LBJ: The 2012 Dole Presidential Lecture Series, Part One

from the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas k pr presents lbj and the presidency and j mcintyre and today on k pr present a look at our thirty six president lyndon b johnson with mark up to grove director of the lbj presidential library and museum in austin texas if the first in this year's two part though presidential lecture series hosted by bill lacy director of the dole institute of politics join us next sunday for the second part of a car thirty seven president richard nixon featuring john andrews and lee heavner for where speechwriters for nixon but today we'll hear from mark up the growth author of the new biography indomitable spirit lbj in the presidency growth is also the author of baptism by fire a president who took office in times of crisis and second acts presidential lives and legacies after the white house this event

was reported fifty five thousand african elephants are welcome to the goal is really appreciate your taking the time to join us but we start out with a personal question or a little bit about your upbringing your education your early career with newsweek and i wind up writing wound up writing history and running the lbj library don't forget that this was a it's a great pleasure to be in initiative bearing the name of robert dole was enormous respect for him and really one quick story the love about audio i wrote my first book was called second acts and it's a wire at that moment and your question but there's one story i relate in there about senator dole and he's looking at a picture of gerald ford jimmy carter and richard nixon respectively theyre on a plane going to the funeral of mr stockman awakens

assassinations in decline politically was too dangerous for president reagan or vice president bush to attend so he said adele prison rights and don't know they have the vision for prison and so bill it's just this picture of a gerald ford jimmy carter and richard nixon and says look see no evil hear no evil and evil i came to write books because i was actually i was a salesman i sold advertising space magazine magazines are aware of michael and i ended up going up a ridge leadership ranks i ended up running the west coast for time magazine the business side at running time canada which is a separate edition an operation north of the border assad as an editorial experience when i was there and one time i worked which is citing new center poll

very well i wrote for time magazine covered every presidency from eisenhower through george to be pushing and you became a very dear friend of mine and we work on something called time the presidency together which was this multi media program that manifests itself a new museum exhibit in some features in the magazines of the city so you became very close friends i left time to go to a new york to the publisher of newsweek and then let newsweek ago to of all places and tv to understand how i was a very unsatisfying chapter in my career and in order to keep myself sane intellectually an otherwise i embarked on a side project or as for writing about the lives of former presidents from truman threw clinton and that was all in a book called second acts which is profoundly influenced by his side and in the cement right ah and that led to several other books and ultimately to this job of running the year the lbj library which is i think the

shining star of the presidential library system i felt that way long before i took office his post talk to us a lot about the concept of your book and your use of voices contemporary largely contemporary voices as opposed to traditional kind of narrative know there was it a to lbj named paul hardesty this is a quote this in the book that allowing for shades of subtly there were as many lbj says there were people who knew him nobody saw the same and treat everybody differently which is why in part he was such an effective legislator he influenced people so that everyone saw a different man and he had such a broad character and he was it's so many characters as john connally was a very dear friend of other which isn't actually had worked as an aide lbj said there's no adjective you can find an addiction or that

doesn't adequately describe lyndon johnson and the problem was that it what i've read biographies of lbj they will do well in the most negative aspects of his character and you can do that and construct a factually accurate and very compelling account of who this man was and what he meant but it's not about an inch in order to keep myself balance and it do to make sure that the portrait was even handed i looked at multiple voices and and when you see here this chorus of voices i think you get an accurate view of who this man was and talk a little bit about how you structured the book it's it's largely chronological begins work begins talking about the mystery of this man everybody who knew him everybody i know who knew him talk to get to talk about how complex his character was and how they might have known and very well or spend a lot of time with him but he still remains a mystery in fact labor justice which

you're made a mystery to her well after she was he passed away she would say and so i think again it was poorly get multiple boards but it was also important here johnson sports are being candid interviews and a word man because johnson was constructed this or contrived this personality when he was a cameron from him or microphone that he thought was president but as his side you i just mentioned earlier said it was sort of a nervous about at the harvard faculty staff and therefore very un john sony so it's hard to get him in his authentic voice you really get a sense of who he was but you can really do that effectively through the telephone conversations of his administration and no one had ever use those conversations through a narrative that tells the story of the administration so again not all you're here in this book the people from the people who knew in aids in adversaries

