ALSO: LBJ tidbit of the day. And the reason why I'm up at the three in the morning is because I went to sleep at like 4:30pm, and now my sleeping schedule is screwed up. FINALS!
In January of 1964, the Civil Rights Act was being held up in the House Rules Committee, chaired by Southern Representative Howard Smith, a former judge. He was allowing each witness on the bill to testify at such length that it was slowing the whole process down, and threatened passage of the bill.
LBJ, in response, backed a discharge bill that would've bypassed the House Rules Committee and bring it immediately to the House floor. Only the problem was that by January 18th, there were only 178 signatures on the bill, 153 of which were Democrats. He wasn't going to find anymore Democrats because the rest were Southerners (you need an absolute majority of the chamber). This meant the rest of the signatures had to come from Republicans. Republicans leaders, however, including Charles Halleck, were advising Republicans against signing the petition, which would bypass normal House procedure.
By noon on January 18th, Halleck found himself in the Oval Office. LBJ tried a personal appeal, and when then didn't work, he went to his desk and called Jim Webb, administrator of NASA, in front of the Congressman. Johnson asked Webb what requests Halleck had made of NASA, including anything related to Purdue University, the largest educational institution in the congressman's district. "He wants to know what he can tell his people when he's running for reelection what he's done for them lately, and he wants to know what we can do for Purdue," Johnson said to Webb. "I need to do anything for Charlie Halleck. Now isn't there something you can do?"
Webb told him he'll do anything he could. He got the message. He called LBJ back on the 21st and found some NASA work that could be done at Purdue. Webb, having worked for LBJ for fifteen years, also knew that when Johnson found a weapon, he liked to keep it. The key research grant given to Purdue "would be spread over three years and then renewed each year. The net effect, Mr. President, is that if you tell him that you're willing to follow this policy as long as he cooperates with you, I can implement it on an installment basis. In other words, the minute he kicks over the traces, we stop the installment."
Caro writes, "whether or not the contracts had anything to do with it," but the following day Republican members of the Rules Committee were doing what Halleck had previously ordered them not to: meet with Democratic members to devise a way to get more Republican signatures added to the discharge bill, and get the CRA to the House floor.
In the end, though, the discharge bill wasn't needed. Congressman Smith surrendered. He sped up the hearings and allowed the bill to be voted (and therefore allowing to be passed through) the committee rather than suffer the embarrassment of having his committee bypassed.
