JOHN DOAR, SENIOR COUNSEL, DOAR, RIECK, & MACK: The time I worked in the civil rights division.

LAMB: In the Justice Department.

DOAR: In the Justice Department.

LAMB: And why?

DOAR: Well, because I had the opportunities, the great chance to work on a very important problem in American government. We had a situation in the sixties where really we didn’t have an honest system of self government. And through the efforts of everybody in the country, including the Civil Rights Division, the Voting Rights Act came in 1965 and the power of the act has been established last November 4. When, for the first time really, every citizen in the United States voted or, had the opportunity to vote freely. And that was a great thing.

LAMB: What was your reaction when Barack Obama was elected President?

DOAR: Well I was – it was just so rewarding because I think back what the situation was when I arrived in Washington in 1960. Countless black citizens in the South couldn’t vote. They were second class citizens from cradle to grave. The discrimination was terrible, brutal. And to think you know that’s over. It’s done. And that period of American history is over, finished.

LAMB: I want to show some still photographs from your past and get you to give us a synopsis of what do we see in this picture right here.

DOAR: OK.

That picture there is at the Justice Department. And there’s the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy and, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Burke Marshall and I’m standing.

LAMB: And what was your role at that time?

DOAR: I was the first assistant to Burke in the Civil Rights Division.

LAMB: And what’s your memory of Burke Marshall.

DOAR: My memory of Burke is that he was a terrific lawyer. The best I’ve ever known. A person like Burke Marshall comes around about once every 600 years. He was that good.

LAMB: What about Bobby Kennedy?

DOAR: He was terrific too. The two of them on the first day that Bobby Kennedy came into office, he was committed to doing something about the discrimination in voting.

LAMB: Am I guessing right that you were about 40 years old in that picture?

DOAR: That’s right.

LAMB: Let’s go to the next still shot and, you’re there on the right. Who was on the left and, who’s in the middle?

DOAR: James McShane, Chief U.S. Marshal is on the left and, James Meredith is in the middle. It’s a shot sometime during the time that we – Meredith entered the University of Mississippi in 1962.

LAMB: And what’s your role?

DOAR: I was just in first assistant in the Civil Rights Division at that time. And I was asked to accompany James Meredith when he entered the university.

LAMB: What was the significance of him entering the University of Mississippi.

DOAR: Well that no black student had ever gone to the University of Mississippi. This was the first time. This was the first time any integration of schools in Mississippi occurred.

LAMB: This was 1962.

DOAR: This was 1962.

LAMB: And what do you – what’s the first memory that comes to mind about what happened in an around this episode.

DOAR: Well the trouble that occurred at Sunday night after Meredith finally got on the campus. There was a bad situation. It got to a point where there was rioting and, was fortunate that as few people got hurt as they did – as did.

LAMB: Two people were killed.

DOAR: Two people were killed.

LAMB: And your role at that time was to do what around James Meredith? And how well did you know him?

DOAR: Well I’d tried – I had met him a week or so before. And I accompanied him to Jackson, Mississippi a week before to try to register at the State office building. That was not successful. The government – Governor had rejected him, turned him back. We then went to Memphis and waited for the opportunity to enter the university. We went down on one morning and we turned back at the one of the entrances to the university. The second time we went down was two or three days later. And we got about half way from Memphis to Oxford – to the university and, we were told to go back because it wasn’t safe enough for him to enter. And then finally we went back on a Sunday afternoon, and came in on a quiet Sunday afternoon. And we went to a dormitory there about 100 or 200 yards behind the main office building called Alyssum building. And got James Meredith settled in his room, in an inside room. And so that he – it was really – it would have been impossible for anybody to harm him there. And from that time on I moved from his quarters to the Alyssum building through the evening.

LAMB: Another still photo from your past.

DOAR: Well, that’s me. That’s a situation that occurred at Jackson, Mississippi after Medgar Evers’ funeral. The black friends of Medgar Evers wanted to have a march down through the city of Jackson. Peaceful, quiet, dignified. And the police chief said it was all right for them to march in the church to downtown but, they couldn’t go on the main street in Jackson. So, they crossed the main street and went into the black areas, where the black shops and black stores are. And then some of the kids decided that they wanted to march up the main street and, they went back to the intersection. And when the police saw that they cordoned off the intersection with a row of police. They there started to be some rock throwing. And I happened to be there so I walked out and everybody stopped.

LAMB: Medgar Evers had been shot by …

DOAR: James Beckwith, a racist fellow from Mississippi. Medgar Evers was the NACP – NAACP leader in Mississippi and a very excellent, wonderful man. And I knew him and, I had gone to get information from him beginning early in ’61. Seen him many times between ’61 and ’63. And I considered him a friend. And I went to his funeral.

LAMB: And he was 37 years old at that time.

