Nicholas Katzenbach Oral History Interview RFK, 10/8/1969 Administrative Information

Transcription

1 Nicholas Katzenbach Oral History Interview RFK, 10/8/1969 Administrative Information Creator: Nicholas Katzenbach Interviewer: Larry J. Hackman Date of Interview: October 8, 1969 Place of Interview: New York, New York Length: 79 pp. Biographical Note Katzenbach was the Assistant Attorney General ( ), Deputy Attorney General ( ), and Attorney General of the United States ( ). In this interview Katzenbach discusses Robert F. Kennedy s (RFK) state of mind after the assassination of President Kennedy, the Department of Justice, RFK s 1964 senate campaign, his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, and the wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr., among other issues. Access Restrictions Open, no restrictions. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed on April 15, 2008, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research. If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of fair use, that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form. Direct your questions concerning copyright to the reference staff. Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the library and consult the

2 transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Nicholas Katzenbach, recorded interview by Larry J. Hackman, October 8, 1969, (page number), Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Program of the John F. Kennedy Library.

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4 Nicholas de B. Katzenbach RFK Table of Contents Page Topic 1 Robert F. Kennedy s (RFK) state of mind after the assassination of President Kennedy 6 Robert G. Baker Scandal 11 RFK s interest in the Justice Department 13 President Johnson s decision not to offer RFK the Vice Presidency 18 Appointment of federal judgeships 22 RFK s 1964 Senate Campaign 28 Equal Employment Opportunity Committee 32 Transition in the Justice Department in Katzenbach s appointment as Attorney General 37 RFK s relationship with J. Edgar Hoover 42 Organized crime 43 RFK s opinion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 47 The issue of wiretapping 60 Wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr. 68 The reaction of the press to the King tapes 72 RFK s relationship with J. Edgar Hoover after President Kennedy s assassination 75 RFK s reaction to the Warren Commission 76 Katzenbach s contact with RFK after 1964

5 Oral History Interview with NICHOLAS de B. KATZENBACH October 8, 1969 New York, New York By Larry J. Hackman For the Robert F. Kennedy Program of the John F. Kennedy Library Why don t we just start by picking up after the John Kennedy [John F. Kennedy] assassination, remembering your conversations with Robert Kennedy [Robert F. Kennedy] about his own future and just your recollections of his state of mind in that period, trying to get him to focus on Justice Department things? KATZENBACH: Well, I guess in a way it s rather hard to describe. He really did nothing until after the first of the year in the department. He went off skiing if I recollect correctly in Aspen or some place in Colorado. [-1-] And that was a period when President Johnson [Lyndon B. Johnson] was really trying to make some overtures to Bobby which, I think, Bobby wasn t doing much about, and I don t think it really, in that case, was personal. I think it was really just his mood and he just didn t want anybody fussing with him. He did come back, while he remained I guess somewhat depressed, he did try to pitch in to the work of the department and probably did more than people were giving him credit for doing in his normal routine. If my recollection s correct, we also cooked up a trip back to the Far East for him in that period...

6 Right. That s February, I believe. KATZENBACH:...which was an effort to try to keep him in there and try to keep his interest. And I think that trip did, he did have some unusual experiences. When you say, We tried to cook it up, who [-2-] was involved in setting that up? Was it White House initiative or was it friends in Justice or who was it? KATZENBACH: Well, there really was no White House initiative and I think my recollection would befall me on this. I know we went around to cook it up and I think it was Max Taylor [Maxwell D. Taylor] who was involved in it. I think Averell Harriman [William Averell Harriman] was involved in it. I think Dean Rusk was involved in it. I think, really, it was a gesture... And the President wanted to make a gesture of doing this. And President Johnson had an impossible personal relationship in terms of personality, but I think there was really a kind of a genuine effort to deteriorate it on both sides to do something which was just really too difficult for either of them. Getting back a little bit into the organized crime, which certainly [-3-] as general theory, that really in a way was his major interest. His major expertise lay rather in civil rights but he depended very heavily on Burke Marshall in the civil rights. And in the organized crime he had really been very much read to show himself the whole time he was here. Anything particular in early 64 on the organized crime side that he was... KATZENBACH: Getting another meeting, bringing in all the people from around the country for a couple of all day sessions and reviewing where things were which was again really an effort to cook up his interests in things. During that period we had, Jim McShane [James J. P. McShane] had marshals around his house, which Bobby had forbidden but we went ahead and did anyhow. Oh, really. KATZENBACH: Yes, and had him followed back and forth to work which he finally discovered and was furious at for the moment. [-4-] I think Ethel [Ethel Skakel Kennedy] knew.

