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He said, “Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Why, what a dreadful thing. What a dreadful thing for anybody to say about the President of the United States?”
He had assaulted the President bitterly, but he wouldn't have said that. That was what he meant. “After all the President has done for him!” There were terrible carryings-on. They were just shocked.
At any rate, I stepped out and got a telephone wire to our own publicity man who had just heard it. He hadn't been able to come into my office because I “had all those big-wigs there,” as he said. He confirmed that that was it, and that Lewis was mad and the beans were spilled and all was over.
Well, I then called the White House and asked what they thought about it. The President said, “Well now, what do you know! If that isn't the limit! I'll be damned if I'll do anything more for that cuss.”
I said, “Now, for heaven's sake, don't say anything more now. Do keep still. Tell McIntyre you've got nothing to tell the Press, you've got nothing to say. Your only dignified and your only suitable position is to just say nothing. You can say in your own mind that it doesn't deserve an answer, but don't say that publicly! Just say you've got nothing to say. Just keep still. This is one of the occasions when you have to turn the other cheek without apparently showing that you've turned the other cheek.
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