CHALLENGES, CHANGES, & CHOICES - A Sequel to New Frontier with New Challenges
- Thread starter DCPritt
- Start date
A PHONE RINGS
The President had only begun to drift off asleep after a shot of morphine earlier when the white phone beside his bed roused him from his slumber. Picking it up the President answered.
[JFK] "Yaaasss?" asked the President in his Boston drawl.
[RFK] "Jack, it's Bobby. We seem to have us here aaaahhh situation in Alabama. It seems as if one of Guvnah Wallace's Super Troopers shot a negro activist and there's a lot of confusion."
[JFK] "Bobby what's the details? What err...what happened?"
[RFK] "Well Jack it seems as if one of King's men had organized what they called a peaceful protest at a United Methodist Church in Marion, Alabama. There was a little over 500 people involved. They thought it was a mob that would attempt to jailbreak the individual out. King's guy a pastor Vivian stated they were going to pray and sing hymns. The Marion, Alabama police called in Alabama State Troopers to back them up. During the standoff, one of the Super Troopers shot out the streetlights. They beat the demonstrators and chased the victim, who was shielding his eighty-two year grandmother. He got clubbed and shot in the abdomen. He crawled out and fled the café, suffering additional blows by the police, and collapsed in front of the bus station. They also attacked the press. Two UPI reporters had their cameras smashed and NBC's Valeriani was hit in the head by an axe handle."
[JFK] "Dick Valeriani? Our Dick Valeriani?!" (asked the President incredulously.)
[RFK] "Yes it's the Dick we know. Italian Dick (as many in the Press Pool called the White House correspondent.)
[JFK] "Bobby this is getting out of hand. Get ahold of that Alabama Banty Rooster (Gov. Wallace) and also Dr. King. We can't let this get out of hand!"
[RFK] "Jack we are sitting on a powder keg, stronger than Cuba."
[JFK] "Don't I know it! You get Dick and the rest of the reporters that will go out. Send in the g*d damned 82nd Airborne if need be and tell Governor Wallace I'll carpet bomb Montgomery if the lil' bastard keeps this up!"
[RFK] "Jack now you know with...."
[JFK] "Bobby I am the President and you work at the pleasure of the President. DO IT!"
The President hung up and his younger brother knew things were going to get worse before they got better.
The brutal attacks the next day were broadcast on all the television screen including the attacks on Jimmie Lee Jackson who was suspected that morning having been killed by an Alabama State Trooper. By 10:00 AM, the President was meeting with the White House Press Corps who were extra excited on wanting updates about their colleague.
[JFK] "First of all, I would like to ahhh say that a United States Air Force jet transported Dick Valeriani out of Alabama late last night, landed at Andrews Air Force Base, and is currently at Walter Reed Hospital along with two other UPI Reporters who were injured. This was on orders of Presidential Authority issued by myself. I have done this in compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One title makes it a crime to obstruct rights or duties under Federal court orders by force or threat of force. I don't mind telling you I will personally jail the Governor of Alabama myself if he can't control his officers. That provision will be an important deterrent to such obstruction which interferes with the execution of Federal court orders, including those involving school desegregation. Provision is also made to assure free public education to all children of Armed Forces personnel in the United States where local public school facilities are unavailable. By authorizing the FBI to investigate certain bombings or attempted bombings of schools, churches and other structures, the Act will deter such heinous acts of lawlessness. As long as I remain President, we will not allow any state or entity to make it unsafe for ANY American citizen. We are a nation of laws and a nation bound to multiculturalism. The death of Mr. Jackson was unwarranted as were the unjustified attacks on members of our press and I will no longer tolerate this act of insubordination if not outright treason!"
Governor George C. Wallace, Jr. fired back stating in a speech in Montgomery, "Never before in the history of this nation have so many human and property rights been destroyed by a single enactment of the Congress. It is an act of tyranny. It is the assassin's knife stuck in the back of liberty. With this assassin's knife President Kennedy and his brother the lil' attorney Bobby and all their left-wing liberals will try to force us back into bondage. Bondage to a tyranny more brutal than that imposed by the British monarchy which claimed power to rule over the lives of our forefathers under sanction of the Divine Right of kings. Today, this tyranny is imposed by the central government which claims the right to rule over our lives under sanction of the omnipotent black-robed despots who sit on the bench of the United States Supreme Court. This Act called the Civil Rights Act is fraudulent in intent, in design, and in execution. It is misnamed. Each and every provision is mistitled. It was rammed through the congress on the wave of ballyhoo, promotions, and publicity stunts reminiscent of P. T. Barnum. It was enacted in an atmosphere of pressure, intimidation, and even cowardice, as demonstrated by the refusal of the United States Senate to adopt an amendment to submit the bill to a vote of the people. To illustrate the fraud--it is not a Civil Rights Act but it is a Federal Penal Code. It creates Federal crimes which would take volumes to list and years to tabulate because it affects the lives of 192 million American citizens. Every person in every walk and station of life and every aspect of our daily lives becomes subject to the criminal provisions of this bill. It threatens our freedom of speech, of assembly, or association, and makes the exercise of these Freedoms a federal crime under certain conditions. It affects our political rights, our right to trial by jury, our right to the full use and enjoyment of our private property, the freedom from search and seizure of our private property and possessions, the freedom from harassment by Federal police and, in short, all the rights of individuals inherent in a society of free men. Ministers, lawyers, teachers, newspapers, and every private citizen must guard his speech and watch his actions to avoid the deliberately imposed booby traps put into this bill. It is designed to make Federal crimes of our customs, beliefs, and traditions. Therefore, under the fantastic powers of the Federal judiciary to punish for contempt of court and under their fantastic powers to regulate our most intimate aspects of our lives by injunction, every American citizen is in jeopardy and must stand guard against these despots."
