Master of the Senate (241 page)

Johnson’s visit:
Harlow interview.
“Become worried”:
Brownell interview.
“I had tried”; “Lyndon Johnson went”; He had the votes”:
Brownell,
Advising Ike
, pp. 223–25; confirmed by Rogers interview. Brownell, in his memoir, goes so far as to concede that “Eisenhower may also have had some reservations (unexpressed to me) about granting power in such broad terms to the attorney general.” If, however, Brownell genuinely felt that the President’s reservations were “unexpressed,” he hadn’t been listening carefully to presidential statements such as the one of July 3 reported by Whitman above. Brownell says he “had tried to assure the President otherwise, but Senators Richard Russell and Lyndon Johnson undoubtedly pressed this point in their conversations with him during this period” (
Advising Ike
, p. 225).
President made his position:
Evans and Novak, p. 133.
“Well, no”:
DDEPP (1957), pp. 546–47, 555.

Could be flouted:
For example,
Time
, July 29. And see
Time
, July 22; Harlow interview.
“It was just”:
Rauh interview.
The day at Glen Welby:
Graham,
Personal History
, p. 241; Rauh OH, Graham OH and her OH with Rauh, Rauh interview.

“To enable”:
Knowland, in
CR
, 85/1, p. 10986.
“Merely”:
Douglas,
CR
, 85/1, p. 10988.
“Will pass”:
Nixon, in
NYP
, July 9.
“We’ll win”:
Adams, quoted in Mann, p. 198.
“He expected”:
Legislative Leaders Meeting, July 16, pp. 4–7, DDEPP.
A cold calculation:
Harlow, Rauh interviews.
“Will not be”:
NYT
, July 9.

“The leader of”:
For example,
NYT
, July 11, 14, 17, 25.
Journalists applauded:
For example,
NYHT
, July 18; Drummond,
NYHT
, July 15;
Philadelphia Inquirer
, July 16;
W P
, July 14;
WS
, July 14.
“Is likely”:
Evans in
NYHT
, July 9.
“At least”:
NYT
, July 9.
“Speculation”:
NYT
, July 11.

Knowland’s predictions:
NYT
, July 10.
“Justified”:
Russell,
CR
, 85/1, p. 10989. The
CR
does not show the second “We will resist,” but Albright (
W P
, July 9) quotes him as likening the South “to a chained bear being poked with a pole and ordered to dance” and saying: “we will resist—we will resist. We will explain and discuss the issues involved in this
bill until each and every Senator fully understands them in all their implications …You may call it a filibuster if you wish.”
“Became apparent”; “I don’t”:
Reedy OH III.
“Until the snow”:
Russell, quoted in
WS
, July 10.

Johnson’s fears:
Reedy, Rowe interviews; Reedy OH.
Rising:
CR
, 85/1, pp. 10983, 10985; William White,
NYT
, July 9.
Niagara Dam pending business:
Johnson,
CR
, 85/1, pp. 10963, 10964.
“I should like”:
Johnson,
CR
, 85/1, p. 10983.
Protest:
Javits, Ives, and Kerr,
CR
, 85/1, pp. 10983–85, July 9, 10.
“Folded his arms”:
NYT
, July 9.
Declined:
Tames interview.

The gulf:
Stennis, McNamara, Javits, Knowland in
CR
, 85/1, pp. 11311–313.
“Increasingly”:
NYP
, July 12.
“A rape”:
Ervin, in
CR
, 85/1, p. 11333.
A “new gestapo”:
Johnston,
CR
, 85/1, p. 11335.
“Cunningly devised”:
Eastland,
CR
, 85/1, pp. 11347–53.
“Let us all”:
Hill,
CR
, 85/1, p. 11365.
Case:
CR
, 85/1, p. 11346.
“No amendments”:
Knowland, in
NYP
, July 12.

Noticed a figure, realized:
Mann, p. 202; Anderson OH; Reedy interview.
“I’m afraid”; “My principal”:
Anderson with Viorst,
Outsider in the Senate
, p. 129.
“Didn’t like”:
Busby interview.
Defeat as Agriculture Secretary:
Howard E. Shuman, “Lyndon B. Johnson, The Senate’s Powerful Persuader,” in Baker and Davidson, eds.,
First Among Equals
, pp. 211, 234; Shuman, Wood interviews.
“I took it”:
Anderson with Viorst, p. 129.
It was going:
Anderson OH.
“I wouldn’t get”; “Knowland seemed”:
Anderson with Viorst, pp. 147, 146.
“Hopeless”; “Determined”; “Just sat”:
Anderson OH.
“Hints”; “They seemed”; “It seemed clear”:
Anderson with Viorst, pp. 146, 147.
“They were”; “I thought”:
Anderson OH.

