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  • Contributor > Califano, Joseph A., 1931- (remove)
  • Series > Transcripts of LBJ Library Oral Histories (remove)

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Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 37 (XXXVII), 11/14/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • opposed the Penn-Central merger. (Long pause) In 1964 it would appear that the President had a meeting--this would be July of 1964--with Saunders and [Alfred E.] Perlman who was the other major businessman involved in this. G: President of the New York
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 11 (XI), 10/28/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • . It was regarded more as a source of something that might precipitate violence which, in turn, would turn the clock back. G: Anything else on the signing of the Voting Rights Act? C: I don't have any real recollections of it. I guess I was still so new I
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 27 (XXVII), 4/19/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • was working its way through, Stokely Carmichael is calling the cities for black power; [James] Meredith is shot; Puerto Ricans riot in Chicago. There are black riots in Chicago, Puerto Ricans riots in New York, blacks rioting in Jacksonville, Florida
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 50 (L), 7/19/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • in, no matter how inadequate their plan was [inaudible], because we wanted to give it as much push. It was a very optimistic view of the situation. At that point he also, in classic fashion, said that he wanted daily reports to really put a torch to the Office
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 35 (XXXV), 9/20/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • season matter? C: I think that made us want to deal with it and the fact that it really did hurt, if you will, thinking, writing America. It was a bigger thing to the readers of the New York Times and the newspapers than it was to the average guy
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 60 (LX), 1/17/1990, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • that Levinson memo? Let me just give you what I have in my notes so we don't duplicate all of Levinson's stuff. Taft-Hartley was not appropriate for the Teamsters because the lock-out turned out to be erratic, just a few companies in Chicago or somewhere else
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 32 (XXXII), 7/12/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • mean, I do remember at the University of Chicago, if I can find them, an economist from Northwest[ern University], Robert Eisner, laying into us on the war, but in terms of--you know, I would go around the table. . . . Ah, here's New York. G: You were
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 30 (XXX), 5/18/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • ultimately lower the cost of construction with this new kind of steel. Then, we, this is the first of January. Let me just go back to the thirty-first [of December 1965] because when I look at the Presidential Diary. G: Let's see. C: I've got it right here
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 61 (LXI), 1/19/1990, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • there any trades that you recall? C: No. It was just pure heat. I'm sure I talked to the [New York] Times editorial people, the [Washington] Post. It was a full-court press. G: Patriotism and-- LBJ Presidential Library http://www.lbjlibrary.org ORAL
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 49 (XLIX), 7/18/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • force that Andrews [Air Force Base] had. G: The JetStars? C: The JetStars. And saying that he wanted the cabinet officers using the King Air for short flights instead of wasting all the money it cost to fly a JetStar. So if they had to fly to New York
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 31 (XXXI), 7/11/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • to build something called New Towns in Town here in Washington and this came late in the administration. 1968. Have you come across any of that? B: We came across it (inaudible). G: Yes. C: There's a book on that program I've got somewhere
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 51 (LI), 8/14/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • included is Senator [John] Sparkman's, who urged that the new guidelines, which were tougher in terms of desegregation, requiring that free-choice plans result in desegregation, be held up until after Tuesday, March 1, the primary filing date. The President
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 4 (IV), 8/21/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • , Chicago. My personal experience vis-à-vis Resurrection City was probably gathered mostly out of the August 1963 march-(Interruption) --when [Martin Luther] King made that speech about, "I have a dream." Resurrection City was handled largely through
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 2 (II), 5/27/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • to be something between a young man and eventually a White House special assistant. Where are you from? C: Brooklyn, New York. Born and brought up in Brooklyn. Then to Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, where I graduated in 1952, then to Harvard Law
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 22 (XXII), 2/23/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • . We were not just finishing the New Deal agenda; we were coming in with a whole lot of new ideas, new roles for government. And that was the first couple of years. The last year or so we really were involved in the management of programs and it's
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 36 (XXXVI), 9/21/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • getting telegrams from governors and mayors from the harder-hit cities like New York and Miami, Chicago. Jack Connor wanted to move to support the legislation. Ginsburg wanted to move to support it and base it on stabilization. Larry O'Brien wanted to get
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 14 (XIV), 11/18/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • . Get him." So I went hunting for Joe Zimmerman. All I had was the name. Found him in New York. Got him on the phone. G: I show November 16 in my-- C: No, he came down for a meeting we had on the thirteenth, on a Saturday. G: I see, yes. C: I
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 38 (XXXVIII), 11/15/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • of the New Haven and the proposed Penn Central system which is satisfactory to the New Haven trustees and to the district court, then, unless circumstance of material change, it would be my recommendation the Department of Justice not continue opposition
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 6 (VI), 10/17/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • was the turning point in those hearings for two reasons. One, he was a very incoherent witness and the record of the [John] Stennis hearings will show that. And number two, he slugged a reporter. He hit a reporter on the way out, from the Daily News. F: Who