and friends and enemies and family members and so forth but you also hear johnson in his own words doing the business of his presidency the president would show up very abruptly in the spotlight with the assassination of president kennedy in nineteen sixty three on how did he perform what did he what steps did the meaning we take what were his objectives that he went about immediately in the aftermath of that terrible day he was probably and most people don't know this but it was probably the most acquit to to steer the country passed that tragedy for a variety of reasons number one his resume he had been a member of the house of representatives he had been a senator and the minority leader in the majority leader probably the most powerful majority leader certainly the twentieth century perhaps in the history of this and if course been vice president but moreover he had the qualities of a great crisis manager there's

a there's a quote that really from liz carpenter was an aide to president johnson and they were coming back on that airplane and she recalls an incident where she was with clinton labor johnson win win just was vice president and they were in arizona believe and mrs johnson's brother had died very suddenly and immediately got on the phone he started handling the crisis and this is just a sad to lose gardeners are off handedly win with the goodman a heroin crisis and that phrase was turning around in her head the entire time you're on that very quick flight from dallas back to washington dc in the wake of the tragedy and she said i realized then the discussion was never without a president and the ensuing days he reached out to walt of that the leaders in this country that the union leaders that the senate and house leaders civil rights leaders a clerical with everybody

and ensure that there was unity in the wake of the crisis is a great phone conversation it's not actually although there are several with it with martin luther king and he and he's just hear him any so effective at conveying what has happened that the tragedy and how he needs more than ever for americans to do not and he needs to do business with i need to do business with more we need to get more accu of ideas come to washington and kids as you know the best thing you can do with president is he could enact some of the progressive policies that president kennedy sought to institute and says martin on their support will ensure it did exactly that what were his immediate looking ahead to the election in nineteen sixty four and a contest with the way for the eventual nominee being barry goldwater mean what he'd be during that election year didn't really get very

much done during that year was there did everything really come after the election i think that he did get something done and and and the biggest thing he got done i mention martin luther king was the paso rights act of nineteen sixty four we had had no meaningful civil rights legislation in this country for oh almost a hundred years since reconstruction nothing nothing was there to civil rights bill that were passed by the civil rights act of nineteen fifty seven civil rights act of nineteen sixty lyndon johnson was pivotal above them but they were largely toothless the only way to get through if they were largely impotent and what he did but that lbj felt there were reports of all but when nineteen sixty four roll around and he gets played frankly the tragedy of john f kennedy's assassination he did so immediately house and there's a very poignant scene which i do relate book where our richard russell who was a friend and mentor to him in the senate comes into the oval office and they have a very very intensely

and russell is a fierce opponent of this legislation a nose that johnson is the one guy who can get past the reasons i'm sure we'll talk about in a moment but he says eleven you can get this was the president's going to present that you can give this legislation you i have the legislative process and i don't think anybody but you get a warrant if you do you will lose with the deep south to the republican party you'll probably lose the collection ninety six and johnson was inside that very closely require and replies that if that's the price i will gladly pay that's remarkable thing when you're considering its election we think of they're there are many misconceptions about about johnson and i'd like to give a warts and all portrait but most people thought he was a power among any didn't wield power

very very effective but to willingly look at the presidential election in nineteen sixty four i know you dethrone the bounce back passes away this question is remarkably politically courageous thing to do and that's exactly what he did so he did use the the tragedy of of our fallen leader he would say they're worried that capacity did so up to get a tax a cot past two and that really helped keynesians were big big supporters of that because it helped the economy to move again obviously civil rights is an area they just said that desertion exploration one of the things that i found fascinating was the story that carson and john lewis who actually received the leadership right here and two thousand seven told about seeing martin luther king being literally brought tears by johnson signing in a nationally televised speech we shall overcome yeah that was a year ago march fifteenth nineteen sixty

four i was two months after mercer about to several days right after the bloody events of some invisible sole rights struggle and it just was a master at exploiting tragedy to get something done i dont imagine he exploited that tragedy of john f kennedy gets civil rights act went to sixty four past he supported the events of selma to get the voting rights act of nineteen sixty five which is the most important wall for for civil rights he gave people of color the power of about which fundamentally changed the situation for african americans and other people of color in this country and he exploited the the death of moral decay or get the civil rights act of nineteen sixty eight when a fair housing act passed so that's the triumvirate the civil rights legislation and they were all they all got through in the wake of something to distract some some positive things that positive but that speech you mentioned bill is really important lbj went before

