Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War

Today we will reflect on the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson, as told in
Doris Kearns’ award-winning biography. We ponder:
Why did the Civil Rights movement gain traction during the 1950’s? What
part did the Supreme Court Brown decision play?
When did the Democrats and Republicans control the House, Senate, and
Presidency during the postwar era after World War II?
Did LBJ only support Civil Rights when it was politically expedient during
his Presidency, or did he support Civil Rights throughout his political
career?
Why did the American presence in Vietnam escalate? Why did LBJ try so
hard to win the War in Vietnam, and how did it help doom his
Presidency?

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video.
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LBJ Presidency

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Lyndon Johnson’s father was a small-time farmer and merchant who
dabbled in local politics. His mother Rebekah encouraged him to excel in
school and attend college to make a difference in the world. After being
involved in student politics he served as an aide to a local Congressman,
he used these connections to head the Texas branch of the National
Youth Organization, a newly created New Deal program to employ youth
during the Depression. He leveraged that position to campaign hard for
his open Congressional seat, and after serving in the House he then won
a close race for an open Senate seat. After Eisenhower was elected
President in 1952, LBJ was elected by his fellow Senators as the
Democratic Minority Leader, and he became the Majority Leader when
the Democrats won control of the Senate in the midterm elections of
1954.

Control of House, Senate, and Presidency

When reflecting on LBJ’s political career, it is helpful to know when the
Democrats and Republicans were in control of the Presidency and
Congress. For most of the years LBJ served in public office, the
Democratic Party controlled Congress and the Presidency. When General
Eisenhower was elected President in 1952 the Republicans gained
control of the Senate and the House, but the Democrats regained control
of both houses in the 1954 midterm elections, retaining control when
Eisenhower won reelection in 1956, and they retained their control even
when Nixon won the Presidency in 1968. Also, in 1968 Governor George
Wallace bolted from the Democratic Party and ran for President as a
third-party candidate.

LBJ Becomes Vice President, Then President

Why was Lyndon Jonson unsuccessful in seeking the
Presidency in 1960? He told Doris Kearns that he did
not believe a Southerner could win the Presidency in
that year.

John F Kennedy and VP Lyndon Johnson outside the White House, 1961
Kearns adds that “LBJ
wrongly assumed each
Democratic Senator
controlled the delegates
from his state. While John
Kennedy and his men
crisscrossed the country,
winning primaries,
attending state conventions,
and rounding up delegates,
Johnson remained in his
office in Washington,
expecting somehow to
make the right deals with
the right people.”

LBJ decided to accept Kennedy’s offer of the Vice
Presidency. In part this was because his role would
be diminished, he held real power as the Senate
Majority Leader because Eisenhower was a passive
president, especially permitting LBJ to play a
leadership role on civil rights issues. Plus, he felt that
he could make the Vice Presidency into a more
powerful position. He told a friend, “Power is where
power goes.”

President John
F. Kennedy
with Vice
President
Lyndon B.
Johnson,
Senator Hubert
Humphrey of
Minnesota,
and Guests,
1962

In the beginning, John F Kennedy did try to give
Johnson meaningful tasks, keeping him informed on
major issues, inviting him to staff and Cabinet
meetings and press briefings. However, there was
friction and a cultural barrier between Johnson and
Kennedy’s staff, and Johnson did not want to be in
the limelight. He became more and more withdrawn,
feeling somewhat isolated. LBJ did not like being
only one of many advisors.

President John
F Kennedy and
Vice President
Lyndon Johnson
ten weeks
before JFK’s
assassination,
from LBJ Library
website.

This changed completely twenty-two months after
the Inauguration when John F Kennedy was
assassinated in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963. LBJ
took advantage of the national mood that was
affected by this assassination.

LBJ sworn in as
President on
Air Force One,
witnessed by
Jacqueline
Kennedy, from
LBJ Library
website.

Addressing Congress, LBJ
proclaimed: “No memorial or
eulogy could more eloquently
honor President Kennedy’s
memory more than the
earliest possible passage of
the civil rights bill for which
he fought so long.” “We have
talked about civil rights for
one hundred years or more.
It is time now to write the
next chapter and write it in
the books of law.”

