Johnson now president of the United States there very narrow confineds of the plane. Jackie on his left her hair falling in her eyes very composed in london and then i was only to write. Judge hughes with the bible in front of him cluster secret service People Congressman Weve known a long time london took the oath of office. Julia sweig. That is Lady Bird Johnson reading her Diary Entry from November 2nd 1963 describing the scene after the assassination of John F kennedy. Youve just published a new book based on her diaries a Lady Bird Johnson hiding in plain sight tell me as we start about these diaries. When did she start them . How many did she do and how did she record them . Thank you very much for having me susan Lady Bird Johnson began as we heard her very first Diary Entry recording her experience of the assassination on november 22nd. 1963 of John F kennedy. And she made this recording that weve just heard eight days after the assassination. She began with that moment and she continued throughout. The Johnson Presidency until the very end of january 1969 after nixon was inaugurated until the 31st of that month. Her recordings and as we say shes dictating from a variety of sources that shes arrayed in front of her that she synthesizing and telling her story from so in a way this is her first draft of history. Shes recording it. And for the most Part Isnt going backwards and rerecording. So what were hearing is her first draft. How many did she do all together . Well number wise she did 850 depending upon how you count it. Ive heard two different numbers, but approximately 850 a hundred and twenty three hours of recording you write in the book that both johnsons work. This is your phrase meticulous curators of their historical record Lyndon Johnson recorded all of his phone conversations Lady Bird Johnson and her many diaries. Why do you think they did this . What was their attitude about about the historical record versus the daily Tug And Pull of politics . Now Lady Bird was a Journalism And History major at the university of texas at austin she was trained to have a predilection toward documenting and recording and she always kept these small spiral notebooks with her everywhere. She went and took notes in shorthand including on Air Force one going back. From dallas to Washington Dc. She was able to have the presence of mine to keep some notes that she then used to make that first recording. So i think she was very very devoted to keeping records from the very getgo. It was really in her dna in lbjs case. He shared that and he also had a very long political career. So by the time he gets into the presidency, especially as he becomes conscious of the the challenges and the controversy and the and the criticism of his presidency his his inclination is also to document so that down the road historians have some opportunity to to look back at his presidency in a documented way and make some some sense of it rather than very much in the moment. He also had youre talking about the lb those those secretly recorded tapes. He had massive distrust. Oppress and he won end of those around him his political adversaries, especially and he kept that record in order also to sort of be on the record himself and have some control over the historical record. So what does one learn about Lady Bird Johnson from listening to her own voice recording her days that is very different from the public record or public persona that people solve her. The public persona that people saw of her was a bit more twodimensional. Thats an understatement than what comes out in her recorded diaries at the time in the 1960s. What we saw. Well, i wasnt alive at the time but what was seen and the curated image of her that the white House Press Strategy and her Press Strategy put out was of a very conventional political wife. She had roles that went beyond those conventions, but we dont see that until we dig more deeply into her diaries. So her role and her influence on lbj and in shaping the course of the presidency is something that comes out very much so not in only in the diaries, but i would say also in the vast archival material that she left behind at the Lbj Library. We also see here somebody whos an excellent writer she writes about nature she writes. Shes a great character. A study of characters shes very open about the difficulty and of of living with and supporting and being partners with such a complicated individual as Lyndon Johnson she writes about her own emotions. Shes not somebody who we see a broad smile in her publicly, but privately shes confronting the process of aging shes confronting the controversy as of business administration. Whats the backstory on this book . This is a very different project for you. Most of your work has been in foreign affairs foreign policy issues. Howd you get interested in Lady Bird Johnson . Well the truth is that after working in Washington Dc and new york and traveling globally and working in foreign policy in a world where the gender imbalances very very pronounced. I got to a point where number one i had sort of maxed out on my intellectual curiosity about american foreign policy and latin America And Number two. I wanted to get my arms around the topic of women and power and but i didnt have a subject. I needed the compelling character that Lady Bird Johnson turned out to be and it wasnt until i discovered that she had kept this diary. She had published a huge portion. Well a 780 Page Book which was a portion all