congress again after the events of song and he said and i quote i speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy he was not a great orator order but that night he was enormously effect a moral basis it when talking about the situation the people of color face in this country is and we shall overcome and for anyone who lives in the civil rights you're you know that that was a quote from the negro spiritual which the session became the anthem of the civil rights movement and for african americans particular who had been fighting the struggle for civil rights to hear the president of the united states under those words was enormous victory so john lewis as you mentioned bill was listening to the speech in alabama with martin king and he heard that i was the only time ever song cry mr luther

king said afterwards you know we will conduct a smart we will complete this march we will have voting rights and we shall overcome how important was the president's landslide win in six to sixty for what he was able to accomplish in the next couple years and i don't know that i i think it helped get to that point he won by the largest margin of any president in history that sixty one percent of the popular vote against ago or an election in sixty four i'd i think it was it was a portly bearded man that i think would've been impossible for anyone to defeat him barry goldwater's probably not the best candidate for the general election it would probably have been much better to have nominated for the republicans to win the middle swath of was far more palatable to a general voter but not but he did he did when you watched by large margins and if you look at what he did in nineteen sixty five which is monumental just a new great some

of its effect on an inaccurate ad oppressed by saying in my office at the lbj library shadow box and it contains all of the pens that lbj used to sign bills into walt rather coarse and that one year nineteen sixty four and in that one box your viola elementary and secondary education act which is federal aid or aid education first time ever have higher education act same thing for free college as federal aid to college which fundamentally increases my school and college graduation rates yet the immigration act in nineteen sixty five the most sweeping immigration reform we've ever had in our history of the voting rights act which i just mention you're high we'd have occasion clean air clean water medicare the national endowment for the humanities and the nationality art on or an aunt in one single year when he realized that he had to get it done if he was going to enact the great society which was his words for the europe which he and bar that he was connected to and when

he said that when a president in his first year as a giraffe thereafter his warm and he exploited that period as a giraffe and if you see what he accomplished it is not i don't think that there is there's certainly no year the pave the way police legislative it to modern america what nineteen sixty five and i don't think there's any more important or legislatively with the possible exception of ninety three three which is that in the first year of the new deal i talk a little bit about how he crafted the strategy in people who use to help and others there's at least one or even two instances in the book of places war ii called experts in the room and said come and walk the warner can sit in here and figure this out talk a little bit about his style but also about kind of a grand strategy behind that nineteen sixty four yet debate that pits the year there's something called the johnson treat it as a picture in my book which is worse than

usual by the book please look at this picture you see president johnson like a snake over among groups talking to aid for tsarnaev would sort of back up like this and lbj is towering over alleging sixty three inches tall and he used his physicality but moreover he used his knowledge of human nature to read what you're hot buttons might be and bill scott but it might be different from my album hot button which might be different from yours and johnson and he knew what would take for anyone to say yes he just understood in principle what that was selected mean flattery beckoning you know threatening somebody that could mean cajoling and that could be anything it could be quid pro quo for bank promises he just knew how to get them and i think that's what made him the most effective legislator this time he had that gift to read people really affected

you thank god our kids been a moment tell us a little bit about his decision not seek reelection that's up march thirty first nineteen sixty eight a b j makes a speech in which he announces to a shock nation that i will not seek i will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president i think anyone who lived through that type of almost simon those words immediately and because my guess is it was probably a shock to you as it was to most americans the a large that the perception is they know that he really was defeated by it now that he's largely in battle the beleaguered by the war and he sir way the white flight and an audi that's not quite at the reason he stepped out primarily was helpfully hit a genetically we car and he was conscious of the fact that his grandfather and

father had both died of heart ailments in their early sixties and he himself has had a massive heart attack nearly fatal in nineteen fifty five so he always did it literally had a heavy heart and he was pretty sure to remain in office too long that he would have a health crisis and he didn't want to put the country through that he saw what happened when fdr was ailing in his final days and adopt and he knew what had happened when woodrow wilson was paralyzed wants it didn't want to do that so he thought long and hard about not running in nineteen sixty four was people don't realize that this is just convinced the mother was up in nineteen sixty eight he realized he was done any made that decision well before the tet offensive in nineteen sixty eight he made that decision the summer of nineteen sixty seven to convene a small group of close advisers including labor johnson john kent county colorado and it made the city it wasn't a radical but he was pretty firm his

