LYNDON B. JOHNSON'S SPEECH DECLINING TO SEEK RE-ELECTION (31 March 1968)

The administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) had supported a gradual escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam crisis. After the disastrous Tet Offensive in 1968, however, Johnson and his advisors concluded that a cutback in the bombing of North Vietnam was a better course of action. In a surprisingly dramatic televised speech to the nation on March 31, Johnson announced that he was no longer seeking re-election so that he could work full-time on achieving peace in Vietnam.

The speech not only introduced a fundamental shift in the administration's Vietnam policies, but also served a larger political purpose. By aligning himself with the movement for peace, Johnson undercut the ability of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy to critique Johnson's war policies; he also failed to give an expected endorsement of his party's other candidate, Hubert Humphrey.

Mark D.Baumann,
New York University

See also Vietnam War .

The President's Address to the Nation Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not To Seek Reelection. March 31, 1968

Good evening, my fellow Americans:

Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

No other question so preoccupies our people. No other dream so absorbs the 250 million human beings who live in that part of the world. No other goal motivates American policy in Southeast Asia.

For years, representatives of our Government and others have traveled the world—seeking to find a basis for peace talks.

Since last September, they have carried the offer that I made public at San Antonio.

That offer was this:

That the United States would stop its bombardment of North Vietnam when that would lead promptly to productive discussions—and that we would assume that North Vietnam would not take military advantage of our restraint.

Hanoi denounced this offer, both privately and publicly. Even while the search for peace was going on, North Vietnam rushed their preparations for a savage assault on the people, the government, and the allies of South Vietnam.

Their attack—during the Tet holidays—failed to achieve its principal objectives.

It did not collapse the elected government of South Vietnam or shatter its army—as the Communists had hoped.

It did not produce a "general uprising" among the people of the cities as they had predicted.

The Communists were unable to maintain control of any of the more than 30 cities that they attacked. And they took very heavy casualties.

But they did compel the South Vietnamese and their allies to move certain forces from the countryside into the cities.

They caused widespread disruption and suffering. Their attacks, and the battles that followed, made refugees of half a million human beings.

The Communists may renew their attack any day.

They are, it appears, trying to make 1968 the year of decision in South Vietnam—the year that brings, if not final victory or defeat, at least a turning point in the struggle.

This much is clear:

If they do mount another round of heavy attacks, they will not succeed in destroying the fighting power of South Vietnam and its allies.

But tragically, this is also clear: Many men—on both sides of the struggle—will be lost. A nation that has already suffered 20 years of warfare will suffer once again. Armies on both sides will take new casualties. And the war will go on.

There is no need for this to be so.

There is no need to delay the talks that could bring an end to this long and this bloody war.

Tonight, I renew the offer I made last August—to stop the bombardment of North Vietnam. We ask that talks begin promptly, that they be serious talks on the substance of peace. We assume that during those talks Hanoi will not take advantage of our restraint.

We are prepared to move immediately toward peace through negotiations.

So, tonight, in the hope that this action will lead to early talks, I am taking the first step to deescalate the conflict. We are reducing—substantially reducing—the present level of hostilities.

And we are doing so unilaterally, and at once.

Tonight, I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens allied forward positions and where the movements of their troops and supplies are clearly related to that threat.

The area in which we are stopping our attacks includes almost 90 percent of North Vietnam's population, and most of its territory. Thus there will be no attacks around the principal populated areas, or in the food-producing areas of North Vietnam.

Even this very limited bombing of the North could come to an early end—if our restraint is matched by restraint in Hanoi. But I cannot in good conscience stop all bombing so long as to do so would immediately and directly endanger the lives of our men and our allies. Whether a complete bombing halt becomes possible in the future will be determined by events.

Our purpose in this action is to bring about a reduction in the level of violence that now exists.

It is to save the lives of brave men—and to save the lives of innocent women and children. It is to permit the contending forces to move closer to a political settlement.

And tonight, I call upon the United Kingdom and I call upon the Soviet Union—as cochairmen of the Geneva Conferences, and as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—to do all they can to move from the unilateral act of deescalation that I have just announced toward genuine peace in Southeast Asia.

Now, as in the past, the United States is ready to send its representatives to any forum, at any time, to discuss the means of bringing this ugly war to an end.

I am designating one of our most distinguished Americans, Ambassador Averell Harriman, as my personal representative for such talks. In addition, I have asked Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, who returned from Moscow for consultation, to be available to join Ambassador Harriman at Geneva or any other suitable place—just as soon as Hanoi agrees to a conference.

I call upon President Ho Chi Minh to respond positively, and favorably, to this new step toward peace.

But if peace does not come now through negotiations, it will come when Hanoi understands that our common resolve is unshakable, and our common strength is invincible.

Tonight, we and the other allied nations are contributing 600,000 fighting men to assist 700,000 South Vietnamese troops in defending their little country.

Our presence there has always rested on this basic belief: The main burden of preserving their freedom must be carried out by them—by the South Vietnamese themselves.

We and our allies can only help to provide a shield behind which the people of South Vietnam can survive and can grow and develop. On their efforts—on their determination and resourcefulness—the outcome will ultimately depend.

That small, beleaguered nation has suffered terrible punishment for more than 20 years.

I pay tribute once again tonight to the great courage and endurance of its people. South Vietnam supports armed forces tonight of almost 700,000 men—and I call your attention to the fact that this is the equivalent of more than 10 million in our own population. Its people maintain their firm determination to be free of domination by the North.

There has been substantial progress, I think, in building a durable government during these last 3 years. The South Vietnam of 1965 could not have survived the enemy's Tet offensive of 1968. The elected government of South Vietnam survived that attack—and is rapidly repairing the devastation that it wrought.

The South Vietnamese know that further efforts are going to be required:

—to expand their own armed forces,

—to move back into the countryside as quickly as possible,

—to increase their taxes,

—to select the very best men that they have for civil and military responsibility,

—to achieve a new unity within their constitutional government, and

—to include in the national effort all those groups who wish to preserve South Vietnam's control over its own destiny.

Last week President Thieu ordered the mobilization of 135,000 additional South Vietnamese. He plans to reach—as soon as possible—a total military strength of more than 800,000 men.

To achieve this, the Government of South Vietnam started the drafting of 19-year-olds on March 1st. On May 1st, the Government will begin the drafting of 18-year-olds.

Last month, 10,000 men volunteered for military service—that was two and a half times the number of volunteers during the same month last year. Since the middle of January, more than 48,000 South Vietnamese have joined the armed forces—and nearly half of them volunteered to do so.

All men in the South Vietnamese armed forces have had their tours of duty extended for the duration of the war, and reserves are now being called up for immediate active duty.

President Thieu told his people last week:

"We must make greater efforts and accept more sacrifices because, as I have said many times, this is our country. The existence of our nation is at stake, and this is mainly a Vietnamese responsibility."

He warned his people that a major national effort is required to root out corruption and incompetence at all levels of government.

We applaud this evidence of determination on the part of South Vietnam. Our first priority will be to support their effort.

We shall accelerate the reequipment of South Vietnam's armed forces—in order to meet the enemy's increased firepower. This will enable them progressively to undertake a larger share of combat operations against the Communist invaders.

On many occasions I have told the American people that we would send to Vietnam those forces that are required to accomplish our mission there. So, with that as our guide, we have previously authorized a force level of approximately 525,000.

Some weeks ago—to help meet the enemy's new offensive—we sent to Vietnam about 11,000 additional Marine and airborne troops. They were deployed by air in 48 hours, on an emergency basis. But the artillery, tank, aircraft, medical, and other units that were needed to work with and to support these infantry troops in combat could not then accompany them by air on that short notice.

In order that these forces may reach maximum combat effectiveness, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended to me that we should prepare to send—during the next 5 months—support troops totaling approximately 13,500 men.

A portion of these men will be made available from our active forces. The balance will come from reserve component units which will be called up for service.

The actions that we have taken since the beginning of the year

—to reequip the South Vietnamese forces,

—to meet our responsibilities in Korea, as well as our responsibilities in Vietnam,

—to meet price increases and the cost of activating and deploying reserve forces,

—to replace helicopters and provide the other military supplies we need,

all of these actions are going to require additional expenditures.

The tentative estimate of those additional expenditures is $2.5 billion in this fiscal year, and $2.6 billion in the next fiscal year.

These projected increases in expenditures for our national security will bring into sharper focus the Nation's need for immediate action: action to protect the prosperity of the American people and to protect the strength and the stability of our American dollar.

On many occasions I have pointed out that, without a tax bill or decreased expenditures, next year's deficit would again be around $20 billion. I have emphasized the need to set strict priorities in our spending. I have stressed that failure to act and to act promptly and decisively would raise very strong doubts throughout the world about America's willingness to keep its financial house in order.

Yet Congress has not acted. And tonight we face the sharpest financial threat in the postwar era—a threat to the dollar's role as the keystone of international trade and finance in the world.

Last week, at the monetary conference in Stockholm, the major industrial countries decided to take a big step toward creating a new international monetary asset that will strengthen the international monetary system. I am very proud of the very able work done by Secretary Fowler and Chairman Martin of the Federal Reserve Board.

But to make this system work the United States just must bring its balance of payments to—or very close to—equilibrium. We must have a responsible fiscal policy in this country. The passage of a tax bill now, together with expenditure control that the Congress may desire and dictate, is absolutely necessary to protect this Nation's security, to continue our prosperity, and to meet the needs of our people.

What is at stake is 7 years of unparalleled prosperity. In those 7 years, the real income of the average American, after taxes, rose by almost 30 percent—a gain as large as that of the entire preceding 19 years.

So the steps that we must take to convince the world are exactly the steps we must take to sustain our own economic strength here at home. In the past 8 months, prices and interest rates have risen because of our inaction.

We must, therefore, now do everything we can to move from debate to action—from talking to voting. There is, I believe—I hope there is—in both Houses of the Congress—a growing sense of urgency that this situation just must be acted upon and must be corrected.

My budget in January was, we thought, a tight one. It fully reflected our evaluation of most of the demanding needs of this Nation.

But in these budgetary matters, the President does not decide alone. The Congress has the power and the duty to determine appropriations and taxes.

The Congress is now considering our proposals and they are considering reductions in the budget that we submitted.

