we kept the speechwriters for the state of the union separate from horace busby. so the president was planning to announce at the end of the state of the union speech in january of '68 that he was not going run. we had everything ready. we did not have any of this on teleprompter, and we had a separate little piece of paper, the i shall not run. we drive up to the capitol, and the president gives his state of the union speech, and he did not declare he wasn't going to run. so we were riding back to the capitol. at this time i'm 28 years old. you know everything when you're 28 years old. so i basically asked, you know, he didn't use this. he said oh, he said i left it on the night table. and i forgot to bring it up. well, to my way of thinking, i thought he had decided not to run. he decided to run and not to give this speech. so we went on and the first three months of 1968, and he started asking for different issues -- different questions, different information. for example, he asked us to have a study done as to when hairy truman announced that he was not going

the president asked me to get horace busby, one of his long time speechwriters, ant draft a statement that he was not going to run for reelection but not to -- for reelection, but not to tell anybody about it. less than half a dozen who had any inkling that this was even being seriously considered. we had the speech drafted. i mean, what he called the final announcement that he wouldn't run. and in the meantime, i was coordinating the development of the state of the union speech for january 1968. we kept the speechwriters for the state of the union separate from horace busby, so the president was planning to announce at the end of the state of the union speech in january 1968 that he was not going to run. we had everything ready. we did not have any of this on teleprompter and we had a separate little piece of paper, with the i shall not run. we drive up to the capitol, and the president gives his state of the union speech. and he did not, he did not declare he was going to run and we are riding back the capitol. and i'm 28-years-old, you know everything when you're 28-years-old, so i

we spent the rest of that weekend working on that speech, and, again, taking horace busby back and putting him in the indian treaty run separate from all the speechwriters. he was in the mansion. the lincoln bedroom, which was adjacent to the president's bedroom. so horace was looking -- or was working on the end of the speech. nobody else knew about it. and we got to that on the 29th after the little mini press conference. he asked me to get journal christian and marvin watson, who had been my predecessor who was now running the punitive campaign for re-election. he asked the three of us to come in for a drink off the office of the oval office. at that point, we again talked about whether he should or should not run. at the end, he said what do you fellows think? and we split 2-1. two of us thought he should run, george christian thought he should not run, and we had no decisions at that point. so we continued to work on the speech, on saturday, it was at the white house. we went through several revisions of the speech. sunday morning, he called to my apartment in southwest washington and

from your page 22 where you talk about horace busby. the most successful politicians have some little fellow in their office who sits back in the corner, he doesn't have to have any personality, doesn't have to know how to dress, usually they don't have their tie tied right a button off their shirt. nicotine stains on their fingers, no coat, all of that but they will sit back in the corner, they don't meet any of the people that come into the office. >> that is from a -- that is from an oral history. he left his staff and then came back on the staff and left the staff again, he could only kind of subordinate his personality to johnson for a year or two at a time but they remained close, they came back into the white house since 1964, and then again left right around 1966, and then was back in the fold in 1968, not formally on staff. had kind of a contentious but long and kind of a warm relationship, that was busby's role. >> who did he got get along with? >> busby and bill moyers and richard goodwin to some extent, mcpherson, to accommo

staff members sometimes a bit rough. >> let me inject this from your page 2 where you talk about horace busby. i'm going to read it, in johnson's house and senate offices busby served as minister without portfolio. his principal mandate was to generate ideas. quote, the most successful politicians, l.b.j. told buzzby -- did this come from buzzby's book? >> finish the quote, i'll tell you. >> the most successful politicians have some little fellow in their office who sitz back in the corner, he doesn't have to have any personality, doesn't have to know how to dress. usually they don't have their tie tied right, a button off their shirt, typical johnson, running on at this, nicotine stains on their finger, no coat, all that. but they'll sit back in the cone, don't meet any of the people who come in the office. >> that's from an oral history with buzzby. we were talking about watson, buzzby was an interesting guy a young reporter in texas, in his early 20's, a political junkie, consumed national political news from the age of 10. johnson brought him on to his house staff and then senate staff. h