Chapter 20
Fighting for Might and Right: Lyndon Johnson
IN THIS CHAPTER
Growing up a career politician
Becoming president
Dealing with Vietnam
Lyndon Johnson is one of the most contentious presidents in U.S. history. A political genius, Johnson ran the Senate like his personal fiefdom during his tenure as majority leader. He knew how to bargain and compromise to get what he wanted from his colleagues.
As president, he was responsible for the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Both acts enhanced the political power of blacks in the United States and reduced discrimination greatly. Johnson built upon Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies by adding Medicare to Social Security, helping millions of elderly citizens.
His accomplishments should put him on top of the list of U.S. presidents. However, there was Vietnam. Johnson escalated U.S. involvement, committing thousands of troops to a cause that turned into one of the greatest disasters in the history of U.S. foreign policy. Considering Vietnam, Johnson was a good but not a great president.
Johnson’s Early Political Career
After a brief career as a schoolteacher, Johnson used his father’s political connections to get appointed secretary to Democratic Congressman Richard Kleberg in 1931. Johnson traveled with Kleberg to Washington, D.C., and did his best to impress the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill. He went as far as showering in the communal bathroom four times a day just to meet people.
Johnson impressed the Speaker of the House, Texas Democrat Sam Rayburn, and even President Franklin Roosevelt. In 1935, the president appointed Johnson the director of the Texas National Youth Administration. Johnson put thousands of young Texans to work.
Johnson also made many friends and political connections. Then fate took a turn. The Democratic incumbent of Johnson’s home district in Central Texas suddenly died in 1937. Johnson ran for the open seat in the special election held to fill the position. He borrowed money from his wife and, with his many friends backing him, won the seat.
Serving in the House of Representatives
As soon as Johnson entered the House of Representatives, he became one of the staunchest supporters of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and the New Deal. He worked tirelessly for the president and for his constituents. Roosevelt was so impressed with Johnson that he gave him a one-time invitation to ride on the presidential train.
With FDR’s help, Johnson brought public electricity to Texas and rebuilt some roads and dams in his home state. Johnson’s dedication to his constituents was so great that he demanded that his staff answer every constituent letter within 24 hours of receiving it.
Trying for the Senate
In 1941, one of the Texas senators died in office. Johnson decided to run for the vacant seat. Even President Roosevelt endorsed him, saying that Johnson was a good old friend. Johnson almost pulled off a victory. In the end, he lost the race by just 1,311 votes out of over 600,000 cast.
Johnson was still serving in the House when the United States entered World War II. He became the first congressman to volunteer for the military. He served in Australia and New Guinea, where the Japanese shot down his plane in 1942. Johnson received the Silver Star for bravery and returned home a hero.
The death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945 affected Johnson deeply. He told friends that he felt as if he had lost his second father. He vowed to continue Roosevelt’s legacy in Congress. To do this, he had to become a senator. So he ran again for the Senate in 1948. The election was even closer than the 1941 election, but the result was in Johnson’s favor this time — he won by 87 votes out of 900,000 cast. His political enemies made fun of the closeness of the election and called him “Landslide Lyndon.”
Serving in the Senate
When Johnson arrived in the Senate in 1949, he was well-known and had great connections. He had served in the House for 12 years and made many friends. His friend and mentor Sam Rayburn was again the Speaker of the House. Johnson was a moderate southern senator, and both liberal northern Democrats and conservative southern Democrats trusted him.
Showing leadership
Johnson, despite being a freshman in the Senate, was appointed to the prestigious Senate Armed Services Committee, where he advocated strong defense and the containment of communism. In 1952, when the Republicans regained control of the Senate in the Eisenhower landslide, Johnson suddenly found himself minority leader in the Senate.
As minority leader, Johnson built a loyal following of Democratic senators. He campaigned for them and gave them good committee assignments — even when they were new to the Senate. In addition, Johnson believed that, as minority leader, he had to work with the Eisenhower administration. Instead of obstructing the Republicans, he bargained and compromised with them. Johnson’s work with the Eisenhower administration earned him the respect of many Republicans.
In 1954, Johnson won reelection, and the Democrats recaptured the Senate. This made Lyndon Johnson the new majority leader. When the missile gap crisis developed and the Soviet Union put the first Sputnik satellite into space in 1957, Johnson, as Senate majority leader, took charge and personally oversaw the development of the U.S. space program.
In 1955, Lyndon Johnson suffered a massive heart attack. He was put on a special diet and had to give up his three-packs-a-day smoking habit. He recuperated quickly and went back to work.
Dealing with civil rights
Civil rights presented a problem for Johnson. He knew that most of his southern colleagues opposed any reforms, while his northern friends pushed for them. The Eisenhower administration bailed him out. Eisenhower pushed for the 1957 civil rights legislation, and Johnson went to work. He watered down the legislation, making it acceptable to southerners, while at the same time assuring passage of at least parts of it. His compromise stood, and Congress passed the first civil rights legislation since the days of Reconstruction.
