Jim Whittaker Oral History Interview –RFK #3, 11/13/1969 Administrative Information Creator: Jim Whittaker Interviewer: Roberta W. Greene Date of Interview: November 13, 1969 Place of Interview: Hickory Hill, McLean, Virginia Length: 27 pp. Biographical Note Whittaker, Jim; Friend, associate, Robert F. Kennedy, 1965-1968; expedition leader, National Geographic climb, Mt. Kennedy, Yukon, Canada, 1965; campaign worker, Robert F. Kennedy for President, 1968. Whittaker discusses his role in Robert F. Kennedy’s [RFK] presidential campaign (1968), the campaigns in Oregon and Washington, and the rivalry between RFK and Eugene McCarthy, among other issues. Access Restrictions No restrictions. Usage Restrictions According to the deed of gift signed January 8, 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 Jim Whittaker, recorded interview by Roberta W. Greene, November 13, 1969, (page number), Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Program. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION JOHN F. KENN~DY LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interviews of J im Whittaker I n accordance wi th the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44 United States Code, and subject to the terms and conditi ons hereinafter1 set f ort h , I, Jim Whittaker, do he reby give, donate, and convey to the United States of Alllerica all my r ights, t.itle, and interest i n the tape recording and t ranscript of personal i nterviews conducted on April 25, 1969 , April 26 , 1969 and November 13, 1969 at McLean, VA a nd prepared for deposit i n the John F. Kennedy Library. Thi s assignment is subject to the following terms a nd conditions: (1) The t ranscript shall be made available for use by researchers as soon as it has been deposited i n the John F . Kennedy Library. ( 2) The tape r ecordi ng shall be made availabl e ,to those researchers who ha ve access to the transcript . ( 3) I hereby assign to the Un i ted States Government a ll copyright I may have in the interview transcript and tape. (4) Copies of t he transcript and the t ape recording may be provided by the Library to researchers upon r equest . (5) Copi es of the transcript and t ape recording be . deposited i n or loaned to i nst itutions other than"-t e F . Kennedy Library . I /2 OZA--;v/J,-✓-, /!- Date C >::::>~'>=. -✓, Archivist of t he United States Jim Whittaker – RFK #3 Table of Contents Page Topic 49, 56, 74 Robert F. Kennedy’s [RFK] presidential campaign, 1968 53 Campaign funding 53, 57, 60, 68, 73 RFK and Eugene McCarthy rivalry 55 Joining the Hubert Humphrey presidential campaign after RFK’s assassination 56, 73 Campaign in Oregon, 1968 56, 58, 64, 67 Working to gain Eugene McCarthy’s supporters 65, 71, 74 Campaign in Washington, 1968 69 Salt Lake City strategy meeting, May 19, 1968 71 RFK’s safety 75 California primary, 1968 Oral History Interview with JIM WHITTAKER November 13, 1969 Hickory, Hill, McLean, Virginia By Roberta W. Greene For the Robert Kennedy Oral History Program of the Kennedy Library GREENE: Why don’t you begin by giving some kind of an explanation of the way you set it up locally, who you were working with, and…. WHITTAKER: Okay. Well, I did explain — I think I did — I explained that I’d come back after [Robert F. Kennedy] Bob announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Well, then [Brockman] Brock Adams was the first person, actually, to meet me getting off the plane, and so he immediately declared support for Bobby publicly. He was the only one. There was no other. [Interruption] We then had a meeting that evening with Brock Adams, Payton Smith, and myself. We discussed campaign strategy, what strength we could get, and decided to look for an office. The first campaign money contributed came from Brock Adams that night. The next morning we lined up an office downtown on Fifth and Union in Seattle, and that became our headquarters. We installed a bank of phones. Then we got an executive to run it. Initially, we had trouble finding someone to run the office, paid executive; we had a lot of volunteer help. Kitty Prince is mentioned here as the key woman in the office. Another very important person was Joan Hansen, a lawyer. She spent a lot of time initially helping get it set up. [-49-] There was lots of office help then; we were trying to find someone that could organize the thing. So, we went to Frank Keller, who at that time was working for the federal government, but in the state of Washington. He had a civil service job. But he forfeited that, gave up his retirement that he had accumulated, and came into the office. He was the man in charge. I was set up as the chairman, I guess, in the state. He was the director of the campaign. We hadn’t the money yet to fund him, but we had some money coming, and he wanted a commitment. He was leaving this job and he wanted a commitment right through the end of the campaign. So, we did commit, totally, for that amount of time. We figured that Bob would win anyway. That’s how that set up. The state Democratic committee was for [Hubert H.] Humphrey, and so were the other congressmen, as far as we knew, and so were the other senators. We didn’t get any support initially, although, we did go to them. I would say toward the end they were beginning to come over, but even then at that time I don’t think we had anyone actually wearing a Kenendy button — although, I did see some Kennedy buttons after the assassination. GREENE: Did you try to get commitments from these people? Or were you mainly trying to get them simply to stay neutral until after California? WHITTAKER: We tried to get commitments first, and then we asked them to stay neutral. GREENE: And even that was tough? WHITTAKER: Even that was tough. They didn’t know what strength there was. They all thought he’d come in so late, and there was the general feeling, as there was across the nation, that, you know, the party was splitting up to beat hell. Of course, our argument was that Humphrey was part of the administration, and that our problem was with the administration. So, that was our selling point. Then, we got to the point of, “Somebody’s going to have to face [Richard M.] Nixon, because Nixon’s running. It’s going to get down to the wire, and you’re going to have a Kennedy and Nixon campaign like you did in ‘60. Who’s going to win?” I mean, we kept drumming this thing and working on it. But the party — I mean it was tough. [-50-] So, then we covered the state. We set up another Kennedy headquarters in Spokane. We set up a Kennedy headquarters in Tacoma. The party still was not firmed up; and we were working, of course, on delegates then.We had our state convention down at Ocean Shores. We had a Kennedy party room — and entertained the people. There was also supposed to be a Humphrey room and a [Eugene J.] McCarthy room. By 10 o’clock that night those two rooms had folded and the Kennedy room was the only one where the action was. GREENE: Yes, I think you mentioned that last time. WHITTAKER: Well, you’re going to have to help me, I think, to pull it together. GREENE: Yes, sure. What about outside Spokane and Seattle? How much of an organization was there in the smaller towns? WHITTAKER: There were little groups that were forming. All we’d try to do, we’d call up every district and we’d just find one Kennedy supporter; then we’d have them start to work. This happened in all of the counties, in every county. We had a list of the counties and we went through every county.