives in 1951 but made very popular by Les Paul and Mary Ford (Les Paul is still alive today at age 92 and playing guitar in a Manhattan saloon). See if you can fill in these lyrics from memory. Plus the title. First one in with the answer gets his/her name recorded in bold type.

When the sun in the morning/

Peeps over the hill/

And kisses the roses/

Round my ____________

Then my heart fills with gladness/

When I hear the trill/

Of the birds in the treetops/

On __________________.

Tra la la, ______________/

It gives me a thrill/

To wake up in the morning.

To the ______________ /

Tra la la_______________

There’s peace and good _____/

You’re welcome as the _____/

On ___________________.

Personal Asides: Prelates Above Criticism?…Ex-Gov. Ryan Goes to Oxford.

The Cardinal.

Those who read this website know that I have been occasionally high—even effusive--in my praise of Francis Cardinal George and then quite critical. In the view of two readers whom I do not know…Houghton Mathetes and Patricia Tryon…praise for the Cardinal must be unalloyed. If I chafe at no response from Superior street to the DePaul University sanction of homosexual advocacy, they say it is unfair because, who knows, perhaps there is some negotiation to return DePaul to Catholicity in the works. Yeah and perhaps not. We have lived too long seeing the dilatory effects of letting things slide to take that on faith. Where we are in the Church today is illustrative of the fact that there has been lamentable laxity—and it is well for laity to keep the pressure on.

For them and some others, then, reading these posts will be a trial since I do not share their absolution of bishops from wrongdoing. If one is to be a clericalist, I tend to be deferential to such models as Mother Teresa, Padre Pio and Francis of Assisi rather than swing incense burners at the sight of miters and crosiers. Perhaps if more people in Boston had put the heat on Bernard Cardinal Law for flagrant laxity in failing to punish pedophiles, he would not be in Rome where he is in charge of inspecting the Dewey decimal system in the Vatican library. And then we get to Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco who dispensed the Eucharist to “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”—a group of vividly painted male transvestites who had invaded the cathedral to mock the sacrament, as all but evidently he was aware. That he is still presiding without a peep from Rome or any domestic chancery says something. The old boys’ bishop club still trumps any lay criticism. Niederauer is the worst of quite a few. And the litany of weak archbishops goes back to, and much earlier than, Thomas Cranmer.

No, this is not to link Cardinal George with these examples. But it is not the foolish whim of this site that he or any other prelate get a free pass when the Church is engulfed in disastrous scandal due precisely to laxity of administration and failure to run seminaries effectively here and across the country.

Anyhow, don’t be misled that this Cardinal doesn’t acquit himself well in the invective department--as I, who have felt the sting of archdiocesan lash, can demonstrate through unflattering second-hand name-calling and third-hand threats. So Mr. Mathetes and Ms. Tryon, you are welcome to read and comment and take issue--but don’t think this site exists to be unduly deferential to ecclesiastical dilatoryness when there are ample illustrations to go around.

Ryan to Oxford.

It is too much to ask, as Carol Marin did the other day, that George Ryan express remorse for the briberies that happened on his watch that caused at least one illegal immigrant trucker to become involved in an accident that burned six children alive—an accident that may not have happened had secretary of state personnel on Ryan’s watch not been on the take. Ryan leaves for jail today having said with masterly command of English “I was screwed.” As were the people to whom he repeatedly misled to win the governorship—saying he was pro-life and then pulling the Halloween mask off and saying he is pro-abort…saying he opposed expansion of O’Hare and then falling in love with his consort Richard Daley…saying he favored the death penalty and then granting clemency to the entire death row fraternity in a desperate attempt to seduce blacks who may serve on his jury…going to Cuba to ingratiate himself with Dictator Castro so as to influence the Nobel Prize committee which might get him off the hook.

The poet Francis Thompson in “The Hound of Heaven” concluded that one so desperate to flee righteous falls into this trap: “All things betrayest me who betrayest Thee.”

Like all miscreants, Ryan deserved a defense but the fact that Jim Thompson has become such a front man in the name of rectifying “injustice” is hard to take. Hopes that Thompson would have been a reform governor died early in his four terms. And the expectation that he would be a valued ex-governor using his great intellectual talents in the law were misplaced as well. Thompson chose to be not just a lobbyist but one who accepted all manner of cases including the Wirtz liquor deal that sullied the legislative process. Ryan’s jailing today closes a portion of that tawdry chapter.

Personal Asides: Thanks to a Reader Who Refreshes My Shaky Memory on “Flashback”… Let Me Take You Back to the Days When Things Were Really Black for Republicans.

Reader Refreshes.

Thanks very much to reader Dan Arquilla who was smart enough to catch this doddering old man’s confused memory…so I have had the opportunity to correct the draft and not mislead my kids.

I wrote about Sam Rayburn disagreeing with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dan brilliantly points out that Speaker Sam died in 1961, hence he was not a factor. As I was pounding this stuff out on the computer late one night I got confused and mixed Rayburn’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, a largely formless bit of fru-fru passed during the Eisenhower administration. Actually, the weak so-called “voting rights” act was conceived of by all people, Sen. Dick Russell of Georgia, a segregationist, as a ploy to give his boy, segregationist Lyndon Johnson some standing as majority leader with the hope and foreknowledge that the bill will come to naught. I was working in the House then and I became confused with the 1957 attitude of Speaker Sam who was against the bill but who was convinced to allow it to pass. And his southern cracker banter with Judge Smith and segregationist Bill Colmer of Mississippi I…in an exhibit of senility…allowed to pass into the 1964 act. John McCormack of Massachusetts was the Speaker in 1964 and he was for civil rights. My deepest thanks to Dan Arquilla. I have redone the portion of “Flashback” that deals with that and have restored Speaker McCormack to his rightful position.

I’m writing this at exactly midnight Monday and I notice that my friend Michael Miner has a comment about Lyndon’s going on TV. Frankly I’m too bushed to research it. Pardon, if you please, the doddering of 79-year-old…and I’ll get back to Michael Miner tomorrow. TR

Black Days in the White House.

Every day when I hear how terrible things are going for Republicans and that they are bound to lose the presidency, I think back to where they were really in trouble…and what happened in defiance of all predictions.

It was the odd-numbered year before the presidential election. We had a two-term president in all kinds of trouble. There was a newly reinvigorated Democratic Congress causing a pack of troubles for the Republicans. There was a pack of Republicans running for the presidency, clawing each other, knifing each other and steering away from praising the incumbent president because of the troubles he had gotten himself into.

The Republican two-term incumbent in severe trouble was Ronald Reagan whose administration had just been adjudged by the International Court of Justice to have illegally sold arms to Iran to fund the “Contras” in Nicaragua. Bribing terrorists with arms, something Reagan had vowed he would never, ever do. Iran-Contra became the biggest governmental scandal of the century in 1987, a year before the GOP would have to run again to try to hold on to the presidency.

The national security director, Robert (Bud) McFarlane resigned and the next national security director, John Poindexter vowed to get to the bottom of the mess. Then as a private citizen, McFarland tried to commit suicide by an overdose of Valium—an inept way to do it if you’re going to do it.

