Lady Bird and Lyndon
Page 46
“making fun of Lyndon and me”: WHD, February 15, 1964, Box 1.
“kind of even-steven”: Telephone conversation between Lady Bird Johnson and Jack Valenti, March 9, 1964, Citation #2438, WH 6403.07, RTCM, LBJ Library. Conversation is also reported in Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 279;
“Be Available” . . .“Never Lie”: AWHD, p. 15.
“informal meetings” . . .“Because I have lived openly and unafraid”: AWHD, p. 37.
“I have said all I’m going to say on that”: Jack Raymond, “Johnson Parries Queries on Baker,” New York Times, January 25, 1964.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m willing now”: Telephone conversation between LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson, May 7, 1964, Citation #2395, WH6403.05, RTCM, LBJ Library. Also in Beschloss, Taking Charge, p. 272.
“elderly gnome” . . . “I had to try a bit on that”: WHD, January 14, 1964, Box 1.
“too old” . . . “Hootnanny sort of throws me off” . . . “Scotti and Severini and Tetrazzini”: WHD, January 13, 1964, Box 1.
“big news” . . . “Victory Number One” . . . “I must say it’s pleasant”: AWHD, p. 75.
“somebody that Lyndon and all men”: WHD, February 26, 1964, Box 1.
“In this room”: Carl Sferrazza Anthony, As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Friends and Family (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 192.
13: Teaming Up for the Big Win
“the responsibilities of the bomb”: Telephone conversation between Walter Jenkins and Lyndon Johnson, August 25, 1964, about 11:23 a.m., Citation #5177, WH6408.36, RTCM, LBJ Library.
“Fuck ’em, they don’t want me anyway”: Transcript, George E. Reedy, Oral History Interview XXVI, November 16, 1990, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 7.
“one person”: Transcript, Walter Jenkins, Oral History Interview I, August 14, 1970, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 46.
“I do not remember hours I ever found harder”: AWHD, p. 192.
“talk to anybody”: Transcript, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Oral History Interview XXXVII, August 1994, by Harry Middleton, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 15. Also in Michael L. Gillette, Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 369.
“Beloved”: AWHD, p. 192.
“every night”: WHD, April 21, 1964, Box 1.
“Get me out of this, won’t you?”: WHD, June 19, 1964, Box 2.
“his image as a father figure to the nation”: WHD, June 11, 1964, Box 2.
“There [was] no way out”: WHD, July 5, 1964, Box 2.
“in detail the problems”: AWHD, p. 178.
“that singing quality of so many of Mr. Kennedy’s”: WHD, Feb. 27, 1964, Box 1.
“Why, when I’m not the least bit afraid”: AWHD, p. 135.
“precipitously and happily dropped into our laps”: AWHD, p. 134.
“ten best”: AWHD, p. 140.
“slop the hogs” . . . “truffles and pâté de foie gras”: Transcript, George E. Reedy, Oral History Interview XVII, June 11, 1985, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 4.
“with his silver tongue”: AWHD, p. 104.
“I had acquitted myself well enough”: AWHD, p. 106.
“energy”: AWHD, p. 160.
“severest trial”: WHD, July 2, 1965, Box 2.
“shaky” . . . “forthrightly for the full Civil Rights Program”: WHD, February 27, 1964, Box 1.
“What the hell is the presidency for?”: Michael Beschloss, speaking at John F. Kennedy Library at Presidential Historians Forum Series, January 30, 2002.
“a marvelous televised statement”: AWHD, p. 174.
“another step”: AWHD, p. 174.
“with that sense of adventure”: AWHD, p. 175.
“skeletons in the closet” . . . “depression and frustration”: AWHD, p. 139.
“February or March 1968”: Ibid.
“of course”: Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971), p. 93.
“to put their own ‘squalid’ tenant houses in order”: Marjorie Hunter, New York Times, May 15, 1964.
“shocked” . . . “on the Johnson land were the worst”: Ibid.
“explain Slum Lord Johnson”: Presidential Papers of LBJ, Box 62, Folder on Lady Bird, “June 1, 1964–June 19, 1964,” LBJ Library,
“batten down the hatches” . . . “jackass in a hailstorm”: WHD, May 13, 1964, Box 1.
