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They had had conversations with someone from Iowa, I believe someone who had been in the Congress, or who was in Congress. The man had made the cardinal error of saying to the press that he had been talked with by the President-Elect about being in his Cabinet. This caused a lot of repercussions for Kennedy from people in the rural community who didn't want this man. Kennedy was on the phone trying to find somebody else he could name quickly to get that incident behind him. And I was squirming trying to get up and he was motioning me to sit down, because I felt that I was in on something that was very much in the news and I was sitting there saying to myself, “What am I going to do when I get out of here about disclosing this kind of thing?” And I decided that I wouldn't be a pseudo- journalist, I would keep my mouth shut, and especially so as the interview wore on.

He couldn't have been more cordial. Thanked me profusely for having come up with the idea about the debates. Said that if it hadn't been for the debates he doubted he would have been elected. Recalled nothing about the quarrels we had, but did recall the night that I went in to his office right after the debate and so forth. Thanked me, as I say, profusely for things that I didn't deserve any thanks for. They were things that were part of my job. And then said, “I want you to come and be a part of my Administration.” And I wasn't prepared for that at all.

What he wanted me to do was take over USIA. He was so ill-informed about the State Department and USIA that he thought USIA was a part of the State Department and I would be an undersecretary of state as the head of USIA.

Wow.

I had to explain to him that this was a separate agency, that it took advice from the