“Wasn’t like other candidates”: Boyett interview. “Mr. Leach’s letter”: DMN, June 27.
“He’s moving out!”: Woodward interview. Silver Star bar: And Johnson of course displayed it. If, because of the heat, he removed his suit jacket, on which his Silver Star bar was pinned, he, as the DMN reported on one occasion, “held aloft his coat” to display the emblem, and “got a big hand when he shouted ‘I didn’t sit and puff my pipe when our country was at war,’ ” and then “told about his military service in the Pacific” (DMN, July 3). This was one of the speeches at which he was introduced by an amputee. See also, for example, “July I,” Box 91, JHP. His attempts to make capital of his wartime experiences grew ever more intensive. Before the end of the campaign, he was telling audiences that the reason he had not run for the senatorial seat in 1942 was that he had been “in the jungles of New Guinea” (HC, Aug. 22). “Congressman Johnson”: For example, AA-S, Aug. 17. “Seven heroes”: AA-S, June 29. “But when the election”: HC, Aug. 22.
Johnson’s small-town speeches: No complete transcript of Johnson’s basic impromptu speech can be found. To reconstruct the speech, the author took paragraphs and phrases from descriptions of this speech that were printed in daily or weekly newspapers. Then he asked members of Johnson’s staff who heard the speech repeatedly—most notably Warren G. Woodward, Joe Mashman, Mary Rather and Horace Busby—to give their recollection of what he said and to try to recall the phrases Johnson used. In an attempt to capture the Hill Country intonations that Johnson used, he had relatives and boyhood friends from Johnson City, including Johnson’s brother, Sam Houston Johnson, and his cousin, Ava Johnson Cox, try to recall the phrases he used. “My boy died”: DMN, July 18. An old man’s tears: HP, Aug. 15. “Flying in B-29s, helping bomb one Japanese island after another”: Port Arthur News, July 15.
Imitating Coke: Among newspaper accounts of his imitation, the most evocative is Margaret Mayer’s in the AA-S, June 27; Busby, Woodward interviews. “Gone berserk”: Busby to Wade, June 24, “Intra-Office Memoranda,” Box 98, JHP; Busby interview.
Johnson’s emotions: Busby, Mayer, Rather, Woodward interviews. “Son, they’re people!”: Busby interview. Racing the train: CCC-T, July 7. Waving his hat: For example, DMN, July 7. “Hello, Port Arthur!” Port Arthur News, July 15. “Whipped his Stetson”: AA-S, June 25.
Following him by auto: Chudars, Oltorf, Bolton, Woodward, Nachlin interviews; Boatner, Plyler OHs. “That mad dash”: Knight to Johnson, “Fort Worth–IJK,” Box 87, JHP.
“Three hours”: Nichols OH. Johnson’s hard work: Busby, Chudars, Jenkins, Rather, Woodward, Bolton, Clark interviews. “Worry yourself”: Wild to Johnson, June 19, “Austin-Miscellaneous, 1948,” Box I, PPMF. Awake when Woody came to wake him: Woodward interview. “I never saw anyone”; “harder”: Caro, Path to Power, p. 425; Clark interview.
Visit to Alice Glass’s mother: Oltorf, Mary Louise Glass Young interviews.
“Just too nervous”: Quoted in Steinberg, p. 256. Stevenson’s speech: DMN, July 16. Coverage of Stevenson campaign: For example, AA-S, July 18; DMN, July 8, 17, 18, 21; HP, July 16, 18. “Five towns”: AA-S, June 28.
“Coffee, doughnuts”: Steinberg, p. 256. Raging at clerks; “nudity”: Busby interview.
“See the [face]”: Boatner OH. Treatment of Cheavens: Mayer interview. Switching HP reporters: Oltorf interview. Obscenities to Rather: Mayer interview and OH; Rather interview.
“Umbrage”: Busby interview. Predicting no runoff: Phipps, “Tell ’em About Me, Joe.” “Having heard it a lot myself, I almost believed it,” Phipps wrote. FWS-T, June 25, AA-S, June 27.