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. meanwhile was in Boston, Massachusetts in Fanueil Hall joined with Governor Ed Brooke (R) of Massachusetts joined by Secretary of the Commonwealth Kevin White (D) and Massachusetts State Senate President Maurice Donahue (D) in what was supposed to be unofficial celebration of Brooke's election as America's first African-American Governor. Addressing the events in Alabama the previous evening, Dr. King stated, "We have seen evil in tragic lust and inordinate selfishness. We have seen it in high places where men are willing to sacrifice truth on the altars of their self-interest. We have seen it in imperialistic nations trampling over other nations with the iron feet of oppression. We have seen it clothed in the garments of calamitous wars which left battlefields painted with blood, filled nations with widows and orphans, and sent men home physically handicapped and psychologically wrecked. We have seen evil in all of its tragic dimensions. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. In the events in Alabama we have seen firsthand this is not the time to lanquish in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing route of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy envisioned years ago in this hall. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid reality of brotherhood and sisterhood."
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North Vietnam Breaks Truce - Seizes Two South Vietnamese Provinces
H.M. Emperor Bao Dai has called on the United Nations to step in to assist his name in it's time of need. For a second time in a row, the President's white slim line phone rang. This time it was Secretary of State Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. on the other end.
[JFK] "Cabot, no one told me that the trouble with a second term is you do not get sleep."
[HCL] "I am afraid, Mr. President, that is one of the travails of this position. It troubles me but forces of the PAVN have crossed the demarcation line."
[JFK] "What's the damage look like Cabot?"
[HCL] "Well Mr. President, the PAVN (North Vietnamese Army) has seized two provinces - Lam Dinh Tri which was the northernmost border the AKVN (South Vietnamese Army) controlled as well as Dinh Thien. Now both of these provinces were the ones that General Khanh had seized from North Vietnam. But they have encroached and taken about a quarter of Quang Tri which is where the old demarcation line was at. So far the AKVN is holding them but Emperor has appealed through his Foreign Minister to both us, the UK, and France to assist with military aid."
[JFK] "Cabot the last thing I want to do is get US Forces involved in war in southeast Asia, much less a civil war."
[HCL] "Well Mr. President, we may be too late on that aspect. Besides that, the Empror and his daughter, the Princess Phương Liên were in Dinh Thien when the attack came. The United States 5th Special Forces Group airlifted His Imperial Majesty and Her Imperial Highness out by a United States Army marked Bell UH-1 Iroquois to the Emperor's compound in Dalat."
[JFK] "Well that seems like the right thing to do at the time."
[HCL] "I agree Mr. President but now the North Vietnamese can argue that we directly involved ourselves in an internal civil war.
[JFK] "Can we not argue this is an act of comity for a Head of State recognized by our nation?"
[HCL] "What may pass as qualified in debate at Harvard, Mr. President, does not mean that it is justifiable in reality of world geo-politics."
[JFK] "I don't want to involve the United States in a land war in southeast Asia."
[HCL] "Mr. President, you may not have a choice."
[JFK] "There's always a choice, Cabot."
[HCL] "Maybe so, Mr. President. But is it ethically, morally, and politically the correct one to make?"
[JFK] "We shall see. Advise His Majesty we will send what we can at the moment. Let's call a meeting of the 303 Committee. Have Bobby, Scoop, MacGeorge, all the usuals involved and let's get this going."
[HCL] "Yes, Mr. President. Good evening."
[JFK] "Good evening Cabot."
Meanwhile in South Vietnam.....in Dalat.
H.M. Emperor Bao Dai convened a meeting of all his village advisors. It was in a tent on the imperial grounds. To the right of the Emperor sat his Prime Minister, Nguyễn Xuân Oánh, who was a trained economist. He studied at the Lycee Albert and trained as an economist, receiving his doctorate from Harvard. Although a worldly man of the 1960's, he wore the traditional robes of a mandarin court official, unlike the Emperor who had changed into one of his many western suits. Usually laid back, the Emperor had a persistent cough and demanded to know from his military officers as well as Provincial Governors what had happened.
"We, the people of Annam and Cochinchina are facing attacks from our brothers in Tonkin. Do they not know we all are the peoples of Van Lang? Now we are forced to take up arms once again and I ask you why we have to do that? Furthermore, this will allow the West an excuse to come and to fill our lands and our lakes and rivers with their weapons of war. Can no one make the Tonkinese understand we are not seeking to defeat them but rather join in one peoples like the Van Lang did centuries ago?"
At the same time though, Bao Dai knew he needed Western Military Aid to stave off the North Vietnamese who almost certainly were being weaponized by Communist China and maybe the USSR as well as other Eastern Bloc nations.
The war was not winding down but seemed to be stirring back up...
TWO JUMP INTO THE NYC MAYOR'S RACE
Today, two candidates announced their candidacies for Mayor of New York City this year. Both U.S. Congressman John V. Lindsay (R) and NY City Comptroller Abraham Beame (D) both announced their candidacies to if either wins become the 104th Mayor of New York City.
