by Joshua Zeitz
“ideal press secretary”: Ibid.
“by far the best man”: “Bill Moyers: President Johnson’s Strong ‘Right Hand’ Draws High Praise—Harsh Criticism,” Austin American-Statesman, Feb. 13, 1966.
“would sometimes be better advised”: “The President and the Press,” New York Times, Feb. 28, 1966.
“convenience of the President”: “Moyers Explains the News Parley,” New York Times, Jan. 1, 1966.
replacement as press secretary: “Press Aide Moyers Seeking Replacement,” Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 1966.
reshuffle was maddening: “LBJ Names Rostow, Kintner Special Assistants,” Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1966; “Moyers on the Way Up,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1966.
With clear ambition: “Moyers to Give Up His Press Duties,” Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1966; “Moyers Back in Office as Press Secretary,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 11, 1966.
served to poison further his relationship: Valenti, Very Human President, 250–51.
At a dinner party: Ibid., 358–59.
“intelligent social conscience”: “The Dozen Faces of LBJ,” Washington Reporter, Jan. 24, 1965.
“fairly near a snapping point”: McPherson OH, Jan. 16, 1969, 2.
In late September, his older brother: “Moyers’ Death Laid to Drugs,” Austin Statesman, Sept. 21, 1966.
“once-close personal relationship”: Christian, President Steps Down, 12.
“His ambition”: Jacobsen OH, May 27, 1969, 35.
“I don’t think the President cried”: Ibid., 36.
“it is always a mistake”: Kalman, Abe Fortas, 224.
“inhaling other secretaries”: Jacobsen OH, May 27, 1969, 35.
a crack staff: Graham, Uncertain Triumph, 132–33; Christian, President Steps Down, 13.
“rational concept”: McPherson, Political Education, 254.
It required skillful negotiations: Graham, Uncertain Triumph, 148–49.
compromise set of amendments: Andrew, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, 109–11.
administration was even less successful: Perlstein, Nixonland, 197–98.
“the great Detroit-style wars”: Fred Panzer, “Draft,” May 4, 1967, “Politics Folder,” box 30, Office Files of McPherson.
Califano left a considerable mark: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 313–14.
“Unzip your fly”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 122–26.
a singular accomplishment: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 314–17.
“operated a very extensive network”: McPherson OH, April 9, 1969, 2.
“desultory way of getting information”: McPherson, Political Education, 375.
“My job was to make staying with it”: Ibid., 327.
“steady hand on an erratic wheel”: McPherson OH, Jan. 16, 1969, 4–5.
“peace of mind”: Christian, President Steps Down, 14.
“matter what kind of a majority”: McPherson, Political Education, 268.
Chapter 13: The Thirty-first of March
500,000 American troops: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, “Vietnam Conflict—U.S. Military Forces in Vietnam and Casualties Incurred: 1961 to 1972,” table 590, 369.
“all people talked about”: Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 163.
Johnson’s approval rating plummeted: Ibid., 164.
accelerated his political activities: Small, Presidency of Richard Nixon, 23.
emerged as a leading contender: Ambrose, Nixon, 84–87, 100.
“a born loser”: Memorandum, Cater, Ben Wattenberg, and Ervin Duggan to LBJ, Aug. 19, 1967, “Memos to the President, 8/67,” box 17, Office Files of Cater.
“I believe we are going to have”: White, Making of the President, 1968, 121–22.
“New forces were changing the country”: Ibid., 123.
Allard K. Lowenstein: Ibid., 83–85.
lazy and diffident candidate: Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 176–77, 194.
Tet Offensive: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 391.
his young staff and volunteers: White, Making of the President, 1968, 95–99.
stunning near upset: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 392.
“I think I can get the nomination”: White, Making of the President, 1968, 102.
“We woke up”: Ibid., 103, 183–89.
McPherson outlined his understanding: Memorandum, McPherson to LBJ, March 18, 1968, “Memos for the President 1968,” box 53, Office Files of McPherson.
The president’s other aides: White, Making of the President, 1968, 128–37.
“I was jubilant”: Busby, Thirty-first of March, 9.
“I want out of this cage”: Ibid., 194, 214, 225.
“The world has never been”: Small, Presidency of Richard Nixon, 31.
over two-thirds of primary voters: Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 212.
only fifteen states: Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 92.
Humphrey did not need: New York Times, June 2, 1968, E3.
fight and fracture: Patterson, Grand Expectations, 694.
several organized groups: Chester, Hodgson, and Page, American Melodrama, 579–80.
“I wasn’t sentenced”: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 416.
“left Vice President Humphrey”: New York Times, Aug. 28, 1968, 32.
