(See p. 92-93 of Schulman)

LBJ’s father had been a Populist. LBJ, as a congressman in the 1930s and 1940s, supported Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. LBJ sympathized with the "little guy," the average person, and wanted to see the prosperity of the rich trickle down to the middle class and the working class and the poor. He wanted to see the promise of economic opportunity and upward mobility become a reality for all Americans, rather than an illusion and a false promise. In 1960 it was estimated that twenty percent of Americans (39.9 million people) lived at or below the poverty level. Johnson understood that there were millions of poor people in America, especially in the South, and especially among racial minorities. For too many people, economic opportunity was "for whites only."

LBJ'S PERSONAL FRAILTIES

LBJ felt that he had been in Kennedy's shadow. So he felt that he had a lot "to prove." LBJ resented the fact that people adored Kennedy, even when Kennedy had been in the Senate. But Kennedy had sponsored and passed almost no legislation at all in the Senate. There was almost nothing that one could point to and say that JFK had accomplished in the Senate. JFK had a reputation for being a playboy while he was in the Senate. LBJ, on the other had, had passed lots of legislation. He had worked his tail off. But people loved Kennedy, and scorned LBJ. LBJ felt that it was terribly unfair. He had worked hard and tried to earn respect. But it eluded him. Kennedy had done nothing, and people idolized him. Kennedy had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He rested on his father's money. LBJ had worked his way up from near poverty. LBJ had grown up among poor whites in east Texas who had no electricity, and no indoor plumbing. His accomplishments were his own. He was not "riding his daddy's coat tails." The Kennedy's went to Harvard. LBJ went to Southwest Teacher's College. LBJ felt acutely the slings and arrows and slights of outrageous fortune. He was jealous. He felt that people looked down on him because he was from a poor background, and was a Southerner. All of these things caused LBJ to have a complex. Whether an inferiority complex or insecurity or whatever, it was there. He felt the need to PROVE himself, and to prove to others that he was as good if not better than the next guy. He wanted to control what was going on. This need to prove himself, as if to prove himself worthy or make people like him, drove his egotism and ambition. He seems to have felt as if people did not like him or love him, and so he would work hard and do things for people to get them to like him. So he became a champion for the poor, for education, for health care. LBJ had a need to prove that he was the greatest president of them all. He would finish what Lincoln had started. He would do more than even FDR had done.

Like many people from humble backgrounds, he resented (was envious of) the rich. He hated the way that maybe rich people looked down on people like him. He would show them...

LBJ also wanted to outshine Kennedy. He would do what Kennedy had not been able to do. He would finish what Kennedy had left undone. LBJ and Robert Kennedy had a visceral dislike for one another. Robert Kennedy evidently did not think that LBJ was "good enough" to be his brother's vice president , or successor. A Kennedy should be president, and by a cruel twist of fate Johnson now sat where John or Robert ought to be. LBJ was paranoid that Robert Kennedy sought to undermine him, so that Robert could win the presidency and continue the Kennedy dynasty. LBJ felt that RFK viewed him as an illegitimate usurper. LBJ was suspicious of anyone who was close to RFK or friends with RFK. LBJ even tried to tape conversations with RFK to get damaging or compromising statements on tape. It is reported that RFK carried a device that would block or interfere with the tape recorders. The "bad blood " between the two men was legendary. J. Edgar Hoover passed along information to LBJ, about RFK, in an effort to ingratiate himself with LBJ and get LBJ to approve Hoover's requests for permission to expand the use of wiretaps (for phones) and listening devices (electronic "bugs" planted in the walls of hotel rooms, etc.) as part of Hoover's campaign against Martin Luther King and others.

DOMESTIC EFFORTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Kennedy had proposed a tax cut, but Congress resisted. Johnson pushed it through the Congress in February 1964. It was for a cut of $10 billion over two years (1964, 1965). He also helped to push Kennedy’s civil rights bill through the Congress, and it became law in July 1964. LBJ asked the Congress to pass the civil rights bill as a tribute to the memory of John Kennedy.

In the state of the union address in January 1964 LBJ declared "war on poverty." His anti-poverty programs were part of "the Great Society." He felt that a great society eradicated poverty and provided opportunity for everyone. And if a rich society could not ameliorate poverty, then how "great" was it really? And for whom?

In August 1964 Congress approved the Economic Opportunity Act, which created the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and gave it $1 billion. OEO included a Job Corps Program (job training for young people ages 16-21), VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and the Head Start Program.

