LYNDON JOHNSON DIDN’T WASTE ANY time. From the moment of his swearing-in as the 36th president, he moved forcefully to put his imprint on the country.
His first order was short and to the point. “Now let’s get airborne,” the new president declared over the roar of the idling jet engines on Air Force One. And even though his aggressive exercise of his new powers alienated the Kennedy family, in retrospect his actions were the right ones. “He wanted to have a picture taken of the ceremony so it could be flashed around the world when he landed, as a symbol that the Constitution works and that the light in the White House may flicker but it never goes out,” recalled Jack Valenti, an LBJ confidant who was on board. “And Johnson wanted Mrs. Kennedy in the photograph with him, to show that the Kennedy legacy was still intact.”
While Mrs. Kennedy and the slain president’s aides kept vigil with his casket in the rear cabin, Johnson was extremely busy up front. He conferred with Larry O’Brien, Kennedy’s chief congressional lobbyist, asking him to stay on the Johnson team, and jumped immediately into legislative strategy. They talked about a pending amendment in the Senate to a foreign-aid bill that Johnson feared would damage the program; Johnson ordered O’Brien to fight the amendment.
Johnson coordinated by phone with Cabinet officers and ordered meetings with the nation’s governors, congressional leaders, and former presidents Eisenhower and Truman. He also talked with Rose Kennedy, the slain president’s mother, and Robert Kennedy.
This latter phone call caused lasting hard feelings. Johnson expressed his grief, but he also asked Robert Kennedy pointed questions about the legal issues involved in taking power, such as who should administer the oath. This was appropriate in a technical sense, since Kennedy was attorney general, but other officials could easily have handled such matters.
LBJ’s insistence that Jackie Kennedy stand next to him during the swearing-in also angered Kennedy associates because they thought it was too much to ask of the obviously distraught widow, according to historian Robert Dallek. Mrs. Kennedy participated willingly, but the episode started Johnson on the wrong track with the Kennedy family.
“Robert Kennedy was less cooperative,” Dallek writes. “In a state of profound shock and grief, he was in no mood to indulge anyone’s needs beyond those of his immediate family. When Air Force One landed at Andrews Field in Maryland, Bobby, ‘his face … streaked with tears,’ hurried by the Johnson party to Jackie’s side.” Johnson later admitted he felt snubbed: “He ran [past LBJ] so that he would not have to pause and recognize the new president.”
The first hours of Johnson’s presidency were typical of his entire administration—moments of brilliance, strong leadership, and civic-mindedness mixed with bouts of insensitivity, egotism, pettiness, and insecurity.
JOHNSON BELIEVED THE COUNTRY wanted and needed a larger-than-life leader to guide it through the trauma of the Kennedy assassination and through a period of enormous social change. He felt that his towering personality would naturally fill the bill.
He was only partially correct. The nation was enduring severe turmoil over civil rights, the youth rebellion, the Communist threat, and, of course, the Vietnam War. And Johnson knew only one speed—full throttle—to reach his objectives. He went too far.
LBJ pushed as hard as he could in virtually every category, dubbing his vast network of proposed social programs the “Great Society.” A consummate Washington insider after a generation in the Senate, where he had served as majority leader, he hoped the force of his Texas-size personality, reinforced by his physical presence (at a bulky 6 foot 3, he towered over nearly everyone he dealt with), would overcome every objection. But he was on the wrong side of history in fundamental ways.
Scholars have unearthed tapes of Johnson’s private White House conversations that show his deep doubts about winning the war—even while he was predicting victory in his public statements. But Vietnam became a matter of honor and machismo, personal and national, to Johnson, so he would not change course.
As the growing casualty toll triggered violent protests and divided the country, Johnson couldn’t speak in most major American cities without causing angry demonstrations against the war. On campus, it was even worse; the chant was often “Hey, hey, LBJ—How many kids did you kill today?” During his final years in office, he traveled abroad as often as he could. Sadly for him, for a while he got a better reception there than in his own land.