LBJ continued, “Let us put an end to the
teaching and the preaching of hate and evil
and violence. Let us turn away from the
fanatics of the far left and the far right,
from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry,
from those defiant of law and those who
pour venom into our nation’s bloodstream.”
Later he told Doris Kearns that “martyrs
have to die for causes. John Kennedy had
died. But his cause was not really clear. That
was my job. I had to take the dead man’s
program and turn it into a martyr’s cause.
That way Kennedy would live on forever
and so would I.”
Lyndon Baines Johnson and John F Kennedy, 1960.

Kearns notes the “agenda
that John Kennedy set for
his successor: tax
reduction, the civil rights
bill, federal aid to
education, executive action
to improve life in the cities,
medical care for the aged,
and plans for a poverty
program.” And LBJ had a
decade of experience in
coaxing legislation through
Congress.

The Republicans nominated the far-right conservative Barry
Goldwater for President, resulting in one of the largest landslide
victories in history for LBJ in the 1964 Presidential Elections,
which had only been surpassed by FDR. This landslide was
increased by LBJ’s vigorous campaigning, he really wanted to
truly be Landslide Johnson in this campaign, unlike his first
Senate campaign which he won by only eighty-seven votes. This
landslide also increased Democratic control of both houses of
Congress. The Democrats had a two-thirds majority in the
Senate, making filibusters against civil rights legislation more
difficult.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_United_States_presidential_election

LBJ: Passing the Great Society Programs
Lyndon Baines Johnson conferring with Martin Luther King

LBJ knew that his Presidential honeymoon
sweetened by the tragic assassination of JFK would
not last forever. He resolved to feverishly pass as
much civil rights and anti-poverty legislation as
possible, benefiting all classes of society, black and
white. LBJ went to Congress to declare an
“unconditional war on poverty.” “We declare a war
on a domestic enemy which threatens the strength
of our nation and the welfare of our people.”

Doris Kearns remembers, “In the first two
years of his Presidency, LBJ seemed to be
everywhere: calling for new programs and
for action on the old, personally
organizing his shifting congressional
majorities, signing bills, greeting tourists,
settling labor disputes, championing the
blacks, constantly on the phone to
publishers, businessmen, astronauts, farm
leaders, in a working day that began at 7
AM when he watched, simultaneously, the
morning shows of all three networks and
that ended sometime in the early hours of
the next morning.”
Lyndon Baines Johnson, by Elizabeth, Shoumatoff, 1968

Kearns noted that the “Great Society offered
something to everyone:” “Medicare for the old,
educational assistance for the young, tax
rebates for business, a higher minimum wage
for labor, subsidies for farmers, vocational
training for the unskilled, food for the hungry,
housing for the homeless, poverty grants for the
poor, clean highways for commuters, legal
protection for the blacks, improved schooling
for the Indians, rehabilitation for the lame,
higher benefits for the unemployed, reduced
quotas for the immigrants, auto safety for
drivers, pensions for the retired, fair labeling for
consumers, conservation for hikers and
campers, and more and more and more.”

The bureaucracy was so overwhelmed that often the
implementation of all these new programs
languished.
Originally the signing of the Medicare Bill was
scheduled for Washington, but at the last moment
LBJ changed his mind and flew to Independence,
Missouri to sign the bill so former President Truman
could witness the signing, since a similar program
had been defeated when he was president.

Former
president
Truman and
wife Bess at
Johnson's
signing of the
Medicare Bill
in 1965, as
Lady Bird and
Hubert
Humphrey
look on

Kennedy had proposed a major civil rights bill five months
before he was assassinated in late 1963, but it was bottled
up in the Senate in a filibuster. Martin Luther King had
started to turn public opinion with his protests for civil
rights in Birmingham and his famous I Have a Dream
speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. When he became
President, LBJ knew he would need a Republican Senator
to vote for cloture to halt the filibuster, he persuaded
Senator Dirksen to be that key vote.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed by LBJ in July 1964
included provisions to strengthen voting rights for
blacks, desegregate public facilities, forbid
discrimination in public accommodations such as
hotels, motels, restaurants, and theaters, and
strengthen the Civil Rights Commission.