Lindsay was the first one to announce his candidacy. It must be recognized, however, in any fair account of Lindsay, that while he looks wealthy and acts wealthy, he is not wealthy; and he most definitely does not find himself financially free to do whatever he wishes. Although born in Manhattan, he does not spring from a long line of New York “swells.” At a time when the believers in progress are bemused by the rise to riches of those struggling out from under racial, ethnic, and religious clouds, Lindsay is the product of a phenomenon peculiarly untimely, at least in literature: a white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, upwardly-mobile family. His middle name—Vliet—marks him as having Dutch blood somewhere, but he must share this distinction with a vast number of people named “Fleet,” a form to which many Vliets anglicized their name over the centuries. Lindsay derived his Vliet from his mother, who is presumably connected with Vliets who lived in Westchester County before the American Revolution. Lindsay’s first home was not in Westchester, however, but on West End Avenue, and in his youth his parents made a journey so often and so particularly described in New York literature that most readers probably have the impression only Jews made it. The Lindsays moved from West End Avenue to Park Avenue; finally, in the early 1930’s, advancing beyond the end of the familiar literary track, they moved for the first time into the New York Social Register. Lindsay is an alumni of Yale University. Lindsay’s Yale record was excellent, especially when judged by the criteria of the time. He did well in his studies, even if not taking an honors degree (few did) and not making Phi Beta Kappa. He participated in intramural athletics, headed the Berkeley Association, belonged to the Elizabeth Club, which owned a small wooden structure where undergraduates and faculty members who shared an interest in English literature gathered to eat lettuce sandwiches, drink tea, and make what they pretended to think of as intellectual witticisms. Lindsay did not join the Yale Political Union, a debating society to which guest speakers were invited to discuss topics of importance with undergraduate speakers. Lindsay decided that his future lay in private practice. His older brother, George, Jr., had graduated from law school one year earlier and joined the prototypical Wall Street firm: Debevoise, Plimpton, McLean; twin brother, David, would follow him a year later, joining another mammoth Street firm, Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Sunderland, and Kiendl. Within a year after leaving Yale with his LLB, John Lindsay married Mary Harrison, a Vassar girl from Greenwich, the descendant of a Virginia family that traced its ancestry to two Presidents of the United States, William Henry and his grandson, Benjamin, and even, according to some genealogists, to Pocahontas. At about the same time that Lindsay joined the law firm, he also joined the Republican Club for the Ninth Assembly District of New York County, including an area of the East Side of Manhattan which journalists had long ago called the Silk Stocking District; the same vague appellation, suggesting wealth and solid Republicanism, also attached to the 17th Congressional District which in great part overlapped the Ninth Assembly District. There was little to suggest that the decision to join a political club would turn out to be more crucial in Lindsay’s life than his decision to join the Webster law firm. For him, politics attracts him, not because he represented a constituency trying to change American life for its benefit, or to prevent its being changed to its detriment, but because he liked the competition, the feeling that in politics he could sense his movement forward even without compromising his “deep-rooted beliefs.” Lindsay—though his manner makes others forget it—enjoys power and success, without being satisfied with or even interested in the dollar standard of success that would almost automatically have been his if practice of the law—or the corporate affiliations that frequently grow out of it—had continued to occupy most of his time. In 1958, when John F. Kennedy with his dashing good looks, World War Two service record, and eye on the White House won reelection to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, Lindsay was elected from the 17th Congressional District better known as the "Silk Socking District" in New York City. One of America’s curious ironies made Lindsay a member of a minority group because he was a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in New York County. As a Republican in Congress, he fell into the same category once again. His competitive intelligence turned membership in both minorities to personal advantage; he could remain true to his principles without disappointing his constituents through failure to accomplish legislatively what they expected. They expected nothing. He was comfortably reelected in 1960, 1962, and 1964. He had discharged his responsibility fully when he got to his feet, and, sometimes in clear defiance of senior members of the party, took a principled position in support of the Supreme Court, or in opposition to a proposal to codify the right of the states to preempt fields of legislation so as to prevent federal interference. There were, however, occasions on which Lindsay, in company sometimes with other Republican Congressmen, provided the margin by which a bill introduced by the Democratic administration passed the Congress, or was protected against damaging amendments, as was the case with the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. Lindsay is a popular Congressman; he does his job well; he has made the House seem an important place; provided a measure of strength across the aisle for liberal Democrats. And yet, reading his speeches carefully, his strictures against government interference in the lives of the citizens, his cry against government programs which produce “unimaginative housing which the average taxpayer cannot afford,” one could scarcely find anything to offend a majority of his own party. He managed to remain friendly even with Congressmen with some of whose views he strongly disagreed; Francis Walter, the Pennsylvanian who stood for precisely the kind of discriminatory immigration policies abhorred by Lindsay, was a splendid example. Walter was very helpful to Lindsay in the passage of private immigration bills, one of the few demands persistently put on him by members of his district. The one individual he consistently has berated and attacked is Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. “I have looked in vain for vigorous action on the part of the Department of Justice,” Lindsay has been one of the most vocal critics of the Attorney General. He wrote a very strong letter to the State Department complaining about Robert Kennedy’s and Edward Kennedy’s foreign tours on behalf of the administration: “We question whether it is necessary for you and your office to be either burdened or embarrassed by freewheeling foreign missions on the part of highly placed amateurs who do not have the background, training, language ability or capacity. . . .” Lindsay has a temper and with his aristocratic hauteur, tendency to measure people initially by their manner and background, and quick, prickly response to any suggestion that tactical considerations had compromised his principles, it will be interesting to see if he can rise to the occasion in the rough and tumble word of New York City politics. It's hoped he can build on the momentum of New York State Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz's 1961 race, which while unsuccessful, Wagner only won with a 4.0 point margin. Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R) fresh off the 1964 Presidential race as the Vice Presidential nominee is reportedly not keen on Lindsay and encouraging Lefkowitz to run again.