that not a huge one of the diaries in 1970 and luckily for me when i started thinking about considering considering her as a topic. Shes married to the man. Of course, perhaps most identified with the concept of power in the presidency in the 20th century. When i discovered this this that the diaries were existed that coincided with the Lbj Library also beginning to release them entirely to the public not just the transcripts but also all of the audio so there i discovered an incredibly compelling woman who lived through and documented and tells us her experience of the Tumult And Polarization of the 1960s, including three political assassinations and war and riots and the triumphs of the great society and civil rights. So its its all just drew me in and kept my attention. Almost as much as foreign policy had in the past. Where did the Title Hiding in plain sight come from . That is twofold number one. Its a an effort to play with the idea that this is the person whose. Very significant influence on lbj on his presidency on shaping the ark of it whos very significant role as his political partner was primarily missed. And so that is the story thats been hiding in plain sight and the second thing. Is that the Source Material for telling that story has been sitting at the Lbj Library and also largely sneezed over missed as well. So its the two the sources and the story itself given what the less spending the last few years of your life with Lady Bird Johnson and digging so deeply into her archival materials and understanding her role these president johnson. Is it possible for you to say how influential she was among a modern first ladies if you were to rank them, for example sure, and i know that that youll probably have a view of this as well. Susan given your own work on on first ladies. I see her i instead of rank ordering them i and we can do that too. I see her as the bridge between Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton. She has the the commitment to developing a Policy Agenda that reinforces and elevates her husbands that eleanor had she has the public role not quite as broad because she didnt have a radio program. She didnt have a column that eleanor did but this is a woman who was out campaigning for her husband and working really hand in glove to elevate his presidency. Er was in the white house obviously much longer than Lady Bird was but i see Lady Bird then coming in and modernizing the office of the first lady really the first person to do that since after World War ii in my view with a Policy Staff in the east wing with the Communications Strategy and staff in the east wing and really becoming part of the political operation of the west wing which of course brings to mind the office the way that Hillary Clinton operated when she was first lady as far as rank order. Thats a tougher one for me to to answer but i do think shes one of the most significant certainly of the 20th century first ladies that weve had in the book you tell us that she referred to it as our presidency. Did she only do that in private and i guess im asking the question because Hillary Clinton of course faced criticism for the two for one concept. Why did it succeed for Lady Bird Johnson in this instance . Well, she did it carefully only in retrospect. It wasnt something that she talked about while she was in the white house but in practice you know, i dont know if she had a Security Clearance but in practice she was in the room quite a bit the room being Lyndon Johnsons bedroom where he conducted business quite a lot west Wing Staff meetings not only in his bedroom, but also in the Oval Office the Photo Record tells the story but also so does Lady Bird where shes in and out of the Oval Office all day long or sending messages back and forth between the president and and the first lady and i think liz Carpenters Role and i know well talk about that is really key to that. Liz carpenter was one of the texas in washington inner circle members of the Johnson World for a couple of decades before they reach the white house and was perhaps closest to Lady Bird and linden of anybody in the white house and had the standing to to sort of broker and be the interlocutor between the east wing and west wing not just the basic communications but on political and Campaign Strategy so in practice it was more of an Hour Presidency than a his presidency, but she didnt say that because she was all so very mindful of the times and very mindful as a woman of and conscious of the sort of amorphous role in the the call. She took caution to not step out in front of lyndon. Even while she had a separate and independent but connected agenda to his a little bit of backstory on Claudia Alta Taylor you told us that she was a graduate of the university of texas and austin on what degrees in journalism in history. What else should we know about her childhood that really affected the the woman she would grow up to be well, i think there are three elements that i would point to one. She was orphaned when she was five years old not orphaned. Excuse me. She lost her mother when she was five years old and she was raised subsequently by her father and an aunt and by the staff of the household where she grew up who were descendants of enslaved people, but she was also she talks a lot about the solace that she took from nature she spent a lot of time by herself as a young girl and in nature and in the natural environment and became in her Bones Somebody who felt very connected