ELECTION OF 1964

In the summer of 1964 the Republicans nominated the very conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona as the presidential nominee. Goldwater seemed to suggest the use of nuclear weapons, and opposed Social Security. He thought it should be abolished or, at the very least, made voluntary. Because he was brutally honest, and did not to appear to be pandering to the voters, he made a campaign appearance in Florida (a state with many senior citizens) and affirmed his opposition to Social Security.

THE TONKIN GULF INCIDENT(S)

LBJ tried to show that he himself was tough on communism. Goldwater called for bombing North Vietnam. In 1964 the US navy was conducting a spy mission off the coast of North Vietnam. Of course the American people did not know that. On August 1 or 2, the destroyer Maddox was engaged in electronic surveillance and was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Maddox returned fire. On the night of August 4^th the Maddox and the Turner Joy reported that they were both under attack. No one saw any hostile ships, but radar and sonar seemed to suggest that enemy torpedoes were being fired. Later the captain of the Maddox reported that the misreading of the sonar might have been due to bad weather.

TONKIN GULF RESOLUTION

Nevertheless, even when LBJ learned that the report of a second attack probably was mistaken, if not just plain false, he went on television to tell the American people in dire tones that American naval vessels had been attacked for no reason in international waters. He asked Congress to authorize the use of force to respond to aggression. Congress swiftly passed the Tonkin Gulf resolution. The Tonkin Gulf resolution of August 1964 authorized the president to take "all necessary measures to repel any armed aggression against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression" in southeast Asia (George Moss, America in the Twentieth Century, 363). LBJ described it as being like grandma's nightshirt or nightdress: "It covered everything." The vote in the House was unanimous. In the Senate, only Wayne Morse (Oregon) and Ernest Gruening of Alaska voted against it (88-2). LBJ could now pose as someone who was tough on communism and "standing up" to the communists, just like Goldwater.

OUTCOME OF THE ELECTION

Next the Democrats tried to paint a picture of Barry Goldwater as some kind of right-wing nut or kook.  The Democrats ran an ad against Goldwater. It only appeared once, and then was pulled off the air. It never mentioned Goldwater by name, but did include the voice of LBJ. In this famous political campaign ad, a little girl is pulling the petals off of a flower. As she pulls them off, a voice begins a count down (from ten). The camera closes in on her eye. At "zero" an atomic bomb detonates, and a mushroom cloud fills the screen. The voice of Lyndon Johnson is heard, describing how we must all learn to live together or we will all be destroyed together, and then a voice says (paraphrase) "Vote for Lyndon Johnson on election day." Although the ad never mentions Goldwater by name, the impression was conveyed that Goldwater was a dangerous fanatic and warmonger who would lead us into World War III. (think of Dr. Strangelove)

On October 21, 1964, just a few weeks before the election, LBJ cast himself as the peace candidate. He said, in Akron, Ohio, "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves." (Moss, ibid, 363). LBJ seemed to reassure the American people that he would not send troops to Vietnam. This was deceptive, insincere, and disingenuous. The American people voted for a candidate who seemed to promise that he would keep us out of war. But like Woodrow Wilson, in the election of 1916, after the election was over the peace candidate did exactly the opposite and led the country into war.

On election day, Johnson won the greatest landslide in history to that point. He won 61% of the vote, with 486 Electoral votes to Goldwater’s 52. Goldwater won only Arizona, and five traditionally Democratic states in the Deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina). White Southerners were angry that LBJ and the Democrats had pushed through the Civil Rights Act, ending segregation in public places. As the Democratic Party became more liberal and supportive of African Americans (which is what Republicans had done in Reconstruction), white Southerners turned to the Republican Party (of ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater and, later, Ronald Reagan). Later Klansman David Duke would turn to the Republican Party. Democrat Strom Thurmond also made the conversion to the Republican Party. The sad and unpalatable truth is that in 1964 Barry Goldwater was the candidate who condoned and made excuses for racism and white supremacy and segregation, and tried to hide these issues behind the convenient shield of "states rights." It was this policy of excusing white racism and segregation, on the part of the right-wing of the Republican Party, in the west (Goldwater of Arizona, Reagan of California, John Tower of Texas ), that made the Republican party attractive to white racists in the South. This "Southern strategy" of an alliance between conservative western Republicans and conservative racist Southern Democrats would be further developed by Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972. Since that time, many white Southerners have switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. In this re-alignment, the liberal Republican political party of Lincoln and Grant has become (transmogrified into) the conservative party of Goldwater, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and David Duke. And the conservative Democratic party of Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson has become the liberal party of John Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, and Jesse Jackson. To put it plainly, the two major parties have reversed polarity. Today, the Republican Party is the conservative party and the Democratic Party is the more liberal party.

