Lady Bird and Lyndon
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“areas of commercial and industrial use”: Gould, Lady Bird Johnson, p. 95.
“You know I love that woman”: Joseph A. Califano, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 84. Califano confirmed in interview with author.
“Imagine me keeping company with Chief Justice Warren!”: AWHD, p. 325.
16: War Clouds
“imaginative propaganda”: David G. Nes, Interviewed by Ted Gittinger, November 10, 1982, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Internet Copy, Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Service, LBJ Library, Interview I, no page.
August 4, 1964: Composed by Steven Stucky, with libretto by Gene Scheer.
“rather trivial things”: WHD, August 4, 1964, Box 2.
“extraordinarily grave”: Ibid.
“relax at the most amazing times”: Ibid.
“open aggression on the high seas”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 153. Full text is in The New York Times, August 4, 1964, p. 1.
“frozen with dismay”: Katharine Graham, Personal History (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), pp. 482–83.
“his substantial organ”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 491.
manic depressive: D. Jablow Hershman, Power Beyond Reason: The Mental Collapse of Lyndon Johnson (Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade, 2002), p. 15: “The mental illness that afflicted Lyndon Johnson was . . . manic depression.”
“dismaying”: Transcript, Harry McPherson, Oral History Interview III, January 16, 1969, by T. H. Baker, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 1. In interview with author June 29, 2010, Mr. McPherson said LBJ could “hit dumps harder than anybody I’ve ever seen . . . angry . . . impatient.” But McPherson noted that these depressed phases did not extend over long periods.
“very up and monopolized”: Transcript, Victoria Murphy, and Simon McHugh, Oral History Interview V, June 9, 1975, by Michael L. Gillette, LBJ Library, p. 5. Quoted by permission of Victoria Murphy.
“on air” . . . “manic depressive”: Transcript, George Reedy, Oral History Interview VIII, August 16, 1983, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 66.
“Lyndon Johnson exhibited behavior patterns”: Robert E. Gilbert, “Psychological Dysfunction and Great Achievement: The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson,” Politics, Culture and Socialization, Spring 2011, pp. 7–8.
“perhaps as extraordinary”: Ibid., p. 1.
“a very great asset”: Transcript, J. Willis Hurst, Oral History Interview I, May 16, 1969, by T. H. Baker, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 22.
“key helper”: Robert E. Gilbert to author, email, May 24, 2013.
“one foot in front of the other”: WHD, June 9, 1964, Box 2.
“I would walk over hot coals for her”: Bill Fisher to author, April 6, 2011.
“against the backdrop of air strikes”: AWHD, pp. 247–48.
“It’s like shooting the rapids”: AWHD, pp. 246–47.
“I can’t get out”: AWHD, p. 248.
“It was just a hell of a thorn”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 283, quoting Mrs. Johnson to Dallek.
“Win or lose, it’s the right thing to do”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 283, quoting Mrs. Johnson to Dallek.
“for the light at the end of the tunnel”: Dallek, Flawed Giant, p. 255.
“amazingly calm”: Cynthia Wilson to author, March 27, 2013.
Bird, slim in a two-piece: LBJ Library Video, Lady Bird Johnson’s Home Movies, HM34, Mrs. Johnson at the Virgin Islands, June 1965.
“drove myself” . . . “read”: Lady Bird Johnson, Official White House Diary, entry for June 18, 1966, in Mrs. Johnson’s handwriting and shorthand, Copy supplied to author by LBJ Library.
“supper alone” . . . “early”: Ibid.
“what to do tonight”: President’s Daily Diary, entry for June 18, 1966, Copy supplied to author by LBJ Library.
“It takes $8 to make me presentable”: WHD, February 16, 1967, Box 4.
“You know, Mother”: WHD, July 7, 1965, Box 3.
“I felt selfish”: Ibid.
“in the palm of her small cherub hand”: WHD, September 19, 1965, Box 3.
“almost sad”: WHD, April 11, 1964, Box 1.
“was cut out for destiny”: WHD, May 12, 1964, Box 1.
“reliable, planning-ahead” . . . “lark”: WHD, August 26, 1965, Box 3.
“You might as well try to bottle sunshine”: WHD, January 27, 1965, Box 2.
