 Mr. Bundy on 9-1. I know you got people for lunch, but he stopped by here on his way out, and I wondered if you had any feeling as to how we could cut or should follow up or whether it's all settled. He talked to me as if he'd simply accepted the decision. He did to me and was very fine, very warm, and he said that he had understood before he came over here. This is what it might be. I said, well, now, if nobody knows you, you can come into Jack Bundy. And Mike Bundy, neither one of them, I'm sure knew what I was going to say or had anything to do with it. Well, he and I, he told me he thought this was it last night, and that's what he's talking about. Well, I said, first, I'll give you it longer after lunch, but I'll give you this rundown. I said, I want you to know that I've been concerned about a matter that's of interest to you and to me. I've given a lot of thought since the convention at Goldwater's nomination. I put myself in your place, assumed you were in my place, and figured out how would I want this handled if our positions were reversed. I've concluded you should hear it from me direct, first. I've reached the decision. It would be an advisable for you to be a candidate for the number two spot this year. My reasons for it are as follows. A lot of Goldwater's nomination. I think that the battleground is going to be the border states, the states of Oklahoma and Maryland and Kentucky and the Midwestern states. I have talked to all the leaders in every state, either through myself or one of my intimate staff members. I've got their views. I feel like this is not the time for you, if you have ambitions to lead the country, to go after this spot. President Kennedy always wondered how I could endure it, he said. It must be very frustrating, and I told him, well, I want to do more or less retire from the Senate. I certainly did. I felt like all I could do was good for my country and good for my party and good for my state. I thought Democrat was much more preferable than Nixon, and that's why I did it. And I said, I don't think that you'd be very happy there, although I'm not in charge of your happiness presiding over situations in the Senate. You couldn't do a damn thing about it. Now, I want you to be happy and do what you want to do. Our objective is the same, carrying out President Kennedy's program. I'm going to pass 25 of his 35 major bills the first year. Next year, I'm going to pass the other 10 if I'm here and extend them. I've got his people carrying on, just like if he was here. I only have three people, George Reedy and Bill Margers and Jack Valenti and Walter Jenkins, four of them. The other department's, Bundy, runs his shop, even more so than they did when Kennedy's here. Oh, Brian does the same. Feldman does the same. Duncan does the same. And we'll continue that way. I want you to direct the campaign. I want you to do anything else that you'd like to do and appoint regional men working out your relationship with them carrying on where you are or going to any foreign spot that you would like to or taking any place in the government that's available. I don't mean I'd throw a cabinet offshore out, but I would try to work it out. I won't get along better with your staff. I need your help. I think you're brilliant. I think you're dedicated. I think that you're good for the country. I think you'd be good for me. We need it. And he said, well, I want to help any way I can the rest of the campaign. I don't know what to do after that. I guess I could do it from where I am because I don't guess any precedence. I haven't thought the Attorney General ought to be in politics. They'd say that I'm supposed to be having a racial matters not here running the campaign. But how are we going to announce this? I said, anyway, you want to. He said, well, I'd like to think that over. And I said, all right, you can say that you're not interested in doing this, or you can say that I thought because of the circumstances that developed, the areas of the country where the battleground is going to be, that I ought to give some attention there. He said, if you decide who it's going to be. And I said, no, I've decided several that I don't think could fit in. And I haven't decided the ultimate, the one. I don't think that ought to be done until we get the convention. I think it ought to be done kind of like President Kennedy did. I said, that'd be very desirable. If you could say it's 430 that afternoon. But he did. I don't want to have any more problems than already got. And I wish you'd be thinking about Ken O'Donnell and Larry O'Brien and Jim Rowe. These folks, what you can put them to doing, you can call in John Connolly. He said, would you thought of succeeding me? I said, I don't have anybody. But he said, well, I'd like you to give consideration to catch them back. I said, I'd be glad to do that. He said, got up, walked to the door and got the door turned around and said, well, I could have been a hell of a lot of help. If you'd asked my opinion, I would have told you that I could have been a hell of a lot of help to you. And meaning if you'd gone to take it, I assume. I looked that way and I said, well, you are going to be a hell of a lot of help to me. And the way I've outlined it. And then I had stayed the moment and he smiled. I smiled and I said, hell of a lot of help to yourself. Meaning that I would not, I told him, I said, I'm not making any commitment. I don't want any deals. I don't want any trades. But I have no envy and no jealousness. And I want to make you look good as you can. And I think you can be much better understood and be much more, get a broad experience. And I think this will be good for you in getting that. And I think a lot of people that don't understand it all now will be strong for you. Yeah, a short time down the road. You know, really how to interpret it. I don't know whether he felt good or bad. Matching it to what happened when he came in here for a few minutes before and he came in here for a few minutes afterwards. I would estimate this is quite hopeful, really quite hopeful. I think you must have handled it just great, eh? Because I wasn't so sure. I was cheered up when he came in. There wasn't time for me to call you and I didn't want to really, much more than I was this morning when I talked to you. But I think you must have just carried on from a running start. I don't think, he said he, I did advise him beforehand whatever his reaction to say, nothing in haste. And he doesn't want, he's worried about being the chairman. He thinks it's a good way of running the campaign. It's a good way of making enemies and that doesn't entice him. I said that, I think, I didn't think that was true in a long poll that the measure was going to be who had done most to help win. But I don't myself think that his doing that is crucial from your point of view as long as he pitches in. In fact, I see some disadvantages to it. Yeah, there are. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. The main thing I want to do is kind of what you indicated the other day that whatever ticket he wanted to write, he could write. To carry on for his brother. And if he wants to carry on for his brother, that's my job. And I didn't say so, but I have no intention of going into it. I'm just worried he wants to be in the New York next administration, Mr. President. I think the opposite to McNamara was simply that when you're hoping for one thing you don't talk about something else. I don't blame the land. What do you say to McNamara? Well, when Bob told us a week or so ago that he had said he wasn't interested in any job after November, except this one. I don't think that's true. Well, I hope not because I think that I think he wants to be president and I think the best way for him to be president is to be a little better understood. That's right. I don't say this as a fact, but I believe that of the 50 states there were three of them that indicated that some of their dollars would like to be for him. I would say there are 30 that indicated that they couldn't go along at all. He's got enemies he doesn't need to have. No, and doesn't know about. And I've got them, too. But he's the one that's been decided in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and maybe one more that... Is it something from New York or not? No, no. The New York people that we think he has some, but none of them we talk to, they all say they do anything they want. But these others say they do what they want.