MCBC 8 page 20

H: No, not to my recollection.

B: Could you talk about your knowledge of the interaction between the Justice
 Department and Governor Kirk?

H: I know that the governor was just trying a lot to talk to Mitchell and to talk even to
 Nixon and others in the administration to try to get in ahead of the
 Charlotte/Mecklenburg County case, and he tried to present his arguments to
 them. I was not privy to all the calls. I am sure he did most of them at the
 mansion. But he tried very hard to convince them of the situation, and they just
 kept insisting, I think, that it ought to be the Mecklenburg County case they got
 into the courts first. That is the reason I say that cartoon really shows the
 secretary would be looking for another job if she did not quit passing those calls.

B: I will have to look for that.

H: I could look back, but it would take me a while to go through. I have got a lot of
 old clippings and stuff filed away. I might be able to find a copy of the cartoon.

B: So was this communication, again to the best of your knowledge, of course,
 ongoing throughout the week, or was it towards the end of the week when it was
 really starting to heat up?

H: I think he had been trying all during the week, and I think he probably even tried
 before. He knew the court order went into effect on Monday, or Tuesday. When
 he suspended the board on Sunday, I guess it was, I am sure that he already
 talked to somebody in the Nixon administration about what was happening. He
 probably was very popular with the administration until we got down to the 1968
 convention in Miami [when] he supported Nelson Rockefeller [governor of New
 York and rival of Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination]. Up until that
 point, he had an open phone line almost, I think, to Washington. So, I am sure
 he talked to plenty of people before. I was not privy to all those conversations, as
 I said.

B: Do you know if he ever talked to Nixon?

H: I have no personal knowledge, but I am sure he did. In fact, even as bad as
 things got at one point, I felt like Nixon was still considering him for VP [vice
 president].

B: Even throughout all this, through the 1970s?

H: Hm-mm [yes].

B: Why would he have done that?