The November 1964 election also gave the Democrats commanding majorities in both the House (295-140) and Senate (68-32).

DOMESTIC LEGISLATION

After his landslide election in November 1964, Johnson sought to usher in a second "New Deal." It was called "the Great Society." The War on Poverty was just a part of the Great Society. The Great Society sought to improve the quality of life for everyone, not just the poor. It would embrace access to education and opportunity; the environment; air and water quality; the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts; improving the cities. It would expand upon what liberals had built in FDR’s first New Deal. Armed with a powerful mandate, LBJ pushed a ton of legislation through Congress.

In April 1965 Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). It was landmark legislation that provided federal funding (initially $1 billion) to support elementary and secondary education, including money for textbooks, library materials and special education. Kennedy had tried to get this through Congress but it died in committee in the House of Representatives. Kennedy's proposal did not allow for funding to parochial schools, because of intense opposition from Protestant and Jewish organizations, and because of the Constitutional issue of the separation of church and state. However the Roman Catholic Church opposed federal aid to education if it only went to public schools, and not parochial schools too. LBJ "finessed" the issue. Aid would go to states on the basis of the number of low-income students enrolled in their schools (George Moss, America in the Twentieth Century, p. 357). The funds would be distributed to BOTH public and private schools, and could be used for purposes that were beneficial to both types of schools (textbooks, classroom supplies, audio-visual equipment). In some districts, mobile trailers and other mobile units were purchased that could be moved from one school to another and shared by both public and parochial schools. Or the equipment itself could be moved from school to school. LBJ, as a Protestant Southerner, could make this "concession" to the Roman Catholic Church without it appearing that he was "caving in" to the RC Church just because he was Catholic (which is what JFK's critics would have charged).

Also, in November, 1965, Congress approved the Higher Education Act. It provided money (initially $650 million) for college scholarships (later called the Pell Grants), Guaranteed Student Loans (now called Stafford Loans, even if the student defaults, the Federal Government repays the loan to the bank), and the College Work-Study Program.

The Health Professions Education Act of 1965 provided (HEAL) loans for students in the health professions, namely nursing, medical school, and dental school. The Federal Government guaranteed that the loans would be repaid, even if the student defaulted, so banks did not mind making the loans. LBJ was truly the education president.

Johnson’s greatest domestic achievement, apart from civil rights legislation, was the Medical Care Act (July 1965). Truman had tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to pass medical care legislation and failed. As a gesture to the elderly former president, LBJ flew to Independence, Missouri, to sign the bill with Truman as an honored guest. The Medical Care Act established Medicare and Medicaid. Liberals had been trying to get this since it was dropped from the original Social Security proposal in 1935. Medicare established hospitalization insurance for senior citizens (over age 65), with the option to buy supplemental physicians insurance (for doctor’s visits). Unfortunately, it did not provide a subscription plan for the cost of prescription medication, or eye glasses or dental care. And there were deductibles that some seniors could not afford, even if they were not "poor," because they were on a fixed income. Medicaid was a program for poor persons (need-based) of any age, especially those who qualified for public assistance (welfare). [Care for the elderly, aid for the poor]. The number of persons receiving Medicaid rose from 4 million in 1965 to 24 million in 1975. Hospitals were to be reimbursed for their reasonable costs, and physicians for their "customary fees." How much is reasonable? What is a customary fee, and how much is it? Is an epidermal needle with a pain reliever during pregnancy a reasonable expenditure? Is it medically necessary? What about anti-rejection medications following an organ transplant?

It remained a matter of interpretation just exactly what reasonable and customary meant. With the Federal Government paying the tab, costs rose sharply. The Medicare-Medicaid programs probably did more to improve the quality of life for more people than any program since Social Security. It greatly increased access to health care for the elderly and the poor. However, even today, there are more than 35 million Americans who do not have health insurance. Is it the really the responsibility of employers to provide health benefits for their workers? Is it rational that people are in danger of losing their health coverage just because they lose their job? Is this really the best that a liberal democracy can do? Or does this situation show that liberalism falls short of meeting the full extent of the needs of the American people? What if "liberalism" is just nibbling at problems around the edges? or only deals with half of the problem? or  isn't enough to get the job done?

Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in the summer of 1965, ending the literacy tests and good character tests that kept African Americans from voting on the South.