President
Lyndon
Johnson signs
the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.
Among the
guests behind
him is Martin
Luther King.

After his extreme efforts to pass the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, Lyndon Johnson sensed that the public
needed a break before taking up voting rights
legislation. The public needed a breather, and the
administration would be busy implementing the new
law and setting up the new bureaucracy needed to
enforce and administer the new laws. But the events
in Selma changed this calculus.

Bloody Sunday,
Alabama police
attack Selma to
Montgomery
Marchers, 1965.

Martin Luther King and the SCLC were trying to
register voters in Mississippi and Selma, Alabama.
Three students had been lynched and buried alive by
the KKK for registering black voters.

https://www.nrm.org/MT/text/MurderMississippi.html
Murder in
Mississippi,
by Norman
Rockwell,
1965

In Selma, Alabama, marchers faced state troopers,
some with clubs, others on horsebacks, some with
cattle prods, as they attempted on several days, in
several attempts, to march from Selma to the capitol
city of Montgomery to present a list of grievances to
Governor George Wallace. More brutality was
reported when local white supremacist thugs beat
up some white ministers after they participated in
the march, one died in the hospital a few days later.

When Governor Wallace initially sent state troopers
to engage those who were marching on Selma, there
was intense pressure on Lyndon Johnson to call up
federal troops, but he resisted. He sensed that
politically this might make Wallace a states’ rights
martyr, he sensed it would be better to let the march
play out on television.

The 1965 Selma March is
represented by a stamp
featuring a 1965
photograph called Youths
on the Selma March, by
Bruce Davidson

Doris Kearns explains, “When Johnson finally
sent troops to Alabama, the act was
generally regarded, not as an imperious
imposition of federal power, but as a
necessary measure to prevent further
violence. By waiting out his critics and
letting the TV clips make their own
impression on the country, he had
succeeded in persuading most of the
country that he had acted reluctantly and
out of necessity, not because he was anxious
to use federal power against a guilty South.”

Selma was great television, and assisted LBJ’s efforts
to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which he
signed with Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks
looking on. This act prohibited state and local
governments from passing laws restricting the voting
rights of minorities, prohibited literacy tests and
other measures limiting the right of blacks to vote,
and required federal judicial review of proposed
changes to laws regarding voting rights.

President
Lyndon B.
Johnson signs
the Voting
Rights Act,
1965

Martin Luther King then turned his attention to staging protests
in Chicago to publicize the poverty of Northern Negroes and the
substandard multistory housing in the big city ghettoes. Johnson
coordinated his legislative efforts with these protests to
formulate additional civil rights legislation. But Martin Luther
King’s life was cut short when he was assassinated in Memphis
while supporting the black sanitation workers’ strike. Less than a
month after his assassination, LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of
1968 that forbade racial discrimination in renting or selling
homes.

LBJ pushed the Great Society legislation
through Congress in a hurry. Kearns tells us
that “between 1965 and 1968, five hundred
social programs were created, administered
with varying degrees of success. Some
programs, such as Medicare and voting rights,
succeeded admirably; others accomplished far
less than was originally hoped, such as Model
Cities and federal aid to education; while
others proved self-defeating, such as
community action.” “The Great Society was
run by a bureaucracy of one million
employees, charged with implementing more
than four hundred grant-in-aid programs, each
involving dozens of institutions.”

In the beginning, Johnson did establish the Program, Planning, and
Budgeting System to monitor these programs, and considered
government reorganization plans, but these were not effective, as the
concerns of the escalating Vietnam War distracted his attention.
LBJ was frustrated by the media attention that the militant blacks, with
their strange clothes and threatening demeanor, were attracting, though
they appealed to only a small minority of blacks. But what ultimately
derailed the Civil Rights programs were the persistent riots that started in
Harlem and Watts in Los Angeles in 1965 and that accelerated after the
assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968.