Beame, an accountant and clubhouse Democrat meanwhile is the antithesis of Lindsay. He has climbed the gray ranks of municipal bookkeeping and confounded oddsmakers in most elections. In the pantheon of would-beNew York mayors, Mr. Beame -- a small, meticulous man with a basset hound face and a preference for doing things on the phone -- was a genuine anti-type: If he wins he will be the city's first Jewish mayor, be he lacks the the savvy of incumbent Mayor Paul Screvane; the glamour of John V. Lindsay, the showmanship of newly-elected City Council President Paul O'Dwyer; or the fire of U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. who is largely expected to jump into the race as well. He is so short that an aide sometimes slips an attaché case under him when he gets up to speak. He is so colorless that he almost vanished in a debate. He seems to speak out of the side of his mouth -- the voice a high-pitched tootle of old ''Noo Yawk'' -- and his speeches are generally so bland that many people couldn't remember what he said right after he said it. He has an inate passion for details, political and budgetary, and a bookkeeper's penchant for jotting little notes to himself, mostly reminders to call aides and associates. He makes hundreds of calls a day, at all hours. O'Dwyer has infamously called him a vortex disguised as a smudge: energetic on the job, but the kind of man you never notice on the street. He grew up on the Lower East Side, went to City College and worked three decades for the city, mostly toiling over budgets, and has served three nonconsecutive terms as City Comptroller. But Beame believes 1965 will be his year. He believes with his dignity, patience, a resilient self-confidence and that indispensable quality of all real politicians -- a memory that never forgot a favor or an insult, that as the upright burgher with the aura of accountancy is just the right time in a town where much of the electorate was fed up with Tammany Hall and machine politicians like the Wagner and Screvanes. Beame has been very critical of both Wagner and Screvane both, saying, "It is as if they lived in Oz, trying to lure the citizens our city to expect that the city will just build more housing, run social and health programs, give money to artists and cultural institutions, keep City University tuition-free and provide clean safe streets, cheap transit and good schools, hospitals, parks and museums. But as revenues fell, cash has rolled out of the city treasury like there was a hole in the bag. Making matters worse, Mr. Wagner and Screvane, to balance budgets, have resorted to a stupefying array of gimmicks: juggling books to shift state aid from one year to another, using fictitious surpluses, ''deferring'' required payments, arbitrarily raising revenue estimates, borrowing against questionable receipts." Beame, a man of extreme caution, has said as Mayor he will cut the city work force for the first time since the 1930's and the budget by 8.5 percent, calling it ''planned shrinkage.'' He says he will end the use of budget-balancing tricks like financing day-to-day expenses with long-term capital funds. Beame was born in London on March 20, 1906, to Polish-Jewish parents who had fled Warsaw, then part of Czarist Russia. His father, Philip Birnbaum, a Socialist revolutionary who barely escaped arrest, went directly to New York, while his mother, Esther Goldfarb Birnbaum, stopped in London to give birth and joined her husband three months later. In New York, the family name was changed to Beame. The boy, called ''Spunky'' for his scrappiness, grew up in a crowded cold-water flat on the Lower East Side. Childhood friends said he was an outstanding student at Public School 160. At the High School of Commerce, where he graduated at the top of his class, he had perfect scores in the state Regents bookkeeping exams and showed an extraordinary ability to absorb data and memorize facts. At 15, he met Mary Ingerman over checkers at the University Settlement House on Eldridge Street. Seven years later, after he graduated from City College with an accounting degree in 1928, they were married. They have since lived in Brooklyn for the last 45 years, first in a two-family house in Crown Heights, where they raised their sons, then in a modest apartment near Prospect Park. They spend summers at rented cottages in Belle Harbor, on the Rockaways in Queens. In 1930, he and his wife joined the Madison Democratic Club in Crown Heights; for many years she was club treasurer and he a get-out-the-vote precinct captain. In 1943, he was appointed City Comptroller and served until his term ended in 1945. He chose to run for a full term and was reelected in 1945 on a slate with Mayor William O'Dwyer. In 1956, he attempted to run for the U.S. Senate but lost the nomination to Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr. He didn't seek reelection as Comptroller in 1957 but in 1961, at the age of 55, Mr. Beame ran for for city comptroller for a third time on a ticket headed by Mr. Wagner, who though opposed by party leaders, was seeking a third term on a ''beat the bosses'' slate. Mr. Beame, who had never stepped out of line, broke with the Democratic organization to join Mr. Wagner, who won. Mr. Beame, whose opponents tended to underestimate him, outpolled Mr. Wagner.
Many anticipate this may be Beame's hardest race yet, for he may vanish in a campaign dominated by his telegenic, erudite opponents. Or maybe his austerity and sense of competence might deliver him the keys to Gracie Mansion.
However, the current occupant, the 103rd individual to live in Gracie Mansion is in no hurry to leave. Paul R. Screvane, who began serving New York City by driving a garbage truck and progressed to one of its loftiest political positions, likes to say he got to where he is at through hard work. Some say Screvane is a "tough guy" but the Mayor likes to say, if that is true, it's because it's tough times. In what remains a matter of sometimes desperate importance to New York car owners, he developed, while serving as sanitation commissioner, the city's system of alternate-side parking, which requires that cars be moved out of the way of street cleaners on one side of the street on specific days. Screvane was born and grew up in his family's home in the Bronx. He was a star halfback on the James Monroe High School football team and won an athletic scholarship to Mississippi State College. But after a year, his mother became seriously ill and he dropped out of college. He took a job as an $18-a-week clerk. His uncle, a former member of the sanitation department, told him that if he did not mind getting his hands dirty, the agency offered a chance for rapid advancement. Promotions were based on merit tests. So, at the age of 22, Mr. Screvane took a job as a $35-a-week truck driver for the agency. Five years later and 10 months before Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Army as a private. By the end of World War II, he was a colonel and had won the Silver Star for gallantry and two Bronze Stars for meritorious achievement. He returned to the Sanitation Department and rose quickly and steadily: Mayor Wagner appointed him commissioner in 1953. At 38, he was the department's youngest commissioner and immediately began experimenting with such novel ideas as dog comfort stations and public ashtrays. After Mayor Wagner broke with Carmine DeSapio and the Tammany bosses, he recruited Mr. Screvane to run for City Council President, one of the city's highest positions. He represented a civil service in which advancement was based on merit not patronage said Wagner. But he had other accomplishments. He wrote a law to protect New Yorkers who were arrested on Freedom Rides in the South from any negative treatment by city agencies. During the summer of 1962, he served as acting mayor while Mayor Wagner vacationed abroad. He signed several laws, including a measure barring the importation of strikebreakers. And when Wagner resigned in the summer of 1964 to concentrate on his U.S. Senate bid, Screvane as President of the City Council became the city's acting Mayor, a position he now is running on his own merits to hold for a full term. Screvane says he knows the city is in tough times so it's no surprise in announcing his candidacy early last month officially, Screvane used a boxing analogy to talk about the city he now governs and hopes to continue to govern. "My friends, the condition of the City of New York at this time reminds me of the middleweight champion fight between the late Marcel Cerdan and Tony Zale. Zale was old and doing it from memory and Cerdan was a bustling, sort of classy alley fighter and Cerdan went to the body in the first round and never brought his punches up. At the start of each round, when you looked at Zale’s face, you saw only this proud, fierce man. There were no marks to show what was happening. But Tony Zale was coming apart from the punches that did not leave any marks and at the end of the eleventh round Tony was along the ropes and Cerdan stepped back and Tony crumbled and he was on the floor, looking out into the night air, his face unmarked, his body dead, his career gone. In New York today, the face of the city, Manhattan, is proud and glittering. But Manhattan is not the city. New York really is a sprawl of neighborhoods, which pile into one another. And it is down in the neighborhoods, down in the schools that are in the neighborhoods, where this city is cut and slashed and bleeding from someplace deep inside. The South Bronx is gone. East New York and Brownsville are gone. Jamaica is up for grabs. The largest public education system in the world may be gone already. The air we breathe is so bad that on a warm day the city is a big Donora. In Manhattan, the lights seem brighter and the theatre crowds swirl through the streets and the girls swing in and out of office buildings in packs and it is all splendor and nobody sees the body punches that are going to make the city sag to its knees one day so very soon. The last thing, then, that New York can afford at this time is a politician thinking in normal politicians’ terms. The city is beyond that. The City of New York either gets an imagination, or the city dies."
