MCBC 8 page 2

H: Originally, I went to Tallahassee [and], basically, I did not think that I would stay
 any long length of time because, like I said, I [had] contracted on the Cape for
 eight years, and I was vice president of the Smith Sapp Construction Company
 in Orlando. I agreed to come up for awhile and work with Wade Hopping as his
 assistant. Wade was a legislative aide and became a Supreme Court justice.
 The governor had seven major pieces of legislation he wanted to try to get
 passed. Wade took four and gave me three. I got all three of mine passed
 because I knew the Democrats. I guess after that, the governor really kind of
 wanted me to stay on. I became more fascinated with it, and so I decided to stay.
 I stayed all the way through. Governor [Reubin] Askew [1971-1979] even asked
 me stay on, not on as the chief of staff but asked me stay on, but I had been
 away from my business so long. I did agree to stay for two months to help him
 put it all together before I went back to private business.

B: If you would be so kind as to describe the process with which Governor Kirk
 came to be involved in the Manatee County bussing situation.

H: I tried to sit and kind of think about this a little bit when you called. I believe that
 originally, the Democratic leadership tried to sponsor a bill that would affect the
 whole state from a neighborhood school standpoint. I cannot remember the
 exact title of the bill, but it died, due to the fact it was tied nine-to-nine [on
 whether the bill should] come out of the committee. That particular plan was
 based upon the Orange County plan that required no bussing. The Democrats
 thought that was a good solution for what Claude Kirk was looking for because
 Claude was not fighting [integration]--Claude Kirk was fighting the forced bussing
 part, not segregation and desegregation. Claude saw that it was going to be
 forced bussing. I think it was like 2,600 kids had to be force-bussed in Manatee
 County. The plan was supposed to go into effect on April 6. The judge, I believe,
 on January 29 of that year, had made the ruling, and it was to go into effect on
 April 6. Claude, I think it was on a Sunday, on April 4, decided he was going to
 take over the school. He suspended the school board on Monday, the 5th. He
 talked to me and the aides-I believe that date was correct-and he told me he
 was going to take over the school system and he was going to send me and a
 couple of the other aides there, and I was to see to it that forced bussing did not
 happen. Well, he suspended [the school board] on Monday, and Judge [Ben]
 Krentzmen ordered him to be in court on Tuesday. Claude was a no-show. He
 did not show, and Judge Krentzmen then told the school board that they were
 back in power and they were to carry [the bussing plan] out. On Wednesday,
 Claude suspended the school board again, and on Thursday, the federal
 marshals showed up. Of course, we had a lot of Highway Patrol people there,
 and we had the Manatee County sheriff's deputies there. I originally handled all
 the governor's appointments to different positions, and I had even appointed
 [Richard] Weitzenfeld sheriff. I had talked with Weitzenfeld, and I had instructed
 him that, if the federal marshals came in to arrest us, that they were to just hold
 them back and we would go into the district superintendent's office. So they