As part of a program of fiscal restraint that includes the tax surcharge, I shall approve appropriate reductions in the January budget when and if Congress so decides that that should be done.

One thing is unmistakably clear, however: Our deficit just must be reduced. Failure to act could bring on conditions that would strike hardest at those people that all of us are trying so hard to help.

These times call for prudence in this land of plenty. I believe that we have the character to provide it, and tonight I plead with the Congress and with the people to act promptly to serve the national interest, and thereby serve all of our people.

Now let me give you my estimate of the chances for peace:

—the peace that will one day stop the bloodshed in South Vietnam,

—that will permit all the Vietnamese people to rebuild and develop their land,

—that will permit us to turn more fully to our own tasks here at home.

I cannot promise that the initiative that I have announced tonight will be completely successful in achieving peace any more than the 30 others that we have undertaken and agreed to in recent years.

But it is our fervent hope that North Vietnam, after years of fighting that have left the issue unresolved, will now cease its efforts to achieve a military victory and will join with us in moving toward the peace table.

And there may come a time when South Vietnamese—on both sides—are able to work out a way to settle their own differences by free political choice rather than by war.

As Hanoi considers its course, it should be in no doubt of our intentions. It must not miscalculate the pressures within our democracy in this election year.

We have no intention of widening this war.

But the United States will never accept a fake solution to this long and arduous struggle and call it peace.

No one can foretell the precise terms of an eventual settlement.

Our objective in South Vietnam has never been the annihilation of the enemy. It has been to bring about a recognition in Hanoi that its objective—taking over the South by force—could not be achieved.

We think that peace can be based on the Geneva Accords of 1954—under political conditions that permit the South Vietnamese—all the South Vietnamese—to chart their course free of any outside domination or interference, from us or from anyone else.

So tonight I reaffirm the pledge that we made at Manila—that we are prepared to withdraw our forces from South Vietnam as the other side withdraws its forces to the north, stops the infiltration, and the level of violence thus subsides.

Our goal of peace and self-determination in Vietnam is directly related to the future of all of Southeast Asia—where much has happened to inspire confidence during the past 10 years. We have done all that we knew how to do to contribute and to help build that confidence.

A number of its nations have shown what can be accomplished under conditions of security. Since 1966, Indonesia, the fifth largest nation in all the world, with a population of more than 100 million people, has had a government that is dedicated to peace with its neighbors and improved conditions for its own people. Political and economic cooperation between nations has grown rapidly.

I think every American can take a great deal of pride in the role that we have played in bringing this about in Southeast Asia. We can rightly judge—as responsible Southeast Asians themselves do—that the progress of the past 3 years would have been far less likely—if not completely impossible—if America's sons and others had not made their stand in Vietnam.

At Johns Hopkins University, about 3 years ago, I announced that the United States would take part in the great work of developing Southeast Asia, including the Mekong Valley, for all the people of that region. Our determination to help build a better land—a better land for men on both sides of the present conflict—has not diminished in the least. Indeed, the ravages of war, I think, have made it more urgent than ever.

So, I repeat on behalf of the United States again tonight what I said at Johns Hopkins—that North Vietnam could take its place in this common effort just as soon as peace comes.

Over time, a wider framework of peace and security in Southeast Asia may become possible. The new cooperation of the nations of the area could be a foundation-stone. Certainly friendship with the nations of such a Southeast Asia is what the United States seeks—and that is all that the United States seeks.

One day, my fellow citizens, there will be peace in Southeast Asia.

It will come because the people of Southeast Asia want it—those whose armies are at war tonight, and those who, though threatened, have thus far been spared.

Peace will come because Asians were willing to work for it—and to sacrifice for… and to die by the thousands for it.

But let it never be forgotten: Peace will come also because America sent her sons to help secure it.

It has not been easy—far from it. During the past 4 1/2 years, it has been my fate and my responsibility to be Commander in Chief. I have lived—daily and nightly—with the cost of this war. I know the pain that it has inflicted. I know, perhaps better than anyone, the misgivings that it has aroused.

Throughout this entire, long period, I have been sustained by a single principle: that what we are doing now, in Vietnam, is vital not only to the security of Southeast Asia but it is vital to the security of every American.

Surely we have treaties which we must respect. Surely we have commitments that we are going to keep.

Resolutions of the Congress testify to the need to resist aggression in the world and in Southeast Asia.

But the heart of our involvement in South Vietnam—under three different Presidents, three separate administrations—has always been America's own security.

And the larger purpose of our involvement has always been to help the nations of Southeast Asia become independent and stand alone, self-sustaining, as members of a great world community—at peace with themselves, and at peace with all others.

With such an Asia, our country—and the world—will be far more secure than it is tonight.

I believe that a peaceful Asia is far nearer to reality because of what America has done in Vietnam. I believe that the men who endure the dangers of battle—fighting there for us tonight—are helping the entire world avoid far greater conflicts, far wider wars, far more destruction, than this one.

The peace that will bring them home someday will come. Tonight I have offered the first in what I hope will be a series of mutual moves toward peace.

I pray that it will not be rejected by the leaders of North Vietnam. I pray that they will accept it as a means by which the sacrifices of their own people may be ended. And I ask your help and your support, my fellow citizens, for this effort to reach across the battlefield toward an early peace.

Finally, my fellow Americans, let me say this:

Of those to whom much is given, much is asked. I cannot say and no man could say that no more will be asked of us.

Yet, I believe that now, no less than when the decade began, this generation of Americans is willing to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Since those words were spoken by John F. Kennedy, the people of America have kept that compact with mankind's noblest cause.

And we shall continue to keep it.

Yet, I believe that we must always be mindful of this one thing, whatever the trials and the tests ahead. The ultimate strength of our country and our cause will lie not in powerful weapons or infinite resources or boundless wealth, but will lie in the unity of our people.

This I believe very deeply.

Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only.

For 37 years in the service of our Nation, first as a Congressman, as a Senator, and as Vice President, and now as your President, I have put the unity of the people first. I have put it ahead of any divisive partisanship.

And in these times as in times before, it is true that a house divided against itself by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race, is a house that cannot stand.

There is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight. And holding the trust that is mine, as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospect of peace for all peoples.

So, I would ask all Americans, whatever their personal interests or concern, to guard against divisiveness and all its ugly consequences.

Fifty-two months and 10 days ago, in a moment of tragedy and trauma, the duties of this office fell upon me. I asked then for your help and God's, that we might continue America on its course, binding up our wounds, healing our history, moving forward in new unity, to clear the American agenda and to keep the American commitment for all of our people.

United we have kept that commitment. United we have enlarged that commitment.

Through all time to come, I think America will be a stronger nation, a more just society, and a land of greater opportunity and fulfillment because of what we have all done together in these years of unparalleled achievement.

Our reward will come in the life of freedom, peace, and hope that our children will enjoy through ages ahead.

What we won when all of our people united just must not now be lost in suspicion, distrust, selfishness, and politics among any of our people.

Believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.

With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the Presidency of your country.

Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

But let men everywhere know, however, that a strong, a confident, and a vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace—and stands ready tonight to defend an honored cause—whatever the price, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifice that duty may require.

Thank you for listening.

Good night and God bless all of you.

NOTE: The President spoke at 9 p.m. in his office at the White House. The address was broadcast nationally.

source: U.S. Department of State Bulletin, 15 April 1968.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

As the thirty-sixth president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) created new programs in health, education, human rights, and conservation and attacked the crushing 20th-century problems of urban blight and poverty with what he called the "War on Poverty."

Most commentators account Lyndon Johnson as one of America's most experienced and politically skilled presidents. He sponsored a flood of new legislation designed to better the quality of life among the disadvantaged and the dispossessed of the nation. In foreign policy he set about to strengthen regional arrangements of power so that new and small nations might develop their own form of political society without fear of intrusion from their more powerful neighbors. He inherited an American commitment in South Vietnam, and his determination to preserve the independence of that beleaguered country led to virulent attacks and, finally, his momentous decision not to seek reelection.

Lyndon Johnson was born on Aug. 27, 1908, near Johnson City, Texas, the small community founded by his forebears. Life was hard and plain in the Texas hill country at this time. Johnson's father struggled to raise his two sons and three daughters. His mother was a gentle woman, who encouraged her children to love books and gave them a sense of duty and responsibility. Johnson graduated from Southwest State Teachers College in San Marcos, Tex., with a bachelor of science degree, having combined his studies with a job teaching Mexican-American children.

Johnson's early teaching assignments were at Pearsall, Tex., and in the Houston high schools. In 1931, politics beckoned. He went to Washington, D.C., as secretary to Texas congressman Richard Kleberg. Almost immediately Johnson's talent for attracting affection and respect became visible. He was elected Speaker of the "Little Congress," an assembly of congressional secretaries on Capitol Hill.

On Nov. 17, 1934, an event occurred which Johnson always described as the most notable triumph of his life: he married Claudia (Lady Bird) Taylor of Karnak, Texas. She became his partner, confidant, and counselor, and from her, Johnson drew strength and love and reserves of support that never faltered.

Johnson's ultimate destiny was beginning to take shape. At age 27, he was already exhibiting his characteristic traits of energy, intellect, and tenacity when he resigned as a congressional secretary in 1935 to become the Texas director of the National Youth Administration. The origins of the later Johnson can be located in his conduct of this office; he surrounded himself with bright, young men and invested his duties with a 24-hour torrent of activity.

Rising through Congress

In 1937, the congressman from Texas's Tenth District died suddenly. When a special election was called to select a successor, Johnson hesitated only slightly. His wife provided campaign funds from her inheritance, and Johnson leaped into a race crowded with eight opponents. The only candidate to support President Franklin Roosevelt's court-packing plan, he did so with such vigor that the eyes of the nation were drawn to the outcome, and none watched it with more intensity than Roosevelt himself. To the amazement of political veterans, the 28-year-old Johnson won the race.

President Roosevelt, in Texas on a fishing trip, was so elated that he invited Johnson to accompany him back to Washington, D.C. Thus, Johnson became his personal protégé. With the aid of the powerful House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas and the continuing support of the President, Johnson was brought into the councils of ruling establishmentarians of the House of Representatives.