Finally on the sidelines for now sit three other personalities who look ready to jump into the Mayoral fray, two Democrats (either of which may run as a Liberal Party candidate as well) and an independent who has seeking to make one of the newest and serious third party in decades named, appropriately, the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party of New York State was founded in 1962 by a group including J. Daniel Mahoney, Kieran O'Doherty, Charles Edison, and the Buckley brothers, James L. and William F, out of frustration with the perceived liberalism of the Republican Party of New York. A key consideration was New York's fusion voting, unusual among US states, which allows individual candidates to receive votes from more than one party. The Liberal Party founded in 1944, had earlier benefitted from this system.
Paul O'Dwyer (D) is the brother of former Mayor William O'Dwyer (D). He became President of the City Council when Paul Screvane became Mayor, much to the new Mayor's chagrin. O'Dwyer and Screvane have clashed on the council for some time now, so a candidacy by O'Dwyer for Mayor would remove him at least from the Council. O'Dwyer was born in Ireland, emigrating to New York City in 1925. He became a United States citizen in 1930. He was a staunchly vehement opponent of American involvement in World War Two and traveled the United States to speak with and rally pro-neutrality (particularly Irish-American) groups. As a lawyer some of his more renowned cases were those involving people accused of Communist ties by the McCarthy hearings, referring often about Senator Joseph McCarthy (R) of Wisconsin and his hearings during this time with the phrase in Gaelic of "tha e cho breugach 's a tha an cat cho bradach, meaning he is as much a liar as the cat is a thief!" Lately, O'Dwyer has taken to calling his potential Mayoral opponents Gaelic slurs saying Mayor Screvane is a "pliobair" (a worthless flunkey)", Lindsay is a "reimheach" (proud & petulant), Beame is "claonaire" (one who is dull and uninspiring), Powell is "sabhdair" (Foolish braggard), and Buckley is "draingeis" (which is someone who is snarling, petulant, and constantly carping.) It's unknown if O'Dwyer can put together the same sort of coalition his brother did to win the Mayor's office. In fact, a fleet, unapologetic gadfly, Paul is the antithesis of his older brother William, who rose from the police force to become an urbane master of machine politics as Mayor of New York from 1946 until 1950, when scandals shook his administration. The O'Dwyers moved separately on the crest of Irish-American political power before it faded in the city. But his outspokenness for minority causes helped deny him a mainstream role in politics. As president of the New York chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Mr. O'Dwyer was denounced as a radical for angrily challenging Red-baiting assaults on civil liberties by politicians who were intent on searching for Communist leanings among teachers and other government workers. O'Dwyer was among the first volunteers litigating in Deep South integration struggles. ''It was like a present on Christmas morning,'' he enthused about his participation. He was also gladly troublesome as a delegate to the 1964 Democratic National Convention, leading the fight to see the black Freedom Democratic party of Mississippi represented. Personally close to a generation of black politicians, Mr. O'Dwyer managed the campaigns of several. Anti-Semitism in college fraternities had bonded him to Jewish friends. It followed naturally that he was involved in the cause of a Jewish homeland in 1946 by arranging for the illegal entry of Holocaust survivors to Palestine and by aiding the gun-running operations of the Irgun militants fighting the British in the Holy Land. The next year, as chairman of the Lawyers' Committee for Justice in Palestine, he pleaded at the United Nations for Israeli sovereignty. Successfully defending an admitted Jewish gun-runner in New York in 1948, Mr. O'Dwyer told the court, ''He was only doing what every other freedom-loving person would be doing.'' That may be how he forms his coalition.
