Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver
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18 “Johnson’s going to need Illinois”: Liston, Sargent Shriver, 192. 331 “He hasn’t made enemies”: Ibid.
19 “too young and inexperienced”: Ibid.
20 “too many enemies as a hatchet man”: Ibid.
21 Johnson loved the idea: Bill Moyers, interview January 30, 1998.
22 “has never been elected to anything”: New York Times, March 15, 1964.
Chapter 25: Origins of the War on Poverty
1 “This administration today here and now”: Lander, War on Poverty, 4–5.
2 the word poverty: Sundquist, Politics and Policy, 111–12.
3 “If the free society cannot help”: Patterson, America’s Struggle, 122.
4 “The notion of declaring a war on poverty”: William Capron in “Poverty and Urban Policy,” group discussion transcript, 1973, JFK Library.
5 President Kennedy assigned his brother: Lemann, The Promised Land, 123–25.
6 “change the institutional life”: Patterson, America’s Struggle, 133.
7 “The ultimate aim of community development”: Frank Mankiewicz, interview March 5, 2002; Rice, The Bold Experiment, 195.
8 Harrington began expanding: Isserman, The Other American, 108.
9 “The extent of our poverty”: New Yorker, January 19, 1963.
10 “a minor American classic”: Bernstein, Guns or Butter, 91.
11 Both men passed copies: Levitan, The Great Society’s Poor Law, 14.
12 He was also struck: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 3.
13 The results, forwarded to the president: Walter Heller to President Kennedy, Heller Papers, JFK Library.
14 The hope was that: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 1002–6.
15 “public services and human beings”: Ibid., 1009.
16 Kennedy asked Heller: Robert Lampman oral history, JFK Library; William Capron oral history, JFK Library.
17 Heller replaced him: Lemann, The Promised Land, 132–33; William Capron oral history, JFK Library.
18 “Go back and do some more homework”: William Cannon oral history, JFK Library.
19 “badly in need of the public-policy equivalent”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 133.
20 The cavalry arrived: William Cannon oral history, JFK Library; William Capron oral history, JFK Library; Jules Sugarman oral history, LBJ Library; Lemann, The Promised Land, 133.
21 Heller had an audience with the president: Walter Heller oral history, JFK Library.
22 During his last cabinet meeting: Weeks, Job Corps, 52.
23 “The time has come”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 1012.
24 “I told him very early in our conversation”: Walter Heller oral history, JFK Library.
25 “Now I want to say something”: Walter Heller notes, JFK Library.
26 the journalist Nick Lemann has observed: Lemann, The Promised Land, 142.
27 “powerful conviction that an attack was right”: Johnson, The Vantage Point, 71.
28 “any more damn new agencies”: William Capron oral history, LBJ Library.
29 suggested in a memo: Jim Sundquist oral history, LBJ Library.
30 “I walked from the main ranch house”: Johnson, The Vantage Point, 73.
31 “It had to be big and bold”: Ibid., 75.
32 “Look, I’ve earmarked half a billion dollars”: Walter Heller oral history, JFK Library.
33 “If he’d said no to it”: Horace Busby, quoted in Lemann, The Promised Land, 144.
Chapter 26: “Mr. Poverty”
1 “Pity the poor soul”: Sargent Shriver, interview December 28, 1997.
2 “Find Shriver”: William Josephson correspondence with author, July 12, 2003.
3 “That’s great, Sarge”: Sargent Shriver, interview December 28, 1997. Much of the anecdote that follows comes from this interview and from Shriver’s oral history in the LBJ Library.
4 “I’m gonna to announce your appointment at that press conference”: President Johnson’s tape recorded conversations are available at the LBJ Library, in Austin, Texas. Transcriptions of many of them have been published in Michael Beschloss’s series of books, so far consisting of two volumes, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–64, and Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964–65. Additional Shriver thoughts here are derived from his oral history and from interviews August 2, 1997; December 27, 1997; and December 28, 1997, as well as from his unpublished 1970 manuscript, coauthored with Herb Kramer, “We Called It a War.”