In 1941, Johnson entered another special election, this time for a Senate seat made vacant by a death. Texans were surprised by the campaign he launched by helicopter. Nearly every community watched the tall, smiling Johnson alight from his helicopter. In a bitter campaign Johnson lost by 1,311 votes to that bizarre political phenomenon Governor W. Lee ("Pass the Biscuits Pappy") O'Daniel.

There was little time for Johnson to lick his wounds. That December he became the first member of Congress to enter active military duty. He joined the Navy and in 1942 received the Silver Star for gallantry in a bombing mission over New Guinea. When President Roosevelt ordered all congressmen back to the capital in 1942, Johnson reentered the House.

In 1948, Johnson's restless quest for higher office was finally successful. In a savagely fought senatorial campaign, he defeated a former governor of Texas by a celebrated margin of 87 votes. The elders of the Senate soon recognized that Johnson was no ordinary rookie senator. He did his homework, was knowledgable on every item that confronted the Senate, and was in instant command of all the nuances and subtleties of every important piece of legislation.

In January 1951, just 3 years into his first term, Johnson was elevated to Democratic "whip" (assistant minority leader). Regarding his age and tenure, no similar selection had ever been made in the history of the Senate. In 1953, when the post of minority leader in the Senate opened up Democratic senators without hesitation chose Johnson to take charge. With the congressional elections of 1954, the Democrats took command of both houses. And with this new alignment, Johnson again set a record as the youngest man ever to become majority leader.

The Johnson legend of leadership now became visible to the nation. Not since the early days of the republic had one man assumed such clear direction over the course and affairs of the Senate. Operating his office around the clock, intimately aware of all that transpired, and firmly fixed in his intent and design, Johnson was the "complete Senate leader." Now one voice spoke for the Democrats, as Johnson became the "second most powerful man in Washington, D.C."

The habits of work and discipline that would later confound the nation when Johnson became president were now on display in the Senate chamber. He handled the Senate with confidence and skill. The Republican opposition found it impossible to outflank this majority leader; legislation opposed by Johnson rarely found acceptance by the Senate. He encouraged new, young senators and found coveted spots for them on important committees.

Johnson led the first civil rights bill in 82 years through the Senate. He guided to final victory the first space legislation in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. In 1958, designated by President Dwight Eisenhower to represent the United States at the United Nations, he presented the resolution calling for the peaceful exploration of outer space. He exposed wastes in defense procurement during the Korean War and conducted defense hearings that were a model of accuracy and dispassionate scrutiny.

In 1960, Johnson briefly opposed John F. Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination; then Kennedy electrified the country by choosing Johnson as his vice-presidential running mate. While some Kennedy supporters grumbled, experts later agreed that Johnson's relentless campaigning in Texas and throughout the South had provided Kennedy with his winning margin.

Serving as Vice President

As vice-president, Johnson had important assignments. One of his principal tasks was the burgeoning space program, which was overshadowed by Russian triumphs with Sputnik and subsequent innovations that put the United States in an inferior role. Regarding civil rights, as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity forces, Johnson surprised many critics by putting uncompromising pressure on American industry. At the President's request, he made fact-finding trips to Berlin and to the Far East.

On Nov. 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Aboard the plane Air Force One at Love Field in Dallas, Johnson took the presidential oath of office on November 23. Giving orders to take off seconds later, the new president flew back to Washington to take command of the government, while the nation grieved for its fallen leader.

Filling the Presidency

Five days after taking office, President Johnson appeared before a joint session of the Congress. Speaking with firmness and controlled passion, he pledged "we shall continue." Important legislation submitted by President Kennedy to the Congress, currently bottled up and seemingly stymied in various committees of both houses, was met by Johnson's deliberate and concentrated action. The new president—meeting round the clock with staff, Cabinet, and congressmen—unbuckled key legislation, so that within a few short months the tax cut and the civil rights bills were passed by Congress and signed by the President.

Six months after assuming the presidency, Johnson announced his concept of the "Great Society." The areas he considered vital were health and education; the whole complex of the urban society, with its accompanying ills of ghettos, pollution, housing, and transportation; civil rights; and conservation.

Johnson took his innovative domestic programs to the nation in the election of 1964. Meanwhile, the American involvement in Vietnam, sanctioned by three presidents, became an issue. Senator Barry Goldwater chastised Johnson for his liberal approach to domestic problems and suggested a massive step-up in the bombing of North Vietnam. Johnson traversed the nation and convinced it that his leadership was of such caliber that the voters could not afford to drive him from office. He won by a margin of almost 16 million votes, more than 61 percent of the total vote, the widest margin in totals and percentage of any presidential election in American history.

Administration Achievements

Barely pausing, the President, reinforced by this clear mandate, began a legislative program which was rivaled in scope and form only by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal a generation earlier. Between 1965 and 1968 more than 207 landmark bills were passed by the Congress.

In education, Johnson's administration tripled expenditures. By the end of 1968, 1.5 million students were receiving Federal aid to help them gain their college degrees; over 10 million people learned new skills through vocational education; and 19,000 school districts received special help under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. More than 600,000 disabled citizens were trained through vocational rehabilitation programs. Head Start and other pre-school programs brought specific assistance to more than 2 million children.

In the area of health, Johnson's administration increased Federal expenditures from $4 billion to $14 billion in 4 years. More than 20 million Americans were covered by Medicare, and more than 7 million received its benefits. About 31 million children were vaccinated against four severe diseases, reducing by 50 percent the number of children who suffered from these diseases, and more than 3 million children received health care under Medicaid in one year. Some 286 community mental health centers were built. More than 390,000 mothers and 680,000 infants received care through the Maternal and Child Health programs. Some 460,000 handicapped children were treated under the Crippled Children's Program.

Fighting poverty, the Johnson administration lifted more than 6,000,000 Americans out of the poverty depths. Over 100,000 young men and women completed Job Corps training; 2.2 million needy Americans were helped under the Food Stamp Program; school children benefited from the School Milk and School Lunch programs.

In the area of human and civil rights, the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, and within 3 years nearly 1 million Negroes registered to vote in the South. More than 98 percent of all the nation's hospitals agreed to provide services without discrimination. More than 28 percent of all Negro families by 1968 earned about $7,000 a year, doubling the 1960 figure. Some 35 percent more Negroes found professional, technical, and managerial jobs between 1964 and 1968.

In housing, in 4 years the Johnson administration generated the construction of 5.5 million new homes. Direct Federal expenditures for housing and community development increased from $635 million to nearly $3 billion. Two million families received Federal Housing Administration improvement loans. Federal assistance provided housing for 215,000 families earning less than $7,000 a year. Nearly $427 million was spent for water and sewage facilities in small towns. More than 3.5 million rural citizens benefited from economic opportunity loans, farm operation and emergency loans, and watershed and rural housing loans.

Most importantly, the Johnson administration presided over the longest upward curve of prosperity in the history of the nation. More than 85 months of unrivaled economic growth marked this as the strongest era of national prosperity. The average weekly wage of factory workers rose 18 percent in 4 years. Over 9 million additional workers were brought under minimum-wage protection. Total employment, increased by 7.5 million workers, added up to 75 million; the unemployment rate dropped to its lowest point in more than a decade.

In foreign affairs, where risk and confrontation stretched a perilous tightrope throughout the Johnson years, the President made significant achievements. In the Western Hemisphere, at Punta del Este, Uruguay, the Latin American nations agreed to a common market for the continent. Normal relations with Panama were restored and a new canal treaty negotiated. In Cyprus, at the brink of war, the President's special emissaries knitted a settlement that staved off conflict. A rebellion in the Congo, which would have had ugly repercussions throughout the continent, was put down with American aid in the form of transport planes. In the Dominican Republic, an incipient Communist threat was challenged by an overwhelming show of American force, with Latin American allies. Amid tangled criticism from sections of the press and some Latin American nations, the President persevered in the Dominican Republic, where democratic government and free elections were restored and U.S. troops promptly withdrawn.

An outer-space treaty was negotiated with the Soviet Union and a nuclear nonproliferation treaty was formulated and agreed to in Geneva. In June 1967 the President met with Premier Alexei Kosygin of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was successfully realigned after France withdrew, and the vast Western European alliance was restructured and strengthened.

It was the troubled Southeast Asian problem in South Vietnam to which Johnson devoted long, tormented hours. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy had declared that the security of the United States was involved in deterring aggression in South Vietnam from an intruding Communist government from the North. However, there was much disagreement in the United States over this venture; some critics claimed the Vietnam war was a civil one, an insurrection, and not an invasion. When Johnson first became chief executive, 16,000 American troops were in Vietnam as advisers and combat instructors. In 1965 the United States decided to increase its military support of South Vietnam and authorized commitment of more American troops. By 1968 there was considerable disaffection over the Asian policy, and many critics in and out of the Congress determined to force the Johnson administration to shrink its commitment and withdraw U.S. troops.

Beginning in April 1965 with the President's speech at Johns Hopkins University, in which he set forth the American policy of reconstruction of the area and the promulgation of the Asian Development Bank as an instrument of peace building, the Johnson administration attempted to negotiate with a seemingly intransigent North Vietnam, whose troops were infiltrating into the South in increasing numbers. A 37-day bombing pause in December 1965 raised hopes for negotiation, but lack of response from the North Vietnamese blotted this out, and the bombing resumed.

Assaulted by fierce and growing criticism, yet determined to fix some course of action which would diminish the war and commence serious peace talks, the President startled the nation and the world on March 31, 1968, by renouncing his claim to renomination for the presidency. Johnson said that he believed that the necessity for finding a structure of peaceful negotiation was so important that even his own political fortunes must not be allowed to stand in its way. Therefore, he stated, he would not seek renomination, so he could spend the rest of his days in the presidency searching for negotiation without any political taint marring a possible response from the enemy.

On May 11, 1968, it was announced that peace talks would indeed begin in Paris, and in November 1968 the President declared that all bombing of North Vietnam would cease.

Johnson retired to his ranch near San Antonio, Texas, where he took a keen interest in the care and sale of his cattle, while nursing a serious heart ailment.

The tragic Vietnam War was in its last days in January, 1973 when a period of mourning was declared to mark the death of President Harry S Truman. Shortly after it began, it also marked the death of Lyndon B. Johnson.

