Guns or Butter

by Bernstein, Irving;

  9. Public Papers, Johnson, 1963–64, II: 360–61, 989; Yarmolinsky, Oral History Interview, II-9, III-32, 43–44, Sundquist, Oral History Interview, 1–40, Wilbur J. Cohen, Oral History Interview, 9, all Johnson Library. For the Bureau of the Budget’s objections to the location of OEO, see Bohen to Task Force, the President’s Task Force on Government Organization, Nov. 30, 1966, Task Force on Government Organization file, Johnson Library. For the administrative problems of OEO, see Sar A. Levitan, The Great Society’s Poor Law (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1969), ch. 2. Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, House Hearings, 184.

  Chapter 5. Prelude: The 1964 Election

  1. Robert D. Novak, The Agony of the G.O.P., 1964 (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 58; William A. Rusher, The Rise of the Right (New York: Morrow, 1984), 94, 98, 117–27, the Sharon Statement is at 90–91; the Goldwater quote is in Richard Rovere, The Goldwater Caper (New York: Harcourt, Brace, World, 1963), 11; Lionel Trilling, The Liberal Imagination (New York: Doubleday, 1950), ix; Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1944); Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (Chicago: Regnery, 1953); Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965), 29; F. Clifton White, Suite 3505 (New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1967), 34–36.

  2. This sketch is based on Barry Goldwater’s autobiography, With No Apologies (New York: Morrow, 1979), quotes at 22, 27, 29, 96, 160–63, and Rovere, Goldwater Caper, quotes at 4, 8, 22, 40–41, 50–51. The Humphrey quip is from David W. Reinhard, The Republican Right Since 1945 (Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1983), 159–60. Edwin O. Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman, eds., Robert Kennedy in His Own Words (New York: Bantam, 1989), 373, 393. According to Clifton White, Goldwater did not even bother to read Bozell’s manuscript of The Conscience of a Conservative. White, Suite 3505, 204. If one were a new conservative, it must have been fun writing speeches, columns, and books for Goldwater, because the ghost could write whatever he liked. The result was that Goldwater became the “author” of a cornucopia of statements, many of which were both outrageous standing alone and in direct conflict with each other. Many were also very funny. Rovere collected these Goldwaterisms the way others collected incunabula and Monets. His little Caper is a treasurehouse of these shockers. History has its ironies. In a sense, Goldwater made Lyndon Johnson, the man who destroyed him in the 1964 election, a national figure. In 1952 the Arizonan defeated Ernest McFarland, the Senate majority leader for reelection, thereby making the job available for Johnson, who used it to vault onto the national stage.

  3. White, Suite 3505, chs. 4, 12–35, quotes at 85, 280, 407; Novak, Agony of G.O.P., chs. 4–23, quotes at 140, 287; Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1964 (New York: Atheneum, 1965), chs. 3–7, quote at 102–3; Goldwater, With No Apologies, chs. 18–21, quotes at 163, 166; Lawrence F. O’Brien, Oral History Interview, IX-2, Johnson Library; John Bartlow Martin, “Election of 1964,” in A. M. Schlesinger, Jr., F. L. Israel, and W. P. Hansen, eds., History of American Presidential Elections (New York: Chelsea House, 1985), IX: 3584. Drew Pearson is quoted in The Goldwater Candidacy and the Christian Conscience, p. 9, PL 2 File, Johnson Library. Stephen Shadegg, What Happened to Goldwater? (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), 171–72, 188.

  4. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1937), 651, 681, 747; Graham Wallas, The Great Society (New York: Macmillan, 1914); Richard N. Goodwin, Remembering America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 267–81; Public Papers, Johnson, 1963–64, 1: 704–7; Kermit Gordon, Oral History Interview, IV-1–2, Johnson Library. For the difficulty, really impossibility, of defining the Great Society, see the essays in Bertram M. Gross, ed., A Great Society? (New York: Basic, 1966).

  5. Kearns, Johnson, 205; Johnson, Vantage Point, 92—98; George Reedy, Oral History Interview, IV-21, Lawrence F. O’Brien, Oral History Interview, IX-2, X-25, both Johnson Library; Johnson, Diary, 192.

  6. Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power (New York: New American Library, 1966), ch. 20, quote at 436–37; the Henshaw column is attached to Spain to Manatos, July 30, 1964, EX FG 13 04–2 File, Johnson Library; Clifford, Counsel, 394–98, quotes at 395, 397; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), ch. 28, quotes at 396–97, 647, 658, 662. Clark Clifford’s talking paper without attribution is in Johnson, Vantage Point, 576–77, Johnson’s account of his confrontation with Kennedy at 98–101.