7 You said the White House was making overtures. Other than the trip, can you think of other things that the President was trying to do during that period? KATZENBACH: In December when Bobby was out in Colorado he did, and I ve forgotten, really, what it was. I know because he spoke to me and asked me to sort of tell Bobby that he would very much appreciate all his doing something I don t really remember the details but it was obviously not something he very much appreciated but something he thought that was an effort in the gesture towards Bobby. And I had an awful time getting Bobby to budge, let alone do it. And I don t remember what it was. Do you have much of a... KATZENBACH: I don t have much of a recollection of the period and in terms [-5-] of details, it s fairly evasive. how far to go or... Can you remember having much of a problem in deciding how much decision-making power you had at Justice in that period when he wasn t focusing really that much? Did you have a problem with him in knowing KATZENBACH: No, that never was a problem with him before or after. I always felt that I had, really, complete authority to do anything. My only problem was just trying to keep him informed and on these political problems keep him informed on things where there might be that kind of a problem. And he shoved a good deal at me even on that sort of thing. I ve forgotten when the Baker [Robert G. Baker] business broke, but it seems to me it was in that period. It s while he s still at Justice; it s in 64. [-6-] KATZENBACH: It s in 64. It seems to me that it was I guess it broke before President Kennedy s death, the first part of it. Because I mean I really handled all of that and his problem was that he felt that Lyndon Johnson was going to be sure that he was doing it and that it was something done to embarrass Lyndon Johnson. That s probably the reason he gave it all to me to do. How did that first come up? Can you remember where the origins are? KATZENBACH: It first came up, I remember, Bobby called me one evening and it really

8 was about, I guess, the Newsweek story that was about to break. And I suspect Bradlee [Benjamin C. Bradlee] had told him something about it and he wanted me to call Mike Mansfield [Michael J. Mansfield] so that Mansfield would not be embarrassed when this story broke that was the beginning of it which I did. And it broke, I [-7-] felt that there were things we had to investigate in it and Mansfield agreed. I talked to Mansfield and I talked to Baker. I told him we were going to do it, that we have to investigate these things to which he said, Fine go ahead. It s your place. Did Robert Kennedy ever talk to Lyndon Johnson at the time about this? KATZENBACH: Not to my knowledge, not to my knowledge. I would doubt that he did. I don t think Lyndon Johnson ever talked to anybody, frankly. He never talked to me the whole period of time. I think he was so conscious of what was going on here that he didn t want to talk to anybody. He never brought up the whole subject of Robert Kennedy s role or his suspicions of Robert Kennedy s role. KATZENBACH: No. Never mentioned it. Can you remember Robert Kennedy giving you, when he turned this over to you, giving [-8-] it? you any kind of guidelines at all or reacting to anything if you worked on KATZENBACH: He never got into much of the details of it during the time he was there. I don t really think he wanted to know a great deal about it. He was in the same position that Lyndon Johnson was in and he was sure that Johnson would believe that somehow or other he was behind this, and it was designed to embarrass Lyndon Johnson which is the way President Johnson often thought of things. What about afterward during the 65 or 66 or subsequently? Did Robert Kennedy ever give you any of his impressions about the way the whole thing was handled? KATZENBACH: No, I only talked to him about it once. I was at a lunch at his house one day and I just really wanted his sort of help and guidance on it. Then I told him a few of the facts as to what was going on and I

9 [-9-] really wanted some help and guidance from a political point of view. Did people take campaign contributions of this kind and walk off with them in their own pocket, and did he have any thoughts of not prosecuting on those kinds of facts? And I was really drawing on his political experience and... How did he react? KATZENBACH: He said, No. He didn t see any... The campaign contributions were campaign contributions and not designed to be walked off with by a noncandidate. We might have been more lenient of the candidate except for income tax purposes, but not with a fellow who wasn t even running who walked with the contributions which were kind of non-contributions. Did you ever get the feeling before President Kennedy was assassinated that Robert Kennedy [-10-] was losing interest in the Justice Department or that he was going to make a move away from there in 64 or whenever? KATZENBACH: Yes. Did he say that? KATZENBACH: No, not really concretely but oh, he may have from time to time but not in terms of what he was going to do or where he was going to go. But I think he was losing interest in it. He was spending more and more time on foreign affairs and really was more and more interested in that. I had a feeling, but I don t think it could be documented, that that was what he wanted to be involved in, whether it was after the election it would have been the reelection of President Kennedy perhaps over in the White House, I think conceivably as Under Secretary of State, although that would have been an awful relationship. But [-11-] I think he would have felt that Secretary of State would have exposed the President too much, although really there wasn t any difference between that and the Under Secretary. I certainly had that feeling. What can you remember then about any discussions you had in 64 about his decision to leave Justice and what he was considering doing? Why, by

10 March, has he really decided that he s going to leave Justice? Anything that pushed him into that decision particularly? KATZENBACH: Oh, I think that he felt the absolute impossibility of this working as the Attorney General with President Johnson. Then, I think he was interested simply with President Kennedy s death and trying to put together the pieces in some way or other. The New York thing was sort of discussed then quite early in the game, actually. [-12-] Some of us went and looked up some law to be sure he could run and he turned that back and forth in his mind, and I think he really did want the vice presidency. You think he did? KATZENBACH: Yes. Can you remember getting any reaction from him when he went to the meeting with President Johnson when he was told that that was out? KATZENBACH: Oh, he came back from the meeting and it really was quite funny. He had to say something to the press and it was very hard for anybody to concentrate on what it was he ought to say and to the press because everybody was kind of making wisecracks. And he did call a couple of other Cabinet officers about it, really joking about it saying, I m sorry to carry all you nice fellows down with me, that kind [-13-] of thing wisecracks. I think he felt at that time quite sincerely that Lyndon Johnson might well need his name on the ticket to win. Did he talk about that? KATZENBACH: Oh, yes he did, the strength that he could give Lyndon Johnson on the ticket, prior to knowing who the Republican candidate would be. How did he think he could work with Johnson as vice president if he couldn t remain as his Attorney General? Did he ever talk about that? KATZENBACH: I don t think he ever really did talk about that except when it was after the fact. I think he felt it s quite hard to sum up impressions but I