Kearns notes that “Watts was the
precursor of more than one
hundred riots that stretched out
for three long summers, leaving
225 people dead, 4,000
wounded, and $112 billion in
property damage.” LBJ was
frustrated that these rioters
would ruin the cause for so many
decent Negroes, preventing
further civil rights legislation.

But LBJ also understood the
root psychology of those who
rioted. He explained to
Kearns, “God knows how
little we have really moved on
this issue, despite all the
fanfare. As I see it, I have
moved the Negro from a D+
to a C-. He is still nowhere,
and he knows it. That is why
he is out in the streets.”

LBJ continues, “Hell, I would be there
too. It was bad enough in the South,
especially from the standpoint of
education, but at least there the Negro
knew he was really loved and cared for,
which he never was in the North, where
children live with rats and have no place
to sleep and come from broken homes
and get rejected from the Army. And
then they look on TV and see all the
promises of a rich country and they
know that some movement is beginning
to take place in their lives, so they begin
to hope for a lot more.”

LBJ added, “No matter how
well you may think you know
a Negro, if you really know
one, there will come the time
when you look at him and see
how deep his bitterness is.”

War in Vietnam Damages LBJ’s Legacy

Politicians of LBJ’s generation remembered the lesson of
Munich when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
surrendered Czechoslovakia to Hitler to avoid another
costly war. Chamberlain proudly proclaimed, “Peace for
our time,” to adoring crowds in London who vividly
remembered the nine million casualties in World War I just
a few decades ago, when a generation of young men
perished in the trenches of France. One year later, Nazi
Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II.

Neville Chamberlain proclaims “Peace in Our Time” after appeasing Hitler at Munich Conference in 1938.

Previously, the United States had fought the brutal
three-year Korean War ending in 1953 with an
armistice, but no peace treaty, with the 38th parallel
separating North and South Korea, which was the
boundary line before the North Koreans attacked.
Although this was a hard-fought war, it was a popular
war, both in America and especially in South Korea.

In contrast, the Vietnam War was more problematic. The geography was more
problematic, much of South Vietnam and Cambodia is jungle, jungle where the
enemy can easily hide, jungle that is difficult for a conquering army to hold.
The political situation in South Vietnam was also problematic. Under Kennedy,
South Vietnam was ruled by the autocratic and devout Catholic, President Diem,
who was very unpopular with his mostly Buddhist citizens. Diem made unpopular
decisions to fend off the guerilla Vietcong fighters, who had support among rural
South Vietnamese peasants, which caused the Americans and many South
Vietnamese to lose confidence in him. In the American-approved coup, Diem was
executed, embarrassing the Americans. All succeeding governments were
successfully painted by the Communists as puppets of the Americans.
If you like, you can read Kearns’ account of LBJ’s lengthy discussion with Senator
Fulbright on the choices confronting him in Vietnam in 1964.

1970 protest at Florida State University.

LBJ explained to Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara: “If I let the Communists
take over South Vietnam, then I would be
seen as a coward and my nation would be
seen as an appeaser and we would both
find it impossible to accomplish anything
for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.”
“If I let Ho Chi Minh,” leader of North
Vietnam, “run through the streets of
Saigon, then I would be doing exactly what
Chamberlain did before World War II.”
“Robert Kennedy would be telling everyone
I had betrayed John Kennedy’s
commitment to South Vietnam.”
Lyndon Johnson signs Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 1964

Unlike the domestic issues he addressed in the Great
Society, LBJ was out of his depth in Vietnam, forced
to rely on the counsel of military leaders who were
only capable of a narrow military focus rather than
the larger questions of whether we could win
politically and diplomatically as well as militarily.
Unfortunately, the recent McCarthy hearings had
purged many competent voices from the State
Department.

