Edward A. McDermott Oral History Interview JFK#2, 05/22/1964 Administrative Information Creator: Edward A. McDermott Interviewer: Charles Daly Date of Interview: May 22, 1964 Length: 25 pages Biographical Note Edward A. McDermott (1920-1999) was the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning from 1962 to 1965 and a member of the National Security Council from 1962 to 1965. This interview focuses on the establishment of the Office of Emergency Planning, the investigation of the surplus in the National Stockpile, and the creation of the Federal Disaster Assistance Program, among other topics. Access Open Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed January 28, 1965, copyright of these materials has passed to the United States Government upon the death of the interviewee. 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 The copyright law extends its protection to unpublished works from the moment of creation in a tangible form.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 transcripts and the interview recordings.
Suggested Citation Edward A. McDermott, recorded interview by Charles Daly, May 22, 1964, (page number), John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program.
Edward A. McDermott JFK #2 Table of Contents Page Topic 15 John F. Kennedy s [JFK] meeting with Robert F. Kennedy after winning the Democratic presidential nomination 16 Work on presidential campaign in Iowa 17 Attending the Inauguration 18 Being asked to come to the White House 19 Appointment to the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization 21 Difficulties moving from Iowa to Washington D.C. 23 Creation of the Office of Emergency Planning 24 Meetings on the restructuring of defense operations 26 Executive Orders on planning for emergency situations 27 Meetings with JFK 29 Cabinet meetings 30 Responsibilities of the Office of Emergency Planning 31 Surplus of strategic materials in National Stockpile 32 Investigation of stockpile 33 Symington hearings on the stockpile 35 Creation of the Federal Disaster Assistance Program 36 Chlorine barge crisis in Mississippi 38 Federal government response to the crisis 39 Drought in Vermont
_... 15 Minnesota and in Lincoln, Nebraska, when he made his appearance there. On each of those occasions he was, of course, a busy, busy man and a busy, busy aspirant for the Democratic nomination. But he was never too busy to talk about old times -- reminisce about earlier experiences -- to ask about my wife -- to ask about the family. He always seemed to evidence a genuine interest in the individual with whom he was dealing and this was not a phony-type of interest. This was a genuine and real interest in those that he had -- in those people with whom he was associated. I was a delegate to the Convention in Los Angeles -- and I'm sure that others will cover in great detail all of our experiences there. I had occasion to see him on a couple of occasions in Los Angeles. I also had during that period contacts with Bobby and Ted and Sarge-- with all of the others-- most of the others who were working in the campaign. We all shared the great exhilaration and extreme pleasure that came with his nomination. Perhaps one of my most vivid recollections of the Convention is on the evening of his acceptance -- not his formal acceptance -- but his arrival at the Convention Hall after he won the nomination. I was in a group of probably 40 or 50 --maybe more -- people that assembled in the house behind the Sports Arena -- this house that had been used by the Kennedy organization as one of its headquarters during the campaign. I recall Bobby, later to be the Attorney General, waiting with the group for the nominee to arrive from out in Beverly Hills. I remember hearing the sounds of the sirens as the Senator's car approached.~ He entered this house. He was, of course, happy, exhilarated and proud. He greeted everybody that was in his route as he traveled through the house, calling everybody by first name. He spotted Bobby, who was standing in the living room of the house. It was the first face-to-face meeting of the candidate and Bobby after he received the nomination. Second Tape May 22, 1964 Daly: We are in Mr. McDermott's conference room continuing with Edward McDermott's interview for the Kennedy Library. In the last tape he was describing the scene in Los Angeles when Robert Kennedy and a group of about 50 others were meeting just after the time when Senator Kennedy received the nomination.
16 EAM: Well, Chuck, this was of course a very emotional meeting between the President and his brother Bob; the two who had worked so closely together for many, many months during the campaign. The candidate and the strategist. The others in the room just sort of involuntarily dropped back and the President walked up to Bobby, and they embraced each other and they stood in quiet, serious conversation with each other in the center of the living room of this house for a period of probably 4 or 5 minutes. Nobody stood within 20 feet of them probably and when they finished that conversation and the then Democratic candidate turned toward the rest of the group, the preparations were made to escort the candidate from the house to the platform of the Convention Hall. That turned out to be a rather confusing and difficult exercise. There were a large number of policemen present. They formed a sort of ''flying-wedge" type of approach to the Convention Hall Sports Arena. The group started moving toward the Sports Arena -- the people were jammed around trying to see the candidate. We went into the back of the Sports ~rena and attempted to go up steps leading from the back of the Sports Arena to the back of the stage. With great difficulty, the candidate himself and some others of us were able to get up those steps. Others in the party that were intended to be there never quite made it. There was the excitement, exhilaration, and confusion that only attends that stage of any political convention, but in my experience, which went back to 1952, never had I seen quite that degre.e of excitement and interest. Then, in the post convention and pre-election period, I remained in Iowa. I was in touch with the candidate and the campaign. I did voluntary work in the campaign in Iowa and elsewhere in the Midwest. As I indicated in our discussion yesterday, I was with the candidate on several of his visits to the States of the Midwest and worked up through the successful election in November. Daly: trips? What were you doing when you were with him on those What function did you serve? EAM: Well, the function primarily was principally to see him and then talk with others in the party. It would be Steve Smith about fund-raising activities in Iowa or Ted Sorensen about other campaign activities in Iowa,. Kenny 0 1 Donnell was present on a number of those occasions. Larry O'Brien and Dave Powers were also involved. Sarge Shriver was often present. The discussions were primarily
_,... 17 with members of his campaign staff with reference to the status of activities in Iowa and other states in the Midwest with which I was familiar and receiving instructions on w hat additional activities might be undertaken. Then there was the election and, subsequently, the Inauguration. I talked with the President between the date of the election and inauguration and at that time there was a discussion whether there was any interest or desire on my part to have a position in Government. I indicated to him at that time that I did not -- that my reward from this whole exercise was the satisfaction of seeing him elected and, because of my personal situation, my partnership in a law firm, family responsibilities, and residence in the Midwest, I was not interested in or considering any Government appointment. Daly: What was his comment to that? EAM: Well, he indicated that my services might be needed, but maybe he was a little bit surprised at the fact that there wasn't a direct request for a position because at that particular moment I believe most of the pressures being exerted on the President-elect were by people and from people who were looking for specific appointments or jobs in Government. Daly: Did you initiate that contact or did he? EAM: No, he initiated the call, and I believe it was from New York -- he was in New York at that time. Daly: Did he initiate it basically on a "thank-you, Ed'' basis? EAM: Correct -- on a "thank-you, Ed" basis and grateful for -- - the assistance that had been given. That led him to the discussion of whether there was anything in which I was particularly interested. Then Mrs. McDermott and I were invited to the Inauguration and we were here in Washington for the Inauguration and all of its attendant festivities. We stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, we participated in all of the events of the Inauguration that it was possible to get to with the weather and snow that prevailed during that period. I recall, specifically, that we did not get to t h e Inaugural Gala that night because we had gone previously to the Inaugural Concert at Constitution Hall and had to walk through about 2 feet of snow from the Mayflower Hotel to Constitution Hall to that event and then couldn't