11 think that he felt that if Johnson really needed him on the ticket and they were elected, that he had a political constituency of his own. And I think he thought that he had the [-14-] leverage of influence to do some of the things he wanted to get done. And it was hard in terms of many of the things he wanted to get done. He didn t follow Lyndon Johnson. I remember talking to him in 67 on the domestic program, and I said to him, You had a hard time following Johnson on any of the domestic matters that you ve been interested in. And he said, That s right. By the time he had decided to leave as Attorney General in March of 64, was it simply a personality problem in working with President Johnson or had things already come up at Justice where there was obviously a difference in opinion on policy? KATZENBACH: I don t think there was ever anything. I don t think Lyndon Johnson paid one iota of attention to the Justice Department. [-15-] Bobby Kennedy had license to do what he wanted to do in the Justice Department. And whatever Johnson was doing elsewhere, I don t know, but as far as the Justice Department is concerned, there was no interference. I think, again, I think that the arms length way in which they treated each other, that Johnson wouldn t have exposed himself by disagreeing with Bobby Kennedy. And I think he (LBJ) thought it better just not to talk to him than it was to disagree with him (RFK). You don t remember him coming back then from Cabinet meetings or whatever with feelings that he was mistreated... KATZENBACH: No, he didn t go to the Cabinet meetings. And that was the one thing that President Johnson did call me about. And he asked me to ask Bobby to please go to the Cabinet meetings because he felt that it was important to the cohesion of the whole [-16-] thing. That was an awful job to get Bobby to go to them, and he finally did go to one and I think that was the only Cabinet meeting he went to. Are there other things you can think of like that in those first few months that would contribute to the distance between them?

12 KATZENBACH: Oh, I think what contributed to the distance between them was which was always pretty great was a few overtures by President Johnson to Bobby which was pretty much rebuffed, and probably Bobby interpreting them differently. And the sort of thing that I just mentioned which President Johnson thought was a legitimate claim, which I think Bobby probably thought was a legitimate claim, but still couldn t bring himself to do. And that probably led to some resentment. But I never felt it made [-17-] much difference because I always felt that personalities were so absolutely inconsistent that it would have been very difficult situation. Oh, Bobby oh, that was later. I was going to say Bobby was angry. He never got any patronage after he was senator. Maybe we can just skip that for a second. What kinds of things? Any federal judgeships or attorneys? KATZENBACH: Yes, he wasn t consulted. Federal judgeships, or felt he wasn t, felt he wasn t getting the same treatment that a Democrat deserved. And that President Johnson was putting the squeeze on, going around his back, which I think was true. Relying on whom? Ed Weisl [Edwin L. Weisl, Sr.] at that point? KATZENBACH: Right, Ed Weisl. Basically ridiculous. And some of the Court of Appeals appointments, just really making appointments [-18-] wanted. that he knew Bobby couldn t oppose but not the people that Bobby Mrs. Constance Motley is the one that comes to mind as district judge, southern district. Whose is that, whose is she? KATZENBACH: I think Bobby was in on Constance Motley. That one that I was thinking of was Wilfred Feinberg... It was a district court judge... Went to the Court of Appeals... His brother had contributed millions for President Kennedy and for President Johnson. He was not Bobby s. Bobby helped him get on the district court instead of... He s a very able fellow. There was no problem with his qualifications. He wouldn t have been the fellow that Bobby would put up, but how could you oppose somebody whose brother raised money, helped in the election and who you recommended for the bench yourself and who was well qualified. And that s [-19-]

13 precisely the kind of thing a United States Senator whether Kennedy or not resents. And I guess there was other patronage, I don t know. And then picking up the campaign debts. Again, President Johnson felt that he had played very fair and square with Bobby in the senatorial campaign, come out helped, gone out of his way to do this. Bobby felt he didn t need him and would have been elected anyhow with never much danger. So they always would view things in different ways, that kind of way. When it came to picking up the money, Bobby insisted that all money raised for Democrats in New York, half of it would go to the state Democratic Party and that made President Johnson very sore because he couldn t pick up all those campaign debts if he gave this in one place didn t in another. Yes, Bobby insisted on it and [-20-] I think prevailed. So there was a lot of that kind of friction picking Ed Weisl without any consultation with Bobby. And that obviously was a bad choice from Bobby s point of view. How would you get involved in something like that, like the dispute over fundraising, as a go between or just as someone to talk to people? KATZENBACH: I never really was one to be a go between, and I think that Bobby never tried to use me at all ever. In fact, he laid off me, really, and didn t try to use the relationships in any way. I think President Johnson did and I would hear these things from President Johnson basically. And I think he always had in mind somehow or other, I, because I was Attorney General in his Cabinet, would go and straighten it out with Bobby and I never did. And [-21-] he asked me only on very few occasions to do it. Can you remember during the 64 campaign there being any problem, any resentment from anyone within the Johnson Administration because they felt people in Justice were helping in Robert Kennedy s campaign, either Burke Marshall or John Douglass spent a few days, or Lou Oberdorfer [Louis F. Oberdorfer] or anyone else? KATZENBACH: No, not at the time. I think maybe afterwards, I d be fairly sure afterwards although probably not with those people. But I think some of the people on the White House staff may well have reflected the President s views. So that would probably be O Donnell [Kenneth P. O Donnell]? KATZENBACH: Yes, no, Marvin Watson.

