Means of Ascent (99 page)

DMN
editorial:
On front page, July 23. Echoed by: The
DMN
said that “on his [Stevenson’s] great record he can hardly fail to appeal to a substantial majority of the 265,000 Texans who in August will make their second choice,”
DMN
, July 27.
“Ninety percent”
:
Roberts, quoted in
HP
, July 29. Indeed, a Belden Poll published on
August 1 provided figures to support the optimism of the Stevenson camp. It showed that of voters who favored Peddy in the first primary, 49.5 percent would favor Stevenson in the second, to 39.7 for Johnson, with 10.8 percent undecided
(AA-S
, Aug. 1). “So imposing”: Pickle OH.
“Making up”:
Kilgore interview. As for Johnson’s own feelings, he related them at the time to Busby, Clark, Connally, Kilgore and Pickle, among
others. He was to recall to Ronnie Dugger: “I thought I’d lead into the run-off by 100,000 votes.… I nearly had to get seventy or eighty percent of the votes that went to George Peddy.” Johnson interview with Dugger, Dec. 14, 1967, quoted in Dugger, p. 319.
“People do not”
:
Busby interview.
“Pulled his weight”
:
FWS-T
, July 26.

SOURCES

See also Sources for Chapter 11.

Books, articles, and documents:

McKay,
Texas and the Fair Deal, 1945–1952;
Montgomery,
Mrs. LBJ;
Smith,
The President’s Lady;
Steinberg,
Sam Johnson’s Boy; Texas Almanac
, 1949–1950.

Papers of Welly K. Hopkins (LBJL).

Oral Histories:

Leslie Carpenter, E. B. Germany, Marshall McNeil, Dorothy J. Nichols, Robert Oliver, Drew Pearson, J. J. (“Jake”) Pickle.

Interviews:

Paul Bolton, Ernest J. Boyett, George R. Brown, Horace Busby, Edward A. Clark, John B. Connally, Thomas G. Corcoran, Lewis T. (“Tex”) Easley, Charles Herring, Welly K. Hopkins, Walter Jenkins, Lady Bird Johnson, Edward Joseph, Sarah McClendon, Robert W. Murphey, Frank C. (“Posh”) Oltorf, J. J. (“Jake”) Pickle, Daniel Quill, Mary Rather, James H. Rowe, Jr., Emmett Shelton, E. Babe Smith, Coke Stevenson, Jr., Wilton Woods, Ralph
Yarborough, Harold Young.

NOTES

(All dates 1948 unless otherwise indicated)

Change in Johnson:
Busby, Connally interviews.

The Washington press conference:
Articles on it in
AA-S
, July 30, Aug. 8, 9;
DMN, FWS-T, HP
, July 30; Easley, McClendon, Murphey interviews; “Re: Stevenson’s Press Conference 6:00 p.m. July 29, 1948,” Files of Mildred Stegall, Box 59, LBJL; “Full Text of Les Carpenter’s Story Thursday noon Stevenson Press Conference,” “Austin-Miscellaneous, 1948,” Box 1, PPMF, LBJL. The
description of how the trap was set comes from the oral histories of Pickle, McNeil, Pearson, supplemented by interviews with Pickle, Connally, McClendon, Easley, Murphey, Corcoran and Rowe. The words “and then riding him” can no longer be found in the transcript of the Pickle Oral History in the Lyndon Johnson Library. Pickle has deleted them from the text, but they are in the original text, a copy of which is in the author’s possession. Leslie
Carpenter’s description of the incident does not mention being prepared in advance for the Stevenson visit. In his OH, Drew Pearson said: “When Coke Stevenson came up here, Lyndon tipped me off and I arranged a press conference for Coke Stevenson and had a question asked of him
by one of my assistants about the Taft-Hartley Act. That put Coke on record publicly, where he stood. That supposedly turned a certain number of votes against Coke and maybe
made the difference of the eighty-seven vote margin, by which Lyndon won. At any rate he was very grateful.” When the OH interviewer then said, “You weren’t particularly trying to help Congressman Johnson in his race for the Senate so much as you were just trying to get Stevenson’s true stand on the issue,” Pearson corrected him. “A little bit of both,” the columnist said. “I wanted to ‘hep’ Lyndon, as he would
say.”

“We encouraged”
:
Connally interview.
Johnson’s
“briefing”
of the press corps:
Interviews with Corcoran and Rowe, who did most of the briefing.
“Not only primed”
:
Pickle OH.