On the afternoon of January 22, 1973, Johnson suffered a heart attack while lying down to take a nap. He was flown to a hospital by his Secret Service agents, but was pronounced dead on arrival at 4:33 pm. His body lay in state first at the Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, then, as is usual for American presidents, in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. until his burial on his beloved ranch.

Johnson's Influence

While historians search the record and evaluate its significance, there seems little doubt that Lyndon Johnson's impress on the form and quality of life in the United States will be seen to be large. In the fields of health, education, civil rights, conservation, and the problem of the elderly, his legislative achievements have left their clear mark. His insistence that the pledges of the four preceding presidents be upheld in Southeast Asia is a subject for debate. But it must be argued that his peace-keeping efforts in the Middle East, in the Near East, in Africa, and in Latin America were forceful, remedial, and worthy of praise; the results have proved his policies' merits.

Johnson belongs in the tradition of the "strong president" he dominated the government with his energy and personality and invested his office with intimate knowledge of all government business. He was the target of intense and sometimes virulent criticism, just as all strong American presidents have found themselves ceaselessly and bitterly attacked.

Further Reading

Johnson's The Vantage Point (1971) presents his own perspectives on his White House years. There is not yet an authoritative or comprehensive biography of Johnson. Boothe Mooney, The Lyndon Johnson Story (1956; rev. ed. 1964); and Clarke Newlon, LBJ: The Man from Johnson City (1964; rev. ed. 1966), are journalistic; Sam Houston Johnson, My Brother Lyndon, edited by Enrique Hank Lopez, is a superficial and undocumented account by the President's brother.

Aspects of Johnson's life and presidency are treated in William S.White, Citadel: The Story of the U.S. Senate (1957); and The Professional: Lyndon B Johnson (1964); Michael Amrine, This Awesome Challenge: A Hundred Days of Lyndon Johnson (1964); Rebekah Baines Johnson, A Family Album, edited by John S. Moursund (1965); Charles Roberts, LBJ's Inner Circle (1965); Theodore H. White, The Making of the President (1965); Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, Lyndon B. Johnson, The Exercise of Power: A Political Biography (1966); Philip Geyelin, Lyndon B. Johnson and the World (1966); Jim Bishop, A Day in the Life of President Johnson (1967); James Deakin, Lyndon Johnson's Credibility Gap (1968); Hugh Sidney, A Very Personal Presidency: Lyndon Johnson in the White House (1968); Tom Wicker, JFK and LBJ: The Influence of Personality upon Politics (1968); and Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (1969); Lady Bird Johnson, White House Diary (1970), is a record of the Johnson presidency as experienced by his wife; for the mid-century political background see James L. Sundquist, Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years (1968). □

Lyndon B. Johnson

Born: August 27, 1908
Stonewall, Texas
Died: January 22, 1973
Austin, Texas
American president

As the thirty-sixth president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson created new programs in health, education, human rights, and conservation. He was also aggressive in the fight against poverty, beginning what he called the "War on Poverty."

Early life

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in Stonewall, Texas. Johnson's father, Sam Ealy Johnson, Jr., had served in the Texas legislature. After he lost a large sum of money trading cotton, he struggled to raise his two sons and three daughters. Johnson's mother was a gentle woman who encouraged her children to love books and gave them a sense of duty and responsibility. Johnson graduated from Southwest State Teachers College in San Marcos, Texas, with a bachelor's degree. While in college, he had combined his studies with a job teaching Mexican American children.

In 1931 Johnson went to Washington, D.C., and worked as secretary to Texas congressman Richard Kleberg (1887–1955). Almost immediately Johnson's talent for attracting affection and respect became visible. He was elected speaker of the "Little Congress," an assembly of congressional secretaries on Capitol Hill. On November 17, 1934, he married Claudia (Lady Bird) Taylor (1912–) of Karnak, Texas. With her, Johnson found constant strength, love, and support. At age twenty-seven Johnson returned to Texas to become the state director of the National Youth Administration.

Rising through Congress

In 1937 the congressman from Texas's Tenth District died suddenly. When a special election was called to select a replacement, Johnson joined a race crowded with seven other candidates. To the amazement of many long-standing politicians, the twenty-eight-year-old Johnson won the race. In 1941 he ran for a Senate seat but lost by a small margin. That December he became the first member of Congress to enter active military duty in World War II (1939–45; a war in which the Allies—France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and from 1941 the United States—fought against the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan). He joined the navy and in 1942 received the Silver Star for his contribution to a bombing mission over New Guinea. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) ordered all congressmen in the military back to the capital in 1942, Johnson reentered the House.

In 1948 Johnson finally won election to the Senate. The other senators soon recognized that he was not an ordinary first-term senator. He was knowledgeable about every item that was brought before the Senate. In January 1951 Johnson was named Democratic "whip" (assistant minority leader). In 1953, when the post of minority leader in the Senate opened up, Democratic senators chose Johnson to take charge. After the Democrats won a majority of seats in both houses in the congressional elections of 1954, Johnson became the youngest man ever to serve as majority leader.

At that time, Johnson's leadership became visible to the nation. He led the first civil rights bill in eighty-two years through the Senate. Then in 1958, while representing the United States at the United Nations, he called for the peaceful exploration of outer space. He uncovered waste in defense spending and began an investigation. In 1960 Johnson briefly ran against John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) for the Democratic presidential nomination. Kennedy later chose Johnson as his vice presidential running mate. While some Kennedy supporters complained, experts later agreed that Johnson's tireless campaigning in Texas and the South led Kennedy to victory in the 1960 election.

Serving as vice president

Johnson had many important assignments as vice president. One of his tasks was to improve the growing U.S. space program, which had been overshadowed by explorations and new discoveries that had been made by the Soviet Union. Regarding civil rights, as chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity forces, he surprised many critics by putting constant pressure on American businesses. The committee had been created by President Kennedy in 1961 to enforce an executive order prohibiting discrimination (unequal treatment) based on race in government employment.

Then on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The next day, aboard the plane Air Force One at Love Field in Dallas, Johnson took the presidential oath of office. Giving orders to take off seconds later, the new president flew back to Washington to take command of the government while the nation grieved for its fallen leader.

Filling the presidency

Five days after taking office, President Johnson appeared before a joint session of Congress. Speaking firmly, he pledged, "We shall continue." The new president, meeting around the clock with staff, cabinet members, and congressmen, helped pass important legislation that had been put before Congress by President Kennedy but had been held up in various committees of both houses. Johnson especially pushed the passage of a civil rights bill that was much stronger than any that had come before, which had been of great importance to Kennedy. On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination (unequal treatment based on race) and segregation (separation based on race) in public places, employment, and voting, into law.

Six months after becoming president, Johnson announced his plan called the "Great Society." The areas he emphasized were health and education; urban problems such as pollution, housing, and transportation; civil rights; and preservation of natural resources. Johnson took his programs to the nation during his campaign for the 1964 election. Meanwhile, American involvement in the Vietnam War (1955–75; a war in Vietnam in which South Vietnam was fighting against a takeover by Communist North Vietnam) became an issue. Johnson's opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater (1909–1998), spoke against Johnson's approach to domestic problems and also suggested that the use of force against North Vietnam should be increased. Johnson traveled the nation and convinced voters that they could not afford to drive him from office. He won by the widest margin in any presidential election in American history.

Administration achievements

After his huge victory President Johnson began a massive legislative program. Between 1965 and 1968 more than 207 bills were passed by Congress. During Johnson's presidency education and health spending were increased. Within three years of the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which made discrimination in voting illegal, nearly one million African Americans registered to vote in the South. Most importantly, the Johnson presidency was the strongest era of national prosperity (economic success), marked by more than eighty-five months of economic growth. The wages of factory workers increased, millions of workers were brought under minimum-wage protection, total employment increased, and the unemployment rate (the number of people who are unemployed) dropped to its lowest point in more than a decade.

The president also made important gains in foreign affairs. U.S. involvement in Cyprus and the Congo prevented the outbreak of wars in those countries. In the Dominican Republic, the threat of a Communist takeover was ended by an overwhelming show of force by the United States and Latin American countries. As a result, a democratic government and free elections were put back into place in the Dominican Republic, and U.S. troops left the country soon after. Talks on an outer space treaty with the Soviet Union were held, and in June 1967 the president met with Soviet leader Alexei Kosygin (1904–1980).

Vietnam problem

Johnson devoted the bulk of his time and effort to dealing with the Vietnam War. All three presidents that served before Johnson had declared that the security of the United States was involved in protecting South Vietnam from a communist takeover by North Vietnam. However, there was much disagreement in the United States over the way this problem should be solved. Some critics claimed the situation in Vietnam was a civil war, not an invasion, and they opposed U.S. involvement. In 1965 the United States increased its military support of South Vietnam and sent over more American troops. By 1968 many people who were against U.S. involvement in the war were calling on the Johnson administration to remove U.S. troops from Vietnam.

Bothered by increasing criticism, yet determined to end the war and begin serious peace talks, President Johnson startled the nation and the world on March 31, 1968, by stating that he would not run for election to another term as president. Johnson said that it was so important to resolve the Vietnam situation peacefully that even his own political future should not stand in the way of this goal. He said that he would not seek reelection so he could spend the rest of his days in office working on a settlement. On May 11, 1968, it was announced that peace talks would begin in Paris, France. Then in November 1968 the president declared that all bombing of North Vietnam would end.

At the end of Johnson's presidency, he retired to his ranch near San Antonio, Texas, where he became interested in the care and sale of his cattle. On January 22, 1973, Johnson suffered a heart attack while lying down to take a nap, and he died later that afternoon.

Lyndon Johnson was one of America's most experienced and politically skilled presidents. He tried to improve the quality of life for people living in the United States and to help new and small nations develop their own forms of government without fear of invasion from their more powerful neighbors.

For More Information

Califano, Joseph A., Jr. The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Reprint, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000.

Dallek, Robert. Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Eskow, Dennis. Lyndon Baines Johnson. New York: Franklin Watts, 1993.

Johnson, Lyndon Baines. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969. New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1971.

Kaye, Tony. Lyndon B. Johnson. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.

Unger, Irwin, and Debi Unger. LBJ: A Life. New York: Wiley, 1999.

