36. LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON
1963-1969"A Great Society" for the American people and their
fellow men elsewhere was the vision of Lyndon B. Johnson. In his
first years of office he obtained passage of one of the most
extensive legislative programs in the Nation's history.
Maintaining collective security, he carried on the rapidly
growing struggle to restrain Communist encroachment in Viet Nam.
Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in central Texas, not
far from Johnson City, which his family had helped settle. He
felt the pinch of rural poverty as he grew up, working his way
through Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now known as
Texas State University-San Marcos); he learned compassion for
the poverty of others when he taught students of Mexican
descent.
In 1937 he campaigned successfully for the House of
Representatives on a New Deal platform, effectively aided by his
wife, the former Claudia "Lady Bird" Taylor, whom he had married
in 1934.
During World War II he served briefly in the Navy as a
lieutenant commander, winning a Silver Star in the South
Pacific. After six terms in the House, Johnson was elected to
the Senate in 1948. In 1953, he became the youngest Minority
Leader in Senate history, and the following year, when the
Democrats won control, Majority Leader. With rare skill he
obtained passage of a number of key Eisenhower measures.
In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedy's running
mate, was elected Vice President. On November 22, 1963, when
Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson was sworn in as President.
First he obtained enactment of the measures President Kennedy
had been urging at the time of his death--a new civil rights
bill and a tax cut. Next he urged the Nation "to build a great
society, a place where the meaning of man's life matches the
marvels of man's labor." In 1964, Johnson won the Presidency
with 61 percent of the vote and had the widest popular margin in
American history--more than 15,000,000 votes.
The Great Society program became Johnson's agenda for
Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease,
Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation,
development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against
poverty, control and prevention of crime and delinquency,
removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times
augmenting or amending, rapidly enacted Johnson's
recommendations. Millions of elderly people found succor through
the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act.
Under Johnson, the country made spectacular explorations of
space in a program he had championed since its start. When three
astronauts successfully orbited the moon in December 1968,
Johnson congratulated them: "You've taken ... all of us, all
over the world, into a new era. . . . "
Nevertheless, two overriding crises had been gaining momentum
since 1965. Despite the beginning of new antipoverty and
anti-discrimination programs, unrest and rioting in black
ghettos troubled the Nation. President Johnson steadily exerted
his influence against segregation and on behalf of law and
order, but there was no early solution.
The other crisis arose from Viet Nam. Despite Johnson's
efforts to end Communist aggression and achieve a settlement,
fighting continued. Controversy over the war had become acute by
the end of March 1968, when he limited the bombing of North Viet
Nam in order to initiate negotiations. At the same time, he
startled the world by withdrawing as a candidate for re-election
so that he might devote his full efforts, unimpeded by politics,
to the quest for peace.
When he left office, peace talks were under way; he did not
live to see them successful, but died suddenly of a heart attack
at his Texas ranch on January 22, 1973.
Notes:
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/
