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Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-NH-01
In this interview Hobbs discusses setting up and staffing the Peace Corps; issues with the Peace Corps; Peace Corps relations and association with the CIA; the President’s Panel on Mental Retardation; biological versus behavioral research; Panel organization and criticisms; Russian research and the possibilities for the United States; Panel recommendations; and the effect of the Panel on the field of study, among other issues.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-KGH-03
In this interview Heath discusses the Office of Education during the transition from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to President John F. Kennedy [JFK]; JFK’s task force for education; problems when a new leader comes in; working with Congress; the National Defense Education Act and other education legislation; JFK and the Church-State issue in education; Abraham A. Ribicoff as Secretary of HEW; leadership within the Office of Education; Anthony J. Celebrezze as Secretary of HEW; Wilbur Cohen in HEW; reorganization of HEW; various education projects; new HEW programs under JFK and President Lyndon B. Johnson; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and how it intersected with education programs; and the transformation in how Americans viewed education, among other issues.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-KGH-02
In this interview Heath discusses how she came to join the Office of Education; the leadership within the Office of Education and different ideas on how it should be run; other agencies within the Department of Health, Education and Welfare [HEW]; changes in the status and administration of HEW; various pieces of education legislation; the 1954 Supreme Court decision on separate but equal and segregation in schools; international education affairs; the reasons for pushing for general school aid over categorical aid; the 1955 White House conference on education; coalescing all the organizations within HEW into one voice for the Department; working with other Departments; the International Labor Organization and the United Nations; getting political support from the different presidential Administrations; the nationalization of the Suez Canal; the shift to considering social matters in a much broader context; the impact of the Sputnik launch on the Office of Education; and the National Defense Education Act, among other issues.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-JAC-05
In this interview Carver discusses the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its Commissioner, Philleo Nash; federal claims to and use of Indian land; industries and commercial enterprises on or close to Indian reservations; problems working with Congress and other federal agencies on issues related to Indian affairs; the Miccosukee in Florida; and the Bureau of Land Management with Karl S. Landstrom as its Director, among other issues.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-RFK-07
In this interview Robert F. Kennedy [RFK] and Marshall discuss the very limited proposal for voting rights legislation before the demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama; how civil rights groups did not always understand politics or how to get things through Congress; John F. Kennedy [JFK] trying to explain political difficulties to civil rights leaders; meetings on civil rights legislation and the strategy for getting the votes for a civil rights bill in both houses of Congress; RFK’s disagreements with Lyndon B. Johnson on civil rights legislation; RFK, the Justice Department, and the reapportionment cases; RFK’s meeting with James Baldwin and the subsequent attack on RFK in the press; JFK’s role in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963; speeches at the March on Washington; George Wallace, Alabama state troopers, and the investigation into the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, September, 1963; and JFK, James J. Delaney, and the issue of aid to church schools, among other issues.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-RFK-06
In this interview Robert F. Kennedy [RFK] and Marshall discuss civil rights legislation, and how it was innovative and yet inevitable; meetings between RFK and businessmen on civil rights legislation; RFK’s unintentional intimidation of the businessmen based on his history with Senate hearings on labor; attempting to put leadership in the community (North and South) to deal with the problem of segregation and other racial discrimination; hostile treatment of RFK in Alabama; working with the NAACP on school desegregation; the desegregation of the University of Alabama, and the question of if and how to bring in troops to help; and using the incident at the University of Alabama as a political stepping stone, among other issues.
Oral history
John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection
JFKOH-RFK-05
In this interview Robert F. Kennedy [RFK] and Marshall discuss how John F. Kennedy [JFK] and RFK grew increasingly more involved with and concerned about civil rights; getting Martin Luther King out of jail during JFK’s 1960 campaign; civil rights advisers during JFK’s 1960 campaign; RFK becoming Attorney General amidst the civil rights battle and the transitional period in the Department of Justice [DOJ]; how Marshall got his position in the DOJ; the struggle over school desegregation; the New Orleans school crisis of February 1961; the Freedom Riders and violence against them; sending federal marshals to Alabama; trying to find a bus driver to get the Freedom Riders out of Birmingham, Alabama; criticism of RFK’s response to the Freedom Riders; how Freedom Riders were arrested and threatened in Mississippi; African-American voting rights in the South and DOJ authority; difficulties with judges; Supreme Court appointments; the FBI and organized crime; reorganization of the DOJ; RFK’s interactions with the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover after JFK’s death; Hoover’s allegations about JFK and the Kennedy family; the alleged FBI wiretapping of officials; JFK’s opinion of Hoover; FBI press releases; connecting the civil rights movement with communism to discredit it; FBI involvement in civil rights matters; issues with the FBI as having civilian control of a police force; JFK’s communication with King and other civil rights leaders; civil rights legislation; the issue of equal employment; the Civil Rights Commission; and violence against African Americans in Birmingham in the spring of 1963, among other issues.