where your voters are illiterate or they cannot speak, read, and write the English or Spanish languages you have to haul them like cattle to the polls

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE
LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY
Legal Agreement pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Dudley T . Dougherty
In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States
Code and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I,
James R: Dougherty III of Beeville, Texas, do hereby give, donate and convey
to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the
tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted with
Dudley T . Dougherty on December 27, 1971 in Beeville, Texas, and on
September 17, 1975 in San Antonio, Texas, and prepared for deposit in the
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library . -
.
This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions :
(1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers-as soon
as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library .
(2) The tape recordings shall be available to those researchers who
have access to the transcripts .
(3) I hereby assign to the United States Government all _copyright
I may have in the interview transcripts and tapes .
.
(4) Copies of the transcripts and the tape recordings may be provided
by the Library to researchers upon request .
(5) Copies of the transcripts and tape recordings may be deposited in
or loaned to institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library_
U /11
i Ist of the United tapes
.3 /, / 979
Date
INTERVIEW I
DATE :
December 27, 1971
INTERVIEWEE :
DUDLEY T . DOUGHERTY
INTERVIEWER :
JOE B . FRANTZ
PLACE :
Mr . Dougherty's office in Beeville, Texas
Tape l of 1, Side 1_
F :
Mr . Dougherty, I suppose what we will do is start back at the time
when you came in from the war with the idea of either winning the
peace, or losing the peace, whatever one does when he comes home .
D :
I had helped people close to me that I had met in Paris after the
war was over, and they were devoting their lives to things such
as the practice of international law or consular services--not just
Paris but other places--to work to win the peace .
I came home and I had immediate responsibilities, although I
entered the University of Texas for a little while . I had had a
couple of years there before .
F :
You had lost a brother in the war?
D :
I lost a brother in the war . And the letter came to me--I had written
him a long letter .
F :
You were the sole son then?
D :
It left me the sole son, two sisters, an aging father and mother .
And very large responsibilities that I would take over shortly, I
knew . So I entered again the University of Texas . It has been said
that I wouldn't have lasted there anyway, and maybe that's so, maybe
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 2
it isn't so. We'll never know .
F :
No one can prove anything on that, can they?
D :
We'll never know. But when my brother-in-law was killed in a hunting
accident, that made two deaths in my family--male members--within
a couple of years of one another .
I came back to Beeville, Texas, to learn everything that my
father could teach me about the business . So I went over every
bit of ground of lands that we had bought . I went all over our oil
leases, watched the drilling of various wells in Refugio County
and elsewhere, went torLouisiana, went to West Texas . I devoted
myself to learning at firsthand what I would have to learn .
I had my twenty-second birthday shortly after my Army
discharge, and naturally I'm a young bachelor . And when you have
all the trials and tribulations that young bachelors can, I am sure
you can, if you have to, dig up various scrapes I've been in--all
of that--if you care to do it .
F :
That's not my concern . That's consigned to the past .
D :
But I followed county politics at an intensive level . I wanted the
replacement of the sheriff of Bee County . I thought he had a taste
for blood, and quietly I ran candidates against him and encouraged
opposition to ,.him . That was about my only interest in politics
except to wish that I did not have the immediate responsibility that
I did, [so] that I could run in an election . There was Lloyd Bentsen
who had returned from the war, got himself elected county judge at ,
twenty-six, and then congressman . And I remember when that happened,
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 3
I thought then that I just wished to God that I were free to do that .
F :
Did you begin to build up a fair acquaintance across the state with
politicians?
D :
Not too many, just those that I'd gone to school with . I knew Frank
Oltorf, who was in the legislature at the state level . I went to the
Democratic convention in 1948 in Philadelphia, drove there with a
couple of cousins and watched the nomination of Harry Truman .
F :
Were you still waiting up at three in the morning when he came in
from that train on the siding to get the nomination?
D :
I thought he was in an alley waiting to be notified .
F :
He was right outside .
D :
Then he came in and made the speech and said, "Now, Senator Barkley
and I are going to win this election and make the Republicans like
it ." And I have been a Democrat, though fairly independent--a maverick
Democrat--ever since, because I watched the Texas caucus, and I watched
the bankruptcy of the Dixiecrat movement with old Senator Ed Joe
Hill--was that his name?
F : Yes .
D :
And this poor, tiring Governor [Beauford] Jester . And I had a
proxy that I could use if I wanted to use it, and I did not use it
because Ididn't want to be in a caucus squabble that was already a
foregone conclusion and endless . But I came out of the caucus and
I met some lady I was introduced to in a hotel, a prominent club
woman, and I said, "As far as I'm concerned, I'm for Truman ." And
she later told my cousin how much she admired someone who could come
out and say that, as unpopular as Truman was supposed to be .
I cast my first vote in 1946, and it was for Homer Rainey because
I wanted a change, and then I decided that Rainey would probably have
been bad for Texas--that Jester, who was a Harvard man but he never
put it in the papers, was probably the better choice . But I wanted
change . I wanted change then . Those were my opinions then .
F :
I voted for Rainey myself in 1946 as much out of the conviction that
you needed a protest vote as I did for any kind of affirmative
belief .
D :
I did it as a
protest .
I did it as a protest, but T was not a
Raineyite . But I knew old Professor Frank Dobie very well . He had
come up to our offices . My father did his legal work .
F :
He came from down in here, didn't he?
D :
His mother lived here, and he'd come to see his mother . My father
handled his legal work for his ranch in Live Oak County . And it's
interesting to know, maybe perhaps, that at a local level he was
an extremely conservative man . He fought every road, every increase
in taxes by the school district, what have you .
F :
Did your father take more than just a citizen's interest in
politics?
D :
My father, who was fifty-three when I was born, told me that in 1896
when he cast his first vote that he saw no reason to vote for
W . J . [William Jennings] Bryan because W . J . Bryan came to a convention,
stormed it with an emotional speech, -and he didn't think all
of his magic formula of 16 to 1 silver to gold, so he cast his first
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 4
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 5
vote for the splinter Democrat, whose name I believe was Potter
Palmer, or something like that . And then greatly because he lost
and he saw he had been on a losing side and that he was a young,
struggling attorney, he didn't take immediate interest in politics,
whether Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, and all of that .
He
remained a Democrat from then on though .
But in the 1920s when the Democratic Party in Bee County was
taken over by the three Ks,--the Ku Klux Klan--they had the sheriffs,
the judges ; Catholic people weren't called up for jury service--he
organized a local party called the Citizens Party .
That was a
little before my time .
The Citizens Party took over control of Bee
County, and they held control until about 1932. Then were elected
in the November elections, the various judges, sheriffs, what have you .
Then in 1932 or so, he let the Citizens Party drop, .but that's how he
fought the three Ks .
F :
Your Uncle Dudley was fairly active in politics, wasn't he?
D :
He ran for the legislature in 1916 and lost. Dudley Tarlton . He
lived here for a while and then he moved to Corpus Christi . He was
district attorney here, too ; that's another thing .
F :
Did you get active in the primary in 1943 between Stevenson and
Johnson, or did you sit that out?
D :
I did not . I asked my father how he was voting, and he said, "I'm
voting for Coke Stevenson ." I didn't ask him why .
F :
Did you know either candidate personally at that time?
D :
I met Lyndon Johnson in 1948, because Frank Oltorf called me and
asked me to come and meet him . His helicopter was landing in Beeville
at the fairgrounds .
F :
Did he lose his hat?
D :
That I don't recall .
But I came down . I asked my father,
"You're for the other man .
Do you want me to go down there and
meet him or not?" He said, "Yes, of course, I know him . He used
to come in my office many years ago with Dick Kleberg ." So I went
down and I introduced myself and told him I was Judge Dougherty's
son . He said in a very loud voice, "Thank your father for his
support ."
F :
Did he know he didn't have it?
D :
He knew he didn't have it . I came back and I told my father the
story, and he said, "Well, I wonder why he said that . He knows
good and well that I'm for Stevenson ." I remember his speech then :
he talked about the Depression--ten .cent oil, crops that couldn't be
picked, that theme .
I had also met George Peddy, who had been, I believe, military
governor of Rome, and he had some understanding and whose integrity
was unquestionable . I heard my father talk about George .
My
mother voted for George Peddy the first time, and Uncle Dudley
voted for George Peddy the first time . I heard my father talking
about George Peddy's speeches and all of that, and he said, "He's
the best man running, but he makes the worst speeches that I've
ever heard ." Maybe I made worse speeches, I don't know .
F :
We won't run any analyses on that .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 6
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 7
D :
(Laughter) I was given the text of these speeches, and they read
well, but it was, I suppose, the manner of delivery .
F :
I know when Alf Landon used to get up, you must remember the newsreels,
when Landon ran against Roosevelt .
D :
I took an avid interest in that . I was only eleven or twelve, but
I followed . I had two very new anti-New Deal aunts, and I had my father
who was already beginning to get unhappy about the New Deal, but he
was a friend of Garner's and Tom Connally--very close to Tom
Connally . I remember he played solitaire during most of the election
day . But Roosevelt, as he told me then, was already saying, "economic
royalists," what have you, and he said, "That's because he's scared
of Huey Long, Huey Long is 'Share the Wealth .' Roosevelt, they
tell me, is a good poker player, knows politics . It's excellent
politics, but it's damaging the country, and in the development of
this Tom O'Connor field for a little while, not very long ."
