LYNDON B. JOHNSON

THE 36TH PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(1963-1969)

JOHNSON, Lyndon Baines (LBJ) (1908–73), 36th president of the U.S. (1963–69). Johnson was born on a farm near Stonewall, Tex., on Aug. 27, 1908, the son and grandson of state legislators. He was reared in Johnson City, Tex., where he excelled in studies and debate at the local high school. After a period of wandering he enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers College, graduating in 1930. He taught high school for a year in Houston and then went to Washington, D.C., as a congressional aide. In 1935 he returned to Texas with a bride—Claudia Alta ("Lady Bird") Taylor (1912– ) —and gained praise as a state director of the National Youth Administration. In 1937 Johnson was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was a supporter and protégé of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His years in the House were interrupted in 1942 by a term of active duty as a naval officer. In 1948, in his second Texas Democratic senatorial primary, he won by a contested margin of 87 votes, thereby acquiring the nickname "Landslide Lyndon"; he went on to win the U.S. Senate seat in the general election. His energy and powerful southern friends helped him become Senate minority leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1955, when congressional power passed back to the Democrats. He recovered from a heart attack suffered in July 1955 to resume full duties, most notably helping to engineer the passage (1957) of the first national civil rights legislation since the American Civil War.   Vice-President. Defeated by Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in his bid for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, Johnson unexpectedly accepted the vice-presidential nomination and was an important element in Kennedy’s narrow victory. As vice-president he vigorously supported the space program and traveled widely on behalf of the administration. Johnson was riding in the second car behind Kennedy when the president was assassinated in Dallas, Tex., on Nov. 22, 1963. A Secret Service agent pushed the vice-president to the floor of the car and sat on him until they reached Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Johnson learned that Kennedy was dead. Fearing a conspiracy, he took the oath of office on board the presidential jet, Air Force One, before returning to Washington, D.C.   President. Johnson retained his predecessor’s cabinet, and he soon expanded the Kennedy legislative program, which had been languishing in Congress. By February 1964 he had won passage of an $11.5-billion tax cut that helped stimulate five uninterrupted years of economic expansion. He also launched his famous "war on poverty," a series of measures to promote economic development in depressed urban areas. His chief legislative victory in 1964, however, was the passage of a strong, Kennedy-originated civil rights bill attacking racial discrimination in public places and institutions. Johnson quickly asserted his authority over the Democratic party, which offered him its 1964 presidential nomination without a contest. Emphasizing his legislative prowess and opposition to deeper U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, he campaigned vigorously against the Republican nominee, Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. Johnson and his running mate, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, defeated Goldwater with 61 percent of the popular vote, a record percentage, and brought with them near-record Democratic majorities in Congress.   The Great Society. In his first State of the Union address as an elected president, Johnson outlined the Great Society, his own extensive legislative program to raise the quality of American life. The program soon began to materialize in one of the most fruitful legislative eras in U.S. history. Congress, against muted opposition, enacted a new housing bill, a Medicare program to help provide medical care for the elderly, and additional antipoverty measures. Other legislation protected the voting rights of southern blacks, created a federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, and abolished the immigration quota system. Johnson’s appropriation bills for secondary and higher education—a pet project of the former schoolteacher—sent aid to almost every school system in the country. Although he had lost some momentum by 1966, Johnson signed bills creating the National Teachers Corps and the Model Cities urban redevelopment program. In 1967 and 1968, despite diminished Democratic majorities in Congress, the administration succeeded in gaining passage of an open-housing civil rights bill and important education, gun-control, and conservation measures. In all, Congress had implemented 226 of Johnson’s 252 legislative requests by the expiration of his term.   Foreign Affairs. Almost from the start, Johnson encountered trouble in foreign policy. In a series of executive actions, he steadily expanded the U.S. commitment of personnel and supplies to the South Vietnamese regime, which was struggling with Communist insurgents from North Vietnam. Citing the need to protect U.S. lives and prestige, Johnson increased the Kennedy-authorized contingent of 17,000 men in South Vietnam to 125,000 by mid-1965, 480,000 by mid-1967, and 550,000 by the end of 1968. The enlarged forces, supported by intensive U.S. Air Force bombing raids, faced regular North Vietnamese units in bloody, often inconclusive battles. Repeated predictions of victory from U.S. generals and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara proved wrong. As the U.S. commitment grew, so did opposition to the war and to Johnson personally. In 1966 the president was an unwelcome ally in many Democratic congressional campaigns, and by 1967 he had to avoid public appearances because of demonstrations and threats to his life. Johnson also drew criticism in April 1965 for sending 22,000 U.S. troops into the Dominican Republic, ostensibly to protect Americans but in fact to prevent Communists from assuming power. During the brief Arab-Israeli War of June 1967, Johnson put the hot line between Moscow and Washington, D.C., to its first test. He and Soviet Premier Aleksey N. Kosygin agreed not to intervene in the conflict. A summit meeting with Kosygin two weeks later at Glassboro, N.J., failed, however, to produce an agreement with the USSR on the future of Vietnam.   