After graduating from college, Johnson briefly taught public speaking and debate in a Houston high school prior to entering politics. Johnson's father had served five terms in the Texas legislature and was a close friend to one of Texas's rising political figures, Congressman Sam Rayburn. In 1931, Johnson campaigned for Texas state Senator Welly Hopkins in his run for U.S. Congress. Hopkins rewarded Johnson by recommending him to Congressman Richard Kleberg. Johnson was then appointed as Kleberg's legislative secretary and elected the youngest speaker of the "Little Congress," a group of Washington, D.C. legislative aides. Being speaker of the "Little Congress" gave Johnson opportunities to meet with leaders and invite them to the group's events. He was also able to cultivate certain media contacts and attention through the group.
As secretary, Johnson became acquainted with people of influence, found out how they had reached their positions, and gained their respect for his abilities. Johnson's friends soon included some of the men who worked around President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as fellow Texans such as Vice President John Nance Garner. His strongest contact was the fierce Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. Although by nature Rayburn was an insular man, Caro believed that Johnson turned into a "professional son" for Rayburn, a man who had no family.
During his tenure as secretary, Johnson met Claudia Alta Taylor, a young woman from Karnack, Texas. After a short courtship (Johnson actually proposed to her within 24 hours of meeting her), the two were married on November 17, 1934. The couple had two daughters, Lynda Bird, born in 1944, and Luci Baines Johnson, born in 1947. Johnson enjoyed giving people and animals his own initials; his daughters' given names are examples, as was his dog Little Beagle Johnson.
In 1935, Johnson became the head of the Texas National Youth Administration, which enabled him to use the government to create educational and job opportunities for young people. The position let him build political influence with his constituents. He resigned two years later to run for Congress. Johnson was a notoriously tough boss throughout his career, often demanding long workdays and work on weekends; however, he also worked as much as his employees did, and oftentimes more.
Texas Congress
FDR, Governor Allred of Texas, & LBJ. In later campaigns, Johnson edited out the picture of Governor Allred to assist his campaign
In 1937, Johnson ran for Congress in a special election for the 10th Congressional District of Texas to represent Austin, Texas and the surrounding Hill Country. He ran on a New Deal platform and was effectively aided by his wife, Lady Bird Johnson.
President Roosevelt often ignored Johnson early in his career. However, Roosevelt later found Johnson to be a welcome ally and conduit for information, particularly with regards to issues concerning internal politics in Texas ( Operation Texas ) and the machinations of Vice President Garner and House Speaker Sam Rayburn. Johnson was immediately appointed to the Naval Affairs Committee, a job that carried high importance for a freshman congressman. He also worked for rural electrification and other improvements for his district. Johnson steered the projects towards contractors which he personally knew, who would finance much of Johnson's future career. In 1941, Johnson ran for the U.S. Senate in a special election against the sitting governor of Texas, radio personality W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. Johnson was not expected to win against the popular governor, but he ran a strong race and was declared the winner in unofficial returns. Johnson ultimately was defeated by controversial official returns in an election marked by massive fraud on the part of both campaigns. During his last campaign, he promised that he would serve in the military should war break out; in December 1941, the U.S. entered World War II.
War record
On June 20, 1940, the Burke-Wadsworth bill was introduced to Congress to institute the first peacetime draft. The next day, Congressman Johnson received his appointment in the Naval Reserve, which would exempt him from the draft — signed into law in September as the Selective service and training act of 1940, initiated in November. After America entered the war a year later, Johnson asked Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal for a noncombatant assignment, and he was sent to inspect the shipyard facilities in Texas and on the West Coast.
By the spring, Johnson's constituents in Texas were eager to hear about their Congressman's activities on the war front. In addition, he was looking to fulfill his 1940 campaign pledge to "fight in the trenches" should America enter the war, so he again pressed his contacts in the Administration to find a new assignment—this time, closer to a combat zone. President Roosevelt needed his own reports on what conditions were like in the Southwest Pacific. He felt information that flowed up the military chain of command needed to be supplemented by a highly trusted political aide. From a suggestion by Forrestal, President Roosevelt assigned Johnson to a three-man survey team of the Southwest Pacific.
