Lyndon Baines Johnson
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Lyndon B. Johnson became the 36th president of the United States on November 22, 1963, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He won his own term in 1964 with 61% of the popular vote, the widest margin of the 20th century. The Great Society domestic programs and the Vietnam War defined his presidency.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Lyndon B. Johnson — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Lyndon B. Johnson by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Lyndon B. Johnson — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in Stonewall, Texas, to Rebekah Baines and Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr. He attended a one-room school called Junction School with a single teacher and graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College now Texas State University. Johnson taught at a poor school in a bad neighborhood, an experience that fueled his lifelong commitment to education reform.
Johnson entered politics as a U.S. Representative from Texas on April 10, 1937. During World War II, he was the first member of Congress to enlist, serving as a Navy lieutenant commander and earning a Silver Star. In 1949, he became a U.S. Senator. In 1953, at age 44, he became the youngest Minority Leader in Senate history, and when Democrats regained control in 1954, he became Majority Leader. Elected Vice President in 1960 alongside John F. Kennedy, Johnson became President after Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. In 1964, Johnson won a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater with 61% of the popular vote, running the Daisy ad. His presidency saw the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the escalation of the Vietnam War.
Johnson married Claudia Alta Lady Bird Taylor on November 17, 1934, and they had two daughters: Lynda Bird Johnson Robb born 1944 and Luci Baines Johnson born 1947. He was a heavy smoker, consuming 60 cigarettes daily until a near-fatal heart attack on July 2, 1955. After leaving the White House, he resumed smoking and suffered additional heart attacks. Johnson died of a heart attack on January 22, 1973, at his ranch in Stonewall, Texas, and was interred there.
Johnson’s notable achievements include the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid under the Great Society. He remains the only US president to attempt to end national poverty. His 1964 landslide victory with 61% of the vote is the highest popular vote percentage since. His legacy is also shaped by the Vietnam War, which escalated under his tenure. Johnson posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is most remembered for his ambition to build a Great Society and for his role in landmark civil rights legislation.
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Every award, honor, and recognition received by Lyndon B. Johnson — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
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A wall of memorable lines from Lyndon B. Johnson — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
I Accepted the Second Spot Because I’m a Gambling Man. I Did My Research and One in Four Dies in Office.
If One Morning I Walked on Top of the Water Across the Potomac River, the Headline That Afternoon Would Read ‘President Can’t Swim’.
We Preach the Virtues of Democracy Abroad. We Must Practice Its Duties Here at Home. Voting Is the First Duty of Democracy.
Nixon Can Be Beaten. He’s Like a Spanish Horse Who Runs Faster Than Anyone for the First Nine Lengths and Then Turns Around and Runs Backwards. You’ll See. He’ll Do Something Wrong in the End. He Always Does.
I Want People Around Me Who Would Kiss My Ass on a Hot Summer’s Day and Say It Smells Like Roses.
It’s Hard to Be a Hero Without a War. Heroes Need Battles and Bombs and Bullets in Order to Be Heroic. That’s Why I Am Suspicious of the Military.
Nixon Has Come Along and Everything I’ve Worked for Is Ruined. I Can Just See Him Waking up in the Morning, Making That Victory Sign of His and Deciding Which Program to Kill. It’s a Terrible Thing for Me to Sit by and Watch Someone Else Starve My ‘Great Society’ to Death. Now Her Bones Are Beginning to Stick Out and Her Wrinkles Are Beginning to Show. Soon She’ll Be so Ugly That the American People Will Refuse to Look at Her; They’ll Stick Her in a Closet to Hide Her Away and There She’ll Die. and When She Dies, I, Too, Will Die.
Presidents Are Lonely People, and the Only Ones They Are Really Sure of All the Time Are Their Womenfolk. President Nixon and I Have Something Else in Common. We Can Always Depend on Our Womenfolk. Just as Mrs. Johnson Has Been by My Side Every Step of the Way, so Has Mrs. Nixon.
The Difference Between Being a Member of the Senate and a Member of the House Is the Difference Between Chicken Salad and Chicken Shit.
