Lyndon Baines Johnson Essay, Research Paper
Lyndon Baines Johnson
(1908-1973)
Johnson was born on Aug. 27, 1908, near Johnson City, Tex., the eldest son of
Sam Ealy Johnson, Jr., and Rebekah Baines Johnson. His father, a struggling farmer and
cattle speculator in the hill country of Texas, provided only an uncertain income for his
family. Politically active, Sam Johnson served five terms in the Texas legislature. His
mother had varied cultural interests and placed high value on education; she was fiercely
ambitious for her children. Johnson attended public schools in Johnson City and received
a B.S. degree from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos. He then
taught for a year in Houston before going to Washington in 1931 as secretary to a
democratic Texas congressman, Richard M. Kleberg. During the next 4 years Johnson
developed a wide network of political contacts in Washington, D.C. On Nov. 17, 1934,
he married Claudia Alta Taylor, known as “Lady Bird.” A warm, intelligent, ambitious
woman, she was a great asset to Johnson’s career. They had two daughters, Lynda Byrd,
born in 1944, and Luci Baines, born in 1947. In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the
White House. Johnson greatly admired the president, who named him, at age 27, to head
the National Youth Administration in Texas. This job, which Johnson held from 1935
to 1937, entailed helping young people obtain employment and schooling. It confirmed
Johnson’s faith in the positive potential of government and won for him a group of
supporters in Texas.
In 1937, Johnson sought and won a Texas seat in Congress, where he championed
public works, reclamation, and public power programs. When war came to Europe he
backed Roosevelt’s efforts to aid the Allies. During World War II he served a brief tour
of active duty with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific (1941-42) but returned to Capitol Hill
when Roosevelt recalled members of Congress from active duty. Johnson continued to
support Roosevelt’s military and foreign-policy programs. During the 1940s, Johnson and
his wife developed profitable business ventures, including a radio station, in Texas.
In 1948 he ran for the U.S. Senate, winning the Democratic party primary by only
87 votes. (This was his second try; in 1941 he had run for the Senate and lost to a
conservative opponent.) The opposition accused him of fraud and tagged him “Landslide
Lyndon.” Although challenged, unsuccessfully, in the courts, he took office in 1949.
Johnson moved quickly into the Senate hierarchy. In 1953 he won the job of Senate
Democratic leader. The next year he was easily re-elected as senator and returned to
Washington as majority leader, a post he held for the next 6 years despite a serious heart
attack in 1955. The Texan proved to be a shrewd, skillful Senate leader. A consistent
opponent of civil rights legislation until 1957, he developed excellent personal
relationships with powerful conservative Southerners. A hard worker, he impressed
colleagues with his attention to the details of legislation and his willingness to
compromise.
In the late 1950s, Johnson began to think seriously of running for the presidency in
1960. His record had been fairly conservative, however. Many Democratic liberals
resented his friendly association with the Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower;
others considered him a tool of wealthy Southwestern gas and oil interests. Either to
soften this image as a conservative or in response to inner conviction, Johnson moved
slightly to the left on some domestic issues, especially on civil rights laws, which he
supported in 1957 and 1960. Although these laws proved ineffective, Johnson had
demonstrated that he was a very resourceful Senate leader.
To many northern Democrats, however, Johnson remained a sectional candidate.
The presidential nomination of 1960 went to Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Kennedy, a northern Roman Catholic, then selected Johnson as his running mate to
balance the Democratic ticket. In November 1960 the Democrats defeated the
Republican candidates, Richard M. Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, by a narrow margin.
Johnson was appointed by Kennedy to head the President’s Committee on Equal
Employment Opportunities, a post that enabled him to work on behalf of blacks and other
minorities. As vice-president, he also undertook some missions abroad, which offered
him some limited insights into international problems.