One opponent standing in his way for black support will be Harlem's own favorite son, pastor of Abbyssinia Baptist Church, confidant of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as the thunderous voice of civil rights in the U.S. House of Representative, U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (D). Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born on November 29, 1908, in New Haven, Connecticut, to Mattie Fletcher Schaffer and Adam Clayton Powell Sr. The family, which included daughter Blanche, moved to New York City when the senior Powell took on a clergy position at Abyssinian Baptist Church, a historical African-American institution that would eventually move to Harlem. The junior Powell went on to attend City College before transferring to Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, where he graduated in 1930. Two years later (1932), he earned a master's degree in religious education from Columbia University, and then furthered his divinity studies at Shaw University. In 1937, he won a seat to the New York City Council, becoming the first African American elected to the position. A few years later, Powell made a successful run for Congress; he took a Democratic seat in the House of Representatives in 1941, becoming the first African American hailing from New York to be elected to the House. The outspoken, electrifying leader and orator and has served there ever since. In 1964 he was running for U.S. Senate but suddenly withdrew from the race and endorsed Wagner. Some think he made a deal. Powell served on a number of committees and continued to agitate for African-American human rights, calling for an end to lynching in the South and Jim Crow laws. He angered Southern segregationists, including those within his own party, by integrating congressional restaurants, recreational facilities and press stations; critiquing anti-Semitism; and advocating for independence for African and Asian nations. In 1956, Powell went against party lines to support Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential campaign, though he later critiqued Eisenhower for his conservatism on civil rights issues. In 1961, Powell became chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor. The special group was able to create an unprecedented array of legislative reforms, including a minimum-wage increase, educational resources for the deaf, funding for student loans, library aid, work-hour regulations and job training. He's not without his contraversy. He was indicted for tax evasion in 1958 (the subsequent trial ended in a hung jury), was accused of defraying traveling costs as a public expense and in he was sued by Esther James after making a 1960 slanderous televised statement about her in relation to municipal corruption. The turmoil seemed to have little effect on Powell's loyal Harlem constituency, however, and he continued to win re-election to his House seat. He settled that case out of court in 1963 for an undisclosed amount. But Powell is not afraid of stirring things up. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was, indeed, virtually alone.... And precisely because of that, he was exceptionally crucial. In many instances during those earlier times, if he did not speak out, the issue would not have been raised. ...For example, only he could (or would dare to) challenge Congressman Bill Rankin (D) of Mississippi on the House floor in the 1940s for using the word "nigger." He certainly did not change Rankin's mind or behavior, but he gave solace to millions who longed for a little retaliatory defiance. Powell now is seeing how he can angle himself into Gracie Mansion.
Finally, William F. Buckley, Jr. is the epitome of privilege. Born into a wealthy upper East Side family, the sixth of ten children, Buckley moved as a boy with his family to Mexico then he studied in Paris, France. By age seven, he received his first formal training in English at a day school in London; his first and second languages were Spanish and French. As a boy, Buckley developed a love for music, sailing, horses, hunting, and skiing. All of these interests would be reflected in his later writings. Just before World War II, at age 12–13, he attended the Catholic preparatory school, Saint John's Beaumont in the United Kingdom. Buckley was homeschooled through the 8th grade using the Calvert School of Baltimore's Homeschool Curriculum and was an honor guard for the funeral of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1946 he enrolled at Yale University, joined one of the school's secret societies, became head of Yale's Conservative Party of Yale's Political Union. Buckley studied political science, history, and economics at Yale, graduating with honors in 1950. He was a member of the debate team while there, where he developed and honed his acerbic wit. When he first met author Ayn Rand, according to Buckley, she greeted him with the following: "You are much too intelligent to believe in God." Buckley who is a fervent Roman Catholic replied, "You are much too ignorant then not to accept the existence of God." In broaching the idea of his candidacy for Mayor, Buckley who was a visible and public supporter of the Goldwater Presidential campaign stated if he runs it would be to continue the momentum to the conservative cause in the wake of Goldwater's defeat. Already he has some interesting concepts. One is to relieve traffic congestion, Buckley proposed charging drivers a fee to enter the central city everytime. He also is extremely critical of Mayor Screvane's Civillian Review Board for the New York City Police, recently introduced to control police corruption and install community policing. It's one of the few measures Screvane has proposed to the Council that O'Dwyer has supported. Buckley is also the author of what some call the "Buckley Rule" Buckley first used his assertion during the 1964 Republican primary election that featured Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller. Debate within the Republican Party led Buckley to state his support for "the rightwardmost viable candidate." Ronald Reagan in California revised it in saying and proclaiming support for "the rightwardmost electable candidate" or simply the most electable candidate.
There is one other "potential" candidate whom U.S. Congressman Hugh L. Carey and New York City Councilman Daniel Patrick Moynihan are all talking up as a viable candidate who could unite all the factions together. The candidate that they are quietly touting and yet trying to build support for is Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy already passed on a 1964 U.S. Senate race to which Harriman says is all the more reason why he should be considered for the keys to Gracie Mansion. So far there's no word from the White House or even from the Justice Department on what the Attorney General may or may not do. One thing is for sure. The 1965 New York City Mayor's race promises to be the hottest political race to watch and ramifications for the direction of New York City on who wins.
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BLOODY SUNDAY OCCURS IN ALABAMA
Six hundred marchers assembled in Selma on Sunday, March 7, and, led by Bayard Rustin, Andrew Young, U.S. Congressman William F. Ryan (D) of New York, James Farmer, and John Lewis. Ryan thought his presence as a U.S. Congressman would provide cover and safety for the marchers. The idea had first been promoted locally by Amelia Boynton.
State troopers and county posse members attacked the unarmed marchers with billy-clubs and tear gas after they passed over the county line. They beat Boynton and Farmer unconscious. Ryan was severely injured as was Lewis. The marchers were attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Boynton, of the Selma voting rights movement for SCLC, called for a march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Governor George C. Wallace directly about Jimmie Lee Jackson's death, and to ask him if he had ordered the State Troopers to turn off the lights and attack the marchers. Bevel strategized that this would focus the anger and pain of the people of Marion and Selma toward a nonviolent goal, as many were so outraged they wanted to retaliate with violence. They also wished to discuss the assault on Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy in January. County Sheriff Jim Clark on Sunday had issued an order for all white males in Dallas County over the age of twenty-one to report to the courthouse that morning to be deputized. Commanding officer John Cloud told the demonstrators to disband at once and go home. Rev. Hosea Williams tried to speak to the officer, but Cloud curtly informed him there was nothing to discuss. Seconds later, the troopers began shoving the demonstrators, knocking many to the ground and beating them with nightsticks. Alabama State Troopers charged demonstrators that included children on horseback. Televised images of the brutal attack presented Americans and international audiences with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, and roused support for the Selma Voting Rights Campaign. Many saw Boynton beaten unconscious. In all, 17 marchers were hospitalized and 50 treated for lesser injuries; the day soon became known as "Bloody Sunday" nationally. Walter Cronkite compared Governor Wallace to the last Czar of Russia using Cossacks on horses to commit similar atrocities.
