Telegram to the Acting Governor of Illinois in Response to His Request for Federal Troops in Chicago.
IN RESPONSE to your official request made pursuant to your discussion with Mayor Daley that federal troops be sent to assist local and state police and the Illinois National Guardsmen under your command and on your representation that "under existing circumstances, the law enforcement resources of the state are unable to suppress the serious domestic violence in or near the city of Chicago, State of Illinois," I have directed the troops you requested to proceed to O'Hare Field and to Glenview Naval Air Station. They will be available on arrival for immediate deployment as required to support and assist police and the Illinois National Guard forces.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
[Honorable Samuel H. Shapiro, Acting Governor, State of Illinois, Springfield, Illinois]
Note: The President's telegram was in response to Acting Governor Shapiro's telegram of the same date requesting the assistance of Federal troops to quell civil disturbances in Illinois (4 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 659).
On April 7 the President signed Proclamation 3841 "Law and Order in the State of Illinois" and Executive Order 11404 "Providing for the Restoration of Law and Order in the State of Illinois" (4 Weekly Comp. Pres. Docs., p. 659; 33 F.R. 5497, 5503; 3 CFR, 1968 Comp., pp. 36, 108). See also Items 179, 180, 184.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Telegram to the Acting Governor of Illinois in Response to His Request for Federal Troops in Chicago. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237946