An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964

by Todd S. Purdum

  “Bill McCulloch became the conscience of the bill”: Author interview of Robert Kimball, Feb. 27, 2013.

  By Friday, August 2: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 22. See also House Judiciary Committee Hearings, Subcommittee No. 5, Parts 1–3, Jan. 1, 1963–Aug. 2, 1963.

  “When we ask for one half of a loaf”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 36.

  “It may be the feeling in Birmingham”: Rosenberg and Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice, pp. 143–63.

  “This is wholly confidential”: Guthman papers, Box 1, JFKL.

  By the end of the month, still more liberal amendments: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 34–35.

  “I’ll go as far as I can go”: Rosenberg and Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice, p. 179.

  “There would have been no living with the Bureau”: Thomas, Robert F. Kennedy, p. 264.

  “just left of King George III”: Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Dell, 1969), p. 33.

  “The Ev and Charlie Show”: Henry Z. Scheele, Charlie Halleck: A Political Biography (New York: Exposition Press, 1966), p. 207.

  Halleck held court in a hideaway office: James Peter Carroll, “Charlie Halleck’s Capitol Clinic,” American Spectator, Dec. 1991.

  “every time I talk to him, he’s drinking”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 8, p. 209.

  Among the hostile communiqués: Subject file Civil Rights, Box 109, CAHP.

  Halleck was under assault that summer: Correspondence, Box 72, CAHP.

  Halleck’s delicate situation: Ibid.

  Celler was not happy: Kennedy, Robert Kennedy in His Own Words, pp. 217–18.

  Bob Kennedy now summed up his views on these changes: Testimony of Robert F. Kennedy, Oct. 15, 1963, Department of Justice online archives, http://www.justice.gov/ag/rfkspeeches/1963/10-15-1963.pdf.

  “What I want is a bill, not an issue”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 45. See also House Judiciary Committee Hearings, Subcommittee No. 5, Part 4, Oct. 15–16, 1963.

  the civil rights groups hit the ceiling: Bryant, Bystander, p. 449.

  the attorney general approved additional electronic surveillance: Kennedy, Robert Kennedy in His Own Words, p. 145; Weiner, Enemies, p. 235.

  “Lib, where are we at here, anyway?”: Time, Nov. 1, 1963.

  “The committee chairman was forced to label the subcommittee bill”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 47–49.

  “You’re in a damn sight better position”: Rosenberg and Karabell, Kennedy, Johnson, and the Quest for Justice, pp. 184–92.

  In the end, Kennedy proposed a compromise: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 52.

  “like trying to pick up a greased pig”: Bradlee, Conversations with Kennedy, p. 222.

  “the president’s personal prestige”: Kennedy, Robert Kennedy in His Own Words, p. 216.

  The meeting broke up without any definitive result: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 52–53.

  “I’ve got you the votes”: Lawrence F. O’Brien, No Final Victories: A Life in Politics from John F. Kennedy to Watergate (New York: Ballantine, 1976), p. 148.

  they went through the bill section by section: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 55–56.

  Katzenbach had an inspiration: Katzenbach, Some of It Was Fun, p. 127.

  the president needed at least five more votes: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 58–61.

  “He’ll vote for any goddamned thing you want!”: Oval Office Conversation, Oct. 28, 1963, Dictabelt #28A, JFKL.

  “You know my concern about FEPC”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 63; Oval Office Meetings, Tape #118, Oct. 29, 1963, JFKL.

  Celler then ordered a vote on the new bill: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 64–66.

  The president called the bill “comprehensive and fair”: PPP, John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 820.

  The biggest loser was probably Roland Libonati: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 66.

  “I got a little trouble on my side”: Dictabelt #28A, JFKL.

  “violated the compact with the southerners”: New Republic, Nov. 9, 1963.

  The Washington Post editorialized: Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1963.

  someone placed a furled umbrella: Washington Post, Nov. 11, 1963, clipped in CAHP; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 67.

  “Halleck has been warned”: Dayton Journal Herald, Nov. 1, 1963.

  “We had Kennedy locked in a box”: Ibid.

  “THE HAIRY APE OF THE PARTY”: CAHP, Correspondence, Box 74.

  puzzlement about just why Halleck had agreed: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 54.

  “If the senior Republican on a committee”: Author interview of Nicholas Katzenbach, 2012.

  “My purpose is to remove this bill”: Dayton Journal Herald, Nov. 8, 1963.

  “one of the poorest receptions”: New York Times, Oct. 31, 1963.

  “I think it is unfortunate”: PPP, John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 846; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 69.

  Charlie Halleck refused to shoulder any blame: Joint Senate-House Republican Leadership, Nov. 21, EMDP.

  “Possibly I can get in touch with him”: Correspondence, Box 75, CAHP.

  6: A Good Man in a Tight Spot

  He drew a small notepad from the desk: Robert A. Caro, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), p. 358.

  “is that bipartisan leadership?”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 1, pp. 44–45.

  “I was a man in trouble”: Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), pp. 12, 18.

  Johnson once told his biographer: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 164.

  Johnson had spent just ten hours: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 225.

  “Who is Lyndon Johnson?”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 44.

