Deputy Attorney General (1961-1962); Attorney General of the United States (1965-1966). An official of the U.S. Justice Department, Nicholas Katzenbach worked on the drafting and implementation of civil rights and voting rights legislation, as well as on antitrust litigation and the war on crime. He was involved in volatile situations of the early 1960s, including the desegregation of two Southern universities and the Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion.
Papers (1962-67) consist of correspondence, speeches, appointment calendars, telephone logs, executive office file, civil rights file, subject file, personal file, and news clippings.
Oral History Interviews (1964, 1969): Katzenbach completed two oral history interviews for the John F. Kennedy Library; JFK#1 interview: 11/16/1964; JFK#2 interview: 11/29/1964 where he comments upon his first meetings with John and Robert F. Kennedy, the Freedom Riders, civil rights, aid to parochial schools, appointments to the Supreme Court, the appointment of Southern judges, James Meredith’s entrance to the University of Mississippi, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, among other issues.
Katzenbach also completed one oral history interview for the Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Program on 10/8/1969 in which he discusses Robert F. Kennedy’s (RFK) state of mind after the assassination of President Kennedy, the Department of Justice, RFK’s 1964 senate campaign, his relationship with J. Edgar Hoover, and the wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr., among other issues.