June 29, 1964 - Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (pictured Nov. 27, 1963) has indicated that he would like to be President Johnson’s running mate but that he would also accept such jobs as Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, or Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
“Actually, I should think I’d be the last man in the world he [Johnson] would want,” Mr. Kennedy said in an interview published by Newsweek magazine, “because my name is Kennedy and he wants a Johnson Administration, because we travel different paths, because I suppose some businessmen would object, and because I’d cost them a few votes in the South. I don’t think as many as some say, but some.”
There are reasons, however, why Mr. Johnson might pick him, he said.
“Because most of the major political leaders in the North want me,” Mr. Kennedy said. “All of them, really. And that’s about all I’ve got going for me.”
He realizes that if Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona gets the Republican Presidential nomination, President Johnson would pick someone else less controversial in the South, where the Senator’s strength is believed to lie.
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