to the Way Access to nature can shape all for the good who we are and make us will feel fully human. The second thing about Lady Birds childhood is that shes from the south. She was her Mother And Father were both from alabama and she spent her summers going back to visit her family in the deep south in alabama. And so when she gets into the presidency with Lyndon Johnson and and before but especially as the civil Rights Agenda picks up she really has a deep feeling for the potential for backlash against the democratic party and against johnson among southern white voters. So you said she was essentially raised by black women in texas. There was another scene that in your book that similarly caught my attention and that is the trips that she used to take back and forth between Washington Dc and austin where she was helping to run the Family Broadcasting Business often in the company meant of africanamerican staff members and experience firsthand. So the prejudice and the jim Crow South of of that they face as they traveled do you think both of those experiences helped to influence her attitude towards the burgeoning civil Rights Movement . I mean, i think without a doubt, you know, if we think about the experience and she as you say was driving back and forth and and she and linden we know that linden talks about this a great deal. I think that when they came when she came into office she was very committed to leveling the racial Playing Field and theres two components of that from her formative years one is growing up in in alabama over the summers with her family members and being exposed to the the thickness of white supremacy there. The other one was as you say driving back and forth with her africanamerican staff and seeing the jim crow laws effect their lives so directly. Year after year. Lyndon johnson proposed right after he met her. Why did she say . Yes, what did she see in him . You know that was in 1934 and i think she saw. A charismatic ambitious sort of overwhelmingly a man that took up a lot of space but who saw her and elevated her. She always talked about the fact that he proposed to her on the day they met and that this took her back, but at the same time, i think it made her feel like her intellect was being recognized by a man of great ambition. He was a congressional aid at that point and i was surprised to read in your book that she actually begged him not to run for congress early on but then you said she became a full political partner. So theres a progression here in her thinking about politics. Yes, i think that she initially didnt imagine herself in a married to a political animal the Way Linden was but then especially once they moved to Washington Dc she became a political animal herself. She absorbed through osmosis the the sort of you know, the ecosystem of Washington Dc which is constantly demands to build networks and raise finances and do the intelligence gathering that he was very good at and that she was very good at and so she she did evolve over time. Especially by the 1940s before she had children when she wound up. Running Lindens Office while he was in the pacific or in california during World War ii and then really ever since being a full partner to Lyndon Johnson also met managing his depressions and his black moods and his ongoing health problems. How did she approach her relationship with him in these areas . You know, she she really loved the man a lot because she appears to have devoted herself totally to using her incredible energies to boost him up. And the depression that he was prone to was something that you know, she wound up becoming quite sensitive to and and learn to expect and it had certain rhythms. Often he would become depressed after a great achievement or at the end of some big push of adrenaline or political success or political failure. So she learned to to anticipate those for the most part in terms of his health. Theres a Turning Point after his very significant Heart Attack in 1955. Thats a Heart Attack that almost killed him and its after that point that she becomes intensely vigilant over his smoking over his drinking over his eating and the two of them almost start to compete with one another in terms of of Body And Diet and Nutrition And Exercise and the specter of possible death looms over them really until he actually dies and it can its very consuming for her. Its one of the reasons also that she managed she figures out a way to navigate. Keeping something for herself too, right . Im talking about a person who was totally devoted to him, but she also managed to keep some space and some solitude and keep herself healthy Lyndon Johnson, we learn and perhaps it was reported on the time was what would be called today a philanderer. He really was unfaithful throughout their marriage. How did she reach accommodation with that aspect of Lyndon Johnson . Well susan here. My answer is going to be based on what im able to surmise because this is a marriage of many many decades and i think anybody thats been in a marriage of many many decades really cant can can attest to the fact that Outsiders Cant really tell the whole story or even maybe part of the story. But having said that ill say something else which is that question about his infidelities and philandering i think has been so present in shaping how we think of Lady Bird Johnson that its almost diminished her of substance. I dont want to at all. Excuse him for it, but simply to say that one of the things ive tried to