14 Oh, you mean resentment on the... Oh, I see what you mean. [-22-] KATZENBACH: Resentment by the President of using them, but we did it so carefully in terms of making people resign, so forth, so there could be no problem with it. I just hired them back. I didn t tell him about it. I did get some inquiries about that. I got some inquiries about all the people in the Justice Department working I did get one from the White House for Robert Kennedy and wasn t that a dangerous thing. And I said nobody working for the Justice Department was working for Robert Kennedy. There may have been some political appointees who retired. This is people like who that they re particularly upset about? KATZENBACH: Well, they keep reading in the newspapers about, oh, Adam Walinsky or Peter Edelman or any of these people and then they ask this and I would say, I m sorry. None of those people are working. [-23-] At the time they left, were they told they could come back or how was that handled? KATZENBACH: No. Or did they just resign and leave? KATZENBACH: It was made clear to them that they had to resign and leave. There wasn t any doubt at all in their minds that they could come back, but they weren t told that. I think they all took some risk because none of them knew what President Johnson s reaction might be. He might say, Hire now. If that was what he said, that is what would have happened. But they knew, other than that, if it was something I could handle or control, they could all come back. this stuff? Can you remember him asking you for any personal advice during that campaign, like when that General Aniline [General Aniline and Film Corporation] thing came up with Keating [Kenneth B. Keating] or any of [-24-] KATZENBACH: Yes, I gave him some help on the General Aniline thing. Two Drew Pearson [Andrew Russell Pearson] columns were really awful as far as

15 Bob Kennedy was concerned. I gave him help on those, and that was not an easy thing to do because what I did, in effect, killed the columns. I say it wasn t an easy thing to do because they cost us eight thousand dollars in telegrams. Really? KATZENBACH: Yes. Telegrams to whom? KATZENBACH: Every newspaper that carried Drew Pearson, asking them, if they printed the Drew Pearson column, to print this statement by me as well. I had no idea it was going to cost eight thousand dollars. In one instance only two or three papers published the whole column. Almost everybody killed it. In the other, about half of [-25-] them killed it and half of them printed my statement. That s the General Aniline and Film... I m sure there were a lot of other inquiries but I don t remember what they were, just straightening out or get the facts on this. And we gave him that kind of help or support. Can you remember before he finally decided to run in New York what other kinds of things he was considering doing? Anything else that he talked to you about? KATZENBACH: Not seriously, not seriously. He used to talk about going teaching, that sort of thing, but it wasn t really serious. I mean it was a... I always felt with Bobby that he really hated politics. I m sure he did. So I think this was just, Oh, can t I get out of it? And it wasn t I never took it serous. Now we ve been talking about his relationship [-26-] with President Johnson and you said it was already bad. Can you go back to the Kennedy Administration, and where are the roots of this? Is it the 60 Convention [Democratic National Convention]? Did he ever talk about that? KATZENBACH: He never talked to me about it. I never asked him about the 60 Convention. Several times he said that he really went out of his way in the period when his brother was president to try to make sure that he didn t step on President Johnson s toes. Really?

16 KATZENBACH: Yes. And the great difficulty of this was that he always forgot about it. But I mean, what he did usually, when President Johnson wanted something which was fairly rare Vice President Johnson I usually got the assignment of doing it. And he wanted to be [-27-] sure that it was well done and so forth and so on. But he d always comment that President Johnson wouldn t trust him on it anyway. Can you remember you spoke briefly in the Tony Lewis [Joesph Anthony Lewis] interviews about writing the first Executive Order on Equal Employment and Abe Fortas and Bill Taylor [William L. Taylor] and all the people who were involved. Can you remember Robert Kennedy s opinion of Lyndon Johnson s performance then in the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee? I heard that there were some conflicts there back and forth, philosophy, personality. That Committee was going in a number of different directions, Plans for Progress and all that. KATZENBACH: No, I think that well, I think Bobby never had any confidence whatsoever in the Plans for Progress; it wasn t worth a damn. [-28-] But again he never really interfered in this. I don t think he thought things were going very well. On the other hand, I think he also thought that things probably weren t going to go very well in that area anyhow. But I think his concern was that it got tooted for more than it was and that this would reflect back on President Kennedy more than it would on Vice President Johnson. Did he feel that was primarily President Johnson s fault, so to speak, or was it Troutman s [Robert B. Troutman] and a lot of the other people involved? KATZENBACH: I guess he would have blamed it on President Johnson although I mean Troutman is an awful salesman, and he s coming selling Bobby, too. And Bobby would be twenty per cent sold after talking to Troutman, about eighty per cent skeptical. [-29-] Could you tell that he had, during the Kennedy Administration, a low regard for President Johnson s ability, or was it just a difference in personality or how did he measure him?