The older men knew: Brown, Clark interviews.
Cowboy Reunion: Interviews with Murphey, Boyett and Ray Arledge, former Reunion president; HP, DMN, July 3. “Thinning ranks”: WPA, pp. 467–70. “I didn’t sit,” etc.: For example, DMN, July 3. “One constant”: HP, July 3. Johnson’s excuse: DMN, CCC-T, July 3.
Poll results: DMN, July 11.
Changing helicopters: Mashman, Chudars interviews; Mashman OH. “My good pilot Joe”: Mashman interview.
One of the hottest summers: Texas Almanac, p. 168. “Flying in a greenhouse”: Chudars interview. “Just dripping”: Mashman interview. Thirty-one speeches: CCC-T, July 8. Circling thunderstorm: DMN, July 10; Mashman interview.
Stump speeches: See Note, Johnson’s small-town speeches above. See also AAS, DMN, HP, CCC-T, June 20-July 21. “A goatherder”: DMN, July 9. “Twenty bombs”: HP, July 8. Germ warfare: HP, July 4. “Pray”; “the best atomic bomb”: For example, DMN, July 4. For another example of his rhetoric on this subject, see DMN, July 24: “ ‘The atom bomb we dropped on Hiroshima is just a T-Model compared with the bomb we have ready right now, wrapped up and tied with a blue ribbon.’ ” “I wish”: FWS-T, July 20. “Day is over”: AA-S, July 11. Oil depletion should be increased: For example, DMN, July 9, 15. “Big-bellied,” etc.: For example, DMN, July 7. “Isolationist”; “appeaser”; “umbrella man”; “Munich”: For example, DMN, July 17; HP, July 18; CCC-T, July 18; DMN, July 21. During the Berlin crisis in July, Johnson’s attacks on Stevenson as “appeaser” intensified, as did his warnings of imminent war. “The Russian bear is moving!” Johnson “shouted” in speech after speech. “No one knows what the next day or hour will bring!” And his attacks on Stevenson intensified. “Other persons,” he said, in a thinly veiled reference to Stevenson, “want to cut the throat of the free country we have always known.” He said America must not retreat “one inch.… We are willing to draw the quarantine line, and we would rather have it on the Mediterranean than on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.… The people realize the issue in this race is preparedness and peace versus isolationism and appeasement.” Stevenson’s own statement on the crisis pointed out that he had consistently favored a strong military. “None of us running for office now will be in Washington before January [and] I will not attempt to fool the people of Texas by pretending that, as a candidate, I can do anything effective about this urgent problem. Certainly a matter as serious as this has no place as a political issue. But I would call for a showdown with Russia if I were there.” He felt that Russia did not want war at the present time, because “her forces aren’t strong enough.” So, he said, “I would call for a showdown with Russia if I were there. Make Russia toe the mark, and if we do, too, I don’t believe we will have war.” “STOOGE”: For example, HP, July 8. “Slick tongue”: For example, AA-S, July il. Woodward getting caught up: Woodward interview. Semicircle edging closer: Busby interview.
The meeting and greeting: Johnson’s phrases in these unwritten speeches are re-created from the recollections of a dozen persons who heard him give them. Some of the phrases are the same as or similar to phrases he used in unrehearsed stump speeches during his 1937 campaign for Congress—because he would use the same phrases. “Mighty hard schedule”: Meredith to Wild, July 17; Wild to Meredith, July, “District 4 Chairman-Fred Meredith,” Box 100, JHP. In the helicopter: Mashman interview. Johnson’s lack of concern for own safety: Mashman, Chudars, Woodward interviews. Rosenberg landing: Woodward interview.
“Concentrate”: Parr, quoted in Salas, “Box 13,” p. 53. Conditions in Precinct 13: Lloyd, Salas, Rowe interviews. “Inside we had a table”: Salas interview; Salas, “Box 13,” p. 56. “I tell you once more”; “told them, Absolutely”: Salas, “Box 13,” pp. 53, 51. “I just ordered”; Holmgreen’s arrest: Salas, Holmgreen, quoted in Kahl, p. 93. “Up many times”; “just ignored same”: Salas, “Box 13,” p. 54. Voting results: AA-S, DMN, HP, CCC-T, July 26; Texas Almanac, pp. 462–64.