The White House released a statement from President Kennedy issued an immediate statement "deploring the brutality with which a number of Negro citizens of Alabama were treated..." Meanwhile, Dr. King and others began organizing a second march to be held on Sunday, March 21, 1965. They issued a call for clergy and citizens from across the country to join them. Awakened to issues of civil and voting rights by years of Civil Rights Movement activities, and shocked by the television images of "Bloody Sunday," hundreds of people reportedly are responding to SCLC's call.
Meanwhile, the White House has convened a joint session of Congress, outlined his new voting rights bill, and demanded that they pass it. In a historic presentation carried nationally on live television, making use of the largest media network, Johnson praised the courage of African-American activists. He called Selma "a turning point in man's unending search for freedom" on a par with the The Battle of Appomattox.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, my copartners in Government, gentlemen--and ladies:
The Constitution imposes upon me the obligation to "from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union." While this has traditionally been interpreted as an annual affair, this tradition has been broken in extraordinary times.
These are extraordinary times. And we face an extraordinary challenge. Our strength as well as our convictions have imposed upon this nation the role of leader in freedom's cause.
No role in history could be more difficult or more important. We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves--that is our only commitment to others. No friend, no neutral and no adversary should think otherwise. We are not against any man--or any nation--or any system--except as it is hostile to freedom. Nor am I here to present a new military doctrine, bearing any one name or aimed at any one area. I am here to promote the freedom doctrine.
The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe--Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East--the lands of the rising peoples. Their revolution is the greatest in human history. They seek an end to injustice, tyranny, and exploitation. More than an end, they seek a beginning.
And theirs is a revolution which we would support regardless of the Cold War, and regardless of which political or economic route they should choose to freedom. For the adversaries of freedom did not create the revolution; nor did they create the conditions which compel it. But they are seeking to ride the crest of its wave--to capture it for themselves. I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.
I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause. At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed. There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight.
For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great Government--the Government of the greatest Nation on earth.
Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.
In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation.
The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation.
For with a country as with a person, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?" There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans--not as Democrats or Republicans-we are met here as Americans to solve that problem. This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal"--"government by consent of the governed"--"give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives. Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
To apply any other test--to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth--is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.
Tomorrow, as an extension to my first bill I sent up and was passed and signed into law, I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote. The broad principles of that bill will be in the hands of the Democratic and Republican leaders tomorrow. After they have reviewed it, it will come here formally as a bill. I am grateful for this opportunity to come here tonight at the invitation of the leadership to reason with my friends, to give them my views, and to visit with my former colleagues. I have had prepared a more comprehensive analysis of the legislation which I had intended to transmit to the clerk tomorrow but which I will submit to the clerks tonight. But I want to really discuss with you now briefly the main proposals of this legislation,
This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections--Federal, State, and local--which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote. This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout our Constitution. It will provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United States Government if the State officials refuse to register them. It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote. Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting.
I will welcome the suggestions from all of the Members of Congress--I have no doubt that I will get some--on ways and means to strengthen this law and to make it effective. But experience has plainly shown that this is the only path to carry out the command of the Constitution. To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their own communities; who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections, the answer is simple: Open your polling places to all your people. Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin. Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land.
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And we shall overcome.
My ancestors came from a nation where they were held down and made to bow their heads. My ancestors knew the pain of signs that were anti-Irish and said when they sought jobs, "NO IRISH NEED APPLY." I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. It was my Irish ancestors who fought that others like the American Negro was freed. But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great President of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact.
A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is still not kept or fulfilled.
The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American. For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated, how many white families have lived in stark poverty, how many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we have wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?
So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.
This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome!
This is the richest and most powerful country which ever occupied the globe. The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But I do not want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion.
Working with you, one who once was one of you, we can be those whoeducated young children to the wonders of their world.
Working with you, one who once was one of you, we can be those who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of taxeaters.
Working with you, one who once was one of you, we can be those who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election.
Working with you, one who once was one of you, we can be those who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races and all regions and all parties.
Working with you, one who once was one of you, we can be those who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth.
And so at the request of your beloved Speaker and the good Senator from Minnesota; Mr. Humphrey, your new majority leader, the Senator from Illinois; Mr. Dirksen, the minority leader, my partner, Vice President Jackson, and other Members of both parties, I came here tonight--not as President Roosevelt came down one time in person to veto a bonus bill, not as President Truman came down one time to urge the passage of a railroad bill--but I came down here to ask you to share this task with me and to share it with the people that we both work for. I want this to be the Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, which did all these things for all these people.
Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says--in Latin--"God has favored our undertaking."
God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will. But I cannot help believing that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.
Our undertaking is to be the words Cicero once wrote - Obtinebimus - WE SHALL OVERCOME!
Malcolm X (aka Malcolm Little) a premier Civil Rights Advocate and leader in the Organization of Afro-American Unity was assassinated today by assassins tied with the Nation of Islam.
In 1964, Malcolm formally left the Nation of Islam and made a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, where he was profoundly affected by the lack of racial discord among orthodox Muslims. He returned to America as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and in June 1964 founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which advocated black identity and held that racism, not the white race, was the greatest foe of the African American. Malcolm’s new movement steadily gained followers, and his more moderate philosophy became increasingly influential in the civil rights movement, especially among the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
As Malcolm X was preparing to address the OAAU in Manhattan's Audobon Ballroom, someone in the 400-person audience yelled, "Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!" As Malcolm X and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance, the assassin rushed forward and shot Malcolm X point blank in the chest with a sawed off shotgun two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns. He was rushed to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 3:30 PM/EST. The autopsy identified 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms and legs, including ten buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast.
One gunman, Nation of Islam member Talmadge Hayer (aka Thomas Hagan) was beaten by the crowd before police arrived. He died later from wounds he sustained. Witnesses identified the other gunmen as Nation members Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in a public statement: "I had the utmost respect for Malcolm. While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had the great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. The struggle has lost a true leader and soldier in the fight for racial justice in this nation. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race."
