Hellard:Wait a minute. [tape turned off and on] Okay I got it on again. This is
tape sixteen, side two, interview. Okay.:And he said, “I dasn’t tangle with you when you was a young fellow, and I
dasn’t tangle with you now.”Hellard:[laughs] He was a pretty controversial member of the planning commission.
:Oh, hell yes. And he wheeled and dealt.
Hellard:When you were active in the—
:But in those days we were all together on the Combs’ stuff, you know, and—and
Perk was another one, C. M. Perkins, and— I’ll tell you who else in our crowd then, the Hoggs.Hellard:Well, the Hoggs and the—the Lewis—Lewis clan, Jim Bond Lewis and—
:Oh, Jim Bond—
Hellard:( )
:—and old Jim—and old Jim and—what’s the other boy’s name?
Hellard:Vinsy Lewis.
:Yeah, Vin, uh-huh.
Hellard:And the Carters down at Nonesuch—
:That’s—
Hellard:Jack Corman’s son-in-law.
:Yeah, the Carters out there, that’s right, kin to Melvin Carter.
Hellard:Uh-huh.
:And, you know, that—that added up to a pretty good delegation. Yeah, Jim Lewis,
Jim Bond Lewis, and whatever the other boy’s name was and— I always thought Matt had about a half a foot in our camp. You know, Matt, Matt, at that time really wasn’t wild about Happy, but, you know, Matt wasn’t fixing to tangle with him, though and— Trying to think of some of the others that were in our crowd. Now Bess, of course, was with , because Jimmy Jack and Mamie were still married.Hellard:Well, she didn’t much like him.
:Oh, she hated him [Hellard laughs].
Hellard:Didn’t much like him.
:I’ll tell you what they did one time. They asked me to come over there. And
they—they wanted to get some consulting contracts with the Combs administration. And I’m not sure that Jimmy Jack hadn’t given some money to John Watts when he was chairman in the fall campaign for Combs, hoping he could hold on to some. And—and Bess was giving Happy hell. She said, “You know, I always felt like when he was in and wanted something for Jimmy Jack, we’d have to go over there and bow down to those Chandlers, and I never liked it.” I can hear her saying that now. And then later on, when we used the stuff about “fill the sack for Jimmy Jack,” I think they always felt, you know, that I’d turned on them.Hellard:Was that in the campaign of—of ’63?
:’63.
Hellard:’63.
:’63, yep. “Fill the sack for Jimmy Jack.” What happened was that we searched
the records—Bob Bell and I. You know, it wasn’t based on anything Jimmy Jack had told us, or Bess. We searched the records, and found the records of the contracts that he’d had, a lot of them for roads that were never built, you know. Happy used to give those contracts, engineer—they’d engineer and design roads and bridges that were never built. And we got it in the Courier-Journal, I think Harwood— And you know, the truth is, that Jimmy Jack and the Lewis family, that Lewis family, were kind of distantly kin to Combs.Hellard:Well, Bess, on more than one occasion, told me that.
:You know, they came from down in—what was it, or one of those—
Hellard:One of the mountain counties.
:One of those mountain counties, close to where Combs came from, Clay. Yeah, and
it was an interesting—Hellard:Well, during the Kennedy campaign of 1960, what—what was your—your position?
:Well, I was just in the headquarters. I never had any official position. Just
kind of advising them and getting out stuff.Hellard:There were two youth chairmen for the state that worked for—for John
Kennedy, and they were a fellow named Carol Hubbard and Terry McBrayer.:Yeah. See, they had come in—they were both for Waterfield in the primary of
nineteen and fifty-nine—Hellard:Yes.
:—one at Morehead and one at . And Hubbard was—I remember he spoke at , he was
kind of a boy orator. And after the primary, this was a Cle-, great Clements trick, Clements went out and got both of them and enlisted them in the Combs campaign in the fall. And that’s how Terry got his political start and Hubbard too. And Combs put Hubbard on the delegation to , or was it ?Hellard:.
: in ’60. I was on the delegation, but I couldn’t go. I had to try a case in the
federal court up at Pikeville. And I didn’t really much want to go, because close as Johnson and I were, I was really for Kennedy and I—I may have used that a little bit as an excuse not to go. And Hubbard went out there and was the youngest delegate, and Clements took him over to the Los Angeles Times and told them about him, and they wrote a story about him as the youngest delegate. And one of the—and the reporter said, “It’s too bad we don’t have a picture of you.” And Hubbard reached in his pocket and pulled out [Hellard laughs] a—he says, “I’ve got a glossy print right here [Hellard laughs].” But the general view then was that McBrayer had much more substance to him.Hellard:Has time borne that out?