  “Whatever Happened to Lyndon Johnson?”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 226.

  “it must have been a tremendous frustration”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 44.

  “They don’t listen to me”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 74.

  “we weren’t drinking, of course”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 672.

  Barely two hours later: Ibid., p. 369.

  “He put his arm around me”: Manchester, Death of a President, p. 406.

  he praised the Senate minority leader: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 1, p. 83.

  “I would have bet on it”: Jack Valenti, This Time, This Place, p. 31.

  “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 372.

  now Eisenhower was in the White House complex: Johnson, Vantage Point, p. 32.

  “I believe it’d be reassuring”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 1, p. 102.

  Smathers informed Johnson that he had cut a deal: Ibid., p. 112.

  “most interesting visit”: Ibid., pp. 109–10.

  “I couldn’t let that happen”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, p. 191.

  “you are going to be judged on merit”: Caro, Passage of Power, pp. 420, 486, 677.

  “it’s just an impossible period”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 1, pp. 161–62.

  “Let us put an end to the teaching”: PPP, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963, p. 10.

  “a man of too many paradoxes”: Reedy OH, LBJL.

  “he went through the walls”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 4.

  “an animal sense of weakness in other men”: Bill Moyers, Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times (New York: Anchor Books, 2005), pp. 189–90.

  “My ancestors were teachers and lawyers”: Charles Peters, Lyndon B. Johnson (New York: Times Books, 2010), p. 2.

  “the inexplicable power of his will”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, p. 22.

  From his earliest days: Ibid., p. 25.
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  (“He could look busy doing nothing”): Peters, Lyndon B. Johnson, p. 6.

  “His greatest forte”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, p. 53.

  “You never forget what poverty and hatred can do”: Peters, Lyndon B. Johnson, p. 8.

  “Texas is a part of the South”: Johnson, Vantage Point, p. 155.

  “We are not speaking against the Negro race”: Caro, Master of the Senate, p. 213.

  Johnson’s motives … were “highly mixed”: Reedy OH, LBJL.

  (His feet were the same size as Johnson’s): Michael L. Gillette, Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 256.

  “Well, Senator, it’s tough enough”: Johnson, Vantage Point, pp. 154–55.

  “I always wanted the ham and egg”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 486.

  The crowd waved placards: Ibid., p. 150.

  “there was genuine feeling”: Wilkins, Standing Fast, p. 298.

  “happier than he had been for months”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 253.

  “The hours are short”: Ibid., p. 255.

  “the Negro remains in bondage”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 36.

  “felt that if he said something, they’d leak it to the New York Times”: Baker OH, Senate Historian’s Office, p. 91.

  “I think he’s got to have his bill”: Sorensen Dictabelt recording, p. 14, LBJL.

  “Don’t try to kill the snake”: George Reedy, Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir (New York: Andrews and McMeel, 1982). p. xv.

  “It is my thought that you might wish me”: Central Subject Files Civil Rights Box 2, LBJL. Cross’s memo is filed under the subject of civil rights at the Johnson Library, but in a brief telephone interview with the author on August 26, 2013, Cross, who retired as a brigadier general in 1971, said he no longer remembered just what he had in mind when he composed it. Speaking from his home in Texas, Cross, then eighty-eight years old, also said he could not remember whether the crew of Air Force One was integrated in that era, though he noted that he had personally served with integrated crews.

  “I want that bill passed”: Wilkins, Standing Fast, p. 296.

  “If we fail on this, then we’ll fail on everything”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 1, pp. 263–65.

  “the only lever we’ve really got”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 2, p. 73.

  “some evidence of a dramatic impact”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 494.

  “words can never be put in his mouth”: Scrapbooks, 1963–1964, Box 129, CAHP.

  “I am the only president you have”: PPP, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963, p. 24.

  A discharge petition was, indeed, a drastic step: Legislative Series, Box 6, Folder 18, WMMP.

  “This move for a petition is irritating some people”: Scrapbooks, Box 15, January 1964 Roscoe Drummond newspaper column, WMMP.

  “I don’t want to run over you, Judge”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 85–87.

  a solemn promise from the president: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 470.

  “you’ve got to learn to handle a gun”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 33.

  “Chamberlain umbrella man”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 230.

  “If only John Glenn were a Negro!”: Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 286.

  “You can’t let your people talk about me”: Jeff Shesol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 123.

  “what we can do about Bobby”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 2, p. 319.

  “an animal in many ways”: Kennedy, Robert Kennedy in His Own Words, p. 417.

  “You help me, though, get that bill out”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 2, p. 384.

  “Bird, let’s have Congress over tonight!”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 88.

  “I don’t care if only twenty come”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 2, pp. 709, 719.

  “We’re Americans first”: CQ Weekly, 1963, p. 2243; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 89.

  “power … began flowing back to the White House”: Johnson, Vantage Point, p. 40.

  support for the civil rights bill stood at 62 percent: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 89–90.

  “we can’t pay you much else”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 2, p. 689.

  “She’s got to have about a bale cut off”: Ibid., p. 737.

  “Gerri, where are you?”: Ibid., pp. 764–65.

