LBJ Orders Troops to Do “Wallace’s Job”

Mar. 20, 1965 - President Johnson moved swiftly today in the pre-dawn hours and called up nearly 4,000 troops to protect participants in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march tomorrow. 

The President followed his mobilization of National Guard and regular forces with a statement strongly critical of Governor George Wallace of Alabama. He read to a televised news conference in the yard of his ranch home a message he had sent to the Governor.

His message said that responsibility for law and order properly rested with state and local governments.

“On the basis of your public statements and your discussions with me, I thought that you felt strongly about this and had indicated you would take all necessary action in this regard,” the President told the Governor. “I was surprised, therefore, when in your telegram of Thursday you requested Federal assistance in the performance of such fundamental duties.

“Even more surprising was your telegram of yesterday stating that both you and the Alabama Legislature, because of monetary considerations, believed that the state is unable to protect American citizens and to maintain peace and order in a responsible manner without Federal forces.”

The President said he had ordered moved to the critical area 1,863 federalized troops selected from units of the Alabama National Guard. In addition, he said, 500 men of military police units drawn from the Regular Army were stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery and 509 similar troops at Craig Field near Selma.

The latter is the starting point and the former the terminus of a 50-mile civil rights march to protest vote discrimination, to begin tomorrow.

Johnson told his news conference he had also stationed 100 FBI agents at the potential trouble scene in Alabama, together with 75 to 100 U.S marshals, with more to follow.

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