Air Force One provided glimpses of the unvarnished LBJ as he traveled more extensively than any of his predecessors—523,000 miles over five years in office. And it was not a pretty picture. Those who worked for and with him acknowledged that he was often petty and imperious, and always demanding and unpredictable; they stayed with him, if they did, because they believed in his programs.
“Johnson’s all-embracing style was even more evident aboard Air Force One than around the White House,” wrote authors J. F. terHorst and Ralph Albertazzie (former commander of Air Force One). “The magic carpet has a way of intoxicating presidents, imparting a sense of power every bit as real as the jet engines outside the cabin windows. One moment he could be earthy, profane, selfish, devious, or rude, and then polite, considerate, affectionate, and downright charming. Whatever his mood, it was usually excessive.”
Added another former White House official who knew Johnson well: “Southern men from a certain background like to humiliate people they don’t like. This was something that Johnson did. There were famous stories about him doing interviews while sitting on the toilet, just to embarrass someone.” This pattern intensified on the plane.
Robert MacMillan, a steward, says Johnson made ridiculous demands. Once he ordered a root beer on the way back to Washington from Texas and his staff followed his lead, quickly exhausting the supply of a dozen cans. When Johnson asked for seconds, he flew into a rage when told there was none left and ordered the chief steward to keep several thousand cans on board. The staff ignored him and kept eight cases on hand, but Johnson never mentioned the incident again. Johnson would also throw his glass of Scotch and soda on the floor when stewards didn’t mix it the way he liked—strong, with the glass three-quarters full of liquor.
He had a history of overindulging. “He had episodes of getting drunk,” said George Reedy, Johnson’s former spokesman. “There were times when he would drink day after day. You would think this guy is an alcoholic. Then all of a sudden, it would stop. We could always see the signs when he called for a Scotch and soda, and he would belt it down and call for another one, instead of sipping it.”
Johnson’s insecurity about Kennedy would surface regularly on even the most mundane matters. “Jack Kennedy always wanted soup,” Reedy said. “Johnson really did not like soup, but he finally found a chili soup. It was a diluted chili con carne. And by God, every place we went, we had to load cases of it on the airplane. It was a lousy soup.”
MacMillan recalled, “We were serving roast beef one time. He [Johnson] came back in the cabin. Jack Valenti was sitting there. He had just gotten his dinner tray. On it was a beautiful slice of rare roast beef. Johnson grabbed that tray and said, ‘You dumb son of a bitch. You are eating raw meat.’ He brought it back to the galley and said, ‘You two sons of bitches, look at this. This is raw. You gotta cook the meat on my airplane. Don’t you serve my people raw meat. Goddamn, if you two boys serve raw meat on my airplane again you’ll both end up in Vietnam.’ He threw it upside down on the floor. He stormed off.”
MacMillan said Johnson also let his hypocritical side show. On one trip, he was discussing his proposed civil rights bill with two governors and said, “I’ll have them niggers voting Democratic for two hundred years.” The former steward told author Ronald Kessler that he witnessed this scene, and said, “That was the reason he was pushing the bill. Not because he wanted equality for everyone. It was strictly a political ploy for the Democratic party. He was phony from the word go.”
Yet historians who have studied Johnson’s life, such as Dallek, say Johnson was genuinely committed to civil rights. Their interpretation of such behavior is that he occasionally used offensive language to shock people or to impress other politicians with his tough-mindedness.
JOHNSON SAW THE PLANE as a private preserve and locker room. He had no reluctance to mortify aides and crew members with temper tantrums when something went wrong, such as when his steaks weren’t juicy enough or when the plane hit some turbulence. “President Johnson’s attitude was: ‘I’m from Texas. I’m the bull of the pasture,’” said former steward John Haigh.
“He was like a dog,” recalled flight engineer Joe Chappell. “He could sense fear and if he did, he got on your ass.” The best way to get respect from President Johnson, Chappell told me, was to “just not be afraid of him.” That was easier said than done.
“He had this crude manner to him,” said Dallek. “It was a way to get attention and a way of controlling people.”