Johnson reported to General Douglas MacArthur. The observers were sent to Garbutt Field in Queensland, home of the 22nd Bomb Group. The bombers' missions targeted the Japanese air base at Lae on the conquered part of the island of New Guinea. The military commanders felt that there was no need for outside observers—which underscored Roosevelt's point—but Johnson insisted. The B-26 Marauder he flew on was attacked by Japanese Zero fighter-planes during the mission, and upon returning to Melbourne and reporting back to MacArthur, the General awarded the Congressman and the other surviving observer the Silver Star, the military's third-highest medal.This is debated; the flight log lists the flight as lasting twelve minutes. No other person on the flight received a medal for the flight, and the surviving crewman on the flight denied that the flight came under fire. A colonel took Johnson's original seat on an airplane, and Johnson moved to another aircraft. The aircraft, its crew, and the colonel were all destroyed during the firefight.
Johnson reported back to Roosevelt, to the Navy leaders, and to Congress, that conditions were deplorable and unacceptable. Johnson argued the theatre urgently needed a higher priority and a bigger share of war supplies. The warplanes sent there, for example, were "far inferior" to Japanese planes, and morale was bad. He told Forrestal that the Pacific Fleet had a "critical" need for 6,800 additional experienced men. Johnson prepared a twelve-point program to upgrade the effort in the region, stressing "greater cooperation and coordination within the various commands and between the different war theatres." Congress responded by making Johnson chairman of a high-powered subcommittee of the Naval Affairs committee. With a mission similar to that of the Truman Committee in the Senate, he probed into the peacetime "business as usual" inefficiencies that permeated the naval war and demanded admirals shape up and get the job done. However, Johnson went too far when he proposed a bill that would crack down on the draft exemptions of shipyard workers if they were too often absent. Organized labor blocked the bill and denounced Johnson. Johnson's mission thus had a significant impact in upgrading the South Pacific theater and in helping along the entire naval war effort.
A month after this incident, President Roosevelt ordered members of Congress serving in the military to return to their offices. Of eight members then serving, all complied. Johnson returned to Washington, and he continued to serve in the House through 1946. Some political enemies charged that Johnson's efforts during the war were trivial and his self-promotion afterward was inappropriate. One of Johnson's biographers concludes, "The mission was a temporary exposure to danger calculated to satisfy Johnson's personal and political wishes, but it also represented a genuine effort on his part, however misplaced, to improve the lot of America's fighting men." Dallek, Lone Star Rising p. 237
Senate years
In 1948, Johnson again ran for the Senate and won. This election was highly controversial: a three-way Democratic Party primary left Johnson in a run-off with former Governor Coke Stevenson. Stevenson was a popular former governor, while Johnson was hindered during the campaign because of an illness caused by a kidney stone. In an effort to catch Stevenson, Johnson was able to finance a personal helicopter dubbed "The Flying Windmill". He was able to draw crowds around the state. Because of Johnson's fundraising ability, he was able to saturate the state with his campaign messages. Johnson was also able to persuade the conservative elements of Texas society to side with him instead of Stevenson by making a speech that criticized labor unions in general, thus depriving Stevenson of badly needed funds. Johnson campaigned very hard and won by only 87 votes. Stevenson contested the vote count. There were allegations that Johnson's campaign manager, John Connally, was connected with 202 ballots in Duval County that had curiously been cast in alphabetical order.
Johnson's success in the Senate made him a possible Democratic presidential candidate. He was Texas' "favorite son" candidate at the party's national convention in 1956. In 1960, Johnson received 409 votes on the first and only ballot at the Democratic convention which nominated John F. Kennedy.
During the convention, Kennedy designated Johnson as his choice for vice president. Some later reports (such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.) say that Kennedy offered the position to Johnson as a courtesy and did not expect him to accept. Others (such as W. Marvin Watson) say that the Kennedy campaign was desperate to win the 1960 election against Richard M. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. and needed Johnson on the ticket to help carry Southern states.
While he ran for vice president with John F. Kennedy, Johnson also sought a third term in the U.S. Senate. His popularity was such that Texas law was changed to permit him to run for two offices at the same time. Johnson was reelected senator, with 1,306,605 votes (58 percent) to Republican John G. Tower's 927,653 (41.1 percent). After the election though, Johnson was powerless. Kennedy and his senior advisors rarely consulted the Texan and prevented him from assuming the vital role that Vice President Richard Nixon had played in energizing the state parties. Kennedy appointed him to nominal jobs such as head of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities, through which he worked with blacks and other minorities. Johnson took on numerous minor diplomatic missions, which gave him limited insights into international issues. He was allowed to observe Cabinet and National Security meetings. Kennedy did give Johnson control over all presidential appointments involving Texas, and he was appointed chairman of the President's Ad Hoc Committee for Science. When, in April 1961, the Soviets beat the U.S. with the first manned spaceflight Kennedy tasked Johnson with coming up with a 'scientific bonanza' that would prove world leadership. Johnson knew that Project Apollo and an enlarged NASA were feasible, so he steered the recommendation towards a program for landing an American on the moon.
