The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act (26 page)

While most of McCulloch’s colleagues left town for the weekend—Halleck was in Indiana, Lindsay at a wedding in Virginia—he stayed in his office, working the phones, trying to rope in the remaining dissidents. “McCulloch never left his desk except to sleep,” recalled Kimball. On the morning of Saturday, October 26, he had a long talk with Lindsay, telling him that it was he, not the Democrats, who was coming around, and that he was willing to accept a bill with just minor edits. But to go out on a limb like that, he had to have Lindsay in his corner. To stroke Lindsay’s ego even further, McCulloch asked if he would sit down with Katzenbach at a secret one-on-one meeting Monday morning to give his input and blessing to the compromise. Elated to be finally included in the negotiating process, Lindsay said yes—and that if he liked what he saw, he would support the new draft. When Lindsay returned to Washington, he told Kimball, “I’m so proud that Bill has come so far. I can’t desert him now. He has made a tremendous step forward a stronger bill.”
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Monday, October 28, the day before the Judiciary Committee was set to meet on the bill, was a near-constant flurry of activity. Though there was now significant support in both parties for the compromise, that support varied: some were willing to vote against the Moore motion, but not for the new bill; others had offered only a vague commitment and could still be swayed by the roaming packs of LCCR lobbyists circulating through the House office buildings trying to pick off errant liberals. Though the civil rights lobbyists knew the subcommittee bill was probably lost, they figured they could still extract concessions from the White House if they attracted enough support.
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The day was a delicate dance. Halleck was refusing to endorse the bill officially until the Democrats were in line. But to round them up, Katzenbach had to show that the votes were there from the Republicans. The morning began with Lindsay, now fully on board with the compromise, having breakfast with the liberal Republicans on the committee and trying to get them to follow him. Lindsay then carried their support to his meeting with Katzenbach at the Congressional Hotel, just south of the House office buildings on Capitol Hill.
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After Lindsay left the hotel, Katzenbach was joined by Marshall, McCulloch, Copenhaver, and Kimball to work out the final details of the compromise. Marshall would occasionally step out to call Robert Kennedy for approval of a particular change, but for the most part they worked quickly, and by lunch they had a draft in place.
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The major changes included limiting Title I, on voting rights, to federal elections; excluding shopping and “personal service”—barbershops, nail salons—from the public accommodations coverage; prohibiting judges from requiring that school districts achieve racial balance; eliminating the Community Relations Service; making the Civil Rights Commission permanent; and changing the FEPC’s enforcement power from cease-and-desist orders to filing suit in federal court. To win over individual members, a few other changes, small but significant, were made, like giving the Civil Rights Commission the power to investigate voter fraud—a key demand of Representative William Cramer, a Florida Republican.
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McCulloch then called Halleck, who with Arends got together the rest of the GOP House leadership: Gerald Ford; George Miller; Clarence Brown, the ranking Republican on the powerful Rules Committee; John Byrnes, the ranking Republican on the equally powerful Ways and Means Committee; and Melvin Laird, who had helped engineer the Ford coup against Charles Hoeven earlier that year. Halleck had left all of them out of the negotiations; in fact, none had more than an inkling that talks were even under way. The men groused about being excluded but agreed to back Halleck. Meanwhile McCulloch continued to work the phones to sew up the Republican votes on the committee. He also tried to get Moore, the West Virginia Republican, to withdraw his motion, but to no avail.
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With the Republicans falling into line that afternoon, John Kennedy called back the thirteen Northern Democrats from the Judiciary Committee. Katzenbach’s best guess was that Halleck and McCulloch could deliver no more than six or seven votes, which meant that Kennedy had to get at least ten of the thirteen to back him. So far, only three—Celler, Senner of Arizona, and Harold Donahue of Massachusetts—had announced support for the compromise. Two others—Jack Brooks of Texas, a loyal Kennedy man, and William St. Onge of Connecticut, who had given Celler his proxy before going into the hospital—were undeclared but considered sure things.
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For the rest, Kennedy had already deployed his aides to soften them up; in the case of Herman Toll, a liberal from Philadelphia, the president had even threatened to withdraw from a scheduled fund-raising parade and dinner for him on October 30. Others required a softer approach: Peter Rodino, of New Jersey, said that he did not think the compromise FEPC plank was strong enough and that he would consider amending it on the House floor. Kennedy, knowing that the representative would never do anything that would endanger the bill, said that would be fine.
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Kennedy had one last sit-down that evening with Halleck. Each of them lowballed the number of votes he had in hand, hoping to pressure the other to get more over the next twelve hours or so. Halleck, impressed by Kennedy’s pursuit of the deal, said he would do his best. With that, Kennedy gave the signal, and by prior agreement copies of the new bill went out by courier to the allied Judiciary Committee members that night. It was going to be close, and the president wanted his side to have every possible advantage. During the night, Kimball got a call from William Higgs, one of Robert Kastenmeier’s aides. “It could go either way,” Higgs said, “by one or two votes.”
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The next morning Katzenbach gave McCulloch one more call before going in to brief the president. They walked through the new draft, line by line, to make sure nothing was in disagreement. At the end of the call, Katzenbach asked McCulloch where Halleck stood on the FEPC. McCulloch said he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t optimistic.
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Katzenbach then called Kennedy, who was getting ready for his own final meeting with Halleck. Everything was set, he told the president. Halleck had come around to supporting the bill—even, he said by mistake, the FEPC—and so the committee vote was in the bag. Kennedy thanked him and went to meet the minority leader, Arends, and McCulloch.