18 get from Constitution Hall to the Armory where the Gala was held. However, the President and Mrs. Kennedy did get to both Constitution Hall and to the Gala. After the festivities of the Inauguration were concluded we returned again to Dubuque, Iowa and I continued my practice. One day in April I was engaged in the trial of a law suit and when I returned to my office about 5:00 p.m. there were accumulated calls that had been recorded by my secretary and the top call on the list of calls, and obv~ously the most important one that day, was a call from the White House.. Specifically, it was a call from Kenny O'Donnell asking that I call him when I returned to the office. I called Kenny that evening and he indicated that the President wanted to s e e me and t h at he would like to see me the next morning. I had just concluded this law suit in which I was engaged that afternoon, but I was about 990 miles west of Washington and it was about 5:00p.m., and being in Washington the next morning presented some logistical problems. I also had some matters scheduled for the next morning. I didn't expect this call; --I was surprised to receive it and I couldn't give Kenny an immediate answer as to whether I would be there the next morning but I told him I would call him back. I reported this call to my wife and told her the problems that I had in responding to the request that I be there the next morning. Upon checking plane scheduies I found that it was possible for me to drive from Dubuque to Chicago and catch a midnight plane out of Chicago that would get me into Washington in time for the appointment at the time the President had in mind. So I advised Kenny I would be there the next day and I did come to Washington that night. The following morning I went to the White House. This was, of course, a very emoti onal experience for me because in my prior experience I had been at and in the White House on only several occasions. I did, when I was here in 1950, visit with President Truman o n 2 or 3 occasions in his office, but walking through the northwest gate of the White House and up that curving walk to the West Wing of the White House is always an emotional experience. It was then-- and it still is -- although I have travelled that route hundreds of times since then..l '... il '----'
19 I went into the West Wing that rrorning and I met with Kenny. I should say that I had asked Ken the preceding night in our telephone conversation what the President had in mind but I was unable to get any specific information. It wasn 1 t due to -- I dontt know what it was due to -- but the fact is that Kenny said, "Well the President wants to talk with you and he 1 ll tell you what it's about when he talks with you. 11 The following morning after visiting with Kenny I was taken in to see the President and this was our first visit or meeting after he had officially assumed his place behind that great desk in the Oval Room ~f the White House. He told' me he was glad to see me; he told me that he was very interested in a complete analysis of the status of our nonmilitary preparedness in the Federal Government and, specifically, a study of the organization of nonmilitary preparedness within Government. He told me about the then Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization :which was the agency that had primary responsibility for both the planning and the operational aspects of these programs. He said that preliminary information that had come to him from his studies between his election and this particular date indicated that changes should be made in the organization of these programs. He pointed out that he had appointed a Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, Frank B. Ellis of New Orleans, but that the position as Deputy Director in the agency was open and he asked me to accept appointment to that position. This was a Presidential appointment, subject to confirmation by the Senate, in the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, which was one of the elements of the Executive Office of the President. I knew very little about the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization and its problems. The President suggested that I talk with Dave Bell and Elmer Staats, who at that time were Director and Deputy Director of the Bureau of the Budget, respectively, and visit also with Mr. Ellis who was the Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, to get a general view of the nature of the agency and what its problems were and then to report back to him. I devoted the balance of that day to the discussions which the President suggested and appointments for which were arranged immediately by Mr. 0 1 Donnell. During the course of that day I also met with Sarge Shriver who was beginning the assumption of his responsibilities in the Peace Corps and with whom I had worked quite closely during the pre-los Angeles phase of the campaign and
20 during the campaign. I talked with him about the President's request and my own personal situation and he encouraged me to 11 join the team. 11 When I reported the next day to the President, he discussed my observations and findings of the preceding day and asked for my views on some of the matters that had come to my attention. He then asked if I would accept this appointment. I, of course, had had no discussion at this time with my wife or with my partners because I did not know the purpose of my call to Washington. I told him that I would return to Dubuque and that I would give him my answer just as quickly as possible. I then called my wife. Daly: Did h_e press you for an immediate answer? EAM: Yes, he wanted to know rather soon -- as he always did -- and as I explained to him that while he might have been thinking about this for some time it was absolute news to me, and that I had a wife and 4 children and several law partners and other obligations that I had to accommodate. I knew that it would be very difficult to discuss the family aspects of this decision when I got home so I called my wife and asked her to meet me in Chicago, which she did, and we spent that following night in Chicago discussing this request. It presented many problems as any of these decisions do when they arise on short notice, but she came up with the observation that really had not occurred to me and that was that no other President of the United States had ever asked me to do anything for him and that when a President does ask you to serve your Government, and particularly a President with whom you have had such a feeling of closeness and with whom you have been associated, you have no alternative but to accept. So I agreed with that for two reasons: One, I thought that she was right in that conclusion and, secondly, after my brief visit to Washington and discussion with the President I found myself very anxious to participate as part of his team and to try and realize the objectives of the New Frontier and help him toward the attainment of the goals that he had so clearly in mind. Daly: Your discussion with him --was a discussion between two people who already had spoken between them a lot of the New Frontier thoughts. Your discussion was on a specific nature of the job and the specific problems he was facing in this particular agency?