Wriggling to get off the hook, Reagan professed ignorance of the plot and called for an Independent Counsel to investigate. But it turned out that Reagan wasn’t ignorant of the plot or deal at all. While the arms sales and hostage releases were going on, the president signed an official “finding’ authorizing the actions. His credibility disintegrated—and Reagan’s credibility had been the single most important political asset belonging to the Republican party.

White House lawyers wrung their hands. By signing the “finding” Reagan had become, in international terms, a criminal. The high court found that this country had violated international law in Nicaragua and transgressed the rule that one country not intervene in the affairs of other countries.

The “New York Times,” the “Washington Post” and TV networks piled on, giving the story Superbowl-style coverage. It dominated the headlines just as Reagan’s term was winding down. Desperately, Reagan named what was known as “the Tower Commission,” headed by Texas senator John Tower, to probe the scandal. The president wenon television and said no arms were traded for hostages. But he was either wrong or lying or hopelessly confused. As the oldest president he was always under attack for losing his mental acuity anyhow.

Afterward it was discovered that despite what Reagan had said, Oliver North, Reagan’s assistant national security director and his secretary Fawn Hall had shredded pertinent documents. The nation asked: Is Reagan out of the loop or lying? Then the second national security director, Poindexter, resigned. Jittery, the 76-year-old president appeared before the Tower Commission and wilted under questioning by the commission’s special investigator, Dan Webb of Chicago who had been appointed by Reagan as District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Reagan’s answers were so jumbled, his memory so faulty that the media spread the word he was either senile or lying—or both. Later it developed that he was under the influence of pain medication which he had to take because of an operation for cancer.

All these things were shrouding the upcoming presidential election at which the Republicans were not given a chance. Again—it was 1987, just a year before election, just as I write this in November, 2007 it is almost exactly a year to the day before voters choose the next president.

The Tower commission filed its report which skewered the Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger. It pulled no punches on Reagan either, saying he bore “ultimate responsibility” for the wrongdoing by his aides. It said his administration evidenced “secrecy, deception and disdain for the law.” It severely criticized the vice president—the leading candidate for president—George H. W. Bush for being either in the loop and lying about it or being out of the loop and not knowing what was going on.

Fourteen persons directly involved with Iran Contra were indicted—of which there were eleven convictions. Secretary Weinberger was indicted for perjury. Now Reagan had to go on television again and say that his previous statements were wrong. Although he had maintained the U.S. had not traded arms for hostages, he had to admit it had. He also said his vice president, Bush, knew about the plan. Reagan’s popularity took “the biggest single drop for any president in U. S. history” according to the “New York Times”/CBS poll. The secretary of defense was convicted and appealed.

As the Republicans approached the 1998 elections, the news was almost unremittingly bad. As if all these things weren’t bad enough, a Senate committee reported members of the U. S. State Department hjad been involved in drug trafficking “and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers.”

Meanwhile the GOP candidates for president all attacked each other as they are wont to do: Vice President Bush, Congressman Jack Kemp, former Delaware governor Pete DuPont, evangelist Pat Robertson, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and former secretary of state Alexander Haig.

At the same time, the fallout from Iran-Contra continued. A Republican senator from Maine on the Tower commission said the likely GOP nominee, Bush, had endorsed the arms sales. Former secretary Weinberger said Bush knew more about the arms sales that he was letting on. UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick said it was impossible to tell with exactitude what Bush thought about foreign policy. Bush was interviewed by Dan Rather and the program degenerated into a shouting match. Bush’s words were captured by a live microphone which sent them out through the nation, as Bush shouted ‘the bastard didn’t lay a glove on me! You tell your goddamned network that if they want to talk to me, raise their hands at a news conference. No more Mr. Inside stuff!”

To take advantage of this Republican comedy, the Democrats nominated a cool, calm, competent, supposedly centrist governor of Massachusetts, Mike Dukakis who eschewed ideology but concentrated on “competence.” He started off the campaign with a 17-point lead over George H. W. Bush. Dukakis picked one of t he most popular senators for his vice president. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. Bush made a horrible mistake for vice president, picking a callow young man who if he had any insight at all was adept at hiding it—Dan Quayle of Indiana. After Quayle was chosen th news came out that he may have tried to avoid serving in Vietnam by using some favoritism to join the Indiana National Guard. He and Bentsen debated and Bentsen scored a knockout with the injunction:

“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy!”

Moreover in the middle of the presidential campaign, China’s dictator Deng Xiao-ping endorsed George H. W. Bush.

If this wasn’t a prelude to a disastrous defeat for the Republicans, I don’t know what worse could happen. Now look at what happened.

George H. W. Bush won for president 54% to 46%.

Ronald Reagan went to become rated as one of the six great presidents in U. S. history.

What caused this turnaround?

Liberalism gripped the Democratic party and the voters were turned off. A Massachusetts prison furlough program involving Willie Horton was cited not by the Republicans but by Tennessee Sen. Al Gore who was seeking the Democratic nomination. Horton was freed on furlough and after Dukakis freed him, broke into house, raped a woman and beat her husband.

Dukakis had vetoed a pledge of allegiance requirement for Massachusetts schools.

And then capital punishment.

The issue became incredibly whether Dukakis was a weakling liberal without intestinal fortitude even to avenge a rape and possible murder of his own wife. On Oct. 12, 1988 in a debate between the two presidential nominees, CNN’s moderator, Bernard Shaw asked: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis [his wife] were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”

Incredibly, Dukakis’ answer was no. I was watching the debate and saw George H. W. Bush act as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

Dukakis said, “No I don’t and I think hyou know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all my life.”

The nation recoiled. Dukakis’ poll numbers dropped from 49% to 42% overnight. The election was all but over.

More update: Olive North, indicted on 16 counts was found guilty but was freed because his 5th amendment rights were violated by use of his testimony to Congress which had been given under grant of immunity. He has since become an author and served as a permanent host on Fox News.

The second national security director, Admiral Poindexter, had the book tossed at him. He was convicted of several felony counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and altering and destroying documents. But like North he had testified before Congress with immunity so the convictions were tossed.

Caspar Weinberger was convicted but pardoned by President George H. W. Bush and has been honored as an outstanding defense secretary and architect of the defense buildup that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

All I can say is…now even the memory of Iran Contra seems to slip away. But at the time news commentators were heralding the end, the final solution, the termination of the Republican party.

Personal Aside: Kristin McQueary of Daily Southtown Scores High Points in Her Debut with Paul Caprio of Family PAC…Saturday Night Live Featuring Barack Obama a Cheap Shot at Hillary…No Feedback from the Archdiocese on the DePaul President’s Rejoinder...

McQueary.


“Daily Southtown” political columnist Kristin McQueary scored well in her debut on my WLS-AM radio show, appearing with veteran conservative analyst Paul Caprio, director of Family PAC. One of the surprises of the night was a call from a listener who is a state employee—who said that if Gov. Blagojevich had to complete the same ethics form that every state government employee has to, he would not be able to qualify as ethics-free basis the state’s yardstick. That’s one thing about talk radio: listeners supply ideas that rarely occur to political writers. It’ll be interesting to see if this turns up in a story somewhere.