Harold Ickes had control of the oil industry, and we had our
plans to develop a field . We sent them to Washington . They were
for a period of over seven, eight, ten years, and he had his hundred
wells or so that he could drill . That creates new jobs, a good
field with a depression going on, and then they send back from
Washington permission to drill four wells and the Charles Evans
Hughes Supreme Court throws that out . So we have state allowables
and state prorations .
I talked to one German once, a German capitalist, and he said :
"State prorations are socialism" and all that . And he said, "Yes,
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 8
but we're happy with it ." That was years later .,
In early 1937, and I realize that the Hughes court threw out
things they never should have thrown out, like AAA and anything
coming up, but in 1937 when I was thirteen, my father broke then with
Roosevelt and the New Deal, not over high taxes, but over increasing
the court to fifteen from nine to pack it and get his own men on
there, And I think [Hugo] Black, who possibly made a good
justice--his ;record will have to be studied--he had his three K
background, and my father had fought the three Ks . That was that,
as far as he was concerned . There was no third term for him or
anything else .
But I followed politics very avidly as a child . And I remember
when I first heard of Lyndon Johnson in 1937, when the Democratic
Party had split. It had split over Barkley Harrison 39 to 38, over
who was for the court packing and who was against . Lyndon ran on
Roosevelt 100 per cent, right or wrong, "Whatever he's for, I'm for .
What he's against, I'm against ." Roosevelt was highly popular . But
I felt that was wrong then
F :
How did your Uncle Dudley - become Johnson's lawyer in that 1948
contest? Had he done work for him previously?
D :
All he knew of Lyndon Johnson was that he'd go to state conventions
where one was in Corpus Christi, and Lyndon would put his arm around
Clara Driscoll and put his arm around Dudley Tarlton and flatter them .
But he became the attorney because he got called at four o'clock in the
morning by Lyndon Johnson himself . He said, "There's a contest in
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 9
Alice that is developing . Will you go over there and take the
case?"
He had voted for George Peddy first and then for Johnson over
Stevenson . When I asked him why he voted for Johnson over
Stevenson, he said, "I like a fellow that speaks to you every day
and just not some of the time . When Stevenson sees me and he
approves of what I'm doing, he says,'Good morning,' and when he
doesn't, he doesn't ." And that was the only reason he gave .
F :
Do you think Johnson would have chosen him because he knew this
area?
D :
He chose him because he was the finest attorney in South Texas
for that kind of work . He had a long record of won-lost cases
[causes] . And because he was not entirely happy with my running
against Johnson, he came in and told me, "Look, they called me at
four in the morning," when I went in . He took his son and his
daughter with him . The son drove him over to Alice . He had a
heart condition .
F :
He lived in Corpus then .
D :
He lived in Corpus . He got there at nine . When he got there at nine,
as he told me, "I saw a situation that was obviously fraudulent,
just prima-facie"--I don't know Latin, whatever it's called--"and I
didn't know what to say or what to do, so I talked for an hour or
so, just filibustering . But then finally the idea came to me . And
the idea was not to pinpoint this one box, but to break the entire
election down and just see who won it and who lost it . And they were
unwilling to do that ." And he said, "At four in the afternoon, Abe
F :
Yes, Whitfield Davidson .
I announced--
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 0
Fortas flew in and a whole bunch of other people, and they didn't know
what in the devil to do about it because Coke Stevenson and Kellis
Dibrell had already taken it to the federal court on the First
Amendment ." The right to vote, what have you . And he said, "I told
them what to do . I told Abe Fortas to go to the friendliest
Supreme Court justice you can find, and stop it right now.
Then
we will eventually know who won as the election is broken down,-when
we find out, whether the Senate determines it, or what have you ."
I think the thing got to Davidson's court in Fort Worth .
D :
And my father, who was an excellent attorney, agreed with Whitfield
Davidson . Whitfield Davidson said the election ought to be run over
again, the primary . And while Uncle Dudley was talking- .to me, after
F :
There seemed to be just evidence of bad or fraudulent voting on
both sides, didn't it?
D :
Well, the only evidence that did come out, out on the surface, was
Box 13, though Coke Stevenson's second cousin did make a readjustment
of thirty-seven votes--that was never gone into .
F :
Where was Coke Stevenson's cousin?
D :
I don't know where he was . But my father agreed with Davidson .
Davidson said that the primary ought to be rerun . Well, when
Uncle Dudley was talking to me in the terminology like Brezhnev,
Kosygin, Dubcek--frank--and I told him that, he said, "Where is the
precedent for rerunning a primary? There is none ." When I
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 1
told him, I said, "Well, for the moment, let's talk about things
that we can agree on," because I wasn't going to tell him that I
would not use Box 13 as an issue . He came up--he was trying a
case up here--and then walked into my office and said, "I think
you're doing well, but your issues should be so-on, so-on, so-on .
I heard your talkathon at Houston, and you only made one mistake,
as far as I'm concerned . You said you were running for the vacancy,
that the last senator was W . Lee O'Daniel and Johnson is truly
senator ."
And I think I said
only because of a Democratic instead
of a Republican Congres's . They confused it with the Chavez-Hurley,
and that would have made two-Democrats thrown out and that would
have been too thin . So it never came up, and Johnson took his
place .
F :
Did you happen to go to the state convention that year, and you went
to the national?
D :
I went to the national . That was enough of conventions for me . But
he got his certified, wasn't it, by one vote?
F :
By one vote there, it was a
D :
One changing vote . The man
F :
Did your uncle ever comment
D : No .
F :
Or on the strangulation down in the state prison?
D : Smithwick?
F : Yes .
D : No .
squeaker all the way .
later committed suicide, I heard .
on the Mason case over at Alice?
F :
So you know just about as much about that as I do, that is, just
what you read in the papers .
D :
I knew people that knew Mason . And I knew people who knew Smithwick .
F :
What did they think of them?
D :
My uncle, Francis Dougherty, said that he knew Smithwick well . And
it's only the name Smithwick that is English ; he was Latin American
or Chicano or whatever it's called now .
F :
Some Anglo got in there somewhere, long enough to give a name .
D :
Yes . And that :it was not within the philosophy of Smithwick to
commit suicide . But he knew Smithwick well . Now he wrote Coke
Stevenson and said he wanted .to talk to him, and Coke Stevenson
delayed going over . Then he was strangled in his cell . I thought
I would do something about it, so I made one statement printed in
the San Antonio Light , "$5,000 Reward for Information about the
Death of Sam Smithwick ." And one of the attorneys working for me,
or election people, Kellis Dibrell, called me on the phone and said,
"My God, you don't know what that's done! We've found Smithwick .
He's in a South Presa Street asylum, has been shanghaied there ."
So Colonel Sterling, who knew Smithwick too, and my wife went
up there, and they saw the man and his name was Smithwick, but he
was not Sam Smithwick .
F :
Just curious all the way .
What kind of fellow was Mason?
D :
The story I got was that he was brought down there by Parr himself,
then there was a quarrel and he turned against Parr .
F :
Did you ever know Parr?
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 2
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 3
D :
Oh, sure . I'd seen him at parties in Corpus Christi when I was a
young bachelor, so-called, I'd go down with my sister. He was
married to Ducky--Thelma Duckworth Parr . I'd seen him at the Dragon
Grill .
F :
Did he have as complete control of Duval County as he reputedly
had?
D :
Let's say that,his organization controlled him as much as he controlled
them . Their livings were dependent on Parr . Parr, if he'd wanted
to, couldn't have cut his losses, taken his seven million dollars
and moved to the Riviera and got out of it . He just could not do
it .
If you have your , own district attorney, your own county judge, your
own constables, school boards--
F :
He was a prisoner of the place, in a sense .
D :
As much as he was dictator and tyrant. He could be a tyrant .
F :
Do you get the feeling from your long association with Texas
politics in that period that Parr really didn't belong to any statewide
candidate, but just sort of picked and chose according to what
he thought he could get? In other words, he'd have gone for Coke
Stevenson if he'd thought Coke was--
D :
I think he did when he ran for lieutenant governor . I think Coke
took the votes .
F :
So the question of whom he delivered for this time, "What have you
done for me lately?" in a sense .
D :
You've got to understand where you have a highly illiterate or
ignorant--and I'm not trying to hurt people's feelings--but where
your voters are illiterate or they cannot speak, read, and write
the English or Spanish languages, which is true to this day, you
have to haul them like cattle to the polls, or it was done the last
time I ran for office .
You go back to the beginning . That started with old Senator
Archer Parr, who ran Duval County . Then he had a brother here,
Dr . Parr, an old doctor with a beard .
F :
Archer did .
D :
Senator Archer Parr, not to be confused with the county judge who
has the same name or is. he still sheriff in Duval? A fraternity
brother of mine . Old Senator Archer Parr ran things, and then he
was a friend of the King-Klebergs .
