pass historic pieces of legislation. you can't do it now. you've got to get 60 in order to get to a vote on it. and that's changed, and the republicans have been masters of that and the democrats to some extent. but the other thing that he understood very keenly is that it wasn't only procedure, it was understanding what the other fellow -- it was understanding -- the other big change, bob, has been, and i watch you on your show, and i see you trying to rationalize with these guys. the delusional has come in from the margin and now occupies centers of power in the republican party. we had a great time running against goldwater in '64 because the right was then funny. it was humorous. and most of our commercials in the '64 campaign were humorous commercials. today those delusional people

are running one of the two major parties in this country. and there is no rationality with them there is no reasoning with them. they have an obstinate vision that they pursue, irrespective of the facts. and you cannot -- you cannot ultimately run a government based on delusion. >> senator mondale -- [ applause ] >> good point. >> we've talked about how lyndon johnson operated when he was the majority leader, but you were in the senate when he was president. what was it like there? i mean how did you feel his presence? tom johnson, who is sitting out here in the audience told me one time that johnson had the name and the phone number of every single member of congress on his desk. and he called people directly. and he said, you know, when it was a big issue, he would have cardin cardinal cushing call in the

catholics and would have them try to call the pope. but what was it like to be in the senate? were you ever on the other end when johnson needed something and maybe you weren't quite trod give it to him? >> well, i called him several times with things i wanted. and i was always prepared, because i knew he was busy, and i didn't want to take up too much ohis time. and every time he'd talk so long i'd begin to worry about my time. he just -- and he never gave me a damn thing. we just conversation. but i was honored to be talked to that way. i've got one story that joe knows about. i was handling fair housing on the senate floor. we had five cloture votes, and in those days you needed 67 votes if everybody was there and on the fifth cloture vote, mike manson said this is your last

one now. you've taken up a month here. no more time. and we were one vote short. we're almost -- we just couldn't get that one vote. so i went to hubert and i said what do i do? he said call the president. so i called the president. i think i got him in puerto rico. >> in puerto rico. >> i explained my situation, and i said, you know, there is a senator up there in alaska, bob bartlett, who never votes for cloture, but he could. it wouldn't hurt him on this one. but he doesn't want to, but he also wants an auditorium in anchorage. and the phone clicked off. he stopped talking to me. and bob bartlett voted for cloture the next morning. [ laughter ] and a month later there was an announcement of this new auditorium in anchorage.

>> what was his relationship like with humphrey after humphrey? because i know you were very close to humphrey. >> you know, hubert and i, i loved hubert. and i was thrilled when he became vice president. and i would say in retrospect he would have been better off if he hadn't been vice president. i think he had a great career in the senate. everybody loved him. this was really tough. he wrote a memo to then president johnson as the new vice president warning him about the war in vietnam. it's one of the most prescient, carefully reasoned possible documents for the president to read. and the president took it as an insult and froze humphrey out of any meaningful involvement in

the johnson administration for the better part of half a year. humphrey felt it deeply. and i feel that humphrey went around and to do even better at supporting the war to try to get back into the president's graces. humphrey writes about this in his own autobiography. it's really a painful couple of pages. and a i don't think humphrey -- humphrey loved johnson, but i don't think he ever got over that treatment. tell one story. in order to get an airplane to fly the vice president, humphrey would have to send a note in to johnson and say i need an airplane for this. and then two blocks, yes or no on there. and sometimes the letter would come back no. no explanation. this sort of thing was painful. >> he was a man capable of grand

gestures and small cruelties. >> on humphrey, he told a story once. he said, you know, the difference between humphrey and me, sitting in the rocker, he said walter ruther had come in and said i'll find a way to rebuild the cities, we're going to burn the cities down. it was a tough meeting the president had. he said walter ruther comes in here to see hubert and says if you don't do something, we're going to burn the cities down. he said ruther, the head of the united auto workers who had a crippled hand because he had been shot during a demonstration, always kept his right hand in his pocket. and he said hubert keeps smiling while ruther is talking and he is trying to figure out how can i get walter ruther to take his hand out of his pocket so i can shake hand with him. he says ruther comes in here and

