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New York Senator. Keating had a regular television program and he was a very amusing speaker and an agreeable man. I had had experiences with his voting record in the Senate, and he sometimes would vote against our appropriations bill, although once in a while he voted for us, but every once in a while he would take a straight Republican line and I didn't really feel the need of any more Republicans in the Senate. I felt the need of more people that would support Johnson's domestic program and Johnson generally and I felt sure Johnson was going to win. I just wanted a Democratic Senator instead of being represented by two Republicans, although I like Javits very much, he still sometimes takes the Republican line even though on the whole he's rather liberal. So I started to think of who might win and my mind came very quickly to Bob Kennedy. I spoke to a friend of his, Lem Billings, who was also a friend of President Kennedy's and said something about was there any chance that he was going to run. Lem said, “I don't know anything about it. I think he wants to run for Vice-President.”

I said, “I think he'd do better to run for the Senate. It's not very sure about his running for the Vice-Presidency.”

Maybe a few weeks later I got a message that Bob