  7. White, Making of the President, 1964, chs. 8, 9, quotes at 275–76, 282, 292; Evans and Novak, Johnson, ch. 20, quote at 453; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, ch. 28, quotes at 653, 665; Hubert H. Humphrey, The Education of a Public Man (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), ch. 31, quotes at 299, 301; Albert Eisele, Almost to the Presidency (Blue Earth: Piper, 1972), ch. 11, quote at 217; David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross (New York: Morrow, 1986), 345–50; James H. Rowe, Jr., Oral History Interview, 39–42, Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Oral History Interview, III-7–8, 11–23, Welsh to Johnson, July 27, 1964, PL 2 File, Cater to Johnson, July 21, 1964, Cater Papers, all Johnson Library; Martin, “Election of 1964,” in Schlesinger et al., Presidential Elections, IX: 3586–88, 3595, 3624; Gerald Pomper, “The Nomination of Hubert Humphrey for Vice-President,” Journal of Politics (Aug. 1966): 645, 650, 651, 655. On the FBI role at the convention, see David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Norton, 1981); Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 347; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 663–64, 995 n. 87.

  8. White, Making of the President, chs. 11, 12, quotes at 320, 330, 347, 356; Shadegg, What Happened to Goldwater?, chs. 17–25, quotes at 198–99, 207, 209; Rovere, Goldwater Caper, part 2, quotes at 140, 143, 144, 155; White, Suite 3505, 413, 415; Public Papers, Johnson, 1964, II: 1164; Goodwin, Remembering America, 308; Cater to Johnson, Oct. 23, Cater Papers, O’Brien to Johnson, Oct. 4, 9, O’Donnell to Johnson, Oct. 3, Feldman to Moyers, Sept. 10, Landon conversation with Rosenblatt, June 6, Nelson to Jenkins, July 13, Udall to Johnson, July 29, Okun to Heller, Oct. 5, Fowler to Rowe, July 24, Harris Survey, July 13, Biggest Wins, Nov. 4, Van Dyk to Jenkins, Oct. 3, Bailey to Johnson, Oct. 22, The Goldwater Candidacy and the Christian Conscience, Aug. 6, 1964, all PL 2 File, Nelson to Moyers, Oct. 23, Final Week Report, Oct. 29, Finney to Johnson, Oct. 30, Nelson to Johnson, Oct. 29, 1964, all Moyers Papers, James H. Rowe, Jr., Oral History Interview, 11–48, all Johnson Library; Humphrey, Education, 308. On the Jenkins affair, see White, Making of the President, 367–70; Clifford, Counsel, 399–402; Bruce Allen Murphy, Fortas (New York: Morrow, 1988), 137–38; Shadegg, What Happened to Goldwater?, 241–43.

  9. White, Making of the President, ch. 13; the election returns are in Schlesinger et al., Presidential Elections, IX: 3702; CQ Almanac, 1964, 1007–8; Cormier to Johnson, Dec. 12, 1964, PL 2 File, Johnson Library; New York Times, Oct. 19, 1966.

  Chapter 6. Medicare: The Jewel In the Crown

  1. Social Security Bulletin, Statistical Supp., 1981, pp. 205, 208, 211; Richard Harris, A Sacred Trust (New York: New American Library, 1966), 2–3; Current Biography, 1968, 96–98; Irving Bernstein, A Caring Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985, 43–45; Bernstein, Promises Kept, ch. 8; Wilbur J. Cohen, Oral History Interview, 1–8, 29–33, 44–47, III-1–2, 19, Michael L. Parker, Operating Methods under Wilbur J. Cohen—A Personal View, Administrative History of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, vol. I, pt. II, pp. 8–15, Douglass Cater, Oral History Interview, 1–25, all Johnson Library; Wilbur Cohen, Oral History, 15, Columbia Univ. Oral History Research Office; Richard N. Goodwin, Remembering America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 269; John F. Manley, The Politics of Finance: The House Committee on Ways and Means (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), ch. 4, quotes at 111–12, 151; Nelson Cruikshank, Oral History, 31, 280, Columbia Univ. Oral History Research Office.

  2. Manatos to O’Brien, May 20, Manatos Papers, Wilson to O’Brien, Feb. 17, 1964, Wilson Papers, Wilbur Mills, Oral History Interview, 10, Javits to Johnson, J
an. 27, Cohen to Feldman, Jan. 29, 1964, EX LE/IS File, all Johnson Library; Public Papers, Johnson, 1963–64, I: 115, 276–77; Medical Care for the Aged, H.R., Hearings Before Committee on Ways and Means, 88th Cong., 2d sess. (1964). The main bills are summarized in pt. 1, facing p. 26, Annis testimony, pt. 2, pp. 644, 650–51. Wilbur Cohen, Oral History, 18–19, 20–21, 31–33, Jacob Javits, Oral History, 7—8, Nelson Cruikshank, Oral History, 302, all Columbia Univ. Oral History Research Office.

