June 23, 1964
4:05 p.m.
From FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
Almost immediately after, the President received news from the longtime FBI director that seemed to confirm the worst possible outcome. The Bureau had found the burned car of the activists, and Hoover declared his assumption that “these men have been killed.”
In next hour and half, Johnson spoke two more times to Hoover and once more to the Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach, Secretary of Commerce Hodges, Lee White, and Senator Eastland. He also held conversations with the Treasury Secretary about tax measures and the Secretary of State about appointments. Just after 5:30, he sat down with the parents of Andrew Goodman and the father of Michael Schwerner, two congressmen, and the parents' attorney, offering them what Goodman’s mother characterized as his sincere, heartfelt concern. He also passed along the information about the burned car, which the parents allegedly overheard from a Johnson phone call when they entered the Oval Office.
A conversation between the White House operator and an office secretary precedes the call in which they decide to put Hoover on the line before Luther Hodges.
J. Edgar Hoover: Mr. President?
President Johnson: Yeah.
Hoover : I wanted to let you know we found the car.
President Johnson: Yeah?
Hoover : Now, this is not known, nobody knows this at all, but the car was burned, and we do not know yet whether any bodies are inside of the car because of the intense heat that still is in the area of the car. The license plates on the car are the same that was on the car that was in Philadelphia, Mississippi, yesterday, and apparently this is off to the side of the road. It wasn’t going toward Meridian, but it was going in the opposite direction.
Now, whether there are any bodies in the car we won’t know until we can get into the car ourselves. We’ve got agents, of course, on the ground and as soon as we get definite word I’ll, of course, get word to you, but I did want you to know that apparently what’s happened: These men have been killed. Although, as I say, we can’t tell whether there are any bodies in there in view of the intense heat.
President Johnson: Well, now, what would make you think they’d been killed?
Hoover : Because of the fact that it is the same car that they were in in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the same license number is on the outside of the car. Now, as I say, the heat is so intense you can’t tell—on the inside everything’s been burned—whether there are any charred bodies or not. It is merely an assumption that probably they were burned in the car. On the other hand, they may have been taken out and killed on the outside.
President Johnson: Or maybe kidnapped and locked up.
Hoover : How’s that?
President Johnson: Or maybe kidnapped and locked up.
Hoover : Well, I would doubt whether those people down there would even give them that much of a break. But, of course, we’re going to go into that very thoroughly: not only as to the fact as to whether they’re still alive. If they’re not in the car, then they maybe have been killed and their bodies buried in one of those swamps down there.