tells me we're overdoing it if we don't find a way to rebuild the cities, we're going to burn them down. i'm sitting here. i'm smiling. i'm looking at that hand. i'm trying to get his hand out of his pocket so i can cut his balls off. he said that's the difference between hubert and me. >> i think we have to point out, though, that the relationship between the president and a vice president is an a inherently difficult relationship. here is someone who is waiting for you to exit the stage, someone who may have been your rival, someone who may have been equally distinguished in public life. barbara bush complained that the reagans never invited the bushes to a state dinner the white house. al gore and bill clinton were rumored to have a certain amount of friction in their relationship. it is an inherently difficult relationship, and a i think presidents are interested in spite of the better angels of their nature in keeping the vice

president somewhat humbled. so he may have been unique in his skill at keeping people humbled, but he was not unique in the desire. >> he was humbled, bill. you would have knoefler better. >> i don't think -- >> johnson was humbled when kennedy was vice president. >> oh, yeah. >> i was in the pentagon in those years. and i remember, i was served as the white house. that's how i met bill and all those guys. but i was told one day when lanny called and anything that the vice president asked for, i mean, i'm sorry, kenny o'donnell called and said anything the vice president asks for from the pentagon, you got to clear it here. anything, you know. a plane ride, an extra aides or what have you. i thought well, you know, when johnson becomes president,

haven't been subjected to that and it will be another world. it wasn't long before he called with the same instruction. you lived in those presidential years. >> yes, but i had left to organize the peace corps. i was close to shriver, whose deputy i became, and i didn't have that much exposure to lbj during that period of time. i would get it reflected from schreiber sometimes. >> let me add to this while we're on the humphrey thing. i was at a the 1968 convention. it's always been my sense that johnson really wanted the convention to draft him. and had they had done that, that he would have come back and run for president. senator mondale, what's your thought? >> well, those of us supporting humphrey thought exactly that. the convention was one night, the big night was his birthday.

and if the convention had decided to go for lyndon, it would have been a birthday party. by the time the convention got it started, we didn't have any opponents anymore. some of it for tragic reasons. but we should have been the clear punitive nominee at the beginning of that convention so we could have made a more successful convention. the people with the president did not let up on almost anything. we tried to get a compromise on the vietnam war, and we had the kennedy people there was a chance that we could have built a bridge there. but they wouldn't let it happen. and it was only that night when humphrey gave his acceptance speech and you came up on the platform that the party and the convention was finally his. but it was too late so i think

there was another agenda there. >> what do you think, bill? >> well, i wasn't in the white house at that time. i had left in early '67. but i was in hubert humphrey's suite in chicago. and he had anticipated that lbj might make a move. but by the time of the conversation, i think he was totally persuaded that lbj was not a force. but i don't know firsthand from the lbj side you. were there too. >> i actually wrote a speech for him to deliver at the convention. >> really? >> and it's somewhere i'm sure in the lbj library. and then i went and then i got a call he was going to come at one point. and i got a call the day the convention started from somebody at the ranch. i don't remember who. >> larry temple maybe? >> jim jones maybe. saying he wasn't -- by now there was struggle in chicago.

the president was not going to chicago. i left the white house and went up to the jersey shore with my children and watched it there, sadly. so i don't -- i -- the speech wasn't an acceptance speech. the speech was a birthday speech. so up until the last minute i had no sense he was going -- i had no sense, fritz. >> that is probably true. but you asked me what we thought. and there may have been nothing to it. because we couldn't get any management of that convention for about three days, we wondered why. >> i was at the ranch and watched the convention in the office. there was a wing off the main house that contained the president's office. we watched the convention and the riots in that office with the president, who was quite miserable watching it. all that week that the convention, you know, was about to happen, the plane was there

to take him to chicago, and everybody was on tenterhooks about whether he would go. but i never had the slightest sense that he was hankering to be drafted. i think that's a kind of novel that people write in their minds. i think he was completely resigned, not reconciled, but completely resigned to the fact that in march he had said to the american people i will not seek nor will i accept the nomination of my party. i think that was very close to a sherman statement. i think he meant it. i think he had deeply mixed feelings about what had happened to him. but i saw no sign during that convention when we were all down in texas that he wanted to go and be drafted. >> i think that's right. i do think -- i can't remember who was on the floor of the convention. i was not there either. but i do think he was -- he was constantly concerned that the party would rebuff him on the

war. remember, hubert, we all say if he had only made the speech about the war a couple of weeks sooner than he had about vietnam, he would have been elected president. remember, he was on the rise. he only lost by less than 1 percentage point. but there was a lot of tension. >> to me one of the most interesting parts of all of that is that he had urged rockefeller to seek the republican nomination. >> right. >> i wonder what would have happened had rockefeller wound up being the republican nominee? >> rocker -- i honestly believe rockefeller was his candidate for president of the united states. and he brought rockefeller down to the white house in a secret meeting to talk to him about that. >> it's another indication of this weird bipartisanship of lbj. he appreciated talent no matter which side of the aisle it was