17 KATZENBACH: I think it was more personality than ability. I never heard him criticize Johnson in terms of any lack of loyalty to President Kennedy. I think probably he would have given him pretty high for that. But it s hard, you know. The vice presidency, unless it s a person that you re very close to and trust a great deal, is a very hard office to make the incumbent happy in. And it s a pain in the neck to the president. And I think really, President Kennedy went out of his way and Vice President Johnson went out of his way in a difficult situation to try to do it. And I think because President Kennedy was trying to do that, Bobby [-30-] was trying in the same way. But you know, they didn t have...they would send Vice President Johnson abroad and he d come back with all these reports or some silly incident with a camel driver and all of that. They really didn t think much of it and, you know, would be somewhat critical of it. On the other hand, it was their idea and it was, you know, better to do it this way than it was to have him doing anything else. They felt sort of caught in a bind. My guess would be that probably Bobby underrated President Johnson s ability in that period of time. I think it was a difficult office to fill. I think every incumbent has found it somewhat difficult. And every president has been uneasy in the relationship. Did Robert Kennedy ever express to you any opinion about people staying on with the [-31-] Johnson Administration? Did he talk to many people about that? Did he talk to you about it? KATZENBACH: He must have talked to me about it. I don t know about encouraging people or whether he went out of his way to encourage people to stay on. I think he had a great deal of pride in the Justice Department, and I think he wanted people to stay on in the Justice Department. And I m sure he wanted me to because he was concerned as to what would happen to the things he was doing if somebody else were appointed. I think he had that in 64, felt that way in 64. How did the two of you talk about your own appointment, what he could do, if anything? KATZENBACH: We never really talked about it very much. I told him I thought I was [Inaudible] I [-32-] was irritated with the President leaving the vacancy after the election. It was certainly understandable up until the election that he would do this. After the election it

18 seemed to me that he ought to get around to telling me whether or not he was going to appoint me or appoint somebody else. And I thought it was too long a period to go. I remember once saying to Bobby that I felt strongly that way. I sad what he really ought to do if he wants to wait, he really ought to just give me a recess appointment as Attorney General if he wants, with the understanding that I ll resign on the 20 th of January. I said, That s worth something to me and it s worth a good deal to morale in the department. They don t have to know... And Bobby suggested that to him. I know that he apparently got turned down. I never [-33-] felt Bobby s urging me as his successor was... While I appreciated it I never felt that was going to be the thing to persuade Lyndon Johnson about it and I don t think Bobby felt that it was either. [Laughter] But he was quite willing to do it and I think in fairness if he hadn t urged it, it would have made it easier for President Johnson to appoint somebody else. So it had some effect. What do you think finally brought President Johnson around on your appointment? KATZENBACH: Civil rights, primarily. I think two things; I was around the Justice Department from that period when Bobby wasn t there, and I don t really think that he could fault the running of the Justice Department in his terms, during that period of time, for anything. The only thing conceivably could have been the participation in Bobby s campaign, which he couldn t really. And I think [-34-] as far as everything else was concerned, it was pretty well done. And I think he was very much concerned about his own image on civil rights and felt that really I think probably he was locked in to the fact that I was the only guy that he could appoint that would genuinely ensure that what Bobby had been doing would go on. And we were in the middle of the civil rights just gotten the civil rights, one act, through, in the middle of a whole bunch of problems with the other. Did you ever feel there were any sort of test cases of your loyalty or anything during the period while you were waiting, difficult assignments or something you had to... KATZENBACH: I think I probably did but I don t know that I can remember any instances. And they didn t involve Bobby directly nor did they... Really throughout my whole time my [-35-]

19 relationship with President Johnson was one where he always got my honest advice and I always thought he was President. And I can remember on one or two occasions saying that to Bobby, I said, As long as I m in the Cabinet I m going to have the loyalty to the president, that your brother would have expected from anyone of his staff. And Bobby agreed. Did the fact that people who d worked for a long time under Robert Kennedy John Doar, and I guess John Douglas came in fairly late, but some of these people stayed on. Did that create problems for you? KATZENBACH: No, they were all people I wanted. They were all people I d recommended to him. John Douglas was a roommate of mine at college and I kept them as long as I could keep them, some of them. I wanted them all. There was no problem with that. [-36-] You said you discussed with the Johnson project, the Hoover [J. Edgar Hoover] thing later probably 66 I guess at the Black [Fred L. Black, Jr.] affair, some of this but I d like to talk about it during the Kennedy Administration. I don t imagine you discussed that with him. KATZENBACH: I never talked about the Baker thing with Johnson at all, never once. What I m trying to go back to is Robert Kennedy s relationship with Mr. Hoover, as you remember it, during the Kennedy administration. Did he ever comment about why President Kennedy had decided to reappoint Mr. Hoover? Hoover and Allen Dulles being the first. KATZENBACH: Oh, that. That was the yes, because I got into that. The question was whether he could reappoint them. But you really couldn t. In the first place, Hoover was an appointee of the Attorney General and [-37-] you just continue to serve until you re kicked out, there was no way of doing it. And Dulles was a presidential appointee, but they serve until they re out. And what President Kennedy wanted to do then was to, wanted to give attention and publicity to this, really try to protect his flanks to the right and trying to find a way of doing it to dramatize that he wasn t just keeping them all in because he wanted them to stay on. How did you get involved in that that early? That comes very early, right after the election or soon after the election. KATZENBACH: Yes, because I was head of the office of Legal Council at that time, so I got involved in a lot of these problems. Almost all the problems were

