Really Cool Stuff about Lyndon Baines Johnson
1. In 1919, congressional aides began what they called the “Little Congress” as a sort of networking tool, one that would also “give them a chance to master parliamentary procedure and public speaking” (p. 13). Lyndon got in on this Little Congress when he was working for Kleberg and really made it a success. “Under his leadership, weekly attendance grew from a handful to more than two hundred as Johnson invited prominent figures such as Huey Long and Fiorello La Guardia to speak to the group—invitations that also served to expand Johnson’s circle of contacts” (p. 13).
2. Due to his time with the Little Congress and other things, Johnson was really a spectacular rookie congressman when his time came. “The support of [Franklin] Roosevelt and [Sam] Rayburn, when combined with Johnson’s driving determination, made him one of the most effective first-termers in the history of Capitol Hill. ‘He got more projects and more for his district than anybody else,’ Corcoran later recalled. ‘He was the best congressman for a district that ever was’” (p. 20).
3. While in Australia checking up on MacArthur during WWII, Johnson was involved in one combat mission for which he would earn a Silver Star. “Johnson’s plane—a B-26 two-engine bomber christened the Heckling Hare by its crew—was attacked, first by one Japanese Zero fighter, and then by a squadron of seven…MacArthur awarded him the Silver Star, the second highest decoration for courage under fire” (p. 28). What they don’t tell you is that not one of the actual crew was given any award at all.
4. After his wife’s second miscarriage, LBJ bought an Austin radio station to keep her busy. “KTBC and its sister television station that the Johnsons created a few years later were to benefit over the years from one favorable Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling after another—rulings that made the Johnsons rich” (p. 31).
5. It was due to Johnson’s influence as Senate majority leader that he was able to finally censure McCarthy. “The public saw that McCarthy was a bully and a blowhard, enabling Johnson to mobilize senators who had heretofore trembled a McCarthy’s threats to rise up and vote to censure him. McCarthy was finished” (p. 47).
6. Since Texas was his home state, Johnson played a role in making sure that NASA was headquartered there. “Johnson, always mindful of his political base, helped make sure that the manned spacecraft was located in Houston. And he reaped the popular reward of his association with NASA when his approval soared as John Glenn circled the globe three times in his space capsule” (p. 73).
7. Johnson was the first president to appoint a black Supreme Court justice. “Johnson had already made history in 1967 by making Thurgood Marshall the first black justice” (p. 149).
8. So I made a pretty substantial error and here is my written statement regarding it. In my Eisenhower blog, I mistakenly believed that it was Mamie Eisenhower’s influence that beautified our highways. In this belief, I was wrong—it was Lady Bird Johnson who worked hard to pass the Highway Beautification Act in 1965. Every time I pass the cherry trees, azaleas and wildflowers along the highways near my house, I will shout out a silent thank you to our First Lady, Lady Bird. Also, Wikipedia let me know that there is a Lady Bird Wildflower Center on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, her alma mater.
Well I can pretty much tell that old Charles Peters did not quite care for Johnson. Of course when I checked out Mr. Peters’ bio I saw this “He is the founder of the Washington Monthly, which he edited for thirty-two years, following a career in politics and government that included serving in the West Virginia legislature, working on John F Kennedy’s 1960 campaign [italics mine here], and helping to launch the Peace Corps” (Uh…book jacket?). So, Peters was an adherent of JFK, was he? That makes his obvious dislike of Johnson a little easier to understand. Now I’m not claiming that Peters was being irrational—after all, Johnson did a lot to be disliked for—but he compared both Johnson and then Nixon to Uriah Heep! (For those of you who have no idea who Uriah Heep is, you should read David Copperfield by Dickens. The name, Uriah Heep, is now synonymous with creepy, ass-kissing-his-superiors, stab-you-in-the-back people.) I truly do love a good literary allusion but come on now, it sounds a little melodramatic. “He [Johnson] soon verged on becoming Uriah Heep as he fawned on his seniors” (p. 41). “Nixon, who could give a Uriah Heep imitation even better than Johnson’s, was obsequiously deferential to the president” (p. 154). Here’s another good quote that eloquently casts aspersions on Johnson’s character by comparing him with Machiavelli…and you know what that means! “This advice could be taken to confirm that Johnson had read Machiavelli’s The Prince, a copy of which the columnist Mary McGrory had spotted on his hospital bed—though it could be argued that Johnson’s career had already demonstrated that he might be able to teach Machiavelli a few tricks rather than the other way around” (p. 51). Ouch.
