CIVIL RIGHTS AND RIOTING 369

Q. Do you have to ask for extradition to bring Brown back here?

A. No, he's arrested under a Federal warrant. In this regard, I think
it's important for me to say this, it may not be the smartest thing
I've ever said politically, but I'm not in accord at all with the broad
based Republican criticism of President Johnson with regard to the
race riots across the country. I think it represents an over generaliza-
tion, and I think it, to some extent, is a disservice to what are ob-
viously sincere efforts to do something about conditions in the urban
areas. I'm not an admirer of every Federal program, and I've been a
critic of the President on many occasions, particularly when I think
he's involved in under funding and over programming certain activi-
ties. I've said this many times, but I think that if we, the Republican
opposition, are going to be effective, we've got to restrain ourselves
from seizing upon expedient times to politically criticize, playing on
emotions, as this particular criticism obviously did. I don't agree with
it at all.

Q. Do you disapprove of political poetic license?

A. I don't know what that is.

Q. Was the meeting with the mayor at his request or your request?

A. It was at the mayor's request.

Q. When will that take place, Governor?

A. I'm not sure, but sometime this afternoon.

Q. Here?

A. Yes.

Q. Governor, there are some reports that some newsmen went down
to Cambridge and the press were manhandled by the Cambridge
police. Any kind of a comment on it?

A. I have no knowledge of it, I really don't. This is the first I've
heard of it.

STATEMENT ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND RIOTING

July 30, 1967

Our country is as much threatened by the lawless rioting in our
streets as it is by our enemies abroad. In such a serious time, the