Lyndon Johnson
and Robert
McNamara,
Secretary of
Defense,
meeting with
generals in 1965

His military advisors advised large-scale bombing of the industrial base of North
Vietnam, but LBJ chose gradual escalation. He became just as involved in the
running of the war as he did when counting votes for Great Society legislation, but
having the President participate in granular decisions on where and when to bomb
and attack was not helpful in the long run. They fell into the trap of equating
victories with body counts. How do you fight hit-and-run fighters in the jungle? The
American and South Vietnamese would capture a hill in bloody fighting only to
abandon it afterwards, they would enter and exit the battle zones by helicopter.
Sometimes whole villages were destroyed. More and more troops were sent to
Vietnam until they numbered over two hundred thousand. The number of American
soldiers crept up from just 800 in 1960 to 23,000 in 1964 and 185,000 in 1965, and
a whopping half a million in 1966, and the casualties and protests increased at the
same pace. And unfortunately, among the protestors was Martin Luther King.

Lyndon B.
Johnson and
Lady Bird
Johnson visit
with injured
servicemen
returned from
Vietnam, by
Yoichi
Okamoto, 1965

President
Lyndon Johnson
in Vietnam with
General William
Westmoreland
at Cam Ranh
Bay, Vietnam,
by Yoichi
Okamoto, 1967

President
Lyndon
Johnson
meeting
with Martin
Luther King
in the White
House
Cabinet
Room in
1966

Why was LBJ so stubborn in escalating the war?
When his biographer Doris Kearns, who was
herself a Vietnam War protester, challenged him
on his ranch, LBJ shouted at her. “I will not let
you take me backward in time on Vietnam. Fifty
thousand American boys are dead, nothing we
can say can change that fact. Your idea I could
have chosen otherwise rests upon complete
ignorance. For if I had chosen otherwise, I would
have been responsible for starting World War III.
In fact, it was the thought of World War III that
kept me going every day. I saw how long the war
was taking. I knew what it was doing to my
Great Society programs.”

The Tet Offensive, where the North Vietnamese Army went for broke in
an all-out assault across Vietnam, changed the course of the war. The
major cities of South Vietnam, including the capital Saigon, were
attacked, as well as rural areas along the entire front. From a solely
military perspective, though massive casualties were suffered by both
sides, the offensive was a failure. The Communists hoped to spark a
national insurrection, but this did not happen, as the Allied troops proved
far more resilient than expected, and they beat back the communists on
the battlefield. The Vietcong guerilla forces were permanently degraded,
their ranks replenished by regular North Vietnamese soldiers.

Civilians sort
through the
ruins of their
homes in
Cholon, the
heavily
damaged
Chinese
section of
Saigon

However, the Tet Offensive was horrible television.
The horrible scenes of war were broadcast for all to
see. The American people were shocked to see that
the enemy could launch an attack into the heart of
Saigon, temporarily capturing both the Saigon
television station and the American embassy.
Furthermore, the South Vietnamese citizens were
likewise shocked that the Allied armies could not
protect them from the enemy.

Scenes in Vietnam during Tet offensive.

Kearns remembers that the sudden success
of the Tet Offensive forces against what
“appeared to be impregnable areas deep
with South Vietnam suddenly exposed the
falsity of the administration’s optimistic
progress reports. Until Tet, the Vietcong
fought in jungles or villages, striking quickly
and moving on, their true vitality hidden
and, therefore, more easily concealed from
the American people. Now the news of
captured cities, and the films of skirmishes
shown on the TV screen night after night,
exhibited the other side’s strength.” Smoke in Saigon during Tet Offensive.

Kearns continues, “What happened at
Tet taught the American public an
entirely different lesson from the one
Johnson had intended to convey.” The
approval rating for Johnson’s handling
of the Vietnam War dropped from 40
to 26 percent in six weeks, echoed by
an even greater loss of confidence by
the print and television media. Johnson
lost credibility, “a majority of people
believed he regularly lied to them.”
Smoke in Saigon during Tet Offensive.

There were political rumblings. LBJ
complained to Kearns, “I felt that I was being
chased on all sides by a giant stampede
coming at me from all directions. On one
side, the American people were stampeding
me to do something about Vietnam. On
another side, the inflationary economy was
booming out of control.” “I was being forced
over the edge by rioting blacks,
demonstrating students, marching welfare
mothers, squawking professors, and
hysterical reporters. And then the final
straw.” “Robert Kennedy had openly
announced his intention to reclaim the
throne in the memory of his brother.”