“Fuck you”: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 421.
trailed Richard Nixon: Washington Post, Sept. 28, 1969, G1. A poll taken between September 3 and September 7 gave Nixon 43 percent of the vote to 31 percent for Humphrey and 19 percent for Wallace.
“Johnson saw the Court”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 556.
everything went wrong: Ibid., 557–62.
“Fortas’s testimony was so misleading”: Ibid., 562.
“Nobody likes the present system”: Memorandum, Wattenberg to Califano, Cater, and McPherson, Oct. 26, 1967, “Income Plans,” box 30, Office Files of McPherson; Memorandum, Wattenberg to Califano, Feb. 9, 1967, “Califano,” box 50, Office Files of McPherson.
“courting danger”: Joseph Califano, “Balancing the Budget, L.B.J. Style,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 1995.
exit polls showed: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 392; Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 184, 202.
only 13 percent favored: New York Times, Oct. 8, 1968, 36.
“Tweedledee and Tweedledum”: Kazin, Populist Persuasion, 240.
“over-educated, ivory-tower folks”: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 425.
“You young people seem to know”: Kazin, Populist Persuasion, 240.
“ill-cut suits”: Ibid., 235.
“gritty nimbus of piety”: Ibid., 240.
“forgotten Americans”: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 5, 1968, 12.
respectable alternative: Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1968, A2.
“force a local community”: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 428.
“harsh and strident efforts”: Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29, 1968, 20.
“politics of happiness”: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 405.
“for every jail”: Ambrose, Nixon, 184.
“wall-to-wall”: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 19, 1968, 1.
In New Jersey: New York Times, Sept. 13, 1968, 50.
“The Wallace Labor Record”: New York Times, Sept. 14, 1968, 14.
trouble on the left: New York Times, Sept. 2, 1968, 20; Matusow, Unraveling of America, 430.
Nixon’s position on Vietnam: Ambrose, Nixon, 197.
could afford to be vague: Small, Presidency of Richard Nixon, 28.
“risk for peace”: Ambrose, Nixon, 197.
“bombsy twins”: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 434.
“lower and middle-income Americans”: Memorandum, Califano to Humphrey, Sept. 25, 1968, “Politics,” box 30, Office Files o
f McPherson.
“Where would we be if Nixon”: Ibid.
Nixon’s lead shrank: Ambrose, Nixon, 205.
Johnson sprang a surprise: Ibid., 211.
Humphrey surged: Ibid., 211–12.
“human equality”: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 432.
Nixon’s team met secretly: Ambrose, Nixon, 207–17.
“strengthened the hand”: New York Times, Oct. 2, 1968, 24.
“clear that the American people”: Wall Street Journal, Nov. 7, 1968, 20.
“Jesus, I think I would have”: Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 225.
“Even the Vice President’s natural ebullience”: Christian, President Steps Down, 181.
Conclusion
“I do understand power”: McPherson, Political Education, 449–50.
assistants began looking for jobs: Christian, President Steps Down, 256–57.
“We shared a sense of relief”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy, 335.
“You’re going to make some money”: Ibid., 337–38.
“officially powerless”: “Harry McPherson,” Washington Post, Feb. 17, 2012.
“heart was on the right”: Small, Presidency of Richard Nixon, 154.
Family Assistance Plan: Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty, 192–94; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 115–19; Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 233.
FAP proved a nonstarter: Sandbrook, Eugene McCarthy, 233–38.
business and political elites: Quadagno, “Race, Class, and Gender in the U.S. Welfare State”; Waddan, “Liberal in Wolf’s Clothing.”
poor people needed cash: Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty, 198–200.
“great question of the seventies”: Train, “Environmental Record of the Nixon Administration,” 185.
country watched with horror: Small, Presidency of Richard Nixon, 196–97.
Nixon asked Congress: Ibid., 196–200.
eighty thousand acres: Flippen, “Nixon Administration, Timber, and the Call of the Wild.”
unexpected continuity: Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 84–88. See also McAndrews, “Politics of Principle.”
worked with Attorney General John Mitchell: Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 23–36.
“when funds are cut off”: Kotlowski, “Nixon’s Southern Strategy Revisited,” 216.
“Philadelphia Plan”: Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 99; Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 90–93.
“goals and timetables”: Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered, 90–94.
Equal Employment Opportunity Act: Thernstrom and Thernstrom, America in Black and White, 431–33.
“people who own their own homes”: Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 131.
Executive Order 11458: Dean Kotlowski, “Black Power—Nixon Style,” 423.