5 He hung up the phone and told Eunice: Eunice Kennedy Shriver, interview September 24, 2001.
6 Shriver called the White House: Beschloss, Taking Charge, 208.
7 “Explain that this is just a study group”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
8 Shriver felt: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
9 Shriver called the White House again: Beschloss, Taking Charge, 208.
10 Two hours later: Ibid., 211–14.
11 “Sarge was not close pal brother-in-law”: Adam Walinsky oral history, JFK Library.
12 “I think he forced the job on me”: Sargent Shriver, interview December 27, 1997; Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
13 “The President had asked for immediate action”: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
Chapter 27: A Beautiful Hysteria
1 Shriver didn’t have much to work with”: Sargent Shriver, interview December 28, 1997.
2 “one of the most brilliant”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 147.
3 “demolish people with sarcasm”: Esquire, February 1965.
4 Shriver also turned to Frank Mankiewicz: Frank Mankiewicz oral history, LBJ Library.
5 That Sunday evening: William Cannon oral history, LBJ Library.
6 “I thought community action was absolutely sort of normal”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
7 “It’ll never fly”: Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty, 36; Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
8 “Sarge’s focus that night”: William Cannon oral history, LBJ Library.
9 “That’s just false”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
10 A great deal of intellectual firepower was present: “Participants at the February 4, 1964 Meeting on the President’s Antipoverty program,” Shriver Papers, JFK Library”; “Administrative History of the War on Poverty,” 27, LBJ Library.
11 “this was our Camelot”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 149.
12 “Oh, really, Mr. Harrington”: Harrington, Toward a Democratic Left, 8.
13 “I decided that in the brief time we had”: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
14 “My name is Sargent Shriver”: Edgar May, interview February 21, 2002.
15 “vintage Shriver”: Edgar May oral history, LBJ Library.
16 “there were all kinds of millionaires”: Ann Oppenheimer Hamilton oral history, LBJ Library. 361 “wild brainstorming”: Harold Horowitz oral history, LBJ Library.
17 “Shriver would bring down people”: Hyman Bookbinder oral history, LBJ Library.
18 “I’ve never known anyone as open to ideas”: New Republic, March 16, 1964.
19 “a dilettante”: Levitan, The Great Society’s Poor Law, 29.
20 “thin the ranks”: Esquire, February 1965.
21 “Nothing ever seemed very systematic”: Jim Sundquist oral history, LBJ Library.
22 “three or four nooks and crannies”: Edgar May oral history, LBJ Library.
23 The poverty program spent: Christopher Weeks oral history, LBJ Library; Edgar May oral history, LBJ library; Sargent Shriver, interview August 2, 1997; Johnson, The Vantage Point, 76; Adam Yarmolinsky “The Beginnings of OEO,” in Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty.
24 Movers were constantly losing: Weeks, Job Corps, 105.
25 $30,000 from the president’s contingency fund: Bill Kelly oral history, LBJ Library; Edgar May oral history, LBJ Library.
26 “warriors without gun
s”: Weeks, Job Corps, 103.
27 The atmosphere … was like being in the hotel lobby: Robert Lampman oral history, LBJ Library. 363 “beautiful hysteria”: Time, May 13, 1966.
28 “I followed closely the work: Johnson, The Vantage Point, 76–77.
29 “the walls dripped with blood”: New York Times Magazine, November 22, 1964.
30 Shriver instinctively felt: Sundquist, Politics and Policy, 142.
31 “a way of attempting to test out a variety”: Katz, The Undeserving Poor, 99.
32 “My conception of what it meant”: Yarmolinsky oral history, LBJ Library.
33 “You have used that phrase four or five times”: Yarmolinsky, “The Beginnings of OEO.”
34 “The disgust of Bobby and his people”: Sargent Shriver, interview June 22, 2000.
35 “Sarge felt a real loyalty to the programs: Life, August 18, 1972. 367 “We went to see him early on”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 149.
