Don’t be surprised if former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., is among those eager to read the transcripts of the latest tape-recorded conversations of President Johnson, which were released by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum earlier this month.
The 13 hours of conversations, which took place in early 1968 when LBJ was grappling with the anti-war opposition that later caused him to decide against running for re-election, include some acid comments about Rostenkowski, who came toCongress in 1959.
LBJ bitterly complained to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in a phone conversation on Jan. 20, 1968, about Rostenkowski, who was a Daley protege. He said he’d like to further Rostenkowski’s career, but accused him of “whoring around with every damned bad mouther and dissident” in the anti-war movement.
Daley was sympathetic, according to Robert Garrett of the Dallas Morning News. “He told Mr. Johnson that he often warned Mr. Rostenkowski not to answer every reporter’s question or take stands on every issue,” Garrett said.
“Don’t talk too much because you’ll have to retract too much,” Daley said.
Rostenkowski, of course, went on to become of the most powerful members of Congress. He became chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 1981, but was defeated in 1994 after being indicted on corruption charges involving mail fraud in the House post office scandal. He later served 17 months in a Wisconsin minimum-security prison.