Feudalism persisted,: .and :it=
persists to this day, not only feudalism but peonage . And it's
nobody's fault, but it has got to be stopped .
Old Senator Parr stood up for his friends, the Klebergs, over
a road through to the King Ranch . And Bob Kleberg was called and
said, "You'll beat your friend Senator Parr if you tell him that he
has to fight the road ." But out of loyalty and the likes, Senator
Parr was defeated .
And George Parr,for one reason or another, went to prison on
an income tax rap . He spent about a year, and then he got out .
And somebody, according to Sam Houston Johnson, who has had his ups
and downs--and I'll quote him because I don't think he'd mind
being quoted on this--when he talked to me confidentially, he:'d=say,
"Don't say so . Somebody told George Parr that Dick Kleberg would
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 4
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 5
not help him win a pardon, but that wasn't so . Because I went,
either with my brother or alone, with Dick Kleberg to Homer Cummings,
the attorney general, and asked for it ." But based on that
information, George Parr took all of his votes, but his own personal
vote, to [John] Lyle . Now, I'm not arguing that the change didn't
have to be made there . Because young Kleberg had a draft deferment,
and Lyle was on the Anzio Beachhead . That was the issue . But he
lost Duval and the Parrs because of info given to George Parr that
was inaccurate, according to Sam Houston, who I see from time to
time .
F :
While we're on Sam Houston, do you feel that Sam Houston played
much of a role in his brother's success, or has he kind of been-
D :
Yarborough, on the floor of the Senate, said that he was mainly
responsible for his early success, and I'm inclined to agree with
him .
F :
My feelings in my meetings with Sam Houston, and there are not too
many, have been that he's a pretty shrewd boy .
D :
Got a good mind .
F :
And I've wondered just how much he has been in there figuring, and
how much Lyndon Johnson has listened to him .
D :
Lyndon Johnson listened to him when I ran for the Senate, because
all of Lyndon's advice was to come down here to Texas, or a great
deal of Lyndon's advice was to come down here to Texas immediately
and start campaigning . I'd been on television twenty-six hours in
Houston . And Sam Houston told me--and again I don't think I'm
violating a confidence--"Lyndon said, 'Should I go down there,
should I denounce him?
He has called me every name under
the sun, and they tell me I've got to do something!"' And he said,
"I told him, 'no, Lyndon .
If you go down there and start campaigning,
you'll lose two hundred thousand votes . You're the majority leader'"--
or was it minority?
F :
He became majority leader after that election . He was minority
leader .
D :
"Then you're subject to the criticism of ignoring your work . You can
say this is just a young man, a scion with illusions--that kind of
thing ."
Now I had my tapes of my Houston talkathon .
It was all in my
office . I never played . :them . But I had them, and they burned .
F :
What a loss!
D :
With every question asked .
F :
That would have been invaluable .
D :
Now I'm misquoted, and they took their own tapes and changed it
around--put a psychiatrist on to listen to it ; they did all kinds
of things .
F :
Did they take it down themselves?
D :
But they changed it around . Mr . Salayo [?], who is now my ranch
foreman, but who was sixteen years in the legislature, helped me .
Just told me the other day, "Listen, Dudley, I was . against exposing
yourself on TV, but I heard every word of it, and I must say you
did a beautiful job ." I don-'.t think I contradicted myself too many
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 6
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 7
times . I made some mistakes . I got too far out in favor of McCarthy,
and I did do what every major candidate did that year, including
Yarborough . Yarborough said, "I'm against the forcible co-mingling
of races, et cetera ." And they asked me :if'I'm for or against
segregation, and I didn't say, "As a student of history, I know it
will change ." I said, "Yes, I'm for segregation . Segregation is
in the nature of your--"
F :
There wasn't a man running for office in 1954 who spoke-out--
D :
Except Doug Crouch . But I belabored the point . They started
arguing with me, and maybe I got impatient . And then I finally
said--Vin [?], who was in charge of it, this was experimental,
took me aside for just a second--
F :
Was that Bob Vin?
D :
Bob Vin . And he had run Francis Cherry, who was elected governor
of Arkansas, and he had elected Smathers senator .
Then he failed
to elect Lan [?] Smith over McCarthy . He said, "Listen, Dudley,
you've gone too far out with your Negroes . You're doing a fine
job, but with the Negroes, you're ruining all the hope ." And so
I modified it as tactfully as I could without contradicting myself .
And then with McCarthy, I didn't say that we should start
lining people up against a wall and shooting them, something like
that . But I did say that, "We have to be on our guard so Houston
isn't hydrogen-bombed through security loyalty errors . We've been
neglectful and he's alerting the country . And in alerting the
country, he's doing a good job ."
F :
You didn't see Johnson from the time he came down here in 1943 and
said that he appreciated your father's support until--
D :
Saw him in 1953 .
F :
In 1953 when he came back .
D : Yes .
F :
By that time then, you had run for the legislature .
D :
And was a member of the legislature .
F :
In 1952 .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 8
D :
In 1952 I ran . A legislator was getting out, and a lot of people
asked me . In fact, I've never run for an office that I wasn't
asked to run for . Even against Johnson in 1953, I .was in Cuero, Texas .
There was an old man in a car that was a respected member of the
community, Thornton Hamilton was his name--he's dead--and he said,
"Dudley, why don't you consider running against Lyndon Johnson?
The country needs leadership desperately ." He didn't say I could
win . But I had a letter or so, and I got a telephone call from my
cousin Pat Tenant [?], and he said, "If you're running for Congress,
Dudley--" Did you know Pat Tenant?
F :
Yes, I knew Pat .
D :
He's a second cousin of mine .
He got on the telephone and said,
"Dudley, if you'll run for Congress, and I think you should, I'll
come over there and drink beer with different people and talk to
them and work for you ." I said, "I have a curious letter on my
desk, asking me to run against Lyndon Johnson ." He said, "Don't
do that, for God's sake! You'll find out that some of the people
that may ask you to run against Lyndon Johnson are evenly secretly
for Johnson themselves, and trying to find out how people stand ."
I'm losing my trend of thought a little bit . Do you want to
ask me another question?
F :
Had you had any contact with Johnson by mail or phone prior to this
September 1953 meeting?
D :
One letter, asking for drought relief .
F :
That was from you to him?
D :
From me to him . And then the form letter back .
F :
Putting it off on Eisenhower and not--
D :
Yes . That was some clerk's brilliant idea .
F :
You did this not as a private citizen, but as a state legislator
from this district?
D :
As a legislator .
F :
What did your district involve at that time--just Bee County?
D :
No . Bee, Karnes, Wilson . I got elected . I carried Bee and Karnes .
"°F :
Did you think you were going to make a career out of politics at
the time? Or did you realize that you were taking a long shot when
you gave up running for re-election for the state Senate to try
for the U .S . Senate?
D :
My advice was state senator or Congress, then wait eight years until
1960 when Johnson would then either be presidential or vice
presidential candidate, then run for the Senate . And that was my
thinking for a long time .
Now just why I got into it, back in the legislature there was a
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 1 9
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 20
lobbyist and he'd come around every day, and I'd ask who he
represented . I asked Spacek who I sat next to who did he represent .
And he says, "Oh, the big boys ." He was a little deaf and had a
hearing aid . And his secretary said, "You know, he's my godfather ."
I said, "Isn't that curious!" And then he came right at the end of
the session, and he said, "I've been asked to go to work for Hubert
Hudson--you've heard of Hubert Hudson ." Hubert Hudson was running
for Congress, and I moved to the Rio Grande Valley and worked for
him .
"But watching the legislature, I think you're the most
promising member, and I would like to go to work for you . Can you
do it?" And I said, "Do you have references?" And he said, "Yes,
Bob Harris," whom I knew--he was a cotton man--"and Judge Townes of
Houston," whom I knew.
I said, "Well, I don't know, Joe, whether I can or can=t or
shouldn't ." He says, "Where do you want to go?" I said, "Probably
the Congress . The action is in Washington, it's not here ." And he
said, "Well, Johnny Lyle is a good friend of mine," and so on .
I
said, :"I didn't say I was running for it or not running for it . . .
just eventually.
I'll try you experimentally ." And I never did
deduct him . I could have got a tax deduction and put him in as
picking up oil and gas leases, and he could have picked up some oil
and gas leases and been good at it . His name was Joe Garcia, finally
committed suicide .
But he'd come around and around . The man's dead now, but sometimes
he'd be annoying, be a nuisance, interrupt you when you were
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 2 1
doing things . Other times I was glad to talk to him . He'd tell me
about each little vote, it was a Swedish vote, or a Mason, or anti-Mason
vote, this, that, the other .
F : Is there a Catholic vote in this area?
D : Oh, sure . South Texas . Insofar as you can call a vote a vote .
When I ran for the legislature, there was a Baptist minister . I'm
still a Catholic, and I've been from the day I was born, and I will
be to the day I die . Very few people know it, but I've been knighted--
Knight of Malta--and that kind of thing, , Knight of the Holy Sepulchre .