36 The main instigator in these fights: Sundquist, Politics and Policy, 142.
37 Wirtz “violently attacked” it: Daniel Capron, in “Poverty and Urban Policy,” Conference transcript of 1973 Group Discussion of the Kennedy Administration Urban Poverty Programs and Policy, 149–50.
38 “If Wirtz had had his way”: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
39 Shriver had another, more personal reason: Sargent Shriver, interview August 24, 1997.
40 “an impractical intellectual”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 155.
41 “an idea that nobody could quarrel with”: Levitan, The Great Society’s Poor Law, 36.
42 “can take on anything and everything”: Bernstein, Guns or Butter, 104.
43 “Shriver was of the strong opinion”: See, for instance, Levitan, The Great Society’s Poor Law, 37.
Chapter 28: Mobilizing for War
1 One day in February, Vernon Alden: Vernon Alden, interview February 18, 1998; Vernon Alden oral history, LBJ Library.
2 Several controversies arose: Robert McNamara, interview May 15, 2003; Adam Yarmolinsky oral history, LBJ Library.
3 “their dirty paws on it”: Weeks, Job Corps, 78.
4 “blood vessels began popping in official Washington”: Washington Post, February 19, 1964.
5 “too much of a military flavor”: Washington Post, March 13, 1964.
6 “exactly the kind of innovation that appealed to him”: Weeks, Job Corps, 100.
7 This didn’t deter Shriver: Ibid., 102.
8 “He swiveled in his chair”: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
9 “no crooks, Communists, or cocksuckers”: Herb Kramer oral history, LBJ Library.
10 “All of us who had worked so hard”: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
11 Bill Moyers had earlier written a memo: Bill Moyers, interview January 30, 1998; Evans and Novak, Lyndon B. Johnson, 430.
12 “if you are going to take a Kennedy”: Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography, 387.
13 “blood is thicker than water”: Goodwin, A Voice from the Sixties, 296.
14 “The hell he wouldn’t”: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 291.
15 “Robert Kennedy sat in icy silence”: New York Times, August 6, 1972.
16 “At the beginning, I was for Bobby”: Life, August 18, 1972.
17 “Did you plant that story in the paper?”: Sargent Shriver, interviews August 16, 1997; March 31, 2000.
Chapter 29: Wooing Congress
1 “In no uncertain terms”: Bill Moyers to Sargent Shriver, June 30, 1964, Shriver Papers, JFK Library.
2 “I know the Republicans thought this to a man”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
3 “pull a magnificent rabbit out of a hat”: Johnson, The Vantage Point, 77.
4 “You’re talking about the niggers!”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 156.
5 “a few choice words”: Christopher Weeks oral history, LBJ Library.
6 “Landrum coming aboard”: Larry O’Brien oral history, LBJ Library.
7 Another of Landrum’s assets: Lander, War on Poverty, 16.
8 “going through menopause for forty years”: Christopher Weeks oral history, LBJ Library.
9 “I was impressed”: Robert Lampman oral history, LBJ Library.
10 In the Senate, meanwhile: Lander, War on Poverty, 17.
11 “Look, this is the problem”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library; Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
12 Shriver went back to his office: Sundquist, Poverty and Policy, 148.
13 Shriver paid a call to Smith: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
14 “what’s this about some fellow in your organization”: Ibid.
15 “Adam looks like he’s got a bomb”: Esquire, February 1965.
16 when McNamara told Shriver: Robert McNamara, interview May 15, 2003.
17 “Since the New Frontier did not produce a legitimate Alger Hiss”: Esquire, February 1965.
18 Sensing a crisis: Much what follows is drawn from Evans and Novak, “The Yarmolinsky Affair,” Esquire, February 1965.
19 “like an executioner”: Kramer and Shriver, “We Called It a War.”
20 The next day, Friday: Congressional Record, August 7, 1964, 17996.
21 “the Southern Democrats had asked for and gotten their pound of flesh”: Weeks, Job Corps, 16–17. 391 The next afternoon: Ibid., 141.
22 “the most unpleasant experience I ever had”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
23 “Well, we’ve just thrown you to the wolves”: Adam Yarmolinsky oral history, LBJ Library.