20 involved with the President and I was in a sense more involved with them than when I was Deputy [Deputy Attorney General]. [-38-] Yes, I m just thinking though. He announced that he would continue those two people in their positions soon after he was elected in the fall of But what you re saying is you got involved... KATZENBACH: I got into it after he became President because he wanted to send their names down to Congress is what he wanted to do and there was no way of doing it. Dulles wanted it, too. That was another... Dulles wanted to be reconfirmed for some reason or another [laughter]. remember? I never heard that before. Well, what can you remember about the Hoover-Robert Kennedy relationship then during the Kennedy Administration? What are some of the first things that you can KATZENBACH: I don t think they ever had very much of a relationship. Bobby was just about never [-39-] in Mr. Hoover s office or Hoover in his. They worked out the Courtney Evans appointment. They did talk on the phone from time to time on civil rights crises. Their relationship was very distant and formal, Bobby always felt embarrassed calling him Edgar. And the other parts of it were just mostly sort of the... I mean the times you d be griped at Mr. Hoover, usually on press stuff and Ed Guthman [Edwin O. Guthman] I think could tell you more on that. He used to, in my judgment, waste hours of time to accomplish just about nothing. I think maybe even Ed would agree with that judgment. The Reader s Digest article... KATZENBACH: Yes, and getting the press releases in the Attorney General s name which was dumb but which never accomplished anything because the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] would release them locally two minutes before, and that would be the story that would get on the wires. [-40-] How well did the Courtney Evans thing work?

21 KATZENBACH: Well, I think it worked very well but I think it worked very well for one basic reason, and that is that Courtney would explain something to Bobby one way and explain something to Hoover another way. And I don t think anybody could have done the job any other way. And when he was trying to sell something Hoover wanted to Bobby, It was explained in a way that would make it palatable to Bobby and vice versa. And I think in part I m very fond of Courtney but I think in part the whole wiretap, bugging issue was really that. I really honestly think Hoover thought that this had all be explained by Courtney to Bobby. Can you recall early in the Kennedy Administration when Robert Kennedy is deciding that there s going to be some new things [-41-] done on organized crime? Any reaction coming over from Hoover and the FBI side on this? KATZENBACH: Oh, yes. It started off with Bobby wanting that crime commission. And so that was an old one with Hoover and he wasn t going to have that so that got knocked out. Then really, constant negotiations trying to get the bureau more manpower, more into it, more of this. And there really were negotiations and mostly conducted through Courtney. And Bobby himself establishing these trips around the country, I think getting considerable amount of rapport with a certain number of agents, probably didn t help much in the long run. But I think they had a good deal of regard for him. He knew what he was talking about and they liked him. Not just Bill Barry [William G. Barry], I mean, the whole bunch of them. I m sure Hoover didn t really like that. He runs a very tight ship. [-42-] As time passed, was Robert Kennedy fairly satisfied then with the job the FBI... KATZENBACH: No, I don t think he was ever satisfied with the job the FBI was doing. And of course, he offended the FBI. Walter Sheridan s whole operation grossly offended the FBI. So there was really constant tension between the whole Organized Crime section and in particular between Walter s operation and Mr. Hoover s. Mr. Hoover is sort of a good bureaucrat. He ll do things if he s told to do them, made to perform with less capacity than the bureau is able to perform. So that was Robert Kennedy s continuing feeling, that they didn t have the ability or they weren t trying as hard as they could?

