Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Johnson was vice president under John F. Kennedy from 1961 until Kennedy's assassination in 1963, when he assumed the presidency. Before becoming vice president, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress, representing Texas as a member of the Democratic Party.
Born in Stonewall, Texas, Johnson worked as a teacher and a congressional aide before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1937. In 1948, he was controversially declared the winner in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate election in Texas before winning the general election. He became Senate majority whip in 1951, Senate Democratic leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1954. Senator Kennedy bested Johnson and his other rivals for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination before surprising many by offering to make Johnson his vice presidential running mate. The Kennedy–Johnson ticket won the general election. Johnson assumed the presidency in 1963, after Kennedy was assassinated. The following year, Johnson won reelection to the presidency in a landslide, winning the largest share of the popular vote for the Democratic Party in history, and the highest for any American presidential candidate in history.
Johnson's domestic policy agenda known as the Great Society was aimed at expanding civil rights, public broadcasting, access to health care, aid to education and the arts, urban and rural development, consumer protection, environmentalism, and public services. He sought to create better living conditions for low-income Americans by spearheading the War on Poverty. As part of these efforts, Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which resulted in the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. Johnson made the Apollo Moon landing program a national priority; enacted the Higher Education Act of 1965 which established federally insured student loans; and signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 which laid the groundwork for U.S. immigration policy today. Johnson's civil rights legacy was shaped by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Due to his domestic agenda, Johnson's presidency marked the peak of modern American liberalism in the 20th century. Johnson's foreign policy prioritized containment of communism, including in the ongoing Vietnam War.
Johnson began his presidency with near-universal support, but his approval declined throughout his presidency as the public became frustrated with both the Vietnam War and domestic unrest, including race riots, increasing public skepticism with his reports and policies (coined the credibility gap), and increasing crime. Johnson initially sought to run for re-election in 1968; however, following disappointing results in the New Hampshire primary, he withdrew his candidacy. Johnson retired to his Texas ranch and kept a low public profile until he died in 1973. Public opinion and academic assessments of Johnson's legacy have fluctuated greatly. Historians and scholars rank Johnson in the upper tier for his accomplishments regarding domestic policy. His administration passed many major laws that made substantial changes in civil rights, health care, welfare, and education. Conversely, Johnson is heavily criticized for his foreign policy, namely escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Early life
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, Texas, in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River. He was the eldest of five children born to Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr. and Rebekah Baines. Johnson was not given a name until he was three months old, as his parents could not agree on a name that both liked. Finally, he was named after "criminal lawyer—a county lawyer" W. C. Linden, who his father liked; his mother agreed on the condition of spelling it as Lyndon. Johnson had one brother, Sam Houston Johnson, and three sisters, Rebekah, Josefa, and Lucia. Through his mother, he was a great-grandson of Baptist clergyman George Washington Baines.
Johnson's paternal grandfather, Samuel Ealy Johnson Sr., was raised Baptist and for a time was a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In his later years, Samuel Sr. became a Christadelphian; Samuel Jr. also joined the Christadelphian Church toward the end of his life. Johnson was influenced in his positive attitude toward Jews by the religious beliefs that his family, especially his grandfather, had shared with him.
Johnson grew up poor, with his father losing a great deal of money. Biographer Robert Caro described him as being raised "in a land without electricity, where the soil was so rocky that it was hard to earn a living from it."
In school, Johnson was a talkative youth who was elected president of his 11th-grade class. He graduated in 1924 from Johnson City High School, where he participated in public speaking, debate, and baseball. At 15, Johnson was the youngest in his class. Pressured by his parents to attend college, he enrolled at a "sub college" of Southwest Texas State Teachers College (SWTSTC) in the summer of 1924, where students from unaccredited high schools could take the 12th-grade courses needed for admission to college. He left the school just weeks after his arrival and decided to move to California. He worked at his cousin's legal practice and in odd jobs before returning to Texas, where he worked as a day laborer.
In 1926, Johnson enrolled at SWTSTC. He worked his way through school, participated in debate and campus politics, and edited the school newspaper, The College Star. The college years refined his skills of persuasion and political organization. For nine months, from 1928 to 1929, Johnson paused his studies to teach Mexican–American children at the segregated Welhausen School in Cotulla, Texas, 90 miles (140 km) south of San Antonio. The job helped him to save money to complete his education, and he graduated in 1930 with a Bachelor of Science in history and his certificate of qualification as a high school teacher. He briefly taught at Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas before taking a position teaching public speaking at Sam Houston High School in Houston.