“monumental task”: Bryan, “Trump Is Officially Making an Economic Promise That Will Be Nearly Impossible to Keep.”
the poorest quintile: Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, “A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality,” Nov. 7, 2016.
household wages: Levy, New Dollars and Dreams, 1–8.
single-parent families: “How Poor Single Moms Survive,” Atlantic, Dec. 1, 2015.
slipped out of the workforce: “More and More Americans Are Outside the Labor Force Entirely. Who Are They?,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 14, 2014.
levels unseen since the 1920s: “A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality.”
cut the poverty rate by 26 percent: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “2014 CMS Statistics,” 1.
In later years, many political observers: Katznelson, Fear Itself.
“I’m without a car”: McPherson OH, April 9, 1969, tape 3, 7.
“At this time [last year]”: McPherson OH, Jan. 16, 1969, 3–4.
the president fired Califano: “Califano, Blumenthal Are Fired from Cabinet,” Washington Post, July 20, 1979.
Busby retired to Southern California: “LBJ Adviser Horace ‘Buzz’ Busby Jr., 76, Dies.”
Douglass Cater: “Douglass Cater Is Dead at 72; Educator and Presidential Aide.”
Harry McPherson: “Harry C. McPherson, a Presidential Counsel, Dies at 82,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 2012.
“Lyndon B. Johnson owned and operated”: “Bill Moyers on LBJ and ‘Selma,’” Moyers & Company, Jan. 15, 2015.
“sometimes amazed”: Valenti OH, Mar. 3, 1971, 22.
“two of life’s classic fascinations”: Cowger and Markman, Lyndon Johnson Remembered, 34–35.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Newspapers and Magazines
Atlanta Constitution
Atlantic
Austin American
Austin American-Statesman
Austin Statesman
Baltimore Sun
Boston Globe
Chicago Tribune
Christian Science Monitor
Esquire
Hartford Courant
Long Island Newsday
Los Angeles Times
Newsweek
New York Times
New York Times Magazine
Observer
South China Sunday Post-Herald
Time
Toronto Globe and Mail
U.S. News & World Report
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post
Washington Reporter
JFK Library
ORAL HISTORIES (OH)
Council of Economic Advisers, Aug. 1, 1964
David Hackett, July 22, 1970
LBJ Library
ORAL HISTORIES (OH)
Gardner Ackley
Horace Busby
Douglass Cater
Anthony Celebrezze
Clark Clifford
Abe Fortas
James Gaither
John Gardner
Kermit Gordon
Walter Heller
Jake Jacobsen
Walter Jenkins
Francis Keppel
Harry McPherson
Frank Mankiewicz
Lawrence O’Brien
Arthur Okun
George Reedy
Juanita Roberts
James Roche
James Rowe
Charles Schultze
Ivan Sinclair
Otis Singletary
Cecil Stoughton
Jule Sugarman
James Sundquist
Jack Valenti
Adam Yarmolinsky
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS
Handwriting File
Office Files of Fred Bohen
Office Files of Horace Busby
Office Files of Joseph Califano
Office Files of Douglass Cater
Office Files of James Gaither
Office Files of Richard Goodwin
Office Files of Bertrand Harding
Office Files of Harry McPherson
Office Files of Bill D. Moyers
Office Files of Frederick Panzer
Office Files of George Reedy
Office Files of Ben Wattenberg
Statements of Lyndon B. Johnson
White House Central File, Speeches
Selected Works
Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962–1972. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Anderson, Terry H. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Andrew, John, III. Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998.
Appy, Christian G. Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers in Vietnam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
/> ———, ed. Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Viking, 2003.
Bailey, Martha J., and Sheldon Danziger, eds. Legacies of the War on Poverty. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2013.
Baker, Mark. Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There. London: Abacus, 1982.
Berkowitz, Edward D. Mr. Social Security: The Life of Wilbur J. Cohen. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.
Bernstein, Irving. Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Beschloss, Michael, ed. Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Blakeslee, Jan. “The Community Action Program: A Stimulus to Black Political Leadership.” Institute for Research on Poverty, Discussion Paper no. 493-78.
Bornet, Vaughn Davis. The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1983.
Branch, Taylor. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–1968. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
———. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963–1965. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Bryan, Bob. “Trump Is Officially Making an Economic Promise That Will Be Nearly Impossible to Keep.” Business Insider, Jan. 22, 2017.
Busby, Horace. The Thirty-first of March: An Intimate Portrait of Lyndon Johnson’s Final Days in Office. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
Califano, Joseph A., Jr. The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Caro, Robert A. Master of the Senate. New York: Knopf, 2002.
———. Means of Ascent. New York: Knopf, 1990.
———. The Passage of Power. New York: Vintage Books, 2012.
Carter, Dan T. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Chester, Lewis, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page. An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968. New York: Dell, 1969.
Christian, George. The President Steps Down: A Personal Memoir of the Transfer of Power. New York: Macmillan, 1970.
Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Coles, Robert. The Middle Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.
Collins, Robert M. More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.