He once demanded that a military attendant wash his feet before he put on new socks; on another occasion, he had an attendant clip his toenails. Former steward Gerald Pisha says LBJ once shoved him and told him to get out of his way when he was in a hurry. And Johnson had no qualms about stripping down to his underwear in front of his staff, including his female aides, when he changed clothes after takeoff and again before landing. “He was totally naked with his daughters, Lady Bird [Mrs. Johnson], and female secretaries,” MacMillan said. “He was quite well endowed in his testicles, so everyone started calling him ‘Bull Nuts.’ He found out about it. He was really upset.”
On a trip to Texas, Johnson ordered a new pair of pants and he was eager to try them on. Suddenly he erupted. “I need some more goddamn ball room in these pants!” he shouted, fully aware that everyone near his cabin could hear him.
He made passes at his female guests and ogled them without concern. Some stewards said he would sometimes lock himself in his stateroom with attractive secretaries, and the staff and crew assumed he was, in the words of one, “fooling around.”
“Johnson was not a man to sublimate his macho instincts,” wrote Reedy, his former press secretary. “They were well developed. I doubt the suggestion of one of his aides during the White House period that he had ‘extra glands.’ But all of the external evidence suggests that those he had were in good working order and frequently exercised… . The reigning queen of any given moment was not announced through newspaper advertisements but, short of that, there was little secrecy.” Because the news media in those days left the president’s private life alone, it was never a matter of public knowledge.
Six weeks after Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson showed up in the press cabin and began to hold forth on a flight from Texas to Washington. “I can’t do the job alone,” he said earnestly. “I need your help. I’ll tell you everything… . There won’t be any secrets except where the national security is involved. You’ll be able to write everything. Of course I may go into a strange bedroom every now and then that I won’t want you to write about, but otherwise you can write everything… . If you help me, I’ll help you. I’ll make you-all big men in your profession.”
This account, as reported much later in LBJ, The Way He Was, by longtime White House correspondent Frank Cormier of the Associated Press, provides remarkable insight into the cozy relationship that existed at the time between the president and the media. The incident reflects the good-old-boy nature of the White House press corps of the sixties, which was almost all male. Johnson could talk candidly about his adulterous ways and count on the media to keep it quiet. This arrangement would be inconceivable today, as Bill Clinton learned to his chagrin.
Johnson’s vulgarity seemingly knew no bounds. He once bit down on a piece of gristle in a steak sandwich, spit it into his hand, and threw the offending morsels across the plane. They landed in a bowl of potato chips on a table being used by his wife and a reporter. He made a habit of belching loudly when he ate or drank. Cormier recalled the day when Johnson called reporters to his compartment and gave them an economics lecture while he was naked and toweling off after a sweaty campaign appearance.
On another flight, not long after his smashing reelection victory in 1964, Johnson was drinking highballs with four reporters from the press pool in his suite when he saw fit to expound on all the changes that were occurring in foreign governments. “Look around the world,” the president said. “Khrushchev’s gone. Macmillan’s gone. Adenauer’s gone. Segni’s gone. Nehru’s gone. Who’s left—de Gaulle?” Then Johnson leaned back in his huge chair, beat his chest like a gorilla, and shouted, “I am the king!”
Shortly after taking office, he installed a special seat, which his aides called “the throne,” that he could raise at the push of a button so he could ascend to a higher, more regal elevation than everyone else. He also had the staff install a similar device in his table, so he could raise and lower it at will. When members of Congress were aboard, he gave them “the treatment”—nose-to-nose lobbying for hour upon hour as he argued his case for Vietnam and the Great Society. As with his predecessors, Johnson regularly flew away on vacation or for long weekends, frequently to his ranch on the Pedernales River in central Texas, where he acted like the lord of the manor.
Yet LBJ was always insecure about his appearance, his big ears, doughy face, and unctuous manner on TV. He had the crew install magnifying mirrors and extra lights in his bathroom so he could get a better idea of how he would look under the television lights with makeup, according to flight engineer Joe Chappell. He was never satisfied with the results.