When he returned to San Marcos in 1965, after signing the Higher Education Act of 1965, Johnson reminisced:
I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.
Entry into politics
After Richard M. Kleberg won a 1931 special election to represent Texas in the United States House of Representatives, he appointed Johnson as his legislative secretary. This marked Johnson's formal introduction to politics. Johnson secured the position on the recommendation of his father and that of state senator Welly Hopkins, for whom Johnson had campaigned in 1930. Kleberg had little interest in the day-to-day duties of a Congressman, instead delegating them to Johnson. After Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1932 U.S. presidential election, Johnson became a lifelong supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal. Johnson was elected speaker of the "Little Congress", a group of Congressional aides, where he cultivated Congressmen, newspapermen, and lobbyists. Johnson's friends soon included aides to President Roosevelt as well as fellow Texans such as vice president John Nance Garner and congressman Sam Rayburn.
In 1935, Johnson was hired as Texas state administrator of the National Youth Administration (NYA). The job allowed him to travel around Texas seeking financial sponsors for NYA construction projects. Within six months, 18,000 young Texans were working on roads, parks, schools, and other public buildings. He resigned two years later to run for Congress. A notoriously tough boss, Johnson often demanded long workdays and work on weekends. He was described by friends, fellow politicians, and historians as motivated by lust for power and control. As Caro observes, "Johnson's ambition was uncommon – in the degree to which it was unencumbered by even the slightest excess weight of ideology, of philosophy, of principles, of beliefs."
U.S. House of Representatives (1937–1949)
In 1937, after the death of 13-term congressman James P. Buchanan, Johnson successfully campaigned in a special election for Texas's 10th congressional district, which included Austin and the surrounding Texas Hill Country. He ran on a New Deal platform and was effectively aided by his wife. He served as a U.S. Representative from April 10, 1937, to January 3, 1949. President Roosevelt found Johnson to be a political ally and conduit for information, particularly regarding the internal politics of Texas and the machinations of Vice President John Nance Garner and House Speaker Sam Rayburn. As a member of the House Naval Affairs Committee, Johnson helped plan a huge naval air training base at Corpus Christi, Texas. He also helped establish shipbuilding sites at Houston and Orange, Texas; and a Navy Reserve station in Dallas.
Johnson successfully sponsored many federal projects for his home district. One was a program that provided cheap electricity for farmers under the new Rural Electrification Administration (REA), and he secured approval to complete the hydroelectric Mansfield Dam on the Colorado River near Austin. He also sponsored projects that gave his Texas district soil conservation, public housing, lower railroad freight rates, and expanded credit for loans to farmers. He steered the projects towards contractors he knew, such as Herman and George Brown, who financed much of Johnson's future career.
During this time Johnson maintained a hostile position towards civil rights legislation like almost all other Southern Democrat legislators; voting against anti-lynching legislation, anti-poll tax legislation and the Fair Employment Practice Committee.
1941 U.S. Senate election
In April 1941, U.S. Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas died, triggering a special election. Texas law allowed Johnson to run without giving up his House seat. The election had no primaries or runoff, forcing Johnson to compete against multiple Democrats, including Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel.
Johnson campaigned aggressively, emphasizing his ties to President Roosevelt, and initially appeared to be leading. However, after late returns came in, O'Daniel narrowly won by 1,311 votes. In The Path to Power, Johnson biographer Robert Caro argues that the election results were manipulated in O'Daniel's favor by lobbyists from Texas' alcohol industry. O'Daniel was a staunch prohibitionist, and as Governor, he had proposed a bill preventing the sale of alcohol within ten miles of a military base; Caro notes how business interests feared the passing of this bill, as preparations for World War II had brought thousands of young soldiers into the region. To prevent the passing of this bill, lobbyists sought to elect O'Daniel to the Senate to place the "wet" lieutenant governor Coke Stevenson in the governorship, and hence rigged ballots in East Texas, swinging the election in O'Daniel's favor. Johnson ultimately lost by just 0.23% of the vote.