22 KATZENBACH: They weren t trying as hard as they could, [-43-] except in some areas, he felt they were. This was because he had some connection with the agency involved and he had some damned good agent. And they didn t do a bad job. I don t think Bobby thought they did a bag job, but he was in a bind. He s an impatient fellow, and no matter how much resources the Bureau put into that, he d have had some criticism and some impatience. And they surely I think Bobby would have acknowledged they sure did a hell of a lot more than they d been doing, then multiplied it many times in the course of this. Where does Bill Hundley [William G. Hundley] fit into this relationship? KATZENBACH: Why Bobby had a high regard for Bill. He started off with that other fellow [Edwyn] Silberling, he was head of the Organized Crime section. Bill was deputy. [-44-] I don t remember. KATZENBACH: The trouble with that fellow was that he wanted to do everything and really went beyond at least Bobby felt went beyond the limits of what was right and proper in some instances. And Bobby got nervous and began to lose confidence in Silberling. He did and then had the miserable trial, and it was just awful from Bobby s point of view. And Bill Hundley handled that and handled it very well, and really so it was after that Bobby thought he would be good on the organized crime. He wanted somebody that he had real confidence in and that was not going to rush to the newspapers and make stories and had good relation to the Bureau which Bill did. Okay. When you say in the early days he was upset with the first man, what exactly did you mean with him going too far, primarily on the publicity side or techniques? [-45-] KATZENBACH: It was a certain amount on the publicity side and a certain amount of techniques as well. I can remember only one instance of it and this was where we d indicted four council members, I think two Democrats and two Republicans. And the first one that we tried, the first case we tried was really the strongest of the four cases and we lost it. I ve forgotten whether it was a Republican or Democrat Democrat, I think but Silberling wanted to try the other three cases. He wanted to try them even though the evidence was not as strong and essentially the same witness was the key witness in each of the cases. And it was pretty clear that our witness was lying,

23 probably not lying about the part that was important but lying about a lot of other things on his own involvement. And Siberling was dead set to do it, and he said, [-46-] I think I can get convictions on one or two of the others because they are less politically popular in the area. So how did he react to that? KATZENBACH: Bobby reacted to that by telling him to go out and dismiss the three. He said, If we can t convict the one that s most guilty, we can t convict them because our own witness is lying. I don t want to convict somebody because he s unpopular or a member of another party or some reason of that kind. When can you first remember the whole matter of policy or wiretap and on any other kind of surveillance coming up? KATZENBACH: I don t think it ever came up until after Bobby left. Really? You can t remember any kind of general reviews at all going on? [-47-] KATZENBACH: Well, the great difficulty...with the taps there was no question about it, when Bobby approved them he knew about them. I don t think he ever focused and he said this to me afterward he never really focused on the whole bugging problem and probably he wasn t even aware of what really was lawful and unlawful within that area. But one of the reasons that I kept advising him was that he was mad at my compromise stand, if you will. So was Hoover at that point. One of the reasons in essence, I just said, I was sure that Bobby did not authorize any of these or know about it, and secondly, that I thought Mr. Hoover thought he did. This is in December 66 at that time. KATZENBACH: Yes. [Inaudible] That one got both of them mad. And Bobby was also mad at the brief we filed in the Baker case, in which I described him [-48-] as authorized afterwards. I kept telling Bobby, I showed him all of the sort of documentary evidence the Bureau could produce to show that he had in fact authorized it. This is when? At the time of the Baker briefs being filed?

24 KATZENBACH: Yes, yes, Black, not Baker. Black, yes. KATZENBACH: And I said to him, you know, I just think people aren t going to believe you. I believe you, but I just think the evidence is such that there s going to be a doubt cast upon the believability of it. And I just think you re better off shutting up, saying that you never personally authorized them if you want to say that, because that s true. It s ambiguous but it s true. And I said, At a minimum it s going to show that you ran a sloppy Department. How did he respond? [-49-] KATZENBACH: Well, he didn t like it at first, but actually, it was one of those rare times he apologized for anything. He was really furious at me on that brief and putting it that way. And then when it all got done and there was no flack about it, he wrote me a nice note. It was really hard for Bobby to apologize for anything but he did every now and then. How did that brief come to his attention? Did you take this to him or was it... KATZENBACH: I showed him what I was going to say, oh yes. This was not so unusual because I also showed Bill Rogers [William P. Rogers] and Herb Brownell [Herbert Brownell Jr.] what I was going to say... Really? KATZENBACH:...because I didn t want a former Attorney General saying it s not true. And Rogers said he never knew about it, but if I told him this is what he d written, he d believe me on it and wouldn t say anything [-50-] which he didn t. He was less sensitive to it. I mean less sensitive to the issue than Bobby. Part of it was animosity towards Hoover, I think. Did Robert Kennedy ever say that he had been sloppy in this whole thing or that he just hadn t... KATZENBACH: No, no he said it. In fact, he said, I can be faulted for that, but I didn t know about it. You know, they had instances of Bobby listening to the

25 bugs. In Chicago and New York? KATZENBACH: Yes. He said, It may be stupid but I never occurred to me that people would make [Inaudible] Does that make sense to you? KATZENBACH: I believed him, yes. He never asked and he hadn t been authorizing, I mean in an individual way, so I think he just assumed that these were tapes that we got from the local police. I m not sure that the general public would believe it. Did he ever put any of the blame on people like Courtney Evans or Jack Miller [Herbert J. Miller, Jr.] [-51-] attention? or Hundley or anybody for not bringing things this like this to his KATZENBACH: No. Did they all understand these distinctions? KATZENBACH: No, I don t think any of us well, Courtney certainly did. Jack Miller was so terribly surprised about it, but there was a letter, by God, that Jack Miller had written you know. He wrote it early and I think before, again, this was focused on. Bobby never blamed anybody, I mean very rarely blamed anyone. But you know clearly this is something that the Bureau should have clarified very carefully with a new Attorney General. Now, they did not do that on their own initiative, and they didn t do it with me, I did it with them. And I had to go find out in the back door what was really going on before I got into it. Hoover did say and I told Bobby did say on two occasions to me that Bobby was unaware of this. And the great difficulty is that ambiguity that still keeps coming in. and I think probably in fairness to Hoover he could have been [-52-] using it that way each time I thought it he really said it the other way. But he s an older man and not very careful when he speaks sometimes. Can you remember ever discussing with... KATZENBACH: It s incredible that Bobby did not know and that I didn t know. I mean I

