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I suggested that Butler be paid pegged to get another job and that I would contribute to his doing this, and that somebody who was a Stevenson man be put in as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. McCloskey was for this. Stevenson was tired and didn't really have any great foresight or feeling about this, nor did Finletter.

Isn't it a customary thing for...

The candidate to have whom he wants, who's strongly for him, as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, yes. And Paul Butler had constantly sniped at Stevenson and had not been cooperative from August on, or even before that, although initially he had been for him, and to leave him there in charge of the mechanics of power meant that Stevenson, who had taken the bother to run twice and who could have had a lot to say about who was to be nominated and really control the nomination, by letting Paul Butler continue, he let the strings of power full onto the hands of the Kennedys, who made use of it. Stevenson in the end really had nothing but his own law office and his own talent to help him exercise any power.

Finletter had somehow prevailed on him that because he had the nomination twice he shouldn't make any effort in the future. But still he was the leader of the party and should have had the mechanics of the organization in his hands and been able to direct it. I thought this was a terrible failure and I said so that morning, and I was willing to put up money to see that