 One can't talk about the president without thinking and talking about Mrs. Johnson. She was then and remains such a gracious person and a very much an influential person in her own right. She's the expert on President Johnson. I don't accept anybody else's expertise on the president. I do accept hers. She was a thoughtful one in addition to him and he was thoughtful as I've said. They would enter, she and the president would kind of on the spur of the moment sometimes want to have people down to dinner from the hill. I think it was on a Saturday that Mrs. Johnson or maybe the best able to call for her. They need to have certain members of Congress down. We'll have some for dinner tonight. You have to sign. Well, okay. So I suggested among others a Congressman Andrews from I think it was North Dakota. I said he hasn't been there and he'd appreciate it. I would be thinking he's in town. When it turned out somewhere along the line, certainly one the president of Mrs. Johnson's fault, they got Congressman Andrews from Alabama who had never supported the president on anything if he could possibly help it. Congressman Andrews came down there and I heard later on from the president. What is he doing here? And Congressman Andrews went back to the hill and said what was I doing there? So I'm glad I won at that occasion, but I caught my share of the credit and blame, whatever you want to call about it. Mrs. Johnson is, I don't know what all one can say in terms of superlatives that would not apply to Mrs. Johnson. What she did on Highway Beautification, of course, is well known. But what she did, she was one of the early ones in the environmental field, if you recall. She took some trips, I think with Udall, the Secretary of the Interior. She talked about it. That was before the environment really got to be, well, fashion was not quite the right word, but before the environment really came to the public consciousness. And right after the silent spring by Rachel Carson, Mrs. Johnson kind of pioneered that into the public consciousness. I think it was because of the efforts that she began that later on after we left, really, I believe it was when we got the Environmental Protection Agency. But she had a lot to do with that just by doing her efforts. And of course, Highway Beautification we were due on and the President really worked on that one. I wasn't there at the time, but I heard about it later on and he made it be known we got to do this for Lady Burbs. He went to the leadership because I had the leadership mentioned to me, well, he won't say it's just like he did Highway Beautification, I think, when I said something like that. And she was a great influence and a very, very constructive influence. And people, the members and a lot of the members knew Mrs. Johnson from her long residence in Washington or they met her and I never found a person who didn't admire her. And those who knew her really loved her and still do, still do. She was an adornment to the Washington scene. And made a contribution all in her own way independently. What were you proudest of LBJ for? Well, I was proudest I'm in for the Civil Rights Legislation. Voting rights is the first thing I worked on when I came to justice. Congressman Seller was Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and even though I was new he let me as Ben from Justice sit in on that markup of that legislation. It was a great thing. It still is a great thing. And of course it couldn't have been accomplished without Johnson. It really couldn't have been. The House, we had friends there. We had a bipartisan congressman of color from Ohio, the ranking Republican, he helped. And then you get over to the Senate and of course you had the intransigent Southerners who for reasons which were understandable were not going to be for that. Russell was one of them. He was an old friend of Johnson's. It must have been hard for both of them to get past that. I'm not sure that they ever did. They had some problems later on, as you know. It was Johnson's influence, his personal influence, with Dirksen. Sometimes exercise through cats and back but more often directly that got it done in the Senate. Plus using Humphrey to break the filibuster in 64 on the original Civil Rights legislation and then on 65, remember now who the players were except it was still us from the White House. House was still the same. And to me that was the big thing among a bunch of really big things. You go through what was done in education, the start we made in the environment. We used to run that list. I know you're familiar with it. I hadn't looked at it. I need to go refresh myself someday on all the things that were past. The thing about Johnson, not the thing but a thing, he was long on charm and he was also long on vision. I think he really, really wanted to do something and leave something that was worthwhile and he did. It's sort of like the concluding remarks of his farewell address when he went up to the Congress that evening. He said, 100 years from now they say we tried. And we did. Wouldn't have been done without him and Ms. Johnson. So what else? I want to talk about the war a little bit. You obviously had to factor that into the relationship with the members of Congress. Well on the House side which is where I mainly was occupied. Manitoss as you know was on the Senate side. I think the way was a little harder for him because Mansfield did not like the White House Libyan the Senators. I don't think he was mean about it but he did not. He didn't make the way any easier for Mike so what, like Manitoss. So I think what he had to do he kind of had to see through Mansfield what was going on rather than make him a direct contact. I never talked to the Manitoss directly about that but I got that idea. On the House side there was not that much opposition to Vietnam. Because it was always interested in the reactions of members of Congress. So after a recess we would try to check the members as to what they found out at home. What was on people's minds? Didn't ask what were people saying about Vietnam but what did they say? And I'd ask other folks to do that with me because it said a lot what was on their minds. Well in my home we've been worried about the county fair and not getting our federal subsidy. Well that meant that they weren't occupied with Vietnam. So on the House side you knew where the opposition was but it did not seem to me to interrupt the flow of domestic legislation. It was hard enough to get it passed anyway but I didn't think that Vietnam entered into it. So I didn't have to leap to the defense and the president was his own best defender about that. What happened to Home Rule? We got it didn't we? No. I thought we got it and had Walter Washington installed as mayor. We got elected. We got appointed mayor or something but Johnson always said he knew that that was the end of the road and they lost their Home Rule. Whatever we got we got more form than they had had. I remember that I remember Walter Washington being installed. It was not an election though at that time. So since we just kind of got it started it was not the end of the road as it turned out. I should have got my list out before us getting my separate answer to that question. I haven't looked at it for a long time. Well bear with us it's been great. Well you're mighty patient. A great addition to the archives. You asked what we're going to do with this. We're spending a fortune on this and we're going to find some more money just to get all this edited. We haven't transcribed it. James hasn't had time to edit any of it because he's doing this in addition to us.