American Experience; 1964; Interview with Robert Caro, Author, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, part 1 of 4

If you don't listen I don't want to waste your time if you think no I can't use that because I just say and I won't do it Yeah, what do you think about it? I think we spoke I think we have so much ground I wish it's not okay. We'll power ahead and just okay. I will say I'm just thinking I will say If you want to know how the built the year begins that is like right after midnight on that year Well, I won't do it. I'll just answer your questions. No, I'll answer Well, let's talk about New Year's Eve since we're talking What's what's on America's state of mind when the ball drops on New Year's Eve? Well, civil rights is on you know civil rights is on the nation's mind because for the past few years civil rights protests had been building and building up in the South so you really said something's going to happen if there is not some form of

legislative relief or you can't get a bill passed. What is the going to be the reaction of the people who are fighting so hard in the South and a bill a strong civil rights bill had never been passed not since reconstruction in 1875 So when the year begins Basically you have the civil rights bill that is hanging in limbo in Congress Will Lyndon Johnson be able to do what no one has been able to do before and get this bill passed? Well for Lyndon Johnson 1964 and you might say excuse me and for 1964 you might say it begins just at New Year's Eve just as the year starts. Lyndon there's a club in Austin the 40 Acres Club that is rigidly segregated. No blacks allowed under any circumstance. On New Year's Eve Lyndon Johnson who's out as a ranch near Austin. Lyndon Johnson who's out as ranch in the hill country near Austin

decides to take his secretary's party hopping in Austin. One of them is a black woman named Jerry Woodington. She is the black secretary that he has brought into the White House to the happiness of civil rights leaders. He has a black secretary. They go to this club the 40 Acres Club where there's a New Year's Eve party. As they're about to walk in the door to the segregated club he takes the hand of the black secretary and puts it through his arm so he walks into the club arm and arm with her. There are two Johnson aides walking behind him and one of them says to the other does the president know what he's doing and the other says the president always knows what he's doing and he just walks in no one says anything he chats for about 40 minutes and leaves but the next day a professor at the University of Texas calls and says can I bring a black man to the club and the steward of the club says yes sir and he says are you sure I

can bring a black person he says yes sir the president of the United States integrated us last night. That's New Year's Eve so four days later Lyndon Johnson flies back to Washington to try to get the civil rights bill passed. Excellent. Yes. Before we plow into this a little bit he set up America in before this wave of change is going to crash over what is America in 1964 look like what does it feel like it's a very there's a kind of a settled order that's about to be upended. Yes. Okay I'll try to do something here. It's a big broad question but I'm just curious. Well you have civil rights Viet Nam is on hold

it's like we get in Johnson keeps it on he doesn't want Viet Nam of course he run it's a year of a presidential election see it's hard I know you want to go it's hard to talk of it outside Johnson it's the year of presidential election campaign which he wins by what is still the greatest popular majority in the history of the United States but in civil rights is the dominant it's the dominant thing in that year you know when they when the year starts I mean tell me if you don't want me to go into this I won't I won't you know Congress has in pay us is controlled by the southern barons in the Senate who control all the committee so no civil rights no major domestic social welfare legislation of any kind has passed Congress since 1938 in 25 years that's the

year that Johnson breaks Congress he gets the tax cut bill through and he starts the war on poverty so you say America is still country well I think as I talked to this I said country you know we really have two countries we're a fifth of the country 30 million people are still living at or below the poverty line so the year starts with Johnson saying I declare war on poverty and I'm going to pay us the civil rights bill I don't know it's hard to do it without doing it in terms of Lyndon Johnson because those are the the dumb and how he gets the poverty bill through Congress is interesting I'll try not to okay does 1964 really in some ways begin on January 1st it is it began on November 22nd well you could say it 1964 began with the

assassination on November 22nd because on that day a president died and another president was created and this new president had had Jack Kennedy of course had this genius for a non-seating the highest ideals of America in speeches nonetheless his legislation when he dies is going nowhere in Congress you know a a coalition of conservative Republicans and the Southern Barons who control all the major committees in the Senate has stopped not only civil rights but any major domestic social welfare bill no major domestic social welfare bill has passed the Congress of the United States in the last seven years of Franklin Roosevelt's administration and Harry Truman didn't do much better and Kennedy's two major bills the civil rights bill and a tax cut bill which is sort of

