New Hampshire. I don't remember the date in New Hampshire, but the date
would have coincided with the Gridiron Dinner in Washington, which it
seems to me, is every year in March. But I don't remember when New
Hampshire was, maybe April. He said, "Look, I've already said that I can
foresee no possibility of doing this." And it was interesting to hear
those governors talk about their own political futures, in terms of his
political future. Hughes represented sort of a consensus when he said,
"Well, I'll tell you one thing. I am sick of this administration and
Lyndon Johnson's inability to hear what the people are saying. I don't
think that Gene McCarthy is really saying all the things that ought to
be said, but a number of my supporters are committed to Gene McCarthy
and if you got in, you would just foul it up for me and them. But you
will have to decide." That night, after they left, Peter Edelman and I
stayed up late and argued with each other in front of him about our
ideas. That argument continued the next day on the way to California. My
position was that he should not run. My position was that Lyndon enmity
for him was so deep that as a sitting President, Kennedy could never
take the convention away from him. And that to run, would in effect, be
to lose. Peter's argument, on the other hand, was, "I think that he can
beat Lyndon Johnson and whether he can or not is not important. What is
important is for him to be the moral leader of the Democratic party."
And I said, "You can be a moral leader of the Democratic party and not
be a candidate. You will be in great demand at events like this one all
across the country." We went the next day to see Cesar and after that,
flew from Delano down to Los
Page 107 Angelos, got out at
a private airplane place and he walked up to American with me. Just
before we left, he said, "As always, you have been candid and you told
me what you think. You know that I am leaning in the other way, but I
haven't made up my mind." . . . he may have. Others have said since then
and have written since then that he had already decided. I don't believe
it. But I think that without a doubt that he was close to it. Just
before we left, he said, "Well, before I announce anything, I'll call
you." And I said, "Well, if you accept everything that I say as logical
and the odds of beating Lyndon are maybe 90-10, what's the rationale for
following another course?" And he sort of looked away and there was a
long pause. He said, "I just feel more comfortable doing it." And I knew
when I got on the airplane that that feeling . . . he had spoken earlier
about McCarthy's inability to deal with the questions of blacks and
poverty, aside from the issue of the war. He said, "It shouldn't be a
one-issue campaign. McCarthy couldn't win on a one-issue campaign." But
anyway, he called me a little bit later and said . . . no, he announced,
he didn't call me before he announced. But about a week after he
announced, he was in California and he said, "I'm coming South and I
wondered if you could get a few of your friends together and let me make
a speech to them at some college down there." I said, "Well, when, and
how many friends?" And this was on a Friday or a Saturday night and he
said, "I'd like to come Monday and if you can get an auditorium full,
that's what I'd like." I said, "Well, I don't think there would be any
big problem about getting an auditorium full of college students, if you
would give me a little more time." He said, "Tuesday. I am going to
Alabama on Tuesday afternoon and I thought that I would come to
Nashville on Monday night and I thought that since you are my friend,
you could get a bigger crowd than they could get down there." I said,
"Look, that's three
Page 108 days away." It must have been
Friday night, and it was very late, he woke me up. At any rate, the
people at Vanderbilt were very responsive and we filled the place,
16,000 people. After that, he went to my house and we had some labor
leaders and business executives, lawyers, students, college professors .
. . some of the traveling press was there. Dave Halberstam came out. At
any rate, after it was over, he walked out front, and said, "I need help
bad in California. Could you take a couple of months off and go out
there. I really need help." I said, "Yeah, I can. I don't know if I
could give it two months, but I could give it from now to the end of the
California campaign." He said, "O.K., if you would do that, I would
appreciate it. Northern California is in desperate straights." So, I
said, "Sure, I'll go." He said, "Well, could you go tomorrow." I said,
"I don't think that I could go tomorrow, but I will try to go right
away." In 1964, when he ran for the Senate, he had asked me to come up
to New York and I went up for a week and saw that it was a waste of
time. Really, at the time that he asked me, it was a week before I could
go and within that week, his television began to take hold and there was
a transformation. I got there and spent several days and saw that I was
not needed and left. I said, "Look, I don't want to go through another
New York. You asked me to go up there and it wasn't really necessary.
Don't think that you just have to ask me just because we are friends, to
come out and participate in this. If you really need me, I will go, but
if you don't need me, what I am doing here is important to me." He said,
"I really need you." So, within forty-eight hours, I went. Looking back
on it and what happened, I'm glad. But that's a long story to get to
another point. I was still an activist in 1968. I still thought that a
great deal could be done by changes in government. I've done a great
deal of
Page 109 reflecting on that since 1968, and I
wouldn't go back into government, under any circumstances, in any role,
in any post.