You get a real flavor for how Lyndon Johnson lobbies and puts together legislation. It allows you to hr the people he was working with and how they tried to put pressure on the white house. We are looking at president johnson and the Voting Rights act and the civil rights act. Is it a good time to reassess his five and a half years in the white house . Absolutely. There are many reasons. One is the enormity of everything that was accomplished then. I think that we are looking back on it with appreciation. Whatever side of the spectrum you are on, just the fact that so much legislation came out of congress within a year and a half. The legislation that remains with us today. I think it is a good time to figure out what we accomplished and how we accomplished it. And i think the other reason we are interested is because of the relationship between president and congress. Right now we are in a period where there is gridlock and people wonder why president s cant seem to do more, whether it is president obama or president bush before him. People are interested. Was there Something Special about this time. Did Congress Work differently. Was it an easier place to do business. Johnson certainly had his pposition but also his own irectic party. I think we ferent have established there was a lot of commod dee. Legislatures were more willing to legislate. In 1963 when kennedy is killed all of his domestic agenda is bottled up in congressional committees. People are talking about a dysfunctional congress. A congress that cant produce anything. One liberal calls the senate the sackless branch of government and Lyndon Johnson himself is aware of it. There was already institutions business was hard to do. Part of it is johnson and his skill but the other part is the Civil Rights Movement and the enormous pressure it put on members of congress to act differently about civil rights by 1964 and part of it i write about in this book are the 1964 elections, really significant landmark election that changes the policy making environment until the midterm elections of 1966 to allow for big bills to get through. The fierce urgency of now really captures Lyndon Johnsons approach to governing in a year many people thought he should have waited until after the election to focus on the Voting Rights act. Why did he decide to take this in 1964. The quote comes from Martin Luther king and he uses that quote in the speech during the march on washington. Part of the reason Lyndon Johnson feels so much pressure is because the Civil Rights Movement was so longer willing to wait. Traditionally civil rights activists have said wait another year. They were being very clear they would not do that anymore. The march was part of it before he took office and they were threatening more protests if congress did not move. Part of the reason johnson did that is he and others in congress were responding to pressures that the movement was putting on them but johnson became explicitted to civil rights believing it was an idea whose time had come and even though he was a southerner from texas he has been very much moved by the movement and the issues that they wanted to raise. He said if i do not do that in my first year it is basically go to tie up the rest of my presidency if i am reelected. He wanted to get it done and get it done soon so he could move on to other issues. President kennedy said put the pressure on the south. Have this peaceful, nonviolent move andment go to alabama. That carried on with president johnson who understood how to really strike a chord with voters and also members of congress. Yeah. Both president ings were very aware of what the movement was doing at the district level and at the state level. Johnson was very strategic. More so than kennedy in understanding the value that the Civil Rights Movement could offer him in terms of moving some of these midwestern republicans even though the southern democrats would never vote for this. Martin luther king was a great political strategist and understood each time he put together one of these protests that it made it harder for the southern democrats to block progress on the bill. The damn between the white house and the movement and members of congress all for civil rights revolved around these protests. In putting together your book have you been able to talk to those that still remember the johnson years . Some. I tend to be a historian that uses the carr kifes and i have written a lot on it. Sometimes i use interviews and i have spoken with people that are around them. But the heart of my Research Really comes out of the johnson library, the president ial memos and all kinds of communication within the white house comes from congressional speeches and hearings and it comes from the white house tapes. Just personally i find that much more valuable. Oral history is done right after a lot of people left the white house. What do you think is behind the Johnson Family trying to use the Voting Rights act and this anniversary as a way to revisit their fathers presidency . Well, Lyndon Johnson has a terrible legacy, although now many are looking back at what he did domesticly. Most people remember him from vietnam. He was a villain and not a hero. I think the Johnson Family and foundation and library are trying to throw life back on the other part of his record. The other part of his