Dishonest Quotes
Referring to the actions of United States Attorney General, Edwin M. Meese III, in the Wedtech case. This was a very unusual situation where a United States Attorney publicly admits to the bad behavior of a former Attorney General.
The Roosevelt he was insulting was the newly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Congressman was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who believed that FDR had been put into office to become dictator of the United States by an imagined cabal of international bankers.
Armstrong rarely commented on politics (see {615854}), but the Governor defying the Supreme Court and not letting his people even go to school with other students was too much for him. He not only made the statement, but he approved it for publication. This shocked many who knew him as an apolitical person. He was particularly distressed with President Eisenhower who although he had warned Faubus that he would enforce the court order and then used federal troops to do so, Eisenhower was a man of action and not rhetoric and his lack of firm public statements overlooked an opportunity to use the Presidential “bully pulpit” and exercise his moral leadership and authority. Many then, and even 50 years later, were not sure where he stood on the issue of school desegregation.