His tinkering:
Anderson’s handwritten changes are on his copies of H.R. 6127 as it was printed and placed on his desk—National Archives Record Group 46, Sen. 54-A—C2, Bill Files, Calendar No. 485, H.R. 6127, NA.
“Curious”:
Anderson OH.
“
You
do it”; “How can I?”:
Evans and Novak, p. 131. Goldsmith, p. 62, says: “Anderson, as a supporter of the bill, was reluctant to take the lead.”
“Get a Republican”:
Anderson OH; Reedy, Steele, Wood interviews. Although some accounts, such as Mann, p. 202, say that “Anderson found two respected Republican moderates,” Aiken and Francis Case of South Dakota, in fact, Aiken was the key, as Anderson himself said (“I went to George Aiken, whom I admire greatly, and asked him if he would join in such a plan”) and Case came along later (Anderson and Viorst,
Outsider in the Senate
, p. 147); Anderson OH. The role of Case, not nearly as respected a figure in the Senate as Aiken, was not, in fact, particularly significant. When Anderson introduced his amendment, he said he was doing so jointly with Aiken; he never even mentioned Case’s name (
CR
, 85/1, p. 11826).
Johnson meant:
Evans and Novak, pp. 131–32. Anderson, in his memoir, says that he himself thought of going to Aiken, and only thereafter “went to see Lyndon Johnson” to tell him “my plan” (Anderson and Viorst, p. 147). But Anderson appears to be giving himself too much credit. His version is not accepted by others familiar with the sequence. And in his oral history, Anderson himself said, “He thought I should get a really good Republican to join with me.” Also see Steinberg,
Sam Johnson’s Boy
, p. 471.
“Well, I believe”:
Aiken, quoted in Anderson and Viorst, p. 147.

Russell’s confidence:
He called Anderson’s amendment “highly encouraging” because “Senator Anderson is an acknowledged leader of the civil rights forces” (
Baltimore Sun
, July 15).
Johnson’s announcement:
NYT
, July 12.
“I hope”:
Evans,
NYHT
, July 12.
Russell amenable:
NYT
, July 12.

Southerners agree to UCA:
“‘We have endeavored and shall continue to endeavor to comport ourselves as responsible men,’ Mr. Russell told the Senate in accepting the” UCA,
NYT
, July 13. The southerners’ agreement “was a measure of the changed atmosphere in the Senate today,”
NYHT
, July 13.
Johnson introduces UCA:
NYT
, July 13.

“I do this”:
Anderson,
CR
, 85/1, p. 11826.
“We who support”:
Aiken,
CR
, 85/1, p. 11827.
A “modern”:
Byrd,
NYT
, July 17.
“Gold Dust Twins”:
Watson, p. 398, Rauh interview.
71 to 18:
Kempton,
NYP
, July 17.
“Not to be”:
NYT, Baltimore Sun
, July 17.
Leaning across:
Newsweek
, July 29.

“Parliamentary”:
CR
, 85/1, p. 11838.
Knowland outsmarted:
Rauh, Riddick interviews.
“At the last”:
Time
, Aug. 5. Roy Wilkins was to estimate that between 57 and 60 votes were available to support the amendment had they been needed. Wilkins to Morsell, July 23, NAACP III B-55, LC, quoted in Watson, p. 388.
“Strange”:
Baltimore Sun
, July 25.

“I believe”:
CR
, 85/1, p. 12714, quoted in Mann, p. 204.
“The adoption”:
NYT
, July 25.
“This is not”:
CR
, 85/1, p. 12549.
“He won; we didn’t”:
Wilkins, quoted in Miller,
Lyndon
, p. 209. Clarence Mitchell called the passage of the Anderson-Aiken Amendment “a direct hit amidships” (Watson, p. 389).
“The filibuster”:
Rauh interview.
“Almost literally”:
Siegel OH.
“No single”:
Kempton,
NYP
, July 17.

All dates are 1957 unless otherwise noted.