Withdrawal and Retirement. In December 1967 Johnson visited foreign capitals in search of support for his war policies, proclaiming "The enemy cannot win, now, in Vietnam." A month later, however, Communist forces launched the Tet offensive, showing unexpected strength and nearly cutting South Vietnam in half. Protest over the war reached new intensity and acquired a political voice: Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota challenged Johnson in the New Hampshire presidential primary of March 1968. Because of McCarthy’s strong showing there, Johnson decided to spare himself and the nation a divisive renomination struggle. The times, filled with political and racial unrest, seemed to call for conciliatory gestures from the man who wished to be "president of all the people." On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced a unilateral de-escalation of the war in Vietnam and concluded the televised speech by stating "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president." In May he ordered peace talks to begin in Paris between U.S. and North Vietnamese representatives. Still colorful and controversial, Johnson retired to his Texas ranch in January 1969. He wrote his memoirs, The Vantage Point (1971), and supervised the building of his presidential library and a school of government at the University of Texas, Austin.   Death and funeral. Johnson died at his ranch, in San Antonio, Texas, at 3:39 p.m CST (4:39 pm EST) on January 22, 1973 at age 64 after suffering a massive heart attack. His death came the day before a ceasefire was signed in Vietnam and just a month after former president Harry S. Truman died. (Truman's funeral on December 28, 1972 had been one of Johnson's last public appearances). His health had been affected by years of heavy smoking, poor diet, and extreme stress; the former president had advanced coronary artery disease. He had his first, nearly fatal, heart attack in July 1955 and suffered a second one in April 1972, but had been unable to quit smoking after he left the Oval Office in 1969. He was found dead by Secret Service agents, in his bed, with a telephone receiver in his hand. The agents were responding to a desperate call Johnson had made to the Secret Service compound on his ranch minutes earlier complaining of "massive chest pains". Shortly after Johnson's death, his press secretary Tom Johnson (no relation to Johnson), telephoned Walter Cronkite at CBS; Cronkite was live on the air with the CBS Evening News at the time, and a report on Vietnam was cut abruptly while Cronkite was still on the line, so he could break the news. 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 had often worshiped as president. The service was presided over by President Richard Nixon and attended by foreign dignitaries, led by former Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato, who served as Japanese prime minister during Johnson's presidency. Eulogies were given by the Rev. Dr. George Davis, the church's pastor, and W. Marvin Watson, former postmaster general. Nixon did not speak, though he attended, as is customary for presidents during state funerals, but the eulogists turned to him and lauded him for his tributes, as Rusk did the day before, as Nixon mentioned Johnson's death in a speech he gave the day after Johnson died, announcing the peace agreement to end the Vietnam War. Johnson was buried in his family cemetery (which, although it is part of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Stonewall, Texas, is still privately owned by the Johnson family, who have requested that the public not enter the cemetery), a few yards from the house in which he was born. Eulogies were given by John Connally and the Rev. Billy Graham, the minister who officiated the burial rites. The state funeral, the last for a president until Ronald Reagan's in 2004, was part of an unexpectedly busy week in Washington, as the Military District of Washington (MDW) dealt with their second major task in less than a week, beginning with Nixon's second inauguration. The inauguration had an impact on the state funeral in various ways, because Johnson died only two days after the inauguration. The MDW and the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee canceled the remainder of the ceremonies surrounding the inauguration to allow for a full state funeral, and many of the military men who participated in the inauguration took part in the funeral. It also meant Johnson's casket traveled the entire length of Capitol, entering through the Senate wing when taken into the rotunda to lie in state and exited through the House wing steps due to construction on the East Front steps.   Legacy. The Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, was renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in 1973, and Texas created a legal state holiday to be observed on August 27 to mark Johnson's birthday. It is known as Lyndon Baines Johnson Day. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac was dedicated on September 27, 1974. The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs was named in his honor, as is the Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland. Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School in Melbourne, Florida, is his namesake. Interstate 635 in Dallas is named the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway. Lyndon Baines Johnson Tropical Medical Center is named after the 36th President who visited American Samoa on October 18, 1966. This marked the beginning of construction of the hospital located in the village of Faga'alu, American Samoa. The facility was completed in 1968. Runway 17R/35L at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is known as the Lyndon B. Johnson Runway. The student center at Texas State University–San Marcos is named after the former president and graduate. Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1980. A small village run by FELDA in Negeri Sembilan has been named FELDA L.B.Johnson after his visit to Malaysia in 1966. On March 23, 2007, President George W. Bush signed legislation naming the United States Department of Education headquarters after President Johnson. 2008 was the celebration of the Johnson Centennial featuring special programs, events, and parties across Texas and in Washington, D.C. Johnson would have been 100 years old on August 27, 2008.