  “She’s got good character?”: Ibid., p. 776.

  “Come in, honey”: Ibid., pp. 786–88.

  he upended his newest secretary’s plans: Simeon Booker (with Carol McCabe Booker), Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter’s Account of the Civil Rights Movement (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2013), pp. 243–44; author interview with Carol McCabe Booker, 2013.

  “Yes, sir”: E. Ernest Goldstein, “How LBJ Took the Bull by the Horns,” Amherst Magazine, Winter 1985, pp. 12–17.

  7: A Great Big Vote

  a rapprochement so striking: Marvin Caplan, Farther Along: A Civil Rights Memoir (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999), pp. 213–14.

  “we’re going to work together”: Joseph L. Rauh OH, LBJL.

  “Clarence Mitchell was the leading civil rights lobbyist”: Ibid.

  Mitchell was essentially a conservative: Denton L. Watson, Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.’s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2002), p. xxii.

  “I don’t care how long it takes”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 97.

  “the movement cannot be stayed”: CQ Weekly, week ending Jan. 24, 1964, p. 157.

  “He was a fox”: Author interview with John Dingell, 2012.

  “He thought he was too old”: Author interview with Robert Kimball.

  “Because of my receding red hair”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 93.

  “New occasions teach new duties”: New York Times, Feb. 16, 1964.

  “If he’s not satisfied”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 3, pp. 622–23.

  “I can implement it on an installment basis”: Ibid., pp. 694–95.

  “I am opposed to the speedup”: Caro, Passage of Power, p. 560; New York Times, Jan. 24, 1964.

  a lesson he had learned the hard way: Watson, Lion in the Lobby, p. 604.

  “you don’t need to add any touches of horror”: Maryland State Archives online, http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/013700/013750/html/13750bio.html; Watson, Lion in the Lobby, p. 12.

  “periods of great financial difficulties”: Watson, Lion in the Lobby, p. xv.

  “He was a very busy guy”: Ibid., p. xvi.

  “He sure kept you honest”: Author telephone interview with John Stewart, Mar. 7, 2013.

  Mitchell endured regular indignities: Watson, Lion in the Lobby, p. xix.

  his own conduct was above reproach: Ibid., p. xviii.

  “He had the patience of Job”: Ibid., p. xxii.

  “I resent being treated like a fool”: Caplan, Farther Along, pp. 209–10.

  (“Howard Smith’s got his foot on Lincoln’s neck”): TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 3, p. 879.

  members began streaming into the chamber: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 100–101.

  “almost identical with the platforms”: CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 7, 1964, p. 250.

  “one of the great debates of modern American history”: Ibid.

  “is all this done out of fear?”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 102.

  “our Constitution shall apply to all people”: Ibid., p. 104.

  “hedged about with … safeguards”: CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 7, 1964, p. 250.

  “the most drastic and far-reaching proposal”: Ibid.

  “as patient and as kindly as could be”: Author interview with Jane O’Grady, 2013.

  Thompson also supplied “a great deal of liquor”: Author interview with Nicholas Katzenbach, 2012.

  “It was nuts, but I didn’t
know that then”: O’Grady interview.

  “By the third or fourth day”: Caplan, Farther Along, p. 218.

  “The chair would designate ‘tellers’”: Ibid., pp. 216, 217.

  “This really aroused a lot of concern”: Robert Loevy interview with Mitchell, Collection 151, EMDP.

  “vultures in the spectators galleries”: Caplan, Farther Along, p. 216.

  “monstrosity of unknown origin”: CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 7, 1964, p. 250.

  “yes, I do expect a filibuster”: PPP, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, p. 259.

  Another amendment, by Bill Cramer of Florida: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 109; CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 7, 1964, p. 251.

  But over the next two days: CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 7, 1964, p. 251.

  In response, Charles Goodell: Ibid., p. 251.

  “If I were cutting corns”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 108.

  “See if you can vote against it”: Ibid., p. 110.

  McCulloch gently upbraided his colleague: CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 7, 1964, p. 251.

  “There is just no teeth in this amendment”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 111.

  “I disagree with you, but I respect you”: Ibid., p. 110.

  “He was waging a terrific battle just to stand erect”: Watson, Lion in the Lobby, p. 613.

  “I am interested in getting this bill passed”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 112.

  McCulloch was more concerned: Kimball interview.

  he let the amendment pass on a voice vote: CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 14, 1964, p. 295; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 112–13.

  A much more serious drama: New York Times, Feb. 8, 1963.

  “I am appalled that this is being supported”: CQ Weekly, week ending Feb. 14, 1964, p. 293; Kimball interview.

  “If we pick up this old provision from the bill”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 114; CR, p. 2492.

  “After the word ‘religion’ insert ‘sex’”: Bruce J. Dierenfield, Keeper of the Rules: Howard W. Smith of Virginia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987), p. 195.

  In 1956, during the initial debate: Jo Freeman, We Will Be Heard: Women’s Struggles for Political Power in the United States (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), p. 177.

  “I might do that,” the judge replied: Ibid., p. 180.

  Now, at the eleventh hour: Dierenfield, Keeper of the Rules, p. 194.