JOHNSON, LYNDON BAINES

Lyndon Baines Johnson was the thirty-sixth president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. Like three other vice presidents in U.S. history, he assumed the office following the assassination of the president. He took office November 22, 1963, after john f. kennedy was killed in Dallas. Johnson's administration was marked by landmark changes in civil rights laws and social welfare programs, yet political support for him collapsed because of his escalation of the vietnam war.

Johnson was born August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, Texas. He was raised in Johnson City, Texas, which was named for his grandfather, who had served in the Texas Legislature. Johnson's father, Sam Ealy Johnson, also served in the Texas Legislature. Johnson graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1930 with a teaching degree. He taught high school in Houston, until 1931, when he became involved with Democrat Richard M. Kleberg's campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. Johnson gave speeches and spoke to voters on Kleberg's behalf. When Kleberg was elected, he asked Johnson to accompany him to Washington, D.C., as his secretary. Johnson agreed, and his political career in Washington, D.C., was launched.

Johnson was not satisfied to be a secretary to a congressman. He began making friends with powerful Democrats, most notably Representative Sam Rayburn, of Texas. Rayburn, who would soon become Speaker of the House, had enormous influence. In 1935, after President franklin d. roosevelt named him director of the Texas division of the National Youth Administration, Johnson used his connections to put twelve thousand young people to work in public service jobs and to help another eighteen thousand go to college.

He quit this position in 1937 to run in a special election for the U.S. House of Representatives in Texas's Tenth Congressional District. In his campaign he supported Roosevelt's policies,

which came under heavy attack by Johnson's opponents. After Johnson was elected, Roosevelt made a point of getting to know him. Soon the two developed a long and lasting friendship.

Johnson remained in the House of Representatives until 1948, though he did spend a brief period in the Navy during world war ii. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 1941, and lost to Governor W. Lee O'Daniel by fewer than fourteen hundred votes. He ran again in 1948, this time against Coke R. Stevenson, a former Texas governor. Johnson won the 1948 Democratic primary election by eighty-seven votes, but Stevenson claimed that election fraud had allowed Johnson supporters to stuff the ballot box with votes from dead or fictitious persons. A federal district court judge ordered Johnson's name removed from the final election ballot pending an investigation of the fraud charges. Johnson enlisted a group of prominent Washington, D.C., attorneys, led by abe fortas, to overturn the order. The attorneys convinced Justice hugo l. black, of the U.S. Supreme Court, to reverse the order. With his name back on the ballot, Johnson went on to an easy victory.

Johnson moved quickly to gain power and influence in the Senate. Senator Richard B. Russell, of Georgia, became his mentor in the same way Sam Rayburn had been in the 1930s. In 1951 Johnson became the Democratic whip, which required that he maintain party discipline and encourage the attendance of Democratic senators. Two years later he was elected minority leader, at age forty-four the youngest member ever elected to that position. In 1955, after the Democrats took control of the Senate, he assumed the position of majority leader, the most powerful position in that body.

As majority leader Johnson worked at developing consensus with members from both parties. During this period he became famous for the "LBJ treatment," where he would use clever stratagems and steady persuasion to win reluctant colleagues over to his side. He developed a bipartisan approach with the administration of Republican president dwight d. eisenhower and sought common ground. He sustained a setback in 1955 when he suffered a heart attack, but returned to government service later that year.

Johnson wanted to be president, and he knew that opposing civil rights would destroy his chances on a national level. He was one of three Southern senators who refused to sign the Southern Manifesto, a 1956 document that

urged the South to resist with all legal methods the Supreme Court's decision outlawing racially segregated schools in brown v. board of education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 (1954). In 1957 he put through the Senate the first civil rights bill in more than eighty years.

Senator John F. Kennedy, of Massachusetts, won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960 and named Johnson his vice presidential running mate. Johnson helped Kennedy in the southern states, and Kennedy won a narrow victory over Vice President richard m. nixon.

As vice president under Kennedy, Johnson performed numerous diplomatic missions and presided over the National Aeronautics and Space Council and the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities. When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Johnson took the oath of office in Dallas. In the months that followed, he concentrated on passing the slain president's legislative agenda. He proposed a war-on-poverty program, helped pass a tax cut, and oversaw the enactment of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.A. § 2000a et seq.). This act outlawed racial and other types of discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations. Civil rights for all persons was one part of Johnson's vision of what he called the great society.

"Poverty has many roots, but the tap root is ignorance."
—Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson easily defeated conservative Republican senator barry m. goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. Under his administration Congress in 1965 enacted the medicare bill (42 U.S.C.A. § 1395 et seq.), which provided free supplementary health care for older persons as part of their social security benefits. Johnson also obtained large increases in federal aid to education; established the Departments of Transportation and of housing and urban development; and proposed the voting rights act of 1965 (42 U.S.C.A. § 1971 et seq.), which ensured protection against racially discriminatory voting practices that had disenfranchised nonwhites. This act changed the South, as it allowed African Americans to register to vote for the first time since Reconstruction. Finally, Johnson appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court thurgood marshall, the first African American to sit on the High Court.

International affairs did not go as smoothly for Johnson, especially regarding Vietnam. Kennedy had sent U.S. advisers to help South Vietnam repel what the government characterized as a Communist insurgency that was supported by North Vietnam. Johnson did not wish to abandon the South Vietnamese government, and soon his administration began escalating U.S. involvement. In August 1964 Johnson announced that North Vietnamese ships had attacked U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin. Johnson asked Congress for the authority to employ any necessary course of action to safeguard U.S. troops. Based on what turned out to be inaccurate information supplied by the Johnson administration, Congress gave the president this authority in its gulf of tonkin resolution (78 Stat. 384).

Following his reelection in 1964, Johnson used this resolution to justify military escalation. In February 1965 he authorized the bombing of North Vietnam. To continue the protection of the South Vietnamese government, Johnson increased the number of U.S. soldiers fighting in South Vietnam from twenty thousand to five hundred thousand during the next three years.

As the war escalated, so did antiwar sentiments, especially among college students, many of whom were subject to military conscription. As casualties mounted, antiwar demonstrations increased and support in Congress decreased. The strategy of escalation did not produce the victory military leaders predicted.

The cost of funding a war ended Johnson's Great Society initiatives. More important, the Vietnam War became the focal point for the nation. Johnson's popularity plummeted, and the nation was torn by conflict over the unpopular war. On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced he would not seek reelection. He spent the remainder of his term attempting to convince the South and North Vietnamese to begin a peace process. By the end of his administration, the Paris peace talks were started, which began a long negotiating process between North and South Vietnam.

Johnson left office in January 1969 and returned to his ranch near Johnson City. There he wrote an account of his years in office, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency (1971). His health deteriorated. Johnson died of a heart attack at his ranch, on January 22, 1973, less than one week before the signing of the accords that ended the Vietnam War.

further readings

Cowger, Thomas W., and Sherwin Markman, eds. 2003. Lyndon Johnson Remembered: An Intimate Portrait of a Presidency. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Langston, Thomas S. 2002. Lyndon Baines Johnson. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.

Unger, Irwin, and Debi Unger. 1999. LBJ: A Life. New York: Wiley.

cross-references

"Voting Rights Act Address" (Appendix, Primary Document).

Johnson, Lyndon B. (1908–1973), thirty‐sixth president of the United States.Lyndon Baines Johnson came from a moderately well‐to‐do family in the impoverished hill country of central Texas. After graduating from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1930, he spent a year teaching school before beginning his career in Democratic party politics as a legislative assistant to a Texas congressman. In 1934, he married Claudia Alta (“Lady Bird”) Taylor. They had two daughters.

Johnson returned to Texas in 1935 to head the state National Youth Administration office, a New Deal agency. Two years later, he won a special election to Congress, defeating a field of eight candidates by staunchly supporting the controversial programs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who became the first of Johnson's many powerful patrons. As a congressman, Johnson strongly supported rural electrification and won federal funding for a key dam in his district. In 1941, he lost a close race for the U.S. Senate. In a second Senate race in 1948, Johnson defeated former governor Coke Stevenson by eighty‐seven votes in an election marred by suspected voter fraud that gave rise to the nickname “Landslide Lyndon.”

An extremely effective senator, Johnson moderated his New Deal liberalism without giving up his belief that the federal government should aid the less fortunate. He staunchly backed Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower in waging the Cold War, making sure that Texas benefited from heavy defense spending. He continued to cultivate powerful leaders, notably House Speaker Sam Rayburn (1882–1961) and Senator Richard Russell (1897–1971) of Georgia, to advance his career. In 1955, he became Senate majority leader. Criticized by liberal Democrats for his flexibility, Johnson prided himself on his ability to bargain with the Republican Eisenhower administration to secure needed legislation. Famous for his brand of personal persuasion, known as the “Johnson treatment,” he helped in 1957 secure passage of the nation's first civil rights bill since Reconstruction.

LBJ, as he liked to be called, proved less successful in a 1960 presidential bid. Outmaneuvered and outspent by John F. Kennedy, Johnson finally agreed to become Kennedy's running mate in order to carry the South. When Kennedy won, LBJ virtually disappeared from sight as vice president. After Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, however, Johnson displayed both sensitivity and statesmanship by stressing the theme of continuity in carrying out the programs of the fallen leader. In 1964, he persuaded Congress to pass two of Kennedy's most controversial measures, a civil rights bill desegregating public accommodations and a major tax cut, as well as inaugurating his own War on Poverty. With the Minnesota liberal Hubert Humphrey as his running mate, he easily won a landslide victory over Republican Barry Goldwater, an outspoken conservative, in the 1964 presidential election.

President Johnson's greatest success in domestic policy came with the enactment of his Great Society program. Building on FDR's New Deal and Truman's Fair Deal proposals, LBJ persuaded Congress to enact more than sixty separate reform measures in 1965. The three most important Great Society achievements were greatly increased federal aid to education, the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid to provide health care for the elderly and the indigent, and a voting‐rights act that gave previously disenfranchised African Americans in the South the political power to protect and advance their interests. Johnson moved quickly to implement his Great Society program, capitalizing on the trauma of Kennedy's death as well as on the heavy Democratic majorities in Congress created by Goldwater's crushing defeat. Critics would charge that many of the programs were overly ambitious, inadequately funded, or carelessly administered. The Great Society, however, suffered most from LBJ's growing obsession with the Vietnam War.

Against Johnson's legislative success must be balanced his failure in foreign policy. Less sure of himself on diplomatic issues, LBJ relied on advisers he had inherited from Kennedy, who were committed to the defense of South Vietnam, a policy successively upheld by Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. Instead of reassessing America's role in what was essentially a civil war, Johnson accepted the domino theory—the Cold War belief that a North Vietnamese victory would doom all of Southeast Asia to communism. In 1964, after a presumed attack on American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, he persuaded Congress to grant him unlimited power to use force to defend South Vietnam. In early 1965, U.S. warplanes began bombing North Vietnam; in July, Johnson authorized sending 50,000 American combat troops to Vietnam. Yet he refused to declare war, disguised the heavy cost of the fighting, and failed to justify the conflict to the American people. By 1968, despite the presence of more than 500,000 American troops in Vietnam, he had achieved only a costly stalemate. After the Tet offensive, a bloody setback for the enemy but a devastating blow to American confidence, Johnson rejected Pentagon requests for an additional 200,000 troops. Instead, on 31 March amid mounting domestic protests and facing a challenge for the nomination from antiwar Democrats Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, he announced that he would not run for reelection in 1968, and would instead devote himself to peace negotiations with Hanoi. Humphrey won the nomination at a deeply divided Democratic Convention in Chicago but lost the general election to Richard M. Nixon.

Johnson spent his final years in retirement on his Texas ranch. He died of a massive heart attack on 22 January 1973, just a day before the Nixon administration signed the Paris Peace Accords ending America's direct combat role in the Vietnam War. Ever since, Johnson's reputation as president has been clouded by his failure in Vietnam. In many ways, he was a tragic figure. In Vietnam, he simply tried to carry out the policies of his predecessors. Yet his refusal to explain the war candidly to the American public, in part out of fear that it would reduce support for the Great Society, cost him dearly. At the same time, he received little acclaim for his more enduring domestic achievements. The voting‐rights act did help African Americans gain political office and influence; Medicare and Medicaid would give millions of elderly and impoverished citizens access to health care. Despite later conservative counterattacks, the Great Society remained deeply imbedded in modern American life. An ambitious, hard‐driving politician with an outsized ego masking deep insecurities, particularly in his dealings with the wealthy, socially confident Kennedy clan, he could be devious, bullying, and crude while also displaying high idealism and great generosity of spirit.
See also Antiwar Movements; Civil Rights Legislation; Federal Government: Executive Branch: The Presidency; Federal Government, Legislative Branch: Senate; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; New Deal Era, The; Sixties, The.

Bibliography

Lyndon B. Johnson , The Vantage Point, 1971.
Doris Kearns , Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 1976.
Robert A. Caro , The Years of Lyndon Johnson, 2 vols., 1982–1990.
Paul Conkin , Big Daddy from the Pedernales: Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1986.
Joseph A. Califano , The Triumph and the Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 1991.
Robert Dallek , Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960, 1991.
Robert Dallek , Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973, 1998.

Robert A. Divine

Johnson, Lyndon B. 1908-1973

BIBLIOGRAPHY

As thirty-sixth president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson presided over one of the most turbulent periods in American history. His administration’s confrontations with both severe domestic turmoil and international conflict highlight the potential and constraints of the modern presidency.

Johnson was born in Stonewall, a poor rural outpost located on the Pedernales River in central Texas. His political education began at an early age, as his paternal grandfather regaled his progeny with stories of his participation in the Populist movement of the late nineteenth century, while Johnson’s father was active in state and local politics and served in the Texas state legislature during Johnson’s youth.

Still, while politics played an important role in Johnson’s life in childhood, it was during his attendance at Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos that Johnson developed the attitudes and qualities that would suffuse his political career. Upon his arrival at the college, he quickly set about the task of studying the school’s internal dynamics and used the information he garnered to place himself close to its centers of power, a pattern he repeated several times during his participation in national politics. It was also at this juncture that Johnson articulated—in a series of editorials in the college newspaper—much of the philosophy that guided his political activities and approach to government later on.

After graduation, Johnson took a high school teaching position in Houston. Shortly thereafter, however, Johnson began to dabble with increasing seriousness in national politics, first as campaign manager for a Texas state legislator and then as a staffer for a newly elected member of the U.S. Congress. This latter position finally brought Johnson to Washington, D.C., where he remained for much of the duration of his political career. And as he had done in San Marcos, Johnson devoted his time to unearthing the sources of influence in the federal legislature and, armed with that knowledge, maneuvering himself as close to its power center as possible.

Johnson entered elective politics in 1937, when he was sent to Congress in a special election in Texas’s Tenth District. He served in the House of Representatives until his 1948 election to the Senate, where he rose quickly through the Democratic Party ranks to become Senate minority leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1955. It was in these roles that Johnson’s political career reached its zenith. Perhaps most notably, it was in these leadership roles that he perfected what quickly came to be known as “the Johnson treatment”: a repertoire of psychological appeals and talking points that Johnson employed to enforce party discipline and more generally coax and strong-arm recalcitrant colleagues to rally around his legislative agenda.

The Senate leadership roles thus presented an ideal platform for Johnson to exploit the deep understanding of legislative power he had cultivated during his congressional career. As a Texan who brought to politics both pragmatism and a keen awareness of the possibilities for using the power of government to address social problems, Johnson was pivotally poised to mediate between the congressional Democratic Party’s liberal and southern factions. In many ways, therefore, being Senate majority leader offered Johnson the opportunity to exert substantial influence over the course of national politics and public policy.

Nevertheless, Johnson left the Senate in 1961 to serve as President John F. Kennedy’s vice president until November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated during a political tour in Dallas, Texas. Johnson was sworn in as president that same afternoon and served out the remaining year of Kennedy’s term. Then in November 1964 he was elected president in his own right in a landslide victory against the Republican Party’s ultraconservative candidate, Barry Goldwater.

The hallmark of Johnson’s presidency was the Great Society program, which, as he described it in his commencement address at the University of Michigan in 1964, sought to “enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization” (Johnson 1965, p. 704). Specific initiatives included the declaration of a War on Poverty; the introduction of various laws aimed at improving education, Social Security, health care, and the environment; and the creation of Head Start, the Job Corps, and the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities. Civil rights also figured prominently in Johnson’s domestic agenda. One of his first acts as president was to fulfill the Kennedy administration’s promise to support an antisegregation bill by working tirelessly to secure passage of the omnibus Civil Rights Act of 1964. A dramatic wave of protests in Alabama the following winter led him to champion ratification of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And although Congress failed to enact the civil rights legislation he introduced in 1966 and 1967, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination created favorable conditions for Johnson to push through a Fair Housing Act in 1968.

In foreign policy, Johnson was preoccupied primarily with the United States– protracted postwar effort to contain communism, in which the Vietnam War played a particularly prominent role. This conflict, which pitted North Vietnam and the Viet Cong against the southern Army of the Republic of Vietnam, began prior to Johnson’s accession to the presidency. Nevertheless, his administration was responsible for the sizable escalation of U.S. involvement in the struggle. Johnson’s war policies faced considerable opposition on the domestic front, especially from draft-age college students. This unrest contributed to Johnson’s decision to retire from politics rather than run for a second term in 1968.

The legacy of Johnson’s presidency is mixed. His ambitious agenda had many significant implications for the subsequent dynamics and practice of American politics, particularly with regard to the scope of domestic policy and federal-state relations. Nevertheless, the difficulties he faced in negotiating the highly charged social and political atmosphere of the late 1960s cast doubt on the possibility of effective presidential leadership and inaugurated an era of distrust in government.

SEE ALSO Civil Rights Movement, U.S.; Great Society, The; Kennedy, John F.; Marshall, Thurgood; Presidency, The; Vietnam War; Voting Rights Act

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caro, Robert A. 1982–2002. The Years of Lyndon Johnson. 3 vols. New York: Knopf.

Dallek, Robert. 1998. Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Johnson, Lyndon B. 1965. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

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

Milkis, Sidney M., and Jerome Mileur, eds. 2005. The Great Society and the High Tide of Liberalism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Shamira M. Gelbman

Johnson, Lyndon B. (1908–1973), thirty‐sixth president of the United States.Johnson was born on 27 August 1908 in the Hill Country of central Texas. His father was a Democratic politician from whom Lyndon inherited his lifelong passion for politics. He was educated in nearby schools and Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos. He then taught in Cotulla and Houston.

In the thirties, Johnson went to Washington and became an ardent admirer of FDR and his New Deal. In 1938, he captured his first elective office for the Tenth Congressional District, including the Hill Country and Austin, and was reelected several times. In 1948, he “won” an extremely close and tainted election to the Senate. He became minority leader of the Senate (1953), where he was a master congressional politician and emerged as a candidate for president.

The 1960 election was Johnson's big chance. But he believed it hopeless because he came from the South and the convention would be dominated by northern Democrats. He entered no primaries and made virtually no campaign, thereby ceding the nomination to John F. Kennedy on the first ballot. But Kennedy, concerned that his Catholicism would bring defeat in the South, offered Johnson the second place, and he accepted. Johnson's powerful campaign in the South made victory possible by a thin margin. Thus, for almost three years he served in the meaningless job of vice president, loyal, to be sure, but bored and frustrated. On 22 November 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald's bullet catapulted him into the presidency.

Johnson, with his exceptional intelligence, his feel for the legislative process, and his experience on Capitol Hill, was superbly qualified in domestic policy; he was less experienced in international affairs. Among the most aggressive cold warriors, Johnson determined to halt Soviet and Chinese expansion. His key advisers, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and national security adviser McGeorge Bundy, both holdovers from the Kennedy administration, shared these views.

The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations were baffled by the problem of Communist‐Nationalist influence in Vietnam. Kennedy had increased the number of U.S. advisers and introduced “Green Beret” counterinsurgency combat advisers. He had supported Ngo No Dingh Diem in South Vietnam. But Diem and his family were brutal and corrupt; the Viet Cong controlled much of the country; there was bitter Catholic‐Buddhist conflict; the Soviets and the Chinese supplied Ho Chi Minh in the North. The assassination of Diem and his brother with U.S. assent was followed by a revolving door of “governments” that quickly collapsed. There seemed no way to save South Vietnam from the Communists. A military venture appeared reckless, but the United States refused to accept Communist control of the South. The result was a limited commitment: financial support; U.S. military supplies and covert operations; and training the Vietnamese forces. This was the situation Johnson inherited.