money was that was going to do it i think what put him over the edge probably was the tenth and a fact that he wanted to spend the balance of his presidential term trying to get the north vietnamese and the south vietnamese to the bargain table in order to wage an honorable peace in vietnam another misconception about this president is that he was a warm it was he desperately wanted to find a way out of vietnam if i may though there are two phone conversations they're very talented that i relayed in the book about happened on the same day in nineteen sixty four the first is with richard russell a major grower and he asks richard russell what he would do in vietnam and he says what if someone you know if i were in your position i would i would get out sooner that lbj system that's exactly the way because national security

advisor mcgeorge bundy and you could hear the anxiety lbj voice he says what the hell is vietnam war to me was a lot of the skunk i don't have any problems with vietnam they don't have a consequence to me or this this country he says but at the same time if the bowling lanes on your french front porch to ward him off for the next days can be writing your wife in your bed nets we thought about the communist invasion the new nominally worst boston talk about this aspect of the president really is the often the room and i think ultimately vietnam was worth something to lbj because he firmly believed to his dying day that by staving off communist aggression in vietnam he was providing a domino theory from playing out a domino effect rather of playing out in asia and furthermore emboldening the communist since the soviet union and china to take ground in other parts of the world so

ultimately he was preventing more were three he really did believe that how do you think history will ultimately judge has impacts president i think that we're starting to see the tide turned on the historical migrations presence in part because of the legislation mentioned that i look at we talk about civil rights but it bears mentioning again you think about the most fundamental create an american life it is in their declaration of independence which is all men are created equal but there's a contradiction in this country since before our founding we did not honor that most basic of american nothing had happened on that front until lbj pass the civil rights act of nineteen sixty four i imagine the political courage it took to do that but he took the cause for further and in enacting the civil rights act of sixty at the mention of the voting rights act in its pages

sixty five but also more over in doing things like waging war on poverty is remarkable but one out of every five people in this country lived in poverty below the poverty before all the cherry took office when he left that figure had fallen dramatically twelve years medicare was an actor that we could talk about that the value of these programs today to debate the happily happily engage in a debate that but medicare was instituted because one third of all americans over sixty five lived in poverty and were unable to pay their medical bill and it was a phrase that was about often in that times somebody who didn't have the means to play it pay their medical bills will color that they can't win over who reports of the phrase and lyndon johnson would roll up in small town very poor texans know exactly what it did something about medicare other presidents tried fdr truman kennedy and they failed he got it

down i think if you look at social justice in general are which is civil rights of course his legacy as mammoth i don't think anyone competing including in my view it or hamlet the end of course at camp but i think is as we get farther from the vietnam era and passions recent i think that those those conscience of the greats it will continue to resound and he will continue to be in your great president which is what fishing is a great disparity between the way historians of ire with lyndon johnson the general pot historians consider near great presidents in the second fifth of all presidents on a plane with people like harry truman and andrew john andrew jackson and woodrow wilson and just below the pantheon reserve for fdr only game in washington but if you asked the general public about who the best presidents of the last fifty years or of which they're not in

georgia the bush john f kennedy through george the way he writes at just above understudy bush or richard nixon and his beloved in court which is that it's a remarkable disparity i think eventually over time you'll see that gap closed what i think that disparity he ages has a terrible image frankly is it is a vietnam or is it personal reading on monday is partly vietnam though it is and as i write in the book that vietnam flirts with dwight eisenhower and jfk and richard nixon but it clings to lbj by the what i believe in and it's easy to serve saw yet now with a jihad department we're the party fare he did escalate the war but i also think he has this terrible image the first line of my book is history in its most cursory form it's a beauty contest and lyndon johnson would win any beauty