But I don't go around wearing it--
F : In your lapel .
D : But there was a Baptist minister when I ran for the legislature, and
he went around to other Baptist ministers ; he'd tell them, "I want
you to vote for Dougherty ." They'd say, "He's a Catholic ." "But
he's the better man for the job than Holstein [?] . I know
him well ." Then they'd say, "Well, he's promising . How far do'you
want a Catholic to attain office? He'll go further ." This minister,
who's still around, he runs an office, his answer was : "One,of the
finest young men I've ever known in my life, and I'm not a bit
worried ."
And he took me a little later to a Baptist picnic, and they made
the talk--some of the hardest shells you ever heard of . But I
grasped their mentality, I understand them now .
F : Another slice of Americana .
D : And I picked up--there's a Lutheran vote . This old man that I beat
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 2 2
for the legislature, Holstein, who was an old Ferguson precinct,
worker--thought he knew everything--wouldn't speak to-m6 - for
two years after I
beat him .
But finally he came in my office and
he said, "Listen, Dougherty, I know you know government because I
read your reports back in Austin . And you not only get your Catholic
vote in Karnes County, you get the Lutheran vote . I don't know how
in the devil you get the Lutheran vote, but you do ."
F :
Did Senator Johnson as a rising young senator pay much attention
to the Texas Legislature during that period you were there? Did
he call people and suggest what they might do for him?
D :
I went to Stockdale in 1953-to make a speech for their watermelon
festival . It was a hot July day .
So I decided the best thing I
could do was not make a speech, and just say, "Stockdale's a wonderful
town," and so-on and so-on . I spoke for about three minutes and
sat down, and then I asked Garcia what was the effect of it . He
said, "They were damned glad you did that because they didn't want
to stand in the hot sun and hear a long speech ."
But Johnson sent a telegram to me . He was very careful to
send telegrams . But I think he had Jake Pickle or somebody like
that tend to matters in the legislature .
F :
Come around and make his wants known . Did he ever call you personally
while you were in the legislature .
D : 140 .
F :
Did you ever indicate to him that you might support him in 1954?
D :
Only in that letter asking for drought relief .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 23
prestige abroad?" And his answer, "I have not been abroad, but I'll
tell you, I have no use for Fifth Amendment communists," whatever
amendment--loyalty questions . "And I think McCarthy is doing -ore
good than harm ."
F : Tell me about the September 1953 appearance he made-here .
D : Excellent tightrope walking .
F : Was this something he set up, was he invited to come, or what?
D : He went all over the state . He went a terrific pace .
F : Just kind of keeping his fences mended .
D : Yes, because he knew there was the 1954 election, :and he had the .
job in Washington, and clean packed Beeville, too [?] .
F : Where did you meet? Was the meeting here in the courthouse?
D : In the courthouse .
F : Outside?
D : No . Inside the county judge's offices .
F : What was it--an invited group?
D : Just the word passed around town, "Lyndon Johnson is here and he
will be glad to tai k ."
F : Did you have a full house?
D : Pretty full .
F : Were people pretty free with their questions?
D : Yes .
F : What-kind of questions were they asking him?
D : Well, I told you about the question he was asked by the idealist
or student [about] Senator McCarthy, "Don't you think he's harming our
F :
Was there any reaction to this, or did people feel very strongly
about McCarthy in 1954 here in Beeville?
D :
Here in town?
F : Yes .
D :
He was of great news value . He was perfect copy, and there was
always a story that McCarthy had done this, said that, so they read
about him as they would a celebrity .
F :
Did you ask any questions?
D :
I asked about the Bricker Amendment .
F :
What did Johnson say to that?
D :
That he was for something that later became the George Amendment .
He went on a little bit, and then I asked again, "Are you
sure they can't slip something through the Senate that's against the
Constitution?" And he said, "Oh, no, careful screening ."
F :
So that the Bricker Amendment wasn't anything to fear as far as he
was concerned .
D :
The Bricker Amendment failed by one vote short of two-thirds . And
like a friend of Joe Kennedy's asked Joe Kennedy why did Jack
Kennedy vote his way . And he said, ."Public opinion
wouldn't stand for it ." By that he meant public opinion and the
Democratic Party, not Massachusetts .
In Massachusetts they were
probably two-to-one for it . But I think the vote was 60 to 31 in
its favor, missing by one vote .
F :
Sometime between September 1953 and February 1954 when you announced,
you changed your mind about running . What induced you to change
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 24
your mind? Was it a combination of things?
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 2 5
D :
You mean about not running for what office?
F :
As late as September 1953, I presume you might have supported Johnson..
D :
After the conversation, I felt that I could either stay very quiet
or oppose him .
F :
Did you try to get anyone else to run?
D : No .
F :
Did you talk to people very widely about running, or did you keep it
more or less within your immediate circle?
D :
I didn't even talk .
F :
Did you try to set up any kind of statewide organization for either
financing or publicity?
D :
No . With a million dollars and a year's preparation, I :could have
run extremely well, as proved by Tower six years later .
F :
Did you have real hope of winning, or were you mainly trying to
highlight the issues?
D :
I thought he should be opposed . I went up to dew York City and I
went to the Harvard Club . There was a meeting--and I don't like
labels--but a meeting of highly intelligent reactionaries, if you
want to call them that, although one of them was R . R . Young, there's
a book about him, R . R . Young, Wall Street Popul ist, but he would
have been termed reactionary . And .i t was Mr . Bouvier, the fatherin-
law of Senator Kennedy, and it was Frank Knopt, who had a string
of newspapers, and it was Burton K. Wheeler, whose name still meant something
to me . And then some younger men, whose names I've forgotten .
And then two or three of them talked, and I didn't agree entirely
with them . Then one of them asked me to talk, "You're a member
of the legislature of Texas--what do you think?" Some of them
didn't like Jews and all that thing that I didn't agree with them
about . So I confined what I had to say to the folly of the Yalta-
Potsdam agreements, where the Manchurian railroad, the Kurile Islands,
the mass deportation of populations, the Baltic States, and so on .
Then I sat down, and they all cheered, and Railroad Young came
up to me and said, "Congratulations, young man, you make me proud
to be a Texan ." And then he later sent me a book with his name in
it, "Don't bother to acknowledge .
R . R . Young ."
When he took
his life, I was very sad, because I thought there was much greatness
in him .
F :
He was an unusual man, particularly in railroading .
D :
But in any field he chose .
F :
Did the success of your meeting up there--
D :
Made me feel that I could get financing from another group that
was not too closely associated with Texan politics .
F :
Was it much trouble setting up this talkathon?
D :
No, they came to me . You see, it was big news . There was supposed
to be no opponent to Johnson, and then they threw in a wealthy
millionaire rancher running against Johnson and the battle of
giants .
It got to the Miami papers, it got to the Minnesota papers,
it went world-wide over AP, INS, everywhere. So when Vin [?] came with
his idea, I thought I'd try it . My first impulse was to be very,
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 2 6
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 27
very silent, and just wait, but George Morri11,-one of my
attorneys, said, "Dudley, you just can't sit here . You
shouldn't have got in it, but since you're in it, let me set up a
meeting ."
So I went to Austin, and I met the usual Johnson enemies,
and some of them were invited and didn't come, some of them were
there . Hardy Hollers said he might come ; Senator Clint Small was
there . I had some relatives present .
F :
Dan Moody?
D :
Dan Moody, I talked to
I knew him anyway, and I flew from San
Antonio to Dallas with him--he and I flew from San Antonio to
Dallas . I talked to him for an hour, and he supported me . But I
met that group .
F :
Do you have any insight as to why Mildred bloody is so bitterly
anti-Johnson?
D :
Is Mildred the widow?
F :
Yes . She went beyond Dan in her distaste for Johnson, still does .
D :
I would have to know Mildred Moody .
I knew Dan, and I know Dan, Jr .,
let me put it that way .
F :
Did you know Nancy, incidentally?
D :
I knew Hubert, and I think I've met Nancy .
F :
Did you get any reaction at all out of the Johnson's camp when you
announced? Were they caught by surprise?
D :
Completely, and scared out of their wits, as Stuart Symington
told me--I met him at Los Angeles, I went over there and had breakfast
with him in 1960, .not at the convention but at a pre-convention big
dinner where they had Symington and Jack Kennedy, Johnson, Pat
Brown . And Symington told me, "I don't know you Dudley, but I know
one thing . You had Lyndon worried sick ." And as Sam Houston told
me later, "We knew you had the money .
We knew you had the ability .
We were scared to death ."
F :
You knew the people around Johnson then pretty well .
D :
Well, like Corridors to Power , C . P . Snow, and all that, I would
be able to reach him . Now, there was a modus vivendi and axis
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 28
between Allan Shivers and Lyndon Johnson, and when I got into it,
I wasn't too aware of it . So there was a man who flew--and since
he's a friend I won't name him--he flew down to Beeville in his plane,
and he was closer to Shivers than he was to Johnson, but he knew
both . He said, "Listen, Dudley, you'll spend three hundred thousand of
your own money . You'll lose . I know my politics .
