King: A Life

by Jonathan Eig

Johnson used his first major address as president to declare his commitment to Kennedy’s civil rights bill. Though his relationship with Robert Kennedy was a tense one, Johnson would attempt to work with the attorney general on the most urgent domestic issue of their time. In an interview years later, however, Johnson would criticize Robert Kennedy for the decision to spy on King. “I thought I was dealing with a child. I never did understand Bobby,” Johnson said. “I never did understand how the press built him into the great figure that he was. He came into public life as [Senator Joseph] McCarthy’s counsel and then he was [Senator John] McClellan’s counsel and then he tapped Martin Luther King’s telephone wire … Martin Luther King’s activity was financed by Kennedy.” Johnson may have been referring to Robert Kennedy’s work in helping to raise bond money for protesters in Birmingham. “He tapped the phone with his right hand and gave him one-hundred-dollar bills with the left,” Johnson said.