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In late December, Philip Johnson and Alan Blackburn summoned a reporter from the New York

Harold Tribune to Johnson's office at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

They were offering an exclusive. The Harold Tribune called them

adventurers with an intellectual overlay and explained that the two were taking

a sabbatical from the museum in order to start a new political movement.

They were calling it the National Party and they were lighting out for Louisiana at the very next

day to try to sign on Huey Long as their new national leader. Johnson and Blackburn then revealed

the National Party's seemingly idiotic slogan to the reporter. It was, the need is for one party.

They also showed him the snazzy new penance they had designed,

blazoned with an aerodynamic flying wedge series of emblems.

They would be mounting these penance on Johnson's automobile.

They also laid out their new party's platform which consisted in its entirety of,

quote, direct action and, quote, more emotionalism in government.

No policy at all just feelings and action, lots of action. Johnson said they wanted nothing

but courage and loyalty from their followers, the kind of courage and loyalty that gangster's

John Dillinger and Al Capone inspired, he explained.

And they talked through all of this with the reporter while leafing through firearms

catalogs and choosing the weapons they might take with them on the road.

Quote, Mr. Johnson favored a submachine gun, the Harold Tribune reported,

but Mr. Blackburn preferred one of the larger types of pistol.

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