I.

Introduction

Lyndon Johnson (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.

V.

Foreign Affairs

Almost from the start, Johnson encountered trouble in foreign policy. In a series of executive actions, he steadily expanded the US commitment of personnel and supplies to the South Vietnamese regime, which was struggling with Communist insurgents from North Vietnam. Citing the need to protect US lives and prestige, Johnson increased the Kennedy-authorized contingent of 17,000 men in South Vietnam to 125,000 by mid-1965, 480,000 by mid-1967, and 550,000 by the end of 1968. The enlarged forces, supported by intensive US Air Force bombing raids, faced regular North Vietnamese units in bloody, often inconclusive battles. Repeated predictions of victory from US generals and Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara proved wrong. As the US commitment grew, so did opposition to the war and to Johnson personally. In 1966 the president was an unwelcome ally in many Democratic congressional campaigns, and by 1967 he had to avoid public appearances because of demonstrations and threats to his life.

Johnson also drew criticism in April 1965 for sending 22,000 US troops into the Dominican Republic, ostensibly to protect Americans but in fact to prevent Communists from assuming power. During the brief Arab-Israeli Six-Day War of June 1967, Johnson put the hot line between Moscow and Washington, D.C., to its first test. He and Soviet Premier Aleksey N. Kosygin agreed not to intervene in the conflict. A summit meeting with Kosygin two weeks later at Glassboro, New Jersey, failed, however, to produce an agreement with the USSR on the future of Vietnam.

VI.

Withdrawal and Retirement

In December 1967 Johnson visited foreign capitals in search of support for his war policies, proclaiming “The enemy cannot win, now, in Vietnam.” A month later, however, Communist forces launched the Tet offensive, showing unexpected strength and nearly cutting South Vietnam in half. Protest over the war reached new intensity and acquired a political voice: Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota challenged Johnson in the New Hampshire presidential primary of March 1968. Because of McCarthy's strong showing there, Johnson decided to spare himself and the nation a divisive renomination struggle. The times, filled with political and racial unrest, seemed to call for conciliatory gestures from the man who wished to be “president of all the people”. On March 31, 1968, Johnson announced a unilateral de-escalation of the war in Vietnam and concluded the televised speech by stating “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president”. In May he ordered peace talks to begin in Paris between US and North Vietnamese representatives.

Still colourful and controversial, Johnson retired to his Texas ranch in January 1969. He wrote his memoirs, The Vantage Point (1971), and supervised the building of his presidential library and a school of government at the University of Texas, Austin. He died of heart disease January 22, 1973, in San Antonio, Texas.