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There was a period following that that it seemed to me that the tone of the editorials became more supportive of Johnson in '66, the winter of '66, where he was trying to initiate certain peace -- It looked as though he was ready to negotiate. During those periods, were you having conversations, any kind of personal contact with him that led you to believe that he was sincere about these initiatives?

About the peace initiatives?

Yes.

I can't remember any specific conversation on the point that you're making -- there's no use in my trying to pretend that I do, but I think it's almost sure that I might have had some, would have had some conversation of that sort, but I do not remember it distinctly. But I can only tell you that my basic feeling from all this -- I'm trying to reconstruct something thirty years later -- but I sincerely believe that I never thought that Johnson really wanted an all-out war. But, as I said a little while ago, I really believe that Johnson was trapped in his own determination not to be the president who first lost a war in the United States. And that obliterated everything else. I really think Johnson would have liked to have -- He wasn't seeking to be Napoleon at all. I'm sure of that. But he, on the other hand, wasn't seeking to be Robert E. Lee [laughs].

A good line! Just since you brought up the peace movement, I have read through some of the clippings of editorials, including up through '65, '66; and I know that was sort of early in terms of the massive peace movement, but it seems to be a fairly small amount of coverage of the peace movement editorially at that point. Would you speak to that? I