In the 1964 election, LBJ often appealed to the memory of JFK in his electoral campaign
On September 7, 1964 Johnson's campaign managers for the 1964 presidential election broadcast the "Daisy ad." It portrayed a little girl picking petals from a daisy, counting up to ten. Then a baritone voice took over, counted down from ten to zero and a nuclear bomb exploded. The message was that Goldwater meant nuclear death. Although it was soon pulled off the air, the commercial helped escalate the rhetoric of American politics to levels not seen before. Johnson won by a sweeping landslide that defeated many conservative Republican congressmen, giving Johnson a majority that could overcome the Conservative coalition.
Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in aboard Air Force One by Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Alongside Johnson is Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of slain President John F. Kennedy.
Johnson's handling of the investigation into the murder of President Kennedy created a controversy that has continued for over 40 years. The accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was murdered by Jack Ruby within a day after being charged with the crime. Oswald denied the charges against him and claimed he was being framed for the murder. To investigate Kennedy's murder, Johnson created a special panel called the Warren Commission. This panel conducted hearings about the assassination and concluded that Oswald shot the President and did not conspire with anyone.
The Warren Commission's credibility started to collapse when various disturbing facts started to leak out. Further secret panels tried to plug the holes in the Commission's conclusions, until finally the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that President Kennedy was probably assassinated by a conspiracy consisting of Oswald and others.
Because Johnson sealed all the evidence collected by the Dallas police department, no further police investigation was pursued by the local authorities. This action and the secrecy of the Warren Commission led to a very low confidence level in the veracity of the Warren Commission's findings. A more recent government panel called the Assassination Records Review Board was formed by federal legislation to collect and publish the government records that relate to the assassination.
The commission noted in 1998 that Johnson became skeptical of some of the Warren Commission findings. See, Final Report Chapter One footnote 17. [1]
President Johnson signs the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In his first year as President, Johnson faced conflicts with everyone from senators to speechwriters who all wanted to honor Kennedy's legacy but were reluctant to support new propositions by Johnson. Johnson used his famous charm and strong-arm tactics to push through his new policies, although detractors called this abusive bullying. In 1964, upon Johnson's request, Congress passed a tax-reduction law and the Economic Opportunity Act, which was in association with the War on Poverty. He nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to the positions of Solicitor General and later Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, making him the first African-American to serve in either capacity. After the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four Ku Klux Klansmen implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a "hooded society of bigots", and warned them to "return to a decent society before it's too late." In response to the civil rights movement, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which effectively outlawed most forms of racial segregation. Legend has it that as he put down his pen Johnson told an aide, ''We have lost the South for a generation." [2]
President Johnson signing the Medicare amendment. Harry Truman and his wife, Bess are on far right
The Great Society program became Johnson's agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime, and removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson's recommendations. Millions of elderly people found succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act.
October 23, 1966: Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Lyndon Johnson during arrival ceremonies at the Manila International Airport
Explorations of space
Under Johnson, the country made spectacular explorations of space in a program he had championed since its start. When three astronauts successfully orbited the moon in December 1968, Johnson congratulated them: "You've taken … all of us, all over the world, into a new era …."
Nevertheless, two overriding crises had been gaining momentum since 1964. Johnson's anti-poverty and anti-discrimination programs were met with massive rioting that burned out hundreds of black ghettos. President Johnson steadily exerted his influence against segregation but could not achieve law and order.
The other crisis arose from Vietnam. Despite Johnson's efforts to end the communist insurgency and achieve a settlement, fighting continued. Controversy over the war had become acute by the end of March 1968, when he limited the bombing of North Vietnam in order to begin negotiations.
