Candidacy Confusion

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31333, 1 April 1967, Page 13

Candidacy Confusion

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright. LONDON, March 31.

Much of the controversy and confusion over Mr Johnson’s selection as the VicePresidential candidate to President Kennedy in 1960 was the result of a semantic misunderstanding, Mr Pierre Salinger said in his book “With Kennedy,” which was published in Britain yesterday.

But, Mr Salinger said, at least one element of mystery would always remain—whether Mr Kennedy actually expected Mr Johnson to accept the second position on the ticket or whether his offer was merely a pro forma gesture.

He wrote that Kennedy told him: "The whole story will never be known—and its just as well that it won’t be.”

The author said he could not explain the cryptic remark.

After talking to Senator Robert Kennedy, Mr Salinger said he had gained the distinct feeling that at best, President Kennedy had been surprised when Mr Johnson accepted his invitation to run for Vice-President. Mr Salinger, aged 41, was press secretary to Mr Kennedy from the early days of the Presidential nomination and election campaign right through the 1000 days of his administration. After President Kennedy’s assassination in November, 1963, Mr Salinger remained as press secretary to President Johnson until March, 1964, when he resigned to stand as Senator for California.

He won the Democratic Primary and was appointed Senator but lost in the General Election three months later.

Today, he is vice-president of an American airline. Mr Salinger said that when

Senator Robert Kennedy told the Johnson team that certain Labour leaders and northern politicians were against his nomination for Vice-President, Senator Kennedy’s prime reason was to ascertain if Mr Johnson was willing to put up a fight for it But Mr Johnson’s people had interpreted this as an effort to talk him out of the race. Johnson Admirer “This was not Bob’s intention and he certainly was not acting on his own, as some accounts have intimated," Mr Salinger wrote. “He would never have undertaken a mission of this kind without the direct concurrence and direction of his brother.” Mr Salinger said that President Kennedy was an admirer of Mr Johnson. "He contented more than once that if he didn’t win the nomination he thought Mr Johnson was the - bestequipped Democrat to serve as President.”