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He said oh, he didn't know for sure whether he really wanted to do it. It seemed like a very tough thing, and he was interested that I thought he could make it.

I said, “I think you can make it if you decide to make it.” And he left.

Time passed. I went to Europe the last week of July, and about the last week of July I think Johnson indicated that he did not want any Cabinet member, which ruled Bobby Kennedy out. He did not want Bobby Kennedy, but one way of not offending people who liked Bobby Kennedy or the Kennedys was to say he didn't want anybody in the Cabinet to run.

Which ruled out Rusk and McNamara and everybody else.

Yes, and Stevenson and Shriver. Well, this evidently rocked Bobby and he decided that he would look more carefully into the whole business of running from New York State. He made some kind of a survey with his brother-in-law to see how he would fare against Keating in a poll. It looked as if he'd be pretty good actually. Well, by the time I got to the south of France, Steve Smith was calling me up to ask me if I would come out for him, if I would make a statement with I think five other people. One was Roswell Kilpatrick