“This Means Murder”

Roughly 36 hours after the disappearance of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman in Neshoba County, Mississippi, and following a request from Congress of Racial Equality national director James L. Farmer Jr. for a meeting at the White House, President Johnson vented to counsel Lee C. White about the prospect of granting an audience to Farmer and other aggrieved parties. As for the civil rights workers, White indicated that they probably had been killed.