on. and he had great respect for nelson rockefeller's abilities. and i as a young person in the white house thought it was strange that the president was so willing to consort with these strange republicans. but he admired rockefeller. >> do you mean, joe, that you think if humphrey had been the nominee he would have voted for rock feller? >> i don't know what he would have done. when rockefeller got divorced and married happy, it was a big scandal. i mean it was a big deal in politics for that to happen. and there was a white house dinner. and he was going over the list with liz carpenter and he said and nelson rockefeller, wanted him down here, his new wife, and had him down. >> we're kind of coming to the end of this. >> but i would just like to go around and ask each of you what,

do you think is the quality about lyndon johnson that today's politicians would do well to emulate? or what was it about him that they could learn from him that would help them the most? senator mcgovern, what woo you say? >> well, i think we've all talked about his great skill in bringing people arnold his point of view, or even if they didn't come to his point of view, at least cooperating. i think that was one of his enduring qualities, that he could bring a person of either party into the oval office or go to the senate floor, whatever the case might be. and make it a reasonable persuasive answer. and he left no doubt that this

was something that meant a lot to him. and he felt it was in the best interest of the country. and i think that was his capacity for leadership that made him a great president. >> senator mondale? >> well, i think what we talked about earlier, robert caro talked about, i think he genuinely and profoundly felt for poor people. i don't think it was a pose. and i think it drove his presidency, and he every day of his life wanted to make progress and make the lives of these poor people that he knew better. i felt it. i was there the night of the '65 civil rights address when he said "we shall overcome." that i believe is the most

thrilling moment of my political career, because coy feel it in him. i knew he meant it. i knew he was going to do everything possible to create what is really a revolution. he got civil rights. no one else did. he got these big changes in education and so on, all these great -- how would i call it, because i think despite all of his negatives that we talked about today, deep down he meant it with everything in his power. and he had the skills and the intention to do it. and he changed our country. and i think we should be forever grateful to him. [ applause ] >> you'll remember that he knew the cost of getting civil rights passed. >> yes. >> in addition to saying "we shall overcome". >> he said when he signed that

bill, well, there goes the south for the next half century. >> right. bill? >> well, it's hard to reduce that novel of a man to one concluding sentence. but it is to put yourself when you can on the right side of how you read history. that's what he did with the civil rights movement. his -- his posture on civil rights was not all that admiral before he became president. i remember one what to me was the defining moment of his presidency. it was a press conference after he was arduously passing -- working to enact the civil rights act or the voting rights act, i forget which. and james deacon who -- >> st. louis post dispatch. >> was at the back of the crowd standing as a few of the press corps, and standing a few feet from him jim had this voice that was cut through. and he said, mr. president, mr. president, you didn't do very well on civil rights in texas. you didn't do very well as a

congressman. and why are you taking this stand now? and there was this long pause. and a wasn't -- i had no idea what he was going to say. he said jim, i'll tell you. very few of us have the chance to the mistakes of our youth. and when you do, do it. i have cthat chance and i'm goig to do it now. he was reading his times in the context of the progressive evolution starts and stops of american government. i always say to any politician today, try to read the moment in the context of the long progressive history of this country, which has been one of constantly fighting, often losg to the franchise.

that's what lbj did when it mattered most. >> jim deacon was a friend of mine, he was still covering the white house when i was the white house correspondent. but i remember that jim always had a way of kind of holding his head. and johnson always said, oh, you know, he's reporter that looks like he just smelled something [ laughter ] >> and he usually did. >> i would mention something that i think is shared by lbj and fdr, his great mentor and hero. and that is a devastate for politics. there has never been a great president who is not also a great politician. and if we have presidents who consider themselves above the political fray, who have disdain for the sort of soiled, sweaty world of politics in the trenches, they are cutting themselves off from a chance to be great. there's never been a great president who didn't have a devastate for political combat,

political bargaining, for politics in the raw. fdr was a master of it, patrician who somehow was able to connect with people from a completely different background. lbj was skilled. he had what i call operational intelligence. not the trained kind of literary intellectualism that we think about when we think about jejs. he had operational intelligence and it is essential to presidential greatness. and if i were advising later presidents, i would say do not hold yourself above the fray. be willing to get into the fray and develop those skills. do whatever you have to do. >> joe. [ applause ] >> i think i agree with what ervin said. i think you have to get into the battle. i think he had, in addition to all the political skills, he had such profound commitment.