AS A RULE, Johnson rarely kept to himself aboard Air Force One. He hated to be alone, even when he went to sleep. When his wife was not aboard, he insisted that a flight steward or a White House aide stay in his compartment while he slept because he was afraid he might have another heart attack—he had suffered his first one in his forties—and no one would be there to help him.
Johnson was gregarious to the extreme. He made frequent phone calls and mingled freely with staff and guests, chatting about issues, talking about what he expected from them, sometimes showing off his knowledge of their home districts or states and what was important to their constituents.
When he became president, there were seats for 36 passengers aboard, in addition to the 12 crew members. He had the interior reconfigured to accommodate more than 60 passengers, including a dozen Secret Service agents, so he could have more people around.
He also had the passenger seats face to the rear, where the presidential compartment was located in those days, so he could have a commanding view of nearly everyone on “his” plane and so they could see him when he emerged from his stateroom.
Johnson had some cherrywood panels removed between his office and the adjacent cabin, and replaced them with clear plastic dividers so he could dominate virtually the entire aircraft if he wished. If he wanted privacy, stewards could draw the curtains to his office or close the door to his bedroom.
At the start of his presidency, Johnson even tried to do away with the press pool, which had accompanied the president on his airplane since Eisenhower’s day. In Johnson’s era it consisted of a correspondent each for the Associated Press and United Press International, the main wire services; one reporter for radio and television, and a correspondent for the rest of the press corps, usually a newspaper reporter.
Unlike today’s Air Force One pool, which is larger and seeks to cover everything the president does, the LBJ-era pool was there “protectively”—and would report to the rest of the press corps or file stories only in case of emergency, such as another assassination attempt or a world crisis. Johnson had other ideas. “He insisted that they were ‘spies’ (his exact word) whose only purpose was to search out embarrassing secrets,” said George Reedy.
At first, Johnson’s response was to spend as much time as he could with the reporters on the plane, hoping to divert them, with the force of his own personality, from their supposed game of “gotcha.” Predictably, the journalists initially were happy to spend hours in conversation with the president.
But the relationship soured after a few weeks. Trapped with Johnson for hours, the journalists found themselves exhausted by his overbearing manner and endless monologues, and they got little or no news from the arrangement. All in all, they preferred to gossip among themselves or chat informally over drinks. For his part, the president got bored with the journalists and concluded that his news coverage didn’t improve.
This led him to abolish the Air Force One pool altogether, at least for a while. Again, LBJ had gone too far, and this decision only worsened his relationship with those who covered him.
In an act of pettiness, he wouldn’t tell the reporters in advance whether he was going to his Texas ranch for the weekend. Each correspondent would show up at the White House on Friday mornings with a weekend’s worth of clothes in a suitcase and wait to find out his plans. Recalled Ron Nessen, a TV reporter who later became Gerald Ford’s press secretary: “At four o’clock in the afternoon they’d come on the loudspeaker and either say it’s a lid for the weekend, which meant he wasn’t going, or ‘The press bus leaves the Southwest Gate in fifteen minutes.’ You never knew until Friday afternoon whether he was going to fly to Texas.”
PERHAPS MORE THAN any other chief executive, Johnson used Air Force One as a lobbying tool—not only cajoling, persuading, and bullying other politicians traveling with him, up close and personal, but doing the job long distance. Some of his phone calls involving members of Congress were extremely effective.
Walter Mondale, then a Democratic senator from Minnesota (and later Jimmy Carter’s vice president), recalls a fierce controversy over a fair housing bill that had stalled in the Senate when opponents tried to talk it to death through filibuster. Efforts to shut down the debate had failed, and before the fifth attempt to bring the matter to a vote, Mondale feared that he and other supporters were on the verge of defeat. He decided to ask for Johnson’s help. Mondale reached LBJ as he was flying to Latin America, and he explained the situation.
“We’re one vote short,” Mondale said, and he suggested the name of a senator from Alaska who could make the difference. “I believe he’d like a housing project there in Anchorage.”