“impossible”: WHD, March 3, 1964, Box 1.
“the world” . . . “to taste it all”: WHD, January 27, 1965, Box 2.
“mutual appreciation”: WHD, February 13, 1965, Box 2.
“looks down”: WHD, March 18, 1965, Box 2.
“reach out to other people”: WHD, November 14, 1965, Box 3.
“bobby socks and loafers”: WHD, February 22, 1965, Box 2.
“I had just gotten my driver’s license”: Luci Johnson, speaking at conference, “Modern First Ladies: Private Lives and Public Duties,” Gerald R. Ford Museum, April 19, 1984.
“rushed . . . helpless and disturbed”: Katie Louchheim Papers, Library of Congress Manuscripts, Washington, D.C., Box 79, Folder 6, “December 1965 to March 1966,” p. 39.
“wicked and delightful city” . . . “leading the sort of life”: WHD, March 3, 1964, Box 1.
“taste the cream of life”: WHD, July 28, 1964, Box 2.
“awkward age” . . . “I’m afraid I’m the one”: Transcript, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Oral History Interview XXVII, January 30, 1982, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 30.
Bird’s home movies: LBJ Library Video, Lady Bird Johnson’s Home Movies, HM33, LBJ Ranch, 1965
“a few too many women crazy about him”: WHD, February 6, 1966, Box 3.
“Excitement is a new mood for Lynda”: AWHD, p. 346.
“jolted herself back into this world”: Transcript, J. Willis Hurst, Oral History Interview II, June 16, 1970, by T. H. Baker, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 13.
“Washington was burning”: Cynthia Wilson to author, March 26, 2013.
“looking for communists under every bed”: WHD, March 10, 1967, Box 4.
“like Pearl Harbor or the Alamo”: Transcript, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Oral History Interview XV, January 4–5, 1980, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 8.
“Of course not”: American Heritage 57, no. 6 (November–December 2006), p. 50. Access at www.americanheritage.com on May 28, 2014.
“big enough”: Jan Jarboe Russell, Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson (New York: Scribner, 1999), p. 281.
17: Outlandish LBJ
“You can play with Lyndon”: Traphes Bryant with Frances Spatz Leighton, Dog Days at the White House: The Outrageous Memoirs of the Presidential Kennel Keeper (New York: Macmillan, 1975), p. 110.
“When people ask me these sort of things”: Jan Jarboe Russell, Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson (New York: Scribner, 1999), p. 12.
“enjoyed his physical power”: White House staff member, email to author, April 1, 2013.
“me coming in and out of a few women’s bedrooms”: Hal C. Wingo, who was Life magazine’s reporter on the White House in 1963, describing a conversation in December 1963, in a letter to The New Yorker, April 23, 2012, p. 3.
“if he did not”: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy (New York: Little, Brown, 2003), p. 476.
“all the wifely chores” . . . “vicious”: Joe Phipps, Summer Stock: Behind the Scenes with LBJ in ’48 (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1992), p. 328.
“Well, believe me, we celebrated my father’s death with more hilarity than was exhibited on that trip”: Transcript, George E. Reedy Oral History Interview XXI, January 7, 1987, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 9.
“antique silver tray”: Mary Margaret Valenti to author, M
ay 20, 2011.
“went out of her way to be nice”: Randall B. Woods, LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 406, quotes what Marie Fehmer Chiarodo told Woods on December 12, 2000. On January 12, 2015, Professor Woods confirmed in email to author that he had encountered nothing after his interview with Marie Fehmer Chiarodo that “would discredit or challenge her version.”
“Mr. President, You’re Fun” . . . “baby-blue eyes” . . . “sex life of a bull”: Time, April 10, 1964, p. 23
“a younger crowd”: WHD, March 4, 1964, Box 2.
“put his shoes under my bed any night”: Transcript, Elizabeth Carpenter, Oral History Interview II, April 4, 1969, by Joe B. Frantz, LBJ Library, p. 12.
“skimmed over”: Edna O’Brien, Country Girl: A Memoir (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), p. 277.
“to confront, humiliate”: Ted Sorensen, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 122.
“Nor do I know”: Ibid.
“loves the chase and is bored with the conquest”: Letter is quoted in Katharine Q. Seelye, “Jackie Kennedy’s Letters Taken Off the Auction Block,” New York Times, May 23, 2014.