Saturday Night Live.


The highly touted “Saturday Night Live” show featuring Barack Obama was amateurish, poorly acted and constituted what I would imagine is a corporate contribution to the Obama campaign. You can see for yourself on YouTube shown on the “Sun-Times” website. Ridicule was larded on all the other Democratic candidates…particularly Hillary Clinton…by the amateurish cast. She was repeatedly called a “witch” by the actor playing her husband. Slurs were directed to candidates Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden…but the most scathing and to my mnd totally brutal presentation was given to Hillary Clinton—all as a buildup to the arrival of Destiny’s Tot Obama who was given lines like “I know who I am so I don’t have to make believe I’m someone else, Hillary.” The actress playing Hillary was dressed in a bride’s outfit: what that was supposed to symbolize I don’t know. The script could easily have been written by David Axelrod and for all I know possibly was.


Given the present level of political correctness I doubt if SNL would be up to parodying Obama. At least Saturday there were no punches or even gentle digs tossed his way. We are evidently still at a stage where it is regarded as unfunny to subject an African American candidate with the ridicule that goes undeviatingly to white ones.


No Feedback.


There has been no feedback from the archdiocese or its many bureaucrats to the rebuke delivered by the president of DePaul in letter replying to criticism of the notorious “Out There” conference, portions of which mingled gay rights advocacy along with much diluted Catholic dogma. The letter which was published in the “Chicago New World” politely told the archdiocese that DePaul runs as its faculty decides without interference from the Church.

Typically it appears the issue of DePaul’s continuation as a so-called “Catholic university” is a dead letter. Not a word about the possibility of removing it has come from Superior street. Intriguing to some is the official diocesan not-so-even-handedness in

dealing with some authenticists harshly…and with recrimination…in contrast to its proclivity to go light on liberal critics of Church dogma i.e. Fr. Andrew Greeley, an oft-time dinner guest and host who has escorted high clerical officials to dinner and the opera. Fr. Greeley has been noteworthy for his column written during the elevation of Benedict XVI that maintained that in the past the Holy Spirit erred in picking men of sinful nature to the papacy—not recognizing that Church theology maintains the power of the Holy Spirit has continued inviolate by preserving even earthen vessel popes from promulgating error. That’s what Catholics used to learn in the Baltimore Catechism. Greeley’s attacks on the Church for its “Humanae Vitae” position while a priest of the archdiocese—which constitutes scandal to many—rolls like water off a duck’s back while he enjoys hobnobbing with its officialdom.


There are still some who feel keenly the sting of the lash whenever criticism of some authenticist action is made in high places. Not this writer. We’re not in the medieval age any longer, folks. This archdiocese has a lot to answer for concerning the laxity that enabled far more than one roman-collared pedophile to prey on children while seminary files were “lost” that could have prevented same. The “teaching” that goes on at DePaul is merely an outward sign of what has been tolerated through almost administrative ineffectiveness and weakness in the past. Rather than complain about the media, archdiocesan officials should be thankful that the two major newspapers are as spinelessly tolerant as they have been heretofore.

Flashback: Hubert’s Finest Hour—The Emissary Between the White House and the Senate Which Led to Passage of the Historic Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[More than 50 years of politics written for my kids and grandchildren as a memoir].

His Finest Hour.

“You’re very generous for an old-time…but let me say always fair…critic! Not all my Democratic colleagues have said that about me,” the ebullient former vice president 65-year-old Hubert Humphrey exulted to me (age 47) in 1975 as we strode into the lobby of the L’Enfant Plaza hotel for his speech to the Washington, D. C. management meeting of Quaker Oats officers and staff at which I introduced him. Before the group, I hailed his major role in passage of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and said that while Lyndon Johnson was praised as the master of the Senate during his majority leader days, Johnson had never passed a bill in its enormity as the civil rights act of 1964—which Hubert did. That elicited a standing ovation from the heavily Republican audience.

He accepted the applause, turned to me and said, “Tom, I won’t deny what you said but I’m sure your old employers in Minnesota will be mad!” Nor was I exaggerating as he and I well knew. He has never gotten sufficient credit for passing a bill over the steadfast opposition of southern Democratic conservatives who ran the major Senate committees. Johnson has been given major praise—but no one got it done other than Hubert. And history should be ashamed of itself for not giving him his due credit as one, if not the most effective, Senate leaders of all time…matching Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Fighting Bob LaFollette, Bob Taft and surpassing even Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson.

That bill, signed July 2, 1964 formally outlawed segregation in U. S. schools and public places. The law was passed to circumvent loopholes in the federal use of the equal protection clause—and so was passed under the commerce clause, Hubert’s original concept. It banned discrimination once and for all in public facilities, government, employment and rendering null and void the Jim Crow laws in the south, ruling that it was illegal to compel segregation in schools, housing and hiring.

From the day Hubert looked forward to getting out of Doland, S. D. beyond his days as a janitor-“super,” firing up the furnace in the Minneapolis four-plex while he went to school, past his welding together a disparate group of liberal moderates and out-and-out radicals to make a hybrid party, the Democratic-Farmer-Laborites…and beyond the poisonously bitter days where after World War II he drove recalcitrant Communists belonging to the Farmer-Laborites out of public life…and to the mayoralty and his fiery speech to the 1948 convention to the Senate…through his days of isolation where he was in the Senate doghouse because of his civil rights views…beyond the day where he narrowly sidestepped defeat by a legendary Republican governor who had decided not to run…he had anticipated greatness but probably nothing like this—he didn’t know what form it would take.

It started to come together with the elevation to the presidency of the former segregationist southerner who had befriended him—Lyndon Johnson. Immediately after Johnson succeeded to the presidency following John Kennedy’s assassination, he commandeered Hubert and told him he would count on his support to get the liberals in the Senate to understand Johnson didn’t have horns. They were not only disenchanted with Johnson, some even nurtured the paranoia that LBJ had arranged the assassination of their hero JFK by luring him to Dallas. It was an ugly reception LBJ got in private liberal circles in Washington—and in the salons of Georgetown.

Hubert’s incurable optimism buoyed up Johnson who was a heavy handed downer. From the outset, Johnson depended on Hubert for strategic and communications-p.r. advice. Initially there were several things Hubert did for Johnson…sometimes after a verbal tussle with the president…that worked. Within days of the assassination, they numbered three major things.

1. Immediately after taking office, Johnson wanted to move in to the White House immediately to show he was in command.. It was natural and his patronizing hangers-on wanted him to in order to galvanize the idea of possession of the presidency and the passing of the torch. Hubert huddled with Johnson’s aides Bill Moyers and his p. r. guru Jack Valenti (Valenti so close that he took up residence at the White House to massage the ego of the man whom Valenti correctly adjudged would be his everlasting meal ticket). “Don’t do it, Lyndon,” said Hubert. “Let Jackie and her family stay as long as they want. They’ll move out and you’ll get in there, don’t worry. Don’t be pushy or it’ll kill you with this liberal, Kennedy-worshiping press.” Johnson agreed and worked out of his home, The Elms, in northwest Washington for three weeks while Jackie Kennedy took her sweet time about moving out.



