Lyndon B Johnson

11 Key excerpts on "Lyndon B Johnson"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Perspectives on Presidential Leadership

  • Michael Patrick Cullinane, Clare Frances Elliott(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  9 LBJ If Not for Vietnam

  Sylvia Ellis

  Lyndon Johnson rarely ranks in the top ten of American presidents. Yet his domestic record was in many ways unparalleled. He was labeled “Lincoln’s successor” on civil rights due to his executive leadership on the issue, oversaw a strong economy for most of his term, and introduced landmark Great Society legislation designed to tackle a range of health, environmental, poverty, education, and housing issues. Despite these achievements, many of which still shape the American social and political landscape, he does not feature in the pantheon of American presidential heroes and is rarely cited as a great leader. This is despite the fact that in recent years, LBJ has, to a large degree, been rehabilitated by academics in the growing literature on his presidency.1 While some earlier works emphasized Johnson’s mismanagement of U.S. foreign policy, dwelled on his power-hungry nature, and/or questioned his administration’s management of its avalanche of programs, recent studies have been more generous in their appraisal of his record and his leadership skills. This shift in scholarly judgment of LBJ’s leadership qualities is reflected in a recent rise in his position in presidential rankings by historians, achieving third place in a Newsweek survey of leading American historians in 2012 and 11 th in a survey of British scholars the previous year.2 His stock remains low with the American public, however. The Newsweek survey also canvassed the American public, and LBJ did not feature in their top ten. This continues a long trend. In a 1988 Louis Harris poll, Johnson was placed at or near the bottom in 11 categories on modern American presidents. In 1999, a C-SPAN poll of viewers placed Johnson 19 th, and, over a decade later, in February 2011, he occupied the same position in a Gallup poll.3 Part of the explanation for this lack of appreciation of LBJ’s leadership qualities is, of course, related to his handling of the Vietnam War. Indeed, “If Not for Vietnam” is the title of this article because most analysts explain Lyndon Johnson’s poor showing by adding a similar rider to their own judgments on the 36 th president, and that included his contemporaries and political aides. In 1972, former U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman told LBJ’s biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin: “ ‘If it hadn’t been for Vietnam’ then Lyndon Johnson would ‘have been the greatest President ever.’ ”4 Two decades later, Richard Goodwin, a speechwriter for the Johnson administration, acknowledged that the “ghost of Vietnam” haunted the Johnson presidency: “for years afterward, the moans of the battlefield . . . obscured the narrative of achievement and spacious vision that may ultimately rank Lyndon Johnson among our very great leaders.”5 This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of LBJ’s presidential leadership. Though Vietnam may be the main reason why the public and even many scholars consistently downplay Johnson’s qualities, it is not the only one. His record is also tarnished by questions surrounding his political methods, style, and character. And, at present, a contemporary disdain for American liberalism means that he is in danger of becoming, as one commentator put it, “the invisible president.”6

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Presidential Difference

  Leadership Style from FDR to Barack Obama - Third Edition

  • Fred I. Greenstein(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  Lyndon Johnson ranks with Henry Clay as one of the most gifted practitioners of the art of the possible in American history. Here he is seen in a nose-to-nose exercise in political persuasion with Rhode Island senator Theodore F. Green. Johnson’s political prowess was not coupled to a disposition to assess the feasibility of his policies. In 1965, he led the United States into a military intervention in Vietnam without exploring its costs and probable consequences. By 1968, there were a half-million American troops in Vietnam, and the Johnson presidency was on the ropes.

  (George Tames/NYT Pictures, The New York Times Company)  

  CHAPTER 6

  Lyndon B. Johnson and the Primacy of Politics

  All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today. The greatest leader of our time has been struck down by the foulest deed of our time. Today John Fitzgerald Kennedy lives on in the immortal words and works that he left behind.

  – LYNDON B. JOHNSON, ADDRESS BEFORE A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS ,NOVEMBER 27, 1963

  Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined; as the session which declared an all-out war on human poverty; as the session which finally recognized the health needs of all our older citizens; as the session which helped to build more homes, more schools, more libraries, and more hospitals than any single session of Congress in the history of our Republic.