Vietnam War
President Johnson increasingly focused on the American military effort in Vietnam. He firmly believed the Containment policy required America to make a serious effort to stop communist expansion. At Kennedy's death, there were 16,000 American military advisors in Vietnam. Johnson expanded their numbers and roles following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (less than three weeks after the Republican Convention of 1964 which had nominated Barry Goldwater for President).
LBJ visits Shriners Hospital in Portland, Oregon, in September 1964.
By 1968 there were 550,000 American soldiers inside; in 1967 and 1968 they were being killed at the rate of over 1000 a month.[3]
Though he often privately cursed the Vietnam War, referring to it as his "bitch mistress," at the same time Johnson believed America could not afford to look weak in the eyes of the world. So he escalated the war effort continuously from 1964 to 1968. The number of American deaths also rose. In two weeks in May 1968 alone, American deaths numbered 1,800 with total casualties at 18,000. Alluding to the Domino Theory he said, "If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco."
Johnson feared that too much focus on Vietnam would distract attention from his Great Society programs. But after the Tet offensive of January 1968, his presidency was dominated by the Vietnam War more than ever. As more American soldiers died there, Johnson's popularity plummeted. College students and others protested, burned draft cards and chanted lines such as, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" By the final year of his presidency, Johnson could not travel anywhere without facing protests.
1968 Election
Entering the 1968 election campaign, initially, no prominent Democratic candidate was prepared to run against a sitting President of their own party. Only SenatorEugene McCarthy of Minnesota challenged Johnson as an anti-war candidate in the New Hampshireprimary, hoping to pressure the Democrats to oppose the war. On 12 March, McCarthy won 42% of the primary vote to Johnson's 49%, an amazingly strong showing for such a challenger. Four days after this, Robert F. Kennedy entered the race. Internal polling by Johnson's campaign in Wisconsin, the next state to hold a primary election, showed the President trailing badly. Johnson did not leave the White House to campaign.
Then at the end of a 31 March speech, he shocked the nation when he announced he would not run for re-election: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President,"(Text and audio of speech) just days after a poll announced that a mere 29% of the American Public supported the war. Also in what was termed the October surprise, Johnson announced to the nation on October 31, 1968, that he had ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1, should the HanoiGovernment be willing to negotiate and citing progress with the Paris peace talks.
LBJ wasn't disqualified from running for a second term under the provisions of the 22nd Amendment because he had served less than 24 months of JFK's term. Had he stayed in the 1968 race and won, he would have been the longest-serving president since FDR, at nine years. He died on January 22, 1973, just two days after this presidential term ended. His death followed that of former President Harry S. Truman by less than a month. This left the U.S. with no living ex-presidents until the resignation of Richard Nixon in August 1974.
Administration and Cabinet
(All of the cabinet members when Johnson became President in 1963 had been serving under John F. Kennedy previously.)
Official White House portrait of Lyndon B. Johnson
After leaving the presidency in 1969, Johnson went home to his ranch in Johnson City, Texas. In 1971, he published his memoirs, The Vantage Point. That year, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum opened on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. It is the most visited presidential library in the nation with over a quarter million visitors per year.He donated his Texas ranch in his will to the public to form the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, with the proviso that the ranch "remain a working ranch and not become a sterile relic of the past".
Johnson died at 4:33 p.m. on January 22, 1973 from a third heart attack at his ranch, at age 64. His health was ruined by years of heavy smoking and stress, and the former President had severe heart disease. He was found in his bed, reaching for his phone. Johnson was honored with a state funeral in which Texas Congressman J.J. Pickle and former Secretary of State Dean Rusk eulogized him at the Capitol.
The final services took place on January 25. The funeral was held at the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C., where he worshipped often when president. The service, in which foreign dignitaries, led by former Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato, attended, was the first presidential funeral to feature a eulogy. They came from former White House Chief of Staff, and Postmaster GeneralW. Marvin Watson, and the church's rector, Reverend Dr. George Davis, a very close friend of the Johnsons who officiated the services in Washington. Though he attended the service, Nixon, who presided over the funeral, did not speak, as is customary for Presidents during presidential funerals, but both eulogists turned to him as they spoke and lauded him for his tributes to the former President, as Rusk had the day before.
*Lyndon Johnson was 6 feet 3 inches (190 cm) tall and weighed about 216 pounds (98 kg), the second tallest President, behind Abraham Lincoln at 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm) tall. *He was baptized in the Pedernales River as a member of the Disciples of Christ in 1923.