2. It was at The Elms that Valenti and Moyers put a full-court press on Johnson to show the nation that a new leader was in command. Shortly after Nov. 22, both argued that it would be essential that Johnson address the nation on TV. Johnson was warmly receptive. Everybody looked to Hubert who was sitting on the divan next to Johnson. He didn’t cave.



“Don’t do it, Lyndon,” he said as Valenti and Moyers gasped. “Don’t do it. Tell you why. The country is too broken up about the assassination and your getting your face on TV will look like you’re rushing it. Also—and you won’t want to hear this—TV isn’t kind to you as it was to Jack. Your Southern accent doesn’t help you; your looks with your hangdog face and big ears don’t help you. What you should do is postpone this until the next State of the Union where you get to go on your own turf, the Congress. That’ll be next January 8.” Moyers and Valeini almost passed out. It was a measured insult to their leader. Johnson looked down and reflected. Then he moved to the next item of the agenda showing he had accepted the blunt criticism.

“January 8th” said Johnson. “That’ll be too late!” No, said Hubert, trust me—it’ll be just perfect. Valenti and Moyers shook their heads, eying Johnson for approval. But Johnson rubbed his jaw and thought it over. Then he said, “wal—maybe you’re right, Hubert.”

“Trust me,” said Hubert. “The best thing you can do right now until this period of mourning blows over is to get to work behind the scenes to pass Jack’s legislative program.”

“Jack’s legislative program, [explective]!” said Valenti.

“You and I know the legislative program has been languishing,” continued Hubert, “—most of all because Jack and Bobby weren’t all that eager to get a lot of things passed. People don’t know that but we do. You have a chance to become a hero for the election of 1964 when Goldwater is likely to run, if you use your talents to get it passed, Lyndon.”

Johnson said, “with one condition, Hubert. You gotta help me. I’ll need you for `64.” It was a hint that he would put Hubert on the ticket as his vice president. If Hubert was flattered, he didn’t show it nor did he react to the words. But he got it. And in his role as Whip, not even majority leader, he got it done while Mike Mansfield, a gentle, wispy, soft-spoken Montanan who didn’t like to push or pull, occupied the leadership but did remarkably little.

3. Hubert set to work on the late Jack Kennedy’s agenda which Kennedy hadn’t expended much energy on. Hubert cut deals between liberals, moderates and conservatives to get these things passed in Jack’s name, in Lyndon’s name: the basic guts of an anti-poverty program which JFK and his brother privately dissed and allowed to go fallow; federal aid to college students; federal aid for mass transit; the farm bill which contained an important wheat support plus a revolutionary item: food stamps which the Kennedys were not wild about. Johnson himself wondered how the farm bill could make it with so many Democrats in the House from the big cities and he gave Hubert a list of those big-city guys, wondering if they would ever vote for it, including Chicago’s Roman Pucinski. They numbered twelve. Of that number, Hubert got eleven.



4. When the time came to make his State of the Union speech to the Congress and the nation on television, Lyndon Johnson was unusually nervous. He frittered over his speech and in desperation called Hubert and an attorney, Abe Fortas to his house, The Elms (Jackie Kennedy still hadn’t moved out of the White House). Hubert looked at the speech and thought it was too lachrymose about Kennedy’s death. He scribbled on a pad the bare outline of what happened in Dallas and added—“Let us continue.” Brilliant. Johnson adopted it immediately. It was typed in final form at 2 a.m. ten hours before Johnson was due to the joint session of Congress.



5. And just before Johnson left for the Capitol, Hubert called him and told him something he could announce. A bill sponsored by then Rep. Karl Mundt (R-ND), an inveterate Cold War hard-liner, which kept the ban on wheat sales to the Soviet Union in effect had reached the Senate floor and the Senate failed to defeat it two weeks earlier. Now the Senate defeated it—in time for Johnson to mention it and say he thought it an important step in thawing U. S. –Soviet relations. (Note: it wasn’t but that’s not the point of this story: the point is what Hubert did in about an hour’s time).



Good as this stuff was for Johnson, the big issue was civil rights. It was an issue Lyndon had always gently finessed in the Senate. He had been instrumental in passing a weak bill in the Eisenhower years—nothing with teeth. Yet Hubert saw a new era dawning.



Everett Dirksen, said Johnson to Hubert, is the key to passage of civil rights in the Senate—“but I don’t blame Everett, not a single Negro vote is goin’ to come to him in Illinois because they all vote Democrat. So we gotta do other things. And you gotta give up your atom smasher, Hubert, to Everett.” Okay, Hubert did. But Everett wanted a lot more than that: almost Hubert’s first born child. Ah but this was down the road.

Thumbnail History of Civil Rights Movement.

Short-hand history of the movement for my loving children and grandchildren who, smart as they are, were too young to have experienced it: Civil rights began as modern movement in the 1940s. Jim Farmer (a friend of mine and fellow Republican, the founder of CORE) was arrested many times in New York in the 1940s and early `50s. Because he wasn’t a minister they locked him up and threw away the key and the press wasn’t interested. Lest you think the 5-star general who was in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower was dilatory, in 1957 when Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas sent the national guard to block Little Rock high school from the “Little Rock 9” who wanted to integrate it, Ike sent the 101st airborne to see they entered the premises safely.

All that being said, it took a minister with a Lincolnesque eloquence to touch the soul of the media in the country on the issue and he did so on Dec. 1, 1955.

It started with the Montgomery, Ala bus boycott and a hitherto almost anonymous lady named Jo Ann Robinson, a professor at all-black Alabama State. She found just the right person to test Montgomery’s blacks-in-the-back-of-the-bus ordinance: Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was not the uneducated seamstress media myth represents her as. She was educated. She was a seamstress yes because she couldn’t find other work but she had attended the lab school at Alabama State, was an active NAACP worker, had been arrested before. On Dec. 1 she boarded a city bus and sat in the fifth row, the first row blacks could occupy. A few stops later the front four rows were filled with whites and one white man was standing. The driver asked all four of the blacks seated in the fifth row to move. Three complied: not Rosa. She was arrested. The revolution was on and Jo Ann Robinson got hold of a young minister at Dexter Avenue Baptist church, Martin Luther King, Jr. Together they formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).

King, Robinson and the MIA organized the black boycotts. They organized a black motor pool to take blacks to work. The White Citizens Council tried to break up the boycott. It failed. Store owners in downtown Birmingham were complaining that business was dropping off. The White Citizens Council turned to violence on Feb.1, 1956, bombing King’s home. Then it turned to the law, indicting 89 blacks under an old law prohibiting boycotts. King was tried. He was ordered to pay $500 plus $500 in court costs or spend 386 days in the state penitentiary. He appealed. The boycott lasted a year but white snipers shot at the buses. On Jan. 10, 1957 ministers from around the South ended the MIA and founded its successor, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Episodes happened in rapid succession: Jim Farmer’s “Freedom Rides” on May 4, 1961 An interracial group would board Greyhound buses destined for the South, whites sitting in the back and blacks in the front; at rest stops whites would go into black areas and vice-versa. On May 4, 1961 a Freedom Ride left Washington, D. C. for New Orleans. On May 14, Mothers Day, they split into two groups to travel through Alabama. The first group was met with 200 angered whites in Annison, Ala. Then it was firebombed. By the time it got to Birmingham, its public safety commissioner, Bull Conner, didn’t provide protection. Also the lunch counters were segregated. King flew to Birmingham and held a mass meeting surrounded by federal marshals for protection. A mob of several thousand whites surrounded the church where he was speaking. A plan was hatched by one who later became a friend of mine, Hosea Williams, to have King arrested on Good Friday, April 12 to dramatize the point.