contests he didn't photograph well the best photographed in november and lifting its guard as he remembers and lifting is that if people buy the years everyone remembers that he's got this sort of cowboy cruelty that that we see in him and that is reflected in those pictures he didn't come across well on film he didn't he didn't that didn't cross come across well in on television and the jurors that he saw it said that whenever he he'd be a contrivance presence of personality was this nervous about at the harvard faculty and it's true we didn't do any of those things effective there's a there's a phone conversation you mentioned before we came on stage this work really like i mention the book and it's a hymn he was his own worst enemy from an image perspective and it does is it he called joe hagar the son of the founder and the president of the head or slacks company

and in dallas texas and in this conversation is worthy of saturday night live he custom orders six pairs of pants and he does so in very specific anatomical detail and it's a new rule is that you think oh my god this is the president of the united states and at one point he belts as honorable citizens and at the very it is what one of the covers of but that it can't believe that joe hegarty was on the other no one believes it's a surprising united states as like a caricature at the very land the end of the conversation joins as water worse was in these pants was president says whitehouse put it so i will say in fairness and six hundred and forty two hours of taped phone conversations is present nothing even comes close that level of critically about the same token nobody who knew johnson would deny that he had that scientists percent so

it's a long answer to a short question but i think he still has an image problem in history where he believes he was so well prepared to be president was a match i do think that it was it was his his resume large part i think he was he was in an enormous effective crisis manager in the immediate days of morrow and this might be another misconception bill he understood the way the house and senate worked he understood how to get legislation passed is a master he really got that in ways that his predecessors did not be trusted i think of lbj a lot of people do is that we were deals as big larger than life personality and it was but i don't think he was a we were do you or i think he understood that the three ways you get things done ott in washington and this is a lesson to lawmakers and they their president today is the three cities although he didn't call and this i did one is through crackling as if he

can't get something done work around your own second is to affect some savvy strategy think to get around somehow figure out a way around that situation which he did really effective when i can share an example which i think it says a great show several effectively and secondly it's collegiality if you do work around somebody you might you he writes might want to work with them cross the almanacs keller said don't demonize don't vilify the senate and house police at one time were places where collegiality was the rule day and it finally come from as in most cases if something was fiercely opposed it require compromise so and as barbara said was with her a couple weeks to compromise in today's washington has become a dirty word and that it is that simply the way it

happens and so he understood those things i think that's what a lot of in particular to be an effective legislator and then i asked one more question than will open up the audience q and a handout on asking about jobs or your take on now robert carroll in his work on johnson and how you'd say that your perspective of president johnson's that does i think the bit about carolina that has limited to care i think about robert carroll's portuguese words on one side and i say this that that's what walter cronkite said walter cronkite read the first several once said president johnson has had an evil side we all do i suppose but that was not the full thrust of who the man was john connally said the same thing in one of the things he said to robert carroll was you never paid the bribes whenever you can put a dark twist is something that lbj did get you never see the

good and decent and compassion and i think that that might be true with carrots portrait which in some ways i did this book as an antidote to their eye what my voice to come through a one of the voices of other people come through in or again get an evenhanded perspective on who this man was they're very good if i may yes i mentioned that you are at that there are great examples of how lbj worked around people feel and then if i can just relate one really quickly passed medicare i'm the best opponent that the lbj had with medicare was the american medical association they'd been upheld almost since the very beginning and it was like they were enormously in store powerful lobby wash and so he called in to the ranch which is the western white house lbj spent nearly a fifth of his presence at the lbj ranch end the press was all there and we were waiting to secure out his meeting with the mit lab and lbj

asked the president of the ama if you'd be willing to send doctors to vietnam to tend to the civilian population and the president of the ama says just as the president will do that so lbj immediately calls a press conference to announce its knowing full well the press will ask if the ama will support medicare ninety percent of doctors at that point did not support medicare and early days he has a question he says of course these guys are gonna support medicare they're willing to send doctors to vietnam and put them in harm's way of course these patriots are going to respect the law of the land or put on the spot presently i'm a set of course will support two weeks later ninety five percent of all doctors across american support beck very good ok we have our first question over here i'm just curious on the research that you

do with the presidents after being in the inner circles of george w bush and reading what was in the media the next day and then flying to australia and it being completely inept similarly unrecognizable hello do you own research past presidents to come to such a confident conclusion and we had the tapes and that would be a great way to have is somebody come to in that conclusion without that when the media so influences what people write about with the president's i want i give him i vehemently game and i can't as i said my dad now if i was unveiled i cannot idea because he'd die null and two you actually behind the scenes and something so please give me some confidence on that again what they ask are spry think it takes at least a generation to get an objective perspective or a more objective perspective on the president's tenure in office a great example is is we're