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 41 (XLI), 1/18/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • clasp; he gave me cigarette lighters. And I ended up walking with my arms full of all these presents, to say goodbye to him. And he then proceeded--I'll have to look at the daily diaries, but [he] constantly called me and they were twelve hours
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 24 (XXIV), 3/16/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • that would pass sometime in 1966 that would need at best a half a year's start-up money in that fiscal year. So the new legislation didn't have a lot of impact on the budget, even something as extraordinary as Model Cities. On drafting the message itself
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 25 (XXV), 3/17/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • . When he ultimately decided to make Nick attorney general--and somewhere I noticed, I've seen the Daily Diary when he had him up to Camp David to give him the last blood test--the question of who was going to be the deputy came up. I never talked to Nick
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 1 (I), 4/14/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • , everybody'd get involved in the sense that he'd call around and he'd say, "Who do you think ought to be on the Supreme Court? Who do you think ought to be the new secretary of commerce?" M: Call around to his staff, you mean? C: My feeling was that you
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 44 (XLIV), 3/29/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • on the Subversive Activities Control Board. We talked about that didn't we? G: Yes. This was Dirksen's man on the-- C: I just noticed before the bipartisan [congressional leadership] meeting he's got, [reading from President's Daily Diary] "Off-the-record Senator
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 46 (XLVI), 5/24/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • beating up on people who were raising their prices. And the President was sensitive to that, and that may have been what ultimately led him to conclude that at least we should make some attempt to deal with this, with the situation in New Jersey
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 12 (XII), 10/29/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • know, we couldn't get passed until Dr. [Martin Luther] King was assassinated. And even if you look at that--I remember proposing it. It's the only time--and I think if you look at the New York Times or something--I was mentioned in the twenty-fourth
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 16 (XVI), 12/16/1987, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • of aluminum that somebody brought me the wire on the power failure in the Northeast, which, if we're right here about times, occurred about five o'clock. I immediately went. It was a total power failure. New York City was knocked out. The LBJ Presidential
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 29 (XXIX), 5/16/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • doing something on New Year's Eve, Friday, December 31--I think it was a Friday--that they thought they could get away with. And it was like surreptitious action, number one. Number two, there was a strong feeling that they were, in fact, taking
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 26 (XXVI), 4/18/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • -- XXVI -- 8 entire new cities. And that ultimately evolved among other things into the "new-town-intown" concept which I guess comes later somewhere. G: And the block grants as well. C: Well, we talked about block grants but I don't think anybody
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 5 (V), 9/12/1969, by Joe B. Frantz and Paige E. Mulhollan (Item)
  • care of all the administrative and technical and legal problems that his lawyers had prepared, and in part of the process of establishing the new department. And as Weaver saw it there were only two alternatives, nothing else possible. Either he became
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 48 (XLVIII), 6/14/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • extending the executive order, or, as I said here, "presidential memo to the departments that would prohibit discrimination in all new housing, financed by any institution, supervised, regulated or insured by the federal government," which we figured would
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 52 (LII), 8/15/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • little success in doing anything about it. I think we talked about it in New Jersey; we tried to do something there to no avail. We also had going at the same--in these times--the labor part of it became very sensitive because we also had going
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 59 (LIX), 1/16/1990, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • attitude toward this type of development? C: Well, you'll recall in January of 1966 in the State of the Union Message he took a shot at [John] Lindsay and the transit strike in New York, indicating that he would propose some kind of legislation
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 20 (XX), 1/28/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • in California, I got desperate calls. He wanted to announce some new weapons systems of one kind of another and we announced the over-the-horizon radar and one other weapon systems from the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento as I recall. Pat Brown and I got
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 23 (XXIII), 3/15/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • ] McNamara for having no new weapons system--I told you the story about the Polaris [mentioned in Interview XX] and how we got the new name? [Bill] Moyers called me and said the President wanted to announce new weapons systems the next day. They were going
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 28 (XXVIII), 4/20/1988, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • . G: The New York Times piece by Bob Semple, why don't you give the background of that, because we never discussed that on tape. C: At some point in 1966, Semple, I think with prompting from Max Frankel, came to me and said, "We'd like to follow
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 53 (LIII), 8/16/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • was periodically covering the White House for the [New York] Times--obviously we gave him a backgrounder story the next day, saying that we were going to make a major push in this area. G: Had the [William Randolph] Hearst [Jr.] series already come out? C: Well
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 54 (LIV), 9/11/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • of that sending out this memo which set tasks and dates for Boyd. (Interruption) You can see how weak the Commerce Department was thinking when you look at Boyd's memo of November 2, 1965, to establish the highway safety program. It's [saying], "Have a new
Oral history transcript, Joseph A. Califano, interview 55 (LV), 9/13/1989, by Michael L. Gillette (Item)
  • --on the first of March. And it's interesting, we had a--I guess it's worth spending just a minute. This was the best way to unfold a new program. It's not related just to highway safety, but the whole transportation program. The night before the message goes up