King was arrested and placed in solitary confinement. In jail he read a newspaper advertisement by the businessmen of Birmingham addressed to the people, defending their actions. In jail he on the margins of the ad and on any scrap paper he could find, an eloquent “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The nation’s media gave it mass attention. On May 2 the police arrested 959 black children for singing “We Shall Overcome”. The jails were packed and could hold no more. Finally the Birmingham business community, fearing damage to downtown stores, agreed to integrate lunch counters and hire more blacks. King got a much needed victory.

After Birmingham, President Kennedy proposed a new civil rights bill. Civil rights groups organized a March on Washington, hoping to draw a crowd of 100,000—but instead more than 250,000 came from around the nation. They assembled Aug. 28, 1963 and King delivered the closing address with his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Jack Kennedy decided to go on TV June 12, 1963 with his civil rights program. The night Kennedy spoke to the nation came the first deadly intervention. “We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin: Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was shot to death tonight (June 12) in front of his home in Mississippi!”

The country became inflamed and the media was pushing for a tough civil rights bill. Initially pragmatists John and Bobby Kennedy had initially decided to go for a somewhat toothless bill, fearing to alienate the Southern states which they needed for the election of 1964. A bill of some sort was needed because it was anticipated that the Republicans would nominate Nelson Rockefeller who was a strong civil right-er. Bobby’s plan: a weak civil rights bill to pass and let Rockefeller inflame the South with his not civil rights rhetoric which will give the South to us as the moderates.

But before the civil rights draft was read, another circumstance intervened which tossed the go-moderate strategy in the wastebasket. “We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin! In a sudden announcement from Albany, N. Y., Gov. Nelson Rockefeller has announced he will divorce his wife of 34 years. Rockefeller has been generally listed as the likely GOP presidential nominee in 1964. What this will do to his prospective candidacy is undetermined.” Then a few days later: “We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin. New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller has announced he will marry a woman, a mother of four, Mrs. Marguerite (Happy) Fitler, who is being divorced form her husband, a close friend of the Governor who is a virologist working for the Rockefeller Institute.” That was an incipient dose of political poison for Rockefeller.

And a few days after that, a fatal dose of strychnine for any presidential candidate: “A judge today denied Mrs. Marguerite (Happy) Fitler who is slated to marry New York Gov .Nelson Rockefeller custody of her five children. On a related issue, New York law seems only to permit adultery as legal reason for divorce so the governor and Mrs. Fitler are trying to get their divorces in another state where mental cruelty is allowed as a reason. Why Mrs. Fitler was denied custody is due to the fact that the judge has found her unfit. But a spokesman for the governor and Mrs. Fitler say they are appealing this. ruling”

No matter. Strychnine it was—and is—for Rockefeller long after his death (which happened under questionable circumstances in the company of another woman). A billionaire, he had the haughty sense that as a Rockefeller he could get away with anything. But he was wrong and it meant that no matter how he vowed he would continue in the race, Rocky wasn’t going to get the nomination—no way! The logical Republican nominee would be Barry Goldwater who was conservative…a new breed from the Northeastern liberals who had dominated the GOP heretofore since Hoover. And Goldwater was unlikely to support the civil rights bill. Now Bobby decided they would push for a strong civil rights bill because the South would logically go for Goldwater anyhow and Democrats needed to shore up the difference between JFK and Goldwater in the north—but all the while, ever the pragmatist, Bobby would duplicitously pass the word to the South that he’d take care of the bill with lax enforcement.

John Kennedy’s bill wasn’t introduced until June, 1963 because the brothers had pondered what to do (they decided in June that Rockefeller was out, Goldwater logically in). Then came another news intervention in September, 1963: We interrupt this program to bring you a news bulletin. Four Negro, children, were killed today when a bomb exploded in a church they were praying in in Birmingham, Alabama!”

Now the Kennedys were certain a tough civil rights bill had to emerge into law. The episode inflamed House Judiciary chairman Emanuel (Manny) Cellar of New York who toughened it up quite a bit. His committee passed it and then pro-forma it went to old Howard Smith’s Rules where Smith hinted it would gather dust. Cellar vowed that, by god, he’d get the bill out of Rules if he had to initiate the radical procedure of getting a discharge petition signed to send it to the floor. It was a radical move: a discharge petition had to get a majority of House members on it before it would be automatically discharged. The signature campaign lagged.

At that precise moment a third intervention: November 22, 1963: “We interrupt this program with a special bulletin! President Kennedy has been assassinated in Dallas, shot to death as he rode in a motorcade! Vice President Lyndon Johnson is preparing to take the oath of office to become the 36th president of the United States!”

The Politics of Civil Rights.

The national psyche changed overnight. Kennedy was a martyr in the role of Lincoln. (Fr. Andrew Greeley in his syndicated newspaper column recommended that JFK be named a Doctor of the Church to be joined with Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Bonaventure, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Isador, Leo the Great and Catherine of Siena...to show you how over the top he was and can get; nothing has been heard of this idea from him since we’ve learned more about JFK).

(Here I want to insert a correction from yesterday’s erroneous draft called to my attention by a vigilant reader of this website. I referred to Speaker Sam Rayburn and his discontent with civil rights—but I was erroneously thinking of the 1957 so-called “civil rights bill” which dealt weakly with voting rights and which was largely ineffective due to the fact that Georgia’s Dick Russell wanted his boy Lyndon Johnson to pass a weak bill to take the heat off southern Democrats. Rayburn was unenthusiastic but caused the bill to be passed by the House anyhow. Rayburn was dead and his old majority leader, John McCormack of Massachusetts, a firm supporter of civil rights was Speaker).

McCormack could do nothing with cantankerous Howard Smith of Virginia, age 79, a segregationist and chairman of Rules, a man known as “Judge.”

Instead Lyndon Johnson himself called both Judge Smith and the ranking Democrat on Rules, Bill Colmer of Mississippi (whose top aide was a young man named Trent Lott). Both were agreeable to let the bill go from Rules to the House floor on the supposition gained from LBJ that the Senate would probably not pass it. The House passed it in February, 1964 290-130 with a number of “yes” votes on both sides of the aisle based on the unexpressed hope that the old warhorses in the Senate would kill it.