  3. The 1964 legislative history of Medicare is treated by Harris, Sacred Trust, chs. 30, 31; CQ Almanac, 1964, 231–39; Sheri I. David, With Dignity (Westport: Greenwood, 1985), ch. 7, quote at 120; Peter A. Corning, The Evolution of Medicare (Washington: Social Security Administration, Research Report No. 29), 107–12; Theodore R. Marmor, The Politics of Medicare (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), 58–61. Suggestions Made by Mr. Mills …, Jan. 24, Wilson to O’Brien, April 27, July 21, Aug. 13, Medical Care, Sept. 4, 1964, Wilson Papers, Manatos to O’Brien, July 13, 25, 1964, Manatos Papers, O’Brien to Johnson, Jan. 27, Wilson to O’Brien, June 8, Cohen to Celebrezze, July 13, Ribicoff to Johnson, July 20, Manatos to O’Brien, Aug. 14, Moyers to Johnson, Sept. 2, 1964, EX LE/IS File, all Johnson Library; Social Security: Medical Care for the Aged Amendments, Hearings, Sen. Committee on Finance, 88th Cong., 2d sess. (Aug. 6—14, 1964), 65, 73–74; Social Security Amendments of 1964, Sen. Rep. No. 1513, 88th Cong., 2d sess. (Aug. 20, 1964); Cong. Record, Sept. 2, p. 21318, Sept. 3, 1964, p. 21553. The administration covered the Senate-House conference exhaustively, including the following: Cohen to Manatos and Wilson, Sept. 10, O’Brien to Johnson, Sept. 13, Wilson to O’Brien, Sept. 20, Cohen to Gordon et al., Sept. 24, Cohen to O’Brien, Sept. 28, 1964, Wilson Papers, Manatos to O’Brien, Sept. 15, 16, 17, 18, Wilson to O’Brien, Sept. 20, Manatos to Feldman, Oct. 1, 1964, Manatos Papers, Manatos to O’Brien, Sept. 22, O’Brien to Johnson, Sept. 24, Manatos to O’Brien, Dec. 8, 1964, EX LE/IS File, Lawrence F. O’Brien, Oral History Interview, III–49, all Johnson Library; Public Papers, Johnson, 1963–64, II: 1200.

  4. Of the works on the legislative history of Medicare in 1965, Harris, Sacred Trust, chs. 33—40, is especially helpful, Thompson quote at 181 and 198. Others are CQ Almanac, 1965, 236–69, 950, 982; David, With Dignity, ch. 8; Marmor, Politics of Medicare, ch. 4; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, 1: 6, 13—14. Cohen, Oral History Interview, III–16, Celebrezze to Johnson, Nov. 15, Cohen to Johnson, n.d., March 2, June 24, O’Brien to Johnson, March 6, 7, April 8, Ackley to Johnson, March 11, Anderson to Johnson, July 1, Cohen to O’Brien, March 16, 17, May 6, 1965, xerox of press clippings of Byrd on Medicare, n.d., EX LE/IS File, all Johnson Library. The question of whether Title VI of the Civil Rights Act applied to Medicare is considered in a packet of documents topped by Celebrezze to Byrd, April 27, 1965, EX LE/IS File, Johnson Library. Manatos to O’Brien, May 13, 19, 20, June 16, 30, July 6, 1965, Manatos Papers, Johnson Library.

  5. Report to the President, July 16, Busby to Valenti et al., July 22, Busby to Johnson, July 28, 1965, all EX LE/IS File, Johnson Library; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, II: 811–15; Wilbur J. Cohen and Robert M. Ball, “Social Security Amendments of 1965,” Social Security Bulletin (Sept. 1965): 1–21.

  6. Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, II: 788–90; Cohen, Oral History Interview, 11–11–13, Cater to Johnson, July 28, Cohen to Cater, July 22, 1965, Cater Papers, Gardner to Johnson, May 29, 1966, is a 10-page report on Medicare along with a 12-page report by Robert Ball, EX LE/IS File, Kermit Gordon, Oral History Interview, IV-16–17, all Johnson Library; Harris, Sacred Trust, chs. 37, 40; the account of the meeting with the AMA on July 29, 1965, is at 215–16; Robert M. Ball, “Health Insurance for People Aged 65 and Older: First Steps in Administration,” Social Security Bulletin (Feb. 1966): 3–13; Arthur E. Hess, “Medicare’s Early Months: A Program Round-Up,” Social Security Bulletin (July 1967): 4–8.

