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a person who was inaugurating a new, untried, unheard of type of activity to stimulate industrial recovery, which was so experimental at best that it would be not only a full-time job, but a full occupation of every kind of intellectual talent. Dern was very strong for that.

Farley was also very strong on that point. Farley said nothing publicly about Johnson at that meeting, but I think he was relieved. I think he had heard about Johnson at this time and thought him pretty unstable. He thought it would be a good idea to have the public works separate.

At any rate, the President said, “Well, I think that's what I'll do. Johnson's here. I asked him to come over. I wanted to present him to you. I'll kind of make the announcement public right now so it will be known.”

So he sent for Johnson and he came in. The President went through with his program of giving him a lot of praise and telling him he was going to appoint him to be the administrator, so forth and so on, saying that he wanted full Cabinet cooperation with Johnson. He wanted every Cabinet officer and every department to assist in this new project, and so forth and so on. I'm not sure whether he appointed an advisory committee to Johnson that day or later. Johnson wouldn't have liked that, and I can't remember whether he did it then or later. He did it very early, however.