DOAR: I think so, yes.

LAMB: And what happened when you went into the middle of the street? Did it actually stop the …

DOAR: It stopped.

LAMB: And what then happened?

DOAR: Well, nothing happened. It just – it disbursed. People circulated around. And nobody – before it stopped, there was a line of black kids – black students, that were up oh kind of nose to nose to the police and were wanting to know why this – they couldn’t march on the main street in Jackson, peacefully. And, of course, the police were not responding at all.

But they had this cordon of police across. There was a paddy wagon behind them. And then this may be my speculation. I suspect that one of the black kids may have got too close to the police line and, bumped one of the policeman. And that resulted in the police beginning to grab the kids and put them through the line and into the back of the paddy wagon. At the same time the county sheriff’s people, the deputy sheriffs had pulled up and reinforced the line on the side – each side of the sidewalks. Not in the street, the police were in the street and, they were on the sidewalks. So, that was store to store, so to speak, the line. And I was nervous about the sheriff’s deputies. I didn’t think that they had the same discipline that the city police did. And they had shotguns. And I was afraid someone was going to get hurt. And so, I don’t know what I was – what I really thought except I thought that it should be stopped.

LAMB: Why haven’t you ever read – written a book about this time in your life?

DOAR: I don’t write.

LAMB: You could talk it.

DOAR: I know – I tell you Brian, I think memories are awfully fallible. And to me the history of that period is going to be – come from some historian that really digs into the records and get the documents. And tests the documents against people’s memory.

LAMB: You really haven’t done much in way of appearing on television. You – have you talked much about this at all to any historians? On the record. On an oral history or, anything like that?

DOAR: Well, there’s one group that – one person asked me to do that some years ago. And I was interviewed on tape for some time.

I find it was somewhat unsatisfying because when I’m asked a question about something that happened down in Mississippi or Louisiana, I like to be accurate. And I’ve often afterwards was frustrated that I hadn’t done enough work in preparation for that interview to be satisfied about it. So, I agreed to this today for you because I’ve followed your program and, I’ve got respect for it. And – but, otherwise, I don’t do this.

LAMB: Well actually we’re delighted to have you here. And you came to town and, the reason why we asked you and we didn’t know whether you’d say yes or not, you came to town to get a humanitarian award given by the Choral Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center. Did you have to speak?

DOAR: Well, that what – did I what?

LAMB: Did you have to speak at this award ceremony?

DOAR: Well I had to speak, yes.

But I – tell you when I was asked to accept that award, I said I would do it knowing that the award was really for the work of Burke Marshall and the Civil Rights Division during the time he served to government under Robert Kennedy. And I don’t have any hesitancy about speaking about Burke Marshall or, about the whole – all the lawyers in the Civil Rights Division and the – everybody there. That was a wonderful, wonderful experience in my life to be part of that.

LAMB: Let me put the bookends here. Born in 1921 in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

DOAR: Well, I’m born in 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota which is just a 40 …

LAMB: Forty miles out …

DOAR: Forty miles away from Richmond, Wisconsin.

LAMB: OK. We’re going to come back and go over more of this. But, you move ahead in to – in 1960 you were a Republican that went to work in the Eisenhower administration and, stayed for seven years.

DOAR: I – that’s right.

LAMB: How long did you stay a Republican?

DOAR: I’m still a Republican.

LAMB: After all these years. You went through all this work with a Democratic administration and, you stayed Republican?

DOAR: That’s right. I’m a Lincoln Republican.

LAMB: What does that mean?

DOAR: Well that means that we believe in an honest system of self government. In 1960 for the last 75, almost 100 years before that, we had a dishonest system of self government. Hundred and ten percent of the people couldn’t vote.

LAMB: And you went to Princeton?

DOAR: Right.

LAMB: Where did you get your law degree?

DOAR: University of California in Berkley.

LAMB: After the 1967 – we got another photo I want to show that people might recognize some of the players in this photo.

DOAR: That’s in 1974 at – when I was special counsel for the house judiciary committee investigating the conduct of President Nixon. Hillary Clinton is standing next to me. And then – as is next to her is Joseph Woods of Oakland, California, who was my associate as counsel of the committee – counsel to the committee. We were law school classmates.

LAMB: Now you served in that position as counsel to Peter Rodino and the committee for how long?

DOAR: Well, that was from I think probably the 30th of December or, first of January, 2000 – no 19…

LAMB: 1973, 1974

DOAR: 1973. And then for the eight or nine months in ’74.

LAMB: And the conclusion of that committee, the three articles that were passed by the committee it – when you read about your role in that some say that you were the one that convinced some of the Republicans to come over and vote with the Democrats against President Nixon.