right in with whom ago worked i were talking at dinner about the fact that the media has largely written ronald reagan off as being kind of dim witted and not engaged in and in fact that wasn't true at all and see that come out in the meticulous writing did a round of put all his speeches in the diaries that he that he kept during the course of his is raymond once i thinks things come out in history and you kind of forget that what the media said about the present so things can change over time that's the great luxury we have as historians we have the luxury of time to assess what a president has met i don't think and lbj has been appreciated to the extent that the can and should be given all he accomplished and i think that's largely because i mentioned bill because the shadow of vietnam has

darkened the more positive aspects of his ministration i think again that's starting to change one of the interesting things that marquez in his book that i mentioned at the outset is uses voices to describe the president in people's attitudes yes five pages of single spaced listing of the individuals who he's quoted at various points in the book and i think that that gives us a broader perspective as well long how his contemporaries so if you have a question about your yes oh yes could you we haven't spoken tonight all that robert kennedy and from what i understand the day they first met it was just like a mad dog running a madcap i don't as true or not vick elaborate on the beginning of the relationship and how it continued to degrade over time sure it had to write i think that they were on vinegar from the very beginning is

this we're very very different man and our next person who was an aide to president johnson recently died in the system and norms and wise man and i spoke about this and he said will you know how would you feel if you had been your powerful senate majority leader and for the good of the party you take the vice presidency any of the president's brother would never accomplished anything for himself heaping contempt that the lightweight heaping contempt on the heavy weight how do you feel i think that that might over simplified do to an extent what would lbj said was this he said we could have spent a lifetime trying to get to know one another would never understood there were just too different it was to some degree unfortunate for lbj lot predecessors and gentlemen harry middleton who was the be a speechwriter for lbj is set we went on the

lbj was like will rogers he never met a man who did lie i don't think that's true but i do think that he never met a man who he didn't want the approval is a difference i think he died lamenting the fact that robert kennedy did not approve of him he didn't it didn't like it was contemptuous of him i think that really got to the lbj but i would be they would have ever gonna like what misconceptions though is about his relationship with john f kennedy i think the two of them had great respect they begrudgingly a time for a four four one another and they had a very productive relationship as president and vice president the relations with what the kennedy family in general were pretty solid and robert kennedy was the mark exception to question back here it's been said that as hirsh is a southern gentleman lbj personally wasn't as concern of civil rights movement was more favorably because as legacy of years

to know what your perception of that was i don't buy that i think that he was concerned about political viability and when he was a senator from texas where civil rights is enormously unpopular he could only do so much without upsetting the apple cart in his home state and risking his own reelection you can wield power we don't have any new but when he had the power and he said this in a speech actually out of a tent why i think that he was so deeply committed and part he talked in that in that speech tonight starting to build up that we shall overcome speech he likes experience in his life which is very telling he could afford to finish college of between his junior and senior year so it took a year to top various port mexican american school kids into two attacks a very small town they saw firsthand the ravages of poverty and bigotry and really affected and he related that experience in that speech and he

said i never thought in nineteen twenty seven then that i would have the power to help them those kids and their children and people liked them or this country but i do have that power and lsu around secret i mean do you and use it to get it to stop their mini appointed the first african american member of the county appointed a first ever cared after american just the supreme court and on and on all so i could leave he sincerely believed in the caucus but i do think that before he became president he was worried about select is his political viability is a passage of the passage i read from the book re specifically parks about half pay after the language right here but you have to do small evils to do large good something like that is that is is talking about strauss robert strauss who were was no shrinking violet when it came to power and influence and he says bob's sometimes you

have to be or a demagogue on the little things to get what you want on the big things and about stress considered that a lesson from the master it's what how do you think that his talents in the three c's what you're saying would play out today in the congress where there's not a likely geology d feel like his talents are mainly buttressed by that era he lived in or would he be able to use them effectively in this era as well it's a fair question i think he would lead more than anything else the lack of civility and watch his favorite biblical proverb was from the book a visor which is come let us reason together i think he would be profoundly disappointed by the fact that there is a dearth of reason and a dearth of togetherness in washington today as to how he would function in today's washington again he and i i don't think he could he could function as effectively today's washington certainly as he did in