  – LYNDON B. JOHNSON ,STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS ,JANUARY 8, 1964

  I have today ordered to Vietnam the Airmobile Division and certain other forces which will raise our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately. Additional forces will be needed later and they will be sent as requested.

  – LYNDON B. JOHNSON,

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  America in the World

  The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era

  • Mark Atwood Lawrence(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  3

  Lyndon Johnson’s World

  FROM THE OUTSET of his presidency, Lyndon Baines Johnson made abundantly clear where his priorities lay. Behind closed doors and in the public spotlight, the new president urged passage of an array of ambitious social and economic reforms, including a major tax cut, meaningful civil rights legislation, and a raft of antipoverty measures. LBJ invoked the need to honor John F. Kennedy, who had backed all of these initiatives, but Johnson also left no doubt of his desire to go beyond what his predecessor had proposed. LBJ’s rhetoric soared as he described his sweeping vision of social change. In his State of the Union speech just six weeks into his presidency, Johnson called for nothing less than an “unconditional war on poverty in America” and vowed not just to ameliorate the problem but to “cure it.” In the realm of civil rights, he promised to “abolish not some, but all racial discrimination.”1 Thus dawned the era of the Great Society, the remarkable years of domestic innovation that saw Congress destroy Jim Crow, extend voting rights, establish Medicare and Medicaid, pump federal resources into education, revamp U.S. immigration laws, and much else. For all of these accomplishments, historians have little difficulty judging Johnson one of the most—if not the most—transformative presidents in the second half of the twentieth century.

  LBJ had no such ambitions in the realm of foreign affairs, as the 1965 State of the Union address also made clear. The president turned to the international scene in the closing sections of the speech and made headlines only with assurances that he would keep going with efforts to lower tensions with the Eastern bloc. All in all, as the New York Times editorial page put it, LBJ’s foreign policy “continues as expected, along familiar lines.”2

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Hatred of America's Presidents

  Personal Attacks on the White House from Washington to Trump

  • Lori Cox Han, Lori Cox Han, Lori Cox Han(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  36. Lyndon B. Johnson Born: August 27, 1908 Died: January 22, 1973 Time in Office: 36th President of the United States, November 22, 1963, to January 20, 1969 Election Results: 1960 Election: Elected vice president, assumed office upon death of John F. Kennedy; 1964 Election: 61.1% of popular vote, 486 (90.3%) Electoral College votes Spouse: Claudia Alto “Lady Bird” Taylor (m. 1934) Children: Lynda Bird and Lucy Baines

  Accidental presidents are vice presidents who assume the presidency on the death or resignation of the president. In the 20th century, Lyndon Baines Johnson was the fourth vice president to become president following the death of his predecessor, and the circumstances of his ascension to the Oval Office were perhaps the most tragic. Although John F. Kennedy was elected in one of the closest presidential elections in history (about 100,000 popular votes), his public approval rating was strong, averaging just over 70% during his short time in office, and climbed as high as 83% at one point early in his administration. In the wake of his assassination his presidency came to be described as “Camelot.” In fact, it was his wife, Jacqueline, who first made the comparison to the Broadway musical of the same name in a Life magazine interview penned by author Theodore White shortly after Kennedy’s death. One might say that Kennedy’s presidency was a tough act for Johnson to follow.

  Johnson had a storied political career even before Kennedy asked whether he would be willing to serve as vice president. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1936 on the New Deal platform, Johnson ran for the Senate in 1948 and in a highly controversial primary election defeated a popular former governor, Coke Stevenson, by 87 votes out of just under 1 million votes cast. His election to the Senate alienated much of the conservative crowd across Texas who mockingly referred to him as “Landslide Lyndon.” He rose quickly through the ranks of the Senate by turning the position of majority leader of the Democratic Party into the most important post in the Senate, and he directed the passage of the major legislative initiatives of the 1950s. Johnson’s colleagues did not find his persuasive tactics endearing, but they produced results. Journalists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak described the “Johnson Treatment” as follows:

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Congress, Presidents, and American Politics

  Fifty Years of Writings and Reflections

  • Lee H. Hamilton(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Indiana University Press

    (Publisher)

  So the democratic process asks us to recognize that we might not always be right. It asks that we enjoy—not just accept—the inconvenient fact that others may disagree with us. It asks us to fight hard for our convictions, but to yield gracefully.

