Tapes reveals President Johnson's plans for Thurgood Marshall

President Lyndon B. Johnson's plan to make Thurgood Marshall the first African American on the U. S. Supreme Court is revealed in once secret tapes revealed by CNN:

Johnson’s plan was to appoint Marshall as solicitor general, where he would get the experience that would make him one of the best-qualified candidates ever to the U.S. Supreme Court, CNN reports. The tapes were released by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, which is analyzing and transcribing secret White House tapes of several presidents.


Johnson talked about the plan with his former attorney general, Nicholas Katzenbach. "I want to build [Marshall] up where he's impenetrable when he becomes a Supreme Court justice,” Johnson said. The president said he wasn’t sure if he would appoint Marshall, “but he's damn sure going to be qualified." Johnson appeared more sure of the future appointment in a conversation with John Kenneth Galbraith, however. The plan, the president said, was to nominate Marshall after he was solicitor general for a year or two and a vacancy opened up.