<Begin Segment 20>

TI: During this same period, while you were assigned to investigate Hoffa, the Kennedy administration, in particular, Robert Kennedy, was active in the Civil Rights movement. And I'm curious; was there any connection with your work to this other work happening in the Department of Justice?

CS: Absolutely none, and for an unusual reason. Number one, I was not in the civil rights division, which was headed by Burke Marshall. But when the Justice Department was involved in such things as the Freedom Rides and other things like that, Bob Kennedy was very adamant that I should not be exposed, as a person of color, to whatever was going on. We deputized Justice Department lawyers, all whites, as deputy marshals to go to Mississippi and Alabama, because the spokespersons in the Federal Bureau of Investigation asserted openly that, quote, "We work for the same government, but we're not on the same side." So we -- that is, the Kennedy administration -- did not have a lot of confidence in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and therefore, deputized lawyers to become investigators. I was never one of them. I never had anything at all to do with the Civil Rights movement.

[Interruption]

CS: I was never part of the Civil Rights movement, in large measure because my assignments in the Justice Department were in a totally different direction. Bob Kennedy well-meaningly tried to become aware of the Civil Rights movement. One of the instances where he made a big mistake was to call in some celebrities, Lena Horne being one, the singer who sings "Day O"... momentarily his name escapes me. Famous --

TI: Is it Belafonte?

CS: Harry Belafonte. Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, and some other celebrities among the African American group, and he thought he was going to get their blessings. And they raked him over the coals. And this was a baptism of fire for him to recognize that at best, he was a well-meaning white liberal who didn't really understand what the Civil Rights movement was all about. And after that meeting, I think that Bob Kennedy became changed. I think that it was reflected in his, in his speeches, his public appearances. I worked on his campaign for the Senate in New York in 1964, I left the Justice Department and was on the staff of his campaign. And the speeches that he made, some of which have been memorialized -- and they're not all his words, he had a wonderful speechwriter who's a very good friend of mine. [Laughs] And, but at the same time, when a person in public life, a politician or other person, delivers a message, and it is partially crafted by a professional speechwriter, it becomes the words of the person delivering it, so that Bob Kennedy's speeches and messages rang a bit more true, and a bit more sincere after his encounter with Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte, and some of the others. I think that he was genuine in his belief about equality. I think he was genuine in his belief that there should be equal opportunity. My going to work for him had nothing whatever to do with the fact that I was not white. And while it is easy for persons like me to boast that whatever I achieved was on my own merit, I recognized that Bob Kennedy would have asked me to come to him regardless who I was. If I had been a woman or a man, or a person of color, person not of color, because I had something that he wanted, and I was able to deliver it, and ultimately resulting in a prosecution and a conviction.

But again, I remember one instance that sticks in my mind. Bob Kennedy used to come into the area where our desks were located, and he said to the person in charge of the office, "I see there are no Negroes here. Aren't there any available?" The next morning, we had a black secretary. [Laughs] And the person in charge had "stolen" this young woman from the State Department. She may have been competent, but she knew that she was a token, she spent her time polishing her fingernails, doing her fingers, she wouldn't do any work. And I called her in said to her, "If you are ever assigned to work for me, if you don't do the work, you are fired." And so she was never assigned to work for me, but that was, however, an indication of the strength of the words of someone who heads a department like an attorney general, who would say, "There aren't any Negroes here. Aren't there any available?" and then they'd find one. And so that was a crude attempt at inclusiveness in employment, in equal employment. And it was also the hallmark of his work, not only as attorney general, but as United States senator from New York, that he engaged in equal employment opportunity.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.