21 EAM: Yes, that' s right, in this particular agency. So, I returned to Dubuque having made the decision that I would come to Washington. I called Kenny O'Donnell and advised him; I called the President and advi sed him and told him that I thought I could be in Washington in about 2 weeks. The reason that interval of time was necessary was because I had to make a number of arrangements for my family; also I had to make arrangements to transfer the work in process in my law office to my partners and associates. The President was pleased with the first part of the decision and unhappy with the last part and said that there was too much to be done to allow a 2-week delay and asked if I couldn 1 t cut t h a t to about a week. I indicated that I would try and do it so I worked very diligently in my office practically all day and all night and I did manage.within 6 days to conclude everything that was subject to conclusion and transfer everything that was subject to transfer. I was in the fortunate situation of being a partner in a law firm where I had 3 other partners and several associates so it was possible to assign the work within the office and then Daly: That partnership has survived? EAM: That partnership survived -- as a matter of fact, that partnership survived for over a hundred years of continuous succession so I guess this traumatic experience was nothing new. I then came to Washington about a week after my original visit. I was aware when I came down here that there were going to be a number of economic sacrifices involved in this responsibility but I wasn 1 t aware that they would develop so suddenly. Daly: Did you discuss any personal your personal problems in taking the job with the President? EAM: Well, the President was aware of my family situation -- he had met my wife -- he knew my wife -- he had met my children - he knew their ages and where they were in school - - he knew that this discussion was taking place in April. We had discussed the fact that this presented some problem and he had an easy solution for that whi ch was the one that I guess was the only solution there was to the problem and the one that we'd followed; that was for the children to remain in school -- and for the family to remain in Dubuque until the end of the school year which they did. I wired the Mayflower and made a reservation for the night of my arrival intending to stay at the Mayflower until I was able to find some kind of a small apartment in
22 which to live until I could locate a house for my family and the family to arrive. I drove to Washington and I had quite a little bit of luggage with me because I expected to be here until I. returned to Iowa for my family at the end of the school year in June. I pulled up to the side entrance of the Mayflower -- it was raining that night-- about ll:oo p.m. at night; I had the doorman assist me in unloading my baggage, sent the car to the garage, and walked into the hotel very confident that I was going to be taken care of. I was advised that due to circumstances allegedly beyond their control they had no single rooms of the type that I requested and the only thing they could give me for shelter from the storm was a large sample suite arrangement that, as I recall quite _vividly, was billed at $40 a day. I thought this was a little more e xpansive than my requirements but I had no alternative; my luggage was unloaded, the car was in the garage, so I checked into this room. I spent 3 or 4 days at the Mayflower in that accommodation unable to be transferred, accumulating charges of $40 a day and I finally found an apartment at the Fairfax Hotel and I moved to that. The significance of all this is that although I arrived on the scene responsive to the President 1 s request and he sent my nomination forward to the Senate quite promptly, there was some delay in Senate procedures, not unlike delays encountered currently during the Civil Rights debate, and a period of about 6 weeks went by before Senator Russell of the Armed Services Committee was able to schedule my confirmation hearing. Meanwhile, I was living here in Washington and I learned to my considerable dismay that there is no provision in the Executive Branch of Government for reimbursement either for the costs of moving to your job, nor are you entitled to compensation as a Presidential appointee until you have been confirmed by the Senate and sworn into your responsibilities. So I went through a long and expensive period of several week s where I was working on my job-a nd I thought quite hard~nd doing it for nothing and also incurring considerable expense. But, in. retrospect, it was all certainly worth it. Now, when I got into this responsibility as Deputy Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, I had further discussions with the President, with McGeorge Bundy, and with others of the White House staff and the Executive Office staff with reference to the President s objectives in this analytical investigation of the status of nonmilit ary preparedness that he had discussed with me earlier.
