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There were a whole series of -- nothing as severe as that -- but there were a number of things that I found unpleasant in the campaign that pushed me in the other direction. There wasn't anything in the personality of the two men -- you had to go in the direction of Jack Kennedy because he was a bright, up and at it kind of guy. And Dick was a little heavy handed, I always thought on the stuffy side. But I didn't enjoy my relationship with Jack Kennedy in that campaign, and indeed on the 7th of December I think, first week of December, when he was living in Georgetown as the President Elect, I received a call from his secretary asking if I could come down and see him, he would like to talk with me. Well, I picked up all my notes of the things that -- because I had kept copious notes of my difficulties -- and stuffed them in my briefcase and went down to Georgetown to see him, fully prepared to have my head handed to me for the differences that we'd had in the campaign. Now, at this point, I should interrupt to say that the man with whom I'm in business, or was in business, in Florida, the man who died and is giving me my problems today, was a longstanding friend who was the campaign manager on the Kennedy side, and handled all of his radio and television, [J.] Leonard Reinsch. That's R.E.I.N.S.C.H. Leonard had told me, several times during the campaign -- or had told me and had asked me -- to lay off of my hard-nosed position with the Kennedys, because I was going to have my head handed to me if he was elected and it would hurt the company. This obviously told me that there was this kind of talk on the campaign trail. It did not cause me to change my behavior, but it didn't reassure me when I was invited to see him that morning.

I was ushered into a small sitting room in this rather small, Georgetown house. Just the two of us. He was sitting in a chair right opposite me, a phone at his side, on the floor, and I believe when I went in he was on the phone or was on it shortly after I got in. And in the conversation, it was clear that he was deciding who was going to be Secretary of Agriculture.