TomC
TCash101
Junior Chimp
Posts: 6,976
|
|
« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2004, 08:57:59 PM » |
|
CNN transcript, Jack Valenti, a Republican, on Johnson and Civil Rights: "PHILLIPS: Now, Jack, when all this was going on, you were very involved in politics. You were an aide to Lyndon Johnson. Tell us about the mind set of Lyndon Johnson and why he wanted to make civil rights a priority. And what he said to you and how you advised him as his aide.
VALENTI: Well, first, it's a great honor to be on this show with one of America's greatest heroes, John Lewis.
LEWIS: Jack, you've been very kind, jack. It's good to be with you, my friend.
VALENTI: Well, you're a great hero, John, and we're in your debt.
On the very night of Johnson's first night of his accession to the presidency, I flew back with him from Dallas, having been in that motorcade when President Kennedy was murdered, and in that photograph.
As he lay in bed, with Bill Moyers, Cliff Carter (ph) and I surrounding him, sitting around that big bed, I guess it might have been midnight on November the 22nd, '63, he brought up fact that the civil rights bill was languishing in the Senate, wasn't going anywhere, and that by damn he was going to get it out of there and pass it. And he was going to make it on the moral issue, the moral imperative, and force everybody to come to that line and cross it.
It was an extraordinary experience that this man determined that the first priority on his agenda was human justice and civil rights, and he made it all come true.
PHILLIPS: Well, Jack, Roy Wilkins, who was the head of the NAACP at that time, he said some pretty powerful things to you with regard to how he felt about Lyndon Johnson and what Johnson was doing for the black community.
VALENTI: That's right. We were in a meeting in the Cabinet Room, with all the great black leaders, Dorothy Hite, whom I saw yesterday, Phil Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Whitney Young, Clarence Mitchell and Roy Wilkins, of course, were the largest among them all. As we left the meeting, he put his arm around me, and he said, Jack, don't you realize that God moves in strange and wondrous ways?"
And I said, What do you mean, Roy?
He said, don't you find it odd the greatest friend the Negro in America has ever had turns out to be a southern president?
And I must say, I kind of misted up a little bit on that.
PHILLIPS: Congressman Lewis, you were telling me how JFK was so inspirational to you. I asked you that question, why did you decide to get into politics? And did you ever think you'd be in the position to change policy that really fought against you for so long? And then Lyndon Johnson, so tight with JFK -- it's interesting how this all came about.
LEWIS: Well, I was deeply, deeply inspired by President Kennedy. I watched the campaign of 1960. I could not even register to vote in Alabama. My own mother and father could not register to vote for President Kennedy. But he was elected.
And years later, I met him, in May of 1963 or June of 1963. And we developed a friendship. And later, when President Johnson became president, he invited me to the White House when he signed the Voting Rights Act of '65. And I will never forget that.
So all of these men, Robert Kennedy, President Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., just coming there to testify before a committee, or meet with the others...
PHILLIPS: And all those white men. I mean this was pretty shocking. LEWIS: It was all white men. But when I met with them and talked with them, you saw them moving, you saw them changing and growing. And I became convinced that they were convinced that it was the right thing to do to get this legislation passed.
PHILLIPS: Let's talk about that legislation.
Jack, you remember that day. Let's just bring us back to it, 40 years ago.
VALENTI: Well, the day of course was the climax of ceaseless, relentless persuasion on the part of Lyndon Johnson and all the people around him. I know that in the days leading up to the vote on the Civil Rights Act of '64, as later we did on the Voting Rights Act of '65, he told me, he said, now, here's some congressmen and senators I want you to talk to. They're southern congressmen and senators, but you talk like they do, so by God, you go up to that Hill and you get their vote.
And I would go in there and say, senator or congressman, President Johnson wants you to know that if you vote with him, he'll never forget. But if you vote against him, he'll always remember. We played -- we played it tough.
But he was determined that he was going to pass that bill which was so locked up deep in the bowels of the Senate, that it looked like it could never get out. But he got it out.
One other anecdote: I remember in December '63, a conversation he had with Senator Russell, and he told him he was going to pass that bill.
And Senator Russell said, Well, Mr. President, if you do, you'll not only lose this election, but you'll lose the south forever. I remember Lyndon Johnson saying in words I have never forgotten, he said, well, Dick if that's the price I have to pay, I will gladly pay it. "
He won the election, basically lost the South for the Dems forever, but for the worthiest cause of all- equality under the law.
|