desperately needed to get the economy started you know unemployment was rising towards a really unacceptable 5% right so those two bills that Kennedy has introduced and said they must pass these are my must bills they are not passing they are stuck in Congress is stopping him and all of a sudden you have a president coming in who when he was Senate majority leader had displayed a different kind of genius from the president before him this was a genius forgetting bills through Congress you know when Lyndon Johnson said about civil rights he said we've talked about it long enough we've talked about it for a hundred years it's time to write it in the books of law what does to write it in the books of law means it means to get it in legislation if you want to have social justice in America you have to write it into law and Johnson it was the man who knew how to do it well for one thing he's largely forgot you know he's

been vice president he's been vice president for three years and the Kennedys have made sure that he will have no power and no real responsibilities at all you know the Kennedys mocked Lyndon Johnson they had a nickname for him they called him Rufus Cornpone in fact they had a nickname for him and Lady Bird they said Uncle Rufy Uncle Cornpone and his little pork chop Uncle Cornpone Uncle Cornpone and his little pork chop so he has been forgotten and the headlines about Lyndon Johnson in the magazines when there were any headlines in 1963 were whatever happened to Lyndon Johnson so he is pretty much forgotten those of him those who remember him as Senate Majority Leader remember

how effective he was the greatest majority leader in history how he ran the Senate you know he used to stand at that front row Senate leaders desk with this long arm extended in the air if he wanted the roll call to go faster he go like he go like this if he wanted it to go slower if he didn't have all the votes if one of his votes was being rushed to the capital he'd make this motion and the clerk would call the roll slower and slower and he got bills through the Senate that no one else had been able to do great what's it's stayed for him at this moment it's just this extraordinary thing where he is thrust on the world stage and thrust into a position no president almost has ever faced but he knows what he wants to do you know four days after the assassination he has to give his first speech to Congress the let us continue speech the night before he still isn't in the Oval Office he's still

working out of the Oval Office since Kennedy's death has been kept empty he is working out of his home and around the dining room table are four or five of his advisors and they're working on this first speech that Lyndon Johnson has to give to the joint session of Congress it's the speech which will in many ways define his presidency Johnson comes into the room as they're working and they say to him you know you can't emphasize civil rights in the speech you can't it's a lost cause you'll never get it through Congress and you'll antagonize the South it's a noble cause but it's a lost cause don't fight for a lost court you know what Lyndon Johnson says he says what the hell's the presidency for them and you know Johnson all his life whatever other sides they're worth to him and there are other sides to him he always going back to his college days displayed this real passion for helping poor people and particularly poor

people of color and in that speech he says our first priority is to pay us a civil rights bill he is coming into the presidency as if he knows that the great moral problem that America faces that it's faced for almost a hundred years that it's faced ever since the Civil War and not solved is still unsolved and it's like he takes it on himself he says to one of his speech writers Richard Goodwin he says to him you know when he taught when he was in college he had to take a year off want me to do this anecdote or it's just silly yes it is yes yes it you know when John when Lyndon excuse me I could I get a little move I'm sort of I have a sort of a cold I'm sorry about that no I just keep okay please everybody so and so what is when Lyndon Johnson was

in college when Lyndon Johnson was in college he's very poor he has to take a year off between his sophomore and junior years to get enough money to keep going what he does during that year is he teaches at what they called the Mexican school it was for Mexican American children largely the children of migrant workers in a little town south of San Antonio called Coutula Texas I wrote that no teacher had ever cared if these kids learned or not this teacher cared he thought for example that it was very important to learn English he didn't want them speaking in Spanish so if he heard a boy speaking in Spanish he would spank him if there was a girl speaking in Spanish he'd give her a tongue so you could say this was just an example of Lyndon Johnson in whatever job he had trying to best do the best job possible which was a characteristic of