his time when there were such cooperation was searching me but i do think that because he read people so well understood how we'll talk power so effect of that he would have succeeded in and in large measure says if you go into corporate life i think he could've been steve jobs' he was an enormously mercurial personality and he could be very difficult to work for him as a great stories to share but he he had a vision and he had the year the city for my book an indomitable will in order to see that vision come to fruition and i don't know how that would manifest itself today i think it would've been in some meaningful way what one was just think things about jobs in the tech types and scrap this is the gulf of tonkin resolution that the conventional wisdom is the had

that resolution in his pocket for months and pulled out at an appropriate time and very questionable historic circumstances giving insights on how that decision is made there's a misconception that well yes i don't think he had an xbox i don't think it's something that he necessarily certainly didn't want an escalation of the unknown that is abundantly clear when you when you hear the telephone conversations to protect them but also when you see the reductions in history one of the misconceptions is like a little inside baseball is i think that one thing that database they told congress the white house told kong it's based on intelligence reports is that the us as max was fired on on august second and august fourth of nineteen sixty four william fulbright wholesome in a televised committee meetings for a service committee and where he tested the the truth involved in that the gospel was

it was it was a first for a nationally televised hearings he saw the credibility of the president in fact there were not attacks on august second and on august four and lbj had no way of knowing there was that but there were erroneous reports from asia which said that attacks occurred on august for a fact there were around is because there was a typo in the trends know and that was only learned in two thousand far the people who it was said that cable the intelligence off streets at that table covered their tracks and we wouldn't know it until documents were declassified in two thousand are so if lbj ms led congress it was not intentional there's actually no we could have no i simply don't believe he had that agreement in his pocket question right here and his core where would you place him on the

political spectrum i don't think there's any denying that he was liberal but i was to say that he was a fiscal conservative he was pretty surprised a lot of folks at the last a president to turn a surplus budget before i climbed it in nineteen ninety eight or nineteen ninety nine you know it was lbj in nineteen sixty eight he was deathly fiscal prudence and so i don't know what he would be doing today's america i don't know i really wrestle with that the despair the economic disparity in america with that the budget that we are certainly going to be played with for years and i don't think there's any denial that at least in terms of social policy he's not apologetic so distraught wrote do you think that the fact that the judge's order saying that president johnson was so choose to american policy in american politics but it difficult for him to understand the war policy is somewhat different

that's a great question and i think there a lot of people who would wish that criticism i don't think the lbj what's important know that but the survey seven percent of the american public supported the war when the golf target was all went through in nineteen sixty four and that popularity continues through nineteen sixty six and then the tide started gently determined by sixty seven sixty eight was really divide in this country but he didn't there's there's a memo that i relate and it's a tragic moment was written on september twelfth of nineteen sixty seven this was declassified i believe in two thousand at the world but not too recent and it's written by richard helms the director of the cia and its actually says this president to ask for this but i asked analyst here at the cia to show what might happen the united states in the world if the united states pulled out of it and it does

all these singers and it essentially sets that there would be any major consequence that that yes you would get having faith in the end in the world and in america's leadership but not for that for a wall the real problem would be the having faith in the americans in their leaders an inherently in an lbj and so why he didn't act on them or you never talked about it with anyone to know where i am it certainly read the report it was forty some pages the luminous very substantial video water ports like this it simply didn't act on again it goes back to when i i believe is the carrots a which is that he really believed that he was preventing war a war three from playing out he's very conscious of the lessons of neville chamberlain well it says about him is his own leadership is there will be no men with umbrellas and by that he's pointing to the hapless neville chamberlain goes to

munich in nineteen thirty nine a sensitive to lights in an agreement to that we're always come back to his his home country the united kingdom to reclaim peace in our time we didn't get peace we got more work to do i don't think that lbj got a great deal of dissenting advice as it related to the war in vietnam that her soul was mismanaged in hindsight you can't argue with that but i don't know that he had an alternative until the report came out to get absolution as he saw it in there how do you think history will handle the manner in which he first came to political power the controversy of that election what they do what they referred to the alleged nineteen forty eight which is not his first to a lecture that was it was hidden in the house since nineteen thirty seven he runs for the senate nineteen forty one it run against former governor named patio daniels who's a regular her personality and a flower

