Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frank StantonFrank Stanton
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 755

no, come back in and sit down.” I sat down, and he was on the phone giving somebody hell for having leaked the story that the night before he had offered the Secretary of Agriculture post to a congressman, I believe, or maybe a governor, in Iowa. Somebody, in the excitement of the event, had told somebody who told somebody else and it was in the morning paper. I walked in just after he was aware of the fact it was in the paper. That led him into saying, “I don't know anybody in Agriculture. Do you have any suggestions?,” says he. Did I know anybody? Of course not. It was a big joke, and I kept waiting for him to get into what he wanted to talk about.

What he wanted to talk about -- He said: “You know a lot of people who are coming along in business and in various parts of our society, can you give me names of people who would be good for the Cabinet?” Then, he said: “Sitting in the chair where you're sitting, last Saturday afternoon I interviewed somebody that, I guess, you don't know. I never knew him, his name is McNa-Something.” I said: “McNamara.” “Yes,” he said. “Do you know him?” I said: “Yes, I do, he's president of Ford Motor.”

“How long have you known him?” I told him. “Do you think he'd make a good man for Defense?” He's asking me. Now, that would never happen with Johnson. He knew. He had done what he said: “I have taken them to the woodshed, I know what they know and what they don't know.” And he wasn't appointing anybody he didn't know. Jack Kennedy didn't know half the people he appointed. Now, he had good advisors and that's what you have to have, but Dean Rusk he didn't know. He asked me to go to Dean Rusk and tell him about USIA, because Dean Rusk didn't know that USIA didn't report to him. Rusk was very confused about that. He said the President had told him I was going to come talk to him about this, at the President's suggestion. The President didn't know. He said: “Go over and





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help