DMN editorial: On front page, July 23. Echoed by: The DMN said that “on his [Stevenson’s] great record he can hardly fail to appeal to a substantial majority of the 265,000 Texans who in August will make their second choice,” DMN, July 27. “Ninety percent”: Roberts, quoted in HP, July 29. Indeed, a Belden Poll published on August 1 provided figures to support the optimism of the Stevenson camp. It showed that of voters who favore
d Peddy in the first primary, 49.5 percent would favor Stevenson in the second, to 39.7 for Johnson, with 10.8 percent undecided (AA-S, Aug. 1). “So imposing”: Pickle OH. “Making up”: Kilgore interview. As for Johnson’s own feelings, he related them at the time to Busby, Clark, Connally, Kilgore and Pickle, among others. He was to recall to Ronnie Dugger: “I thought I’d lead into the run-off by 100,000 votes.… I nearly had to get seventy or eighty percent of the votes that went to George Peddy.” Johnson interview with Dugger, Dec. 14, 1967, quoted in Dugger, p. 319. “People do not”: Busby interview. “Pulled his weight”: FWS-T, July 26.
12. All or Nothing
SOURCES
See also Sources for Chapter 11.
Books, articles, and documents:
McKay, Texas and the Fair Deal, 1945–1952; Montgomery, Mrs. LBJ; Smith, The President’s Lady; Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy; Texas Almanac, 1949–1950.
Papers of Welly K. Hopkins (LBJL).
Oral Histories:
Leslie Carpenter, E. B. Germany, Marshall McNeil, Dorothy J. Nichols, Robert Oliver, Drew Pearson, J. J. (“Jake”) Pickle.
Interviews:
Paul Bolton, Ernest J. Boyett, George R. Brown, Horace Busby, Edward A. Clark, John B. Connally, Thomas G. Corcoran, Lewis T. (“Tex”) Easley, Charles Herring, Welly K. Hopkins, Walter Jenkins, Lady Bird Johnson, Edward Joseph, Sarah McClendon, Robert W. Murphey, Frank C. (“Posh”) Oltorf, J. J. (“Jake”) Pickle, Daniel Quill, Mary Rather, James H. Rowe, Jr., Emmett Shelton, E. Babe Smith, Coke Stevenson, Jr., Wilton Woods, Ralph Yarborough, Harold Young.
NOTES
(All dates 1948 unless otherwise indicated)
Change in Johnson: Busby, Connally interviews.
The Washington press conference: Articles on it in AA-S, July 30, Aug. 8, 9; DMN, FWS-T, HP, July 30; Easley, McClendon, Murphey interviews; “Re: Stevenson’s Press Conference 6:00 p.m. July 29, 1948,” Files of Mildred Stegall, Box 59, LBJL; “Full Text of Les Carpenter’s Story Thursday noon Stevenson Press Conference,” “Austin-Miscellaneous, 1948,” Box 1, PPMF, LBJL. The description of how the trap was set comes from the oral histories of Pickle, McNeil, Pearson, supplemented by interviews with Pickle, Connally, McClendon, Easley, Murphey, Corcoran and Rowe. The words “and then riding him” can no longer be found in the transcript of the Pickle Oral History in the Lyndon Johnson Library. Pickle has deleted them from the text, but they are in the original text, a copy of which is in the author’s possession. Leslie Carpenter’s description of the incident does not mention being prepared in advance for the Stevenson visit. In his OH, Drew Pearson said: “When Coke Stevenson came up here, Lyndon tipped me off and I arranged a press conference for Coke Stevenson and had a question asked of him by one of my assistants about the Taft-Hartley Act. That put Coke on record publicly, where he stood. That supposedly turned a certain number of votes against Coke and maybe made the difference of the eighty-seven vote margin, by which Lyndon won. At any rate he was very grateful.” When the OH interviewer then said, “You weren’t particularly trying to help Congressman Johnson in his race for the Senate so much as you were just trying to get Stevenson’s true stand on the issue,” Pearson corrected him. “A little bit of both,” the columnist said. “I wanted to ‘hep’ Lyndon, as he would say.”
