It was about a week or two before the first primary. I didn't want to
meet with them, but Louis Harris, the pollster, a classmate of mine at
Chapel Hill and who continues to be a close personal friend, was close
to the Kennedy's. He wanted to bring Bobby to see me. I didn't have time
to fool with him, but on the other hand, you are inclined to do a favor
for a friend and it meant something to Lou to be able to bring Bobby
down here to talk to me. It looked like I was going to win and it looked
like if I did win, I was a pretty good prospect for them. It turned out
that they were right, but I didn't know they were right at that time. I
hadn't made up my mind. So, I agreed to meet them. We had dinner at the
College Inn . . . I think that's the name of it, a motel on the edge of
Raleigh. And Hugh Cannon and I went out and had
dinner with Lou and Bobby. I believe Bert Bennett was in some other part
of the state, or he would have gone. Maybe he did go . . . he did,
indeed. Bert went. About the only thing that I remember about Bobby
Kennedy at the time was that he had forgotten his belt and he had to
keep pulling up his britches. [laughter] He
was sick at his stomach and couldn't eat anything but a bowl of clear
soup and he knew everything about every state and precisely who was who
everywhere. He just had a real grasp of the political situation, which
was very impressive. But I didn't make any commitment to them. Then
three or four days later, a UPI reporter asked me after the second
primary started, if I saw Jack Kennedy when he was in Raleigh? Well, I
knew what he meant, he meant Bobby Kennedy. He had already made me mad
by asking me if I had conferred with Luther Hodges. Now, both of those
questions in the emotion of a second primary, with Lake in there, and my
view of the thing was that quite aside from my personal ambitions, I had
a banner to carry for the honor of the South and the honor of North
Carolina. We were trying to beat a racist campaign, and I thought that
an enlightened newspaper reporter ought not to ask nasty questions that
really weren't in point. Hodges hadn't been for me. He had been for
Seawell and to try to connect me with Hodges . . . if I had said that
yes, I had had a conversation with him, then they would immediately have
said that Hodges was backing Sanford, which wasn't so. I'm sure that he
voted for me and I'm sure that he was then telling his friends that you
ought to be for him. I had indeed talked to him the Sunday after the
Saturday election. I had already arranged with Mott Blair, his nephew
and a close associate of mine, to set it up to be sure that we could get
what we could out of it, mainly to get some of
his key people and to get Seawell to endorse me. Seawell was kind of a
poor loser and we had to really pressure him to get his endorsement, in
spite of the fact that he was so opposite from Lake. So, I resented that
question and I felt, "I'm tired, I'm worn out and we have three weeks to
go . . . " Well, I had not seen Hodges after the second primary began.
The second primary didn't begin until Lake called it. At that time, he
hadn't called it. So, that was a slight distortion of the full truth. It
was true that I hadn't seen Hodges, but again . . . he didn't know how
to ask the question. So, I said no. Well, that just shows you that one
transgression leads to another. Then he said, "Did you see Jack
Kennedy?" I thought, "You little smart-aleck . . . " I said, "No, I
didn't see him." Now fortunately, we had a recorder on, we recorded all
of our press conferences, not for the rec ord, but they would take
excerpts for radio sometimes. Anyway, we always recorded the press
conferences. So, that indeed was his question. We played it back. Then I
dashed out of that press conference, flew to Asheville, where I had a
meeting. I knew before I got to the airport that I had made a mistake. I
should have said, "No, you mean Bobby Kennedy. I talked to Bobby Kennedy
just as I talked to other candidates and I didn't make any commitment to
them. They all want to talk to me." That's what I should have said, but
I didn't. I just said, "No."
Well, in about three days, of course, they had all kinds of evidence
that I had talked to Bobby. I hadn't attempted to conceal it. We were
waited on by a waiter there, they were registered into the motel. I just
didn't think beyond that one question and my own personal irritation
with that particular reporter. So, I got in all kinds of trouble. They accused me of taking half a million dollars
from the Kennedys and that stuff persisted right on through the fall
election and I had to answer it, Kennedy had to answer it. I never got
any money from them. As a matter of fact, Bert Bennett and I personally
signed a fifty thousand dollar note to contribute to their campaign
after the convention, to put up the money until we could raise it for
the party. We made the first contribution to the national election, the
national campaign. So, it was the other way around, but I did get into
trouble by saying what I did. Now, where did we start? Where do you want
to go from here? I've led you now three months around.