  Looking back on the Johnson administration, one thing that impresses me now about Lyndon Johnson is that of all the presidents I have known, he stands out, first, as someone who had a clear vision of where he wanted the country to go. He had no doubt about his agenda: attack racism and injustice, bring people out of poverty, expand opportunity, improve the lives of Americans. Johnson might be criticized for overreaching or maybe for being too idealistic. But unlike many other presidents, Johnson knew where he was headed. Second, he knew how he would bring it about, and that was with the federal government leading the way. For Johnson that was key, and the legislation he got through Congress, particularly during the early years of his presidency before he got overwhelmed by Vietnam, was transformational.

  Congress also, in my view, gets fairly high marks on its legislative record during the Johnson years, particularly during the 89th Congress: it was seriously trying to address the nation’s problems, and although the Democrats had large majorities in both the House and the Senate, legislation was generally developed in consultation with the Republican minority, trying to accommodate their views as much as possible. The result was that most of the major bills passed Congress with fairly broad support from both the Democratic and Republican sides, and, although amended from time to time, they have continued as the basic law of the land.

  My initial years serving in Congress were not in any way during ordinary times. It was a turbulent period, as the nation was dealing with war, riots, and assassinations. Many Americans were shaking their heads in disbelief over what was happening in our country. Congress also had to wrestle with complex and divisive issues of poverty, health care, and discrimination. Overall I believe Congress acquitted itself well during a challenging time in our nation’s history.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Essays on a Half-Century

  Ideas, Policies, And Action

  • W. W. Rostow(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Two Items About LBJ

  The first of these pieces about President Lyndon B. Johnson is an edited version of the full text of a piece I was requested to write for the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. The essay required some cutting in order to meet the encyclopedia’s space limitations, but the editors urged me to publish the full version if opportuntiy arose.

  The second piece was pure fun to set down. Dr. J. Willis Hurst, LBJ’s physician, thought that what has thus far been written about him missed two of his strongest characteristics: his humanity and sense of humor. Dr. Hurst asked a good many of us who worked with LBJ for examples to be published in a book he plans to assemble.

  Lyndon B. Johnson: 1908-1973

  In conventional constitutional and political science parlance, Lyndon Baines Johnson was a strong president. He exploited the cumulative precedents for presidential leadership and authority in domestic, foreign, and military policy; protected presidential power against congressional intrusion while working with vigor to carry Congress with him; and turned the office over to his successor intact. Jointly with the Congress, he extended federal power greatly in civil rights, education, and welfare. With respect to the Supreme Court, he broke a barrier by appointing the first black member, Thurgood Marshall; but he failed to assure liberal leadership beyond his term with the withdrawal of the nomination of Abe Fortas for chief justice in October 1968. Johnson’s performance as a strong president was tempered by an affectionate reverence for the constitutional system as a whole.

  All this tells us little of how the U.S. constitutional process actually operated in the turbulent, creative, and tragic days between November 22, 1963, and January 20, 1969. As always, the outcome was determined substantially by the problems history set before the nation as well as by the character of the president.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The President and His Inner Circle

  Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Policy Making

  • Thomas Preston(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  5.  Lyndon Johnson and the Partial Bombing Halt in Vietnam, 1967–1968

  “FROM ANOTHER VANTAGE POINT ”

  The Magistrate-Maverick

  Harry McPherson, who was Special Counsel to the President, fondly recalls that: “President Johnson was a hell of a leader! He was a hell of a man! He was a bull in a field full of heifers!”1 And this imagery—of a dominant, commanding figure striding through his advisory fields—is particularly apt when describing Lyndon Johnson in the White House. He was an exceptionally gifted politician with a knack for negotiating the treacherous shoals of domestic politics. He possessed an incredibly powerful and effective interpersonal style, as those who experienced “the treatment” firsthand would later attest. Even those who had worked for many different presidents, upon reflection usually smile and shake their heads incredulously at the mere mention of Lyndon Johnson’s name.