“We encouraged”: Connally interview. Johnson’s “briefing” of the press corps: Interviews with Corcoran and Rowe, who did most of the briefing. “Not only primed”: Pickle OH.
Questions on pardons: “Full Text of Les Carpenter’s Story Thursday noon Stevenson Press Conference,” “Austin-Miscellaneous, 1948,” Box 1, PPMF, LBJL. Abilene statement: Abilene Reporter-News, July 3. “Unethical”: Timmons, quoted in “night press collect—Beaumont Journal,” July 29 (signed “Elizabeth Carpenter”), “Austin-Miscellaneous, 1948,” Box I, PPMF, LBJL. “Lousy”: McClendon interview.
“Dodged”: “Full Text of Les Carpenter’s Story” (see above). “A dozen”: AA-S, July 30.
“Why don’t you get”: Les Carpenter to Johnson, Aug. 2, “Memos: Inter-Office, Prior to 1952, 1948 [2 of 2],” Box I, PPMF, LBJL. McNeil drafting: McNeil OH; Jenkins interview.
“He’s got to”: Woods interview. “If I lost”: Clark interview. “All on the line”: Brown interview. Had narrowly escaped indictment: Caro, Path to Power, pp. 742–53. “In a thousand ways”: Clark interview.
Collecting the cash: This discussion of the financing of the Johnson campaign is based on interviews with Brown, Clark, Connally, Corcoran, Herring, Jenkins, Joseph, Quill, Rowe, Woods, Yarborough, Young. Reprinting of Liz Carpenter’s article: Busby says that when he saw Liz Carpenter’s article, “I said to myself: ‘This is our chance!’ ” Pearson column: “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” AA-S, Aug. 8, 9.
“A damned lie”: Bolton interview. Estes speech: AA-S, Aug. 7; Bolton interview. A reporter wrote it: In his OH, Marshall McNeil states: “Stevenson had issued some kind of a statement.… Lyndon wanted to answer it, and he wanted me to write it. Well, I did.” Missionaries: The description of their use in the Johnson campaign comes from Johnson strategists such as Bolton, Clark, Connally, Herring, Oltorf and Smith and from Stevenson aides such as Boyett, Murphey and Stevenson, Jr.; and from neutral observers such as Shelton and Yarborough. “I saw him”: Herring interview. Between fifty and a hundred: Estimate from Connally. “He’d just circulate”: Connally interview. Spread by federal employees: Analyses of the use of these employees from Boyett, Clark, Oltorf, Smith and Yarborough. “It was working”: Boyett interview.
Johnson camp knew the truth: Bolton interview. “Lift either leg”: Johnson, quoted in AA-S, CCC-T, Aug. 11. “It would be”: Johnson, quoted in DMN, Aug. 3. “LIKE A BRANDED STEER”: HP, Aug. 6. “You watched”: Bolton interview. “At the point”: Busby interview. “All we needed”: Connally interview.
Stevenson’s image hurt with businessmen: Busby, Connally interviews; Germany OH. Schreiner’s call: Boyett interview. He couldn’t hear Schreiner’s end of the conversation, but Stevenson related it to him as soon as he had hung up, and others knew because Schreiner later spoke to them. Trying—and failing—to persuade Coke: Boyett, Murphey, Stevenson, Jr., interviews.
Financing of Stevenson’s campaign: Boyett interview. Letter to Braswell: AA-S, DMN, Aug. 12. “A straw man”: DMN editorial, Aug. 14. “Nothing new”: Stevenson, quoted in HP, Aug. 13.