I learned it from
Ferguson . And in those days we took the Katy railroad and divided
it . On the east side of the Katy railroad we actively campaigned ;
on the west we depended on a friend . That's not entirely true now,
but you know little of East Texas where the big vote is . And you
just can't do it ." He said, "I'm a family friend . I have oil and
gas interests in Refugio County ; partly my living is where your
living is . And if you don't want to stay behind the scenes, which
I really think you ought to do--that's the way your father did
things--if you want to get out actively in politics as an immediate
state senatorship and in five years"--he said five years--"Allan and so on
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 29
are looking for young men .
They think you have promise .
Allan likes
you and adores your wife ." My wife had been his receptionist . She
was a college girl with an English degree, and she got a job with
Allan .
F :
She went to the University?
D :
Went to the University .
F :
Who was she?
D :
Her name was Calhoun . But she was a Bluebonnet Belle there and had
her picture on the Cactus in 1948 or 1949, missed Phi Beta Kappa by
a couple of points--bright,' girl .
To finish this, I still haven't finished the question, but I
don't want to filibuster . To go on with this, he said, "Lyndon will
come to my ranch and he will meet you .
He regrets the brevity of
his conversation with you at the courthouse . Now, you've organized
this committee"--whatever it was, Americanism, I had taken the
MacArthur side and said the truce, which didn't prove to be true,
with North Korea wouldn't last and would spread to Indo-China,
which was true . But he said, "With this committee you can gracefully
yet out, say you have to work .for the committee . But Lyndon will
come to my ranch ; he'll fly in, and you talk to him ." And he said,
"I know my politics .
You can get money, and I know you're not
interested in money, and I wouldn't think much of you if you were .
But you can get everything for this area that your area needs,
and it needs a lot, I know . Take the state senatorship, and then
the governorship is a very definite possibility ."
I told that to somebody years later out of the Kennedy organization,
and he said, "I call that a good offer ." But I didn't do
it because way down, way down, way down deep in my, I guess you'd
call my--everybody's Anglo-Saxon WASP-Chicano, what have you, I
guess you'd call me Anglo-Irish by descent, and anybody who is
descended, no matter how corrupt they may seem to be or how wrong,
right at the bottom there is a little bit of an idealist, and I
could not do it . In addition to that, suppose I had been state
senator and then gone on to the governorship, if you could get a
Catholic governor elected and possibly you could .
But suppose I
had just told them [when] they wanted one thing, and I'd tell them,
"No, you're wrong . We're going to do it my way ." Then I'd be
through .
F :
Did you get the feeling that either Johnson or Shivers sent this man
to you, or was he acting on his own?
D :
Oh he had been sent . He had left Allan Shivers, and he had talked
on the telephone to Lyndon .
F :
Were there any other attempts to get you out of the race? I'm sure
you, among other things, you upset the whole rhythm of the--
D :
The whole plan, yes . There was more to the conversation than that .
He started out, "You're hurting the oil industry . That's your
living, the depletion allowance . And you're hurting Allan Shivers .
Then you'll have no chance . You'll spend three hundred thousand dollars ."
I don't think I spent quite that much, but I spent a lot of money that
I'll never see again . But I was thirty and I'm glad I did it .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 3 0
F :
Was much made of your youth by the opposition?
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 3 1
D :
The answer was obvious . There was LaFollette . Who were the others?
LaFollette was a success . Rush D .-Holt of West Virginia, who
was a failure, but he was thirty as a senator .
F :
There were the founding fathers .
D :
The founding fathers, Jefferson--who else .
F :
Did they run a fairly clean campaign, or did they try to work you
over pretty hard?
D :
By rumor, and particularly in Dallas I'd pick up little anonymous
typewritten [notes], always left in my box--that kind of thing . But
all one can do is ignore that and go on .
F :
It wasn't more than just kind of the ordinary--
D :
It got a little out of the ordinary, there's no question, and it's
done to everybody; There's no question that from time to time they
either had an operator on the payroll or the telephones tapped and
that sort of thing . But that's all right .
I've long ago forgotten
that .
F :
Did you try very assiduously to raise money on the outside?
D :
I went to Houston, and the first man I saw was Jesse Jones .
Jesse Jones came down from the Lamar .
He was very friendly, sat
at his old desk, said, "I'm glad to see a young man try, we need it .
But Lyndon has a good record, and I'm with Lyndon this year . But
someday, son, you'll run for another office and you'll win ." He
was very courteous . I expected a hard, tight-fisted banker, but he
was not . He was a gentleman . And I later sent my wife over there
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 3 2
to talk to him because she can be very charming, and I thought she
might get him, but we couldn't .
And then I went to see Bob Smith . And Bob Smith changed the
subject . He said, "We've got to do something about the problem of
Duval County, and it has got to be done now . I know a great deal
about Duval County . I lived there," or, "I worked there," or something
. And then no reply .
Then I left Roy Cullen a note ; he wasn't in . He wrote me
back . "Senator Johnson has promised me that he will vote right, and
I can't help you ." I didn't make copies of the letter and send it
all around the state, as Coke told me to do, because the ol,d man
was a generous old man, for all his faults . But I did show it to
Roy Harrington, who was the head of AFL-CIO at the time .. I said,
"See, he tells you one thing and he
And let's see who else I saw .
i n Houston, and then I even went to
no respect for him since that day, because I thought maybe the old
man's trying to do something . But he said, "I'm sorry . I'm leaving
for Europe . I take no interest in politics ." That was his answer
to me .
F :
That doesn't quite square with his record, does it?
D : No .
F :
Did you contact Stevenson, or did he volunteer his--
D :
Coke Stevenson?
F : Yes .
tells Cullen another ."
I interviewed a lot of people
see H . L . Hunt . And I've had
D :
No, I went over to see him . I went over to see him, told him
about my experiences with Johnson . I told him that one uncle,
Dudley Tarlton, had been with Johnson against him, but that I
thought Johnson should be opposed, and why I was doing so . And he
said, "Yes, young man, you can make an intelligent race, but let
me tell you something . Get on something people can understand .
They don't understand what you're talking about .
Talk about Box 13 .
They understand Box 13 . It's not vengenace on my part, but they
will understand it ."
F :
Things like Bricker and McCarthy and so forth are too far off to the
average voter .
D :
Correct . Besides, Joe McCarthy and Lyndon had their own understanding .
Joe McCarthy left to make his speech in San Jacinto, and he , said,
"Lyndon, tell me . Do you want me for or against you? Which will
help you?" And they laughed .
And when some of my enthusiastic
following approached McCarthy, I wasn't there, but asked him to help
me, and he said, "Johnson's done nothing to me . Why should I interfere?"
But it was only after my conversation with Dan Moody, and by
this time I was running out of money . Now my mother kept large
sums of money in the bank, but I was not going to her .
F :
But you surely can eat it up in a hurry . You can eat up that kind
of money in a hurry .
D :
Well, I'd eaten up seventy-five to one hundred thousand dollars, fiftyseven
thousand dollars on the talkathon . And then my family helped .
My sister sent me five thousand dollars--both sisters . My mother
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 33
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 34
maybe another five thousand dollars . I told them this, because somebody
had come to them and told them, "You can't contribute by the Hatch Act ."
I said that if it does apply to primaries, which has never been, you
organize your committees and all that, but they didn't quite understand,
and I wasn't going to argue with them too much . I told them
the only federal intervention in primaries was this Nixon case, so
Negroes could vote in Democratic primaries in 1944 .
F :
You've got the problem in this state of being a large one and a very
populous one . It's not quite true, but there's a belief that you
almost have to run for state office twice before you can get it
the first time . Did you get the feeling at the conclusion of this
senatorial campaign that you had had enough statewide advertising
that if you wanted to come back in a future race you would stand
up pretty well, that this in a sense was a form of paid advertising
for [that]?
D :
It was .
But what it does to the candidate!
I don't see how Yarborough
stood it to go up and around the state time after time .
F :
I don't see how he looks so young at his age on that sort of business .
Did this pretty much work into a contest between you and Johnson, or
did the other state contests you feel have any effect?
D :
Everything got absorbed in Yarborough-Shivers . I had no East Texas
poll watchers, but thanks to some friends, I was able to go through
East Texas and even get a fairly good vote . But basically my
candidacy, as I said earlier, was regional . But I carried Jim Wells
County, including Box 13, which shows what people thought of what
went on there . But public memory is very short . I tried to get
it in positive terms . I had it up in Dallas by the underpass in the
interest of honest elections . But after my talk with Moody on the
plane between San Antonio and Dallas, I decided that corruption was
a better issue than Box 13, and I tried to make my issue corruption .
F :
You're talking about national corruption now .
D :
No . Johnson . KTBC advertising . Moody's speech that was printed
in Look .
F :
I don't remember that .
D :
It was printed in Look . He said it quite openly . I don't-know
whether it belongs to the ages for me to quote or not ; I sent out
a press dispatch .
F :
We can find it . Did Johnson ever answer any of these charges, or
did he pretty well ignore you?
D :
His next advice, as Sam told me, was ignore . But he came down, I
think, for a couple of graduations and things like that .