Johnson said, “Okay,” and hung up.
In the end, the senator voted with the White House and the fair housing bill passed. The following week, the federal government announced that a new housing project would be built in the Anchorage area.
WHAT HAS NOT been generally known is LBJ’s penchant for safety. It went back to an incident just after the election in November 1961, when he won the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket with Kennedy.
Johnson wanted his twin-engine private plane to pick him up at his Texas ranch, but it was a stormy night and the plane crashed, killing the civilian pilot and copilot. From then on, Johnson was a stickler for safety. “We want to be always safe,” he told James Cross, his pilot, on many occasions. “You remember, I lost my own airplane one night.”
Johnson was also a stickler for details and a notorious micro-manager determined to get his way. “He was a very intimidating fellow,” Cross says. “He’d browbeat you—say, ‘You’re supposed to be the best there is.’”
The pilot got a call one afternoon in December 1967 with a surprise announcement. “You better get my big plane ready,” the president drawled. “It looks like we’re gonna leave tomorrow to the funeral of Prime Minister Holt.” It turned out that Harold Holt of Australia, a friend of LBJ’s, had drowned and Johnson wanted to pay his respects.
Cross reminded Johnson that he had approved his request to have the primary 707 overhauled and it was still at a maintenance facility in New York. LBJ had forgotten about the project but had a solution: “Just go up there and tell ’em to put it back together—and we leave tomorrow.”
Cross said that wouldn’t be possible, but the president persisted. “Well, call ’em up and get ’em to fix it tomorrow,” he commanded.
The pilot said there were three other 707s in the presidential fleet as backups, and even though they had a shorter range and weren’t as plush as the primary aircraft, each could get the job done.
Finally, Johnson said that would be satisfactory, but he had other concerns: The backup planes were too noisy. “Hell, see if you can put in some soundproofing—like on my plane,” the president said. “I don’t like it so noisy—and too much light gets in there through the windows.” Even with the curtains drawn, Johnson complained that he couldn’t get a decent rest.
Cross said all that could be arranged, and LBJ hung up the phone, placated for the moment.
LBJ’S BEHAVIOR ON THE PLANE revealed that he was not just an egoist but a genuine social reformer. From the start, he wanted Americans to think of him as a benefactor in the same league as Franklin Roosevelt. To that end, he submitted to Congress a vast array of social programs to fight poverty such as legislation to create jobs, provide work training, and set up an Office of Economic Opportunity. Naturally, he pressured his speech writers and senior aides to invent a slogan that would match FDR’s “New Deal”—in time for his 1964 election campaign.
He toyed with “a better deal” and “a prudent progressive,” but felt, correctly, that these phrases lacked pizzazz. Borrowing ideas from Eric Goldman, a Princeton historian working in LBJ’s White House, and speech writer Richard Goodwin, Johnson settled on the “Great Society.” He told his staff to build an entire speech around it and he decided to deliver it as the commencement address at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on May 22, 1964.
“For a century, we labored to settle and to subdue a continent,” Johnson declared to a crowd of 80,000 in the university’s football stadium. “For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization… . For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.”
The crowd loved the speech. En route home, he was “manic” and “absolutely euphoric,” aides said. He even broke his own rule and treated himself to a Scotch and water in the presence of the reporters whom he allowed to travel with him. The journalists, not wanting to offend their host and genuinely impressed with his ideas, told him how wonderful the speech was. LBJ even read his favorite portions aloud as he stood in the gold-carpeted aisle of Air Force One and encouraged the press corps to highlight these sections in their dispatches.
Charles Roberts of Newsweek, one of the journalists aboard, wrote that “Lyndon Johnson was as pleased with himself on May 22, 1964, as I have ever seen him… . ‘How did I do?’ he asked eagerly as he hitched up his trousers and moved forward to the press pool table aboard Air Force One. He had ‘done’ well… . He had the crowd with him all the way, I ventured.”
