 Telephone conversation between President Johnson and Senator Thomas Kiekel on November 29, 1963, at 8.25 p.m. Senator Russell on 2191. Thank you. I'm awful sorry, Mr. President. It's Senator Kiekel I have on. All right, put him on. There you are. Tommy. Yes, sir. I'm sorry that the government moved to Florida. I tried to tell my friends in California, Mr. President. Well, the only one that I can locate is not in Florida. You and Mansfield and Humphrey and all the rest of them have moved down. And I'm going to name it Cape Senate instead of Cape Kennedy. What I called you about, Tommy, was I was naming a commission on the assassination of the president to make a full study for the world in the United States. And I wanted to discuss with you who I was naming, but I got Dirksen and I got Mansfield. I'm sure that you think it's all right, but whether I want you to know who it was. I got the Chief Justice to be chairman of it. I got Dick Russell. Fine. I got John Sherman Cooper, your manager for me. I got Hale Boggs and Jerry Ford of Michigan from the House. I think both of them are good. I got Alan Dulles and John McCloy. There's five Republicans and two Democrats. So I just wanted you to know that the president announced today that he's upon a special commission studying a report upon the facts and circumstances relating to the assassination of the late president. The subsequent violent death, the man charged with assassination. The president stated that the majority of minority leadership of the Senate and the House had been consulted for the respect of proposed special commission. The members of the commission are Chief Justice Earl Warren, Senator Richard Russell, Senator John Sherman Cooper, Representative Hale Boggs, Representative Jerry Ford, Honorable Alan Dulles, Honorable John McCloy. Now, Warren and Cooper and Ford and Dulles and McCloy are Republicans. And they've accepted, Mr. President? Yes, sir. All of them. I called each of them myself. And then I called every leader of myself. And I'm still at the office, and I'm catching hell. And I like great jobs with you. And if you don't mind, bring Betty on back here and find a good constitutional lawyer to tell us how to make the transition. No, sir. I would know. No, Mr. President, I would not do that. But, Mr. President, that ought to eliminate the necessity for the Senate Judiciary Committee, shouldn't it? Yes. And Eastland agreed that he wouldn't go ahead with it if it did this, and the House agreed the same way. Oh, that's just excellent, Mr. President. I'm not kidding you. That's great. Well, I know what a good American you are and how you want to support every time you kill it. And that's why I called you early in the day just before this one out to tell you. But it has gone out. It went out about 15, 20 minutes ago. Well, I'm grateful and honored that you would call me. Incidentally, I think you should take considerable pride in what the Senate did the other night on that month thing. Well, I'm glad it did. And I don't know what's going to come. But I'm going to do the best I can along as I'm here. And that's all I want to do. And you and Betty know how I feel about you all. And please, I don't expect you to abandon your principles or abandon your party. But our principles are about the same. And I told Otis Chandler that last week he went hunting with me down here in Texas. And I said, this is an American first. And that's my philosophy. And that's the way I want to send it away from miles and hours. Because I didn't play politics. I was responsible and I supported it. Bill Nolan taught him. And I got a majority the first two years. And if they followed you, they'd do the same thing with us. But anyway, I just wanted you to know. And I thought that you would object to a couple of year manager. I think he's great. And I think that chairman, Mr. President, is the greatest. He turned it down today. And Bobby and them went to him. So I just called him, sent him down here. And I said, now listen, you'd get in the World War I uniform. And you'd go and fight if you thought you could save on American life. Now, these wild people charging Khrushchev kill Kennedy and Castro kill Kennedy. Everybody else kill Kennedy. Now, we've had 60 FBI agents working for seven days. And they've got the story. And they've got the fingerprints. And they've got everything else. But the American people in the world have got to know who killed Kennedy. And why? And somebody's got to evaluate that report. And if they don't, Khrushchev moved on. He could kill 39 million in an hour. And we could kill 100 million in his country in an hour. But here I'm asking you to do something. And you're saying no to everybody. One, you could be speaking for 39 million people. Now, I just don't think you won't do that. Terry just came in his eyes. He just came up just... You never saw anything like it? He said, I can't say no. Oh, Mr. President, I think that... He's a patriot. He's a patriot, that fella. I got you better breathe some more like him. You better just... You just better breathe him. Well, I'm going to be as long as I'm here. Nothing I want. I got more than I deserve. It's too frightening for me to even think of. But I'm going to do my best. And I'm going to be fair. And I'm going to be just. And I'm going to be as non-partisan as man can be and still hold the office. And I'm going to expect your help. And I'm going to give you mine. Thank you, Mr. President. God bless you and we pray for you. Good night. Give Betty a hug for me. Thank you, Mr. President. Bye.