23 The first mission on which I embarked was participation in this study. The study was made not only internally within the agency but also with the assistance of an outside management consulting firm. As a result of those discussions, President Kennedy made some very major decisions in the field of nonmilitary preparedness. The first decision was that the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization as it :J then existed within the Executive Office of the President was to be divested of its operational responsibilities in the civil defense program. The President and others felt that it was improper for an Executive Office of the President agency to be involved in extensive operational programs. So after much investigation and discussion, both with the President and others, a decision was made that the operating programs of civil defense would be transferred from the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, and thereby from the Executive Office of the President, t o the Department of Defense for several reasons: One, it was felt that Department of Defense had the greatest in-being capability to handle this program; secondly, civil defense was then, as it wa:> previously and still is today, a controversial program which had a lot of difficulty making progress both with the Congress of the United States and with the American people. Interest in civil defense and preparedness measures of that type seemed to be limited to those periods of threatened crisis when people became concerned with their own safety. In periods of relative international calm, interest in civil defense waned and diminished substantially. The President felt that by transferring the operational responsibilities of civil defense to the Department of Defense, that the American public and the Congress alike would see the close relationship between an active military defense and civil defense, which are the survival programs for the protection of the people. These, as well as other reasons contributed to that decision. Then, after he decided to transfer operational civil defense to DOD, which he did in July of 1961 by Executive Order 10952 -- we went into a reorganization of the balance of the nonmilitary preparedness programs of the Federal Government. It was as a result of that phase of the study that he decided to change the name of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization and he created a new agency which was designated as the Office of Emergency Planning, which is the agency to which I was subsequently, in February of 1962, appointed Director and which still continues now as one of the several elements of the Executive Office of the President. -- Daly: In reaching those two decisions for the switching of civil
24 defense thing to DOD and setting up OEP -- those are primarily your recommendations? EAM: No, they were joint recommendations, Chuck, of myself, Dave Bell, Elmer Staats, McGeorge Bundy, and Bob McNamara and Frank Ellis. Everybody participated in the preliminary discussions; there were minimal disagreements on organizational arrangements but when this matter went to the President for his approval and action there was quite unanimous agreement on the part o~ all of those persons I have named-.., DALY: How was it transmitted to the President? EAM: By memorandum, supplemented by rather extended oral and personal conversations -- in other words, we sat down-- DALY: Was that the whole. group? EAM: Yes, there were a number of conversations. I participated in two or three of them with the President alone and there were conversations that were attended by Dave Bell, Elmer Staats and Frank Ellis and McGeorge Bundy and Ted Sorensen. DALY: Did he probe pretty deeply into the recommendations? EAM: Well, he probed rather deeply into the reasons. Of course he had concern originally; he was the catalyst for these studies. The concerns that he had were a result of the briefings he received following his election and before inauguration. So he was the real catalyst for these actions but he wanted to make sure that if the civil defense program was transferred to the Department of Defense that it would not lose its image of civil direction and control. I believe that some fears had been communicated to him from other sources as well as a caveat expressed by those of us working on this study that the American people would probably not react favorably to the militarization of a civil defense and survival program that would be operative in the event of a war emergency involving attack upon the United States. The President, of course, shared that view and he was anxious in all that we did in this area of our planning -- he was anxious to see that in approaching the problems -- the nonmilitary problems of war emergency that we made every effort to assure civil direction and control of the functions of Government as long as that could possibly be accomplished. There were
25 many in this country, at that time and still, who, when they think about problems of postattack, immediately solve all those problems by the assumption that martial law will be declared and that military authority will take over. Well, that was not the President 1 s view as it was communicated to me and I am confident that it is correct. The President1s view was that in all of this area of our preparedness we should endeavor to maintain or to assure civil direction and control of the functions of Government, regarding martial law as the last alternative in this spectrum of possibility rather than the first solution to these problems. I suppose that would have been his principal concern as we discus sed the final arrangements for the transfer of this program. He wanted to make sure that civil defense did not become a purely military mission and operation. That was accomplished by the actions taken which created an Assistant Secretary for Civil Defense in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and then the program was administered at executive level by civilians within the Department of Defense. Just in recent weeks, since President Kennedy 1 s death, there has been another organizational change in the civil defense program and civil defense has been transferred out of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and is now an element of the Office of the Secretary of the Army. There is now a Director of Civil Defense who reports to the Secretary of the Army. Also, in the intervening years there has been an increased role for the military in support of civil defense activities at State and local levels but the civil defense program is still a civilian-directed program within the Department of Defense although it is now an element of the Department of the Army rather than the Secretary s Office. Now, the discussions that led to organization of the Office of Emergency Planning and the issuance of its charter were of course interesting because here again a number of Presidential decisions were involved that required quite a change in the approach that was being taken by the Federal Government to these probiems. In the study, and drawing upon our historical experience, we were aware that in past emergencies, like in World War II, there was a maze of wartime alphabetical agencies that carne into being with the war emergency and administered a wide variety of nonmilitary programs in the resources field and in the economic stabilization field -- programs that are necessary during time of war. The President had some predisposition against that kind of an organization and that kind of a plan and he wanted