Johnson but I felt that this was something more and the reason I felt I knew it was that he didn't just teach the the children he didn't just teach the children he taught the janitor the janitor his name was Tomas Coronado and he says that Johnson bought him a textbook and every day before and if the school Johnson would sit with him on the steps of the school and he says with a textbook and he said Johnson would pronounce I would repeat Johnson would spell I would repeat now he is president and not many days after he becomes president he's talking to one of his speech writers Richard Goodwin who basically doesn't really believe that Johnson has this passion for civil rights and Johnson says to him you know I swore then that if I ever had the power to help those children I was going to use it he says and I'll tell you a secret now I have the power and I'm going to use it and he sets out to pay us the first drawing civil

rights bill since reconstruction great story there's something at stake for him too I mean this is the landslide linden yes and it's an election yes I'm about that there's a sense of illegitimacy that is always always underneath the surface yes I Johnson knows that he is still distrusted when he takes office he is still distrusted because he's from the south and you know because for 20 years he was on the side of the south and the center you know for 20 years he had a 100% record supporting this supporting the south's position in first in the house of representatives and then in the center he voted against every civil rights bills even against anti lynching bills and he wasn't just another southern vote he was a southern strategist he helped the great southern general Richard Brevoid Russell of Georgia the senator who

had the most I'm not sure we can go quite right I'll stop mostly just curious about about his sense of needing to be gotcha okay he knows that where he's weak is with the liberals in the cities of the north and he really knows that the best way to overcome this feeling of distrust that they have of him is to pass a poverty bill and a civil rights bill so with everything you know with Lyndon Johnson there's always the political side and that's never forgotten but with poverty and civil rights there's always with Lyndon Johnson there is something more a real deep belief a real compassion only a few days into 1964 Johnson has to deliver his first major speech what's at stake for him with the state of the union well he has to make the

presidency his own let's say that 1963 from November 22 to the end he had to continue with Kennedy's thought continuity was the theme keep the nation calm let them know there was somebody in charge but he says right around New Year's Day to a I have to now do something to make the presidency my own and that is why in the first state of the union he adopts a program that had been hinted at and you know begun nebulously under the Kennedy's but nothing really had happened a poverty program when a Kennedy adviser mentions the poverty program to Johnson Johnson says to him that's my kind of program I'll get money for it one way or the other and in the first speech of course what the speech is he says as you will have a film of this too many Americans live on the outskirts of hope because of poverty it's our job to try to cure poverty it's

a great ambition it's a noble ambition you know you say no great it's like saying this is a rich and wealthy nation and I'm going to use the riches and wealth of this nation to help the 30 million people who are really still living in poverty I think it's almost you know it's it's like the codification or the institutionalization of compassion in a government program I mean Johnson is saying this government is going to declare war on poverty it is going to try you know he has it you listen you know it's a it's a grand ambition it's a nobly ambition it's a huge and almost unprecedented ambition in history what he spells out to that Congress he says we're not just going to try to alleviate poverty we're going to try and end it and if you

watch his face you know Johnson hated poverty because of he had grown up in poverty in his boyhood it was the defining in many ways the defining thing about his boyhood the terrible poverty the fact that his family is for the lowest the Johnson ranch had to live the rest of his boyhood in the house at the month they have the month they were afraid the bank would take away from it often there was no food in that house the neighbors had to bring food and cover dishes to the house he hated poverty and when you look at Johnson delivering that speech look at what he says we're going to end squalla we're going to end misery we're going to end unemployment you see this is the fact this is Lyndon Johnson's real face this isn't the face of a Johnson who smiling for the cameras his eyes are narrow his lips are pulled into this tight line it's almost if you don't it's almost a snore when he says too many

Americans live on the outskirts of hope he means it and you know he's looking around this Congress and he looks at some points at the southern senators they're like sitting in two rows right behind the cabinet there these are the men who raised him to power but now he's going to turn on them and pay us a civil rights bill it's a study to see their faces he also you know wraps the poverty program in civil rights that at the end of his speech how do we understand they're connected in an important way well you know part of a grand kind of narrative for Johnson that's right you know excuse me sorry not long after he takes office he says he wants to meet with

the five leaders of the major black organizations it's something because they don't really trust him for example the president of the NAACP Roy Wilkins says you know with he had been dealing with Lyndon Johnson for years and he said with Lyndon Johnson you never know if he was out to lift your heart or to lift your wallet he says but now Johnson you know when he calls him into the you know he doesn't want him in his secretary says should we meet with would you want to meet with them as a group you know Johnson someone said was the greatest salesman one-on-one whoever lived he says no bring them one at a time and he sits them on this couch the couch is very soft so they sink down he's sitting in a rocker which is higher than the couch to begin with so he's towering over these men and Wilkins said it was the first time he ever leaned

