 Telephone conversation between President Johnson and Congressman Charles Halleck on November 29, 1963 at 6.30 p.m. Hello, Congressman Hallecks. Thank you. Just a moment, Mr. Congressman. Charlie, I'm fine. You having a good time? Yes, Scott here. What are you doing? All right, well you kill one for me and bring it back now and don't put any arsenic in it. I bother you, but all you damn fellows abdicated. I talked to Les Aaron and told him I was going to keep talking, trying to reach you till 6.30 p.m. I've got to appoint a commission of nation executive order tonight on investigation, assassination of the president because this thing is getting pretty serious and our folks are worried about it. It's got some foreign complications, CIA and other things. I'm going to try to get the Chief Justice to go on and he declined early in the day, but I think I'm going to try to get him to hit it. I'm going to try to get John McCloy. I think that's a mistake. I'm going to try to get John McCloy. Well, we just got to... Charlie, I think this is you as well. Look, you didn't ask me to say it. Well, I want to talk to you about it. I'll be glad to hear you, but I won't talk to you about it. He thought it was a mistake until I told him everything we knew. And we just can't have House and Senate and FBI and other people going around testifying that Khrushchev killed Kennedy or Castro killed him. We've got to have the facts and you don't have a president such an aide once every 50 years. And this thing is so touchy from an international standpoint that every man we've got over there is concerned about it. And we think we've got to have somebody that can not only be judicious and sure American, but somebody that's had some experience with the CIA matters and other things. So we're going to try to get John McCloy from an international standpoint, Alan Dulles. We want to get Jerry Ford from the Appropriations Committee. We want to get Dick Russell from the Armed Services Committee. We want to get John Sherman Cooper because he's had some international background and ambassadoral experience. And Alan Dulles and John McCloy and we want to ask Chief Justice Preside and we hope that we've talked to the leadership in both houses and asked them to cooperate with the Commission and... Cooperate, my friend. I'll tell you one thing, Mr. President. Yes, sir. I think the call on Supreme Court's act goes... It is on all these other things. I agree with you on Pearl Harbor and I agree with you on Railroad Strike, but this is a question that could involve our losing 39 million people. This is a judicial question. I don't want that to happen. Of course, I was a little disappointed in the speech that Chief Justice made, and I'm talking real plainly. Yeah, yeah. And of course, I don't know whether the right wing was... You mentioned the left and the right wing. That's right. I mean, you can't name George just between us. I don't want you to repeat this to the human. But I can't name George Mahon because he's from Texas and it happened in Texas. Of course, there's B. Tom Clark. No, you can't do it. I want it, Tom Clark. You can't do it. He's Texas Charlie and they might somebody say, Texan did it, you know. You see what I mean? Well, if you're fed on that... Well, I'm not fed. I want to talk to you about it. I discuss it. This is my best judgment. I think I can get big Russell. I haven't talked to most of these people, but I did talk to Russell. Russell doesn't want to do it, but he thinks it ought to be done. He thinks I've got to have some top justice. I'll buy a Jerry Ford. All right. Okay. All right. Thank you, my friend. Now, you help us and protect my Franks there because I don't want a bunch of television cameras running on this thing. Well, I don't want any television. Okay. I don't want to have some Senate committees. I talked to Eastlin. He said he's not going to run here. McCormick... I don't think we've started one. No, no. You haven't. McCormick said he wouldn't, and I just want to be on my leader, too. Well, you're damn right. I know, sir, the night the man spoke up and the first man in line, I haven't forgotten it. Thank you, my friend.