sales and he won the election by steely which is not uncommon in texas politics an lbj knew it was stolen from him that was pretty clear it was not clear whether there was there was vote tampering by the just can't i don't think that there was the nineteen forty rolls around then there's an opportunity for him to win a senate seat again he runs against another texas governor this time coke stevenson and in the waning hours of the election you start seeing the tally start mounting for lbj and there's clearly vote tampering by the lbj camp and there's clearly vote tampering by the stevenson camp as well i think that that was simply the price you had to pay in order to gain statewide election in texas that's not excuse but i think that was a pretty common practice at the town so he went to the

senate icon of what they would with a very pejorative nickname landslide lending and the landslide linden i did okay in the senate in a remarkably short period of time and then he turned that nickname on its ear when he got the enormous mandate that joe mentioned in nineteen sixty four i don't know that i think there's no denying that that he stole the election how history looks at it i don't know i would be the first cricket per politician in that respect from the state of texas i just wonder how you reconcile his public image which apparently was the lead party with the other side all of them which made him very effective in getting legislation for iowa problem all mine reconciling those two positions well fred i did too and that i wrote a whole chapter on that are caught nearly everyone in the world is good in it reconciles that public image with

the accomplishments habits of his administration one of the things that bill moyers said to me but because the phrase i kept on turning in my head is how could a human being is flawed as any human vessel create cause us to reach beyond ourselves and such for a quote blood will begin that's what he said and that's what that question that you have to answer with lyndon johnson and i think i try to wrestle that with with that in the chapter interrupt the book it ultimately we would all be pleased to be judged by our words what we say we're are going to do who we say we are lbj is the one guy with bags to be judged by his deeds but if you judge him on his deeds and what he did i think and selfishly for this country and in relation to social justice

it is one of the great leaders of all time but it's very difficult to get there i still can't answer the question this book was a stabbing there one story of a man and talk about some pretty heavy stuff well it's i think people don't realize about lbj is he was an incredibly gifted storyteller and he brought back taxes gift within the white house were ways to get things done us up an earlier bill was he just spun a great new he told a great story and there's a story about speechwriters meeting with him and in his office an and he's reading his speech any race a quote by billy was socrates and societies is a segment called socrates is as scratch input my daddy used to say ha ha you were the last year we also happens to relate to speech writers john

kenneth galbraith sees the president in the oval office and says him as president you need to talk to the american people about because you never bring up the economy and speeches you gotta give the american people a good talking to about the company he says john says isaf notes president talking about the economies like a fellow pin down his own way he says it gives them a warm feeling that no one else knows what the hell you speak you've just heard part of the grove director of the lbj presidential library and museum in austin texas and author of indomitable spirit lbj in the presidency but the gross spoke with bill lacy director of the dole institute of politics at the

university of kansas on april twenty third two thousand twelve it was part of this year's dole presidential lecture series next week we'll hear the second part of that series on lbj successor richard nixon featuring to nixon speechwriters john andrews and we keep there from the standpoint of you and me as speechwriters it's something you try to do as a writer and that was to capture a word picture in a memorable phrase of possible image in the mind that goes with it and he spoke of having seen a little girl with a hand lettered sign that at a campaign stop that said bring us together he understood his charge to be to bring together a divided country it was tough going because those who need to be brought together whether they knew about not all the more particularly willing to be reconciled to each other they the bitterness and the poor isolation over various issues the

domestic and foreign was just two to the ridiculous thought were comfortable maybe an international and relman indeed outside the country than he sometimes didn't homework the village of awkwardness and insecurity i think in some ways it was a person is high school counselor public should not have more than one to politics because he was he always said an introvert extrovert profession but in the international scene hiya gaza abbas that they against the odds he had put the pieces in place for south vietnam to have a fighting chance not assure a chance but a fighting chance to remain a free and relatively democrat independent nation try the juxtaposition of great accomplishment summarily china and this disastrous residue of watergate memory that's part two of the dole presidential lecture series on our thirty seven president richard nixon featuring nixon speechwriters john andrews and lee healers

that's next sunday on k pr prisons i'm kay mac entire k pr prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas