 What do you do, son? Oh, good, lots of troubles, son. They talk to you this afternoon about Selma. Have anyone talked to me? No, they haven't. This is just between you and me. I don't want to go any further. And I know if you won't, I don't want to involve you. And I don't involve you. And I just want some good advice. Let's probably send out wires all over the United States King, asking everybody to come in there for the march tomorrow. And 50 Protestant ministers from Washington, DC, that's in charge of the airplane, they're getting ready to go and they're flying in and coming by bus and everything else from all over the country. We have Buford Ellington talk to George Wallace. Our basic difficulty is we have no communication with Wallace at all. We don't know how to talk to him. And I think he feels kind of, you know, left out. And we kind of feel like we're not close enough to talk. And so I think one thing there is, you remember what he did there at the University of Alabama? Yeah. After he had admitted that student to Oxford sending the battle troops, why he had a cool order to admit one there at the University of Alabama, he went and stood in the doorway and wouldn't let anybody come in and tell the federal troops. In other words, he wanted to show the people of Alabama he'd talked to the putter right here. See what I mean? That's what you're against, John. Now, Buford talked to him and it looks like he wants a way out, because this is getting pretty bad. There's that point. Looks like King wants a way out. It's getting pretty bad in his time point. He's concerned about safety and everything. It is a dangerous thing as you and I know. It is a dangerous thing. So they have about come to the conclusion with King, Attorney General has, that he will join King as a friend of the court and ask one of the Alabama judges to enjoin a state from interfering with a peaceful march that is constitutional. And it doesn't in any way endanger public safety. Single march maybe for a mile or two and ride buses the rest of the way or something like that. The judge would put any conditions on it that he thought desirable. If he granted the injunction, they don't know. But King has filed a suit at 2 o'clock. He did? Quite about it. I don't know. I don't know. The Attorney General thinks that he's joined in a good many other cases, voting cases. There's a friend of the court and he thinks he could do that. Then he wants the Attorney General to come down there with Governor Collins to try to get him under the law, to mediate the thing, and meet with the city fathers and have some kind of agreement on getting the sheriff to quit interfering in the lesson. He says that federal presence, their interest, federal interest, he told the Washington polls that he talked to me and told me about the problems of this march. And I just said that pass it and showed no interest. That's not correct. He didn't talk to me about march, but of course, I'm concerned about it to both sides. And I do have an interest, a deep interest and a deep interest in nobody getting hurt. But that's the way it feels. They think the Attorney General and Governor Ellington and Bill Moyers thinks we ought to do that. A, join as a friend of the court and B, Senator Ramsey Clark instead of the Attorney General and Governor Collins. Both of them being southerners, both of them being quiet and careful, man. Just as observers, they do nothing else. They just try to say to them. I told them that I had a little doubt about joining as a friend of the court because it looked like I might be advocating a goddamn march. I don't want to do that. That's your trouble now. And if every time he wants a march, I go in and tell the judge that I want you to join the local officials. It may look like I'm stirring up these marches. They say, well, that's right. But you're right. But if you don't do it, you get a lot of killings and they say, what did you do? And you didn't do anything. And we have not very much of an alternative. Well, I've told them to go back and tell King and tell the governor, Buford's talking to one and the Attorney General's talking to the other, that we would be glad to have Mr. Doer, who's Assistant Attorney General there. He's already down there. We'd have him there. And we'd send Governor Collins because under the law, he's supposed to do these things. He's supposed to mediate. But we didn't, we had some doubt about going into the court and not give him another 30 minutes. And then I thought I'd better talk to you. Well, John, it seems to me that the court should follow. Stay out of that court, if you can, when the way that it looked like they'd make the shoot, you really were encouraged to take me in. That's what I want to do. But I don't suppose that's it. When I suppose I get out of nowhere, I have no alternative except to go into the court or to let the thing go. You've got a hell of a dilemma. Yes, it is. Well, hell of a dilemma. I have one like that all day here, all day long. I haven't want to send the Marines in. Yesterday they said that if you don't send them in, they're going to destroy all your airplanes. You'll have no security for your boys. If you do send them in, they'll say the Marines are coming. That's in Vietnam. Yeah, we've got a fellow down there, that damn little Wallace. What he's seeking to do, you see, is to make it appear that he held out to the very dead land. I doubt that he wouldn't. He won't eat, and only the superior forces, just as in the University of Alabama. He knew after that the battle was, that's what was admitted over that university. Mississippi, he'd go and be admitted to the University of Alabama. They had to quote all of that affections. You see, you didn't need any federal troops to do that, but he just wanted to make a showing by standing at that doorway. That's what you're against, Mr. President. That's a hell of a decision you have to make, though, because when you move in there, then the people down home got a make-up. My God, he just moved in there and took over for this kid. Well, I don't know, but we've got our own judge, and he's going to do what's right. Well, that's true. We're not saying anything, except we just say we're friends with the court, and we'd like for you to write some rules here for this thing. And I imagine the judge, I don't imagine there's a judge down there that wouldn't be fairly fair about it, it didn't be common sense. If I were a judge, I'd say if the law's on my side, I'm not enough lawyer to know anything about it, but if I had any law, I'd say you all go out here and march three or four miles on the shoulder of the road, and we'll give you police protection, and you get in the bus and ride on up on the government, and you get to town, we'll let you march there on a sidewalk, close to the sidewalk, and just out of the street, and you march two miles there, and that's it. That's what I'd do if I was a judge, if I had the law on my side, if they got the law on the side, I don't know. I guess you do have a right to march down the road. I would, I suppose that's true. But I would imagine that the federal judge, that's where it is, that he's gonna have sense enough that he's not gonna, he's gonna put some conditions, at least the attorney general thinks he will. The attorney general thinks that the judge will sit down with the door and with the state people and try to work out something that... Well, he says that really, Buford, I think, kind of suggested that he had a solution or some of them meant that the thing to do is let him march a mile or two and get in the bus and go on over, but I think the governor kind of thought that it'd show he is weak, unless he was ordered to do it by the court where he didn't much want to let him march tall. Well, it looks like he put you in a fix then where you got to have some kind of court office, that is. Well, it is now, yeah, that is. And they're all coming in there. And the trouble is, you get to Dean Sayers and these preachers in there to see it and then they get to Bull Connors and they go to throwing those billy clips. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then they say, well, where was the person? Why didn't he do something? That is horrible thing. I don't think we know the answer and you think about it. I just, I just, I know what you feel about it like I do. And I just don't know what it's best to do. I guess we just have to say that. Well, the trouble is you deal with a fellow your governor down there that, as I say, he just wants to say, oh, God, he died for the cause. He stayed there for the end, you see what I mean? Guess what he did to that University of Alabama when he put himself in that doorway until those federal troops came in there. Well, he knew damn good. Well, that ought to be carried out and there's no sense he's going over there. But he just did me good. It's one of the people of Alabama who want no truth. And that's what he's doing here right now, which makes it so bad hard on you. Well, we've got to do much right. And I guess the right thing is to try to keep down disturbance at almost any cost. You might have some folks, a lot of folks that might get killed there. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I had no doubt. Well, I know that. This thing gets out of hand over easy on this subject. It does. It gets awfully excited down there. awfully excited. Thank you. If you had that coat on, that would be something to stand on. I think that's what I'll do. Thank you, my friend. All right. Sorry I can't help you. All right, boy. All right, bye-bye.