New York City Mayor Paul Screvane released the following statement: "Today all New Yorkers are saddened to learn about the assassination of Malcolm X. His had become a voice for racial tolerance was a voice for pride in one's heritage, and the silencing of it - by such brutal means - is a shock to us all. Malcolm X's death is a grim reminder that many people consider the freedoms we cherish a threat. The perpetrators of this violent act must be brought to justice, and it is my hope that as Mayor of New York City to retain civility and safety for all New Yorkers in this most trying period."
President John F. Kennedy released the following statement: "While Malik El-Shabazz, known to many as Malcolm X's life was tragically cut short, he will forever be remembered as a visionary leader who helped to usher in an era of compassion, hope and opportunity for many American negroes. Whether fighting for the impoverished and for small businesses or advocating for enacting school lunch programs in New York City or demonstrating to in making city government more open and responsive the legacy of Malcolm X was to open the doors of opportunity to all of our citizens."
U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said to reporters at Franklin D. Roosevelt International Airport (formerly Idewild Airport), "Malcolm X was clearly a product of the hate and violence invested in the Negro's blighted existence in this nation. In his youth, there was no hope, no preaching, teaching or movements of non-violence. It is a testimony to Malcolm's personal depth and integrity that he could not become an underworld Czar, but turned again and again to religion for meaning and destiny. Malcolm was still turning and growing at the time of his brutal and meaningless assassination. Like the murder of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, the murder of Malcolm X deprives the world of a potentially great leader. I could not agree with either of these men, but I could see in them a capacity for leadership which I could respect, and which was just beginning to mature in judgment and statesmanship."
JFK: Dr. King what has happened in Selma and now New York City is horrible....ahh....the coming days we will need your interest and your cooperation, and your communication, and a good many people told me that they heard about your statement. I guess it was a telegram wasn’t it?
MLK: Yes, that’s right, Mr. President—
JFK: I Ahhh—
MLK: --uh-huh.
JFK: I’ve been locked up in this office, and I haven’t seen it. But I want to tell you how grateful I am, and how worthy I’m going to try to be of all your hopes.
MLK: Well, thank you very much. I’m so happy to hear that, and I knew that you had just that great spirit, and you know you have our support and backing—
JFK: Yes—
MLK: --because we know what a difficult period this is. [Inaudible]
JFK: It’s just an impossible period. We’ve got a budget coming up that’s—we’ve got nothing to do with it; it’s practically already made. And we’ve got to see this new civil rights bill that hadn’t even passed the House, and Scoop Jackson told me yesterday everybody wanted to go home. We’ve got a tax bill that they haven’t touched. We just got to let up—not let up on any of them and keep going and--
MLK: Yes.
JFK: --I guess they’ll say that I’m repudiated. But I’m going to ask the Congress Wednesday to just stay there until they pass them all. They won’t do it. But we’ll just keep them there next year until they do, and we just won’t give up an inch.
MLK: Uh-uh. Well this is mighty fine. I think it’s so imperative. I think one of the great tributes that we can pay in memory of Malcolm and this is a hallmark of your Presidency is to try to enact some of the great, progressive policies that will follow in the footsteps of FDR and others.
JFK: Well, I’m going to support them all, and you can count on that. And I’m going to do my best to get other men to do likewise, and I’ll have to have y’all’s help.
MLK: Right.
JFK: I never needed it more than I do now.
MLK: Well, you know you have it, and just feel free to call on us for anything.
JFK: Thank you so much, Doctor.
MLK: All right. Give my—
JFK: Call me when you’re—
MLK: --regards to the family. Especially thank the First Lady for her support, quiet but strong. She has been through so much as you have.
JFK: You know, ahhh....I'm a good Catholic but say prayers for me Doctor.
MLK: I certainly will, Mr. President.
JFK: Thank you so much.
MLK: Thank you for calling.
MLK: Yes, that’s right, Mr. President—
JFK: I Ahhh—
MLK: --uh-huh.
JFK: I’ve been locked up in this office, and I haven’t seen it. But I want to tell you how grateful I am, and how worthy I’m going to try to be of all your hopes.
MLK: Well, thank you very much. I’m so happy to hear that, and I knew that you had just that great spirit, and you know you have our support and backing—
JFK: Yes—
MLK: --because we know what a difficult period this is. [Inaudible]
JFK: It’s just an impossible period. We’ve got a budget coming up that’s—we’ve got nothing to do with it; it’s practically already made. And we’ve got to see this new civil rights bill that hadn’t even passed the House, and Scoop Jackson told me yesterday everybody wanted to go home. We’ve got a tax bill that they haven’t touched. We just got to let up—not let up on any of them and keep going and--
MLK: Yes.
JFK: --I guess they’ll say that I’m repudiated. But I’m going to ask the Congress Wednesday to just stay there until they pass them all. They won’t do it. But we’ll just keep them there next year until they do, and we just won’t give up an inch.
MLK: Uh-uh. Well this is mighty fine. I think it’s so imperative. I think one of the great tributes that we can pay in memory of Malcolm and this is a hallmark of your Presidency is to try to enact some of the great, progressive policies that will follow in the footsteps of FDR and others.
JFK: Well, I’m going to support them all, and you can count on that. And I’m going to do my best to get other men to do likewise, and I’ll have to have y’all’s help.
MLK: Right.
JFK: I never needed it more than I do now.
MLK: Well, you know you have it, and just feel free to call on us for anything.
JFK: Thank you so much, Doctor.
MLK: All right. Give my—
JFK: Call me when you’re—
MLK: --regards to the family. Especially thank the First Lady for her support, quiet but strong. She has been through so much as you have.
JFK: You know, ahhh....I'm a good Catholic but say prayers for me Doctor.
MLK: I certainly will, Mr. President.
JFK: Thank you so much.
MLK: Thank you for calling.
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