:Hell yes. Oh yes.
Hellard:Why do—why do you—
:I think McBrayer has improved in substance since he was defeated for governor.
I think he’s matured a lot. I think McBrayer’s a fine fellow, and what I said about him in that campaign four years ago was exactly what I meant. That I didn’t think he’d killed any sheep but that he’d run with sheep-killing dogs. And I never thought Terry was not an honorable person and a decent person, but I thought he let ambition delude him into becoming too, too much a creature and ally of people like Hunt and Julian [Carroll]. But I think after he got defeated, he matured a lot. He made an excellent trustee of the university and I begged [John Y.] Brown [Jr.] to reappoint him. What do you—Hellard:Let me ask you—I want to back up a minute—why—why were you for Kennedy?
Was it a matter of—of—of knowing him, or being more philosophically attuned, or—:Well, I knew both of them. I probably knew—I probably knew Johnson much better.
Johnson and I, as I’ve told you in past interviews, Johnson and I had had a very close friendship. And I was just of two minds. I thought Kennedy would be a stronger candidate than Johnson. I didn’t think Johnson could win. I thought that Kennedy was more, some of his thinking was just more in accord with mine. And you know, I was—I was bedazzled by the Kennedys and continued to be. I’ve been a kind of a Kennedy loyalist through all the years. I was for Bobby in 1968 for president. I was for Teddy in 1980 for president. So I—I never thought it was unnatural. I mean, it’s always a source of embarrassment and regret when you got two friends running.Hellard:Had you met John Kennedy while you were in —
:I met him—
Hellard:—or later?
:—I met him when he first came to , when he was in the Congress. And his sister
used to come to our house in Washington to parties, the one that was killed in the airplane crash, the one they called—what was it?—Kit, or Kit, Kathleen.Hellard:What were your impressions of John Kennedy when you first met him?
:Well, I thought he was very charming, somewhat, great sense of humor, had that
laid-back quality that one has to admire in a politician. But I was very much enthralled by him, and, although my favorite was Bobby, particularly after Bobby had a conversion experience in the—time Jack was killed. I really, really, my heart was really in his campaign.Hellard:Let’s talk about the truck deal and the separation of Clements’ and
Combs’ administration.:Uh-huh.
Hellard:You want—I think you had alluded to it the other day, that, that you
felt like that it was never Bert’s baby, necessarily, but that, that Earle had gotten kind of involved in it by way of some others. You want to just elaborate on it?:Yeah. I—I know all about it. After the [1959 Democratic gubernatorial] primary,
the Combs campaign was in considerable financial trouble. They had stretched themselves to the breaking point to finance the primary campaign. There was a lot of money spent in that campaign by both sides. Combs’ campaign was in debt. They owed the hotel a big bill, and Mr. Martin Brown, the—who’s still living and was at that Seelbach reunion, an old man way up in his eighties—was credit manager of the hotel, and he personally guaranteed our bill for the campaign. We had to get some fresh money and fresh sources of money. So Bill May—every Sunday afternoon we used to have a strategy meeting at the headquarters. And then when that was over, they’d have a finance committee meeting, and that would be Clements, and Bill May and, Louis Cox, and probably the candidates. And so one Saturday—Sunday afternoon, Clements, I mean Bill May, brought in two new people with the recommendation that they head up the finance committee in the fall campaign since they hadn’t been involved in the primary. And one was Thurston Cooke, automobile dealer, I guess dealer, wasn’t he?Hellard:I don’t know.
:And the other was Murrel Robertson, chairman of the board of the Liberty Bank.
