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U.S Presidents — Lyndon B. Johnson

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U.S Presidents — Lyndon B. Johnson

OVERVIEW
Name: Lyndon B. Johnson
President: # 36
Term Number(s): 44, 45
Term Length: 5.2
Took Office: November 22, 1963
Left Office: January 20, 1969
Age when Elected: 55
Party: Democratic
Also Known As: "LBJ"

BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Lyndon B. Johnson
Education: Southwest Texas State Teachers' College
Occupation: Teacher, Career politician
Other Governmental Position: 37th Vice President of the United States, 11th United States Senate Majority Leader, 9th United States Senate Minority Leader, 10th United States Senate Majority Whip, United States Senator from Texas, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 10th District.
Military Service: Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy
Religion: Disciples of Christ
Spouse(s): Claudia Taylor (Lady Bird) Johnson (November 17, 1934)
Children: Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, Luci Baines Johnson Turpin
Birthdate: August 27, 1908
Birthplace: Stonewall, Texas
Deathdate: January 22, 1973
Deathplace: Stonewall, Texas
Age at Death: 64
Cause of Death: heart attack
Place of Internment: Johnson Family Cemetery in Stonewall, Texas
Signature
Signature

SECOND ELECTION
Election: Not elected President, succeeded President John F. Kennedy

SECOND ELECTION
Election Year: 1964
Main Opponent: Barry Goldwater
Voter Participation: 61.70%
 ElectoralPopularStates1964 Election
Click for larger image
Winner486 (90.50%)43,127,041 (61.10%)44+DC
Main Opponent52 (9.67%)27,175,754 (38.50%)6
total53870,651,29850+DC

CABINET AND COURT APPOINTMENTS
Vice President: vacant, Hubert Humphrey
Secretary of State: Dean Rusk (1963–1969)
Secretary of the Treasury: C. Douglas Dillon (1963–1965), Henry H. Fowler (1965–1968), Joseph W. Barr (1968–1969)
Secretary of Defense: Robert McNamara (1963–1968), Clark M. Clifford (1968–1969)
Secretary of the Interior: Stewart Lee Udall (1963–1969)
Secretary of Agriculture: Orville Lothrop Freeman (1963–1969)
Secretary of Commerce: Luther Hartwell Hodges (1963–1965), John Thomas Connor (1965–1967), Alexander Buel Trowbridge (1967–1968), Cyrus Rowlett Smith (1968–1969)
Secretary of Labor: W. Willard Wirtz (1963–1969)
Attorney General: Robert F. Kennedy (1963–1964), Nicholas Katzenbach (1964–1966), Ramsey Clark (1966–1969)
Postmaster General: John A. Gronouski (1963–1965), Larry O'Brien (1965–1968), W. Marvin Watson (1968–1969)
Supreme Court Assignments: Abe Fortas (1965), Thurgood Marshall (1967)

PRESIDENT'S BIOGRAPHY
Lyndon B. Johnson
"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 Vietnam.

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 of Representatives, 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 Johnson 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.

Lyndon B. Johnson
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, and 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 Vietnam. 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 Vietnam 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; Johnson did not live to see them successful, but died suddenly of a heart attack at his Texas ranch on January 22, 1973.

FIRST LADY'S BIOGRAPHY
Claudia Taylor (Lady Bird) Johnson
Claudia Taylor (Lady Bird) Johnson
Christened Claudia alta Taylor when she was born in a country mansion near Karnack, Texas, she received her nickname "Lady Bird" as a small child; and as Lady Bird she was known and loved throughout America. Perhaps that name was prophetic, as there has seldom been a first lady so attuned to nature and the importance of conserving the environment.

Her mother, Minnie Pattillo Taylor, died when Lady Bird was five, so she was reared by her father, her aunt, and family servants. From her father, Thomas Jefferson Taylor, who had prospered, she learned much about the business world. An excellent student, she also learned to love classical literature. At the University of Texas she earned a bachelor's degree in arts and in journalism.

In 1934 Lady Bird met Lyndon Baines Johnson, then a Congressional secretary visiting Austin on official business; he promptly asked her for a date, which she accepted. He courted her from Washington with letters, telegrams, and telephone calls. Seven weeks later he was back in Texas; he proposed to her and she accepted. In her own words: "Sometimes Lyndon simply takes your breath away." They were married in November 1934.

The years that followed were devoted to Lyndon's political career, with Lady Bird as his partner, confidante, and helpmate. Mrs. Johnson helped keep his Congressional office open during World War II when he volunteered for naval service; and in 1955, when Lyndon had a severe heart attack, she helped his staff keep things running smoothly until he could return to his post as Majority Leader of the Senate. He once remarked that voters "would happily have elected her over me."

After repeated miscarriages, Mrs. Johnson gave birth to Lynda Bird (Mrs. Charles S. Robb) in 1944; Luci Baines (Mrs. Ian Turpin) was born three years later.

In the election of 1960, Lady Bird successfully stumped for Democratic candidates across 35,000 miles of campaign trail. As wife of the vice president, Mrs. Johnson became an ambassador of goodwill by visiting 33 foreign countries. Moving to the White House after Kennedy's murder, she did her best to ease a painful transition. She soon set her own stamp of Texas hospitality on social events, but these were not her chief concern. She created a First Lady's Committee for a More Beautiful Capital, then expanded her program to include the entire nation. She took a highly active part in her husband's war-on-poverty program, especially the Head Start project for preschool children.

When the presidential term ended, the Johnsons returned to Texas, where he died in 1973. Mrs. Johnson's White House Diary, published in 1970, and a 1981 documentary film, The First Lady, A Portrait of Lady Bird Johnson, give sensitive and detailed views of her contributions to the president's Great Society administration.

Lady Bird lead a life devoted to her husband's memory, her children, and seven grandchildren. She supported causes dear to her, notably the National Wildflower Research Center, which she founded in 1982, and The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. She also served on the Board of the National Geographic Society as a trustee emeritus. Mrs. Johnson died at home in Austin on July 11, 2007.

MAJOR EVENTS
1963–1969: Vietnam Conflict intensifies.
1964: Civil Rights Act is passed by Congress; landmark act prohibiting racial segregation in the workplace and in schools.
1964: The poll tax is outlawed by the Twenty-fourth Amendment.
1965: Medicare and Medicaid are established.
1967: Twenty-fifth Amendment is ratified. It designates the order of succession for the presidency.
1968: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated.
1968: Robert Kennedy is assassinated.
1968: The U.S.S. Pueblo is captured by DPRK (North Korea) in the Pueblo Incident.

TRIVIA
1. Lyndon Johnson was the first president to fly around the world visiting other governments.
2. Johnson was a heavy smoker and had suffered two major heart attacks before becoming president at the age of fifty-five.
3. Johnson loved soda. He was such a big fan of Fresca that in the Oval Office, he had a fountain installed that would dispense the soda at the push of a button.

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