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Part: 12 Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536 Page 802803804805806807808809810811812813814815816817818819820821822823824825826827828829830831832833834835836837838839840841842843844845846847848849850851852853854855856857858859860861 of 1143
or another against him--I don't know what it was--and he wouldn't use anything that Lloyd was doing or thinking about. What Stevenson really needed was a speech writer with ideas, and Lloyd wasn't a particularly good speech writer. (The man that we originally tried to hire was Bob Tufts.) However, by this time I felt that Lloyd had good ideas and I liked him. So, we started to develop some ideas ourselves.
The first thing we discussed was how do you get visibility for ideas when the President of the United States, who gets all the publicity really, was allergic to any ideas presented by us. We discussed this matter with Clark Clifford, who had been in the White House with Lloyd, and what we came up with was that perhaps Lloyd would write what amounted to a state-of-the-union speech--in other words, a summary of where we were at and where we were going as a nation--enocmpassing all of the ideas that were presently afloat, and that we would present this to Johnson in the hope that Johnson, as Minority Leader, would use it on the floor of the Senate as a kind of Democratic State-of-the-Union speech in contrast to what Eisenhower was going to come forth with.
Well, we went to see Johnson in December of '58, as I recall it, and Florence and Clifford and I waited for about two hours. Johnson was always running behind schedule. After two hours and a couple of interruptions, he gave us his undivided time in his new big office off the floor of the Senate, and we described to him what we wanted to do and that we would have some
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