And they agreed to do it. And of course Robertson’s interest, as I later found out, was that Cooke owed him a lot of money, and he was in hopes Cooke could get well. And I have no doubt that on that Sunday afternoon, the matter of the truck deal was brought up then. And Wilson Wyatt was there, and helped bring them in. Earle Clements was not there. Earle had to go to . He was still, you know, affiliated with the Democratic senatorial campaign committee. And Earle was not present. But they all went in a little room, just two, three of them, May, and Cox, and, not me. And that’s, in my opinion, when the deal was cut. I’m not sure Bert was there, but Wyatt was there. And then after Clements became highway commissioner, he in effect was told—I don’t know whether directly by Combs or by Wyatt—that the deal had been cut and that he was supposed to carry it out. And Clements was very reluctant about buying used trucks. I know this because, you know, during the early period of the Co-, first month or six weeks of the Combs administration, I volunteered to be an unpaid assistant to Clements and was in his office every day. We’d have breakfast—I would leave the place in and come over—we’d have breakfast and go to his office, and I’d sit there with him while these things were being done. And—and Clements was very touchy about it. And these trucks were down in or somewhere. And they never had appointed a director of purchasing for the highway department. And so one Sunday—I was not present—but one Sunday they asked Clements to go over to , and Cooke brought to him a man named Harry Klapeke, who had some association with Cooke. And they recommended him to be director of purchasing, and Combs was very, and Wyatt both, were very favorable to that. So Clements then, later, asked Klapeke to go to and give him a report on the condition and quality of these trucks. And Klapeke wrote him a report, known later as the Klapeke Report, which certified that these trucks were in first-class condition even though they were reconditioned chur-, trucks. [Bob] Martin insisted that they be put out for bids. And of course the kind of a specification was drawn that was a little skewed, in a sense that, you know, allowed used trucks to be bid. And Cooke got the bid. And after Klapeke made this certification, they told Cooke to deliver the trucks. Well, when they started to deliver the trucks, there was an old fellow named Slayton over there, who Cl-, who was hated by Clarence Maloney. And Clarence got Earle to demote him, maybe even fire him. And Mr. Slayton, who—pretty honorable old fellow—found out that these trucks were deficient and broke down, and he leaked it to Kyle Vance [of the Courier-Journal], and that’s how the story broke. And Clements was guilty of some inaction about it. He didn’t allow a dime to be paid to Cooke for any of them, but he didn’t do anything else, he just was waiting for developments to occur. And then when the leak came out, he still was trying to, you know, see what could be worked out, or what could be done, or how it could be handled. And the Courier-Journal began to come down on them with all fours on Clements. And Combs, in my opinion, did a wrong thing. He issued a statement that the thing ought to be canceled and more or less dumped it on Clements. And Wyatt was making statements that this was a terrible deal and ought to be canceled when he was the one that initiated use of it. And I always thought that Combs and Wyatt dumped it on Clements and made a conscious decision to trade, tr- Clements for the good will of the Courier-Journal. And I thought it was very unfair to Earle. And I think deep down, Combs feels bad about it too. Now, that isn’t what immediately caused Clements to be, to leave the highway department. Clements was then being very active in the [Lyndon] Johnson campaign and was chosen as a delegate to the convention [in 1960]. And somebody raised the question of whether this was a violation of the Hatch Act, which applied to any state official who handled federal funds. And Clements then resigned to be active in, fully active in the Johnson campaign. But he always really felt that Combs wanted to get rid of him. And when he left, it was with great bitterness, and he felt that he had been embarrassed and humiliated about a deal that really wasn’t his deal and that he had, insofar as he had any complicity, he was trying to by loyal to Combs and not obstruct the carrying out of one of Combs’ commitments—or Wyatt’s and Combs’ commitments. And that was the source of Clements’ bitterness toward Combs, which never abated much.Hellard:Will—will Combs be at the Clements testimonial dinner?
:I’m not sure. I—I guess he will be.
Hellard:Did they not have a confrontation at some point, Combs and—and Clements?
:Oh, I think they’ve had several.
Hellard:Well, did Cl-, did Clements ever shake Combs?
:No, not that I know of, not that I know of. But I think they’ve had some bitter exchanges.
Hellard:As far as Wilson Wyatt goes, do you remember a fellow named Fred Tucker?
:Of course I knew Fred Tucker.
Hellard:What did you think about Fred?
:Thought he was a fool [Hellard laughs], thought he was a fool, and Wyatt was a
sap for being enamored of him. He was a just a stooge for Wyatt and a kind of an ass and Wyatt just let him be a stooge. You know, Wyatt had a lot of gullibility to him. Wyatt had some able people with him, but he also had some weak sisters.Hellard:How about Ellis Merrifield?
:Oh, I think Ellis was capable as hell. Ellis is all right. She was very loyal
to Wyatt and very loyal to Combs and very loyal to Clements. You know, there were a lot of people who had divided loyalties and didn’t want to have to choose among those people, such people as Cattie Lou Miller, such people as me. And Clements was momentarily very much put out with me because I was so active for Breathitt and active for Wyatt. But he got over it.Hellard:Would Breathitt have been Clements’ choice for governor [in 1963] had
not this bitterness developed?:Could easily have been. Breathitt—Combs liked him, and Combs—and Breathitt—and
Clements still likes him. And Breathitt really made peace with Clements after he became governor. And he—he made—caused Clements to be the chairman of the constitutional assembly and—Breathitt was a peacemaker—and he and, he and Clements are very close friends now. And Clements and I are close friends. I mean, you know, we—we had a period of, a rocky period for a while, a year or so, but we ended up—we ended up—and Combs—and Clements finally recognized that I was going to be with Combs on these things, and that much as I loved him, I wasn’t going to let him take me into the Chandler side.Hellard:Did he pursue you for the side?
