Email, Eric Schultz, deputy press secretary, White House, April 10, 2014

2:28 p.m.

Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson II, by Robert A Caro (p. xvii) – “Although some civil rights leaders were now convinced of Lyndon Johnson’s good faith, others were not, for they remembered his record – not the short record but the long one. He had been a Congressman, beginning in 1937, for eleven years, and for eleven years he had voted against every civil rights bill – against not only legislation aimed at ending the poll tax and segregation in the armed services but even against legislation aimed at ending lynching: a one hundred percent record. Running for the Senate in 1948, he had assailed President Truman’s entire civil rights program (‘an effort to set up a police state’)…Until 1957, in the Senate, as in the House, his record – by that time a twenty-year record – against civil rights had been consistent. And although in that year he oversaw the passage of a civil rights bill, many liberals had felt the compromises Johnson had engineered to get the bill through had gutted it of its effectiveness…”

 II, by Robert A Caro (p. 435) – “…for eleven years in CongressMeans of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson Johnson had voted against every civil rights bill, including an anti-lynching bill (as he would, following the 1948 campaign, vote against every civil rights bill for the next nine years).”

-----Original Message-----

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) [mailto:wgselby@statesman.com]

Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2014 3:15 PM

To: Schultz, Eric; Whithorne, Bobby

Subject: Following up

This is what we seek to verify:

“During his first 20 years in Congress,” Obama said, “he opposed every civil rights bill that came up for a vote, once calling the push for federal legislation a farce and a shame.”