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cabinet -- but he said to me, “Well, there's no question about what the Vice President will do. He'll debate. You've got to remember he was a debating champion at Wittier. And there's no question about the fact that he'll debate.” And later Dick told me, or the Senator told me, the Vice President told me that he had no hesitation because he was a professional debater and he knew the way to do it. And lo and behold to anybody who took him on. This was real frank bravado that I got from Nixon.

Then I went over to see -- I knew -- while I knew what Johnson's position was -- at that time, it was unlikely that he was going to prevail anyway as the nominee. But I went in and, knowing Johnson as I did, and he was then, Majority Leader. And I knew his secretary quite well. So I walked in the office and said was he free? And she said, “Oh, go on, he's only got Senator Kennedy with him.” So I went in and Johnson said, “What do you want?” in his Texas style. And he said, “You know Jack,” And I spoke to him. And he said, “What do you want to talk to me about?” And I said, “Good, I'm glad I got both of you here because I want to really talk to you about Section 315 and Temporary Resolution 307. And I'm trying to line up votes and I'm getting questions about whether you will debate if you have the opportunity to debate.” And Johnson said, “Why don't you ask Jack?” And Jack said yes he would. And Johnson said, well, he didn't know what he was going to do, or something like that. But Kennedy was flat out yes, he would. So I was woven pretty closely into the fabric of that campaign. And I don't know what this was leading up to now, where I was but --

I believe I was still with Kennedy at Georgetown when this interruption in my story came about. Because Jack was quite outspoken that he would support the lifting of Section 315 so that he could debate. And that never came to pass. And then in the campaign of '64, or before Kennedy was assassinated, I had already gotten Pastore to agree, on the strength of Kennedy's conversation with Pastore, that he would support the legislation, I had gotten