Richard C. Wade Oral History Interview -RFK #3, 7/3/1974 Administrative Information Creator: Richard C. Wade Interviewer: Roberta W. Greene Date of Interview: July 3, 1974 Place of Interview: New York, New York Length: 23 pp. Biographical Note Wade, Richard; Historian, educator; Campaign worker, John F. Kennedy for President, 1960, Robert F. Kennedy for President, 1968. Wade discusses Robert F. Kennedy’s [RFK] presidential campaign in Indiana (1968), Richard G. Hatcher’s role in the campaign as mayor in Gary, Indiana, and conflicts regarding racism in Indiana, among other issues. Access Restrictions No restrictions. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed January 22, 1991, copyright of these materials has been assigned to the United States Government. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. 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Transcript of Oral History Interview These electronic documents were created from transcripts available in the research room of the John F. Kennedy Library. The transcripts were scanned using optical character recognition and the resulting text files were proofread against the original transcripts. Some formatting changes were made. Page numbers are noted where they would have occurred at the bottoms of the pages of the original transcripts. If researchers have any concerns about accuracy, they are encouraged to visit the library and consult the transcripts and the interview recordings. Suggested Citation Richard C. Wade, recorded interview by Roberta W. Greene, July 3, 1974, (page number), Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Program. NATIONAL AHCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interviews of Richard wade In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, Un ited states Code, and subject to t)1e t erms and conditions hereinafter set forth , I, Richard Wade, do hereby give, donate, and convey to th~ united States of .A1!lerica all my rights, title, and interest in the tape recording and transcript of personal interviews conducte<i on December 13, 197 3, February 13 / 19 7 4 and July 3, 197 4 at New York, NY and prepared for deposit in the John F . 1<ennedy Library. This assi gnment is subject to the £allowing terms and conditions: ( 1) The transcript Shall be made available for use by researchers as soon as it has been deposited in the John F . Kennedy Library . ( 2) The tape recording shall be made 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 John F . Kennedy Library. Donor, Date r I , ~~~~ Archivist of the United States Date Richard C. Wade- RFK #3 Table of Contents Page Topic 56, 61 Robert F. Kennedy’s [RFK] April 15th and May 6th visits to Indiana, 1968 58, 64, 68 Racism and civil rights 59, 72 Indiana campaign, 1968 59, 72, 75 Richard G. Hatcher, mayor of Gary, Indiana 63, 74 Payroll and campaign finances 67 Indiana primary, 1968 71, 76 Discussion about the remainder of the presidential campaign and primaries 74 Clean-up after Indiana campaign 78 Peter Crotty Third Oral History Interview with RICHARD WADE July 3, 1974 New York, New York By Roberta w. Greene For the Robert F. Kennedy oral History Program of the Kennedy Library GREENE: The place where we left off last time was his visits to the Gary [Gary, Indiana) area where you were concentrating your efforts. What do you remember about those? Maybe I ought to get the dates out unless you remember them, do you? WADE: I don't remember the dates. It was a very short campaign. He came in the night before, I think, the election. I think he came in maybe Sunday or Monday. GREENE: Yes. We ll, the first time he came in was after the Martin Luther King period, which we don't count, but. Was it April 10th? That would be right after the King funeral. WADE: Not in my area. GREENE: You weren't there. Okay. WADE: He came in. GREENE: .. April 15th. WADE: Right. GREENE: South Bend [South Bend, Indiana], Michigan City [Michigan City, Indiana], and Gar y . WADE: That was the first time. GREENE: Right. WADE: Then he came in the day before the election, I think , or Sunday or Monday. GREENE: That would be May 6th-, yes. WADE: Is that a Sunday or Monday? 58 GREENE: That was the long, long motorcade. WADE: Yeah. GREENE: Right. That was that Sunday, which would be the 5th. WADE: Yeah. Well, the first time he came in it was the .. Let me look at that. I've forgotten. Let's see, he announced on March 16th, right? I remember now. The idea was that he would give a speech that would not be racially oriented, that would be talking about jobs, and especially old folks, and that was the way it was supposed to be. So there was a speech prepared, and so forth. When he got to Indiana, the crowd in the auditorium was at least 85 percent black. He filled up the auditorium, which almost was unheard of before that time. I would guess it would hold five, six thousand people. But in there what he did was, he went through the speech so fast you could hardly hear a word he was saying. And then he got to the question of race at the end . GREENE: On his own, or through a question and answer period? WADE: No, on his own. He was. The speech had been given out, and it was also one that had been prepared for distribution around the state having to do with these other problems. The idea was that you could come to Gary and not talk about race because that would be. Well, I think probably that was the idea when they started out, but by the time they got to the auditorium, the speech was. It was a good speech--I've forgotten now what's in it--but it wasn't relevant to the people there who wanted to hear him on the question of civil rights. That's what they really wanted to hear about. Well, he got through it, and then he went on to that. It was a very receptive audience. At the end you could hardly get him out. He had a very nice motorcade coming in, but it wasn't like it would be the day before the election. But it was a good crowd. But it was at the end when it all warmed up. I do remember the fact that people said, "Well, you shouldn't be talking about race because there is only 6 percent blacks in Indiana. 11 GREENE: You're talking about people in the campaign? WADE: Yeah. GREENE: Yes. WADE: " . And to talk about problems that blacks and white share when one is older, and jobs, and not to talk about race directly." We ll, he did. He started out that way, and then he came on himself at the end. 59 GREENE: Do you remember who was involved in this discussion? WADE: No. I've forgotten now. I talked mostly to Joe Dolan (Joseph F. Dolan]; that had to do with scheduling. That was, where he was going to go, and so forth. GREENE: Did it come up then, too, in terms of areas? WADE: Yeah. And also when he would get to Gary, because you see, it was in my judgment, you had to get there after five o'clock because they worked. And you wanted to get there in that hour if you could, between five and six--I've forgotten what time--it was around in there that he was supposed to show up. And also there was a gun scare in that day. Somebody had called up and said that the fellow had gone to the Hotel Gary (Gary Hotel], and he had talked about Kennedy [Robert F. Kennedy] and he had a gun and all this business. And we didn't know, and so we changed the route. Instead of going by the Gary Hotel which he otherwise would have done, going down to City Hall, he went directly to the auditorium. The original plan was to go down to City Hall where Hatcher [ Richard G. Hatcher] would meet him, and then togethe r they would go over to the auditorium. Nobody knew much about it because he was late, as usual, and therefo:reyou could say that he was just .