Roberts said LBJ had been interrupted 12 times by applause. But Johnson disagreed. “There were more than that,” the president retorted, and he ordered Valenti to verify this impression. Valenti said there had been 14—Roberts had not counted the applause at the beginning and the end of the commencement address. Johnson was elated. After he settled into his seat and gathered the reporters around him, he said, “We are talking about legislation for the next generation, not just the next election. I’m going to get the best minds in this country to work for me,” he added.
It was a moment of insight into the essence of the man. “Johnson’s euphoria rested not only on the reception of his speech,” writes historian Dallek, “but the sense that he was fully in command of the nation’s support—that his appeals for a war on poverty and a Great Society were being met with enthusiastic anticipation of better times and greater achievements for the country.” To a large extent, he was fooling himself. Dallek points out that “few Americans took Johnson’s rhetoric at face value,” and he really had little idea whether his ideas would work. But LBJ wanted to think big and enter the history books as a great achiever, so he set himself up for failure by promising too much.
HIS TRIP TO ASIA in 1966 crystallized his roller-coaster approach to governing. “While in Asia, Johnson kept an eye on events at home,” recalls Joseph Califano, one of LBJ’s key domestic policy advisers. “Traveling in very different time zones, he called me at all hours to give instructions and receive reports. During his journey, the president came up with the idea of a triumphal tour of the country to sign major Great Society bills Congress had passed. A whirlwind trip just before the November 8 elections would highlight his accomplishments and give him a chance to help Democratic candidates for Congress and several statehouses… . The trip was set to begin on Friday, November 4, two days after he returned to the White House.”
After ordering his aides to make the arrangements on the fly, however, Johnson cancelled the campaign trip just before he arrived home. He decided that too many congressional Democrats might lose, and that would tarnish both him and his Great Society programs. When a reporter asked him why he had reversed himself, Johnson claimed that he never had planned to make such a campaign trip in the first place—a lie made all the more ridiculous since at least a score of politicians in 10 states, including Governor Pat Brown of California and Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, had already changed their schedules to greet LBJ. They were at that moment scrambling to readjust their itineraries because of the president’s change of mind.
LBJ’s intuition proved correct. In the 1966 midterm elections, Democrats would lose 47 seats in the House of Representatives, 3 in the Senate, and 8 governorships. He was increasingly angry and frustrated that he was not being given credit for his legislative accomplishments.
He was particularly galled during the Asia trip as he contrasted the lack of appreciation he felt at home with the enthusiastic reception he experienced abroad, especially in New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, South Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Korea, where 2 million people lined the streets of Seoul to greet him.
At one point, he told aides, “I am willing to let any objective historian look at my record. If I can’t do more than any [one else] to help my country, I’ll quit. FDR passed five major bills the first one hundred days. We passed two hundred in the last two years. It is unbelievable.” He proceeded to tick off one piece of legislation after another that he had persuaded Congress to approve, including bills on education, medical care, conservation, clean water, and truth in packaging. “There never has been an era in American history when so much has been done for so many in such a short time… . We must tell people what we have done.”
But LBJ was growing out of touch with Americans’ hopes and fears. The nation was being torn apart by a variety of schisms that would make themselves increasingly clear over the next two years: divisions over race, crime, poverty, and civil rights, increasing inflation and economic trouble, and most of all the Vietnam War. By the end of 1966, that conflict had killed 6,500 Americans and wounded 37,000. U.S. troop strength had risen to 385,000, and there was no end in sight. More and more Americans were questioning LBJ’s strategy of gradual escalation and the morality of involvement in a civil war where the administration seemed to be supporting the wrong side.
WITHIN A YEAR, as American casualties increased, as U.S. victory seemed more in doubt, and as antiwar protests mounted across the country, Johnson could no longer travel freely, even abroad. American bombing had failed to defeat the North Vietnamese or break their will, and their Viet Cong allies were as dangerous as ever.
In the fall of 1967, even Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, one of the most vehement hawks around Johnson, began to express doubts about continuing the war. Johnson lost faith in him, and McNamara resigned to be-come president of the World Bank. The administration’s war policies were unraveling.