24 Shriver hoped: Sargent Shriver, interview August 16, 1997.
25 “There was a lot of feeling”: Christopher Weeks oral history, LBJ Library.
26 “I came as close to Sarge as anybody”: Don Baker oral history, LBJ Library.
27 “Sarge was the outside”: Ibid.
28 “the whole operation began slowly to unravel”: Norb Schlei oral history, LBJ Library.
29 “just kept him so busy”: Don Baker oral history, LBJ Library.
30 “As soon as the legislation was passed”: Christopher Weeks oral history, LBJ Library.
Chapter 30: The Law of the Jungle
1 the “crowded and dilapidated room”: Weeks, Job Corps, 184.
2 “attack these plans”: Andy McCutcheon, interview February 20, 2003.
3 “the roughest tests”: Weeks, Job Corps, 184–86.
4 By November 25: “US Opens Drive Against Poverty with $35 Million,” New York Times, November 26, 1964; OEO press release, November 25, 1964, LBJ Library.
5 Shriver continued to announce: “Administrative History of the War on Poverty,” 60–62, LBJ Library.
6 “a kind of euphoria”: Weeks, Job Corps, 7.
7 “Operation 10,000”: Ibid., 203.
8 “they found a center still half-finished”: Ibid., 204–5.
9 “didn’t know what on earth they were supposed to do”: Christopher Weeks oral history, LBJ Library.
10 Dramatic problems at some centers: “Administrative History of the War on Poverty,” 92–94, LBJ Library.
11 “I had the telephone switchboard light up”: Sargent Shriver, interview March 31, 2000.
12 “You’d go into class: George Foreman, interview August 15, 2003.
13 how to construct a radio: A Job Corps teacher also taught Foreman how to box. Three years later, at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Foreman would put what he had learned to good use, winning a Gold Medal in the heavyweight boxing division.
14 “You’d think that if we took some felons in”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
15 “I do not like admonishing the Job Corps”: Weeks, Job Corps, 225.
16 Although this elicited an angry reaction: Ibid., 216.
Chapter 31: “Political Pornography”
1 “We weren’t quite prepared for the bitterness”: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
2 “Well, n
ot very much but about as much as was feasible”: John Wofford, “The Politics of Local Responsibility,” in Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty, 80.
3 “It was a wild sort of operation”: Don Baker oral history, LBJ Library.
4 As early as November 1964: Wofford, John, in Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty, 82.
5 “your plans are being hindered at the federal level”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 165.
6 “Daley was critical to the success”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 72.
7 “clear there would be no poverty program [in Chicago]”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 166.
8 “What in the hell are you people doing?”: Ibid., 167.
9 “there are numerous problems”: Hubert Humphrey to President Johnson, March 18, 1964, Watson Office Files, LBJ Library.
10 “the legal and moral responsibilities of local officials”: Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty, 169.
11 “Mayors all over the United States”: “Administrative History of the War on Poverty,” 193, LBJ Library.
12 “I’m your built-in Special Agent”: Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty, 181.
13 “Shriver’s sensitive political antennae”: Ibid., 92.
14 “activities which do no good”: The Reporter, March 3, 1965.
15 “high-minded … innocents”: James Rowe to President Johnson, June 29, 1965, Moyers Office Files, LBJ Library.
16 The two conceptions of Community Action: “Administrative History of the War on Poverty,” 89, LBJ Library.
17 “At a stroke”: Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement, 77.
18 This left the OEO: Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty, 100.
19 Johnson’s hatred of Bobby: Harry McPherson to President Johnson, June 24, 1965, McPherson Papers, LBJ Library.
20 “couldn’t look at Shriver”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy, 80.
21 At a meeting at the LBJ ranch: Sargent Shriver oral history, LBJ Library.
22 “If you want to wage war on poverty”: Lemann, The Promised Land, 170.
23 “to end poverty in the United States, as we know it today”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy, 79.
24 every “mayor had a gripe”: Sundquist, On Fighting Poverty, 99.