The author, Peters, also negatively discusses Johnson’s morality, which we all can agree was a little skewed. We already know about the womanizing but here Peters mentions a slight scandal involving Johnson and FDR’s son. “Among other sins, Johnson was accused of paying five thousand dollars to President Roosevelt’s son Elliott, whose reputation for probity was considerably less than his father’s, in exchange for Elliott’s endorsement” (p. 19). Peters states that everything Johnson did was done directly to benefit Johnson himself. “As was often the case in his long political career, Johnson wasn’t just doing good; he was taking care of Lyndon” (p. 17). This statement effectively casts doubt on all of Johnson’s decisions and motivations.
Even Johnson’s staff had extremely indecisive reactions to this man. “For most of his subordinates, feelings about their leader were ambivalent. Bill Moyers would later say, ‘I both loved and loathed him.’ George Reedy said that Johnson could be ‘magnificent and inspiring’ but also ‘a bully, sadist, lout, and egoist.’ Califano recalled him as ‘caring and crude, generous and petulant, bluntly honest, and calculatingly devious.’ Even the superloyal Valenti could couple praise of Johnson with the acknowledgement that ‘he was also one tough son of a bitch and he was a hard, cruel man at times’” (p. 140).
Despite Peters’ evident dismay with Johnson as a person (and president), there were some really terrific parts of the book. For instance, I loved when Peters discussed a rare disease—Potomac fever. “When people come to Washington to work in the government, they rarely need to reside there for longer than six months before they are infected by what has come to be called Potomac Fever. The principal symptom of this malady is a resolve to find a way to stay in Washington, and, if required to leave, to return as soon as possible. Lyndon Johnson first arrived in Washington on December 7, 1931. He managed to stay for all but two of the next thirty-seven years” (p. 11). I also liked Peters’ fictional rendition of the growing cultural revolution in the 1960s and what it meant to the officials in the Johnson administration. “Imagine this hardworking official arriving home at night around 9:00pm, looking forward to being presented with his slippers and a nice cold martini by a wife filled with admiration for his dedicated public service. But beginning in 1965 and increasing thereafter, he is met by a wife who complains about being stuck with all the housework, asking why she can’t have a career, and, by the way, why doesn’t he make love to her more often. She reports that their twenty-year-old son has left his dorm at Columbia University and moved to the Lower East Side so he can join its growing community of hippies and be near his idol Allen Ginsberg. This is the same son who last Christmas announced he was gay and could no longer bear the hypocrisy of the closet. His eighteen-year-old sister, in her last year at the National Cathedral School, comes downstairs for dinner and asks her father why he doesn’t have the guts to come out against the war. Humiliated and angered by her attack, the official proceeds to take on his daughter’s sex life, berating her for sleeping around even before she’s graduated from high school, and also, complaining about loud music coming from her room, which he says is destroying his hearing” (p. 134). Ahhh…the 60s!
What I disliked most about this book were the disgusting lack of dates (meaning that I was forced to look up some stuff online) and rampant speculation about Vietnam. I really hate speculation in historical nonfiction…especially regarding Vietnam. On the other hand, I enjoyed all the current events that were interwoven into and around Johnson’s life. Peters did a great job with giving the reader a very firm idea of what was occurring concurrently in Johnson’s life and in the world at large.
Sidenote: In my ongoing and admittedly half-assed investigation into JFK’s murder, I found it interesting that the author here has an opinion too. Peters is completely certain—at least he it writes that way—that Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy. “One of its employees, Lee Harvey Oswald, sat by a sixth-floor window holding a rifle with a telescopic sight. He fired three shots. One shattered Kennedy’s skull, making Lyndon Johnson the thirty-sixth president of the United States” (p. 76). Just thought you’d want to know.
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