Questions on pardons:
“Full Text of Les Carpenter’s Story Thursday noon Stevenson Press Conference,” “Austin-Miscellaneous, 1948,” Box 1, PPMF, LBJL.
Abilene statement:
Abilene Reporter-News
, July 3.
“Unethical”
:
Timmons, quoted in “night press collect—Beaumont Journal,” July 29 (signed “Elizabeth Carpenter”), “Austin-Miscellaneous, 1948,” Box I, PPMF, LBJL.
“Lousy”
:
McClendon interview.

“Dodged”
:
“Full Text of Les Carpenter’s Story” (see above).
“A dozen”
:
AA-S
, July 30.

“Why don’t you get”
:
Les Carpenter to Johnson, Aug. 2, “Memos: Inter-Office, Prior to 1952, 1948 [2 of 2],” Box I, PPMF, LBJL.
McNeil drafting:
McNeil OH; Jenkins interview.

“He’s got to”
:
Woods interview.
“If I lost”
:
Clark interview.
“All on the line”
:
Brown interview.
Had narrowly escaped indictment:
Caro,
Path
to Power
, pp. 742–53.
“In a thousand ways”
:
Clark interview.

Collecting the cash:
This discussion of the financing of the Johnson campaign is based on interviews with Brown, Clark, Connally, Corcoran, Herring, Jenkins, Joseph, Quill, Rowe, Woods, Yarborough, Young.
Reprinting of Liz Carpenter’s article:
Busby says that when he saw Liz Carpenter’s article, “I said to myself: ‘This is our chance!’ ”
Pearson column:
“Washington
Merry-Go-Round,”
AA-S
, Aug. 8, 9.

“A damned lie”
:
Bolton interview.
Estes speech:
AA-S
, Aug. 7; Bolton interview.
A reporter wrote it:
In his OH, Marshall McNeil states: “Stevenson had issued some kind of a statement.… Lyndon wanted to answer it, and he wanted me to write it. Well, I did.”
Missionaries:
The description of their use in the Johnson campaign comes from Johnson strategists such as Bolton, Clark, Connally, Herring, Oltorf and Smith and from Stevenson aides such as Boyett, Murphey and
Stevenson, Jr.; and from neutral observers such as Shelton and Yarborough.
“I saw him”
:
Herring interview.
Between fifty and a hundred:
Estimate from Connally.
“He’d just circulate”
:
Connally interview.
Spread by federal employees:
Analyses of
the use of these employees from Boyett, Clark, Oltorf, Smith and Yarborough.
“It was working”
:
Boyett interview.

Johnson camp knew the truth:
Bolton interview.
“Lift either leg”
:
Johnson, quoted in
AA-S, CCC-T
, Aug. 11.
“It would be”
:
Johnson, quoted in
DMN
, Aug. 3.
“LIKE A BRANDED STEER”
:
HP
, Aug. 6.
“You watched”
:
Bolton interview.
“At the point”
:
Busby interview.
“All we needed”
:
Connally interview.

Stevenson’s image hurt with businessmen:
Busby, Connally interviews; Germany OH.
Schreiner’s call:
Boyett interview. He couldn’t hear Schreiner’s end of the conversation, but Stevenson related it to him as soon as he had hung up, and others knew because Schreiner later spoke to them.
Trying—and failing—to persuade Coke:
Boyett, Murphey, Stevenson, Jr., interviews.

Financing of Stevenson’s campaign:
Boyett interview.
Letter to Braswell:
AA-S, DMN
, Aug. 12.
“A straw man”:
DMN
editorial, Aug. 14.
“Nothing new”:
Stevenson, quoted in
HP
, Aug. 13.

Planting doubts:
HP
, Aug. 13. And see the articles on the letter in
AA-S, CCC-T, FWS-T, HC
. On the day on which a prominent article on Stevenson’s letter should have been printed, Aug. 12, the
HP
, for example, ran only two paragraphs on the letter—in a separate story at the end of the day’s major campaign story.
“Noncommittal”
:
Johnson, quoted in
HP
, Aug. 13.

Johnson’s use of radio; Stevenson’s use of radio:
Analyses of radio listings, advertisements, articles in
AA-S, HP, DMN
, Aug. 13–24; Bolton, Busby, Boyett, Connally interviews.
“With utterly unfounded allegation”
:
DMN
editorial, Aug. 26.
“Have to say something over and over”
:
Connally interview.

