The Passage of Power (154 page)

“Guys with”
:
Shuman interview; Watson,
Lion in the Lobby,
p. 580.
Meany explained; Wilkins
“repeated”
:
BS, NYP, NYT, WP, WES,
Dec. 5, 6, 1963.

Johnson and O’Brien knew:
Reedy interview; Whalen and Whalen,
Longest Debate,
p. 80.
Contacting the priests:
NYT,
Dec. 5, 1963.
“Negro and labor”
:
WP,
Dec. 4, 1963.
“Heavy in favor
:
WP,
Dec. 5, 1963.
“We’ve just got”
:
Transcript, “6:08 P.M. from Larry O’Brien,” Dec. 4, 1963,
TPR,
Vol. II, p. 146.

A quiet meeting:
Watson,
Lion in the Lobby,
p. 581; MacNeil interview.

“reasonably soon”
:
Richmond TimesDispatch,
Dec. 5, 1963;
NYHT, NYP, NYT, WP,
Dec. 5, 6, 1963.
Brown explained:
NYP, NYT,
Dec. 6, 1963.
A firm date had been set:
WP,
Dec. 4, 1963.
“It was a compromise”
;
“spared himself”
:
NYT,
Dec. 8, 1963.
“But by then”
:
“Despite ‘Frugality,’ the Budget Rises,
Newsweek,
Dec. 16, 1963.

Actually filed not by:
NYT, WP,
Dec. 9, 1963;
NYP, WES,
Dec. 9, 10, 1963.
“Larry? Larry?”
Transcript, “3:35 P.M. from Larry O’Brien,” Dec. 9, 1963,
TPR,
Vol. II, pp. 257–58.
Put Jenkins:
Reedy interview.
“They’ll sign it”; Smith confessed
:
Transcript, “7:06 P.M. to Carl Albert,” Dec. 9, 1963,
TPR,
Vol. II, p. 280.
Headlines of triumph:
WP, NYT,
Dec. 6.

“texan sits tall”; Steele article
:
John L. Steele, “The Political Virtuoso Gathers the Forces to Take on the Job,”
Life,
Dec. 13, 1963.

“There was nothing tentative”
:
West with Kotz,
Upstairs at the White House,
pp. 283–87.
“I think we’ll probably”
:
West,
Upstairs
, p. 288.
“I had our favorite”
:
Lady Bird Johnson,
A White House Diary,
p. 14.
“Does this telephone”
West,
Upstairs,
p. 290.
“Mr. West”
:
West,
Upstairs,
pp. 290–91.

“Congress seemed”
;
“demanding of”
:
Evans and Novak,
Lyndon B. Johnson,
pp. 366–67.
On Dec. 21:
NYT, WP,
Dec. 20–25, 1963.
“Perhaps”
:
Amrine,
This Awesome Challenge,
p. 125.
“At that moment”
:
Johnson,
The Vantage Point,
p. 40.
“Had dodged”
:
Amrine,
This Awesome Challenge,
p. 126.

In this chapter, all December quotes are from December 1963 and all January quotes from January 1964 unless otherwise noted.

Much of the description of these two weeks on the ranch comes from the many hours of newsreel footage, including outtakes, taken at these events.

“Sere and bleak”
;
“whisked off”
:
Cormier,
LBJ: The Way He Was,
p. 19.
“So empty”
:
Wicker interview.
“Island town”
:
Gliddon, quoted in Caro,
The Path to Power,
p. 57.

Photo session:
“The Presidency: Whatever You Say, Honey,”
Time,
Jan. 3, 1964; “Sparerib Summit,”
Newsweek,
Jan. 6, 1964; Betty Beale, “Johnson’s House Tells of His Life,”
Life,
Nov. 15, 1964;
BS,
Dec. 26, 1963.
Lynda’s red shift; to prove:
Newsweek,
Jan. 6, 1964.
BS,
Dec. 26, 1963: “It’s marimaki. It’s not what you think it is,” he told reporters. “She blushed, and so did some of us,” Cormier says (
LBJ,
p. 23).
“Overflowing”
:
Cormier,
LBJ,
p. 23.
“That’s where”
:
LAT,
Dec. 29, 1963;
Newsweek,
Jan. 6, 1964.
“I’ve got”
:
Cormier,
LBJ,
pp. 24, 25.

Erhard visit:
Wray Weddell, Jr., “Talk of the Towns,”
AA-S,
Dec. 27–Dec. 31, 1963, Jan. 2, 1964;
Fredericksburg Standard,
Dec. 30, 1963;
NYHT,
Dec. 30, 1963;
San Antonio Light,
Dec. 27, 1963;
Time,
“The Presidency: Waging Peace,” Jan. 10, 1964.
“Alert and”
:
NYHT,
Dec. 29, 1963.
“
Nothing
remotely”
:
NYT,
Dec. 28, 1963.
“Diplomatic staffers”
:
Newsweek,
Jan, 6, 1964.

