Discover Our Collections


  • Collection > LBJ Library Oral Histories (remove)
  • Type > Text (remove)
  • Contributor > Califano, Joseph A., 1931- (remove)

51 results

Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 6 (VI), 10/17/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • [James] Meredith into the University of Mississippi, Walker appeared on the campus and was, from the reports we got down there, extremely inflammatory, and was picked up one night--the second night of rioting, I think, I can't remember which. But in any
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 42 (XLII), 2/14/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • was working on that. [Robert] Solow is then a young professor, just a hot-shot MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] guy that Eckstein brought along and so was Lester Thurow. He's listed--he was the rapporteur of the group whether he was the night we
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 11 (XI), 10/28/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • and the Attorney General had some ideas is my recollection. Nick read from this memo, basically, that I had prepared. He knew what was in it and went through this reorganization. I mean, blood left the Vice President's face. It was the end of his role in civil
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 9 (IX), 9/22/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • was Wayne Morse. At the end of the day Pearson called me and said, "Didn't you read my column this morning?" I said, "Yes, I read it." He said, "Didn't you appreciate it?" I said, "Well, yes. But it really wasn't true. It was Morse that did that." He said
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 2 (II), 5/27/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • course in economics that anyone could ever have, and that was from the Council of Economic Advisers. They had prepared papers; they had done a big study of steel the year before. I used to read that stuff at night, or early in the morning. But most of all
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 60 (LX), 1/17/1990, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • [NAID 24617781] More on LBJ Library oral histories: http://discoverlbj.org/exhibits/show/loh/oh Califano -- LX -- 2 We then, with all kinds of variations, basically--on the next night I sent him a cable which indicated that we had nine options
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 8 (VIII), 9/21/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • would literally write it himself, often staying up half the night to do it. And then he'd have tremendous reactions when it would be totally rewritten as you might expect anything to be done. In contrast, when they'd ask McNamara to write a speech
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 59 (LIX), 1/16/1990, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • be striking that very night--Thursday, March 30--and the railroad unions were free to strike on that Friday night. I guess the railroads then in their own way got some injunction that prevented the railroad strike from taking place from a small union. We got
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 32 (XXXII), 7/12/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • night so I don't think--I doubt if we ever stayed overnight. I mean even going to California, we went, I remember going to California and we went to Los Angeles. I don't know which year we did that or what trip that was in. G: I think it was 1966. C
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 45 (XLV), 5/23/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • against the whole bill, that'll get the guys on the committee mad as hell at them and we'll get a stronger bill. Let them go." The other thing that struck me about this day was that night. I believe this was the night because Gusty's was the restaurant. I
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 12 (XII), 10/29/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • didn't want to be the floor manager. Finally, after a time, we talked Peter Rodino into being the floor manager. But Johnson's commitment to that, if you want an example of it, I remember the night King was shot. I was in the White House. He [President
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 61 (LXI), 1/19/1990, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • that. B: July 18? C: Yes, but I think the night of the seventeenth-- G: Yes, it must have been the seventeenth. C: He got on the phone immediately. But what I can't really remember is--I guess there are no papers, but I know Morse, [George] Meany
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 43 (XLIII), 3/28/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • . [Reading a memo] "Mike and Joe Califano visited Senator Ribicoff separately. Last night the Senator called Joe Bowman and told him that LBJ Presidential Library http://www.lbjlibrary.org ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT Lyndon B. Johnson Library Oral Histories
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 37 (XXXVII), 11/14/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • York Times. We should get that story. I came into a meeting in the White House that morning and I had not read the Times, or at least I hadn't read that story, and walked into this meeting the President was having with a group of mayors in the Cabinet
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 36 (XXXVI), 9/21/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • , Ackley, Connor, [Cyrus] Vance, I guess, Katzenbach. (Inaudible) it goes on from two-thirty in the afternoon all through the day, on and off through the evening until eleven-thirty at night by my book. The President says, "Look, we can't swear that we're
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 18 (XVIII), 1/6/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • , "They're on television every night. They're on the evening news. Washington is--[Robert] McNamara and [Cyrus] Vance and [Roswell] Gilpatric and you and [Dean] Rusk--are all working and you read the New York Times and the Washington Post. The country
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 24 (XXIV), 3/16/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • to the message. The President went over--I don't know how many drafts were produced. The President went over many of them. I think he virtually never talked to Goodwin directly. Valenti and I dealt with Goodwin. Moyers. On the night before the State of the Union
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 4 (IV), 8/21/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • was then either Cy [Cyrus] Vance's special assistant or general counsel to the army. That was September 1962. We got into this--I shouldn't say we, I got into it on the Saturday before the Sunday night in which the rioting really hit its peak. Mr. [Robert
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 16 (XVI), 12/16/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • /show/loh/oh Califano -- XVI -- 3 emergency, get the planes ready. And Cross told him everything was ready; they were ready to leave immediately. Then, there ensued over the night a whole series of calls from the President to me, and back and forth
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 44 (XLIV), 3/29/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • and didn't get it, people would read it as no support for the war, and no leadership. [J. Ward] Keener, who was then the head of the [B.F.] Goodrich [Company]--and [William Beverly] Bev Murphy [who] was the head of Campbell's Soup said they were for a tax