DOAR: Well, I don’t think that’s accurate. I think that the weight of the evidence that was presented by the lawyers that worked for me, persuaded the Republicans, persuaded all the committee members that voted yes on the impeachment articles, to vote yes.

We set for ourselves a standard when we started to conduct the investigation. That standard was that we weren’t going to be satisfied unless we got a 2/3 vote. Peter Rodino did not want to get a – just a bare majority with Democrats voting one way and Republicans the other. We wanted to persuade 2/3 of that committee, 37 people, that there was grounds for recommending that the President be impeached.

LAMB: And that first vote was 27 – 10?

DOAR: I can’t remember what it was. But, it was 2/3. It was 2/3.

LAMB: And required a number of Republicans to vote?

DOAR: Yes, yes it did.

LAMB: What was the impact on that vote on the presidency?

DOAR: Well, I can’t tell you what the impact was.

LAMB: I mean did that move – this President – that vote came in what, July of …

DOAR: July of 19 …

LAMB: 1974?

DOAR: … ’74, yes.

LAMB: And he quit August the 8th.

DOAR: Right, right.

LAMB: Did you feel that – do you remember that moment as being the things that tipped the scales for him?

DOAR: No. No, I don’t – I don’t know what tipped the scales for him.

LAMB: And that experience for you – have you done any work – written anything …

DOAR: No.

LAMB: … about that experience?

DOAR: No, no, I have not.

LAMB: Have you done any oral histories about that time?

DOAR: No. I don’t think so. Liked to – I’ve – I can’t say because I – when you use the word oral histories, does it mean every interview? Have I ever talked to anybody about it?

LAMB: Yes …

DOAR: I’m sure I have.

LAMB: … when somebody sits down and …

DOAR: But, I haven’t sat down and said this is going to be your history of that period.

LAMB: How many lawyers worked for you?

DOAR: Thirty-five.

LAMB: I know this is another time but, do you remember how much money it – you spent?

DOAR: How much money we spent?

LAMB: How much – I mean how much money was devoted to the investigation?

DOAR: Well not a heck of a lot. We didn’t – we decided early on that it didn’t make a very good sense for us to go out and conduct it further -- a new investigation of the president’s conduct. We saw our job as to pull together all of the investigations that had occurred that day to try to bring them together and sharpen them in a way that was as persuasive as possible if we thought the facts warranted.

LAMB: Back in 1987 this network covered a three day conference in Oxford, Mississippi. Journalists got together to talk about civil rights. And I want to run some video from that point. A gentleman by the name of Charles Dunagin, he was the former publisher of the Macomb Mississippi Enterprises Journal, talking about your work with – in regard to James Meredith.

CHARLES DUNAGIN, FORMER PUBLISHER, MACOMB MISSISSIPPI ENTERPRISES JOURNAL: After Governor Ross Barnett had himself appointed Registrar of the University, John and a federal marshal were taking Meredith to Barnett, I suppose to get him registered. It was sometime during the proceedings that were going on. There stood John, over six feet tall, this big federal marshal, both white and, this 135 black man in between them and – who had received all this federal – all this national publicity. Governor Barnett’s remarks were, which one of you is James Meredith?

LAMB: What do you remember about Ross Barnett, the Governor of Mississippi?

DOAR: Well, he was a showman. And he was really very unhelpful to us in carrying out the responsibilities that the Justice Department had. The Attorney General and Burke made every effort to persuade these people in the State of Mississippi and, leader of the State of Mississippi that it was in their interest to cooperate and to comply with the federal order of the court.

LAMB: Well it – had there ever been a black person admitted to any Mississippi state university?

DOAR: No. This was the first one.

LAMB: And why was James Meredith the first one?

DOAR: Well, because he decided he was going to be – get an education at the University of Mississippi. He was a very stubborn man. And I say stubborn in a good word. Determined.

LAMB: And he would – had been going to Dillard in New Orleans which is a historically black college.

DOAR: Right.

LAMB: And had what, done a couple a years and went on to Mississippi and did a couple of years and, graduated. Are – he’s still alive.

DOAR: Yes.

LAMB: Are you in touch with him at all? Do you ever talk to him?

DOAR: Well if – I was on a – I was – the last time I think I saw him, I was on a panel with him up at the Kennedy Center in Boston, several years ago. He’s a – James Meredith is his own man. And he’s a quiet, determined and, not a whiner. Completely convinced of what he’s doing is the right thing. He follows his own course and, he doesn’t try to march with what anybody else thinks. He’s really an individual.

LAMB: I assume you’re talking about he went on to go to law school and he ended up late in his life, in the early ’90’s, being an aide to Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

DOAR: That’s right. That’s right.

LAMB: So, go back to the time – what was the attitude on the part of the administration – the Kennedy administration about being – getting involved in Mississippi early in their term.

