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placed an ad in the February 5, 1965, New York Times —THIS IS SELMA, ALABAMA. THERE ARE MORE NEGROES IN JAIL WITH ME THAN THERE ARE ON THE VOTING ROLLS—and posted bond to confer in Washington, White House aides had scolded him for presuming upon Johnson’s schedule, adding to the grave burdens of state. Johnson had set for King an appointment with underlings, then concocted an “accidental” meeting at which he insisted upon his prerogative to choose the content and moment for any voting rights bill. This last encounter had put King back on edge with Johnson. Before he left California on Sunday, February 28, King called intermediaries to urge that prominent citizens send telegrams on his behalf, beseeching Johnson for federal protection of his life against death threats the next day in Alabama. He had no way of knowing that FBI agents overheard his call through a wiretap on the phone of his lawyer in New York, Clarence Jones, or that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reacted to the intercept by maneuvering to escape such duty. Nor could King realize how sharply Johnson felt the tenterhooks of two fateful decisions that same weekend.
    The President ordered his staff to evaluate a proposal to suspend local literacy tests, and to provide for direct registration by federal officials, in those areas of the country where Negroes voted drastically under their percentage of the population. Senior speechwriter Horace Busby promptly warned that white Southern voters would deplore such drastic measures as “a return to Reconstruction.” More broadly, a stand for the rights of poorly educated and illiterate Negroes “will be unpopular far outside the South” as a “most radical intervention” in state affairs, Busby argued, and would jeopardize generations of accumulated public trust by touching the hot-button fear of government domination. Busby’s objections circulated on Sunday, and Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach wrote a pained reply. Katzenbach himself strongly opposed any new civil rights initiative as premature. He believed the country had just begun to digest the law of 1964—moving toward gradual compliance in public accommodations but still segregated, now illegally, in nearly all schools and employment sectors, including the news media and government itself. He feared that another controversial race law would undermine the daunting task of enforcement, and meanwhile would snarl the Congress for months of a second consecutive year. Reluctantly, however, Katzenbach turned aside from Busby’s tempting position that it was wiser to outlaw the “abuse” by state officials of their rightful duty to set standards for voters. Such abuse was forbidden already by statutes across two centuries, he said, but local officials consistently delayed, thwarted, and evaded prosecution by the Justice Department in dozens of recent marathon cases. He saw only a remote chance to win effective remedy under arrangements that “leave control of voting machinery in state hands,” given the pervasive obstacles in Southern statehouses and courtrooms. “Therefore,” Katzenbach concluded, “while I agree with Mr. Busby that the political consequences of the proposed message are serious, I see no alternative.” If Johnson really meant to secure the right of Negroes to vote, he must try to extend the reach of national government and trust posterity to judge whether the result enhanced freedom or tyranny.

    K ATZENBACH’S MEMORANDUM landed on Monday at the White House, where officials bemoaned a simultaneous choice about whether American power should and could shape political order halfway around the world. In a cocoon of official secrecy, President Johnson was ending his own tormented war of decision before most people recognized anything of significance about distant Vietnam. “The game now is in the fourth quarter and it’s about 78 to nothing,” he had