“blonde bimbo” . . . “This is the girl”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, p. 477.
“nothing less than making love”: Quoted in Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 275.
“from time to time for intimate evenings”: Ibid., p. 71.
“a fly on the wedding cake”: Nancy Dickerson, Among Those Present (New York: Ballantine, 1977), p. 139.
“I know Ike”: Ruth Montgomery, “An Intimate Portrait of Our Vivacious First Lady,” Look, February 23, 1954, p. 31.
“under the . . . skirt”: Jan Jarboe Russell, “Alone Together,” Texas Monthly, August 1999, quotes Horace Busby describing what happened during the Senate years.
“liked women”: Transcript, Helen Thomas, Oral History Interview I, April 19, 1977, by Joe B. Frantz, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 2.
“vigorous activity”: Dickerson, Among Those Present, p. 37.
“actress”: Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Mary Lasker, January 20, 1964, Citation #1442, WH6401.17, RTCM, LBJ Library.
“These women”: Telephone conversation between Lyndon Johnson and Dean Rusk, April 26, 1965, Citation #7365, WH6504.05, RTCM, LBJ Library.
“best [boss] I ever had”: Grace Halsell, In Their Shoes (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1996), p. 112.
“Come over here!”: Ibid., p. 114.
“on his feet”: Ibid., p. 115.
“did not want to engage my mind” . . . “bigger man” . . . “small creature”: Ibid., p. 114.
“Gary Cooper without a script”: Ibid., p. 115.
“never had children”: Ibid., p. 116.
“more for display than passion”: Ibid.
“Aphrodite or Galatea”: Ibid., p. 117.
“good behinds”: Ibid., p. 119.
“If you wear a tight dress like that”: Ibid.
“a matinee”: Ibid., p. 120.
“rested up”: Ibid.
“The more he belittled”: Ibid., p. 119.
“fierce, dynamic energy”: Madeleine Duncan Brown, Texas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson (Baltimore: Harrison Edward Livingstone book, Conservatory Press, 1997), p. 60.
“goddamn dumb Dora” . . . “your ass will be in a hell of a lot of trouble”: Ibid., pp. 60–61.
“crumpled, overweight, haggard-looking”: Ibid., pp. 211–13.
“continue with the financial arrangements”: Those who discredit Brown’s account point to many errors in her claim that LBJ was implicated in the assassination of JFK. She admitted to an acquaintance with Jack Ruby, and she claimed to have heard Lyndon promise shortly before November 22 that “those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again.” After her death in 2002, David B. Perry, who identified himself as her friend, published a highly critical assessment of Brown’s book in an online article, “Texas in the Imagination.” For Randall Woods’s account, see Architect of Ambition, p. 247.
“tacky” . . .“Can’t somebody teach that girl how to dress?”: Lou Hill Davidson to author, May 20, 2011.
“the fact that [Mathilde’s] so pretty”: WHD, August 6, 1965, Box 3.
“likes to have the prettiest woman beside him”: WHD, April 10, 1966, Box 4.
“gone to bed and Dickerson is covering him” . . . “sex had nothing to do with it”: Dickerson, Among Those Present, p. 139.
“had no peer”: Ibid., p. 138.
“I had a great love affair”: Russell, Lady Bird, p. 22.
“like a magic wand passed over her”: Transcript, Elizabeth Carpenter, Oral History Interview I, August 27, 1968, by Joe B. Frantz, LBJ Library, p. 18.
18: Wrapping Up “Our” Presidency
“our presidency”: AWHD, p. 553, talking about the time “when our tenure of the presidency ends.”
“open-ended stay in a concentration camp”: AWHD, p. 518.
“simply did not want to face another campaign”: AWHD, p. 566.
“roaring energy” . . . “unbearably painful”: AWHD, p. 567.
“If we ever get sick”: Ibid.
“picking out friend and foe and question mark” . . . “stoney”: WHD, January 10, 1967, Box 4.
“Now is indeed the ‘Valley of the Black Pig’ ”: AWHD, p. 469, entry for January 5, 1967.
“castor oil”: WHD, July 23, 1965, Box 2.
