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be certain that picture, and none other, would top her obituary.
    Now, noted Warren, things had gone from bad to worse. Lee Harvey Oswald, the apparent assailant, the man who killed John F. Kennedy, had himself been murdered, on television, in full view of the whole world. I saw it myself, he wrote. Jesus Christ! How could they let a thing like that happen?
    The President appeared in the room as if from nowhere. He came through a wall panel that was also a hidden door. Warren heard his footsteps and looked up. He had no idea that door was there. “Afternoon, Mr. Chief Justice,” said Johnson, extending his hand. Warren rose to shake it. Lyndon Johnson was a very tall man, a bit funny looking, even ugly in person, according to some, yet still fit and thin despite many years living the good life, “high on the hog,” as he might have said when in Texas. Very high indeed. He looked as if he’d just showered, shaved and changed his clothes. Warren knew him well. The two men had met many times. Johnson was still a relatively poor Texas Congressman when they first crossed paths, and Warren only beginning then to dream of being Governor of California. “Now look at us,” he said to himself.
    â€œGood afternoon, Mr. President,” he replied. My God! he wondered. Could it be? Yes. Lyndon Johnson really is the President of the United States! “I came over as soon as I could.”
    â€œI appreciate that,” said Johnson in his stretched-out Texas drawl. “I do. I’m truly grateful to see you. I prize your good counsel and I have the greatest admiration for you. You know that, I’m sure.” He stood with both hands resting on his hips; his head bent slightly forward, his mouth in a tight frown. Surely he towered over the seated Chief Justice.
    â€œThis is a bad time, one neither of us could have imagined. Just look around.” He gestured with his hands extended, the long sweep of his arms emphasizing the expanse of the famed Oval Office. “This has become my office. I am the President. We all think of it, dream of it, some nights go to sleep tasting it. But not this way. Not this way. In ’48, when you ran with Tom Dewey, there must have been a time when you not only thought you’d win—hell, Harry looked like roadkill there for a while—but, more than that—there had to be a moment when you saw yourself right here, right where I am now. I know you never thought it’d happen like this. It’s hard to find the words. But we must go on. This country must go on. We face serious problems, Mr. Chief Justice.” Johnson walked over to the big, dark mahogany desk. Was it his desk or Jack Kennedy’s? Sitting on the edge, he looked down at Earl Warren. “We’re needed,” he said with an urgency common to Protestant preachers. “We’re called upon to serve.”
    â€œYes, we are,” Warren answered, still unsure why Johnson asked for this meeting, unclear what it was the President wanted from him, or from the Supreme Court. At first, when a White House aide called asking the Chief Justice to come to the White House on an “urgent matter,” Warren thought there might be some concern about the procedures used to swear in the new President. Or perhaps the shooting of Oswald was presenting technical questions or jurisdictional problems which Johnson didn’t understand and wanted cleared up right away. A strange reason indeed to call the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but in these times, the strange was normal. However, at that moment, with the President looking straight at him, Earl Warren had no idea what this meeting was about.
    Moreover, he thought, until now he had never been alone with the President of the United States. He’d seen Roosevelt in person, twice, each time at a dinner with hundreds of people. He was introduced to Truman, but again that was in a receiving line at an official function and