F :
But basically he would not take you on in a sort of confrontation?
D :
He had contradictory advice, and finally he decided not to come
down .
I wanted him to come down . I wanted him to come down very
much, and he very nearly came down .
F :
Did the polls show--I don't recall--a sliding voting trend in your
favor, or against you, or did they show anything, any change at all
from the time you first became an opponent?
D :
I was so active that I didn't look at polls . And when you get a poll,
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 35
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 36
you want to know where the poll was taken .
F :
That was the next thing I wondered . Did you get the feeling that
something like a Belden Poll--?
D :
I think he had a Belden in Nacogdoches, and I had been to Nacogdoches,
and I continued the talkathon in Nacogdoches on radio, not on
television--they had no television . And I'd get these questions,
"Why don't you fight?" In East Texas they like you to call the
opponent every name under the sun .
F :
They like Ralph Yarborough's style of waving your arms . ;(Laughter)
D :
But I could only be myself .
F :
Did you get the feeling that Johnson was getting national help, or
was he pretty well running a quiet enough campaign that it didn't
show?
D :
Oh, he had the use of the frank . There were constant letters . They
were like a C .O .D . telegram .
You'd get ' a franked letter from .a
congressman or a senator .
F :
That gives the incumbent an advantage, doesn't it?
D :
There were constant letters . I cut him off the reports on the radio .
F : How?
D :
I got called, and they said, "Johnson is saying this and that and
the other ." And I said, "When a man will tell, by Texas law,"--and
I read the Texas Election Code, or.some of it--"one other person
that hers a candidate for re=election, he becomes .a candidate .
According to Drew Pearson, he told Fulbright in 1952 that he couldn't
actively fully support or go all out for Adlai Stevenson in Texas
radios .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 37
because he was afraid it would hurt his re-election chances in 1954 .
It was printed in the paper and he didn't deny it, so he is a
candidate ." So he quickly had to announce, and he got off the
F : Did the Republicans, who didn't amount to much in those days in
Texas except -in presidential elections, show any great
interest or try to assist you in this?
D : I had a letter from Orville Bullington of Wichita Falls that would
have taken about an hour for me to reply to, promising--there was a
large Republican vote in Democratic primaries . But I did not reply
to it because I did not have the time to reply to it . I had to be
here, there, and the other place .
Incidentally, the most prescient thing that I did was on
Houston TV . I was asked a question, "What about American intervention
to save the brave boys of Dien Bien Phu?" And I said, "Under no
circumstances should we send an army into Indochina . The terrain
is similar to Guadalcanal, which took six months to conquer, and was
a thousand miles square . No land war in Asia ." And they tried to
argue, "This is isolationism . Aren't you interested?" And I said,
"No ." And then I finally took the offensive on it . I had it, I think,
in the Houston Post . If you're further interested, I have a scrapbook
in Austin that you can look at .
F : Where is it?
D : Tommy Gee . Do you know Tommy Gee?
F : I know the name .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 38
D : He has it in his office . I'll call you later .
But I took .the offensive . I said, "Is Senator Johnson in favor
of colonial wars," which in my opinion is partly the Vietnam war .
F : You could virtually dig that out and run with it now, couldn't you?
D : Yes, it's there, it's in a scrapbook .
F : Right . Do I understand that the Houston Post pretty well cut you
cold on this?
D : According to Vin . ` They had the big story . And then Oveta Culp
Hobby, according to the story, and I respect her--I do respect her--
she cut the story cold .' It was done in all the Houston papers .
F : Any insight why, because after all, she was a Republican cabinet
officer .
D : Oh, she has been for Roosevelt ; she's on the winning side . Her idea,
and I think she thinks it's good, was, "They're the outs . They're
the ins ." The only time she was out was under Kennedy . Henry Catto,
who is a friend of mine, and Jessica, I think had free access -
to the Johnson White House . I saw them in Washington shortly before
Nixon took over and Johnson was there, and they'd been to the White
House . Now he's ambassador to El Salvador . I haven't read the book,
but it's Corridors of Power, C. P . Snow--Ed Harte gave it to me . She
was director of the WACS, she went to England with Mrs . Roosevelt .
F : Did you and Johnson cross paths at all during the campaign?
D : No .
F : After the campaign was over, did you hear anything out of him?
D : I sent him a telegram . And then I got an inquiry, "Where is the
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 3 9
telegram," because I released it to the press . So I wrote him a
letter and said, "That's part of the frustrations of my recent
campaign against you . The telegram didn't get to the proper place,
but here it the telegram." And I said, "I don't carry grudges to
the next day," or something like that . Then he asked me to come
up to the Johnson City place .
F :
Was this pretty shortly afterwards?
D :
Yes, almost immediately afterwards . I started to do it, and then
I decided I couldn't do it .
F :
I've had people who were very close, particularly in local and
regional areas, tell me that they seem to think Johnson pays more
attention to his opponents than he does to his friends sometimes .
Did that become your experience? Did Johnson try to get you back
on his side?
D :
In 1959 he came to my ranch at my invitation and brought Lady Bird,
brought Congressman [John] Young .
F :
Why was he invited?
D :
Because he was in town, and what are you supposed to do! You're
wrong either way ; you're criticized .
F :
He's still a U .S . senator . You were talking about going out to the
ranch .
D :
Yes, he came . And we drank Scotch and sodas . Lady Bird first tried
to mix the Scotch and sodas, and he says, "That's not strong enough ."
And,,-he sent Easterling Davis, who is my driver, back and he made it
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 40
like Johnson wanted it . But he had a bunch of people with him, and
I only got to talk to him alone just a minute, and he did the talking
when I was alone . He just put his arm around me and said, "You and
I are going to be friends from now on, boy," or something like that .
F :
Did he give you any insight as to his 1960 plans?
D :
Oh, he was running for president then!
That was obvious .
F :
You mentioned earlier that you went to Los Angeles .
D : Yes .
F :
Did you go in an official capacity, or did you just go to be there?
D :
I went at the invitation of Jimmy !Meredith, who was a Symington
manager . He told me, "This-is all going to be decided by Pennsylvania .
If you want to help Stuart, fine ."
F :
Had you known Symington previously?
D :
No . I knew Jimmy Meredith . But he said, "We'll see how Pennsylvania
goes, and if it goes Kennedy, school's out ."
F :
Was there hope in the Symington camp, I -know there was in the
Johnson camp, that if they could stop Kennedy on the first ballot,
then maybe they could build from there?
D :
Deadlock Kennedy-Johnson, and then either Stevenson or Symington
would move in . In my opinion, I don't know Stevenson, but I know a
lady who went with Borden Stevenson and knew Adlai, and she really
dated Borden to talk to Adlai ; She said--
F :
I guess Borden would have been some kin to Pat Tenant [?], wouldn't
he, in a distant way?
D :
They said so . And Pat Tenant was all [for] Senator Taft and what have
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 41
you . And in spite of the divorce, Adlai came over to the house,
according to Pat Tenant, and visited them, and the relationship
was very distant . But Pat Tenant was so fascinated with Adlai
Stevenson that he became a liberal .
F :
I haven't seen that side of Pat .
D :
No, when I first knew Pat, I went to the University of Texas with
him.
F :
I knew him in those days .
D :
Well, the first time was 1942, and then he .went back in 1946 or 1947 .
And he was all "What a brilliant man Byrd is, how fortunate we are
to have Taft ." Those were his original opinions . We learn as we
go on . And I won't say that's the sole reason, but he was fascinated
with Adlai Stevenson, so he must have had a very brilliant
mind . Whether he would have made a good president or not, we'll
never know .
Now I was this much of a Democrat that in 1952 I got a call
from a man named Roger Stevens, who's in charge of the Kennedy
Memorial . I had already contributed to the Democratic campaign,
though I wasn't sure I could vote for Adlai Stevenson, through
Steven Mitchell [?] . And he said, "We', re trying to get Stevenson on
the television and radio to answer McCarthy's speech that he made
about him in Chicago, and we don't know what he's going to say ."
And of course, as Alben Barkley said, "The thunder came and the
lightning," but it never had the damaging information. I think he said
that he helped fly [Palmiro] Togliatti to Italy, but that was under
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 42
instructions, and maybe Togliatti, an Italian citizen, belonged in
Italy--I don't know . But I remember McCarthy's speech, "If I had
a club, I'd make a good American out of him ."
So I sent some money, and I'm not made out of money . In fact,
if you want to know the truth, I'm always scrimping and short for
cash . So I sent some money, I think a couple of thousand dollars,
up to Cleveland so Stevenson could answer McCarthy, to help . I did
do that much for the Democrats that year .
F :
Did the Johnson people solicit you for campaign funds in 1960?
D :
They sent Warren Woodward to see me . So without saying whether I
was for or against Stevenson, I paid Warren Woodward some money,
and it was by check, and it went through . I don't know exactly
the laws on contributions for potential nominees for president,
but it went through . And I told Lyndon on the telephone
when he first called me, "I'm going to run for
Congress this year ." Now why I didn't win Congress, I think in
retrospect is that I just didn't work . It's my fault, not his
fault, even though Cliff Carter came down there and interfered .
