June 23, 1964
5:35 p.m.
From J. Edgar Hoover
In a dramatic moment, Johnson spoke to Hoover about the burned car while the parents were brought into the office, apparently hearing for the first time about this development.
While the President waits for Hoover to come to the line, he speaks to Walter Jenkins.
President Johnson: You better comb your hair, Walter [Jenkins], looks like you been sleeping on it. Run in my office right quick there. Put some water on it. You’re worse than George Reedy these days.
--EDIT--
President Johnson:. . . Have you-all put out any announcements yet?
Hoover : No, we haven’t. We haven’t put out any announcement here. There has come out from New Orleans word that the car has been found.
President Johnson: Mm-hmm.
Hoover: The . . . We notified the Mississippi Highway Patrol, which has been cooperating and which had out a three-point alarm to locate the car. So in order to terminate that, we asked the Mississippi Highway Patrol to assist us in roping off this area where the car’s found. What we want to try to do now down there is to locate any footprints or any car tread prints that may be in the mud or dirt on the side of the road of the persons who took the car there.
President Johnson: Um-hmm. What can I tell the parents?
Hoover: I think you can tell the parents that the car has been found and that it was burned and that the agents are proceeding with intensive investigation to determine any evidence that would aid in—
President Johnson: Car’s been found and it’s burned.
[to someone in the room or to someone who picks up the line and then puts it back down] [Unclear.] No, but I just want you to take this.
[returning to the phone] The car’s been found and it’s been burned and—
Hoover: Yes.
President Johnson: —the agents are proceeding with intensive investigation.
Hoover: To find out . . . to find the—
President Johnson: [to someone in room] Bring them on in.
Nathan Schwerner, Robert and Carolyn Goodman, Congressman William Ryan, Congressman Ogden Reid, the parents’ attorney Martin Popper, Lee White, Walter Jenkins, and Jack Valenti begin entering the Oval Office, apparently overhearing this portion of Johnson’s conversation. Johnson repeats information he already has heard from Hoover.
Hoover: —perpetrators of the crime.
President Johnson: To find the perpetrators. Any indication they’re in the car yet?
Hoover: There’s no indication as to whether they are because the entire inside of the car is melted into molten metal.
President Johnson: But wouldn’t there be some bones there if . . .
Hoover: We have sent laboratory experts there to make examination of the ashes and of the inside to see whether there is any human bones or human evidence of ashes that would enable us to determine whether the bodies were in the car.
President Johnson: Mm-hmm.
Hoover: We do not know that they were and we do not know that they were not.
President Johnson: Do you have any idea when I’ll know that?
Hoover: We will probably get word on that sometime this evening.
President Johnson: Mm-hmm. You are sure though that you have found the car?
Hoover: Yes, sir, we found the car in that it is the same make, the same color, and the same license numbers that were on the car when the car was in Philadelphia, Mississippi, yesterday.
President Johnson: Same car, same make, same license number, same color and everything?
Hoover: Yes.
President Johnson: All right. Now, where was it found from Philadelphia?
Hoover: It was found about . . . I think it was on highway, on state highway 21, which is northeast of Philadelphia, about eight miles northeast of Philadelphia.
President Johnson: State Highway 21, eight miles northeast of Philadelphia?
Hoover: That’s correct.
President Johnson: But it was not headed toward Meridian?
Hoover: No, it was not headed toward Meridian; it was in the opposite direction of Meridian.
President Johnson: Now, I talked to Mississippi. They told me that they had an announcement that the car and the people in it were missing prior to their arrival in Philadelphia and that when they later arrived and they were jailed, then . . . that this announcement had been made before that. Do you know whether that’s true or not?
Hoover: No, I [unclear] . . . No, that couldn’t have been true.
President Johnson: Couldn’t have been true?
Hoover: No, it couldn’t have been true because this car was burning yesterday.
President Johnson: Now, are you in touch with all the local officials and—
Hoover: Oh yes.
President Johnson: Are they cooperating with you?
Hoover: They’re cooperating thoroughly. This is the Mississippi Highway Patrol, and we have . . . we’ve had in the air, of course, the helicopters trying to locate the car. That will be no longer necessary now. But the local authorities are, of course, cooperating thoroughly.
[with the President acknowledging throughout] Now, what’s going to complicate the picture is is going down there, some of these leading agitators of the Negro movement, to investigate this matter themselves. For instance, Palmer is—[correcting himself] [James] Farmer is, of CORE, is flying down to Philadelphia, Mississippi. And the . . . this Mrs. [Charles] Diggs, I think she’s the wife of the congressman from Illinois. She’s a lawyer; she’s going down there also. Now, of course, as soon as they arrive in those little towns, there’s going to be even more disturbance. But I’ve issued orders to our men that they are to allow no one to come within the boundary of the roped off area in which we are working.
President Johnson: I wonder if you oughtn’t to ask one of your best people to communicate to the governor [Paul Johnson] and suggest maybe that he make a statement that . . . a pretty strong statement that he’s . . . what he’s going to do, so that we can be sure that he gives us all the protections we can.
Hoover: I think it’d be a very good idea.
President Johnson: See if one of your men won’t . . . can’t talk to him and indicate that.
Hoover: I’ll take care of that right away.
President Johnson: Thank you, Edgar. And keep me informed, now. The first thing you hear, you call me.
Hoover: Yes, I will.
- Tape WH6406.14, Citation #3853, Recordings of Telephone Conversations—White House Series, Recordings and Transcripts of Conversations and Meetings, Lyndon B. Johnson Library.
- A few months earlier, Johnson told the generously proportioned Reedy, “You come in in a damned old wrinkled suit, and you come in with a dirty shirt, and you come in with your tie screwed up. I want you to look real nice—get you a corset if you have to.” See the conversation between President Johnson and George Reedy at 2:25 p.m., 25 January 1964, in Kent B. Germany and Robert David Johnson, ed. The Presidential Recordings, Lyndon B. Johnson: The Kennedy Assassination and the Transfer of Power, November 1963–January 1964, vol. 3, January 1964 ( New York: Norton, 2005), p. 829. or whole conversation, pp. 828–30.
- Charles Diggs (D-Michigan) had represented a Detroit district since 1955.