“A rare bit of Nuremberg”
:
WPA,
Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State,
p. 639.
Visited the Pioneer Memorial:
A-AS, BS, DMN, NYT,
Dec. 30.
State dinner:
AA-S, Fredericksburg Standard, Home Democrat, Midland Reporter,
Dec. 27, 1963;
NYT, NYHT,
Jan. 1, 1964.
“No one”
:
Cormier,
LBJ,
p. 29.
“The leaders of two”
:
DMN,
Dec. 30, 1963.
“The George Jessell”
:
LAT,
Dec.29, 1963.

“The fact that”
:
Unidentified official, quoted in
DMN,
Dec. 31, 1963.
“The homelike”
:
Erhard, quoted in
NYT,
Dec. 30, 1963.
Felt that:
For example, “What seemed to please both sides most was the rapport developed by Mr. Johnson and Dr. Erhard and the extreme good feeling that now seems to prevail between the two governments. That was not always the case when Dr. Adenauer and President Kennedy were at the head of their governments” (
NYT,
Dec. 30, 1963).

“The same moral views”; looked at the world”
:
NYT,
Dec. 30, 1963.
“All these questions”
;
“Enchanted”
:
Time,
Jan. 10, 1964.
“That I think”
:
NYT,
Dec. 31, 1963.
“Stetson Statesmanship”
;
“Sparerib Summit”
:
Newsweek,
Jan. 6, 1964.
“Somehow”
:
Cormier,
LBJ,
p. 28.

“The Kennedys transported”
:
NYHT,
Jan. 1, 1964.

“I’ve got to be thinking”
:
Elizbeth Wickenden, quoted in Dallek,
Flawed Giant,
p. 61; Goldschmidt, Wickenden interviews.

“The [military] situation”
:
John McCone, “Memorandum for the Record,” Dec. 29, 1963, p. 28, “Meetings with the President—23 Nov 1963—27 Dec. 1963,” Box 1, John McCone Memoranda, LBJL.

“undermined”
:
Sorensen,
Counselor.
“We spent”
:
Stephen Sorensen interview.

Full press corps tour:
DMN,
Dec. 29, 1963.
“There go the winter oats”
:
DMN, Dec. 29, 1963.
Bundy:
NYT,
Dec. 28.
Newspapermen;
“in vain”
:
DMN,
Dec. 29, 1963.
“With a view”
:
NYT,
Dec. 28, 1963.

Salinger was aware;
“I gave”
:
BS,
Dec. 28, 1963.
Salinger on horse:
Newsweek,
Jan. 6, 1964;
DMN,
Dec. 29, 1963.
“Rode off into”
:
NYT,
Dec. 28, 1963.
“It is not”
:
BS,
Dec. 28, 1963.
“Members of the press”
:
NYT,
Dec. 28.

“Entertainment arouses”
:
Tom Wicker, “LBJ Down on the Farm,”
Esquire,
Oct. 1964.

Boating excursion:
“At the LBJ,”
BS,
Jan. 6, 1964.

“A good man”
:
Cormier,
LBJ,
p. 19.
Giving them gifts; Calling Potter’s editor:
Time,
Jan. 17, 1964; Wicker interview.

Oreole visits:
BS, NYT,
Jan. 6, 1964; Cormier,
LBJ,
pp. 31–32.
“It is an experience”
:
Wicker, “LBJ Down on the Farm.”

Joint Chiefs:
NYT,
Dec. 31, 1963.

A “highly-sophisticated”
;
“Cornball”
:
LAT,
Jan. 5, 1964.
“A notable lack”
:
Peter Lisagor, “On the LBJ Ranch,”
NYP,
Dec. 27, 1963.
Driving back to Austin:
NYHT,
Jan. 1, 1964.
“His own brand”
;
“A Johnson we had never seen”
:
Cormier,
LBJ,
p. 19.
“Politics has been”
;
“He seems a casual king”
:
Wicker,
NYT,
Jan. 6, 1964.
“Unaffected,” “old-shoe”
:
Lisagor, “On the LBJ Ranch.”
“Relaxed”
:
LAT,
Dec. 29, 1963.
“Presidential home life”
:
BS,
Jan. 6, 1964.
“Washington’s canniest”
:
Russell Baker,
NYT,
Jan. 9, 1964.
“The one”
:
Wicker, “LBJ Down on the Farm.”
“Perfect”
:
“The Press: Down on the Ranch,”
Time,
Jan. 17, 1964.