DOAR: The attitude of the Kennedy administration was that James Meredith was going to go to the University of Mississippi that fall. That there wasn’t going to be any waffling about that what so ever. And it was clear to me six months before September, 1972 that the administration was determined to do everything that it could do to see that James Meredith entered the university.

LAMB: Did you have conversations in Mississippi or, in other places in the South, with white people about why they felt so strongly about keeping the blacks down?

DOAR: Well, not really. Because I never – I can honestly say no, I don’t think I ever have. Because I don’t think anybody every thought that they would make any headway with me if they gave me that garbage.

LAMB: So, a fellow who was born in Minneapolis but, grew up in New Richmond, Wisconsin. Any black folks live there?

DOAR: No. But, let me tell you something. When I got to the Justice Department, I’m a small time lawyer. Small time lawyers investigate their own cases. There was a matter that came up Haywood County, Tennessee in the fall of 1960. And I came into the Department of Justice one Saturday and, two of the young lawyers were reviewing a lot of FBI reports about the efforts of a black, local organization to get people in Haywood County, Tennessee to register to vote. And that as a result of that the whole white community, the power structure of that county, lawyers, bankers, merchants, farmers, had taken collective steps to evict black sharecroppers from their farms. And I decided that the thing to do was to go down there and see what was it about.

So, I went with another lawyer down to Haywood County, Tennessee and I talked to a young man there who was part of the civil league. Black man. And I said I believed I’d like to talk to some of the black sharecroppers who had been evicted and, he said he could arrange that. So, that night or, the next night, he took us out to a little black church on a gravel road – the church was on – four corners were on cement blocks. And I went into that church and there were maybe 100 men and women, husband and wives, sitting in the pews in that church, that little church, in rural Haywood County, 1960. And I walked to the front of the church and, I explained that I was from the Department of Justice in Washington and, I was there to try to help them. And I asked, how many of you have been evicted from your farms? And every single person in the room raised their hand.

Now, here they were, poor people, good people, honest people. Some of them have lived on the farms for two, three generations. They had families. Sometimes they’d have two kids, sometimes they’d have six kids, seven kids. And to think that these people were being ordered off their land, off their – middle of winter 1960, ’61. Well, I just thought this is cruel and savage. And if I could do anything about it, I’m going to try.

LAMB: Do you have any idea where you got this kind of an attitude.

DOAR: Well I suppose…

LAMB: Maybe by father?

DOAR: By my – my mother was a very broad minded person. But it wasn’t because that she thought anything about black people. It was – she was very liberal, moderate, fair, with respect to religion.

But, I think when I was at Princeton, Princeton was really quite a Southern school, I had a number of black friends. Not black friends, I had a number of friends from the South. There were no blacks at Princeton. And from time to time I would – seem to recall we’d get into discussions about the race problem in the South. And the message always was – from my – from the Southern classmates, we know we have a problem, but the worse thing that could happen is some Yankee comes down there and tries to do something about it. We’ve got to solve this for ourselves. That was in 1941, 42, 46.

Well then I go out to California to law school and, then I go back to New Richmond, Wisconsin to practice law. And in the spring of 1960 I read in the paper about the sit-ins by the kids in North Carolina. And I realize you know nothing had happened. Nothing really had happened. Sure we – and the Brown decision had happened. But as far as solving the problem nothing had happened.

And the – second thing about it was that I always felt that Wisconsin was a really a second class State. Because it had an honest system of self government. We had a two party system. Functioned reasonably well. And – but we were competing with a one party system in the South. And if you looked at that period of history, it didn’t really ever happen that there was a senator from Wisconsin who was a powerful committee chairman of one of the powerful committees in the Senate. They were always from the South. And that seemed to be – if you – that didn’t comport with my sense of fairness. And so there was a regional attitude – came out of a regional attitude, at least for me, that it would be good for the country, good for Wisconsin if we could eliminate the solid South.

LAMB: So, recapping, St. Paul’s Academy, high school, in Minneapolis, the twin cities. Then to Princeton?

DOAR: Right.

LAMB: Studying what?

DOAR: Well, just politics.

LAMB: From Princeton to the University of California for law school.

DOAR: Right.

LAMB: Then back to New Richmond.

DOAR: Right.

LAMB: Practiced law there in the New Richmond for how long?

DOAR: Ten years.

LAMB: In July of 1960, Harold Tyler calls you on the telephone, what was his job at the time?

DOAR: He was the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. And the fact was that he couldn’t get anybody to take the job of his first assistant.

LAMB: And he had only about six months left in the Eisenhower …

DOAR: Right …

LAMB: … administration.

DOAR: … right. And that’s not a very attractive time to come to Washington. At the tag end of an administration. And he – he contacted his friends in the law schools of Columbia and, Harvard and, Yale. And the lawyers he knew. And they gave him lists of people to – that he ought to contact. And he contacted them all or, as many as he could. And nobody wanted the job.