26 put myself in the same boat. We had the Las Vegas incident. We both thought this is something that had just happened in Las Vegas and no place else. Now that s, you know, in hindsight that was stupid on my part and on his. He said to me, Make sure this is stopped. This is in what, 64? KATZENBACH: Yes. And I said to Courtney, Am I absolutely assured that this is stopped? And Courtney said, Yes. But none of it...never was it...it was stopped in Las Vegas [laughter]. And that was exactly what you d asked for? KATZENBACH: That was exactly what we d asked for and that s what we got. [-53-] Can you recall discussing with Robert Kennedy back in the Kennedy Administration what the Department should do in regard to legislation on wiretapping? The first time around, I guess was the Keating thing. KATZENBACH: Yes, the first time was a terrible bill. I got into it as I went and told him it was a terrible bill. I told Byron White it was a terrible bill. So that s when we got in. And then I got in my office and redrafted that bill to the bill that was eventually put in, which is somewhat similar to the one enacted today. But I thought the other was just an unprofessional job of doing, apart from being bad policy. That was just a bad way of doing it. What you re saying was bad policy was supporting the Keating bill of 61? KATZENBACH: Yes. The lousy bill. So how did Robert Kennedy react? Does he basically agree with you, see things your way then? KATZENBACH: Yes. No problem. [-54-] KATZENBACH: No, he was very good about it. If I told him something was a lousy bill, he didn t really cross-examine me forever to know why it was a lousy bill. He d say, All right, go out and draft a better one.

27 One of the things that was released by the time of that 66 back and forth between Robert Kennedy and Hoover was that change in, I guess, it was Attorney General Jackson s [Robert H. Jackson] original order on unethical tactics. Do you remember that? It was an amending order that Robert Kennedy...In 1962, in March. Can you remember how that change came about where wiretapping was removed as the first word of that order? KATZENBACH: I went into that and I cannot now remember except that what I remember was that that had absolutely nothing to do with wiretapping and bugging. I went into the whole history of it and I ve now forgotten what it had to do with it. But it was a real phony when the Bureau brought it up. It came up another context totally. [-55-] One thing that influenced me on the Black brief is the fact that Thurgood Marshall just said he wouldn t sign a brief that stated it Bobby s way. And there was no animosity to Bobby. He just said, the Solicitor General said, Looking over not being party to this but looking over the documents, he said, I can t say that these were unauthorized from the light of all that documentation. When did he say was the authorization? Going back to the Brownell thing or going to the... KATZENBACH: Back to the Brownell thing. That s it? KATZENBACH: Yes. But coupled with the practice. And nobody s stopping the practice and he felt an awareness of the practice, you know, with a sort of there either was or should have been an awareness of the practice. Yes, unexcused unawareness. KATZENBACH: And he based it on that although that was drafted really with Bill Rogers. And Bill Rogers never intended it that way. I don t [-56-] think Brownell had done it that way. What about then the other thing that comes out of the leasing of the lines in New York? Does Marshall argue that this is part of the thing that ll...

28 KATZENBACH: Part knowledge. I mean that anybody reading, knowing FBI would have realized that was meant for bugs and not for taps. I don t think Bobby read it. He didn t ordinarily read those things. He relied very much on oral explanations and rarely read. And he relied very much on people. What was a normal procedure during the Kennedy Administration on a wiretap request? How would it come to the Attorney General s desk? KATZENBACH: It came up as a request with a brief explanation of why, which was totally inadequate, and rarely got turned down. What kind of things would he turn it down on? Do you know? KATZENBACH: I don t know what ones he turned down. I never saw them. [-57-] Did anyone other than the Attorney General see these? KATZENBACH: Well, probably Angie [Angela M. Novello] saw it. Courtney certainly saw it, but he never discussed them with Jack Miller or anybody else other than the King [Martin Luther King, Jr.] one. Would the Attorney General get a feedback on the results, any kind of periodic report or anything? KATZENBACH: No, he never even...in fact, you know, none of these...these procedures were just awful when you really come right down to it because they were authorized; the authorization had no time limit on it. You never knew whether it was disconnected or still going on, and you never knew what developed out of it, whether it was fruitful or not. So at no give time did any Attorney General know how many wiretaps there were and who they were on. Did anyone during that period ever urge that that be tightened up? [-58-] KATZENBACH: No, they did not. And I think basically the reason they did not is that nobody ever got involved in it except the Attorney General. The problem, you know, the staff may get in the way sometimes but they also can save your neck an awful lot of times. And somebody else sitting in that other office had been looking at these things, I m sure there would have been a suggestion at the time. Were there many things like that? Was this his style: things that came to him and he would not staff adequately?