For Immediate Release: January 17, 2005
Further information: Tom McNaught (617) 514-1662
Maura Porter (617) 514-1609
Boston, MA – As the nation reflects on the life of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library made available for research a tape recording of a 30-minute White House meeting that took place on May 4, 1963 during which President Kennedy comments on the nation’s civil rights struggle.
The President’s frustration is revealed in his remarks about a photograph by Associated Press photographer Bill Hudson that was published in that morning’s papers showing a black citizen of Birmingham, Alabama being attacked by a police dog. President Kennedy describes the civil rights situation as "intolerable" during a meeting he was holding with 20 members of the political organization, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) on the administration’s legislative agenda.
The President comments on the shock of the photograph at several points during the meeting and states with aggravation:
I mean what law can you pass to do anything about police power in the community of Birmingham? There is nothing we can do… The fact of the matter is that Birmingham is in worse shape than any other city in the United States, and it’s been that way for a year and a half….I think it’s terrible the picture in the paper. The fact of the matter that’s just what (Police Commissioner of Birmingham) (Bull) Connor wants. And, as I say, Birmingham is the worst city in the south. They have done nothing for the Negroes in that community, so it is an intolerable situation, that there is no argument about.
Later in the meeting the President mentions the membership controversy surrounding the Metropolitan Club in Washington, DC. The Metropolitan Club had had a policy of granting honorary membership to all ambassadors posted to Washington. But in the early 1960’s when new African nations had been formed and were beginning to send their own ambassadors to Washington, the Metropolitan Club had discontinued the honorary membership policy. Several members of the Kennedy Administration had resigned their memberships in protest.
The President fervently recounts a recent meeting with a newspaperman in which the reporter commented, "Isn’t it outrageous in Birmingham?" to which the President replied, "Why are you over there eating at the Metropolitan Club every day? You talk about Birmingham and you’re up there at the Metropolitan Club….They wouldn’t even let Negro ambassadors in."
(The reporter) responded by saying, "well, we want to work from the inside" to which President Kennedy sardonically responded saying "well, your one contribution is that now they won’t let white ambassadors in. Most of your novelists that you read every day …they’re all over there at the Metropolitan Club." The President summarizes his point of view on civil rights commenting, "I think it is a national crisis."
The following month President Kennedy delivered a nationally televised address on Civil Rights where he refers to civil rights as a "moral issue". The June 11th address to the nation as well as portions of the today’s release may be heard by visiting the John F. Kennedy Library’s web page at www.jfklibrary.org
Researchers should be aware that tape #85 runs 143 minutes of which 30:44 is the Americans for Democratic Action meeting. The other meetings on the tape include a 5/3/63 discussion on NATO, the multilateral force and British Guiana between the President, UK Ambassador to the United States, David Ormbsy Gore and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy; a 5/6/63 meeting between the President, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Bundy on Rusk’s recent trip to India and Pakistan; a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to discuss the military and financial situation in Vietnam and personnel issues in DOD; and a 5/8/63 meeting between the President and Admiral George Anderson on his expiring term as Chief of Naval Operations.
Approximately 90 hours of meeting tapes remain to be reviewed for declassification prior to release. Processing of the presidential recordings will continue to be conducted in the chronological order of the tapes. Additional tapes will be opened in the near future.
The first items from the presidential recordings were opened to public research in June of 1983. Over the past 18 years, the Library staff has reviewed and opened all of the telephone conversations and a large portion of the meeting tapes. The latter are predominantly meetings with President Kennedy in either the Oval Office or the Cabinet Room. While the recordings were deliberate in the sense that it required manual operation to start and stop the recording, it was not, based on the material recorded, used with daily regularity nor was there a set pattern for its operation.
The tapes represent raw historical material. The sound quality of the recordings varies widely. Although most of the recorded conversation is understandable, most tapes also include passages of extremely poor sound quality with considerable background noise and periods where the identity of the speakers is unclear.
Today’s release of White House meetings is in tape form without transcripts. The tapes are available for research use in the Library’s Research Room. The hours of operation are Monday – Friday from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm and appointments may be made by calling (617) 929-4534. The recordings and finding guide are available for purchase at the John F. Kennedy Library, Columbia Point, Boston, MA 02125, or by calling the Audiovisual Department (617) 514-1614.