  Almost without exception he is remembered by former advisers as a “unique,” “out-of-the-ordinary,” “unconventional,” “mysterious,” or the most “difficult to understand or explain” man they had ever known.2 He was a man who cared deeply about domestic policy, who possessed both the political skill and policy expertise to shepherd his Great Society programs, War on Poverty, Medicare, and the expansion of civil rights through a sometimes reluctant Congress.3 And yet, however unjustly, Johnson will always be remembered for his foreign policies, especially on Vietnam.

  Here, Johnson’s touch was less sure. He possessed none of the policy expertise which he called upon so effectively in domestic politics. In foreign affairs, he was heavily dependent upon his staff of foreign policy experts, most of whom he had inherited from his predecessor John Kennedy. While still supremely self-confident and willing to take on the big problems if he believed it was the right thing to do, Johnson was least prepared as president to handle a foreign policy crisis of the magnitude of Vietnam. The great tragedy of Lyndon Johnson is that by choosing a policy path blazed by his predecessors, recommended by his advisers, and dictated by the cold war logic of Containment, he soon found himself neck-deep in the quagmire of Vietnam and politically trapped in a continually escalating spiral of involvement in a war he did not want.4

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Presidential Leadership and African Americans

  "An American Dilemma" from Slavery to the White House

  • George R. Goethals(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  24 In November 1964, negative views of Goldwater and support for the man continuing the legacy of John F. Kennedy gave Lyndon Johnson one of the biggest election victories in American history. His 61% popular vote total stands as the largest ever. Johnson also pulled in an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, dominating Republicans 295–140 in the House of Representatives and 68–32 in the Senate. It appeared that Lyndon Johnson would be able to have his way in his own elected term as president.

  Figure 8.2

   Hosea Williams and John Lewis two minutes before they were assaulted by Alabama state police. The racial violence in Selma dramatized the significance of Lyndon Johnson’s “And We Shall Overcome” voting rights speech.

  Spider Martin, “Two Minute Warning”—Hosea Williams and John Lewis confronting troopers in Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, black and white photograph. Courtesy of the Spider Martin Civil Rights Collection (SMCRC), Austin, Texas.

  There were some clouds on the horizon. One was that Goldwater carried five Deep South states: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The South, opposing equal rights for African Americans, was on its way to becoming a bulwark of a very conservative Republican Party. Second, in August Johnson had asked for and received congressional approval to take military action in South Vietnam to counter the danger of it falling to Communist North Vietnam. Johnson was taking his initial steps into what would become known as the “quagmire” of the long war in Vietnam.25 At the moment, however, those concerns were outweighed by the huge election victory for Johnson and congressional Democrats. In January of 1965, when the president was inaugurated for a full term of his own and the overwhelmingly supportive eighty-ninth Congress came to power, it was time for LBJ to press ahead with one of the most expansive domestic agendas in American history.

  The achievements of Lyndon Johnson and the eighty-ninth Congress in 1965 and 1966 are among the most impressive and far-reaching the nation has ever seen. Like the domestic accomplishments of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt during their first two years in office, they took giant steps toward a more progressive society. In LBJ’s case, the legislation for his “War on Poverty” helped advance what he called “The Great Society.” He succeeded in urging Congress to pass bills that supported housing and education and established Medicare and Medicaid. For African Americans, his most important accomplishment was passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson

  • Mitchell B. Lerner, Mitchell B. Lerner(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Three of the most helpful secondary sources on this aspect are Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro, and Howard E. Shuman's article, “Lyndon B. Johnson: The Senate's Powerful Persuader,” published in First Among Equals: Outstanding Senate Leaders of the Twentieth Century, edited by Richard A. Baker and Roger H. Davidson. Evans and Novak provide an extensive, useful summary and analysis of several different features of LBJ's legislative success as Senate Democratic leader, such as the Johnson Network, Johnson Rule, and Johnson Treatment. In Master of the Senate, his third book on LBJ, biographer Robert A. Caro writes how the Senate was a chronically unproductive, obstructive legislative chamber until Johnson exerted his leadership skills and values during the 1950s. In his article, Howard E. Shuman provides the perspective of someone who once worked as a staff aide to Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, one of the most outspoken liberal critics of LBJ's leadership of the Senate Democrats. All of these secondary sources argue that LBJ's greatest legislative accomplishment was his role in assuring passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Johnson's liberal critics, however, have often criticized LBJ's role in heavily compromising and weakening the content and impact of this legislation in order to limit Southern opposition in the Senate and assure its passage. For example, Lyndon: An Oral Biography by Merle Miller includes interviews of many of LBJ's contemporaries, such as Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., a civil rights activist and leading member of the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). Rauh told Miller that Johnson's negotiations on the Civil Rights of 1957 “‘set back integration in the South for seven years’” (Miller, 1980: 208–9). George Reedy, however, has a different perspective. Reedy worked on Johnson's staff, mostly as a press aide, during the 1950s and early 1960s

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  How Did We Get Here?