i think he had enormous courage. he knew he was paying a fearful price for everything he was doing, particularly in the civil rights area as he told bill about the '64 law. he knew the voting rights act. he also knew that passing a law was just the beginning. and he was right there. i mean, we were filing lawsuits within days after the voting rights act was passed to enforce it. we were calling everybody to get hospitals desegregated after medicare went into effect. i mean, calling local leaders. and he knew all these guys. and he knew you had to do it. that that was just the beginning. and at the same time, he knew how important the law was. because all the civil rights leaders wanted him to sign an executive order on fair housing. and he said the next president can revoke the order. he knew how unpopular fair

housing would be. and he said, we've got to get a law. and he got the law. so i would say courage, tenacity, and he loved every minute of schmoozing with everybody on the hill, everybody out there that was a politician, that was a businessman, that was a labor leader. and when george meany recommended something, he'd call the head of the business council and see what he thought about it. and vice versa. he knew how this country ran. and he knew how it was driven and how you achieve something. and he was willing to touch every single lever to get it done. we need that. [ applause ] >> great. i want to just close this with one little personal story. lyndon johnson was the first politician that i ever knew or

even knew about. the year was 1948. i was 11 years old. and we heard that lyndon johnson, who was running for the united states senate, this was the year of truman versus dewey, we heard lyndon johnson was coming to the baseball vacant lot on the northwest side of fort worth where we played baseball. and we heard he was coming. and it was a big thing in the community. and my dad took me down there. and the reason we were all so excited about going down there is, we heard he was coming in a helicopter. and none of us had ever seen a helicopter. this was a long time ago. so on that day we all went down there and we're standing there in this vacant lot. and all of a sudden we hear this big noise up in the sky. and here's this airplane with no wings on it. and we heard coming over this bull horn, "this is your candidate for the united states senate." i mean, we were like moses when he realized that burning bush. we didn't know fit was a

politician. we didn't know fit was god. we didn't know what it was. i mean, just this thing. and it landed. and there was this big cloud of dust. and lyndon johnson got out of that helicopter. and he made the most rousing speech you can ever want to hear. and at the end of it -- he never took off his hat during the speech. at the end of the speech he took off his hat and threw it into the crowd. and then got on that helicopter and flew away. now, mind you, i was 11 years old. i can remember every moment of that day. i can't remember the commercials from the last presidential campaign, but i can remember every minute of that day. well, let me tell you what. i later told that story to jake pickle, who was a long-time congressman for boston. jake said, oh, yeah, that was my job in the campaign. i said, what do you mean your job? he said, well, i was going to the university of texas but my job was to drive around to wherever that helicopter was going and get in the front of the line there.

and at the end of the speech i was the guy that caught the hat [ laughter ] he said lbj said -- he was the tightest guy on earth. he wasn't going to waste a hat on a political rally. so he said, i'd have to drive around, catch that hat, then run around behind the helicopter, give it to him, and then he'd go on to the next rally. and every time i think of that day, and i think about how politics was then -- and you talk about how he had this great devastate for politics, joe. he got out there. and in those days politicians knew who the people were that they were talking to. they weren't relying on a piece of paper that some pollster had given them. they weren't relying on some poll that somebody had written. they knew who they were talking to. and i think that's -- you hit it, i think all of you talked about it in a certain way. he knew who the people were that he represented. and that's why he was able to do -- he knew who the people

were in the senate that he dealt with. he knew who the people were in the government. that's how he was able to get so much done. ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. hope you enjoyed it as much as i did. thank you. [ applause ] with congress on break all this week, we're featuring some of american history tv's weekend programs in primetime here on c-span 3. on thursday night, join us as we take a look at women's history, starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern, former democratic congresswoman pat schroeder or colorado reflects on women in politics in the 1970s. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, remembering first lady pat nixon who traveled to over 75

countries during her time in the white house as an ambassador of goodwill. at 10:30 p.m., professor helen lebkowitz horowitz. american history tv in primetime. all this week on c-span 3. this weekend, head to the state capitol named in honor of thomas jefferson with book tv and american history tv in jefferson city, missouri. saturday at noon, eastern, literary life with book tv on c-span 2. former senator and first lady jean carnehan from inside the governor's mansion from her book "if walls could talk". a butch ever's bill, business list, from ancient mesopotamia. sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv. >> at one time, 1967, this was