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Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908–January 22, 1973),
often referred to as LBJ, was the thirty-seventh (1961-1963) Vice President and the thirty-sixth (1963-1969) President of the United States,
succeeding to the office after the assassination of John F.
Kennedy.
Early years
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas, on
August 27, 1908 to Samuel Johnson and
Rebekah Baines. His parents owned a farm in a poor area and they could not provide their son with many advantages. He attended
public schools throughout his childhood and graduated from Johnson City High
School in 1924.
In 1927 Johnson enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers College. Even though he participated in debate and campus politics, edited the school
newspaper, and spent a year away from his studies teaching school, Johnson
somehow managed to graduate in only 312 days.
Soon after he graduated from college, Johnson taught public speaking and debate in a
Houston high school. However, he soon quit his job teaching and went into the
field of 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 Lyndon campaigned for
Richard M. Kleberg
and was later rewarded for his work in the campaign with an appointment to be the newly elected congressman's secretary.
As secretary, Lyndon became acquainted with people of influence, found out how they had reached their positions, and gained
their respect for his abilities. Lyndon'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.
During his tenure as secretary, Johnson met Claudia Alta Taylor, a young woman who was also from Texas. After only a short
period of dating, the two were married on November 17, 1934. The couple later had two daughters, Lynda Bird, born in 1944, and
Luci Baines, born in 1947.
In 1935, Johnson became the head of the Texas National
Youth Administration. His new post enabled him to use the powers of government to find educational and job opportunities for
young people. The position in effect enabled him to build political pull with his constituents. He served as the head for two
years, only resigning to run for Congress. Johnson was a notoriously tough boss with his employees.
Johnson received his first degree in Freemasonry on October 30, 1937. After receiving the degree he
found that his congressional duties took so much time he was unable to pursue the masonic degrees.
Congressional years
In 1937, Johnson ran for Congress in a
special election for the 10th Congressional District of Texas to represent Austin and the surrounding Hill Country. He ran on a
New Deal platform and was effectively aided by his wife, Lady Bird Johnson.
President Franklin Roosevelt showed a personal interest in
the young Texan from the time he entered Congress. Johnson was immediately appointed to the Naval Affairs
Committee, a job that carried high importance for a freshman congressman. 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 defeated in a series of controversial late
returns.
FDR, Gov. Alfred of Texas & LBJ
During World War II he served briefly in the Navy as a lieutenant commander, winning a Silver Star in the South Pacific. However, it should be noted that there are
widespread questions over the circumstances in which he "won" this award. It has been speculated that it was largely for
political purposes. In 1948, Lyndon again ran for the Senate and this time won. It also
needs to be pointed out that his election to the Senate was controversial as well. Although, he won the general election by an
overwhelming vote. He won the primary by only 87 votes out of a million cast. The election was contested, but Johnson hired
Abe Fortas to represent him in federal court. Through legal maneuvering, Fortas
stopped the investigation. Once in the Senate, he was appointed to the Armed Services Committee, and later in 1950, he helped
create the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee. Johnson eventually became its chairman and
conducted a number of investigations of defense costs and efficiency. These investigations in result brought him national
attention along with the respect of senior members of the Senate.
After only a few years in the Senate, Johnson was moving up in leadership power. In 1953, Lyndon was chosen by his fellow Democrats to be the minority leader. Thus, he became the youngest man ever named
to the post by either major political party. In 1954, Johnson was re-elected to the Senate
and since the Democrats won the majority in Senate, Johnson became majority leader. His duties were to schedule legislation and
to help pass measures favored by the Democrats.
Vice Presidency
Johnson's success in the Senate led to his name being widely mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential candidate. He was
Texas' "favorite son" candidate at the party's national convention in 1956. In 1960, Lyndon received 409 votes on the first and only ballot at the Democratic convention. However,
the nomination eventually went to Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Later in 1960, Kennedy nominated Johnson for vice president slot
on the ticket. In November 1960 the Kennedy/Johnson duo beat out Richard M. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., by a narrow margin.
Upon swearing in, Kennedy appointed Johnson to head the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities, which led him to work with blacks
and other minorities. During his tenure as Vice President, Johnson also took on some international missions, which gave him
limited insights into foreign problems.
Presidency
Lyndon Johnson being sworn-in aboard Air Force One by federal judge Sarah T. Hughes, following the assassination of John F.
Kennedy. Notice now-RIAA head Jack Valenti in the background.
Johnson was sworn-in as President on Air Force One in Dallas at "Love Field Airport" after the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Over the decades, thousands of books and
documentaries (including the 2003's "The Men
Who Killed Kennedy" documentary) have come forth with considerations that support that Johnson was a co-conspirator
behind the murder of John F. Kennedy. At the time of the
assassination, President Kennedy had privately told confidantes, including President Kennedy's personal White House secretary, Evelyn
Lincoln, that he was considering replacing Johnson as Vice President on the 1964
presidential election democratic ticket because Johnson was implicated in no less than four documented criminal
investigations. Those four criminal investigations all disappeared after the assassination, after Johnson assumed the
presidency.
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.
In 1964, Johnson won the Presidency in his own right with 61 percent of the vote and had
the widest popular margin in American history--more than 15,000,000 votes.
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 delinquency, 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.
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 1965. Despite the
beginning of new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination programs, unrest and rioting in black ghettos troubled the Nation.
President Johnson steadily exerted his influence against segregation and on behalf of law and order, but there was no early
solution.
The other crisis arose from Vietnam. Despite Johnson's efforts to end Communist aggression 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 initiate negotiations. At the same time, he startled the world by withdrawing as a candidate for re-election so that
he might devote his full efforts, unimpeded by politics, to the quest for peace.
Vietnam War
President Johnson had a distaste for the American war effort in Vietnam, which he
had inherited from John Kennedy. Though he would often privately curse the war, referring to it as his "bitch mistress," at the
same time Johnson believed that America could not afford to look weak in the eyes of the world, and so he escalated the war
effort continuously from 1965-1968, which resulted in
thousands of American deaths and perhaps 60 times that number of deaths of Vietnamese (estimates range from 500,000 to
4,000,000). At the same time, Johnson was afraid that too much focus on Vietnam would distract attention from his Great Society
programs, so the levels of military escalation, while significant, were never significant enough to make any real headway in the
war. This approach was very unpopular with both The Pentagon and America's
South Vietnamese allies. Against his wishes, Johnson's presidency was
soon dominated by the Vietnam War. As more and more American soldiers died in
Vietnam, Johnson's popularity declined, particularly in the face of student protests ("Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you
killed today?").
Retirement
In March 1968, in an address to the nation, Johnson announced that he would not seek
renomination for the presidency, citing the growing division within the country over the war. The Democratic nomination
eventually went to Johnson's Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was
later defeated in the 1968
election by Richard M. Nixon. After leaving the presidency in
1969, Johnson went home to his ranch in Johnson City, Texas. Johnson died on January 22,
1973 from a massive heart attack.
Johnson career documentary
Johnson is the subject of an extensive multi-volume biography: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro. So far three volumes have appeared:
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- The Path to Power (1982),
- Means of Ascent (1990),
- Master of the Senate (2002).
Related articles
References
Other Reading
- Robert N. Winter-Berger The Washington Payoff: a lobbyist's own story of corruption in government (1972)
External links
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