In 1965 Congress created a cabinet-level Dept. of Housing (Robert Weaver, an African American, appointed 1966). And the Omnibus Housing Act of 1965 provided funding for 240,000 units of public housing, and money ($2.9 billion over four years) for urban renewal (slum demolition and clearance); and (in 1966) money for rent supplements (now called Section-8) for low-income residents. Persons whose income was below a certain level would receive a subsidy from the Federal Government, on a sliding scale, and the Government would pay a portion of their rent (directly to the landlord) and the person would pay a share (the balance). Also in 1966 Congress approved LBJ's request to create a cabinet-level Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Robert Weaver was confirmed as the Secretary of Housing, and became the first Afro-American to serve in a presidential cabinet.

The Immigration Act (1965) ended the discriminatory national origins formula of 1924, which had established high quotas for northern and western Europe and low quotas for the "undesirable" immigrants from Southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Spain) and Eastern Europe (Poland, the Czechs, Slovaks, the Eastern Orthodox people such as the Serbs, Russians, Ukrainians, and eastern European Jews). Instead, preference was given to persons who were relatives or spouses of people who were already here. The Immigration Act of 1965 also repealed the 1924 ban of immigration from Asia (the one loophole in the anti-Asian ban of 1924, introduced after 1940, had been for refugees fleeing communism).

The Appalachian Regional Development Act (1965) provided money ($1 billion) for highway construction, health centers, etc, for Appalachia. This was the poor mountainous areas of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and so forth that were extremely depressed, often with poor roads, few schools, little electricity, and no indoor plumbing. The inhabitants of Appalachia were poor white Southerners, and LBJ very much wanted to do something for them (just as Job Corps primarily benefited people in the cities). Some 17 million people lived in Appalachia.

Subsequent legislation provided money for medical libraries, a National Crime Commission, water quality standards (to combat water pollution), air pollution standards (to combat auto exhausts), the Highway Safety Act (1966) [requiring seat belts in cars), and funding for urban mass transit (Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco, the Metro in Washington, DC, MARTA in Atlanta, 56,000 new buses nationwide). There was also an expanded Food Stamp Program. In 1966 LBJ asked Congress to raise the minimum wage. LBJ also got Congress to approve money for the Law Enforcement Assistance Act (to help train state and local police officers, and buy equipment), and money for drug rehabilitation programs and mental health centers.

In a phrase, the liberal LBJ was like a generous Santa Claus, with something for everyone. In 1960, 22 percent of all Americans lived at or below the poverty level. In 1966 the overall poverty rate was 14.7 percent (12% for whites, and 41.8% for Afro-Americans) [Schulman, p. 190-191]. In 1969 the overall poverty rate had fallen to 12% (9.5% for whites, 32% for Afro-Americans). The absolute NUMBER of persons living in poverty declined from 39.9 million Americans in 1960 to 24 million Americans in 1969. The expanding economy probably had a great deal to do with this, but surely the War on Poverty helped too.

The GNP increased by 25% from 1964 to 1966. Unemployment dropped below 4% in 1965 (Moss, America in the Twentieth Century, 2^nd edition, 359).

The strong economy created more jobs. But there had been 39.9 million poor people in America in 1960. Could the one fourth of the American people (about 22%) who were living in poverty be raised up without the three-fourths, who were well-off, making some sacrifice--without individual or corporate tax increases to pay for new services and programs, without a redistribution of wealth? LBJ's Great Society seemed to promise uplift without it costing anyone anything--without requiring any pain, without any discomfort. In this respect, it promised more than it could deliver. Maybe it promised more than American liberalism can deliver, or more than American society can deliver.

INTERRUPTION: VIETNAM

In the autumn of 1964 Vietnam was on the verge of collapse. The regime did not have the support of its own people. The elite in South Vietnam, in the cities, was westernized, and assimilated, and Catholic. The masses of the people were Buddhists, and peasants, in the countryside. The masses favored Ho Chi Minh. The conflict in Vietnam was a civil war, as Vietnamese insurgents FROM THE SOUTH received support from infiltrators FROM THE NORTH. In 1861 the Union did not stand by and peacefully allow the South (Confederacy) to secede and form an independent country. The Union fought a war to stop secession. In similar fashion, in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese and southern Unionists fought to bring down the secessionist, artificial, puppet government of "South Vietnam." The difference was that Vietnam had been divided BY THE FRENCH during the period of colonial occupation (1860s-1954), and the Vietnamese were trying to put a divided country back together again.