Halleck had come bearing even better news than the day before. That morning the Judiciary Committee Republicans had met in Arends’s office, where they had counted eight votes in favor of the compromise, plus George Meader’s vote against the Moore motion (he refused to say how he would vote on the bill itself). Kennedy and Halleck then went over the basics of the bill, conversing like two chummy boxers after an inconclusive prizefight. Each had won something, and each could share in the glory of watching a civil rights act with their imprint pass the Judiciary Committee. But as Halleck stood to leave, he said, “You do understand, don’t you, that my commitment does not extend to FEP. I’m not at all sure about that.”

Kennedy was stunned. Katzenbach had said the opposite. But he did not skip a beat. His arm around the minority leader, he said, “Charlie, we need a bill that will pass the House. It’s almost time for the vote. Let’s get the votes and get this thing out of the committee. And I’m grateful for your help.”

After Halleck left, Kennedy wheeled on Katzenbach. “I thought you told me he was committed on FEP?”

“I did, and he is,” said Katzenbach. “Don’t worry about it. He will support it. It would be a mistake to pressure him.” According to Katzenbach, it was an honest error—in a rare moment of confusion, he had misremembered what McCulloch had told him about Halleck’s support. It was not until a year later, when he was preparing for an oral history interview with the journalist Anthony Lewis, that Katzenbach was digging through his papers and found a scribble from his call with McCulloch. It said, clearly, that Halleck opposed a fair employment practices title. “If I had looked at my notes, we might never have [had] an FEP, I guess,” he said.
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Emanuel Celler called the Judiciary Committee to order at 10:45. Before him sat minutely detailed instructions from Katzenbach, with Brooks looking over his shoulder to make sure he followed them. First, he called up the Moore motion for a vote. It failed 15 to 19. Libonati, who had vowed to back the White House after getting a tongue-lashing from Mayor Daley, had switched his position again, and he voted to support Moore. Interestingly, one Southern Democrat also voted against the Moore motion, Ed Willis of Louisiana, a relatively moderate Southerner and close social friend of Celler and McCulloch.
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Celler then called up the compromise bill and had Foley read all of its fifty-six pages. Foley was a well-known alcoholic, and his energy flagged repeatedly as he worked through the bill, getting closer and closer to noon, when the committee would have to recess. His mouth ran dry, he tripped over words. “He was not a fast reader,” recalled Zelenko flatly.
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When he finally finished, at 11:52
a.m.
, Celler said a few words, then passed the floor to McCulloch. “It is important at this point not to yield for anything but a question, particularly not an amendment of any kind whatsoever,” Katzenbach had instructed, and Celler did not. On cue, as soon as McCulloch finished, Rodino offered a motion to close the debate and move to a vote. Celler recognized him; several members offered to second the motion, and it went to a vote. The clock ticked; as soon as the noon bell rang to announce the opening of the House floor, the opposition forces would surely call a point of order to end the session. The clerk tore through the names, finishing just as the bell rang. The bill passed 20 votes to 14, with the Southern Democrats and a smattering of liberals in the minority.
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When Kennedy got the news a little while later, he cheered. But not everyone agreed with his jubilation. “Today’s events are no cause for rejoicing but are a challenge to work to strengthen the bill,” said Roy Wilkins. James Farmer, of CORE, called it “a slight improvement on the original Administration package, still it is not acceptable.” Others were less welcoming. The