The 1957 civil rights bill originally provided for non-jury trials for public officials who interfered with blacks’ right to vote. Johnson changed the bill to provide for jury trials because he knew that southern juries were all white and wouldn’t convict public officials. This revision made the bill acceptable to southern Democrats.
Becoming vice president and president
Johnson disliked Republican Vice President Richard Nixon and wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t become president in 1960. Johnson devised a strategy to become the Democratic presidential nominee. He figured that convention delegates wouldn’t be able to agree on a candidate. He stayed out of the primaries so that he could offer himself as a compromise choice.
Johnson miscalculated, and John F. Kennedy won the presidential nomination on the first ballot. To Johnson’s surprise, Kennedy offered him the vice-presidential spot. Johnson accepted and campaigned his heart out. He targeted southerners to make sure that they would vote for Kennedy, who was Catholic. Johnson succeeded — Kennedy won narrowly in the Carolinas, Louisiana, and Texas.
Johnson was one of the strongest vice presidents in U.S. history. He had more experience than the new president, and he had the connections in Congress to make sure that Kennedy’s programs passed. Kennedy took full advantage of Johnson’s political savvy. He listened to Johnson’s advice and even briefed the vice president consistently on his policies. By 1963, Johnson ranked second in importance only to Robert Kennedy in the White House power structure.
As vice president, Johnson continued to focus on the space program. He was responsible for its successful completion, which was accomplished earlier than expected. He also pushed for moving NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) headquarters to Houston.
On November 22, 1963, tragedy struck. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president only 112 minutes after the president died. Johnson’s first order of business as president was to reassure a grieving public. In his first address to the country, Johnson said, “An assassin’s bullet has thrust upon me the awesome burden of the presidency. I am here to say that I need the help of all Americans, in all of America.”
As president, Johnson would walk through the halls of the White House every night to make sure that all the lights were turned off. He wanted to save the taxpayer money.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963–1969)
On November 27, 1963 — five days after becoming president — Lyndon Johnson, pictured in Figure 20-1, addressed both houses of Congress. He pledged to continue Kennedy’s policies and asked Congress to pass Kennedy’s stalled agenda, especially his civil rights agenda, quickly. Johnson knew that the timing was perfect. Under the circumstances, very few representatives would refuse to vote against Kennedy’s polices.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
FIGURE 20-1: Lyndon Johnson, 36th president of the United States.
Honoring Kennedy’s agenda
President Johnson outlined his agenda to Congress and the nation in early 1964: “Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined; as the session which enacted the most far-reaching tax cut of our time; as the session which declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States; as the session which finally recognized the health needs of all our citizens … as the session which helped to build more homes, and more schools, and more libraries, and more hospitals than any single session of Congress in the history of our Republic.”
The highlights of Kennedy’s civil rights agenda, signed into law by Johnson, include the following:
The Civil Rights Act: This act outlawed discrimination based upon gender, race, and religion. Further, it declared discrimination in public accommodations illegal. Johnson signed the act into law in 1964.
To support passage of the Civil Rights Act, Johnson stated: “The promise of America is a simple promise: Every person shall share in the blessings of this land. And they shall share on the basis of their merits as a person. They shall not be judged by their color, or by their beliefs, or by their religion, or by where they were born, or the neighborhood in which they live.”The Voting Rights Act: This act, passed by Congress in 1965, guaranteed all U.S. citizens, including blacks, the right to vote in all states. The act outlawed all of the barriers to voting that were established by the southern states. In addition, it allowed for federal observers to be sent anywhere in the United States to supervise elections and prevent voting irregularities from taking place.
Many barriers to voting had been established in the South. These barriers included literacy tests, which discriminated against poor, uneducated blacks and whites equally. Poll taxes, which required individuals to pay to vote, were declared illegal, and the infamous grandfather clause, which stated that you could vote only if your grandfather had voted, and therefore automatically excluded most blacks, was abolished.- The long-delayed tax cut that Kennedy had been pushing for: This tax cut was finally passed in the summer of 1964.
Pushing his own agenda: The Great Society
The result of the 1964 presidential election was a foregone conclusion. The Democrats nominated Lyndon Johnson on the first ballot. The Republicans, on the other hand, went to the conservative right of their party and picked Barry Goldwater, a senator from Arizona, as their candidate. Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act, wanted to curtail Social Security, and advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
Johnson won the 1964 election in one of the greatest landslides in U.S. history. He received 61 percent of the vote, won by almost 16 million votes, and carried all but six states. In addition, he was given large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. Now he could push for further reform.
Johnson quickly turned to his pet project, the Great Society. He outlined the Great Society in a commencement address at the University of Michigan. In the address, Johnson claimed that the United States had become a rich and powerful society, but that many problems still persisted. These problems included poverty, racial injustice, and poor education. Unless the problems were resolved, a Great Society couldn’t exist in the United States. Johnson proposed to reduce crime, rebuild inner city areas, make college more affordable, reduce classroom crowding, and hire better and more-qualified teachers to help bring about his dream society.
The Great Society project resulted in many programs, passed by Congress between 1965 and 1967, that are still with us today:
- The Higher Education Act: This act established scholarships and low-interest student loans to help poor students attend college.