into me and I felt those mesmerizing eyes of Texas on me and Wilkins and he tells Wilkins that he if they will help him he will pay us the civil rights bill and they come out of there to a man Wilkins Martin Luther King James former a Whitney Young and a fifth one whose name I know so gay or young farmer King Wilkins so but they look on the Wilkins it's the latest entry in the index there that 488 is the post so I'm sorry about that they come out of there believing in him Wilkins comes out and says I think we have a president who can pass this bill you know Wilkins says Kennedy really believed in the bill he

was wonderful in talking about the bill but I don't know that Kennedy could have passed this bill Lyndon Johnson I have the feeling can pass it in fact Richard Russell the leader of the South says flatly we could have beaten Kennedy on civil rights Kennedy would never have beaten us on civil rights we could have stopped him in the center he says but Lyndon Johnson he says will beat us he says this is a man who uses power he says he'll tear your arm off at the shoulder and beat you over the head with it but he will get this passed we're going to lose right getting back to the state of the Union speech for a second civil rights is in that speech right yes to Johnson and he explains it to these leaders they are very intermingle the war on because he said he basically is saying it's your people are a high percentage of the people who live in poverty what I can do for if I do in the poverty bill with jobs with better

education programs with better health programs with programs for early education like head start they are going to help your people at the same time civil rights is going to help your people to him he has this grant it is you know there are the sides to Lyndon Johnson we can't forget Vietnam but he is the president who has this vision of a vast domestic reform of justice you know Martin Luther King said the moral arc of the universe bends slowly but it bends towards justice in 1964 Lyndon Johnson is trying to bend that arc faster and he lays it out in that state of the Union speech and you honestly I feel can see in his face how much he believes it and clearly the government is the engine he's a new dealer yes yes well yes I mean Johnson I mean the phrase that I used before it is time to write it in

the books of law now that's a very different phrase then let's say some other presidents would use to Johnson something was react you had accomplished something when you wrote it into law when it was there on the statute books we there wasn't just airy talk about the need for civil rights the need for social justice when you institutionalized compassion or justice in the statute books there it was you know Johnson used to say let's say you pass a bill and it's there's a lot wrong with it you know like the first civil rights bill he said but we passed it it's easier easier to go back and fix it the hard thing is to pass it we can always go back and make it better he believed in that with the world is hard and Frank you know since Lincoln no

one did more to do that to help black center mercury than Lyndon Johnson he was the codifier of compassion the person who took compassion and said it's not our job just to talk about it it's our job to pass it great and in terms of you know okay so when this year begins where is the new president of the United States he's down on his ranch in a remote and isolated part of the hill country the hill country of Texas near Stonewall and Johnson City but what is he doing down on this ranch he is laying out a war on poverty a grand social vision he has his chief economists come down there Kermit Gordon comes down and Walter he a chairman of the council of economic advisors Kermit

Gordon is the budget chief he says we're gonna have a war on poverty I need specific programs I don't basically want airy baloney I want programs here if you I'm giving you a billion dollars that's a lot of money he says I'm allocating a billion dollars to this program and I won't give it to you I'll take it away if you don't get programs it's just something to say at night they're staying in a guest house it's a little it's a green frame wooden house so they're sitting there maybe with Johnson's a Jack Valente a lot just picture these two economists in their their suits and their jackets sitting there and and the president will appear in the doorway in his boots and his ranch's vest wanting to know what they're doing he himself said Johnson is quite a scene the cows were grazing just outside the window and inside with these economists and Johnson is going to get action and you know it's really something they draw up some these they fly back to Washington there's no more of

this come back to me in a couple of weeks business Johnson has deadlines they fly back to Washington I forget to date like January 2nd or something like that and they save to the budget bureau we've got to have specific programs by January 6th that's your deadline the clothes of business January 6th you got to have them and then when these proposals come in they are sent to each cabinet member for the to see how the proposals would work in the area yes can't go into it in too much oh okay but tell me about how