“trusted person”: Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Henry Luce, July 27, 1964, Citation #4350, WH6407.15, RTCM, LBJ Library.
“Midas touch”: Keith Wheeler and William Lambert, Life, August 21, 1964, “The Man Who Is the President—How LBJ’s Family Amassed Its Fortune,” p. 62. This is part 2 of an article that began in August 14, 1964, issue with subtitle, “The Complex and Extraordinary Man Who Is the President.” One full page of Part 2 lists the various holdings of the Johnson family—in ranch lands, banks, and businesses, with an estimated total value of $14 million.
“legal delegation”: Memo from Lady Bird Johnson to the President, July 16, 1964, WHCF, Folder on Lady Bird, “July 16, 1964–October 1, 1964,” LBJ Library.
“I’ll throw away the bottle”: Transcript, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Oral History Interview XXXVIII, August 1994, by Harry Middleton, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 19.
“snide jokes” . . . “this President and his wife are concerned”: Liz Carpenter, Ruffles and Flourishes: The Warm and Tender Story of a Simple Girl Who Found Adventure in the White House (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, book club edition, 1970), pp. 147–48.
“I know the Civil Rights Act was right” . . . “I’m tired of people”: Ibid.
“journey of the heart”: Ibid., p. 148.
“because I feel at home”: Norma Ruth Holly Foreman, “The First Lady as a Leader of Public Opinion: A Study of the Role and Press Relations of Lady Bird Johnson” (Ph.D., University of Texas, 1971), p. 159.
“Anyone can get into Atlanta”: Carpenter, Ruffles and Flourishes, p. 143.
“half laughing at the whole idea” . . . “licking stamps and sealing envelopes”: Ibid.
“a phony bone”: Transcript, Elizabeth Carpenter, Oral History Interview III, May 15, 1969, by Joe B. Frantz, LBJ Library, p. 35.
“Blackbird, go home”: Bill Moyers’s eulogy at funeral service of Mrs. Johnson, July 14, 2007. Access at www.c-span.org/video/?199909-1/lady-bird-johnson-funeral-service.
“This is a country of many viewpoints”: WHD, April 19, 1965, Box 2, discussing this speech at the time she returned to Columbia, South Carolina, for the funeral of a senator’s wife. She also talks about how she handled hecklers in PBS documentary, Lady Bird Johnson, produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and KLRU, Austin, 2001, Transcript, Part 3.
“I’ve grown accustomed to your smell”: Libby Cater Halaby to author, December 14, 2010.
“Well, why the hell don’t you find out?”: Telephone conversation between LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson, October 7, 1964, Citation #5842, WH6410.04, RTCM, LBJ Library. The accusation takes place after minute 7 in what is a conversation of more than 13 minutes. Also in Michael Beschloss, Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 47. A subsequent phone call the same day between the president and first lady has him sounding more solicitous of her safety, and he talks with daughter Luci about the size of the crowds they are attracting and the number of hecklers.
“working for Goldwater”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 172.
“two things” . . . “stay out of this”: Telephone conversation between Lady Bird Johnson and LBJ, October 15, 1964, 9:12 a.m. Citation #5895, WH6410.11, RTCM, LBJ Library. Also in Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, pp. 84–87.
“would have followed” . . . “My God, she was like a vessel”: Merle Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980), p. 400.
“great . . . and we did print it, of course” . . . “My heart is aching today”: Miller, Lyndon, p. 604.
“strange hour”: WHD, November 17, 1964, Box 2.
“I’ve had a headache”: Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Dean Rusk, November 3, 1964, Citation #6110, WH6411.01, RTCM, LBJ Library. Also quoted in Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, p. 103.
“my favorite first lady”: Rosalynn Carter to author, May 27, 2011.
“quiet”: President’s Daily Diary, November 4, 1964, LBJ Library.
“a curious pall of sadness and inertia”: WHD, November 17, 1964, Box 2.
“tell-it-to-the president” . . . “has been and continues to be deeply involved”: Nan Robertson, New York Times, March 1, 1964.
14: Linchpin in the Launch of the Great Society
“mean a lot”: Nan Robertson, “Mrs. Johnson Holds the Bible for the Oath-Taking,” New York Times, January 21, 1965.
“sweet”: WHD, January 20, 1965, Box 2.