to make sure that whatever arrangements were made to deal with the nonmilitary aspects of a war emergency maximized the utilization of existing Federal departments and agencies of Government. So, as a result of phase 2 of this study, a series of Executive Orders were issued by the President. These Orders prepared here in our agency and under my direction assigned to some 31 departments and agencies of Government major planning and preparedness responsibilities in the nonmilitary field. We identified every program that would have to become operative in the event of a war emergency; then we looked for the Department or agency of Government that had the greatest in-being capability to both plan for the operation of that program and to administer it if necessary in wartime. DALY: about? Are these the Orders that the 11 far right 11 were concerned EAM: These are the O_rders that subsequently were issued by the President and then caused concern in the 11 far right'', as you say. We had a great volume of correspondence on these Orders, as you know, but the fact is that they are not and were not what they were represented to be by those detractors and alarmists. Executive Orders have been a custom and a part of the Executive procedures of Government for one hundred years. DALY: Did the President ever make any comment to you regard-. ing the 11 far right 11 objections -- What did he have to say? EAM: Yes, we talked about it a number of times because this was 11 inspired correspondence 11 and there were these planned letter writing campaigns to the President. As the correspondence would be selected at random for the President's daily viewing, of course he was running into some of these letters. He called me and I talked with him about it several times. The first thing he wanted to know was an assurance that the actions he had taken, 'which had been recommended to him by his advisers and his own legal counsel's office, and others, were, in fact, proper. Once he was r~assured on that point and given the legal history of these actions and the Orders again, and their purpose was reviewed with him, he was completely satisfied that the action he had taken was proper. Then his attitude was one of either disappointment or disgust at the allegations and charges that were being made against the Orders. I reviewed with him, in fact, the type of answer that we developed to respond to this
27 volume of incoming correspondence. I suppose that my own upset with the nature of this attack made the first draft of the letter that I proposed to use a little more caustic and critical than it should be and we toned that one down just a little bit. But he actually did personally approve the types of replies that were sent to this great volume of inquiries that came in. DALY: Was most of your conversation with him by telephone or did you go over there? EAM: Some by telephone, but generally in his office and, of course, I found him,. as all associated with him did, completely available to his appointees and to his staff. DALY: I'm not sure all did. EAM: Well, some did n ot, I guess. But on occasion, if it was a matter of real substance I would go through the formality of an appointment on his schedule and Kenny 0 1 Donnell would set it up a day in advance and I would have an assigned time, but frequently matters that would require Presidential direction or guidance were matters that he could dispose of in a matter of minutes. He had, as you so well know, this great ability to understand and grasp a problem and if you knew the President, you were able to communicate the problem to him rather quickly and you would get his answer. DALY: Your feeling was not one that -- you were not one of those that Ken would close the gate to as far as getting. EAM: experience DALY: No, no -- I heard that allegation, but I never had that I have always gathered that you were not one.... EAM: I always found Ken completely cooperative. The way it would work actually was this; in the early stages of our association now remember that I was an Iowan, I was not from Massachusetts, so I was really not pa:rt of the 11 in 11 level and my associations with 0 1 Donnell specifically were limited to those casual contacts that occurred during the can~paign. I did not know Kenny well before coming t o Washington but he did know that the President himself
?8 asked me to serve in this position; he was familiar with the circumstances of my being in Government. I think he certainly knew that I was not in a position that I asked to be in and he knew the circumstances qf my being here and I think that maybe contributed to it. But in the early months I followed the practice, when I wanted to see the President of going to Kenny, telling him what the problem was, and he would concur in the judgment that it was a matter of sufficient consequence to involve the President's time. I can think of no single instance where he thought a matter I wanted to talk to the President about did not merit the President's attention. So it seems that once he understood that I was not going to the President except when it was something that he should be interested in, there was no difficulty whatsoever -- and on many occasions when it was not a scheduled conference, I would go over and talk to Kenny and wait in his office until the appointment in which the President was engaged was over -- he would say, ''So and so is in with the President now -- you can go in as soon as he finishes 11 -- and there were many of those kinds of conferences. Now, they weren't long they took maybe 2 minutes, 5 minutes, but that was the way we transacted our business. DALY: What would you say in an average month -- I know there are great variations, I am sure -- such as times of catastrophes and so on, but in an average month, what would your telephone and personal contact with him amount to? EAM: Well, you indicated that it's so difficult to come up with an average because there were some times it would be 4 times a day, but I would say that an objective average would be personal conversations with the President, maybe twice a week -- about 2 times a week. The telephone conversations with the President, perhaps at about the same level. But then, in addition to that, I, of course, by virtue of my position as a statutory member of the National Security Council would see him at all meetings of the Council and very often at the conclusion of those meetings anybody on the Council or attending those meetings that had a matter to discuss with the President would buttonhole him before he left the Cabinet Room, before he went back to the office. Or, if the President had something on his mind, when the meeting was over he'd point to you and beckon you with his finger and that meant that he wanted to talk to you before you left the room. So, there were many of those kinds of discussions.
- 29 DALY: Generally, the number of your personal contacts with him were, then, more frequent than say the contacts he had with, say, the Secretary of Commerce. EAM: Well, probably more frequent because of the fact that my responsibilities were within the Executive Office of the President complex and somewhat like the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, although not with the frequency of his contact because the nature of that job, but somewhat like that of Dr. Jerry Wiesner or Walter Heller, or others. I saw him with considerable frequency. Then, as you say, when we had particular programs active like natural disaster programs which involved the President, contacts would be more frequent. DALY: EAM: DALY: What about your attendance at Cabinet meetings? Occasionally, by invitation. There were only occasional meetings. EAM: As I understand it, there were only occasional Cabinet meetings but occasionally I would attend Cabinet meetings and it was usually for the purpose of speaking to the Cabinet about nonmilitary preparedness programs or planned actions that should be reported to the Cabinet. I suppose that during the period of his tenure I was present at maybe 5 or 6 Cabinet meetings. DALY: Would you contribute any thoughts for forthcoming press conferences or like --- EAM: Yes, we did have quite a bit of contact with Pierre Salinger on that. It would depend upon the climate of the day. There were numerous conversations in this area particularly during the active period of the stockpile investigations by the Symington Committee, and also at the time of the Petroleum Policy Committee of which I was designated as Chairman and filed its report with the President. If there were issues in which the Press was interested that involved our agency or my actions as head of the agency, I would usually discuss the status of those matters with Pierre and sometimes with the President personally. Now, these actions taken by the President assigning these nonmilitary preparedness responsibilities to the various depart-
