Aug. 6, 1964 - Robert F. Kennedy backed President Johnson for election today, but — with a more or less humorous smile — he rued his own recently discovered ineligibility for the Vice Presidency.
Addressing a school for Democratic Congressional candidates, the Attorney General (pictured with Queens Congressional candidate Jim O’Donnell) said:
“I must confess I stand in awe of you. You are not members of the Cabinet, and you don’t meet regularly with the Cabinet, and therefore you are eligible for Vice President.”
Amid laughter, Mr. Kennedy went on to fall in with the line taken by some in Washington, which is this:
That President Johnson’s pronouncement last week — ruling out as his running mate all Cabinet members and all who regularly attend the Cabinet sessions — was aimed at Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
While it is true that Mr. Rusk had been mentioned as a Vice-Presidential possibility, the mention was hardly louder than a whisper. The Johnson announcement seems to have been intended to cool off the boom for Mr. Kennedy.
Mr. Kennedy said that after the Johnson decision, “an awful lot of people came to me for comment.”
“They wanted to know whether I felt sad or glad. At first, I thought of saying that the President was premature in eliminating Dean Rusk.
“But then I decided to send a little note to Cabinet members in general, saying, ‘I’m sorry I took so many nice fellows over the side with me.’”
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