presidency. Today that seems pretty amazing. Amazing to have this much legislation that transforms the reach between government and america. I think it is not a secret about what they are doing, but they want to remind people that there is more to johnson than vietnam. They will never get rid of vietnam. Vietnam was essential to his presidency. It was one of his biggest decisions. In some ways he got deeper and deeper into vietnam to protect himself to do things on the domestic front. Part of it is for me how democracy works and how you can have a functional relationship between president s and congress. What it takes to make that work. Part of it is understanding leadership. I am interested in that for Lyndon Johnson or through the senator, the minority leader, republican, who is very important to some of these bills. I am interested in having institutions of government i think are usually dysfunctional, how they can have moments and what that takes. In this book i am interested in how it takes social movements and elections to make broken institutions work. We cant always be waiting for the leaders to act differently. Sometimes people have to force them to do that and elections are a great way that happens. Is it broken today . If is not broken. But it is certainly a difficult place to do business. You have very polarized party and the media that offers ongoing scrutiny and makes deliberation very difficult and trouble making big decisions. Few years ago Congress Passed a lot of stuff. The stimulus bill and the health care bill. Even that shows business is profitable. But it is certainly a difficult institution. President johnson felt frustrated during the first three and a half years of the kennedy administration. It wasnt until he became president you saw his skills as a former leader and also as president. Used his judge how he domestic agenda . He had been the Senate Majority leader and understood how Congress Worked and knew all of the members of congress very well. Kennedy was very scared of letting him have too much power. Cause he assumed the certainly makes the case that johnson could have improved some of kennedys success in is negotiations with congress. They controlled all of the committees. They were very conservative. They were against a lot of the bills democrats were pushing and even if Vice President johnson had a greater role before the Civil Rights Movement gained full steam in 1964 kedge dee would have had trouble getting these bills out. When you are listening to these phone conversation what is is going through your mind . I lose myself. I lisp with earphones and listen to every single one. I am thinking about the difficulty of politics and absorbed by the subtle negotiations taking place. All of the figures that he interacts with, some great and horrible. The humanity is important in terms of how they get along. Their relationships are important. Ims it is the personal interaction. In his conversations with the republican leader, gerald ford, it was a different Republican Party back in the 950s and 1960s compared to today. Absolutely. They were lu liberal compared to a lot of democrats at the time. Liberals today certainly compare to most republicans. They were still very conservative at the time. They did not agree with johnson. You can hear where he is railing against the party for being a donothing party. But in this moment there were a bunch that stepped forward and the illing to make deals Party Leadership has a better hold. Democrats are very divided. Liberals from the north have little agreement with southern democrats. That is what we would see between republicans and democrats. That was his pain concern. It was trying to out flank the southern democrats. Did you have a chance to read his memoirs . I did. They are not the best. In some ways the best he has left us are the tapes because you get to hear what he has to he ended his presidency in horrible strks. They are not the best memoirs in the world. He died relatively young did. He have a sense of his own mortality . Yeah. He did. He speaks a lot about civil rights. Physically he looked different with long hair. E almost looks like a hippy. I think that was the end of him in some ways. A man who was political to the core spending his whole life in trying to achieve greatness. I think that was the beginning f the end. Can you compare him to his predecessors or successors in the white house . I do think he was a legislative president. A learn that loved and erevered congress. He brought his relationship and the sense of the institution. Kennedy does not have that and i think that was a big flaw. Fast forward to today i think a lot of the president s in recent years are much more disconnected from washington and from congress. Some like president obama serve for a short period but they do not invest themselveses on capitol hill. That is one of the most distinctive features of who he was as a politician. When does the book come out . January 2015. Each week, and American History tv sets in on a lecture with one of the nation pro college professors. You can watch the classes here every saturday evening at 8 p. M. And midnight eastern. Next Ian Isherwood looks at how world war i soldiers interpreted their war experiences. He uses works by three writers, hemingway, toest look at how soldiers cope with civilian life to deal with physical