- 30 ments and agencies of Government created t he need on his behalf for an effective coordinating mechanism within the Executive Department of Government. An important mission assigned to the Office of Emergency Planning was to coordinate on behalf of the President the activities of the 31 different departments and agencies of Government in the nonmilitary preparedness field. The Director of this agency served as the staff arm of the President providing planning guidance and direction to the other elements of Federal Government and then coordinating their activities in nonmilitary preparedness field on behalf of the President. The greatest thrill, I suppose, that is attached to the privilege of service in this capacity is, as I mentioned earlier, statutory member ship on the National Security Council, and the opportunity to attend and participate in the deliberations of that body which is the forum from which most major decisions of the President of the United States involving our national security interest arise and is, of course, an experience you will never forget. The job assigned to this agency by the President's Executive Order 11051 is a difficult job because (1) you deal in an area that most people would rather not think about, that is, preparing for a war that you hope never happens and that you hope never comes; (2) the activities of any planning agency are frequently misunderstood by both the Congress and the public, even within Government itself. And then it is very difficult to keep the departments and agencies of Government prepared for their wartime responsibilities when the pressures of the day are to accomplish their peacetime, on-going, daily responsibilities. I am convinced that it would not have been possible to make the progress that has been made in the improvement of nonmilitary preparedness in the United States had it not been for the consistent and loyal support of President Kennedy for these efforts and he demonstrated that in a variety of ways, and on a number of occasions. He would comment about it at National Security Council meetings, he would comment about the importance of this activity at Cabinet meetings; as I would submit reports to him he would quite generally respond to those memoranda and reports with words of encouragement. He would send back to me the type of memoranda that you could duplicate and send to the heads of other participating departments and agencies as graphic and unequivocal evidence of Presidential interest and concern. I think he had, with all the things on his mind, he had an acute awareness of the fact that a job like he had assigned to
- 31 us could only be done with his support. Now, that doesn 1 t mean he was always himself happy with programs and fui.s activity. I think that he in many instances shared the feelings of m.any others in the United States -- he would rather that we didn 1 t have to be involved in this kind of business. There were many instances when he didn't like to talk about emergency preparedness. The very name of the agency is somewhat of a charade because while we talk about the Office of Emergency Planning -- what we 1 re really talking about is the Office of War Planning. It is planning to make sure that the Federal government and the State governments and local governments are able to deal with the problems of post-attack or a lesser engagement that might not involve an attack upon the United States. But when you are talking about war-type of planning, it is often a subject you would like to push aside and it certainly is something that is not highly publicized and he had concerns about it, I think, throughout his whole Administration. But there is permanent evidence of the fact that he was pleased with the progress that had been made and he was completely satisfied that the actions that he took in the reorganization of these programs and specifically and particularly making maximum use of the in-being capabilities of Departments and Agencies of government was the right action and contributed substantially to the strength and security of the country. He also got into this National Stockpile of strategic materials question in some depth. You will recall that when he assumed the Presidency-- the Federal Government had a National Stockpile of Strategic and Critical Materials in which approximately $8.4 billion dollars of the taxpay~rs 1 money had been invested. This stockpile included 76 different commodities, essentially in their raw forms -- minerals and metals and ores -- and it was intended by law to meet the emergency military and essential civilian requirements of the United States in the event of war. The quantities of materials included in the National Stockpile were intended to.be responsive to military requirements and essential civilian requirements. But the President had received information, actually before he appointed me to. my first position as Deputy Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, that this program had perhaps been misused to a degree as an economic assistance device to specific metals or minerals or industry groups, rather than having been operated in the preceding Administration purely and exclusively for national security reasons. He had a definite feeling that there were considerably more
32 materials in the stockpile inventories than were required. Therefore, a lot of taxpayers 1 money was tied up in these inventories that might properly be released. Secondly, and most importantly, he felt that this surplus inventory of materials was itself a deterrent to economic development within the metals and minerals industry itself. As long as that surplus overhangs the market, there was little incentive 'for expansion in those fields. Daly: This is the second tape done on May 22 and we 1 re talking about the stockpile situation Ed found when he came to his job. EAM: The President, having these concerns, asked that a hard look be taken at this stockpile and that it be done immediately. That was perhaps my second major effort shortly after I reported to the job and this work went forward contempo:caneously with the analytical study I talked apout earlier -- the reorganization of nonmilitary preparedness planning itself. As we got into this stockpile investigation we discovered that first of all, there had been no review of military and essential civilian requirements for a period of about three years; that during that time, of course, there had been a number of changes in the technology of weaponry -- those technological changes having an obvious effect on both the types of materials and the quantities of materials that should be maintained in a stockpile. I reported our preliminary findings to the President suggesting that there was a substantial surplus of materials in the stockpile beyond current requirements and indicating to him certain actions that should be taken. Contemporaneously with this, there was considerable interest being generated in the halls of Congress, specifically, in the Senate. Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri had been following the stockpile program very closely and he was very upset at the fact that the efforts of the Senate and Congress to make an effective inquiry of this program were being frustrated by the refusal of the Executive Branch of Government to declassify much of the information relating to the stockpile program. As long as this program was operated by the Executive Branch of Government as a classified program and under the cloak of national security there was not much public exposure of what was going on. So one of the first is sues that