By spring 1965 it seemed that LBJ had three choices: (1) send in troops to "save" South Vietnam (2) enter negotiations to create a coalition government that would include the Communists (3) withdraw (abandon the misadventure in South Vietnam). To LBJ, the option of a coalition government was just a slow version of withdrawal, because everyone knew that the Vietnamese Communists would eventually dominate any coalition government.

One of the fundamental problems was that the Vietnamese nationalists were no more willing to accept a separate and independent South Vietnam than Lincoln and Grant and Sherman had been willing to accept a separate and independent Confederate States of America in the American South. But whereas the US Government understood the determination of white Americans to keep America together as one country, from 1861-65, white America somehow could not understand the determination of yellow Asian people in Vietnam to keep their country together as one country--maybe because the Vietnamese were Communists; maybe because the Vietnamese were not white. It is hard to say how much of this American blindness was due to anti-communism, and how much of it was due to some form of racism (white supremacy) that demeans and dismisses and minimizes the aspirations of non-white people.

VIETNAM VERSUS GREAT SOCIETY

Tragically, LBJ made the decision to send combat troops into Vietnam in March 1965. Unfortunately, the war in Vietnam cost billions, and eventually LBJ came to see that there was not money for BOTH "guns and butter." The war began to siphon off the money that LBJ, in his heart, wanted for his domestic programs. The war and the Great Society competed for the same dollars. But which was the priority? The Cold War? Or liberalism (expansion of the general welfare state)? And even when LBJ saw that there might not be enough money for both the Great Society and the war in Vietnam, he hid the truth from the American people.

From July 1, 1965 to June 30, 1966 the Vietnam war cost $6 billion (Allen Matusow, Unraveling of America, p. 157). Inflation began to rise. LBJ feared that if he asked Congress to raise taxes to pay for the war, conservatives would cut his social programs. LBJ tried to have both, and tried to hide the truth. Eventually it would catch up with him.

From July 1966 to June 1967 the War cost $20 billion, and the annual deficit was $7 billion. Between 1965 and 1968 America lost nearly a thousand fixed-wing aircraft, worth $6 billion (Moss, America in the Twentieth Century, 365).

The President’s Keynesian advisors begged him to raise taxes to pay for the mounting deficits. The Federal Reserve tightened credit, which drove up interest rates. By August 1967 LBJ was forced to ask Congress for a tax hike in the form of a TEN PERCENT tax surcharge (to take effect in 1968)! Corporations and individuals would pay their regular taxes, and then add an additional ten percent on top of that. Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and other conservatives in the Congress,  forced Johnson to agree to cut spending by $6 billion (Matusow, p. 170) in order to get Congress to approve the tax hike.

The ten percent surcharge had to be extended to 1969. Martin Luther King condemned the war in April 1967 and said that the promises of the Great Society had been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam. The money that liberals wanted for domestic programs was being devoured by the war. From the 1950s, when the US began footing the bill for the French in Vietnam, until 1975, when Saigon fell, the war in Vietnam cost more than $140 BILLION (World Almanac, 1994, p. 705).

The War on Poverty became a casualty of the war in Vietnam. The war wrecked the economy, and created huge deficits.

CONCLUSION

The American defeat in Vietnam, with 60,000 American lives lost, destroyed the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. He had he most impressive domestic agenda of any president since FDR. He gave the country Medicare, Medicaid, money for college education and medical education, and Head Start. He pushed John Kennedy’s civil rights bill through Congress and ended segregation in public accommodations and discrimination in employment on the basis or race, sex, religion and national origin. He pushed the Voting Rights Act through Congress to end the literacy tests in the South. He did more for civil rights and racial equality than any president since Lincoln.

JFK became a martyr. In death, he became beloved. Kennedy became the president that we loved, the one who could do no wrong. Even when he failed, or made mistakes, we forgave him, and loved him anyway. LBJ became the president we loved to hate. He could do no right. Even when he succeeded, he was hated anyway. It is not fair, but of course life is not fair.

In the end LBJ’s achievements were tarnished and overshadowed by his defeat in Vietnam. America only respects "winners." Perhaps one day LBJ’s reputation will be rehabilitated, and he will receive more of the recognition that he deserves for his domestic successes, and more forgiveness for his foreign policy failures. America wanted to believe that it was perfect, and omnipotent (all powerful). LBJ could not live up to that illusion. One day, if America can manage to summon a little humility, it may judge Lyndon Johnson less harshly. If we judge him by what he tried to achieve, he would be regarded as a nearly great president and an outstanding legislator. In judging LBJ, we are really taking a look in the mirror and judging ourselves (as a nation, and as the American people). He was not perfect. And neither were, or are, we.