:Not really, because he knew I was already committed. He never really did, but
he showed resentment.Hellard:Did it surprise anyone that he went with ?
:Not me. The day he left Frankfort—Ed Farris and I can remember it as if it were
yesterday—we took a long ride and drove around in front of the old Frankfort Country Club two or three times, just drove around that driveway, and we predicted the course of events, that Clements would not make up with Combs and that he would be for Chandler in 1963. I was not surprised. Ed Farris was not surprised.Hellard:Do you think was surprised?
:No. I’ve always thought that one of the things that helped cement it was that
probably had enough clout with Bobby Kennedy [to help him in his tax case]. Bobby never would help him in the race. He tried every way in the world to get the Kennedys to help him, but they wouldn’t touch him. Of course Combs and his crowd had been too loyal to the Kennedys. But Clements was in his tax troubles about that time, haven’t I mentioned this?Hellard:Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
:And I always thought that, and it was generally believed, that Bobby Kennedy
probably deferred to in not proceeding criminally against Clements. The chances of a conviction weren’t very great, but—and Clements was able to settle that case for civil liability. But Clements never liked the Kennedys, or at least didn’t like them after an incident in nineteen and sixty, the night of the election. We had a little room with a TV where we were getting the returns, and became evident to us early that Kennedy was going to lose . And Clements said something like, “Well, we got punished in—for for nominating a Catholic.” And Dick Harwood [of the Louisville Times] was sitting in the room, and Clements shouldn’t have said it.[end of tape two, side one]
And Clements shouldn’t have said it. But Dick Harwood eased out of the room and
called Barry Bingham [Jr.], who was there representing one of the networks that night. Barry wasn’t at the Courier then—young Barry.Hellard:Uh-huh.
:And Barry called the—the network, and it was broadcast on TV about eleven
o’clock that night. And that created a great bitterness against Clements by the Kennedys, and it never—it never was wholly healed.Hellard:Did—did Governor Clements know that Harwood was in the room?
:Yep. But he didn’t believe that Harwood would do what he did. And Harwood
shouldn’t have done it. Harwood was let in there on a confidential basis. I can tell you who was sitting in the room: Clements and Smith Broadbent and I. Smith was the campaign chairman. And Clements wanted to sue him for libel, you know. And he went over and tried to get Morton Holbrook to do it. And Morton finally advised him not to, and rightly so. Clements was denying, of course, that he ever said it. And I was ready to lie for him. But he did say it.Hellard:You need to knock your ashes off.
:Uh-huh.
Hellard:Well, did that make Harwood a little suspect in your mind?
:Well, Harwood and I continued to be close friends, but I felt it was an act of
treachery. It was something he obtained in a confidential situation where it had been assumed that this would not be on the record.Hellard:Let’s talk a moment about the constitutional officers who served with
Bert [Combs] and then, I think, we’ll call it a day if that’s okay. We’re almost out of tape. But the next time, I’d like to go into—I’d like to talk about the court, ’s Court of Appeals—:All right.
Hellard:—in the Combs years and any kind of impressions _____
:Now, what is it you want to talk about now?
Hellard:Constitutional officers. Henry Carter was serving in some capacity
with—I think he was treasurer, was he not?:He’d been treasurer in the administration.
Hellard:And then he went—
:And I—you remember I talked to you, didn’t I, about the Ripper Bill?
Hellard:Yes sir.
:All right. Then in the—in the—in 1959, Henry [Carter] ran for secretary of
state and was elected on the Combs ticket. He was secretary of state. Doc Beauchamp was commissioner of agriculture. Thelma Stovall was treasurer and a thorn in the flesh. Wendell Butler was superintendent of public instruction. John Breckinridge was attorney general. Wilson Wyatt was lieutenant governor. Was Mary Louise Faust the auditor?Hellard:Seems like she was.
:No, she’d been something under—she’d been something in the administration.