33 ' I considered was the question of whether the nat ional security interest of the United.States required the classification of this great bulk of m aterial relating to the stockpile that had historically been subject to classification. We did not arrive at an independent judgment on this but discussed the question with all of the involved and participating Departments and Agencies of the Government. We had discussions with the D epartment of Justice and intelligence agencies of Government and I could find no security justificationforthe continued classification of much of this information. I reporte d that to the President and subsequently the President took a rather historic action in the stockpile program; that action was to direct me to declassify this information that had been classified for so many years previously. That d e cla ssification action was taken and we were able then to advise the Senate and others how much was in the stockpile in these various commodity groups and individual commodities, what the objectives were, and what the identified surpluses were. Subsequent to that, Senator Symington initiated a hearing in the Senate which addressed itself to this problem and we immediately got about the business of establishing new stockpile objectives based upon a new and current study of requir~ments. The President appointed a new Committee called the Executive Stockpile Committee and designated me as Chairman. There was cabinet-level membership on that Committee. T h e Committee made an extensive investigation of the stockpile program and made three reports to the President. These individual reports will be included in the archives of the Kennedy Library and are being made available for that purpose. I think that the actions being taken by the President in this area, history will record as having been not only proper, but very helpful to the national interest. Since that time, we have begun a program of disposing of these identified surpluses and we're working to the best of our ability to bring the strategic Stockpqe and national requirements into reasonable balance, to liquidate the identified surpluses, to convert these surplus commodities into cash and to restore the cash to the Federal Treasury. Daly: I recall the President saying that with -- you know the kind of mixture of half-amusement and half-bitterness when he would say he was getting belted -- that he noted that the newspapers were burying
34 Symington's investigation into the stockpile scandals -- and I'm sure they were scandals _:... on about page 13, one column at the bottom and he said, 11 You know, God help us if these had been our Administration 's er.rors or scandals and we had people in the Administration involvct1 in it. When you get Billy Sol Estes, who is not in the Administration, exploiting laws, etc., all the front page is a criticism of Democrats. If these people had been Democrats we'd have been murdered. 11 Did he discuss that? EAM: Yes, frequently. You know how he could get irritated with certain things and he was irritated with the fact that as these Symington hearings progressed and as substantial disclosures were being made about contracts negotiated during the preceding Administration, profits made by companies where substantial stock ownership was held by members of the Cabinet of the preceding Administration, as he would scan his newspapers every morn~ng he could scarcely find any reference to these disclosures and nearly every day during the period to which you allude one of the first calls I would get in the morning would be a call from the President asking what was going on and what was happening to this information. There was no explanation for it, I suppose, except the fact that the press thought that their interest would be best served by talking about the Billy Sol Estes case which, incidentally, happened to be going on at that time and we did have a hard time finding any information about the Symington hearings. Daly: I think for a while he thought there was something the matter with Symington.. then he realized it was the - EAM: Yes, I think he had some temporary disappointment with the way those hearings were progressing but he modified and moderated his views and I explained to him that one reason that there wasn't much publicity attached to these hearings was that in order to develop the kind of a record that the Committee had to have 'the hearing s were necessarily rather dull. They were statistical, they dealt with rather exotic commodities that very few people could pronounce, let alone recognize. There was a lot of statistical and dull types of data being fed into the record that probably was not productive of a very attractive headline and when the hearings were all over, I believe he was quite well satisfied with the disclosures and felt that the disclosures at the hearing s had, in fact, confirmed the suspicions that he had when he initiated the Executive Department investigation which began here in this agency in May 1961.
35 Daly: Hovy 1nuch did he -- I would assume he did ask you to give whatever assistance you could reasonably give Symington and to the people up there? EAM: Yes, we worked closely with the Committee for the reason that the records on this program were actually in this agency because this program had been conducted by the historic predecessor of this agency and it was necessary for us to respond to the Committee 1 s request for information that was in our files. We did that on a voluntary basis rather than a subpoenaed basis for two reasons: one, we knew the Committee was entitled to the information and, two, the President wanted them to have it so there was a close. cooperation and relationship with the Committee during that period. Now, another progra:n that I feel was very close to the President and in which he demonstrated a deep personal interest was the Federal Disaster Assistance Program which is created by Public Law 81-875. Under this program, upon the request of the Governor, the Federal Government can respond with assistance to a state and local community that has suffered the ravages of a major natural disaster. This program is not a program where the Federal Government steps in every time a storm strikes a community but it is responsive to that situation that occurs 20 to 25 times a year in the states and territories of the United States where the dimensions of the storm and the disaster are beyond the capability of the states and local governments to deal effectively with it and the Governor, under the law, makes a formal request to the President for the declaration of a major disaster and then a whole series of responsive Federal actions ensue. Now, one of the many responsibilities of the Office of Emergency Planning is to administer the Federal Disaster Act program for the President. I have a Natural Disaster Division within the agency, and we have natural disaster specialists in the 8 regional offices of this agency that are scattered around the country. When a Presidential request was received by Pre.sident Kennedy that reque9t would be referred by him to me for investigation and recommendation. Usually, our people would be at the scene -- ahead --