F :
You had the feeling though that if there was any help in that,
though, it went to John Young rather than to you?
D :
It did go to John Young . And Lyndon told me over the phone that
he'd be absolutely neutral .
F :
Do you think he was?
D :
Let him answer that .
F :
We'll do that . Incidentally, did he have any prior connection with
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 43
John Young?
D : Lyndon?
F : Yes .
D :
He came to my house with him. But anyway, I was not an effective
campaigner . And Yarborough told me over the telephone, he said,
"John Young frustrates and fights my Padre Island National Sea
shore . Just take that and you can win ." But I had so much contradictory
advice that I didn't do it . Now, open beaches made Bob
Eckhardt . I think I could have won if I had had the intelligence
to take the national seashore of Padre Island and make it my issue .
But they branded me "right wing extremist," and all that, and I
could show people that I could pick up labor unions and that I'm no
right wing extremist, though one goes through phases . I've been a
liberal, I've been a middle-of'the-roader, I've been a conservative
at various times in my life . The time, the place, the people
concerned .
F :
With your South Texas and Catholic background, did you get caught
up at all in these "Viva Kennedy" clubs, or were you too busy
running your own race?
D :
Oh, in 1960 I voted for Kennedy .
F :
After the primary did you actively campaign? After your congressional
primary?
D :
Oh, I went in Bee County at the local level to one Democratic rally .
F :
Did you ever have any personal contact with Kennedy?
D : Sure .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 44
F : What was it?
D : I had lunch with him at the White House .
F : Why?
D : Pierre Salinger called me on the telephone and said, "Do you want
to come? Be there tomorrow at noon, and it's four p .m . now here ."
F : It's kind of hard to get from here to there .
D : So I took the "Red-Eye Special," got to Washington with my wife .
And in spite of the fact that I had sold La Prensa and I was out of
it, I found myself with a group of Texas newspaper men . They said,
"You're representing La Prensa ." So I said, "Fine ." So I called
the owner, and I said, "Is it all right for me to represent La
Prensa ?" I wanted everything done right . And he said, "Yes ."
F : Do you think that Kennedy thought you had real influence with the
whole, what we now call, Chicano element in Texas?
D : No, I don't think that was the reason . I had met Joe Kennedy, the
father .
F : Was that that time that Ted Dealey got up and made his statement?
D : Yes .
F : How did that go over?
D : Not very well .
F : How-did it go over with the Texas group?
D : It did not go over .
F : Just a breach of manners, wasn't it?
D : More than that . Ted Dealey sent me a telegram and said, "Reply
what you think of it collect ." So I sent him an eight-page telegram
back collect . I remember one of the things that I said is that
"There are very few opportunities that the President gets to hear
a conservative point of view from your point of view . You ruined
it all ."
F :
Did you get any reply from Dealey?
D :
No . But I said, "A man that has to worry about what General
De Gaulle is doing and what [Canadian Prime Minister John]
Diefenbaker is doing, the unemployment situation, that sort of
thing--he doesn't want to hear your riding Caroline's tricycle
while we're looking for a man on horseback ." Incidentally, Dealey
read it from a typewritten [copy] .
F :
He came prepared .
D :
He came prepared . He had a couple of Bloody Marys, but'.- it wasn't
that .
F :
Was the rest of the Texas delegation there rather embarrassed?
D :
Colonel Horner from the Light , as right-wing and as conservative a .
man as ever walked the face of the earth, I saw his reply, which
was, "You don't do that with a president ."
I remember, after I left there, and I asked Kennedy a couple
of questions--in fact, three . One was economic for Texas . I
said, "President Kennedy, the liquids, solids, and gases, you've
got the Federal Power Commission to regulate pipelines . Very soon,
natural gas will be liquefied and shipped in from other countries"
--as it is now . "What do you think of the regulation and all of
that?"
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 4 5
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 46
He said, "Well, FPC has a backlog of cases . We will correct
__
that ." And then he looked at Lyndon, who was surprised to see me
there, very definitely, and he says, "Natural gas is well represented
here by my father and by Lyndon," evading the whole point of
that question .
And then I didn't know whether to ask him about Alianza para
Progressa [Alliance for Progress] which was not off the ground,
never did get off the ground, or his Cuban problem . So I asked
him [about] the Cuban problem . He said, "I have called in every
bit of advice I could get, including General Douglas MacArthur .
Cuba is a major military operation ."
F :
Was this after the Bay of Pigs or before it?
D : Before .
F :
Before the Bay of Pigs .
D :
No, wait a minute, it was after .
It was 1962 . Shortly before the
missile crisis . And just before I was about to ask him about
Alianza para Progressa, here comes Dealey with his eight-page
prepared--I don't know what you want to call it, ultra-fascistic
or stupid, highly ignorant, discourteous, whatever you want to call
it . And Kennedy's reply is, "Mr. Dealey, I am the president, and
as the president, I'm perfectly safe . I'm safe, but I'd like to
see you three days after the third world war started .
I've seen
Marine divisions ready for battle, eager to go, and five days later
torn to shreds ." Then he looks at Salinger and says, "Discontinue
the Dallas News ." He said, "We can't discontinue another paper,"
and then laughed . He was not provoked . And Lyndon, by the way,
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 47
had left by that time . He was not there .
F : Had he taken much part, or had it been almost entirely Kennedy's
show at this luncheon? Had Johnson, while he was there, done more
than just--?
D : No, he talked to me, just whispered to me, "Glad to see you," or
something like that . He didn't take any part .
F : Did you see Johnson much during the sixties?
D : I went in his office when he was vice president, both my wife and
I did, shortly after he took office . And Mary Margaret mixed us
all a Scotch and soda--Mary Margaret Wiley [Valenti] . And we
talked a little while, and he said, "Where are you?" And I said,
"We're at the Hilton Hotel ." He said, "I'll do better for you than
that," and he got us a nice suite at the Shoreham . My last words
to him because I could tell, as I told Nixon too later--I ran into
the Nixons after his California defeat--in Rome, I said "Lyndon,
I think you'll be president yet ." And his answer was, "When I am,
I want you right there with me ."
F : I see . Did you ever see him again?
D : I walked in in July of that year, and gave him--
F : That same year, you mean?
D : That same year . He had the Pakistani ambassador, and I just put
a resume of a man that wanted a job, and saw that he was busy .
The man had been waiting around for Walter Jenkins so he could see
Lyndon, and I said, "That's not the way to go . The way to see
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 48
Lyndon is through Mary Margaret ." I said, "Hello, Mary Margaret ."
(Interruption)
Where were we?
F :
We were talking about that July meeting when you put the curriculum
vita on Johnson's desk .
D :
I put it in his pocket . I just said, "Hello, Lyndon ." He said,
"Do you know the Pakistani ambassador?" and I could tell he was
busy . I knew he could be seen through Mary Margaret at any time,
if he had the time.
F :
Did you ever yourself try to get any kind of federal appointment?
D :
After the Kennedy election, we talked about it, my wife
and I, and she said, "Let's go to Washington . Maybe
there's an ambassadorship or something, an appointive position that
you can get since you're a Democrat and you've worked with the
Democrats and you've contributed sometimes when I thought you
shouldn't have ." I went up there, and that's when I saw Lyndon as
vice president . . Lyndon said, "Patronage doesn't come through me .
I only have a veto . If it comes to me, I'll say there's no one
better ."
So I went to Yarborough, and Yarborough said, "I can't get you
an appointment as ambassador, Dudley .
I'll turn your name in for
Alianza para Progressa [Alliance for Progress] ." And my name was
turned in .
But I could tell that was in the middle of a big patronage
squabble, Johnson, Yarborough, God knows what else! I interviewed
the Kennedy bright young men, and they liked me .
F :
John Macy, maybe?
D :
Oh hell no! One of the real Mafia--I mean, one that had been with
Kennedy forever . I picked up an advance man for Kennedy in San
Antonio, and that's another longer story I'll tell you sometime .
Anyway, I had the "Corridor to Power" to the Kennedy Administration .
F :
Were you involved at all in that visit of Kennedy's in which he got
shot?
D :
No . I was asked, but I did not come . I was in New York . I was at
"21" in New York .
Another meal shot, huh?
Yes, it was . It was one o'clock . And somebody told me, "The
President has just been assassinated ." I said, "Don't give me that
stuff just because I'm from Texas . He may be unpopular there ."
He said, "No, he's dead ." My first reaction was it was some
fanatic, General Walker or something like that . I liked General
Walker ; he should never have been taken to Springfield . He came to
my office . I could tell he was not the man he once was, that was
true . I'm diverting .
F :
While you're diverting, had you known General Walker earlier?
D :
No, he just walked in . I just said, "I'm sorry, General, I'm
committed to some other candidate ."
F :
This was when he was running for governor?
D :
Yes .
"I will say this . I don't think the Overseas Weekly did you
right ."
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 4 9
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 50,
F :
I don't think Bobby Kennedy did him right either .
D :
I don't know what Bobby Kennedy did .
F :
He was the one who sent him up to Kirksville .
D :
Was it Kirksville?