LBJ addressed the American people on
television on March 31, 1968, first
announcing that the massive bombing
campaign against North Vietnam would
be unilaterally halted. The truth was
that the Air Force was running out of
targets. Then he somberly announced,
“There is divisiveness among us all
tonight.” “I do not believe that I should
devote an hour or a day of my time to
any personal partisan causes.”
“Accordingly, I shall not seek, and will
not accept, the nomination of my party
for another term as your President.” President Lyndon Johnson announcing he will not run for
re-election on March 31, 1968.

After this speech, the North Vietnamese agreed to
participate in the Peace Talks, they argued over the
shape of the negotiating table for many years, and
the War in Vietnam drug on for another seven years,
finally ending in 1975. Robert Kennedy was also shot
by an assassin. LBJ accomplished as much as he could
in his remaining months, though the country was in
no mood for further civil rights legislation.

President Lyndon Johnson announcing he will not run for re-election on March 31, 1968.

Although Richard Nixon lost several million votes in
the final weeks of the 1968 campaign, Hubert
Humphrey proved to be a weak candidate. Although
Richard Nixon, who had served as Vice President
under Eisenhower, was elected President handily, the
Republicans did not gain control of Congress.

1968 Presidential Election Results
1968 House Election Results 1968 Senate Election Results

Doris Kearns Goodwin will release an Unfinished Love Story in
April 2024 on her and her late husband’s experiences during the
pivotal decade of the Sixties.

Martin Luther King was the first celebrity civil rights leader,
he was a great orator, and the civil rights protests were
great television, and the brutal violence they faced in the
Deep South helped shift public opinion to reverse the Jim
Crow legal system upholding segregation, discrimination,
and denying blacks the right to vote. We drew on Kearns’
biography to emphasize how Martin Luther King and
Lyndon Johnson were partners in passing the civil rights
legislation, we used different quotes from her in these
reflections.

https://youtu.be/_64FMZ6AlEg https://youtu.be/TuiyFycWE-U
https://youtu.be/_TLt2fQqL4w https://youtu.be/5y0v0tYMdy8

https://youtu.be/PqFAUEXbi8k
https://youtu.be/eMA_7vLYcdM
https://youtu.be/IJ64y3nQA4Q
https://youtu.be/IeKssG8mrlk

What enabled Martin Luther King to successfully
protest for civil rights was the Supreme Court Brown
decision, which was actually a culmination of a
decades-long legal battle by Thurgood Marshall and
other NAACP lawyers. LBJ appointed Thurgood
Marshall to an open seat on the US Supreme Court,
as he had successfully appealed many cases to that
august body.

Doris Kearns’ biography, Lyndon Johnson, An American Dream, was part
autobiography, because one of her main sources were her notes of the hundreds of
hours she interviewed him after his retirement when she lived at his ranch during
her school breaks and summers, both soon after he awoke early in the morning,
and bouncing in his pickup truck as he looked after his sprawling ranch in the
afternoon.
Doris Kearns was part of his administration; she was a White House Harvard intern
until they transferred her to the Labor Department when they discovered she had
been an anti-war protester. LBJ was fond of her, she worked again at the White
House during his last year as President, and she followed him to Texas to draft his
memoirs, a project that stalled and morphed into her biography. Doris Kearns later
married; she is now Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Kearns’ biography has the same weakness that many histories
written soon after the events they describe share: they assume
the reader knows historical details that contemporaries saw on
television. We had to add background information to many of
the events she described that happened over forty years ago.
This is her first biography, and although it is an excellent read,
Kearns too often describes in detail how LBJ was able to pass
legislation and handle the press without tying these descriptions
to actual events. She tends to overemphasize the legislative
process that LBJ managed while underemphasizing the events
themselves.

https://www.meetup.com/Reflections/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg/

Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War

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