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 7 (VII), 6/17/1970, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • argument to the President, or if I laid out his argument, I'd call him up and read what I had written to him. And whenever they felt strongly enough, the President would see them, or I'd suggest that he see him. If there were any exceptions at all
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 55 (LV), 9/13/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • , and as you can see from this memo, the night before we worked out the jurisdictional issues about how to split this up. We would prepare a brief TV clip so the President could read a brief statement--two minutes--what today we'd call a sound bite basically
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 20 (XX), 1/28/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • for devising this grand strategy which Wayne Morse had really devised. But he lays out what a hero I am in this meeting in the Cabinet Room or something. And that night he called me. I didn't call him. That night he called me, he said, "Did you read my column
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 41 (XLI), 1/18/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • ://www.lbjlibrary.org ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT Lyndon B. Johnson Library Oral Histories [NAID 24617781] More on LBJ Library oral histories: http://discoverlbj.org/exhibits/show/loh/oh Califano -- XLI -- 2 the night. There was no, ever, never any, "I'm sorry it's three
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 1 (I), 4/14/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • was down there and he had control over his time and what he could do, he was relaxed most of the time and would work in the morning or late at night. M: You haven't described any of the very widely, supposed at least, abuse that his staff received. Did
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 23 (XXIII), 3/15/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • aircraft. McNamara blew him out of the water by saying, one, we've got plenty of KC-135s and, two, the A-6 was not yet tested. Greene wanted to replace the C-119s which he said did not provide an all-weather capability or a night-time capability. McNamara
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 50 (L), 7/19/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • takes place in Faulkner's Sanctuary.] I don't know if you ever read it, where Popeye's walking down the street with this guy and they're looking at all these black whores and white whores, all kinds, in the windows above. And this guy said, Let's go up
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 14 (XIV), 11/18/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • on Saturday morning, he came to my office and we briefed him. And he was off on a plane Saturday night, and he went to Chile. G: Was Zimmerman knowledgeable about this aspect as well? C: Well, Zimmerman was the guy that convinced us that the only way we
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 15 (XV), 12/15/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • commitment from Martin not to act unilaterally in the future? C: He did try to get Martin to agree not to act, to give us notice of any action he wanted to take and also not to act without all the facts. But that also has to be read against the context
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 40 (XL), 12/21/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • start to look at these papers, and now I look--you look at these papers, for sure going up there in 1966 with a State of the Union Message that I can tell you, I remember that night, [it] just blew their minds. A dozen or so brand-new programs. Nobody
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 57 (LVII), 12/12/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • of all, this time, there was no circulation of the State of the Union to the cabinet. They had to come to my office to read it on the day before. That was the first time they saw it. And I went through with cabinet officer by cabinet officer with them
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 58 (LVIII), 12/13/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • : He froze you out. C: Froze me out. And then he called me in one night and handed me this document and he said, "This isn't clear. This really needs to be spruced up and straightened out. Go to work on it. I want a clean draft tonight or tomorrow
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 35 (XXXV), 9/20/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • thinking about Kintner. Here's Kintner having a staff meeting on all the minutiae of. . . . Okay. Now. That night, the agreement is reached, the President comes over, tells the press just before ten [o'clock] that there is an agreement, but he wanted to go
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 38 (XXXVIII), 11/15/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • around the table in my office--we were actually rewriting the brief in my office, and I called Thurgood Marshall and read it to him and got his approval. G: And Ramsey Clark did approve at this point? C: Ramsey Clark acceded, I think it would be fair
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 39 (XXXIX), 12/20/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • the three things I mentioned. I sent the President a memo on it and he exploded all over the memo. I read this here, [he wrote] "No, hell, no," but I mean if you look at the original of this you can see the pencil breaking as he was writing. G
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 54 (LIV), 9/11/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • of the Union stuff, these stories? B: I'll check. C: Because they're important stories. This is the [Washington] Post, I guess: "There with an agenda rivaling the original Great Society program in scope, President Johnson last night laid before Congress
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 5 (V), 9/12/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • to think about it. You just tell Weaver to resign," which I didn't do that day or that night, whatever it was. The next day we talked about it some more and the President said--and there was some merit to this at least in the thinking of the people
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 19 (XIX), 1/27/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • : Okay. C: I called out there. G: Did you learn about it from the President or did you read it in the press initially? C: No, I found out about it at 9:45 a.m. on the fifteenth of October. This is interesting. They don't even have the President
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 26 (XXVI), 4/18/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • costs for planning to give them planning grants and low costs until fiscal 1989. I'm trying to read my handwriting here. I can't . . . . And secondly, telling him how we'd organized HUD. That is not the way HUD got organized because the Community Action
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 13 (XIII), 11/17/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • announcement, if my recollection is correct, indicated that we would take all bids on the first hundred thousand tons. McNamara and Vance had this meeting on the night of the eighth. On the morning of the ninth we put out the GSA release on the first hundred