Now, I know that because – I know that from the file that was in the Justice Department afterwards. And so one day he was there at a party of some kind and, he met a classmate of mine who was practicing law here in Washington. And he told him of his frustration. He couldn’t get anybody to take the job. And he offered it to him. And he said he was working for Covington and Burling and, he said he couldn’t take the job. But, well, what was he going to do? And my friend from Covington, who was a classmate, said well, there’s that fellow up in northern – western Wisconsin, maybe he’d do it. And so he called me and I said, yes.

LAMB: Why?

DOAR: Well because I wanted to do it. I suppose also I didn’t want to be, at this point in my life, sitting in a rocking chair on a front porch in New Richmond, Wisconsin and wondering whether I missed something.

LAMB: But, you’re dad had done it all his life. Wasn’t he a lawyer from there?

DOAR: Yes. He was very good, too. And he – but he was much broader than just New Richmond, Wisconsin. He was a leader in the Wisconsin Bar Association. He was the council for a major company in Minneapolis. He was a hell of a good trial lawyer. Exceptional.

LAMB: So, you’re 39 years old and you came to Washington to serve the six months with the Eisenhower administration, who asked you to stay on and continue on as first assistant to the Civil Rights Division at Assistant Attorney General?

DOAR: Well, you know, Brian, nobody asked me. I just worked hard and I tried to let people know that I liked the job. I didn’t talk to newspaper people I didn’t talk to statesmen, elected officials. And I – Robert Kennedy, I became a good professional friend of Robert Kennedy’s. He was always doing very nice things for me.

LAMB: I understand at one time, Ethel Kennedy invited you to go out to the house and go swimming. You turned it down for – you didn’t want to be partisan, political, personal.

DOAR: I don’t remember that. I didn’t – and I never did go swimming at Ethel’s house. But I don’t remember that. But it is true that I was not partisan. I was devoted to working for Burke and Robert Kennedy. And I was devoted to doing the best job I could.

LAMB: Just to fill in the gaps and, I want to show some more video. When did you begin your practice of law in New York? And what kind of practice is it? And are you still active?

DOAR: My practice begin after – my practice in law after I came back from working for Congressman Rodino. And I’ve been practicing in New York since that time. I’m almost finished. I have one case to argue in the Court of Appeals of – end of this month. But, I’m not taking any more cases.

LAMB: Let me ask you a direct question. Why did you continue to work until you’re now 87 years old?

DOAR: Well, I like to work. I’ve always worked. I’m not – I’m restless when I’m not working.

LAMB: What are you going to do for the rest of your life?

DOAR: Well, what I’d like to do is I’d like to organize the my – the papers that I have. The documents that I have. In a chronological order that gives somebody who wants – some historian who wants to look at them, easy access to them.

LAMB: Going to go back to the 1987 conference of journalists in Oxford, Mississippi. Carl Fleming, Newsweek correspondent has a few things to say about you. Let’s listen.

CARL FLEMING, NEWSWEEK: I want to salute John Doar. There are a lot of brave people that I saw here. Mostly black because there were really in the front lines. But the act that Claude eluded to in Jackson that day, I think was the bravest thing I ever saw a human being do.

John and I, as a matter of fact, had been having lunch. The temperature was about 103 degrees. These demonstrations had gone on for several days with no emotional outlet. No way for a black people to get this terrible feeling of despair and torment and, anger and, depression out of their heads. And there came this moment out in the middle of the street where there were about 300 Mississippi highway patrolmen with repeating rifles poised against – down at the other end of the street, after a formal demonstration, there was this moment when young blacks gathered at the end of the street and began throwing rocks. And we heard this noise from where we were having lunch and, jumped up and ran down there.

And by the time we got there, certainly there was in the air, that absolutely electric feeling that we, by this time, had all come to recognize. That electric feeling that says something awful is about to happen. Because we overheard the head of the Mississippi highway patrol, Colonel T.B. Birdsong say, one more rock, we’re going to open file on them.

And out into this midst, between these two groups, stood John Doar in his shirtsleeves. And he walked down the middle of the street in front of these young, angry black guys and said, ”Gentlemen, I’m John Doar, I’m here representing the United States government and, I’ve come to help you.” And I think someone said last night if there’s ever a statue constructed in Jackson, Mississippi signifying this movement, it ought to be to John Doar.

LAMB: Colonel Birdsong, what do you remember about him?

DOAR: He was the commander of the state police. I don’t have any clear recollection of anything about him, personally.

LAMB: When you stepped out and put your hands up, were you at all afraid that the rocks may come toward you?

DOAR: Well, there were a few rocks skipping along toward me. But, they weren’t – there was no shower of rocks. Nothing like that.