- The Elementary and Secondary Education Act: This act provided billions of dollars in funding to help improve public schools.
- The Medicare Act: This act provided federal hospital and medical insurance for the elderly (those over 65). The act further created Medicaid, which provides hospital and medical benefits for the poor, regardless of age.
- The Model Cities Act: This act gave $1.2 billion to improve housing and education in inner city areas.
- The National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities: This independent agency provides grants to art programs and artists throughout the United States and its territories.
- The Highway Beautification Act: This act limited billboards on federal highways.
- The Department of Transportation (DOT): This department was created to oversee national transportation issues.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): This department provides funds and resources for homebuyers and community groups.
President Johnson appointed the first African American to the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall, who argued the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas before the Court in 1954 (see Chapter 18), was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967.
Johnson enjoyed handing out gifts to visitors and friends. One of his favorite gifts was an electric toothbrush with the presidential seal on it. When asked why he enjoyed this particular gift so much, he said: “I want people to think of me right away when they wake up and right before they go to bed.”
Getting involved in Vietnam
Johnson supported Eisenhower and Kennedy in their decision to get the United States involved in Vietnam (see the “Conflict in Vietnam” sidebar in this section). As Johnson put it, “If we quit Vietnam, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week we’ll have to fight in San Francisco.”
By 1964, Johnson knew that he had to do more to help South Vietnam fight off communist aggression: “Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I’m going to Vietnam’s aid.” He increased the number of U.S. military advisors, who were training the South Vietnamese army, to 25,000. Many of the military advisors were now fighting in the field with their South Vietnamese allies. It wasn’t enough.
Johnson issued the Gulf of Tonkin report to Congress in August 1964. The report claimed that North Vietnamese forces in the Gulf of Tonkin attacked U.S. warships. To punish North Vietnam for this outrage, Johnson asked Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which allowed him to increase U.S. military presence in South Vietnam. Congress passed the resolution, and the United States escalated the war.
In 1965, the United States increased its troop presence to 200,000 and began bombing North Vietnam. In addition, the United States asked some of its Asian allies to contribute troops to the effort. Most of them did. By the end of 1965, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines had committed troops. The war in Vietnam was now an international affair.
By 1967, the war was taking a horrible toll on the United States. About 15,000 soldiers had died already, and the war had cost the United States $25 billion. Public opinion started to shift. At first, most U.S. citizens supported the war to stop communism. The horrible cost in human lives and the graphic pictures from the front changed public opinion. Johnson was ready to end the war. He approached North Vietnam and offered peace talks. North Vietnam rejected the offer, and the war continued.
Mounting the Tet offensive
In January 1968, North Vietnam launched a major offensive against the United States and its South Vietnamese allies. The campaign began during the Vietnamese New Year’s celebrations — Tet. The North Vietnamese and its South Vietnamese communist allies, the Vietcong, attacked every large city and provincial capital in South Vietnam.
The U.S. response to the Tet offensive turned out to be a major victory. In the counterattacks, 85,000 communist troops were killed, eliminating the Vietcong as a viable fighting force. From then on, the United States fought regular North Vietnamese soldiers.
Despite subsequently liberating almost all the cities taken, the U.S. media declared that the war was lost after the Tet offensive. The public followed the media, and for the first time, a majority of U.S. citizens opposed the war in Vietnam.
Getting out
On March 31, 1968, President Johnson announced major changes in his policies toward Vietnam in a nationally televised address. He called for peace and offered to stop bombing North Vietnam if they agreed to negotiate. As a sign of goodwill, the United States stopped bombing about 90 percent of the country right away.
Johnson proceeded to tell the nation about a new strategy in Vietnam. It called for South Vietnam to build up its forces, which allowed the United States to cut back its troop size. At the same time, the United States would continue to equip the new and larger South Vietnamese army with the best possible weaponry. According to Johnson, the destruction of South Vietnam wasn’t acceptable. He told the world that the United States would do whatever it took to protect its ally in Asia.
Johnson’s address to the nation had two purposes. First, he outlined the new policies in Vietnam. Second, Johnson shocked the nation by declaring that he wouldn’t run for reelection. Johnson had decided to run for reelection in early 1968, but he suddenly faced opposition from the liberal anti-war wing of his party. Senator Eugene McCarthy, a liberal Democrat from Minnesota, entered the race and won 42 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary. His victory emboldened more challengers. Senator Robert Kennedy from New York was next to challenge Johnson. Polls showed that Johnson would lose the race to any Republican challenger. Johnson knew that he had a tough race coming up, so he decided to quit while he was ahead.
Johnson stayed out of the ensuing battle for the Democratic nomination. He personally favored his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, over Robert Kennedy, but he didn’t intervene on Humphrey’s behalf because he was fed up with politics and wasn’t happy that people from his own party were challenging him. He didn’t even campaign for Humphrey in the battle against the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. After Nixon’s victory, Johnson retired to his Texas ranch and wrote his memoirs. He died of heart failure in January 1973.