President Johnson was reported today by the Washington correspondent of the Daily Telegraph as considering the possibility of helping to put Arthur J. Goldberg into position to become the first Jewish President of the United States.
The correspondent asserted that President Johnson would like to break “the hoary tradition” that no Jew can hope to reach the Presidency. The correspondent reported that Mr. Goldberg is being considered by the President as a suitable replacement, as an interim stepping stone to the Presidency bid, for Dean Rusk as Secretary of State.
The dispatch stated that President Johnson appeared to be grooming Mr. Goldberg to be a possible Vice-Presidential candidate in 1972, possibly as a running mate for Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey. Under U. S. law, Mr. Johnson will have completed by 1972 the maximum two terms permitted to any President.
The correspondent noted that Mr. Goldberg, former Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, and now chief United States delegate to the United Nations, is “a vigorous 57” and that, all things being equal, he has enough career time ahead of him to be fit for the Presidential stakes in the next decade.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