Johnson gave Hubert the toughest job any legislative manager had since Illinois Democrat Stephen A. Douglas and Massachusetts Whig Daniel Webster passed the Compromise of 1850 that Henry Clay envisioned but couldn’t get through the Senate. Even tougher. The mandate: get a tough civil rights bill out of the Senate where old Jim Eastland of Mississippi was Judiciary chairman and the peerless strategist for the South, Dick Russell of Georgia (Lyndon’s once mentor) stood guard with an encyclopedic knowledge of parliamentary procedure. And he would have to work with Bobby Kennedy who had detonated his presidential career by sic-ing Frank Roosevelt, Jr. on him in West Virginia with the “Humphrey was a draft-dodger” refrain.

It was one of the few times Hubert met with Bobby. Hubert spoke first. “Bobby, ol’ partner!” Bobby in his nasal voice said, “I’m all yours Dr. Hubert!” They laughed and got to work.

How Hubert passed the bill and wrote more history than many presidents did—next time.

McCarthy “Nominated” for Vice President.

All the while Gene McCarthy was lying rather low, not overworking. He was traveling the country picking up legal honoraria and dropping in on St. John’s to rub old scabs, remember past slights and make sly fun of Hubert and Lyndon with Fr. Godfrey Diekmann OSB. He was getting ready for reelection in 1964 which didn’t look to be too difficult. He was getting ready to face Wheelock Whitney, a mega-millionaire who was taking the bows for bringing the Washington Senators baseball team to the state as the Minnesota Twins. McCarthy was mentioned favorably for the vice presidency with Lyndon Johnson by, of all people, Manny Cellar, House Judiciary chairman, who said McCarthy is “a scholarly gentleman, erudite and a real orator who has carved out a remarkable career in the Senate. He would be the best vice presidential candidate and the strongest.”

It was a shot directed across the bow of Minnesota’s senior senator and a dig as well because Cellar, a fervent civil rights advocate, hadn’t recognized Hubert’s legislative prowess at all. Manny Cellar was one colleague Gene never made fun of.

Personal Asides: We Interrupt this Program…Well, We’re Back…The 1st Amendment Panel VI.

Pardon Us for Internetus Interruptus.

As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted…Anyhow thanks to Jake Parrillo our web-meister, we’re back. He’s the brilliant young man who keeps me on track. As you know, I’m a computer illiterate. I just write this stuff and send it to Jake for posting and recommend some photos. He does all the rest. For the benefit of all you who think I’m up at 5 in the morning posting this stuff, there’s a lot of duplicity here. It says “Posted by Tom Roeser at 4:45 a.m.” or something like that—but it’s really Jake who is not only much younger than I but much smarter about these things.

1st Amendment Panel 6 Years Running.

Let’s say that founding father John Jay helped me immeasurably yesterday. His Federalist 64 on the 1st amendment was the only briefing I needed to silence modern civil libertarians-gone-berserk.

For the last six years I have been part of a 1st Amendment panel of journalists, librarians, lawyers, ACLU people and at least one law professor who is an ex-jurist. We have met annually to discuss and debate where the 1st amendment is now, given the torturing that liberals and some civil libertarians allege is being meted out to the 1st amendment. I am glad to say that this was, in my estimation, the best panel that has been concocted. The moderator was, as usual, Judge William Bauer of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He is without doubt…walking with a roving microphone…the best moderator in the business—far better than Phil Donahue ever was: witty, incisive, the works. He was once, as you know, the U. S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, has been DuPage county states attorney, a county judge, then federal prosecutor, district judge and member of the court of appeals.

As our moderator Judge Bauer keeps his opinions to himself but he elicits repartee and healthy debate among the panelists. As the only conservative panel member…i.e. one who supports the administration in its obligation to defend us from terrorism…I didn’t feel outnumbered this year as I have in the past. Reason: even Judge Bauer commented on it at the end. I think our very liberal members have settled down and not felt the pressure of an incipient tyrant in the presidency as they used to feel.

Much of the difficulty which leads to misunderstanding is the way the liberal media phrases questions which are dramatized on TV and in the mainstream papers. You often hear the charge: “Is the president above the law?” by supporting warrant-less wiretapping of suspected terrorists. They mention this in connection with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As I told the panel, the question of whether the president is “above the law” i.e. FISA is only one side of the question. An equal question is whether which law it is that he must see be “faithfully executed” as part of his charge. As you know the Constitution charges him with the duty to see that the laws shall be “faithfully executed.” When the first wiretap legislation was passed in 1968, the law stated clearly that nothing in its provisions would inhibit “the constitutional power of the president” to collect foreign intelligence information. In my view, there is a real question whether shackling federal authorities to have to go to a FISA judge who may or may not grant that power is not a inhibition of that power. I think it is, clearly.

It is a fact that Jimmy Carter as president engaged in warrant-less wiretapping. He changed and abrogated that power in deference to the Democratic congress. Attorney General Griffin Bell said that FISA did not take away the power of the president under the Constitution because…and this is important…because Carter had “agreed to follow the statute.” That was Carter’s prerogative. Just as it is Bush’s not to follow the statute. Remember that “Marbury v. Madison” says “an act of the legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.” From the earliest days, it was understood by all three branches of the federal government that, in the words of Federalist 64, written by John Jay, it is the president’s prerogative to be “able to manage the business of intelligence as prudence might suggest.” This president is, I believe, correct in not surrendering that power to one or a number of unelected jurists. If anyone should have that power, it should be the one elected by the American people.

Judge Bauer asked…in line with his so admirably handling the panel questioning…well, given Marbury v. Madison’s contention that an act of the legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void…who is to say it is void but the judiciary? The answer is yes—but as an Originalist in the law, I would say that the decision should be self-evidentiary. He responded that the Constitution was enacted prior to wire-tapping. Answer: yes, but the concept phrased by Jay is the essential part whether wire-tapping is concerned or not: The president should be “able to manage the business of intelligence as prudence might suggest.” I had the feeling that so far as the panel was concerned, it was case closed. At least I did not hear a single word of rebuttal.

I was surprised, frankly, that having brought this up in the panel not a single member challenged this concept. That is not because of my eloquence but because, I feel sure, the position is unassailable. The rationale I followed is the same as argued by Robert F. Turner, co-founder of the Center for National Security Law and a former 3-term chairman of ABA’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security.

On the issue of “torture,” which is an issue liberals love to rail about without much basis, no one supports terror. But while it is entirely permissible to abhor it as an abstract, consider a familiar possible case: There is an announcement that a ticking time bomb is in a public building and scheduled to go off in about an hour. There is a definite possibility that a man the feds are holding knows where the ticking time bomb is. Question: does the federal government have the right to use every means possible…including some construed as torture…to determine where that ticking bomb is in order to save lives? Of course only a crazy person would aver that the government does not have the obligation and the right.

Having said that I waited for someone on the panel to object with a perfectly rational reply—but none came. So later I phrased the reply itself. The notion that the feds know definitely that such-and-such person knows where the ticking time bomb is, is conjecture. And of course it is. No one can apprise with certitude that the suspect knows where the bomb is—it’s all highly speculative. In order to find out whether or not he knows, the feds would have to apply interrogative processes on him to elicit that information. So it’ a chicken and the egg proposition. This grey area illustrates the complicated nature of the misnamed “torture” issue that offends so many liberals. Once again, the 1st amendment is not an absolute over all other amendments. Nor is it a suicide pact.