“relished [her] pillow talk”: Joseph A. Califano, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 27.
“wonderful” . . . “went straight to my heart”: Nan Robertson, “Mrs. Johnson Holds the Bible for the Oath-Taking,” New York Times, January 21, 1965.
“startled” . . .“fatigue”: WHD, January 9, 1965, Box 2.
“washed out” . . . “depressed”: WHD, January 29, 1965, Box 2.
“How to fight it?”: Ibid.
“Vietnam thing”: President’s Daily Diary, March 4, 1965, LBJ Library.
“Daddy duty”: Luci Baines Johnson, speaking on PBS documentary, Lady Bird Johnson, transcript, Part 4. She used same phrase speaking to Professor Harry Middleton’s class, University of Texas, March 29, 2011.
“routine physical checkup” . . . “sound” . . . “heavy load of tension” . . . “fog of depression”: Lady Bird Johnson, WHD, March 13, 1965, LBJ Library, Box 2. Also partially quoted in Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, p. 227.
“great form” . . . “quite what sprung him”: WHD, March 14, 1965, Box 2.
“given himself”: WHD, March 20, 1965, Box 2.
“heaven”: AWHD, p. 260.
“lashed to the mast” . . . “joyously”: Ibid.
“earthy and colorful and true and fresh”: AWHD, p. 261.
“deeply depressed”: Bill Moyers, quoted in Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 282. Also see Robert Dallek, “Three New Revelations About LBJ,” Atlantic, April 1, 1998. CTJ wrote in AWHD, p. 261, re April 19, 1965: “The mood is broken; the vacation ended,” and she described the problems her husband faced.
“creative people”: Transcript, J. Willis Hurst, Oral History Interview I, May 16, 1969, by T. H. Baker, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 32.
“lying in bed with the covers almost above his head”: Bill Moyers, in interview with Robert A. Dallek, which Dallek quoted in Flawed Giant, p. 282.
“I worked in the residence”: Bess Abell to Will Swift, October 10, 2008.
“superb salesman”: AWHD, p. 219.
“spirit is lighter and his face less weary”: AWHD, p. 276.
“Black Tuesday”: AWHD, p. 286.
“culture” . . . “talks”: Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), p. 369.
“what people create”: Ibid.
“wince”: Ibid., p. 418.
“our present foreign policy”: Richard F. Shepard, “Robert Lowell Rebuffs Johnson as Protest over Foreign Policy,” The New York Times, June 3, 1965, p. 1.
“greatest artists”: Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, p. 473.
“She didn’t even blink”: Jeanne Murray Vanderbilt to author, November 29, 2010.
“public mask”: Richard Goodwin, Remembering America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), p. 399.
“paranoid” . . . “a Senate or even an entire country”: Ibid., p. 398.
“moving tribute” . . . “It’s an honor that I haven’t had done to me”: New York Times, July 31, 1965, p. 1.
“probably the Kennedys”: Goodwin, Remembering America, p. 402.
“backwoods of East Texas or Alabama” . . . “impact of Head Start”: AWHD, p. 310.
“not-so-restful news”: AWHD, p. 311.
“When he pulls his ear lobe”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, pp. 280–81.
“I wouldn’t appoint him to dog catcher now”: Goodwin, Remembering America, p. 401.
“to crawl the walls of the White House”: Jack Valenti, A Very Human President (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), p. 312. Valenti made the comment in describing how irate President Johnson became when word got out that he was about to appoint Walter Washington mayor of Washington, D.C.
“Her nose is a bit too long”: “The White House: The First Lady Bird,” Time, August 28, 1964.
“to the best of his ability”: AWHD, p. 198.
“ice cream salesman” . . . “limp prick”: Califano, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, p. 27.
“You know Lyndon sometimes can confuse the messenger with the message”: Ibid., pp. 280–81. Califano confirmed in interview with author, November 20, 2013, that details in his books were accurate.
“corny” . . . “make the most of it!”: AWHD, pp. 321–22.
“from Lyndon’s face to the flag”: AWHD, p. 322.
“We went in [to the church] as four”: AWHD, p. 294
“wisdom for the leaders of the nation” . . . “passages of the Episcopal prayer book”: AWHD, p. 324.
“let the whole world inspect”: “Hurting Good,” Time, October 29, 1965.
