“I always felt that my job was to make sure that we didn’t screw things up.”
Charles Ferris discusses the strategic staff meetings taking place as the civil rights debate was unfolding on the Senate floor.
FERRIS: All the negotiations that we did on the bill, all the pre-cloture (minor) modifications, were all taking place in Dirksen’s backroom. Those were good sessions. Dirksen had three lawyers, very interesting but very different personalities. There was Clyde Flynn, who I think was the staff person on the subcommittee on administrative law and procedure, or one of the other subcommittees that Dirksen was on, by virtue of his membership on the Judiciary Committee. Then there was Bernie Waters, who was another lawyer on one of the subcommittees. And then there was Cornelius Kennedy–Neal Kennedy–who was a former assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago. He was sort of the first among equals with Dirksen. He was a very good lawyer–you’d almost think he was a bond lawyer because he could nitpick things or nibble things to death. Clyde was an open book. He was from downstate Illinois and I think emotionally he didn’t identify closely with the premises of the civil rights legislation. And then Bernie Waters, who was very sympathetic to the legislation. So we had a spectrum to deal with, and we worked very closely.
This was when Ken Teasdale and I worked with the three of them, and we got to know each other well. We’d work in Dirksen’s backroom and then at five o’clock Dirksen would always come in, no matter what we were doing, and say, “Stop, it’s time to have a drink.” It was social time. He knew how to stop the process and he knew that all work makes Johnny a dull boy. He created a great climate for people to work together. Burke Marshall used to come up and work with us on occasion. Burke was the assistant Attorney General. His deputy, John Doar, was the lawyer who was recruited later by Pete Rodino to direct the staff of the impeachment hearings.
John Doar was more comfortable doing than arguing over words. He was a get-it-done man. He would be the man on the scene down South when there were riots. He had a great manner and could establish great communication with the other side. He could bring people together. He was magnificent. Burke was better as a substance man. I believe he was offered the job of dean of the Yale Law School when he went up to IBM. But he had to make some money before he went back to teach at Yale, which he did after he left IBM. The two of them were just a magnificent complement. John did not come up to too many meetings. I remember at one meeting, I think John probably said, “I’m not going to go to any more of these.” He didn’t say that openly, but he never did show up at any more meetings. So Burke would come with Harold Greene.
Then we had meetings alone, just the leadership staff lawyers. But if anything significant was proposed, I’d pick up the phone right away and call Burke and say, “Are we going down the right path?” It turns out that in one of those meetings, we were talking about a lunchroom confrontation. What would you do to somebody like Lester Maddox? Could you cite him under Title II? The Dirksen lawyers thought it shouldn’t be just one instance, it really should be a pattern of activity. We thought, well, “a pattern or practice” had to be taking place. Clyde Flynn and Neal Kennedy advocated a pattern of activity to trigger a sanction under the act. It was obvious that they had in mind sequential actions by the same person before the act was violated rather than a pattern of activity that in effect generated community support for the discriminatory actions of individuals. I called Burke and said, “What about using the language ‘pattern or practice’?” And he thought that sounded great, because they were talking about communities that supported this type of behavior. That change was incorporated into both Title II and Title VII. “Pattern or practice” had a vagueness to it. The legislative history that was read into the Record before the final passage adopted the broader interpretation of “pattern or practice.” This is one instance of a change that happened in one of these solo sessions that made some difference in the language but not in the bill’s impact. It meant different things to different people so it created a greater perception of change than actual change.
I always felt that my job was to make sure that we didn’t screw things up. This was too important for a bunch of rookies to be making the ultimate decisions. As it turned out, it worked out fine, because we always had plenary sessions where the Senators and Justice Department principals would meet and be updated.
Our almost daily staff meetings were always productive, if only because the Senate and the public knew they were taking place. The fact that the leadership was ‘working on’ the bill conveyed an impression that the Senate was not stalemated. It wasn’t Kabuki theater, but in a sense it was. The real activity on the bill was taking place working the grassroots in the country. A bill of this magnitude which would have such national impact should require a sizeable amount of time before the Senate. That’s valid on things like this, and critical if the opponents are going to accept the legitimacy of the final outcome.
RITCHIE: Speaking of roles, Senator Mansfield called this off the calendar and in a sense was the chairman of the committee of the whole. But then he deferred to Senator Humphrey, his Whip, to manage the single most important bill of the year. What was behind all that?
FERRIS: Well, Hubert Humphrey had been the champion of civil rights since the 1940s. At the Democratic Convention of 1948, it was Hubert Humphrey who proposed the civil rights plank. He championed civil rights and social legislation in the 1950s. And in the ‘60s he was in a position of power, and responsibility, and authority. He was the natural man for the job and was designated as the overall floor manager of the bill. Now, there were other Senators who were picked to concentrate on and defend the separate titles. Warren Magnuson, I think, had Title II, public accommodations. John Pastore had Title VI, which was the cut off of federal funds to the states. Joe Clark had Title VII, which was the employment section. They each made a presentation on their title. However, most of the time was consumed over the three months with long speeches given primarily by Southerners who opposed the bill.