Though defeated, Johnson retained his House seat and political network, including support from South Texas political boss George Berham Parr. When O'Daniel declined to seek re-election in 1948, Johnson prepared for another Senate run, this time carefully managing vote tallies. He would go on to win the 1948 Democratic primary by just 87 votes.
Active military duty (1941–1942)
Johnson was a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Two days after the attack, he requested an indefinite leave of absence and applied for active duty, making him one of the first members of Congress to volunteer for an active military role.
Johnson was first ordered to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations to assess the production and manpower problems that were slowing the manufacture of ships and planes. In May 1942, he was appointed President Roosevelt's personal representative to the Navy and was sent on a survey mission of the Pacific theater of combat. Stationed in Australia and New Zealand, it was his duty to find the underreported problems facing U.S. troops in the Pacific and report this firsthand information to Roosevelt.
On June 9, 1942, Johnson received the Silver Star from General Douglas MacArthur for gallantry in action during an aerial combat mission over hostile positions in New Guinea. Though accounts differ, Johnson's aircraft, a B-26 bomber, reportedly turned back before reaching the target due to mechanical trouble. Johnson's biographer Robert Caro was quoted as saying "I think that the weight of the evidence at this moment is that the plane was attacked by Zeroes and that he was cool under fire", but also "The fact is, LBJ never got within sight of Japanese forces. His combat experience was a myth."
Johnson served in the Pacific through July 1942. He was released from his military active duty after President Roosevelt recalled all active duty legislators back to Washington, D.C. In addition to the Silver Star, Johnson received the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.
U.S. Senate (1949–1961)
1948 U.S. Senate election
In 1948, Johnson again ran for the U.S. Senate and won the general election after being declared winner in a highly controversial Democratic Party primary election against the well-known former governor Coke Stevenson. Johnson drew crowds to fairgrounds with his rented Sikorsky S-51 helicopter, dubbed "The Johnson City Windmill". He raised money to flood the state with campaign circulars and won over conservatives by casting doubts on Stevenson's support for the Taft–Hartley Act (curbing union power). Stevenson came in first in the primary but lacked a majority, so a runoff election was held; Johnson campaigned harder, while Stevenson's efforts slumped due to a lack of funds.
The runoff vote count, handled by the Democratic State Central Committee, took a week. Johnson was announced the winner by 87 votes out of 988,295, an extremely narrow margin. However, Johnson's victory was based on 200 "patently fraudulent" ballots reported six days after the election from Box 13 in Jim Wells County, in an area dominated by political boss George Berham Parr. The added names were in alphabetical order and written with the same pen and handwriting, at the end of the list of voters. Some on this part of the list insisted that they had not voted that day. Election judge Luis Salas said in 1977 that he had certified 202 fraudulent ballots, 200 for Johnson, and two for Stevenson. Robert Caro made the case in his 1990 book that Johnson had stolen the election in Jim Wells County, and that there were thousands of fraudulent votes in other counties as well, including 10,000 votes switched in San Antonio. The Democratic State Central Committee voted to certify Johnson's nomination by a majority of one (29–28). The state Democratic convention upheld Johnson. Stevenson went to court, eventually taking his case before the U.S. Supreme Court, but with timely help from his friend and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, Johnson prevailed on the basis that jurisdiction over naming a nominee rested with the party, not the federal government. Johnson soundly defeated Republican Jack Porter in the general election in November and went to Washington, permanently dubbed "Landslide Lyndon". Johnson, dismissive of his critics, happily adopted the nickname.
Freshman senator to majority whip
During his two terms in the Senate, Johnson drifted rightward. He felt he had to tread carefully lest he offend politically powerful conservative oil and gas interests in Texas, and in part to curry favor with the chamber's powerful southern chairmen, most notably Senator Richard Russell, Democrat from Georgia and leader of the Southern Caucus within the conservative coalition that dominated the Senate. With Russell's support, Johnson won election as Democratic whip in 1951, serving in this capacity until 1953. While serving as whip, Johnson increased his ability to persuade people to reach agreement.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Johnson was chairman of the Senate subcommittee that refused the re-nomination of Leland Olds—who was opposed by Texas oil and gas interests—as chairman of the Federal Power Commission (FPC) on the grounds that he had been sympathetic towards communism. As a member of the FPC, Olds had played a key role in the development of federal regulation of the natural gas industry.