Four unions:
AA-S
, Aug. 10; Corcoran, Young interviews.
“No surprise”
:
Stevenson, quoted in
DMN
, Aug. 10.
Oliver lining up:
Oliver OH.
Hopkins’ activities:
Hopkins has given a number of conflicting statements on his activities in this campaign. In a memo written for his personal papers, he relates one incident that occurred after the
Dallas News
discovered he was in Texas. He says that as he arrived at the little airport in Gonzales that August, he was met by John Connally,
who said Wirtz had dictated a statement on Lyndon’s behalf for Hopkins to approve. The statement would have had the UMW counsel saying that “I am an old friend of Coke Stevenson and judging by the official record and platforms of the two men, I have no hesitancy in saying that if John L. Lewis and the UMW were taking any interest in Texas politics, they would support Coke Stevenson.” Hopkins refused to make the statement, because, he says, “it did not
[word unclear] the truth, was an untruth.” Hopkins wrote in this memo: “I told him [Connally] further that I had heard Lyndon’s radio broadcasts … at 12:30
PM
, and that Lyndon had made misstatements of fact in reference to Mr. Lewis and the Mine Workers and I was disappointed and ashamed of Lyndon for so doing. Connally apologized for these speeches, saying Lyndon was forced to make them.… Connally said the
race was very close and urged me to sign the proposed statement and to issue it or to revise it and then issue—All of this I flatly refused to do.” In this handwritten memo, Hopkins also said, “I had previously refrained from taking any interest in the campaign.” However, in an interview, he said that he “had written a few hundred letters on UMW stationery that had fallen into someone’s hands” and that he went back and forth to Texas
with the material from and to Rowe and Corcoran (Personal Papers of Welly K. Hopkins).
Funding from Dubinsky, etc:
Corcoran, Rowe, Jenkins, Young interviews.

Johnson in Peddy territory:
AA-S, DMN, HP, HC
, Aug. 7–8; Boyett, Brown, Clark, Stevenson, Jr., interviews.
“His bid”:
HP
, Aug. 7.
“Have not”
:
DMN
, Aug. 7; “Lyndon B. Johnson Speech, Friday, Aug. 6, 1948,” Papers of Charles E. Marsh, Box 1, “Lyndon Johnson 1948,” LBJL.

“He had to turn it around”
:
Yarborough interview.

Stevenson’s not organizing:
His men—Boyett, Murphey, Stevenson, Jr., say so—and so do Johnson’s men: Clark and Connally, for example. To Canada:
AA-S
, Aug. 18.
Kinney and Hansford:
Texas Almanac
, pp. 463, 474; Boyett, Stevenson, Jr., interviews.

“Lyndon Johnson voted”
:
Johnson, quoted in
DMN
, Aug. 18.
“Birds of a feather”
:
Johnson, quoted in
DMN
, Aug. 18.
“Does it mean”
:
Johnson, quoted in
HP
, Aug. 20.
“My first impression”
:
Connally;
DMN
editorials, Aug. 25, 26.
“COMMUNISTS FAVOR COKE”
:
Johnson Journal
, quoted in Dugger, p. 320. See also
DMN
, Aug. 22. An angered Stevenson read the headlines to audiences
(DMN
, Aug. 26).

“Pappy’s Speech”
:
Caro,
Path to Power
, pp. 695–703.
Had had speech recorded in
1941: Corcoran, Rowe, Hopkins interviews.
“The great prize”
:
Busby interview.
Johnson’s decision to give speech:
Busby interview.
Although he was the only person present when the decision was made, Bolton was following the developments, and confirms the story.
“Particularly when”
:
Connally interview.

Stevenson’s change of mind:
Boyett, Murphey, Stevenson, Jr., interviews.
Meeting at Center:
Murphey interview.

Coke’s two speeches:
Stevenson, quoted in
DMN, HP
, Aug. 15;
HP
, Aug. 17;
AA-S, DMN
, Aug. 18.

“It is no secret”
:
DMN, HP
, Aug. 20.

“Repetition”
:
Bolton interview.
No funds for repetition:
Boyett, Murphey, Bolton, Brown interviews; author’s analysis of newspapers, Aug. 19–28.
“If you have”
:
One of the places this ad
did
appear is
FWS-T
, Aug. 19.
“So what?”: Connally interview.
Johnson’s on the air three times a day:
For example, Pickle to O’Brien, Aug. 16, “District 2 Chairman–Chilton O’Brien,” Box 106, JHP.
Transcribed recordings:
For example,
DMN
, Aug. 14.
Mailboxes filled:
A complete picture of the immensity of the Johnson mail Campaign, in its various forms, emerges from Boxes 63–127, JHP.