The kids were just getting kind of warmed up. And if – in those kinds of situations as I – as I think about it because I certainly didn’t think about it then. But it’s those kinds of things, it takes some time to get warmed up and, it builds. And I don’t think that I would ever try to do that twice. But once, the unusualness of what happened. To see somebody just walk out in the middle of the street, it stopped. People stopped. And I knew some of the black kids. At least I knew one of them, Dave Dennis (ph). And I hollered at Dave (ph), come on help me. Let’s – help me get this thing quieted down.

LAMB: There’s another incident – and, I know there are many of them that you were involved in. Before I ask you about the Schwerner, Whitman and Chaney incident.

When did you get married?

DOAR: In 1947.

LAMB: How many children did you have?

DOAR: We have four.

LAMB: The story about your fourth child, and the naming of the four child. I understand it went on for several weeks after the fourth child was born, when he didn’t have a name.

DOAR: That’s true. What happened was that in 1961 Anne was pregnant. And we had – we already had two children. And judge – it was just after the administration came into office. And Judge Frank Johnson called the office. I had never spoken to him before. He’s the United States District Judge for the Middle District of Alabama. Wonderful man.

And he said I’m setting a voting rights case in Macon County down for trial sometime in early March in Opelika. And I said well, we’ll be ready. And we need – there was some preparation to be done. And so another lawyer, Dave Norman went to down to Tuskegee, Alabama to review voting records. At that time, just while I was there, I got a call and said that Anne had delivered our first – third child. A number of the secretaries in the Justice – the Civil Rights Division and, Burke’s wife, Violet, didn’t think it was the right thing that I should be out of town at a time when my wife was about ready to deliver a baby.

So, then you go forward two years and, Anne is pregnant again and, it’s at the time of Birmingham. And I was just embargoed from going out of town until Burke – or, the baby was born. But Birmingham was tough. There was a lot to do. So, as soon as the baby was born, I went South again. And I probably was – stayed in the South several weeks or, maybe more. I can’t remember.

So, when I came back to Washington and was having a meeting of my colleagues in the Civil Rights Division, Burke – Burke Marshall walked in and, he had a hat – cap – hat in his hand. And he came up to my desk and he said, pick a card. And so I reached into the hat and pulled out a name and it was Ross Barnett Doar. The baby had not yet been named. And another one was James Meredith Doar and, George Wallace Doar. And they – everybody had a good laugh about that. And when the meeting was over, I walked into his office and I said we’ve got the name, it’s Burke Doar.

LAMB: After Burke Marshall.

DOAR: After Burke Marshall.

LAMB: And you named him John Burke Doar?

DOAR: Right.

LAMB: Where is he today?

DOAR: Well, he was here last night and he was here this morning. I had breakfast with him. He’s gone back to his job in Hartford, Connecticut. And he came down for that event last night.

LAMB: I want to run some audio tape. A conversation with J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI and, the President, Lyndon Baines Johnson. You had become the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. You moved up a notch.

DOAR: Right.

LAMB: And this – and we’ll listen to a little bit of this and you can explain to people what they’re hearing.

J. EDGAR HOOVER, FBI: Mr. President?

LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATEDOAR: Yes.

HOOVER: I wanted to let you know we have found the car.

JOHNSON: Yes?

HOOVER: Now this is not known, nobody knows this at all. But the car was burned and we do not know yet whether any bodies are inside of the car because of the intense heat that still is in the area of the car.

The license plates on the car are the same as that was on the car that was in Philadelphia, Mississippi yesterday.

And apparently this is off to the side of the road. It wasn’t going toward Meridian, but it’s going in the opposite direction.

Now whether there are any bodies in the car, we won’t know until we can get into the car ourselves. We’ve got agents, of course, on the ground. And as soon as we get definite word, I’ll, of course, get word to you.

But I did want you to know that apparently what’s happened, these men have been killed.

Although, as I say, we can’t tell whether anybody’s in there in view of the intense heat.

JOHNSON: Well now what would make you think that they’ve been killed?

HOOVER: Because of the fact that it is the same car that they were in, in Philadelphia …

LAMB: And that’s an audio tape from an oval office conversation with Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover. The bodies were found on August the 4th, 1964. There was an election coming up. You had become the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. What’s the story about Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman? And, what role did you play.

DOAR: Well, they were part of the what’s known as the Mississippi summer when Bob Moses, the student, non-violent coordinating committee representative in Mississippi, organized a summer for white kids from northern colleges would come down an help the black students get people – get black citizens registered to vote. And Mickey Schwerner had already been in Mississippi, in Meridian. And James Goodman was part of the summer program. And he and then a black man named Chaney, the three of them went up to investigate a church burning in Neshoba County, Mississippi. And they were stopped by the deputy sheriff and put in jail. And then released at night, about 10:00 o’clock, at a pre-arranged time. They were stopped again on the highway, taken on a side road, murdered and then, buried in a earthen dam that was being built about 15 miles outside of Philadelphia.

