“What Do You Think Happened to Them?”

In conversation with Deputy Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, President Johnson ruminated over whether to see the parents of three civil rights workers-James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman-who had gone missing in Mississippi. Johnson asked Katzenbach what he thought had happened to the men, and Katzenbach replied that he thought they had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan.