Johnson, Lyndon Baines

I

Introduction

Johnson, Lyndon Baines (1908-1973), 37th vice-president (1961-1963), and 36th president (1963-1969) of the United States.

Johnson was born on a farm near Stonewall, Texas, on August 27, 1908, the son and grandson of state legislators. He was reared in Johnson City, Texas, where he excelled in studies and debate at the local high school. After a period of wandering he enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers College, graduating in 1930. He taught high school for a year in Houston and then went to Washington, D.C., as a congressional aide. In 1935 he returned to Texas with a bride—Claudia Alta (“Lady Bird”) Taylor—and gained praise as a state director of the National Youth Administration.

In 1937 Johnson was elected as a Democrat to the US House of Representatives, where he was a supporter and protégé of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His years in the House were interrupted in 1942 by a term of active duty as a naval officer. In 1948, in his second Texas Democratic senatorial primary election, he won by a contested margin of 87 votes, thereby acquiring the nickname “Landslide Lyndon”; he went on to win the US Senate seat in the general election. His energy and powerful southern friends helped him become Senate minority leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1955, when congressional power passed back to the Democrats. He recovered from a heart attack suffered in July 1955 to resume full duties, most notably helping to engineer the passage (1957) of the first national civil rights legislation since the American Civil War (1861-1865). He was renowned for his abilities of political bargaining in patiently winning over enough colleagues to ensure the passage of legislation.

II

Vice-President

Defeated by Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in his bid for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, Johnson unexpectedly accepted the vice-presidential nomination and was an important element in Kennedy's narrow victory. As vice-president he vigorously supported the space programme and travelled widely on behalf of the administration. However, he was largely ignored by both John and Robert Kennedy, and it is thought they were planning to choose another vice-presidential candidate for the 1964 election.

Johnson was riding in the second car behind Kennedy when the president was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. A Secret Service agent pushed the vice-president to the floor of the car and sat on him until they reached Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Johnson learned that Kennedy was dead. Fearing a conspiracy, he took the oath of office on board the presidential jet, Air Force One, before returning to Washington, D.C.

III

President

Johnson retained his predecessor's Cabinet, and he soon expanded the Kennedy legislative programme, which had been languishing in Congress. By February 1964 he had won passage of an $11.5-billion tax cut that helped stimulate five uninterrupted years of economic expansion. He also launched his famous “war on poverty”, a series of measures to promote economic development in depressed urban areas. His chief legislative victory in 1964, however, was the passage of a strong, Kennedy-originated civil rights bill attacking racial discrimination in public places and institutions.

Johnson quickly asserted his authority over the Democratic party, which offered him its 1964 presidential nomination without a contest. Emphasizing his legislative prowess and opposition to deeper US involvement in the war in Vietnam, he campaigned vigorously against the Republican nominee, Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. Johnson and his running mate, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, defeated Goldwater with 61 per cent of the popular vote, a record percentage, and brought with them near-record Democratic majorities in Congress.

IV

The Great Society

In his first State of the Union address as an elected president, Johnson outlined the Great Society, his own extensive legislative programme to raise the quality of American life. The programme soon began to materialize in one of the most fruitful legislative eras in US history. Congress, against muted opposition, enacted a new housing bill, a Medicare programme to help provide medical care for the elderly, and additional antipoverty measures. Other legislation protected the voting rights of southern blacks, created a federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, and abolished the immigration quota system. Johnson's appropriation bills for secondary and higher education—a pet project of the former schoolteacher—sent aid to almost every school system in the country. He also continued to support the huge costs of NASA during the build up to the first Apollo Moon landing in 1969; indeed, many regard him as the only president to have a genuine interest in the space programme, beyond political expediency.

Although he had lost some momentum by 1966, Johnson signed bills creating the National Teachers Corps and the Model Cities urban redevelopment programme. In 1967 and 1968, despite diminished Democratic majorities in Congress, the administration succeeded in gaining passage of an open-housing civil rights bill and important education, gun-control, and conservation measures. In all, Congress had implemented 226 of Johnson's 252 legislative requests by the expiration of his term.