We Are Not About to Send American Boys 9 or 10 Thousand Miles Away to Do What Asian Boys Ought to Be Dong for Themselves.
There Is No Negro Problem. There Is No Southern Problem. There Is Only an American Problem.
If I Became Dictator of the World, I’d Give All the Poor on Earth a Cottage, and Birth Control Pills and I’d Make Damn Sure They Didn’t Get One If They Didn’t Take the Other.
I Once Told Nixon That the Presidency Is Like Being a Jackass Caught in a Hailstorm. You’ve Got to Just Stand There and Take It. That’s What I’m Doing Now.
The Men in the Johnson Family Have a History of Dying Young. My Daddy Was Only Sixty Two When He Died, and I Figured That with My History of Heart Trouble I’d Never Live Through Another Four Years. the American People Had Enough of Presidents Dying in Office.
I Never Believed That Oswald Acted Alone, Although I Can Accept That He Pulled the Trigger.
The Damn Press Always Accused Me of Things I Didn’t Do. They Never Once Found Out About the Things I Did Do.
I’ll Tell You What’s at the Bottom of It. If You Can Convince the Lowest White Man He’s Better Than the Best Colored Man, He Won’t Notice You’re Picking His Pocket. Hell, Give Him Somebody to Look Down On, and He’ll Empty His Pockets for You.
On at Least Five Occasions I Personally Vetoed Military Requests for Retaliation Bombing Raids in the North. Only Late in 1965 Did I Reluctantly Agree to It. Not One of My Principal Advisers Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, and George Ball Opposed My Decision Not to Rush into Retaliation Strikes. We Had Contingency Plans to Bomb in the North for Retaliation for Terrorist Raids in the South. but I Didn’t Want to Do This. Finally, They Attacked Our Base in Pleiku in February, 1965, Destroying Many Planes and Killing a Lot of Our Men. I Was Forced to Act. I Felt I Had No Choice. All of My Civilian Advisers, Every One of Them, Agreed with Me. Dean Rusk Told Me, ‘Mr. President, This Is a Momentous Decision.’ I Suppose It Was.
I Don’t Have Ulcers. I Give Them!
Damn It, I’m Not Going to Be Pressured into Keeping to Anyone’s Schedule but My Own.
Rumors Were Flying That I Really Had Cancer. I Had to Prove I Really Had My Gall Bladder Taken Out.
I Did Lousy. Cronkite Came Down Here All Sweetness and Light, Telling Me How He’d Love to Teach Journalism at Texas Someday, Then He Does This to Me.
I Never Met a Man from Indiana Who Was Worth a Shit.
I’ve Served My Time with That Bunch, and I Give up on Them. There’s No Objectivity Left Anymore. the New Style Is Advocacy Reporting Send Some Snotty Nosed Reporter Down Here to Act Like a District Attorney and Ask Me Where I Was on the Night of the Twenty Third. I’m Always Guilty Unless I Can Prove Otherwise. so to Hell with It.
Imagine Not Inviting One Member of Congress to Tricia’s Wedding. If You Don’t Respect Them, They Won’t Respect You.
That’s What Happens When the Republicans Take Over Not Only Nixon, but Any of Them. They Simply Don’t Know How to Manage the Economy. They’re so Busy Operating the Trickle Down Theory, Giving the Richest Corporations the Biggest Break, That the Whole Thing Goes to Hell in a Hand Basket.
Keep All Your Money in Cash. Nixon Will Have Us in an Inflationary Recession Before His First Year Is Over.
I’ve Been to the Mayo Clinic Twice and the Doctors Tell Me There Is Nothing They Can Do for Me. My Body Is Just Aging in Its Own Way. That’s It.
Get This Thought In. No Man Worked Harder or Wanted Peace More Than I.
Little-known facts about Lyndon B. Johnson — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
A ceasefire in Vietnam was reached one day after Johnson’s death.
Johnson took several hours to realize he was experiencing his first heart attack.
He was the first member of Congress to enlist in World War II, serving as a Navy lieutenant commander and winning a Silver Star in the South Pacific.