36 Daly: This is an automatic referral? EAM: That is an automatic referral provided by the regulations of the law. Usually, when a serious storm threatens, our people proceed immediately to the scene and they are actually on the scene and working with the Governor of that particular State at the time his formal request to the President comes forward. That is usually received in telegraphic form and is referred routinely_ by the White House to us. I make the investigation and then a recommendation to the President whether he should declare the particular area a major disaster area under the law. That meant that when my recommendation went forward to him he made a specific written finding which he communicated back to me and, here again, the history of each of the major disasters declared by President Kennedy will be included in the archives of the Library and copies of all of his correspondence with me on this subject will be available there. But, more important than the purely technical aspects of the law, the President was very interested in this program because it was a unique instance. As President of the United States, he was responding directly to the human and personal needs of individuals who had a problem. Of course, people whose homes had been devastated by floods or whose properties have been eliminated by tornadoes or typhoons are in a situation of grave need at that time and this alertness of Presidential response and the fact that the President and the White House and the Executive Office of the President are interested in their problem was intriguing to the President. He followed most of these disasters very closely. I will not take time here to chronicle all of them that occurred but there were some unusual ones during his Administration. One that I think of specifically was the chlorine barge disaster that occurred in 1961 and which came to Federal and White House attention in September of 1962. At that time, a barge travelling on the Mississippi River near Natchez, Mississippi, sunk carrying four chlorine cylinders that contained more chlorine gas than was used, I guess, in the modern history of warfare. This presented a tremendous hazard to the citizen~ of that area because the chlorine cylinders sunk in the deep Mississippi at that point would eventually rupture and that gas would eventually escape. We didn't know when it would escape but fortunately, it had not escaped up to the point that the problem came to our attention. But we knew that at some unknown
37 time in the future this gas would be released. If the gas was released, and if there had not been adequate precautions taken in the populated areas surrounding this hazard, it was estim~ted by the Public Health Service that there wo.uld be up to 80, 000 casualties with as many as 40, 000 fatalities. Now this had the potential of being the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. When this came to my attention it was immediately determined that something had to be done. I discussed it with the President as soon as I learned of it and in his typical fashion he grasped the nature of the problem immediately and said, "Do whatever has to be done. 11 Daly: EAM: Daly: This was a personal discussion? This was a personal discussion. About what date? EAM: That would have been in early September 1962 and so a lot of things happened subsequent to that -- again these events will be recorded in the archives of the Library, but the most significant thing about it was, contemporaneously with our working on this problem with the State of Mississippi and the State of Louisiana, the President was also having some substantial difficulties with Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi about the admission of a colored student to Old Miss. You will recall -- and the chronicles of history will record-- all of the actions that took place in connection with that incident. But while on the one hand and at the very moment that the Executive forces of Mississippi were resisting Federal intervention in the problem at Old Miss., contemporaneously with that, the Federal Government responding through the same President who was concerned with the Old Miss problem, was doing everything within his power to help the citizens of Mississippi, and specifically of Natchez, in the elimination of this tremendous hazard of the sunken chlorine barge cylinders. I went down to Mississippi at the President 1 s request and had a rather interesting meeting with Governor Ross Barnett on the chlorine barge problem at practically the same time that he was avoiding service of a Federal summons in connection with the other problem. So while the press never really dramatized the significance of these two incidents that were taking place at the same time, I think it was..
38 a very significant thing that you had in the same state -- you had a tremendous resistance to Federal actions on the one hand and actually practically on their hands and knees asking for Presidential and Federal assistance on the other. Daly: Did the President ever comment on that? EAM: Oh yes, the President was acutely aware of that and I reported to him on all of my meetings. The Corps of Engineers, the Public Health Service, the Red Cross and other Departments of and related to Government did a magnificent job in the elimination of this chlorine barge hazard and the day that the fourth cylinder was successfully raised, I was called from a special communications capability that was created at the site of this hazard and advised that the hazard had been eliminated. I went across the street --my office then was in the Old State Army-Navy Building -- I immediately went across the street to the President's office and reported to him that the hazard had been finally and effectively eliminated without any casualties or loss of life and he was very grateful and interested in that as he was interested, as I said, in all of these problems. Daly: Did he have any conversations with Governor Barnett on this particular problem? EAM: No, he did not have any personal conversations -- I was his sole emissary on this. I might conclude this session with just one other reference because to me it is a memorable one. In this same natural disaster program which interested him during his whole Administration, I believe that his last official, Presidential act as President of the United States taken here in Washington involved this same Federal Disaster Assistance program. Specifically, on the forenoon of November 21st, 1963, as he was preparing to leave for his trip to Texas, the helicopter was actually in position on the White House lawn preparatory to taking him out to Andrews and I received a call from him in my office asking me if I could stop by. I knew what his schedule was for departure and I knew that he was about to leave so I hurried to his office and he reported to
39 me that he had had a call from Governor Phil Hoff of Vermont and that Gov. Hoff was requesting Federal assistance in connection with a drought di:saster that was affecting his state. The dairy industry of his state was suffering very badly because of the fact that the ponds from which the dairy herds draw their water had all gone dry as a consequence of this unusually extended drought and there was something that had to be done. The President said and I recall his words, that "Phil Hoff had called and they have some kind of a serious disaster problem up there. I would like you to go up there tomorrow, meet with the Governor, and investigate the situation and see what we can do and I will talk with you about it when I come back. 11 With that, he walked out of the doors of the Presidential office onto the porch and toward the helicopter and departed Washington. I know of no other official Presidential action that might have been taken between then and the time of lift-off. On November 22, early in the morning, I took a small jet in the President~al fleet and went up to Vermont and met with Governor Hoff and I was actually enroute back from that Presidential mission when I received word of his assassination in Texas. June 4, 1964 This is Charles Daly, continuing our conversation with Ed McDermott, Director of OEP, here in his office. Ed, we were last talking about November 22. Let's continue this Vermont thing -- what your duties were -- your actions -- on the 2 2nd. EAM: As I was commenting in our last discussion, when I arrived back from the trip to Vermont at the President! s request on the morning of the 22nd, upon landing at Andrews AFB I saw my driver, as the plane taxied to a stop, driving the car rather rapidly toward the place where the plane was coming to a stop. This was a sort of unusual action, and we opened the door of the plane and my 'driver got out of the car and told me that the President had been shot and that was the first information -- that was about 1:25 or 1 : 30 p.m., Washington time, that I had of the occurrence in Dallas because no information had reached us on the plane. In fact, it had just occurred, because the driver heard it on the radio as he was approaching Andrews. There was this feeling of disbelief that everyone shared when they heard the news; -- no feeling at that time that it was as serious as it proved to