“a man on whom an avalanche had suddenly fallen”: WHD, October 12, 1965, Box 3.
“I love ya”: Telephone conversation between LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson, November 17, 1965, Citation #9180, WH6511.07, RTCM, LBJ Library.
“Who knows how many disasters were averted”: Bill Moyers’s eulogy at funeral service of Mrs. Johnson, July 14, 2007. Access at www.c-span.org/video/?199909-1/lady-bird-johnson-funeral-service. A version of this was quoted to author in many interviews, including that of Ramsey Clark, September 27, 2013.
“Walter Lippmann is a communist” . . . “Now, Lyndon”: Goodwin, Remembering America, p. 404.
“more than FDR ever did or ever thought of doing”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 231.
15: Beautification: A Legacy of Bird’s Own
“They’re singing,‘We Shall Overcome’ ”: Transcript, Sharon Francis, Oral History Interview I, May 20, 1969, by Dorothy Pierce McSweeney, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 4.
“I haven’t been in a library since I left college”: Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), p. 367.
“to demand—and support”: Lewis L. Gould, Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First Lady (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999), p. 36.
“natural parks and society”: Transcript, Charles M. Haar, Oral History Interview I, June 14, 1971, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 11. Professor Haar confirmed sections of his oral history in interview with author, May 9, 2011.
“Isn’t that too much?”: Transcript, Mary Lasker, Oral History Interview I, November 10, 1969, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 8.
“anti-Negro and . . . anti-civil rights”: Ibid., p. 12.
“dent” . . . “crazy”: Ibid., p. 13.
“absolutely charming”: Ibid.
“very dear to me”: Transcript, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Oral History Interview XL, August no date specified, 1994, by Harry Middleton, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 24.
“just marked time”: Transcript, Mary Lasker, Oral History Interview I, November 10, 1969, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 19.
“the appearance of the vast federal highway system”: Ibi
d., p. 22.
“victim . . . [of] totally treeless and hideous”: Transcript, Mary Lasker, Oral History Interview II [mislabeled as Interview I], July 19, 1978, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 16.
“jumped on a moving train”: Cynthia Wilson to author, March 25, 2013.
“really tore”: Thomas Donahue to author, April 10, 2012.
“just plain good business”: Laurance Rockefeller, “Business and Beauty,” Vital Speeches of the Day 15 (January 1966), p. 220.
“any First Lady we’ve seen in this century”: Norma Ruth Holly Foreman, “The First Lady as a Leader of Public Opinion: A Study of the Role and Press Relations of Lady Bird Johnson,” (Ph.D., University of Texas, 1971), p. 139 lists these and other rave reviews for Mrs. Johnson.
“two Washingtons”: Lewis L. Gould, “Beautifying the Two Washingtons,” in Gould, Lady Bird Johnson, p. 67.
“cosmetic and trivial”: Barbara Klaw, “Lady Bird Remembers,” American Heritage, December 1980, p. 6. This is a verbatim record of Klaw’s interview with CTJ.
“the latest hair styles”: . . “Do you just do Mrs. Johnson’s hair”: Liz Carpenter, Ruffles and Flourishes: The Warm and Tender Story of a Simple Girl Who Found Adventure in the White House (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, book club edition, 1970), p. 237.
“people in these neighborhoods can see the challenge”: AWHD, p. 249.
“a smooth briefcase operator”: Milton Viorst, ed., Hustlers and Heroes: An American Political Panorama (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971), pp. 250–51. This book of essays that Viorst wrote for various publications includes one entitled, “Walter Washington: Black Mayor, White Mind,” pp. 240–65.
“The word went out”: Gould, Lady Bird Johnson, p. 65.
“commanding . . . [with] something of the quality”: AWHD, p. 308.
“prepared to learn” . . . “That was honest” . . . “decisive factor” . . . “Hirshhorn is crazy about her”: Barry Hyams, Hirshhorn: Medici from Brooklyn (New York: Dutton, 1979), pp. 149–52.
“Lady Bird Johnson did that”: Margaret McDermott to author, April 9, 2012, was among many who passed along to author this quote from taxi drivers. McDermott, a Texan, heard it when she visited the capital long after the Johnsons left the White House. She had passed it on to Mrs. Johnson, adding, “It’s the people, you know, that count.”