MCBC 8 page 27

 way. As I said before, the federal marshals said to me, you know, normally in
 these situations, the person has backed out of the way and we have gone right
 on in, and we did not do that. But we did not do it trying to make a name like
 Orval Faubus and others, and [Lester] Maddox [Georgia segregationist governor]
 and some of the others. They had their reasons and the governor had his, and I
 did not see it in that vein. I just felt like he was trying to stop forced bussing, and I
 agreed with that philosophy even though, as I said, it was not my fight. It was his
 fight. As governor, he represented the people of this state, and he felt like the
 people of this state, that was what they expected from him. I think today, if you
 took a poll, he would be right, and the others would have been wrong. I think that
 would be overwhelming today.

B: So do you feel that he had other options where he could have stood up for his
 principles without resorting to this?

H: To tell you the truth, I do not see where he could have and put any kind of real
 emphasis on it because from everything that I gathered as we started, they did
 not want to hear about the Manatee County plan. They had other plans [arising
 from the contentious busing dispute in] Mecklenburg County and Charlotte [North
 Carolina], and they did not want to get this plan anywhere close to getting in the
 way. That was the only fight that Claude Kirk had, to stand on what his principles
 were, and he did it. It did not go down well, I am sure, with some national people,
 but he did it anyway.

B: How did you feel that Manatee County affected him politically?

H: From a standpoint of re-election and what have you, I am sure that people would
 have voted for him and did vote for him. I cannot remember his original election
 how strong his vote was, but I sincerely believe and they did when he went for
 re-election that the vote was much heavier than it was originally. I would think
 that they did appreciate what he stood for, at least a majority of the people, and I
 can understand. As I said before, the black community at that stage in history
 supported that view, that they wanted the forced bussing. They wanted equal
 opportunity on the different schools. But today, if you interviewed those people, I
 believe they would tell you that was a mistake.

B: So you feel that the support for Kirk in the Manatee County situation was
 genuine, but yet he still did not win the following election.

H: Correct, but no Republican...he was the first one. It was a fluke in one sense that
 he got elected the first time. If it had not been for the conservative Democrats,
 Haydon Burns and what have you, he would have never made it. As much I
 loved Claude Kirk and what have you, I sat at the airport with Reubin Askew long
 before the election was held. I told him, Reubin, I know you know you will be the
 next governor, because that is just the history and that is exactly what is going to