Personal Asides: Ganging Up on Hillary Helped Her and the GOP…All Hail the Altruistic P. R. Puffery of Warren Buffery.

NOTE: As there was some interruption of the Internet service Thursday, some may not have seen that day’s offerings…in which case I submit them again. People following the day-to-day scenario of Hubert and Gene have been agitating for Thursday’s installment to be run. Here goes.

Ganging Up on Hillary.

Precisely because the Democrats are the party of political correctness…regarding minorities, women, gays, the disabled as sacred cows…the party suffered a black eye with its constituencies Tuesday during the 2-hour presidential debate. While I have no brief for Hillary, her rivals didn’t help themselves by doubting publicly whether she is electable in the general election and taunting her because of her high, 50% negatives. They imparted unto themselves a double whammy.

First, they showed their insecurity by evidencing that she is the front-runner. Second, in a party of political correctness they seemed to be mocking the only woman who has had a major chance to become president in U. S. history. Third, they gave sound bytes the GOP can use against her in the general election.

Fourth, they maimed themselves by highlighting their own radicality. John Edwards’ “Will she be the person who brings about change in this country? You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.” If a radical populist like Edwards thinks she would not bring the change he desires, it rings the polling cash-register for Hillary with voters to the right of Michael Moore…and later with the GOP to the right of Hillary. All told, helping Hillary and the GOP in that way was the latest good break the Republicans have had in a season seemingly bereft of them.

Not that Hillary was particularly good that night. She was awful. She wisely avoided direct answers to most questions and leveled the brunt of her answers in the form of criticism of President Bush—which is adept debating posture when you’re leading your fellow Democrats. But she goofed badly when she attempted to waffle her way out of a question on whether she favors giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens as did New York governor Eliot Spitzer. She very nearly lost her temper; she did become shrill. On the Spitzer issue, in debater’s terms she would have been better served in making a choice and sticking with it. To blunt assaults from the left-wing of her party, she should have prepared a compromising position and stressed the need to do more to assimilate illegals into society. I was stunned that as smart as she is, she hadn’t prepared anything and was caught flat-footed.

The Wondrous P. R. Puffery of Warren Buffery.

If Warren Buffett feels the U. S. treasury should get more of his money, he ought to pony up. There’s no law that says he can’t contribute to help alleviate the national debt. But there’s no chance he will. His commiserating with libe


ral media that he wishes he could pay more taxes…and that the rich are getting a break…is public relations puffery in its most egregious form. If Buffett didn’t understand that, he could not have gotten $52 billion out of his investments.

Buffett’s sanctimonious concern that his cleaning lady ought to have equal representation with him in campaign donations. Why doesn’t he take a poll of cleaning ladies and mobilize a campaign for whomever they choose. Why doesn’t he do that? Are you crazy? Do you remotely think he would want to do all he could to get a likely wing-nut in the White House? He knows better. It is accumulated guilt for his wealth that makes him try to schmooze the average guy by pretending to side with him. It’s as old as philanthropy which was popularized when public relations advisers to John D. Rockefeller became alarmed at how hugely unpopular the old geezer was, giving out dimes to urchins on the street as he toddled on the arm of his valet. So the advisers et up the Rockefeller foundation in an effort to make things look better. So long as old John lived, the foundation operated all right—giving to people who at least wanted to participate in the system. After he died (at almost 100) the foundation was taken over by a cadre who had bamboozled his son, John D. Jr. and went to the left. Going to the left was huzza’ed by the public relations fraternity which showed garish press clippings lauding the Rockefeller family for its compassion.

Since then, many of the very rich have gone to the left for societal protection. After all, it’s not very altruistic to point out that the government can’t raise tax rates as high as liberals would like without adverse consequences. There is no doubt that top tax rates were too high for several decades after World War II. You’re not going to be elected the most popular guy at the Racquet Club if you go around saying that Reagan was a successful president domestically because he lowered tax rates on the rich. You won’t be toasted in champagne at your country club’s Christmas soiree if you talk about the need to continue Bush’s tax cuts which have given us the longest spell of prosperity in modern times.

What you want to do, my friends, is dismiss your wealth as inconsequential. How are you going to be nominated as Man of the Year at your church’s Black Tie Ball if you go around saying the truth—that capitalists are by nature performing a huge social service possible by risk, by making investments…gambles…without a pre-determined return? That comes perilously close to saying the hideous truth that would get you banished to the third circle in Hell: to help the poor and middle class, one must cut the taxes of the rich. Warren Buffett understands this because it’s an economic truism—but why in the name of God would he want to be caught dead saying it…if he wants to be immortalized in bronze as a statesman? Let the benighted Republicans perform the dirty work—all the while your head is in the clouds. Watch for him to be named Nobel prize winner for something or other. It’s in the cards and this is a sure thing.

On a lesser level do you think saying this would get you celebrated in the two major newspapers here or on WTTW-TV? It’s not the way to be celebrated as a business statesman. Similarly, you can’t get on the “Jim Lehrer NewsHour” by announcing your support of, say, Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney. But look what pro-tax hike puffery has done to Buffery! Not to mention the last time he was on—when he endorsed Barack Obama. Aw the shame of it. With all his billions he can only give Obama a total of $2,300. Damn that federal law (note to the file: don’t ever let the occasion rise when a rich man had the right to back a candidate unlimitedly—ala what happened to Stewart Mott who had to fork over several millions to Gene McCarthy. Thank God for McCain-Feingold!).

Buffett is the latest in a long line of billionaire phonies to espouse liberalism as a creed—but he has added a fillip: condemn the tax code as helping the rich and wishing that he could pay more taxes than his office receptionist. You notice he doesn’t write a check for a couple of billions to the Treasury, haven’t you? His lawyers will, backstage, find some hitch in the law that prevents him for which old Puff Bucket will go tsk-tsk. . It’s all a dodge and of course the only one falling for it is the left ala Tom Brokaw who interviewed him. Hence let us all honor the puffery of Warren Buffery: he has become embraced by the media as an economic guru which has not been duplicated since the Democrats canonized John Kenneth Galbraith who theorized a nation can tax itself rich. In the same way you can drink yourself sober.

Flashback: While Gene Fiddles Privately with the Oil Boys but Publicly Espoused Hefty Liberalism, Hubert Undergoes a Public—and Private--Pro-Business Conversion.

[Fifty plus years of politics written as a memoir for my kids and grandchildren].

A Fork in the Road.

At this stage—1961--two very remarkable things happened to our senatorial Dynamic Duo. Gene was fiddling privately with the oil depletion boys…supporting it privately but arranging on occasion to vote “against” the allowance when he was sure he would be out-voted…and scheduling himself not to be anywhere near the floor when it would come up so as not to interfere with the end result…he was all the while listed as a very liberal Democrat. At the same time, Hubert, having won a reputation as an anti-big business liberal, came to the distinct realization that big government was not the answer.