As an accidental president obligated to complete Kennedy's legacy, he was not ready for war in 1964. He needed to legitimize his own presidency, which he achieved in November with his landslide electoral victory against Barry Goldwater.

Johnson's primary advisers concluded that South Vietnam was the linchpin of the Cold War. If it fell, the Communists would take over Southeast Asia, perhaps followed by South Korea, Taiwan, India, and Iran. This was Eisenhower's “domino theory” writ large. South Vietnam was so weak that the United States had no bargaining power with the North. To achieve peace, therefore, the United States must smash North Vietnam by bombing. The advisers did not mention a land war, but that was the only alternative if bombing failed.

This made no sense. The Communist world was divided and South Vietnam was in reality no linchpin at all. Air bombardment was little threat to an agricultural nation supplied by the Soviets. If the United States moved to a land war, Ho Chi Minh held the winning cards because it would mean guerrilla warfare. Dissenters, Undersecretary of State George Ball, Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield, as well as French president Charles de Gaulle, all made these arguments, but Johnson would not heed them.

Early in 1965, Johnson started air attacks with Operation Flaming Dart, which soon widened into Rolling Thunder. In March, the Marines splashed ashore to establish a base at Danang. On 6 April, Johnson signed National Security Action Memorandum No. 328, which authorized the use of American combat troops.

Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, made enormous demands for troops; the president gave him part of what he asked. By mid‐1966, Westmoreland had 600,000 American troops with immense firepower, a huge air force, and a giant infrastructure. Johnson controlled their use, particularly the air war. The bombing had little military effect. Westmoreland waited for major battles where his firepower would prevail, but they seldom took place. Meantime the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong imposed a heavy toll in U.S. and South Vietnamese casualties.

Support for the war at home, strong at the outset, eroded steadily. Mounting casualties, lack of victory, and increasingly skeptical television coverage fed opposition. Opponents of the war staged massive demonstrations, and the Johnson administration started to crack internally.

The Tet Offensive, launched by the Viet Cong at the end of January 1968, caught Westmoreland by surprise. There were attacks on cities and towns throughout the country with many initial successes. Though American forces recaptured these places, it was at heavy cost to both sides.

Tet convinced the American people that the war could go on for years and might never be won. The Johnson administration was shredded, the peace and antiwar movements grew dramatically, conservatives in Congress ran roughshod over the Great Society, and the Democratic Party split. Johnson withdrew from the presidential race in 1968; Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated; and there were riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Richard M. Nixon prevailed over Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, in the 1968 election, with a promise to end the war with honor.

In 1969, Lyndon Johnson returned to his ranch to spend his few remaining years with his memories. He had been a bold president on domestic issues and a misguided one on the Vietnam War.
[See also Bombing, Ethics of; Bombing of Civilians; Vietnam Antiwar Movement; Vietnam War: Causes; Vietnam War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Vietnam War: Domestic Course.]

Bibliography

Lyndon Baines Johnson , The Vantage Point, 1971.
The Pentagon Papers, Senator Gravel, ed., 4 vols., 1971.
Stanley Karnow , Vietnam, A History, 1983.
Clark Clifford , Counsel to the President, 1991.
Robert S. McNamara , In Retrospect, 1995.
Irving Bernstein , Guns or Butter, 1996.

Irving Bernstein

JOHNSON, LYNDON BAINES 1908-1973

Vice-president of the united states, i961-1963;president of the united states, 1963-1969

Accepting the Second Slot

In 1960 Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas, a masterful and powerful Senate majority leader since 1954, surprised Democrats and Republicans alike by agreeing to accept the Democratic nomination for vice-president, a job his fellow Texan, Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House of Representatives, described as not "worth a pitcher of warm spit." John F. Kennedy's choice of Johnson for his running mate was also somewhat surprising. Johnson and Kennedy had made bitter remarks about one another while they had battled for the presidential nomination, and Kennedy's staff heartily disliked the Texan. Kennedy himself, however, respected Johnson and admired his legislative skills. He also saw that Johnson could balance the ticket, helping to win votes in the South and West, where Kennedy was considered too liberal and was mistrusted because he was a Roman Catholic. There was another, strictly pragmatic reason for Kennedy's choice: "I'm not going to die in office," Kennedy told an aide; "If we win, it will be by a small margin, and I won't be able to live with Lyndon Johnson as the leader of a small majority of the Senate." The election was close, as Kennedy predicted, and Johnson's campaigning in the South and West was a major factor in assuring their victory.

Background

Johnson entered elective politics in the 1930s, having had a firsthand look at Depression-era poverty, first as a schoolteacher in West Texas, then as state director of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal program. Elected to Congress in 1937, he was an avid supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt's social programs. His experiences during the Great Depression were important influences on the War on Poverty and Great Society programs he advanced in the 1960s. In 1948 he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Vice-president Johnson

Entrusted by Kennedy with a more significant role than vice-presidents usually played, Johnson chaired the newly created Committee on Equal Opportunity, chartered to promote compliance with non-discrimination in hiring by the federal government and by companies contracting with the federal government. He also chaired the National Aeronautics and Space Council, playing a key role in guiding the space program.

President Johnson

After Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Johnson moved quickly to reassure the country that government policy would not radically change, that he would create continuity by keeping Kennedy's appointees in office, and that he would vigorously promote Kennedy's legislative package. During 1964 he pushed through Congress Kennedy's important tax cut and civil rights bills. His War on Poverty legislation, also passed in 1964, evolved from information collected by task forces created by Kennedy.

Landslide Victory in 1964

Johnson's resounding defeat of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater also gave him impressive majorities in both houses of Congress, enabling him to enact Kennedy's aid to elementary and secondary education and Medicare bills, which became part of Johnson's Great Society package that passed in 1965 and 1966, including the Higher Education Act and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The War in Vietnam

Johnson's downfall as president was in the area of foreign policy, where he had little direct experience. His views on the subject had been formed during his early years in the Senate, as he learned from the political backlash after the 1949 Communist takeover in China and the nationwide hysteria generated when Sen. Joseph McCarthy charged in the early 1950s that Communists had infiltrated all aspects of American life. Johnson extended this lesson to the conflict in Vietnam, commenting to Henry Cabot Lodge, U. S. ambassador to Vietnam, "I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way of China."

Escalation

In 1965 Johnson escalated the war dramatically, first with a bombing campaign against North Vietnam in February and later by sending combat troops. By 1968 there were more than five hundred thousand U.S. troops in Vietnam, and the expanded U.S. role had begun to generate opposition that grew and became more vehement in direct proportion to ever-increasing U.S. involvement.

Johnson's Credibility Gap

Having portrayed himself as a peace candidate during the election campaign of 1964, Johnson escalated the war, leading to the perception that he had been misleading the public. The press began to point out the so-called credibility gap between Johnson's words and deeds. His explanation of why he sent troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965 reinforced this perception. First he claimed that their mission was to protect the lives of American citizens living in that Caribbean country, but subsequently he said he had sent the American military to prevent a possible Communist takeover. More and more Americans began to distrust the optimistic assurances of imminent victory in Vietnam that came from administration and military spokesmen. These predictions appeared even more unrealistic when the enemy launched its major Tet offensive early in 1968. Even before then, protests against the war had become so pervasive that Johnson limited his public appearances to safe venues, such as military bases and other federal facilities.

Johnson Drops Out

Running for the presidential nomination that should have automatically been his as incumbent, Johnson won the New Hampshire primary by a surprisingly small margin over antiwar candidate Sen. Eugene McCarthy. As one set of his advisers pressed him to make stronger efforts to get peace negotiations started, another warned him that he was about to lose to McCarthy in the Wisconsin primary. On 31 March Johnson announced on national television that he would order a bombing halt and invited the North Vietnamese to begin negotiations. Then he shocked the nation by announcing that he would not seek another term. During his last year in office, he succeeded in beginning negotiations with the North Vietnamese. After Richard Nixon's inauguration in 1969, Johnson retired to his ranch in Texas.

Sources:

Vaughan Davis Bornet, The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1983);

Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent (New York: Knopf, 1990);

Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (New York: Knopf, 1982);

Doris Kerns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).

Lyndon B. Johnson: Voting Rights Act Address

On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of new voting rights legislation. Although Johnson had successfully engineered the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C.A. § 2000a et seq.) the year before, problems remained. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights leaders demanded an end to racially discriminatory voting practices in the South. They organized public protests and voter registration drives that were met with intense resistance from local authorities.

When King and civil rights supporters marched to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to demand voting rights, police met them with violence, and several marchers were murdered. The Selma violence, which was broadcast on television news programs, galvanized voting rights supporters in Congress. One week later, President Johnson responded by introducing the Voting Rights Act (42 U.S.C.A. § 1973 et seq.), which included the harshest penalties ever imposed for denials of civil rights. Congress enacted the measure five months later.

In his address Johnson confronted the problem of racism and racial discrimination. He declared that "every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right." Johnson reminded the nation that the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War, gives all citizens the right to vote regardless of race or color, yet states had defied the Constitution and erected barriers based on those forbidden grounds. In Johnson's view no constitutional or moral issue was at stake. Congress simply needed to enforce the amendment with strict penalties.

Johnson, a native of Texas, surprised the nation near the close of his speech when he invoked the famous civil rights anthem and declared "we shall overcome." He was greeted by stunned silence, followed by thunderous applause and tears. It was reported that Dr. King, watching the speech on television from Selma, wept. Many historians view the speech as the watershed moment of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Voting Rights Act Address

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties—Americans of all religions and of all colors—from every section of this country—to join me in that cause.

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem.

And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans—we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, north and south: "All men are created equal"—"Government by consent of the governed"—"Give me liberty or give me death."…

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in man's possessions. It cannot be found in his power or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being….

Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes….

Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books—and I have helped to put three of them there—can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.

In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution.

We must now act in obedience to that oath.

Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote….

To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their home communities—who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections—the answer is simple. Open your polling places to all your people. Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin. Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land. There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer….

But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.

Their cause must be our cause too, because it is not just Negroes but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome….

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all—all black and white, all North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies—poverty, ignorance, disease—they are our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too—poverty, disease, and ignorance—we shall overcome.