President Truman favored federal control of tidelands oil deposits off the Texas coast. Privately, Johnson told friends that he favored federal control, but in public he staunchly defended states' rights. In 1951–52, Johnson helped pass bills granting 47 states control over 3 miles of offshore lands and Texas, 10.5 miles. Truman vetoed the bills, calling them "robbery in broad daylight".
Johnson was appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and became increasingly concerned with the country's military preparedness in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He became chairman of the Senate Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee, and conducted investigations of defense costs and efficiency. After the Korean War began in 1950, he called for more troops and for improved weapons. Biographer Caro wrote that Johnson was obsessed with having all subcommittee reports be unanimous, maneuvering frequently to gain the backing of all the Republicans. He used his political influence in the Senate to receive broadcast licenses from the Federal Communications Commission in his wife's name.
Senate Democratic leader
In the 1952 elections, Republicans won a majority in both the House and Senate. In January 1953, Johnson was chosen by his fellow Democrats as Senate Minority Leader; he became the most junior senator ever elected to this position. He reformed the seniority system so that Democratic senators, including freshmen, were more likely to receive a committee assignment that closely aligned with their expertise rather than an assignment based solely on their seniority.
Senate Majority Leader
In 1954, Johnson was re-elected to the Senate and, with Democrats winning the majority in the Senate, he became majority leader. President Dwight D. Eisenhower found Johnson more cooperative than the Senate Republican leader, William F. Knowland of California. Particularly on foreign policy, Johnson offered bipartisan support to the president.
Historians Caro and Robert Dallek consider Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader ever. He was unusually proficient at gathering information. One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every senator stood on issues, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to get his vote. Bobby Baker claimed that Johnson would occasionally send senators on NATO trips so they were absent and unable to cast dissenting votes. Central to Johnson's control was "The Treatment", described by two journalists:
The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself – wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.
Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint, and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.
In 1956, during the Suez Crisis, Johnson tried to prevent the U.S. government from criticizing Israel for its invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. Along with much of the rest of the nation, Johnson was appalled by the threat of possible Soviet domination of space exploration implied by the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, and used his influence to ensure passage of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which established NASA. Johnson helped establish the Senate Aeronautical and Space Committee, and made himself its first chairman.
During his tenure as Majority Leader, Johnson did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto, and shepherded the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 to passage—the first civil rights bills to pass Congress since the Enforcement Acts and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 during Reconstruction. Johnson negotiated a middle course between Northern liberal senators and the Southern bloc of senators who had opposed such legislation by removing key enforcement provisions, such as Title III, which authorized the attorney general to initiate civil action for preventive relief in a wide range of civil rights matters. Being a Southerner was seen as an impossible barrier for a presidential candidate and towards the end of his Senate career as well as not signing the Southern Manifesto, he distanced himself further from the Southern Caucus in 1959 by joining the Democrat's Western regional conference.
Campaigns of 1960
In 1960, Johnson's success in the Senate rendered him a potential Democratic presidential candidate. James H. Rowe repeatedly urged Johnson to launch a campaign in early 1959, but Johnson thought it was better to wait, thinking that Senator John F. Kennedy's candidacy would create a division in the ranks that could then be exploited. Johnson's strategy was to sit out the primaries and to rely on his legislative record as Senate Majority Leader, the support of Southern Democrats, and the favors owed by Democratic senators to him and by Democratic representatives to his close ally Sam Rayburn, the Speaker of the House.
In July 1960, Johnson finally entered the campaign. Johnson's late entry, coupled with his reluctance to leave Washington, D.C., allowed rival John F. Kennedy to secure a substantial early lead in securing support from Democratic state party officials. Johnson underestimated Kennedy's endearing charm and intelligence in comparison to his perceived crude and wheeling-dealing "Landslide Lyndon" style. Caro suggests that Johnson's hesitancy to enter the race resulted from his fear of losing.
