'GROWING UP' IN RACE RELATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200750018-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 12, 2004
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: October 21, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

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't'his is the fifth of 15 exceipts from former
' Prosicle?tt Johnson's book, "Dix Vcr,lz(:cige
Point," atn account of his presidency, to be
published shortly.
"11HE STRUGGLE FOR 3USTICN"
When I was in the Senate, we had an extra car
to t'ke back to Texas at the close of each con-
gressional. session. Usually illy Negro employees---
Zephyr lung lit, our cook; F.3'.elen Williams, our
maid; and Helen's husband, Gene--drove the car
to the R'anch for its. At that time, nearly twenty
years ago, it was an ordeal- to get an automobile
from Washington to Texas---three full clays of
hard driving.
Oil one of those trips I asked Gen if he would
take lily beagle dog with them in the car. I didn't
thir,t.: they would mind. Little Beagle was -u friend-
ly, gentle dog.
But Gene hesitated. "Senator, do we have to
take Beagle?"
bell," 1.. xplained, `there's ilo otli r stay to fret a' ~- h
ou
gtVe
ldh
~
y
him to r exas, arc; suou
, ~.
3 t:li ;1 t{
"
,,
Gone -)ouel.ow
But Genc still hesitated. 1 didn't underst'ind. I
looked directly at hire. "Tell lire what's grit i at- L hat Southern ]scut.ge meant a
ter. Why don't you want to take ; egg e? What neat deal 'to mc. It gave me a tearing
alert t you telling me?
Gene be "all slowly. 11 ere is the gist of htlilit he Of bc,101111 hi tt and a sense of. continuity.
had to sa,: "ll ell, Senator, it's tow;-It enough to But it also created-?--sadly, but perhaps
f, ct alt the wav from 15'asliint;ton to J c'.as. We inevitably -certain parochial feelings
dui e for hoilrs and hours. We get hun,ry. But
there's.Iio place on the road we can stop and go that flared 111) defensively whenever
in ;nu! e lt. We drive some more.. It gets pi:etty otfl:erncrs described the South as "a
hot. we wri;ni to washup. But the only bathroom blot on our national conscience" or "a
i we're allowed in is usually miles otf the main stain on our country's democracy."
hi.'hway. We heap going 'til night collie --'til c
these were crnotions I tools with me
get so tired we can't stay awake any roars, We're to the Congress when I voted a?ainst
ready to l~uli in. But it tales us another hour or
so to find a place to sleep. You see, what I'm'six civil rights -bills that cattle up on
saying{ is that a. colored man's got encn.gh trouble tilt House and Senate floor. At that
time I simply did not believe that the
getting across the South. on his-own, legislation, as written was the fight
without having a dog axon;." way to handle the problem. Much of it
Of co,uree, I knew that such diser?inl]? ~scemed designed . more to huniili ate
nation existed throu"hoi.rt the South the South than to help the. black man.
We all knew it. lout somehow we had ' -l3eyond this, I did not think there
.excluded ourselves into believing that was mtte]I I could clo as a. lone Con-
tlle black people around us were happy pressman from Texas. I represented a
and satisfied; into thinking that the, consciwative constituency. One heroic
bad. and ugly things were going on stand and I'd be back hcime, defeated, down ill order to avert a Senate fili-
,somewhere else, happening to other unable to do any. good for anyone, buster.
People. much loss the blacks and the wider- One man held the key to obtaining
prxyilegeu'. As a llepresemtativ e and a cloture: the Minority header of. the,
'there were no "darkies" or planta- Senator, before I became Majority Senate, Everett Dirksen.
tions in the arid hill country where I Leader, I did not have the power. That Dirksen could play politics as well as
grow up. I novel' sat on my parents' or' is a plain and simple fact: any marl. But I knew something else
grandparents' knees listening to nos- ' But what stands out the most whenI about hire. When the nation's interest
talgie tail s of the antebellum South. In think of those days is not my Texas was' at stake, he could climb the
baclcgr ouncl or my Southern heritage heights and take the long v low without
Stonewall and Johnson city ]: 'never' - but the recognition that I was part of regard to party. I based a great deal of
was part of the Old Confederacy. Put I `Anierlca growing up, This was an my strategy on this understanding of
was part of Texas. Aly roots were in its America that accepted distinctions be- Dickson's deep-rooted patriotism.
iweeih blacks and Whites as part and A President cannot ask. the Congress
soil. I felt a special identification with parcel of life, whether those distinc- to take a risk the will not take himself.
Its history and its people. And Texas is tioils were the clear-cut, blatant ones No must he the combat general in the
la part of the South---in the sense that of the South or the more subtle, invidi- front lines, constantly exposing his
Texas shares a common heritagac and otts ones practiced in the North. This flanks. I tried to. be that combat gen
outlook that differs fr R P tFOr Release 2004441401-r:iQ21J f "L0413S0Rf000.200750018-3
east or Middle West or Far WS'est.
of strength I possessed to rain justice
for the black American. My strength
as President was the tenuous--l had
no strong mandate from the people; I
had not been elected to that office. But
I recognized that the moral force of
the Presidency is often stronger than
the political force. I knew that a I'resi-
dent can appeal. to the Vest in our pecr.
pie or the worst; he can call for' action
or live with inaction.
Even the strongest supporters of
President Kennedy's civil rights bill in
1.9o3 expected parts of it to be watered