Washington Post
sent a reporter to a showing of
Lilies of the Field
, the Sidney Poitier star vehicle, at the Tivoli Theater in north central Washington, D.C. Several members of the black elite were there, and all had an opinion about the just-passed bill. “I don’t think very much of the new bill,” said Julius Hobson, a local civil rights activist. “I didn’t think much of the original bill, and this is just a watered down version of that.” Walter Reuther was incensed; he had the UAW issue a scathing analysis of the new draft. “The public accommodations section of the compromise bill draws a morally indefensible distinction between places that are and are not covered,” it read. “Under its provisions, it would appear that an American citizen, simply because of color, could be denied the right to try on a suit or dress in a department store, get a haircut or beauty treatment or a shoeshine or go swimming or bowling.” The harshest words came from the LCCR: “We deplore the actions of the administration and the Republican House leadership in securing the defeat of the Subcommittee bill on civil rights.”
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The next day Kennedy went to Philadelphia to stump for Mayor James Tate, who was running a tough reelection campaign. But he found the streets half empty, save for protesters bearing signs with messages such as “Kennedy—why compromise on civil rights?” (The compromise was not the only reason for the protesters’ ire: Tate had been vilified by the civil rights community for not fighting harder against job discrimination.)
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Kennedy’s temporary woes were nothing compared with the more lasting scars left on Halleck. A few hours after the vote, Kennedy called the minority leader to thank him. “I got a lot of mad people up here,” Halleck said. “A lot of guys bitching, I’m not sure they’ll make me leader again, but I don’t give a damn.”
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Halleck’s imperiousness won him few supporters among the liberals, while his leadership mistakes, compared with his support for a too-liberal bill, touched off a near civil war within the House GOP. On October 30, about sixty House Republicans met at a Washington hotel to hash out their grievances and propose a coup—this time against the minority leader himself. Halleck had ignored them, they groused; worse, he had embarrassed them by forcing his rank and file to support a draft version of the bill that many were already on the record opposing. Worse, though, was the fact that the Republican House leader was holding secret meetings with the White House, appearing to accede to Kennedy’s every demand. How could they disagree with Democratic senator Richard Russell, who said that Halleck was now “adorned in the leather shirt and tasseled moccasins of the New Frontier”?
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A petition went around, calling for Halleck’s resignation. Clarence Brown, the ranking minority member of the Rules Committee and no friend of Halleck, nevertheless saw the danger in setting off a war with the party leadership and urged calm. After a heated debate, Brown won the day, and the members filtered back to the Hill—though they were hardly pacified. A few days later one of them, reportedly Durward G. “Doc” Hall of Missouri, left a folded black umbrella on Halleck’s desk, a pointed reference to that infamous compromiser Neville Chamberlain, who was seen carrying just such an accessory during his negotiations with Adolf Hitler before World War II. After the 1964 elections, Halleck was defeated by Gerald Ford in the minority leader vote, thanks undoubtedly to his actions on the civil rights bill.
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