" The First Time that Lyndon Johnson met Robert Kennedy was an encounter that the two Johnson staffers who were present would never forget .
It occurred early one morning in January , 1953 , in the Senate cafeteria on the second floor of the Senate Office Building -- there was only one Senate Office Building then --- next door to Johnson's office . Johnson would often have breakfast there , usually with Horace Busby , on this morning also with George Reedy .
Just to the left of the cafeteria entrance was a cash register , and beyond it was a large round table , at which , every morning , Joe McCarthy sat , with three or four staff members from his Senate Investigations Subcommittee , and this morning there was a new staff member at the table : the subcommittee's newly appointed assistant counsel , twenty - seven year old Bobby Kennedy .
As Johnson , Busby and Reedy walked by , McCarthy , as was his custom , jumped up to shake Johnson's hand , calling him , as senators were already starting to do , " Leader , " and McCarthy's staffers also rose -- except , quite conspicuously , for Bobby , who sat unmoving , with a look on his face that Busby described as ' sort of a glower . "
Lyndon Johnson knew how to handle that situation . Moving around the table , he extended his hand to take McCarthy's and those of the standing staffers , and , when he got to Bobby Kennedy , stood there , with his hand not exactly extended but , in Busby's words , " sort of half raised, " looking down at Kennedy . For a long moment Kennedy did not move . The glower had deepened into something more . " Bobby could really look hating , " Busby says , " and that was how he looked then . He did not want to get up , but Johnson was kind of forcing him to , " and finally , without looking Johnson in the eye , he stood up and shook his hand .
Later , after the Johnson group had finished their breakfast and were leaving the cafeteria , Busby asked , " What was that all about in there? " and Johnson replied , " It is about Roosevelt and his father . " Busby and Reedy knew what that meant .
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