In this context, LBJ decided to attend the funeral of Australian prime minister Holt in December. As he told pilot James Cross, Johnson truly wanted to honor Holt, but he seized on the trip as a way to bolster support for the war. The president secretly called Jack Valenti, by then an executive with the Motion Picture Association of America, with a special “chore”—to secretly arrange a visit with the Pope on his way back from Asia. “I don’t want anybody to know this,” Johnson said. “And don’t call from your house and don’t call from your office.”
Valenti dutifully left his home and drove to a pay phone outside a service station. When he reached a friend at the senior level of the Vatican, he spoke in a quasi-code: “My friend wants to meet your friend.” The contact, knowing LBJ’s inclination toward secrecy, understood immediately. Valenti added: “And my friend said to tell you that he doesn’t want you to talk to the American ambassador or anybody.” The arrival would be some time on Christmas Eve, Valenti said, and Vatican officials were to work out the details and get back to him.
Why such secrecy? Valenti later told me: “Rather than say, ‘I’m going to Italy’ and then having masses of protests and that sort of thing, it just made it easy to operate under an aura of secrecy and to be able to have these meetings without being tormented by demonstrations.”
From his departure on December 20 to his return late on December 24, the trip was vintage LBJ. “We flew around the world,” says Valenti. “We spent fifty-five hours in the air and lived on that airplane.” The group spent only one night on the ground, getting a few hours sleep in Australia; the rest of the four days, the president caught catnaps in the bed in his stateroom and the staff slept in their seats and, for the senior advisers, in a handful of pull-down beds.
As Air Force One took off in the predawn chill, only LBJ knew for sure the full itinerary. Not even the Secret Service or his traveling staff, and certainly not the press, knew much more than that the president was going to Holt’s funeral. (Johnson had secretly told Pentagon officials to have a U.S. military helicopter ready in Rome “just in case” the president landed there, and no one leaked the arrangement.)
As the plane sped to a refueling stop in Hawaii, Valenti and other staffers were furiously making contingency plans after Johnson briefed them, finally, on what he wanted to do: attend the funeral, visit U.S. troops in Vietnam, spend some time with leaders of friendly governments in Thailand and Pakistan. Then he wanted to meet with Pope Paul VI to discuss his war aims in Southeast Asia and ask the pontiff to intercede and gain release of U.S. prisoners of war in North Vietnam. Since he would visit the pontiff, meetings also had to be scheduled with Italian leaders in Rome to avoid any hard feelings in the Italian government, so they were added to the mix. The Americans decided that it would be best to land only at military bases or out-of-the-way airports and to land at night or in the predawn hours whenever possible, all to guarantee maximum security and control.
Unfortunately, nothing much came of the papal visit, which was the key to the trip—and this disappointed everyone. After a few hours at the Vatican, LBJ was airborne again, heading back to Washington.
JOHNSON’S HOPES for a peace settlement in 1968 were to be shattered by the massive Tet offensive by the Communists in late January. On March 12, Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy, a dove on Vietnam, astounded the nation when he took 42 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire presidential primary. Johnson actually won with 49 percent, but he had been expected to capture more than 70 percent. On March 16, New York senator Robert Kennedy announced his own challenge to Johnson as an antiwar candidate. Johnson’s approval ratings continued to drop as Kennedy’s surged. Now his party was being torn apart, just as the country was being ripped open by the war.
On March 31, a Sunday evening, Johnson announced that he would not run again.
It was an extraordinary surprise to most Americans and it effectively ended the political career of one of the most remarkable leaders in the country’s history.
BUT IT WAS NOT the end of Johnson’s experiences on Air Force One. He made a few more trips on the plane during his remaining 10 months in office, but the war and the divisions raged on. In fact, things got worse. Both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, and the nation seemed to be approaching a nervous breakdown.
When he flew back to his Texas ranch after the inauguration of Richard Nixon as his successor, LBJ had his aides clean out the plane of memorabilia, including cups, silver, china, and playing cards and matchbooks bearing his name—even the “throne chair.” It was his final act of megalomania as president.