F :
I believe it was . Missouri .
D :
Kirkwood, maybe . Did Bobby Kennedy do that? That's something I
consider--and I still consider myself a conservative--but I actually
joined the American Civil Liberties Union .
I don't know if I have
renewed the membership or paid the dues . Not only because of that,
but what was it, Mary K . Jones and the Department of Agriculture
that was shanghaied to a mental institution because she would not
let her boss's papers be turned over during the Estes scandal .
F : Right .
D :
Did you read Clark Mollenhoff? The Spoilers of Democracy?
F :
Yes . Did you have any connection at all with Johnson after he
became president?
D :
I saw Johnson only once . That was at a dinner called "The Al
Smith-Dinner," and he hurriedly read through a speech .
F :
In New York?
D :
Yes . That was the night when he had to be told about Walter
Jenkins .
F :
Oh, yes .
D :
And he wouldn't come until eight and I just saw him in a hurry .
Tape 1 of 1, Side 2
F :
Okay, we're in New York now .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 51
D :
I just saw him at a distance . He said "Once Communism"--it was
prepared--"was monolithic.Now it is polycentric" and so on ." And then
he said, "Though I didn't know Al Smith and I wasn't old enough to
vote for him, I campaigned for him . You'll have to excuse me
because I can't read all the speech because of other pressing
matters ."
F :
Could you tell he was obviously agitated?
D :
Extremely so . That was the general message .
I'm not quoting him
there .
F :
The crowd must have had kind of one of those--
D :
I don't know what Cardinal Spellman, who was an intimate acquaintance
of mine, thought . Nelson Rockefeller took him aside and put
his arm around him . They tell me Walter was the nicest of all the
group around him . I think it's in one book, The Tragedy of Lyndon
Johnson .
F :
Did you know Walter?
D :
I met him once or twice .
F :
But you didn't know him well?
D :
No .
But then it was in the book, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson ,
one of the others--the general reaction of the office . "The
pressure of working under Johnson was each of us has his own way
of committing suicide ." I would have only the kindest things to
say about Walter .
F :
It has always been my feeling that Mrs . Johnson took the exactly
correct attitude on that, which was to admit the whole thing and
or
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 52
just treat it as a collapse .
D :
Who knows, and who in the devil are we to judge!
F : Right .
D :
I think Sam Houston Johnson in
his book, My Brother Lyndon , said
"Personally, I've always believed people are free to lead their own
lives ." The pursuit of happiness, if that's his life, though I
don't think he was a true deviate .
F :
Oh, no . I think this was just a case of a breakdown .
Did Alfred Steinberg see you, or did he just talk about you
when he was doing his book? [Sam Johnson's Boy]
D :
He confused--No, he never saw me . Never saw me in his life .
F :
He just picked up that--
D :
Picked up some talk in Washington . So did Evans and Novak . I
wrote Evans and Novak. And the reason the scrapbook is gone, I've
got this attorney writing MacMillan for future editions . I'm no
longer a public figure . I was at that time . But W . Lee O'Daniel
went around the state in fire engines .i n 1956, trying to make a
comback . I didn't .
F :
And they've got you doing it in 1954?
D : Yes .
F :
Did Evans and Novak make that same error?
D :
They made the same error .
F :
That's just slipshod research, isn't it?
D :
Well, they tell me--one friend of mine, Bob Wheeler, knows either
Evans or Novak fairly well, says, "He's a pretty good fellow, and
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 53
I'll go over and talk to him and correct it ."
F :
Novak married one of Johnson's secretaries . I forget her name right
now .
Did Johnson try to enlist you in the 1964 campaign?
D :
No, nobody asked me anything, and that was good because I agreed
with Francis B . Sayre : it was a choice between ignorance and
corruption . I'll tell you how little Goldwater realized what he'd
be up against . ;The day after the primary in which Johnson beat me--
I've got the figures somewhere, but anyway he said, "We hear Senator
Johnson is leading two-to-one . Let's hope it's three-to-one . This
is a victory for sound Americanism ." Barry Goldwater said that on
the floor of the Senate .
F :
Did the Republicans ever make any strong attempt to bring you into
their orbit?
D :
I very nearly joined the Eisenhower [campaign in] 1952 . When I was
asked to run for the legislature, I told one of the people asking
me, "Well, I may want to join the Republicans . Something has to
be done for the country, and done now . And is not Eisenhower the
man to do it?" But I had talked also to some of the Taft people,
and I saw they were getting into it, and they'd be suing one another,
and precinct arguments . Went to Chicago . And the answer this man
gave me was, "anything anywhere where you can do the most good ."
So I then determined that I belonged in the Democratic Party . I was
naturally there anyway .
F :
Yes, historically there .
D :
Historically there . It goes all the way back to Cleveland .
F :
Before we quit, I want to get that record turned on and get it on
this tape .
D :
The only reason I'm playing it is, one, that it is very clever, and
they want to tell the story that they bluffed me out of making
Box 13 the issue and I did not . I used it .
F :
Before we go on that, did you commission the record, or did someone
just bring it to you? How did it come into being?
D :
It was brought to me .
(record plays)
"Last time Lyndon ran for the Senate,
He was trailing behind for awhile,
But the votes of Duval's dear departed
Helped push Lyndon ahead that last mile .
He's the darling of Duval County,
He's Duval County's bright shining star .
FDR couldn't put Lyndon over,
The man who did that was George Parr .
From the Senate they say Lyndon's leaving,
Old Boss Parr will be shedding many a tear,
But they cleaned up the polls in his county
And he can't help out Lyndon this year .
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 54
Lyndon's still the darling of Duval County,
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 55
put an advertisement in 1965 in the San Antonio'Light .
But this time the voting will be strict,
When they can't count the votes in the graveyard,
Old Lyndon is sure to be licked ."
F : Tell me one other thing about the record . Was it played all over
the state?
D : No, just in South Texas .
F : Did you have quite a number of copies of it made?
D : Jon Ford called it the funniest gimmick of the campaign .
F : I think it's a good record, great record .
D : I don't know that it's clear, that people can hear it .
F : Oh, I think they can make out the lyrics all right . I don't think
that's any problem .
D : I was asked to go to Alice and make my last talk there . And I just
said, "I can't do it . I'm going to make my TV appearance in
Dallas ." They said, "What should we tell them?" I just said,
"Tell them under no circumstances would I accept an office under
the methods that Senator Johnson did . I'd want it definite that I
was elected ."
F : You were, as we've established, an early opponent of the U .S .
intervention in Indochina . Did you make your views known as you
came down toward 1968?
D : I did . I did before that . I wrote letters to the editor, I even
F :
Did you get much reaction from it, one way or another?
D :
About eighty letters .
F :
Pro or con? Who wrote you?
D :
Largely pro . I don't have them anymore .
F :
I wondered if there were any kind of classification of person who
answered that .
D :
I just wasn't able to check .
F :
Did anyone ever urge you to run again?
D :
I ran for Congress in 1960 and lost . I've had many, many, many
problems . Perhaps someday I'll run for another office .
F :
Did you have any inkling with the group you know that Johnson
wasn't going to run again in 1968?
D :
I felt that he not only had to get out, but that he had to get out
that night--that Wisconsin was coming up .
He would lose that .
Counting the Republican vote in New Hampshire that McCarthy got,
McCarthy actually got more votes than Johnson . Daley could not
control his delegates, and it would have been lost to Bobby Kennedy,
and he knew it . And I think possibly considerations of health .
F :
Did you go to the Chicago convention in 1968?
D :
Oh, no .
F :
Did you get the feeling, to kind of sum up, that your campaign in
1954 modified any of Johnson's opinions or activities, made him
change his attitudes or his procedures any? Could you see an impact
that you had, other than to make him work harder than he intended
to?
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 56
DOUGHERTY -- I -- 57
who were against the Bricker Amendment at the time, saying that in
the test of time we should have had it to avoid the Gulf of
Tonkin type of thing .
D : I think that it changed him on Indochina for a little while . He
made one speech, I think, "We can't be like Mr . Chamberlain ; we
can't ignore Dien Bien Phu," and then he shut up . But he and Nixon
agreed on the subject .
F : Anything else you think we ought to add to this story?
D : There could be, but now I've gone through a couple of hours, and
I've reached the point of exhaustion upon interrogation .
F : All right .
D : I might say that when Kennedy was killed, I sent a telegram to
Johnson and I got an engraved reply--"Thank you for your consideration
." It was only after he got into Vietnam that I began to
oppose him again very actively . And Evans and Novak said that I
emerged from relative obscurity to advocate his impeachment . I
did not . There was one telegram and one letter to the editor .
And the letter to the editor said, "President Johnson risks
impeachment if he continues to pursue this course with Fulbright
and so on so antagonistic ." There's a lot of difference between that
and advocacy .
F : Did you get the feeling that the Bricker Amendment might have
headed off something like the Tonkin Resolution, or do you think
that was--?
D : I've heard that said . I've heard that said quite often by people
F :
Well, thank you .
D :
Thank you, and Happy New Year .
[End of Tape 1 of 1 and Interview I]