The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, elevated Johnson
to the White House, where he quickly proved a masterful, reassuring leader in the realm
of domestic affairs. In 1964, Congress passed a tax-reduction law that promised to
promote economic growth and the Economic Opportunity Act, which launched the
program called the War on Poverty. Johnson was especially skillful in securing a strong
Civil Rights Act in 1964. In the years to come it proved to be a vital source of legal
authority against racial and sexual discrimination. In 1964 the Republicans nominated
Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona as their presidential nominee. Goldwater was
an extreme conservative in domestic policy and an advocate of strong military action to
protect American interests in Vietnam. Johnson had increased the number of U.S.
military personnel there from 16,000 at the time of Kennedy’s assassination to nearly
25,000 a year later. Contrasted to Goldwater, however, he seemed a model of restraint.
Johnson, with Hubert H. Humphrey as his running mate, ran a low-key campaign and
overwhelmed Goldwater in the election. The Arizonan won only his home state and five
others in the Deep South.
Johnson’s triumph in 1964 gave him a mandate for the Great Society, as he called
his domestic program. Congress responded by passing the MEDICARE program, which
provided health services to the elderly, approving federal aid to elementary and secondary
education, supplementing the War on Poverty, and creating the Department of Housing
and Urban Development. It also passed another important civil rights law — the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
At this point Johnson began the rapid deepening of U.S. involvement in Vietnam; as
early as February 1965, U.S. planes began to bomb North Vietnam. American troop
strength in Vietnam increased to more than 180,000 by the end of the year and to 500,000
by 1968. Many influences led Johnson to such a policy . Among them were personal
factors such as his temperamental activism, faith in U.S. military power, and staunch
anti-communism. These qualities also led him to intervene militarily in the Dominican
Republic — allegedly to stop a Communist takeover — in April 1965. Like many
Americans who recalled the “appeasement” of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Johnson
thought the United States must be firm or incur a loss of credibility.
While the nation became deeply involved in Vietnam, racial tension sharpened at
home, culminating in widespread urban race riots between 1965 and 1968. The
breakdown of the interracial civil rights movement, together with the imperfections of
some of Johnson’s Great Society programs, resulted in Republican gains in the 1966
elections and effectively thwarted Johnson’s hope s for further congressional cooperation.
It was the policy of military escalation in Vietnam, however, that proved to be
Johnson’s undoing as president. It deflected attention from domestic concerns, resulted in
sharp inflation, and prompted rising criticism, especially among young, draft-aged people.
Escalation also failed to win the war. The drawn-out struggle made Johnson even more
secretive, dogmatic, and hypersensitive to criticism. His usually sure political instincts
were failing.
The New Hampshire presidential primary of 1968, in which the anti-war candidate
Eugene McCarthy made a strong showing, revealed the dwindling of Johnson’s support.
Some of Johnson’s closest advisors now began to counsel a de-escalation policy in
Vietnam. Confronted by mounting opposition, Johnson made two surprise
announcements on Mar. 31, 1968: he would stop the bombing in most of North Vietnam
and seek a negotiated end to the war, and he would no t run for re-election.
Johnson’s influence thereafter remained strong enough to dictate the nomination of
Vice-President Humphrey, who had supported the war, as the Democratic presidential
candidate for the 1968 election. Although Johnson stopped all bombing of the North on
November 1, he failed to make real concessions at the peace table, and the war dragged
on. Humphrey lost in a close race with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon.
After stepping down from the presidency in January 1969, Johnson returned to his
ranch in Texas. There he and his aides prepared his memoirs, which were published in
1971 as The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969. He also
supervised construction of the Johnson presidential library in Austin. Johnson died on
Jan. 22, 1973, 5 days before the conclusion of the treaty by which the United States
withdrew from Vietnam.
Bibliography
REFERENCES
Evans, Rowland, and Novak, Robert, Lyndon B. Johnson, The Exercise of Power : A
Political Biography (1966);
Geyelin, Philip, Lyndon B. Johnson and the World (1966);
Goldman, Eric F., The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson (1969);
Kearns, Doris, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1976).