Landslide (59 page)

1
  
“A desert state”
Martin Luther King, Jr., “At the March on Washington” (1963), in
A Call to Conscience: Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
, edited by Clayborne Carson (New York: IPM, 2001).

2
  
James Chaney, a native of Meridian
“Mississippi—Everybody’s Scared,”
Newsweek
, July 6, 1964.

3
  
“Mama, that’s what’s the matter now”
Ibid.

4
  
At some point on June 21
For details on the events surrounding Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney’s disappearance and murder, see Cagin and Dray’s thorough account,
We Are Not Afraid
.

5
  
“The sixty-five-year-old structure had been totally consumed”
Ibid., 2.

6
  
“Now let’s see how quick y’all can get out of Neshoba County”
Ibid., 286.

7
  
As Chaney drove away
Cagin and Dray have reconstructed the timeline of events using eyewitness testimony and confessions obtained by the perpetrators, 286–295.

8
  
“I thought you were going back to Meridian”
Ibid., 292; Huie,
Three Lives for Mississippi
, 181.

9
  
“What do they think happened?”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Lee White, June 23, 1964, Citation $3818.

10
  
“3 IN RIGHTS DRIVE REPORTED MISSING,”
New York Times
, June 24, 1964.

11
  
“they just disappeared from the face of the earth”
Ibid.

12
  
Fear over the young men’s fate had spread quickly
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, 361–2.

13
  
“Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation began arriving”
Claude Sitton, “3 in Rights Drive Reported Missing,”
New York Times
, June 24, 1964.

14
  
“If they’re missing”
Ibid.

15
  
“I don’t believe there’s three missing”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and James Eastland, June 23, 1963, Citation $3836.

16
  
“That depends on the kind of men, Jim”
Ibid.

17
  
“Apparently, what’s happened”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, June 23, 1964, Citation $3837.

18
  
“I don’t like you having to see these people”
Ibid.

19
  
“Officially, at the weekend, they were missing”
“Mississippi—Everybody’s Scared.”

20
  
“they’re either the party of Lincoln or they ain’t”
Branch,
Pillar of Fire
, 180-1.

21
  
“Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come”
Dallek,
Flawed Giant
, 119.

22
  
“We have now come to a time of national testing”
E.W. Kentworthy, “President Signs Civil Rights Bill,”
New York Times
, July 2, 1964.

23
  
A Universal newsreel
“Civil Rights: President Signs Historic Bill” (California: Universal Studios Newsreel, 1964),
http://​www.​c-​spanvideo.​org/​program/​300956-​1
.

24
  
“If he is nominated for President”
Walter Lippmann, “The Goldwater Threat,”
Newsweek
, July 6, 1964, 13.

25
  
“You can go ahead and talk about conscience”
Perlstein,
Before the Storm
, 365.

26
  
“a shaken man”
Ibid., 363.

27
  
“After Lyndon Johnson—the biggest faker in the United States?”
Charles Mohr, “Scornful Attack: Senator Charges That President Changed Civil Rights Stand,”
New York Times
, July 16, 1964.

28
  
His stroke of luck, he believed, would come in a benediction from Eisenhower
Perlstein,
Before the Storm
, 357; White,
Making of the President
1964, 110-1.

29
  
“the gallantry of hopelessness”
Ibid., 236.

30
  
a “crazy-quilt collection of absurd and dangerous positions”
Perlstein,
Before the Storm
, 377; White,
Making of the President 1964
, 239.

31
  
NBC had 173 cameramen navigating the convention floor
“Palace Warfare,”
Newsweek
, July 6, 1964.

32
  
“When a delegate goes to the bathroom”
Ibid.

33
  
Eisenhower urged the delegates
“Opinion: Those Outside Our Family,”
Time
, July 24, 1964. Perlstein,
Before the Storm
, 381.

34
  
“leaped off their chairs”
“Opinion: Those Outside Our Family,”
Time
, July 24, 1964.

35
  
When Rockefeller addressed the convention
“The Late, Late Show,”
Time
, June 24, 1964.

36
  
“violence in our streets”
White,
Making of the President 1964
, 260-1.

37
  
Clif White, turned off the television
White and Gill,
Suite 3505
, 14.

38
  
“a disaster for the Republican Party”
“The Goldwater Nomination,”
New York Times
, July 16, 1964.

39
  
“not a normal American politician”
Lippmann, “The Goldwater Threat,”
Newsweek
, July 4, 1964, 13.

40
  
“I think the Republican Party has enough problems”
Jack Raymond, “President Leaves Spotlight to GOP,”
New York Times
, July 12, 1964.

41
  
“We really won’t do any campaigning until after Labor Day”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and John McCormick, June 23, 1964, Citation #3824.

42
  
“The Canadian Royal Mounted Police … but we’ve got to put this thing together right away”
Carl Albert OH II.

43
  
government estimates of deficit spending for fiscal 1964
“The Presidency: Meanwhile, Down at the Ranch,”
Time
, July 24, 1964.

44
  
“What we really want to do with Goldwater”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and George Reedy, July 20, 1964, Citation #4286.

45
  
“swiftly spread[ing] through the capital and its environs”
“The Presidency: Just Storing Up Energy?”
Time
, July 17, 1964.

46
  
“you had a whole plate of sandwiches”
Marie Fehmer Chiarodo OH II.

47
  
On its cover the following week
“Harlem: Hatred in the Streets,”
Newsweek
, August 3, 1964.

48
  
“feel that most Negroes want to take jobs held by whites”
Louis Harris, “The Backlash Issue,”
Newsweek
, July 13, 1964, 27.

49
  
Fertile territory for resentment could also be found in the suburbs
Ibid.

50
  
“If we aren’t careful”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Geroge Reedy, July 20, 1964, Citation #4286.

51
  
“He wants to use this as a forum”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and John Connally, July 23, 1964, Citation #4320.

52
  
“Hell, these folks have got walkie-talkies”
Ibid.

53
  
“The white backlash itself exists”
Harris, “Backlash Issue,” 24.

54
  
“When this fellow looks at me”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and John Connally, July 23, 1964; Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, 468.

55
  
In a tense Oval Office meeting
Thomas,
Robert Kennedy
, 290-1 and Shesol,
Mutual Contempt
, 186.

56
  
“We waited quite a while”
Gillette,
Lady Bird Johnson
, 344.

57
  
“Stranger, when you see the Lacedaemonians”
Murray Kempton, “Pure Irish,”
New Republic
, February 15, 1964.

58
  
“I’m sure Jack liked it”
Thomas,
Robert Kennedy
, 288.

59
  
As a belated Christmas gift
“Periscope,”
Newsweek
, January 20, 1964, 10.

60
  
In his biography … Evan Thomas reveals
Thomas,
Robert Kennedy
, 286-7.

61
  
“there is no dignity”
Hamilton,
The Greek Way
, 176.

62
  
He referred to “the president”
Thomas,
Robert Kennedy
, 291.

63
  
“Here I and sorrows sit”
Hamilton,
The Greek Way
, 176.

64
  
“The worst city in the United States for rumor and gossip is Washington”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Richard Daley, July 21, 1964, Citation #4298; Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, 463.

65
  
maybe he’d write a book in England Bradlee
, “What’s Bobby Kennedy Going to Do Now?”
Newsweek
, July 6, 1964, 25.

66
  
“I should think I’d be the last man”
Ibid.

67
  
“I don’t want the presidency if they do”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Jack Connally, July 14, 1964, Citation #4224.

68
  
“He’s got [Jackie] thinking”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Clark Clifford, July 29, 1964.

69
  
wondered if the president was recording the exchange
Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy
, 661.

70
  
“You didn’t ask me”
Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, 479.

71
  
“I was very firm and very positive”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Clark Clifford, July 29, 1964.

72
  
“Oh, I’m just so gratified”
Ibid.

73
  
“He had communicated that decision personally”
Tom Wicker, “President Bars Kennedy, Five Others, From Ticket,”
New York Times
, July 31, 1964.

74
  
“While I’m thinking about naming him”
Beschloss,
Taking Charge
, 484.

75
  
“When I … told him”
Shesol,
Mutual Contempt
, 210-11

76
  
“a kind of stunned semi-idiot”
Stewart Alsop OH.

77
  
“Mr. Johnson may have been seeing goblins”
Evans and Novak, “Inside Report: The Johnson-Kennedy Split,”
Washington Post
, August 4, 1964.

78
  
“I think we ought to just watch that just like hawks”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and James Rowe, Jule 31, 1964.

79
  
“The two destroyers would stage direct daylight runs”
Karnow,
Vietnam
, 384.

80
  
“The entire action”
Ibid., 386.

81
  
“Make no bones of this”
Barry Goldwater, “1964 RNC Presidential Acceptance” (speech, San Francisco, CA, July 17, 1964),
http://​www.​c-​span.​org/​video/​?4018-​1/​goldwater-​1964-​acceptance-​speech
.

82
  
“My fellow Americans”
Lyndon B. Johnson, “Report on the Gulf of Tonkin Incident” (speech, Washington, DC, August 4, 1964), Miller Center Presidential Speech Archive,
http://​millercenter.​org/​president/​speeches/​detail/​3998
.

83
  
“the smoke was observed rising to 14,000 feet”
Halberstam,
Best and the Brightest
, 414.

84
  
“You’ve taken the right steps”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater, August 4, 1964, Citation #4715.

85
  
“I didn’t just screw Ho Chi Minh”
Halberstam,
Best and the Brightest
, 414.

86
  
Moments before he was shot
Cagin and Dray,
We Are Not Afraid
, 294. Cagin and Dray recount Schwerner’s last moments using confession of his murderers and eyewitness testimony.

87
  
“A coronation, not a convention”
“Now Johnson,”
New York Times
, August 23, 1964.

88
  
Forty-four months ago
Telephone conversation between LBJ and George Reedy, August 25, 1964, Citation #6408.

89
  
“I’m just writing out a little statement that I’m gonna make”
Ibid.

90
  
“I do not believe”
Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Walter Jenkins, August 25, 1964

91
  
“I deeply feared”
Johnson,
Vantage Point
, 95.

92
  
“I do not remember hours I ever found harder”
Lady Bird Johnson,
White House Diary
, 192.