  From TR to Donald Trump

  • Robert Dallek(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Harper

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 7 Lyndon B. Johnson Flawed Giant

  As with other vice presidents who unexpectedly assumed office like Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson understood that his initial task was to convince Americans that he was ready to fulfill his predecessor’s agenda. In his speech before a joint session of Congress five days after Kennedy’s death, Johnson recounted Kennedy’s goals and quoted his request to the country, “Let us begin.” Johnson now declared, “Let us continue,” urging Congress to pass Kennedy’s stalled agenda—cutting taxes; approving Medicare, federal aid to education, and a civil rights law ending racial segregation in all places of public accommodation.

  Johnson like Kennedy came to the presidency with a world of political experience. His father had served in the Texas lower house and in 1931 had arranged for Lyndon, who was teaching speech in Houston’s Sam Houston High School, to become a congressional secretary to Texas congressman Richard Kleberg—a playboy from the Rio Grande Valley. Kleberg was a member of the wealthy King Ranch family that owned a huge spread in the Valley. He was also a self-indulgent patrician with little interest in government or working with the Roosevelt White House to end the Depression. He largely left the business of his office to Johnson, an avid supporter of FDR’s New Deal.

  In 1935, Johnson convinced House Speaker Sam Rayburn, a fellow Texan, to have FDR name him director of the Texas division of the National Youth Administration (NYA), an agency the White House had created to help young people develop job skills that could keep them off the unemployment rolls. Johnson quickly established himself as the best state director in the nation, so much so that Eleanor Roosevelt visited him in Austin to observe his methods. What made him special was his boldness in spending an occasional night at a black college, which, had it been known at the time in strict segregationist Texas, would have undermined his chances of ever running for public office. Johnson had a special regard for underdogs who wished to improve themselves; it was an extension of his own experience. Young black men who asked if they could become an engineer or an airline pilot especially touched Johnson’s sense of injustice about the roadblock to a better life for people of color.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The American President

  A Complete History

  • Kathryn Moore, Kathryn Moore(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Union Square & Co.

    (Publisher)

  Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream , New York: Harper and Row, 1976, p. 24.

  2    Ibid, p. 69.

  3    Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President , New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 24.

  4    Ibid, p. 31.

  5    Irwin and Debi Unger, LBJ, A Life , New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999, p. 66.

  6    Kearns, pp. 93-94.

  7    Ronnie Dugger, The Politician, The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson , New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1982, p. 252.

  8    Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate , New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, p. 546.

  9    Dallek, p. 81.

  10  Ibid, p. 86.

  11  Ibid, p. 92.

  12  Ibid, p. 111.

  13  Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys , New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987, p. 780.

  14  Dallek, p. 119.

  15  Kearns, p. 164.

  16  Dallek, p. 124.

  17  Ibid, p. 128.

  18  Lyndon Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969 , New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 19.

  19  Unger, p. 324.

  20  Paul R. Henggeler, In His Steps: Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedy Mystique , Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1991, p. 109.

  21  James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam, 1945 to 1995 , New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996, p. 117.

  22  Unger, p. 322.

  23  David Kaiser, American Tragedy, Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War , Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 381.

  24  Ibid, p. 385.

  25  Dallek, p. 210.

  26  Kearns, p. 280.

  27  Dallek, p. 218.

  28  Ibid, p. 225.

  29  Kearns, p. 305.

  30  Dallek, p. 307.

  31  Henggeler, p. 217.

  32  Walter Cronkite, A Reporter’s Life , New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, p. 258.

  33  Unger, p. 455.

  34  Ibid, p. 458.

  35  Ibid, p. 484.

  36  Ibid, p. 493.

  37  Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969 , New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 529.

  38

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book