Johnson attempted in vain to capitalize on Kennedy's youth, poor health, and failure to take a position regarding McCarthyism. He had formed a "Stop Kennedy" coalition with Adlai Stevenson, Stuart Symington, and Hubert Humphrey, but it proved a failure. Despite Johnson having the support of established Democrats and the party leadership, this did not translate into popular approval. Johnson received 409 votes on the only ballot at the Democratic convention to Kennedy's 806, and so the convention nominated Kennedy. Tip O'Neill was a representative from Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts at that time, and he recalled that Johnson approached him at the convention and said, "Tip, I know you have to support Kennedy at the start, but I'd like to have you with me on the second ballot." O'Neill replied, "Senator, there's not going to be any second ballot."
Vice presidential nomination
After much discussion with party leaders and others, Kennedy offered Johnson the vice presidential nomination at the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel on July 14, the morning after Kennedy was nominated, and Johnson accepted. From that point to the actual nomination that evening, several facts are in dispute, including whether convention chairman LeRoy Collins' had the two-thirds majority required to begin the convention's proceedings. Kennedy's choice of Johnson as his running mate was intended to attract Southern votes. Kennedy was a liberal Bostonian and a Roman Catholic. Johnson was more conservative, a Southerner, and a member of the Disciples of Christ. Nevertheless, labor leaders were unanimous in their opposition to Johnson. AFL-CIO president George Meany called Johnson "the arch-foe of labor", and Illinois AFL-CIO president Reuben Soderstrom asserted Kennedy had "made chumps out of leaders of the American labor movement".
Re-election to U.S. Senate
At the same time as his vice presidential run, Johnson also sought a third term in the U.S. Senate. According to Robert Caro: Johnson won an election for both the vice presidency of the United States, on the Kennedy–Johnson ticket, and for a third term as senator (he had Texas law changed to allow him to run for both offices). When he won the vice presidency, he made arrangements to resign from the Senate, as he was required to do under federal law, as soon as it convened on January 3, 1961. Johnson was re-elected senator with 1,306,605 votes (58 percent) to Republican John Tower's 927,653 (41.1 percent). He did not take office for his third term, however, being Vice President-elect at the time. Fellow Democrat William A. Blakley was appointed to replace Johnson, but lost a special election in May 1961 to Tower.
Vice presidency (1961–1963)
After the election, Johnson was concerned about the traditionally ineffective nature of his new office and sought authority not allotted to him as vice president. He initially sought a transfer of the authority of Senate majority leader to the vice presidency, since that office made him president of the Senate, but faced vehement opposition from the Democratic Caucus, including members whom he had counted as his supporters.
Johnson sought to increase his influence within the executive branch. He drafted an executive order for Kennedy's signature, granting Johnson "general supervision" over matters of national security, and requiring all government agencies to "cooperate fully with the vice president in the carrying out of these assignments". Kennedy's response was to sign a non-binding letter requesting Johnson to "review" national security policies instead. Kennedy similarly turned down early requests from Johnson to be given an office adjacent to the Oval Office and to employ a full-time staff within the White House. In 1961, Kennedy appointed Johnson's friend Sarah T. Hughes to a federal judgeship. Johnson tried but failed to have Hughes nominated at the beginning of his vice presidency. House Speaker Sam Rayburn wangled the appointment from Kennedy in exchange for support of an administration bill.
With the exception of Kennedy himself, other members of the Kennedy White House were openly contemptuous of Johnson, including the president's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and they ridiculed his comparatively brusque and crude manner. Then Congressman Tip O'Neill recalled that the Kennedy staffers "had a disdain for Johnson that they didn't even try to hide.... They actually took pride in snubbing him."
Kennedy made efforts to keep Johnson busy and informed, telling aides, "I can't afford to have my vice president, who knows every reporter in Washington, going around saying we're all screwed up, so we're going to keep him happy." Kennedy appointed him to jobs such as the head of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities, where Johnson worked with African Americans and other minorities. Kennedy may have intended this to remain a nominal position, but Taylor Branch contends in his 1998 book Pillar of Fire that Johnson pushed the Kennedy administration's actions further and faster for civil rights than Kennedy originally intended.
Johnson went on multiple minor diplomatic missions, which gave him some insights into global issues and opportunities for self-promotion. During his visit to West Berlin on August 19–20, 1961, Johnson sought to calm Berliners who were outraged by the building of the Berlin Wall. He also attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings. Kennedy gave Johnson control over all presidential appointments involving Texas, and appointed him chairman of the President's Ad Hoc Committee for Science.