I found this to be the case when, working for the Republican governor of Minnesota, I came to Washington to importune him to do two things. First and mainly, to throw his weight behind a state constitutional amendment to tax taconite…a slag off-put of the iron ore mining process…at the same rate as manufacturing…because it had to be manufactured after being taken from the ground—and the amendment would give steel companies the incentive to invest millions in the Iron Range. . To refuse to do this and to crusade against the villains of U. S. steel which Democrats had done since the heyday of hell-for-leather populists and far-lefties Floyd B. Olson and Elmer Benson, would be to condemn the Range to continued hard times and poverty. In meeting with me, Humphrey quickly agreed. He told me that the longer he stayed in Washington, the more disenchanted he had become with Big Government. He said: “There was a time when we would get letters complaining about government insensitivity and we’d kind of feel it was a conservative knee-jerk. Now, I tell my staff it’s probably the truth and go after these goddamned bureaucrats. And you know what—so far almost 100% of the time when my case workers investigate, government is at fault!”

At the same time, Gene McCarthy on whom I called next was enigmatic and generally unsympathetic. Later when I expressed mystification to my friends in Humphrey’s office, one said: “Well, what’s in it for him?” The onus was clear: with the oil depletion issue, there was. I quickly followed up, saying, “why? What do you mean?”

Nothing, was the answer communicated with a wry smile. As the time was near for the annual homecoming game at St. John’s, I made it a point to go and see McCarthy’s guru himself, Fr. Godfrey Diekmann, OSB. He said, “uh, you never took one of my theologies, did you?” I said, no I was too dumb so they gave me to Ernie [Fr. Ernest Kilzer, OSB]. Why?

Nothing was the answer communicated with a wry smile. It was clear that the Godfrey dictum of social justice was regnant: in the sliding scale of non-absolutes, one must protect the Imperial Self so as to be viable for the giant social revolution that is to come.

This was not to say that Hubert was a candidate for Thomas More sainthood or that he wore under his starched Brooks Brothers and next to his pink skin a hair-shirt. Not so. Hubert could play the game better than most. The year 1961 featured a big proposal from him—pushing the Kennedy administration to relax the Eisenhower-dated ban on selling wheat to the Soviet Union. I had been schooled by Walter Judd to understand that the maximum force should be exerted against the Soviet Union at all its weakest points, and the inability to feed its masses was one of them. Hubert had unveiled this just about the time I saw him and after we talked about the Iron Range he brought up the fact that the Minnesota GOP (with which I was not formally connected) had been zinging him for this concession which it said was a “weakness.”

I expressed surprise that the GOP had turned out the statement (although in my off hours I had written it).

“Sounds like your old boss,” he said, meaning Congressman Walter Judd, a hard-line cold warrior. “Or you.” .

With hypocritical eyes to heaven I swore in good political style it was not me.

But even if it were, I said, why would you want to ease the pressure on the Soviets when their system is breaking down and there’s a risk of famine.

“Ever hear of humanitarianism? Is it foreign to you Republicans?”

I dare say it would be more humanitarian to allow the discontented and hungry masses to overthrow tyranny.

“You can’t hold people hostage when they’re dying of famine.”

It’s a risk to take to try to unseat that regime.

“I won’t debate you on this but, Tommy, we’ll get you on this—will get you where you live.”

The second request I made was to secure his support for the administration’s designation of an atom smasher that would be ideal for Minnesota.

“Way ahead of you. I think I can say that the president has indicated it’ll go to Minnesota when it’s funded—which will be long after you and your Republican governor will be out of office.”

He was right there. My boss would be defeated for reelection in 1962 after the nation’s longest recount—four months. And defeated by 91 votes out of 1,250.000 cast. Mostly paper ballots.

On the way back to Minnesota I wondered about his elliptical “we’ll get you on this—will get you where you live” in reference to support for ending the Russian wheat embargo.

But I found out once I got back to Minnesota. The public policy chief of Cargill, the big Minnesota-based grain company and a big source of funds for Republicans, called me and said that in the firm’s view the overwhelming public interest and international polity would benefit from relaxation of the ban which would mean several millions to it and to call off our dogs.

I asked: Did a high Washington official from Minnesota urge you to call me?

He stuttered and obfuscated. What official? Who? Huh? But no doubt.

So I sent a note to Hubert at his personal box in the Capitol where he got a lot of political messages that read:

“Touche, Hubert. I just heard from your humanitarian friends at Cargill.”

A few days later a note came to me at the governor’s office on majority whip stationery. It read:

“I’m getting softer on big business by the day!—Hubert H.”

On the second item of importance, the atom smasher, Hubert played jump-ball against Illinois’ Everett Dirksen and thought he won. Hubert indeed had Kennedy’s word that it would be designated for Minnesota. But things changed after Kennedy was assassinated on Nov.22, 1963 and Lyndon Johnson took over. Dirksen muscled out Humphrey by going to his old colleague LBJ and saying that if the president expected cooperation, it would be helpful to grease the way. Johnson did and it was a key component of Johnson’s getting his massive program through the Senate—so with Hubert in the lurch, Johnson gave the atom smasher to Illinois. It is now known as Fermilab, a landmark particle accelerator, 4-miles in circumference which didn’t make it to Illinois until 1967 (long after Hubert was vice president).

Jump ahead to 1963. My boss had lost and I was back at my old stand, handling press releases and strategy for the Minnesota Republican party…wondering what the future held for my pregnant wife and two small kids. What future was there to be sticking in a staff position for the GOP after I had held that job earlier? I figured I’d like to be out of there and into another job before mid-1964 (I was but the future was not mine to see).

On Nov. 22, 1963 Hubert were having lunch at the Chilean embassy when White House aide Ralph Dungan phoned him saying, “the president has been shot.” Hubert, stunned, asked: What president? The answer: “President Kennedy.” Hubert wept as he told the luncheon guests what happened. That night he waited for the plane bearing Kennedy’s body and the new president, Lyndon Johnson, to return from Dallas.

Johnson passed the word he wanted to see Hubert as soon as possible along with Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Florida’s George Smathers. After the meeting, Johnson asked Hubert to bring Muriel to the Johnson home in northwest Washington where they and Johnson’s two daughters reviewed the events of the tragic day just ended—sitting there until 2 in the morning. The day before (Nov. 21) Hubert had spoken to the National Mental Health convention at a downtown hotel and said—with stunning prescience—“The emotional insecurity of a single man, if left untended, could impose monstrous penalties on our society.”

On Nov. 22 Gene McCarthy was having lunch with an old friend and liberal hack, Maurice Rosenblatt (of the Committee for an Effective Congress) at the Plaza hotel near the Senate when Gene was called to the phone. He returned and said, “The president’s just been shot in Dallas. He’s in the hospital. It may be fatal. I’m going back to the floor of the Senate.” A few minutes later in an improvised speech to the Senate he said:

“The president’s killing is too great to be borne by one person or nation. Instead, the burden of guilt must be shared by all who through the years have excited and stirred the simple and the anxious, who have raised questions and turned them about until they became suspicious, who have nurtured doubt until it bore the fruit of accusation and false charges, who have spread themselves to make a shade of fear and to save it from the light of truth until it grew to be a despairing fear of fear; by all who stood in silent acquiescence or who protested softly ,too little and too late; by all who envied him or any man or wished them ill.”

It sounded okay but I’ll be damned if I can understand what he meant. Can you?