Planting doubts: HP, Aug. 13. And see the articles on the letter in AA-S, CCC-T, FWS-T, HC. On the day on which a prominent article on Stevenson’s letter should have been printed, Aug. 12, the HP, for example, ran only two paragraphs on the letter—in a separate story at the end of the day’s major campaign story. “Noncommittal”: Johnson, quoted in HP, Aug. 13.
Johnson’s use of radio; Stevenson’s use of radio: Analyses of radio listings, advertisements, articles in AA-S, HP, DMN, Aug. 13–24; Bolton, Busby, Boyett, Connally interviews. “With utterly unfounded allegation”: DMN editorial, Aug. 26. “Have to say something over and over”: Connally interview.
Four unions: AA-S, Aug. 10; Corcoran, Young interviews. “No surprise”: Stevenson, quoted in DMN, Aug. 10. Oliver lining up: Oliver OH. Hopkins’ activities: Hopkins has given a number of conflicting statements on his activities in this campaign. In a memo written for his personal papers, he relates one incident that occurred after the Dallas News discovered he was in Texas. He says that as he arrived at the little airport in Gonzales that August, he was met by John Connally, who said Wirtz had dictated a statement on Lyndon’s behalf for Hopkins to approve. The statement would have had the UMW counsel saying that “I am an old friend of Coke Stevenson and judging by the official record and platforms of the two men, I have no hesitancy in saying that if John L. Lewis and the UMW were taking any interest in Texas politics, they would support Coke Stevenson.” Hopkins refused to make the statement, because, he says, “it did not [word unclear] the truth, was an untruth.” Hopkins wrote in this memo: “I told him [Connally] further that I had heard Lyndon’s radio broadcasts … at 12:30 P
M, and that Lyndon had made misstatements of fact in reference to Mr. Lewis and the Mine Workers and I was disappointed and ashamed of Lyndon for so doing. Connally apologized for these speeches, saying Lyndon was forced to make them.… Connally said the race was very close and urged me to sign the proposed statement and to issue it or to revise it and then issue—All of this I flatly refused to do.” In this handwritten memo, Hopkins also said, “I had previously refrained from taking any interest in the campaign.” However, in an interview, he said that he “had written a few hundred letters on UMW stationery that had fallen into someone’s hands” and that he went back and forth to Texas with the material from and to Rowe and Corcoran (Personal Papers of Welly K. Hopkins). Funding from Dubinsky, etc: Corcoran, Rowe, Jenkins, Young interviews.
Johnson in Peddy territory: AA-S, DMN, HP, HC, Aug. 7–8; Boyett, Brown, Clark, Stevenson, Jr., interviews. “His bid”: HP, Aug. 7. “Have not”: DMN, Aug. 7; “Lyndon B. Johnson Speech, Friday, Aug. 6, 1948,” Papers of Charles E. Marsh, Box 1, “Lyndon Johnson 1948,” LBJL.
“He had to turn it around”: Yarborough interview.
Stevenson’s not organizing: His men—Boyett, Murphey, Stevenson, Jr., say so—and so do Johnson’s men: Clark and Connally, for example. To Canada: AA-S, Aug. 18. Kinney and Hansford: Texas Almanac, pp. 463, 474; Boyett, Stevenson, Jr., interviews.
“Lyndon Johnson voted”: Johnson, quoted in DMN, Aug. 18. “Birds of a feather”: Johnson, quoted in DMN, Aug. 18. “Does it mean”: Johnson, quoted in HP, Aug. 20. “My first impression”: Connally; DMN editorials, Aug. 25, 26. “COMMUNISTS FAVOR COKE”: Johnson Journal, quoted in Dugger, p. 320. See also DMN, Aug. 22. An angered Stevenson read the headlines to audiences (DMN, Aug. 26).
“Pappy’s Speech”: Caro, Path to Power, pp. 695–703. Had had speech recorded in 1941: Corcoran, Rowe, Hopkins interviews. “The great prize”: Busby interview. Johnson’s decision to give speech: Busby interview. Although he was the only person present when the decision was made, Bolton was following the developments, and confirms the story. “Particularly when”: Connally interview.
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