Robert F. Kennedy harbored a strong mutual dislike for Johnson.
Johnson and his wife marched in JFK’s funeral procession despite Secret Service and FBI warnings, later paraphrased as saying he could do, should do, would do, and did march.
One of his favorite songs was Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water.
In 1953, Johnson became the youngest Minority Leader in Senate history, and the following year he became Majority Leader when Democrats won control.
He served in the U.S. Senate from January 3, 1949, to January 3, 1961, and was simultaneously elected Vice President and reelected to the Senate in November 1960.
A frequent anti-war chant was: Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?
Johnson was the only living former US president at the time of his death.
John F. Kennedy, fearing Johnson’s civil rights support, sent him to Norway on the day of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington.
He has been portrayed by actors including Bryan Cranston in All the Way 2016, Woody Harrelson in LBJ 2016, and Tom Wilkinson in Selma 2014.
Johnson always addressed rival Robert F. Kennedy as Son or Sonny Boy to emphasize his debt to Joseph P. Kennedy.
He was the last US president of the 20th century to smoke cigarettes.
Johnson is the only US president to attempt to end national poverty.
In 1964, he won the presidency with 61% of the vote and a margin of over 15 million votes, a record no candidate has since beaten.
His 1964 campaign slogans included All the way with LBJ and LBJ for the USA.
One of his final public appearances was the state funeral of Harry S. Truman, less than a month before his own death.
In his will, Johnson left his portion of property jointly owned with his wife Lady Bird, estimated at $20 million, in trust to his two daughters.
He attended a one-room school with only one teacher and was president of his graduating class of six.
Johnson smoked 60 cigarettes a day until a near-fatal heart attack on July 2, 1955.
After retiring, CBS-TV paid him $100,000 per interview in a package deal for his memoirs.
His favorite actress was Laraine Day, but he was disappointed to learn she was a staunch Republican.
As a House member, he oversaw Operation Texas, covertly relocating hundreds of Jews from Europe to Texas.
During the Suez Crisis, he tried to prevent the US government from criticizing Israel’s invasion of the Sinai.
He served as the 36th president from November 22, 1963, to January 20, 1969.
Johnson graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College.
He was interred at the LBJ Ranch in Blanco County, Texas.
He served as Vice President from January 20, 1961, to November 22, 1963.
An admirer of FDR, Johnson may have skipped Churchill’s funeral because Churchill did not attend Roosevelt’s funeral.
Before announcing he would not seek reelection in 1968, his opponent Richard Nixon had declared; critics called a choice between Nixon and Johnson a choice between obscenity and vulgarity.
Per Johnson’s request, Billy Graham preached the eulogy and Anita Bryant sang Battle Hymn of the Republic at his funeral.
As of 2016, he remains the only Democratic presidential candidate to win Alaska.
He is the only US president to have taken the oath of office aboard Air Force One, administered by Judge Sarah T. Hughes on November 22, 1963.
At 6’3.5, Johnson was the second tallest president, half an inch shorter than Abraham Lincoln.
He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from April 10, 1937, to January 3, 1949.
His daughters are Lynda Bird Johnson Robb and Luci Baines Johnson.
He was pictured on a commemorative four-cent postage label issued by the Independent Postal System of America in 1973.
Johnson was the only US president born and raised in Texas.
In his 1964 campaign, he portrayed opponent Barry Goldwater as a warmonger, running the Daisy ad.
His television ads ended with the slogan: Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.
After leaving office, he resumed smoking and gained weight, saying My body is just aging in its own way.
His experiences in poor schools inspired his focus on education policy.
Johnson was angered by the UK’s refusal to send troops to Vietnam, threatening to bankrupt the British economy.
He worked as a schoolteacher before entering politics.
Johnson was widely blamed for the USS Liberty incident, where 34 US crew members were killed by an Israeli air strike during the Six Day War.
He is not related to former US President Andrew Johnson.
He contracted pneumonia at his second inauguration on January 20, 1965, and was hospitalized.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Lyndon B. Johnson.
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