  Chapter 7. Breakthrough in Education

  1. Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Bantam, 1965), 401; Francis Keppel, Oral History Interview, 1–7, Johnson Library; Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991), 43–44, 57, ch. 3, quote at 63; Kearns, Johnson, 42; Robert A. Caro, The Path to Power (New York: Vintage, 1981), 120, 142.

  2. Bernstein, Promises Kept, ch. 7, reviews the education programs of the Kennedy administration; there is a sketch of Francis Keppel at 238–39. Public Papers, Johnson, 1963–64, I: 706. Hugh Davis Graham describes the Great Society task force program in The Uncertain Triumph (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1984), 55–70; Nancy Kegan Smith, Presidential Task Force Operation During the Johnson Administration, June 26,1978, pp. 3–4, Task Force Issue Paper: Education, n.d., Task Forces on the 1965 Legislative Program: Issue Papers, Moyers Papers, John Gardner, Oral History Interview, 1–5–6, 9, all Johnson Library; Stephen K. Bailey and Edith K. Mosher, ESEA, The Office of Education Administers a Law (Syracuse: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1968), 40. The sketch of Gardner is based on Current Biography, 1976, 153—56. Report of the President’s Task Force on Education, Nov. 14, 1964, Wilbur Cohen, Oral History Interview, IV-15, Anthony Celebrezze, Oral History Interview, 16, Kermit Gordon, Oral History Interview, IV-18, Douglass Cater, Oral History Interview, 1–13, Cater quote at 80, Brademas quote at 129, all Johnson Library. Eugene Eidenberg and Roy D. Morey, An Act of Congress (New York: Norton, 1969), 89, 90, n. 6; Keppel, Oral History Interview, 1–8, 13, Johnson Library. For a sophisticated analysis of the child benefit theory see Dean M. Kelley and George R. LaNoue, “The Church-State Settlement in the Federal Aid to Education Act,” in Donald A. Gianella, ed., Religion and the Public Order, 1965 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966), 110—60, and Statement of George R. LaNoue Before the House Subcommittee on Education, March 18, 1966, attached to Halperin to Cohen, April 13, 1966, LE FA2 File, Johnson Library. Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education, 281 U.S. 370 (1930), Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947). Administrative History of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, vol. I, pt. II, ch. Ill, p. 48, Johnson Library; Cater to Johnson, Dec. 19, 26, 1964, Cater Papers, Johnson Library; John Brademas, The Politics of Education (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 3–7, 16–17; John Brademas, “The National Politics of Education,” in The Unfinished Journey (New York: John Day, 1968), 33–52; Valenti to Johnson, Feb. 26, 1965, LE FA2 File, Memorandum to the President, n.d., LE FA2 File, Enforcement of the Principle of Separation of Church and State in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, n.d., all Johnson Library; Public Papers, Johnson, 1965, I: 1–9, 25–33; Cohen to Moyers, Reaction to President Johnson’s Message on Education, Jan. 14, Cater to Johnson, Jan. 14, 26, 1965, Cater Papers, both Johnson Library.

  3. The legislative history of ESEA in the House is set forth in Eidenberg and Morey, An Act of Congress, ch. 5, and CQ Almanac, 1965, 275–93. Keppel, Oral History Interview, 1–9, Johnson Library. There is a sketch of Wayne Morse in Bernstein, Promises Kept, 230–31. Higher Education Act of 1965, Hearings, Sen. Subcommittee on Labor and Public Welfare, 89th Cong., 1st sess. (1965), Pt. I, pp. 297–98; Cater, Oral History Interview, 1–16, Cater to Johnson, Jan. 26, Feb. 3, 16, March 2, Perkins to Moyers, Feb. 1, Major Amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 Adopted by the General Subcommittee of Education in Reporting the Measure to the Full Committee, Feb. 5, O’Hara to Cater, Feb. 26, Judicial Review: An Overview, n.d., Sam (Halperin) to Keppel, n.d., Cohen to Celebrezze, March 23, 1965, all Cater Papers, Johnson Library; O’Brien to Johnson, March 8, Valenti to Johnson, March 23, 24, Wilson to White, March 12, Cater to Johnson, March 26, 30, 1965, all LE FA2 File, Johnson Library; Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, H.R. Committee on Education and Labor, Rep. No. 143, 89th Cong., 1st sess. (March 8, 1965); Bunim to White House, April 1, 1965, Manatos Papers, Johnson Library. As Eidenberg and Morey note, Powell was not alone in condemning Edith Green. The Democratic leadership and the White House assumed that she had joined with the Republicans to sabotage the bill. A widely held view was that
she was anti-Catholic and the NCWC refused to deal with her. She had been a longtime and active member of the National Council of Churches and now broke off relations with the council.