She’d been auditor. Joe Schneider was the auditor. Joe Schneider had worked for Bill May. Had been in the legislature way back during Chandler and Keen Johnson’s administration, from Covington, then went to work for Bill May and they put him on the ticket for auditor. ( )Hellard:What—what was the general reaction of the—of the constitutional officers
over the split of Combs and Clements? Of course, obviously, Thelma was probably pleased.:Yeah, she just—she was probably, says, “Go it husband, go it bare.” I mean, you
know, she didn’t like either one of them very much. The fellow that really was most perplexed by it was Beauchamp, who had been such an intimate ally of Clements, but he wouldn’t leave Combs. And Combs got ill at Beauchamp when Beauchamp wouldn’t go against Breathitt in ’63, and— John Breckinridge was—didn’t have any problems, you know, he was a kind of an independent anyhow and really was more with Combs. Henry Carter stuck with Combs, and Clements got very bitter at Henry Carter because it was Henry Carter’s garrulity that got Clements in his tax troubles to a great extent. Because Henry was the fellow who was banking commissioner under Clements, and all that money that was raised for these political purposes was kept in cash in a safe in his office. And when Clements went to , he directed Henry to put it all in a big suitcase and take it up on the train, and Henry did it and then came back and told everybody about it. So there wasn’t any, you know, there wasn’t any love lost there anyhow. Who else am I mentioning? Joe Schneider, well, he was wherever Bill May was. And Clements and Bill May, you know, had—had their differences.Hellard:Was—was Clements able to take anybody with him to the camp?
:I think he took Ed Farris. But he took very few with him. He took very few with
him—Carlos Oakley. You know, the truth is by that time Clements, except for the force of his personality, didn’t have a hold. He was out of office. He didn’t have any, you know, he didn’t have any battalions. I don’t mean he didn’t have a lot of friends, but most of his friends were—had hostages to fortune in the Combs administration, people like the Turners [Ervine and Marie Turner], Dick Moloney, Henry Ward.Hellard:Well, in your judgment, did—did Bert really—was part of it, maybe, that
Bert wanted to get rid of Clements in his administration?:I’ve always thought that, deep down, you know, one of the issues that was used
against him in the primary, was that he was a puppet of Clements. And John Ed Pearce wrote that piece about Combs riding on Clements like a little Indian boy seated on the trunk of a big elephant. And I think that always stuck with Bert. And he felt that—that he was going to have constant trouble, particularly with the Courier-Journal and Wyatt’s people, if he—if he remained under the shadow of Clements. And while I don’t know that he set out in a cunning, conniving way to do it, there was a drive to do it. And a—another thing that upset him was this: during the fall campaign [in 1959], after Waterfield was defeated, you know, Clements went out, I’ve told you that, to take Chandler’s troops away from him.Hellard:Uh-huh.
:Well, part of that was he cut these deals. And these deals, if they were to be
carried out, necessitated Combs to be high-, Clements to be highway commissioner. And Clements had had a commitment from Combs to be highway commissioner, but Combs never really wanted him to—to call that—that commitment. And when Clements knew that May and some of them didn’t want him, he—he was determined to be highway commissioner so he could go in there and carry out the deals he had made with some of these Chandlerites. And this created a lot of political friction between Combs and people in some of these counties, including . And I think this irritated, and—and Combs never quite believed that Clements was willing to recognize that he, Combs, was the governor. And I think Clements never was really able to recognize it. You know, Clements is a domineering person. And I’m not saying this to put any of them down, you know. I love them all. But—but that’s the fact. And I can’t say that I totally blame Combs. I can’t say that I totally blame Clements. But I do think that Combs should have found a more tactful and delicate way to deal with it because he was under a great obligation to Clements and never would have been governor if it hadn’t been for Clements.Hellard:What about John Breckinridge? Was he much of a force?
:Not a real political force. He—he got a lot of publicity. He was kind of an
eccentric, you know, showman. But he never was a man of much political judgment. But he got a lot of publicity. He was good at that. John, I never thought, was very smart. I never could understand what he was talking about most of the time. You know [Hellard laughs], he—he had a strange way of talking, very opinionated. And he and I were never really close. You know, he had been very—one of those who got after me very much in that election thievery business and was very, very hostile to me in all that and took a lot of pleasure in my difficulties. But I forgave him for that. I—I was for him for attorney general, for him for Congress, and we—we became sort of reconciled in a way, but I never really was a— Now, his brother Scott and I are very intimate friends.Hellard:Well, John wasn’t a very industrious person, was he?
:Naw. And you know he’d get drunk, drove at a hundred miles an hour, was always
getting speeding tickets. And he was a, you know, he was a—he had a scrambled egg where his brain ought to be.Hellard:In what ways did Thelma—was—was Thelma a thorn in the side?
:Well, she was always holding up checks. Yes’m.
Secretary:Excuse me, Mr. Prichard, Judge Combs’ office is on line four.
:Uh-huh.
Hellard:End—
:Hello—
Hellard:—end of this tape.
:—hello.
[end of interview]
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