Lyndon Baines Johnson 1908–73, 36th President of the United States (1963–69), b. near Stonewall, Tex.

Early Life

Born into a farm family, he graduated (1930) from Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Southwest Texas State Univ.), in San Marcos. He taught in a Houston high school before becoming (1932) secretary to a Texas Congressman. In 1934 he married Claudia Alta Taylor (see Lady Bird Johnson ), and they had two daughters, Lynda Bird and Luci Baines. A staunch New Dealer, Johnson gained the friendship of the influential Sam Rayburn , at whose behest President Franklin D. Roosevelt made him (1935) director in Texas of the National Youth Administration.

In the House and the Senate

In 1937, Johnson won election to a vacant congressional seat, and he was consistently reelected through 1946. Despite Roosevelt's support, however, he was defeated in a special election to the Senate in 1941. He served (1941–42) in the navy.

In 1948, Johnson was elected U.S. Senator from Texas after winning the Democratic primary by a mere 87 votes. A strong advocate of military preparedness, he persuaded the Armed Services Committee to set up (1950) the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee, of which he became chairman. Rising rapidly in the Senate hierarchy, Johnson became (1951) Democratic whip and then (1953) floor leader. As majority leader after the 1954 elections he wielded great power, exhibiting unusual skill in marshaling support for President Eisenhower 's programs. He suffered a serious heart attack in 1955 but recovered to continue his senatorial command.

Presidency

Johnson lost the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination to John F. Kennedy , but accepted Kennedy's offer of the vice presidential position. Elected with Kennedy, he energetically supported the President's programs, serving as an American emissary to nations throughout the world and as chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council and of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities. After Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Johnson was sworn in as president and announced that he would strive to carry through Kennedy's programs.

Congress responded to Johnson's skillful prodding by enacting an $11 billion tax cut (Jan., 1964) and a sweeping Civil Rights Act (July, 1964). In May, 1964, Johnson called for a nationwide war against poverty and outlined a vast program of economic and social welfare legislation designed to create what he termed the Great Society . Elected (Nov., 1964) for a full term in a landslide over Senator Barry Goldwater , he pushed hard for his domestic program. The 89th Congress (1965–66) produced more major legislative action than any since the New Deal . A bill providing free medical care (Medicare) to the aged under Social Security was enacted, as was Medicaid; federal aid to education at all levels was greatly expanded; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 provided new safeguards for African-American voters; more money went to antipoverty programs; and the departments of Transportation and of Housing and Urban Development were added to the Cabinet.

Johnson's domestic achievements were soon obscured by foreign affairs, however. The Aug., 1964, incident leading Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf resolution gave Johnson the authority to take any action necessary to protect American troops in Vietnam. Convinced that South Vietnam was about to fall to Communist forces, Johnson began (Feb., 1965) the bombing of North Vietnam. Within three years he increased American forces in South Vietnam from 20,000 to over 500,000 (see Vietnam War ). Johnson's actions eventually aroused widespread opposition in Congress and among the public, and a vigorous antiwar movement developed.

As the cost of the war shot up, Congress scuttled many of Johnson's domestic programs. Riots in the African-American ghettos of large U.S. cities (1967) also dimmed the president's luster. By 1968 he was under sharp attack from all sides. After Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy began campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, Johnson announced (Mar., 1968) that he would not run for reelection. At the same time he called a partial halt to the bombing of North Vietnam; two months later peace talks began in Paris. When Johnson retired from office (Jan., 1969), he left the nation bitterly divided by the war. He retired to Texas, where he died.

Bibliography

See his memoirs, The Vantage Point (1971); White House tape transcripts, selected and ed. by M. Beschloss (2 vol., 1997–2001), complete ed. by M. Holland et al. (3 vol., 2005–); H. McPherson, Political Education: A Washington Memoir (1972, repr. 1995); biographies by E. F. Goldman (1969), L. Heren (1970), G. E. Reedy (1970), R. Harwood and H. Johnson (1973), D. K. Goodwin (1976), R. A. Caro (3 vol., 1982–2002), R. Dallek (2 vol., 1991–98), R. B. Woods (2006), and C. Peters (2010).

Johnson, Lyndon Baines (b. 27 Aug. 1908, d. 22 Jan. 1973). 36th US President, 1963–9 Born in Stonewall, Texas, into a moderately wealthy family, he trained at a local teachers' college, and briefly taught in state schools in 1930 before entering politics as a legislative assistant to Richard Kleberg, a Democratic member of Congress. He became a strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed him director of the Texan National Youth Administration in 1935. Johnson was elected to Congress in a special election in 1937, but narrowly lost the race for a Senate seat in 1941. After war service in the navy he narrowly beat ex-Texas governor Coke Stevenson in 1948 for a seat in the Senate. He was later to be dogged by allegations that party bosses in Texas had rigged his election, and earned the sobriquet ‘Landslide Lyndon’ as a result. Johnson quickly rose to the leadership of the Democrats in the Senate (in 1953) and began to hone his soon-to-be legendary qualities of legislative ability and personal persuasion. He began a long association with civil rights by helping to push the 1957 Civil Rights Act through Congress and identifying himself strongly with it (though this was partly to hide his previous opposition to civil rights). Johnson's politics were always affected by his strong presidential aspirations, which were set back when Kennedy defeated him, Stuart Symington, and Hubert Humphrey for the Democrat presidential nomination in 1960.

Johnson became the vice-presidential nominee, though he considered Kennedy a privileged, rich, and inexperienced playboy. Once elected, his enormous energy led to great frustration in an office which neither he nor Kennedy rated very highly. His few bright spots came through his chairing of the President's Council on Civil Rights and the National Space Council. Upon Kennedy's assassination he became President, persuading Congress to pass a number of controversial acts of the Kennedy administration, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He also inaugurated his own War on Poverty, winning the 1964 election by a landslide. A Democratic majority in Congress bestowed much success on his subsequent legislative energy to realize his vision of the Great Society. The legislative achievement, however, contrasted with growing urban and ethnic riots, the radicalization of Black politics, and inflation. Most problematic for Johnson was his unswerving support for the escalation of the Vietnam War. This alienated conservatives as well as his natural allies, the liberal middle classes and students. Resentment on the part of Kennedy supporters against Johnson resulted in bitter sniping, which exploded into open warfare when Robert Kennedy entered the 1968 presidential race in a direct challenge to Johnson. Johnson withdrew from the Democratic primaries and sought a negotiated peace with North Vietnam, which was undermined by the Republican campaign staff of Richard Nixon. Effectively, Johnson—a man of towering ambition, compassion, and ego—was hounded from office, but not without a legacy of anti-poverty and welfare legislation which was the direct personal product of his Presidency. He died of a heart attack.

Johnson, Lyndon Baines (1908–73) 36th president of the United States (1963–69), born near Stonewall, Texas. Johnson's long political career began in 1932, when, after a brief stint as a secondary school teacher, he joined the Washington staff of a Texas congressman. In 1938 he was elected to the House of Representatives, where the political skills honed earlier were quickly recognized. He remained in the House until 1949, except for a brief tour of active duty in the navy during World War II. During his single combat experience (1942), the mission came under heavy fire and he was awarded a Silver Star. In 1948 Johnson was elected to the Senate, becoming minority leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1955. His greatest achievement was getting the support of Southern Democrats for passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. After Sputnik brought concerns about national security and military readiness to the fore, Johnson chaired a special Senate Preparedness Subcommittee whose hearings gave him further national exposure. Chosen John F. Kennedy's running mate in 1960, Johnson found himself excluded from policy deliberations and decision-making during his years as vice president (1961–63). Assuming office after Kennedy's assassination (1963), Johnson returned to his role as master mover and doer. Declaring a war on poverty and outlining his vision of a Great Society, he backed an unprecedented series of bills extending the federal government's assistance to the poor. He won the 1964 election with more than 61 percent of the popular vote. He created the Office of Economic Opportunity to coordinate the many federal assistance programs, which varied in their success. Among the most successful were the Headstart programs for preschool children and the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the elderly. Johnson oversaw passage of civil rights legislation that had been stalled in the Congress during the Kennedy administration, but the Vietnam War was his downfall. The bombing campaign and massive buildup of troops in 1965 that followed the Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964) marked a major escalation of the conflict and a change in the nature of the war. The Tet Offensive early in 1968, an election year, further aggravated the protracted conflict. Two months later Johnson announced, in the same address, cessation of the bombing and his decision not to seek another term. Despite his achievements on the domestic front, he left office in disrepute, defeated by what had come to be called “Mr. Johnson's War.”

Johnson, Lyndon B. (1908–73) US politician; 36th President of the USA (1963–68). A Democrat, Johnson represented Texas in Congress from 1937 to 1961, when he became Vice-President to John F. KENNEDY. When Kennedy was assassinated, he was immediately sworn in as President. Johnson acted decisively to restore confidence and pressed Congress to pass the former President's welfare legislation, especially the CIVIL RIGHTS proposals. He won a sweeping victory in the presidential election of 1964, with Hubert Humphrey as Vice-President. The administration introduced an ambitious programme of social and economic reform. It took his considerable negotiating skills to persuade Congress to support his measures, which included medical aid for the aged (Medicare) through a health insurance scheme, housing and urban development, increased spending on education, and federal projects for conservation. In spite of these achievements, urban tension increased. Martin Luther KING and MALCOLM X were assassinated and there were serious race riots in many cities. The USA's increasing involvement in the VIETNAM WAR overshadowed all domestic reforms, and led Johnson on an increasingly unpopular course involving conscription and high casualties. By 1968 this had forced Johnson to announce that he would not seek re-election.

Johnson, Lyndon Baines (1908–73) 36th US president (1963–69), vice president (1960–63). Johnson represented Texas as a Democrat in the House of Representatives (1937–48) and the Senate (1948–60). He served as vice president to John F. Kennedy, and became president after Kennedy's assassination (1963). He showed considerable skill in securing passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and was overwhelmingly re-elected in 1964. He carried out an ambitious domestic reform programme, but the escalation of the Vietnam War dominated his presidency. The war, coupled with severe race riots in 1965–68, dissuaded him from seeking re-election in 1968. His vice president, Hubert Humphrey, lost the ensuing election to Richard M. Nixon.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents; http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu