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Wilbur D. Mills Interview I

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LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. WILBUR MILLS ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW I PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Wilbur Mills Oral History Interview I, 11/2/71, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Bess Wilbur Mills History Interview I, 11/2/71, by Joe B. Frantz, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interview of Wilbur Mills In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Wilbur Mills of Kensett, Arkansas do hereby give, donate and convey the United States of America all my rights, title, and interest in the tape recording and transcript of the personal interview conducted on November 2, 1971 in Washington, D.C. and prepared for deposit in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcript shall be available for use by researchers as soon as it has been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. (2) The tape recording shall be available to those researchers who have access to the transcript. (3) I hereby assign to the United States Government all copyright I may have in the interview transcript and tape. (4) Copies of the transcript and the tape recording may be provided by the Library to researchers upon request. (5) Copies of the transcript and tape recording may be deposited in or loaned to institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Signed by Wilbur Mills on November 13, 1978 Accepted by James E. O'Neill, Acting Archivist of the United States on December 6, 1978 Original Deed of Gift on File at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705 ACCESSION NUMBER 79-41 INTERVIEW I DATE: November 2, 1971 INTERVIEWEE: WILBUR MILLS INTERVIEWER: JOE B. FRANTZ PLACE: The Capitol in Washington Tape 1 of 1 F: Mr. Congressman, you came to Congress in 1938, or [were] elected in 1938, came in 1939, right? M: That's right, January 3. F: Did you know Lyndon Johnson previously to that? M: I did not, but I became acquainted with him almost immediately after I came to Congress. F: Because you were bordering states, or some other reason? M: That's right. F: How did you first meet him? M: My recollection is behind the rail on the House floor. F: Did you develop a fairly close relationship in that time? M: I thought we had a very close relationship, yes. F: I presume that Sam Rayburn sort of acted as, to use the expression, midwife in this in a way. M: We were thrown together an awful lot as a result of Sam Rayburn, yes. F: You have often been spoken of, in a sense, as one of Sam Rayburn's boys. M: I am always honored when anybody says that. Wilbur Mills -- Interview I -- 2 F: Did you get in on these Board of Education meetings that came along? M: Oh, yes. F: Did you have a feeling in those days that Lyndon Johnson was going to go beyond the House and try for something a little broader? M: I didn't get that impression of him. I didn't know enough about his ambitions, of course, but I thought he was ideally fitted for the legislative branch of government, and that when he was elected to the Senate and became majority leader that that was probably what he had as his top ambition. I was not intimately acquainted with his desires or with his ambitions. F: Did you work with him on any committees in the House? M: No, he was on the old Naval Affairs Committee in the House. I was on the Banking and Currency first and then the Ways and Means later. So we were not on the same committees. I worked with him not only in the House but to an even greater extent after he went to the United States Senate and became majority leader. F: Yes. Now then, when he became Senate majority leader your relations continued, in fact, if anything it seemed to deepen. Is that right? M: Oh, yes, we became much closer while he was in the Senate, really, than had been the case while we were in the House. F: Now, why is that? M: I don't know unless it was the fact that he occupied a more preeminent position in the Senate than he did in the House. He had no real seniority in the House by the time he ran for the Senate. He had been here a while, but he had not gone up to be chairman of the committee or anything. F: Meanwhile though you're climbing the seniority level. M: Yes. F: Did you work together on legislation? M: Oh yes, altogether. F: Did you find any sort of House-Senate conflict under his leadership? Wilbur Mills -- Interview I -- 3 M: No. The Senate, I think, under Lyndon Johnson operated far more cooperatively with the House than at any time since I have been here. F: That's before or since? M: Before or since. F: Were there feelings in the House among the House members that maybe he paid too much attention to the House, which is not his body? M: No, I don't think that could be said of him. He was very loyal to the House while he was here, but then after he became a senator his loyalty shifted to the Senate, He was intensely loyal to that body while a member of it. F: Were you active in the 1956 Democratic convention, the one that picked Adlai Stevenson for the second time and nominated Estes Kefauver? M: Yes, I was there. F: Do you have any light to throw on why Texas abandoned Kefauver and went for Kennedy? M: I was not really in on a lot of the caucusing that took place at that time. My own state went for Kennedy as well. F: Yes. M: I never really knew why the old pros of the Democratic Party did not like Estes Kefauver enough to want him to be nominated. Apparently they thought more of Kennedy than they did of Kefauver, because practically all of them that I knew anything about it at the convention were very definitely for Kennedy. F: This would have extended to Sam Rayburn, too? M: I don't know about that. I don't about that. He was presiding as the permanent chairman of the convention. I never did talk to him about it. I don't know what his views were. But I think very definitely the Senate Majority Leader at the time was on the Kennedy side. F: Did you ever have any opportunity in these Senate days of Lyndon Johnson to observe his relationship with J. William Fulbright? M: No, I thought they were pretty good friends in those days. I had occasion to visit with Wilbur Mills -- Interview I -- 4 both of them. I don't know that I ever heard Lyndon Johnson say anything about Bill Fulbright, but it is my recollection that Bill had a great deal of respect for him as majority leader. Whether they were close personally, I never knew. F: Was there a feeling that quite apart from being a Texas senator and a majority leader for the whole nation, that Johnson was a fairly good representative of a section? M: Oh, absolutely, he was probably the greatest senator Texas has had since I have been here, and so far as Texas interests are concerned that includes Senator [Tom] Connally and Senator [Morris] Sheppard, who were in the Senate when I first came. I don't mean to say they weren't great senators--they were. But I do know that Lyndon Johnson was very tenacious when it came to resolving problems and obtaining things for his native state. F: Did the passage of the civil rights act in the late 1950's reduce Johnson's influence among the southern delegations? M: I don't think so. I never detected it. F: Did they sort of accept it as something he had to do. M: He was very close to members of the Senate from the South when he became president. He was very close to them when he was running for the presidency in 1960. They were unable to deliver perhaps as much as he thought they would be able to deliver. F: Did you have any intimation of his making a try for the nomination in 1960? M: I think all of us knew sometime in early 1960 or late 1959 that he would make this try to get the Democratic nomination in 1960.
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