Mr. Hoover and the President are talking about the vehicle, the station wagon that they had driven to Philadelphia. And had been found about 15 miles on the other side of Philadelphia in this edge of a swamp and, had been burned.

LAMB: What did you do after the bodies were found? Did you prosecute?

DOAR: Yes. We, of course, the Bureau investigated and worked and took almost three years of investigation and grand jury hearings and, more grand jury hearings and, dismissals and reinstatements of the indictment, before we – and then we had an incident where there was a jury selected and then somebody had released the names of the jurors to some of the lawyers for the Defendants. So that threw the case over another semester, so to speak. Finally, the case came to trial in the fall of 1967, three years after the murders.

LAMB: Did you try the case?

DOAR: I did.

LAMB: Did you win.

DOAR: Well we got convictions of seven of the 16 people that we were indicted – that were indicted. Two of the 16 the jurors hung. The other nine were not convicted. But, this was the first time that white persons were convicted for violent crimes against blacks in Mississippi. It was a historic verdict.

LAMB: Is this the case were the current Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, went on to encourage the prosecution later on when one of the men involved were convicted just recently?

DOAR: Yes. That was a man name Killian, a preacher. He’s the juror that – he’s the defendant that the juror in the first trial voted 11 to one to convict. And he was tried again in the State court. In Mississippi. And was convicted.

LAMB: There’s so much that we could talk about. I hate to keep moving. But, I do want to ask you about two judges.

You mentioned Judge Frank Johnson earlier. What’s the difference between Judge Frank Johnson and Judge Cox?

DOAR: Well, about as different as night and day. Judge Frank Johnson was a remarkable trial judge. He knew what his responsibilities were under the Constitution. And every day of his life he met those responsibilities.

LAMB: He was white?

DOAR: He was white. He was …

LAMB: District judge?

DOAR: District judge. And he was from northern Alabama, of one of the counties that did not succeed 100 years before, in the Civil War.

LAMB: And then, Judge Cox?

DOAR: Judge Cox was a Mississippi lawyer. I think he went to school with Senator Eastland. He was good lawyer. He was a good trial judge on things other than civil rights matters. He was awfully tough on me when I tried my cases – tried the cases before him in ’61, ’62, ’63. We finally – he – I think he came to respect me.

He – and he – during the trial of the 16 people in Meridian in 1967, he decided, however, in his mind, that the trial was going to be fair. And he gave the State – the government you know a fair trial. He was firm.

And – but you know there was – Judge Johnson and Judge Cox were one of a kind guys. But they were different as night and day as far as the kind of guys they were.

LAMB: Is it fair that the journalist described you as looking like Gary Cooper and, talking like Jimmy Stewart?

DOAR: No, it’s not fair.

LAMB: Let me show you – let me show you some video we found on You Tube. We’ll run a little bit of it and, it will give you a reminder of something that happened in July of 1967 when 43 people were killed in Detroit.

YOUTUBE VIDEO: Black day in July. Motor city madness has touched the countryside. And through the smoke and cinders. You can hear it far and wide. The doors are quickly bolted. And the children locked inside. Black day in July. Black day in July.

And the soul of motor city is bared across the land. As the book of law and order is taken in the hands. Of the sons of the fathers who were carried to this land. Black day in July. Black day in July. In the streets of motor city is a deadly silent sound. And the body of a dead youth lies stretched upon the ground. Upon the filthy pavement. No reason can be found.

Black day in July. Black day in July. Motor city madness has touched the countryside. And the people rise in anger. And the streets begin to fill. And theres gunfire from the rooftops. And the blood begins to spill. Black day in July.

In the mansion of the governor, there’s nothing that is known for sure. The telephone is ringing. And the pendulum is swinging. And they wonder how it happened. And they really know the reason. And it wasn’t just the temperature. And it wasn’t just the season.

Black day in July. Black day in July. Motor city’s burning and the flames are running wild.

LAMB: That’s from – we found that on You Tube? Figures involved, Lyndon Johnson, George Romney was Governor of Michigan. Jerry Cavanaugh, the mayor. This was July of 1967. Election coming up a year later. What was your role in this? And, what was going on?

DOAR: Well, in July of ’67 on a Sunday a riot broke out in Detroit. And when I got to the office early Monday morning, I was called up to the Attorney General’s office and, we went over to the White House and met with the President. And the decision was made that Warren Christopher and Roger Wilkens and I would go out to Detroit. And take an account of just what was going on out there.

