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153 13 A BILL, NOT AN ISSUE Johnson had strong feelings about civil rights and the legislative strategy Kennedy ought to pursue. Making certain that Kennedy heeded his advice—or even heard it—was another matter. White House staff members often ignored him, and they severely limited his access to the president . Despite a presidential order to include Johnson in every White House meeting on civil rights, Lee White, Kennedy’s civil rights assistant, sometimes forgot. “Now look, you work with Lyndon Johnson and make sure that he knows about all of these things,” Kennedy ordered. “I want him here. I think he can do a lot.” Despite the unmistakable nature of Kennedy ’s feelings about Johnson’s involvement, White admitted that of eight meetings held by the White House and Justice Department staff to discuss civil rights, “There must have been two or three when I just clean forgot about the vice president—just forgot!” Of course, Johnson, extremely sensitive to such slights, did not attend any meeting to which Kennedy’s men did not invite him. At one meeting to which the vice president was invited—a June  Oval Office meeting with Kennedy and his advisers—Johnson was largely silent and almost petulant. Asked by Kennedy for his thoughts on the proposed legislation, Johnson replied, “I haven’t seen it.” Kennedy shot back, “I haven’t seen it either,” the point being that the discussion was about what elements to include in the bill. Later, when asked again for his opinion on the matter, Johnson demurred, explaining that he was “not competent to counsel you.” But finally, Johnson engaged the issue and offered Kennedy his best advice: “If we do that [propose a bill], then we got to go through with it and pass it. Gotta bear down . . . or else yours will be just another gesture.” Shortly after the Oval Office meeting, Johnson asked appointments secretary Kenny O’Donnell for fifteen minutes alone with the president to discuss the issue. Kennedy responded by sending over Burke Marshall WHEN FREEDOM WOULD TRIUMPH 154 to hear his thoughts. Johnson talked with Marshall not about legislative strategy but about the importance of addressing the economic hardships endured by black citizens. Johnson never “came down hard one way or another” on whether Kennedy should offer a tough, comprehensive civil rights bill, Marshall said. “He’d talk around it, about the economic problems and his own experience with the [NYA] in the thirties, and so forth.” Following his meeting with Marshall, Johnson again pressed O’Donnell for a private audience with the president. This time, on June , Robert Kennedy dispatched Norbert Schlei—the assistant attorney general in charge of drafting the legislation—to see Johnson. An agitated vice president “absolutely poured out his soul” about the bill, Schlei recalled. Ignoring the substance of the legislation, the vice president instead offered his strategic and tactical advice on the bill’s presentation to the nation and its passage through Congress. Later that day, Johnson received a phone call from another administration aide, Ted Sorensen, a top adviser to the president who doubled as a speechwriter. By now, although he still had not seen a draft bill, Johnson vaguely understood the legislation Kennedy was prepared to submit to Congress; his information came mostly from a newspaper account. In a lengthy conversation with Sorensen (recorded by Dictaphone), Johnson repeatedly advised caution: “I think that we got to do our homework before we send a message, one, and we can’t do that unless we spend some time on the message . Two, I think we ought to exchange some viewpoints [with members of Congress] on what legislation we can get.” The president, Johnson counseled , should unveil his proposal in the South. As for the message Kennedy would eventually deliver to the nation, Johnson suggested that he not only declare his support for potent legislation, but establish a strong position of moral leadership on the issue. He suggested Kennedy go to the South and say: Now, I don’t want to come here without talking about our constitutional rights. We’re all Americans. We got a Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Now I’m leader of this country. When I order men into battle, I order them men without regard to color. They carry our flag into foxholes. The Negro can do that, the Mexican can do it, others can do it. We’ve got to...

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