“the ugliest thing I ever saw” . . .“damn rude” . . . “could not have been kinder” . . . “lived to be 1000.” Nan Robertson, “Johnson Dislikes His Likeness, Terms Portrait ‘Ugliest Thing I Ever Saw,’ ” New York Times, January 6, 1967.
“End of the Trail” . . . “Ladybird’s Johnson”: “Chicago’s Art World Takes Aim at Johnson”: New York Times, February 4, 1967.
“brilliantly illuminated”: AWHD, p. 470.
“sloppy fat and drank too much” . . . “splendid mind and wrote well”: Transcript, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Oral History Interview XLI, August, no date specified, 1994, by Harry Middleton, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 9.
“I’m all right”: 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.
“like a stone on my heart”: WHD, August 27, 1965, Box 3.
“I love you”: Transcript, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Oral History Interview XLIV, November 26, 1996, by Harry Middleton, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, p. 14.
“nervous exhaustion”: William Manchester, Controversy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), p. 14.
“shortest distance between two points was a tunnel” . . . “practitioner of political tergiversation”: Ibid., pp. 21–22.
“a planned wave of attacks”: WHD, August 29, 1966, Box 4.
“I believed, as did many other soldiers”: Member of 1st Military Police, living in Florida, email to author, January 29, 2013.
“itching”: AWHD, p. 620.
“knew a little bit [about anger] too”: AWHD, p. 623.
“I’ll take care of it” . . . “This chili’s too hot”: Bill Fisher to author, April 6, 2011.
“I’m more bewildered by Lyndon”: 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.
“My daughter just made me a grandfather”: Luci Baines Johnson, speaking at Harry Middleton’s class, LBJ Library, March 22, 2011.
“loneliness in his voice”: AWHD, p. 553.
“tenderness and understanding”: AWHD, p. 598.
“The White House”: AWHD, p. 600.
“That dog is not going to be in this picture”: Nash Castro to author, December 17, 2010.
“disappointment” . . . “after Lynda and Chuck have gone”: WHD, December 9,
1967, LBJ Library, Box 5.
“hugging and kissing him”: AWHD, p 605.
“his mind was lashed [to the job]”: AWHD, p. 615.
“Why do we have to be in Vietnam?” . . . “If that happens to Chuck” . . . “since his mother died”: AWHD, p. 642.
“emotional, crying and distraught” . . . “affect the morale” . . . “rather distantly”: AWHD, p. 644.
“Remember—pacing and drama”: AWHD, p. 645.
“Accordingly, I shall not seek . . . and I will not accept”: AWHD, pp. 645–46.
“Dr. King’s been shot” . . . “nightmare quality”: AWHD, p. 647.
“historic towns and blooming fields of wildflowers” . . . “foreign writers that there are places”: AWHD, p. 649.
“black people [who] were unreliable” . . . “no parks, no trees”: Transcript, Sharon Francis, Oral History Interview I, September 5, 1980, by Dorothy Pierce McSweeney, Internet Copy, LBJ Library, pp. 49–50.
“I seek, to celebrate”: . . “Camp of Peace”: AWHD, p. 783. Mrs. Johnson attributed the lines to India’s Love Lyrics, a volume of Laurence Hope poetry published posthumously in 1906. It may be that is where she read the poem “The End,” because Hope’s poetry appeared in several different collections after her death. But “The End” was originally published in the volume Stars of the Desert, now available free to ebook readers.
19: Calming Anchor for a “Holy Terror”
“This is my ranch”: Jan Jarboe Russell, Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson (New York: Scribner, 1999), p. 306. The sofa pillow is also shown in Mrs. Johnson’s interview with Brian Lamb, November 11, 1999, on C-Span.
“private and confidential”: Memo, Ashton Gonella to Marvin Watson, July 3, 1965, WHCF, Ex WH11, “Supplies, Materials, Services,” Box 21, LBJ Library. Supplied to author by archivist Barbara Cline, LBJ Library, May 2, 2014.
“my time”: AWHD, pp. vii–viii.
“I like writing”: AWHD, p. viii.
“bowl of jelly”: Claudia Anderson to author, April 23, 2009.
“You are killing my darlings”: AWHD, p. ix.
“The velocity at which Mrs. Johnson flew”: Jean Stafford, “Birdbath,” New York Review of Books, December 3, 1970.