So, went out to Detroit and remember getting there in the afternoon. And I was – it was discouraging because there were guard people on the street but, there wasn’t very much discipline in the guard as far as I could see. And although I didn’t foresee what was going to happen that night. And then the bad riot broke out and, before the federal troops could get in and get organized and, put a stop to it.

LAMB: What caused it?

DOAR: Well I think frustration. I can’t actually remember it. Just what was a – what you’d say was the cause. But it was – ’67 was a bad year from standpoint of disorder in the cities.

LAMB: And 43, mostly men, black men, were killed. What – did blacks kill blacks? Or was this a situated with National Guard or, federal troops killed?

DOAR: I can’t you know I just can’t remember just exactly what the details of that were. So I can’t respond to it.

LAMB: How did it all shut down, eventually?

DOAR: Well, the city was quadroned off into areas. And the Army took charge of a couple of those quadrants. And the Guard took charge of the others police. And I think where the difficulty happened were the areas where the police and the National Guard took charge of. And it just – it was just – I was discouraged because here we’ve – had struggled and worked hard in the South for seven years. And we’re – made progress, the voting rights act had passed. And we were beginning to get what we thought – believed was acceptance of the change. And then to come North – back North and, come into a major U.S. city and see the disorder, the rioting, the damage, the deaths. It was – it made me think that the country had a long way to go at that point.

LAMB: Why did you leave the administration at the end of ’67.

DOAR: Well, I was worn out. I had just finished trying the Nashoba case. And this was seven and a half years. And I thought it was time – at the time that I should move on.

LAMB: And it never entered your mind that you ought to just go talk to a tape recorder before you forgot all those things?

DOAR: No. No, I certainly didn’t. It did not. It did not. That would have been the last thing I would have done.

LAMB: What was the difference serving in the Kennedy administration and, serving in Lyndon Johnson’s White House?

DOAR: There was no difference as far as I was concerned and, as far as the Civil Rights Division was concerned.

President Johnson and the Attorney Generals that served under him were just as vigorous with respect to the enforcement of the civil rights laws. As was Robert Kennedy and Burke Marshal. And, of course, President Kennedy.

The situation was different, however. The situation in 1965 – in the spring of 19 – January, ’65 built on what had been going on for four years, from ’60 to ’65.

LAMB: Was one administration more political about the civil rights issue than the other?

DOAR: You know, that’s a hard question to answer because there – it was in inevitable that – now that I’m older, I think and, I’ve thought about it more and, I guess more – less naοve. It would be – I would be silly to say that the politics didn’t enter into the thinking of both administrations.

For example, President Kennedy and – carried those southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, I think or, some of them in the 1960 election. He didn’t want to lose those states in ’64. I suppose – I know that. Not from – I’ve been told that, actually, see. And – but, that didn’t deter Robert Kennedy or, Burke Marshall from really meeting their responsibilities with respect to the law.

And even before Burke was confirmed, Robert Kennedy had taken personal interest in the first case that we had brought in Louisiana, in East Carroll Parish. And got involved in the first, second, third day after he took office. And was on the phone talking with people down in Louisiana, trying to help one sharecropper – not a sharecropper, one farmer to get his cotton gin. And when – and he sent me down there to see that it – that the ginners in East Carroll Parish would come before a Federal judge and tell the federal judge, in a hearing, what a hearing not before the public but, on the record, that yes, they would gin Joe, Francis Joseph Atlas’s cotton. That was right from my first day.

LAMB: I told you we had too much to talk about and, not enough time. So, I’m going to abruptly change in the last minute and ask you why did you take the job as counsel to Peter Rodino’s Watergate committee at the time? What motivated you?

DOAR: I had gone up to Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn to work on a project that Robert Kennedy had started. I had been – Robert Kennedy had been killed. I felt that I wanted to stay and carry on that project as best I could. I was there for six years.

A – I got a phone call one day from the Dean of the Yale Law School. The conversation went like this, I’ve got one question to ask you? What’s that? If you were offered a job to work for Peter Rodino, would you take it? I said, yes. He said that’s all the questions I have. And he hung up.

I got a call from Peter Rodino. He came – come down to Washington and be interviewed. I went down. I was interviewed. We got along. He seemed to like me. At the end of the interview he said, there’s one other thing. I have some speeches to write, I understand you can write. I understand you’re good. And I want you – want to know if you’d be willing to help me draft speeches? I said, forget about it. Congressman Rodino, I can’t write. And, oh, you’re just be modest. And he hired me.

LAMB: Why’d you take it?

DOAR: Well, because I’m – it’s the kind of a job that to try to do it fairly was a great opportunity for a lawyer. I’ve had the luckiest professional experience of any lawyer in the country. Bar none. And to have the opportunity to serve in the capacities I did, any lawyer would want that. I’m very thankful and lucky.

LAMB: John Doar, we are out of time and I thank you.

DOAR: Thank you.

END