Analysis of Part IV:
Ambrose,
Eisenhower
, pp. 407–10; Dulles,
Civil Rights Commission;
Goldsmith,
Colleagues
, pp. 62–66; Lawson,
Black Ballots
, Chapter 7; Mann,
Walls of Jericho
, pp. 200–24; U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, “Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary,” Civil Rights, 1957: 85/1, Vol. 71, particularly pp. 55–67; Paul Douglas, “Politics and the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957,”
CR
, 85/1, p. 100;
Congressional Digest
, April 1957; Eisenhower, Papers as President, LMS, 1957, Box 2; Press Conference Series, Box 6; Cabinet Series, Boxes 4, 9; Ann Whitman Diary Series, Box 9, DDEL; Carl Auerbach, “Jury Trials and Civil Rights,”
The New Leader
, April 29.
“The only reason”:
Ervin,
CR
, 85/1, p. 10995.
“Southern senators”:
Reedy interview. In his memoir,
Lyndon B. Johnson
, Reedy wrote (p. 118) that the southerners “could go home and say to their constituents: ‘They can’t brand you a criminal now without a trial before a jury of your fellow citizens.’”
“Sacred”:
See, for example, Ernest K. Lindley, “Another to Ponder,”
Newsweek
, July 29.

O’Mahoney in 1937:
Alsop and Catledge,
168 Days
, pp. 87, 192, 229–233.
“Crowd-challenging”; “gravelly”; “spirit”:
McPherson,
Political Education
, p. 48.
His amendment:
CR
, 85/1, pp. 11005–06.

“Every white man”:
“Trial by Jury,”
New Republic
, June 10.
“It is”:
Wilkins, in
NYT
, June 1.
“Can only be”:
Southern Conference Educational Fund, Inc., “An Open Letter to the U.S. Senate,”
W P
, July 30.
“I fought”:
Potter, in
NYP
, June 19.
“To resist”:
NYT
, July 25. And Martin Luther King said that addition of a jury trial amendment would make the bill “almost meaningless” (
NYP
, July 28).
“Mixed, really”:
Humphrey OH I, pp. 27, 29.

“Practically”:
NYT
, June 4.
“Anarchy”:
NYT
, June 6.
“Full of admiration”:
Reedy to Johnson, July 26, Box 418, JSP.
“It is Nixon”:
Allen, “Inside Washington,”
NYP
, July 25.
“Been willing”:
Lincoln, “The Political Mill,”
WS
, July 25.
“An overwhelming”:
Knowland,
NYT
, July 27.
“Every so often”:
Reston, “Trial by Jury vs. The Right to Vote,”
NYT
, July 14.

“At this point”; “he pleaded”:
Reedy,
LBJ
, pp. 116, 117.
“You know”:
Corcoran, quoted by Reedy, in interview with author.
Acheson put:
Reedy, p. 118.
“We drafted”:
Horwitz OH.
“Every effort”:
Reedy,
LBJ
, p. 117.
Knowland constantly announcing:
For example, on July 8, he said, “I hope that within this week the Senate of the United States will be allowed to vote” (
CR
, 85/1, p. 10988). On July 13, he said, “I move that the Senate now proceed to consideration of the Civil Rights Bill” (
NYT
, July 14). On July 28, the
WP
said that “Knowland, predicting victory, said he was prepared.” And in a Legislative Leaders Meeting at the White House on July 30, he said, “As of now we can beat jury trial [amendment].” Minnich, LMS, Box 4, handwritten notes, DDEL.

“Get me Ben Cohen”:
Jenkins interview.

Cohen’s career:
Caro,
Path
, pp. 450–51.
“You had”; “Everyone”:
Katharine Graham interview with Siegel, Jan. 16, 1991.
“Cohen’s the brains”:
Caro, p. 450.
“Working”:
Cohen interview with author.
Attention caught by Auerbach article:
Cater, “How the Senate Passed the Civil-Rights Bill,”
The Reporter
, Sept. 5; Cohen, Jenkins, Siegel interviews. Not surprisingly, several other people try to claim credit for bringing the article to Johnson’s attention, including George Reedy, but Siegel and Jenkins interviews are conclusive. Richard Rovere was to write that the “vital and operative sections” of the proposed legislation “come largely from the hands of Benjamin V. Cohen and Dean Acheson…. Cohen and Acheson supplied the effective language of compromise” (Rovere,
The New Yorker
, Aug. 31).
Auerbach’s article:
Auerbach,
The New Leader
, April 29.
Cohen’s reasoning:
Interview with author.
“Ben was simply”:
Siegel told Katharine Graham, “I have never, never found a public servant who I thought was as important to this country as Ben Cohen—going way back to the Roosevelt times.”
The new paragraph:
CR
, 85/1, p. 12819.