“The Bunton strain”
:
See chapter with that title in Caro,
Path.
Showing a house he wasn’t really born in:
DMN,
Dec. 29, 1963. He told reporters he was born “right in that room there, pointing to the corner” (
NYT,
January 6, 1964;
BS,
Dec. 26, 1963). He told reporters, “Don’t miss the old house a half mile down the road where I was born.” “No, you weren’t, corrected his aunt Jessie Hatcher.” “Well, it was in the same place, it wasn’t the same house,” he amended.”
“There used”
:
Robert Semple, “The White House on the Pedernales,
NYT,
Oct. 3, 1965.
His father’s last stand:
Caro,
Path,
pp. 87–88.
“The most important thing”
:
SHJ interview.

Behind those doors:
Fehmer, Gonella, Jenkins, Rather interviews.
Might have seemed:
The description of Johnson making phone calls in which he was determined to get the person on the other end to do something comes from the descriptions of, among others, Busby, Jenkins, SHJ, Rather, Reedy, Valenti.

“I had,”
she was to say, questions:
Mayer interview.
“Margaret always”
:
Busby interview.
Johnson telephoned:
Transcript, “8:45 P.M. to Albert Jackson,”
TPR,
Vol. III, pp. 144–51.
Jackson … continually trying to cultivate:
Busby, Reedy interviews. For example, in 1959 Jenkins reported to Johnson that “Albert Jackson called and said that he had not been satisfied with some of the columns that Bob Hollingsworth and Margaret Mayer had written, and he told them so—that is in connection with the slant they give their articles about Senator Johnson. He says he has been keeping as close check as possible, but that you can’t always control the articles.… What I would like for you to do when you have something you want brought out in an article, get in touch with me and I will see that it is brought out.… Ask George [Reedy] to call me and tell me what is wanted and I will see that it is done” (“Resume of Telephone Conversations by Long Distance … Albert Jackson,”) Nov. 7, 1959, “Master File Index 1959—Jenkins, Walter [2 of 2], Box 96, JSP.
In the morning:
Transcript, “11:00 A.M. from Albert Jackson,”
TPR,
Vol. III, pp. 157–58.

Bank mergers:
NYT,
July 17, 1963.
Had not been:
WSJ,
Oct. 17, Dec. 23, 1963.
“A strongly adverse”
:
Buenger and Pratt,
But Also Good Business,
p. 201.
Justice Dept. opposed”
:
NYT, WSJ,
Oct. 14, 1964; “Conversation between Dick Maguire and the President—Dec. 27 [1963]—Time: Approximately 12:15 P.M. (This call was not recorded.)
“Would set a precedent”
:
“Houston Bank Merger … Reasons against … as dictated by Dick Maguire,” both from “Ex Be 2–4, Nov. 22, 1963—July 8, 1965,” WHCF SF, Box 4.
“A very serious”
:
“From: Walter Jenkins to” Pres US.”
High stakes:
Fran Dressman,
Gus Wortham: Portrait of a Leader,
p. 171;
NYT,
March 20, 1965; Clark, Oltorf interviews.

The President had:
Transcript, “1:55 P.M. to Jack Valenti, et al.,” Dec. 25, 1963,
TPR,
Vol. II, pp. 808–10.
Wortham had been;
“twisted”
:
Caro,
Means,
p. 102.
120,000:
NYT,
March 20, 1968.
“I told Gus”
:
Transcript, “11:55 A.M. from George Brown,”
TPR,
Jan. 2, 1964, Vol. III, pp. 69–78.
“I have been”
:
NYT,
Sept. 4, 1965.
“I was under”
:
CT,
Oct. 29, 1968.
The letter:
Jones to Johnson, Jan. 3, 1964.
Satisfied Johnson:
On Jan. 7 he wrote Wortham: “Our friend whom you had visit with me at the ranch sent me a very gracious letter in exactly the fashion that you would have him do it” (Johnson to Wortham, Jan. 7, 1964). Johnson was satisfied perhaps also because of a memorandum he had received from Valenti following a talk Valenti had with the
Chronicle
’s editor, Bill Steven, which told Johnson that “Steven says he and Jones are excited over the role of the
Chronicle
as your voice in Texas,” and that “Collier’s job [in Washington] will be … to serve as a vehicle for answering any unfavorable stories that may be printed by other newspapers” (Valenti to Johnson, Dec. 30, 1963). Jones’s letter, Johnson’s letter, and Valenti’s memo are all from “Ex BE 2–4, Nov. 22, 1963—July 8, 1965,” Box 4, WHCF SF, LBJL.