do with this book is to show how much more to her and to their partnership there was in that but having said that seems to me that she did make some sort of accommodation and that she was the first among equals. She knew it and then the vast majority of cases she chose to ignore what he was doing at some level. And to be reminded that the increasing dependence that she felt that he felt toward her. Was increasingly total and the fact that she was in the room where it happened in terms of policy and politics might clearly have compensated at some level for the the philandering the second thing. Id say are perhaps its the third thing is Lady Bird herself said something that that i think is very instructive when another person was writing a book about her. Um, she said, you know, not going to understand. Either of us unless you understand how totally intertwined. Our lives are with one another or were with one another. She said it when he was already dead. And i think that that goes to the point of the fact that this is a layered and complicated. Marriage and Relationship And Partnership and that hes his the philandering was an element of it but shouldnt be understood to color the whole thing at all. Im going to jump ahead in history just to demonstrate the political partnership and go to one of those Lyndon Johnson Phone Calls that we talked about. This is from march 7th. 1964 a Phone Call between ladybird and lbj. Lets listen and then have you talk about what it illustrates in their relationship. You want to listen for about one minute to my critique. Would you rather wait to hear them . Im well enough. I thought that you look strong firm and like a reliable guy. You look for splendid the closeups were much better than the distance ones where you cant get them good. Well, i would say this they were more close up than the wood distance. During this statement. He will little breathless and there was too much looking down and i think it was a little too fast. Not enough change of pace. Dropping voice at the end of sentence. There was a considerable pickup in Drama And Interest when the questioning began your voice was noticeably better and your facial expressions. Noticeably better. Are you about your answer on lodge was good . I thought you ants on vietnam was good. I really didnt like the answer on the gall because i think ive heard you say and ive put that believe you actually have set out loud, but you dont leave your way out of the country this year. So i dont think you can very well say that you meet him anytime thats convenient to both people julia. So it is hard to imagine anybody speaking that candidly to Lyndon Johnson. What are you hearing there . Well, first of all, this is march of 1964, so they havent been in the white house for very long and this is a time when lyndon and Lady Bird are both. Thinking every day about the narrative that theyre trying to create in terms of lyndon being somebody that can unify the country and theyre both also aware that lyndon doesnt do so well in front of the cameras they do have a Media Company themselves, but he doesnt hes not a telegenic guy and his consciousness of that is what you hear is that they too are are as i are meticulous in monitoring how hes being read publicly and of course that directness that you hear that critique that you hear means that he trusts Lady Bird Johnson totally her judgment as an advisor and the knowledge that she has his interests front and center is what you hear there. That was a Press Conference that she was talking about. It wasnt a speech and that Press Conference if you go you dont have to go read the transcript but i have in ways he sounds like hes reading the phone book. Its very dull and dry because hes announcing the appointments of lots of people into his administration. She was also by the way reading off of notes that she took on stationary from the office of the Vice President , which i love because of course he was the Vice President. Shes using his stationary, but in 1964 to just reinforce this point about their partnership, there was no Vice President. There wasnt a Vice President until Hubert Humphrey was inaugurated in 1965. So what you hear there is Lady Bird stepping in and and listening not just on delivery but on Substance And Content and picking up his contradictions and and that is sort of to me essence of their partnership. So let me back up and spend a little bit of time on the 1960 campaign and the Vice President see to talk about how involved she was in that campaign and and really what her contributions were to the ultimate success of that ticket. Well in 1960. Lyndon johnson, he did run in the Balloting Process at the at the convention in Los Angeles, but he lost in the first round of ballots. And theres a very well documented painful story about the process by which John F. Kennedy asks Lyndon Johnson to join his vp. So the power dynamic flips right away. When as Lady Bird talked about how difficult it was. It was like a nettle in their throat that they didnt see a way not to accept becoming subordinate as Vice President on the the kennedy ticket. Once that happened by summer of 1960. Lady bird jumped in as surrogate to lbj and as surrogate to jackie totally and she traveled all around the country. Jackie had been battling miscarriages for some time and she was pregnant during the 1960 campaign. So she didnt want to risk traveling and Lady Bird traveled by herself with jackies sisters and sisterinlaw and rose kennedy, especially in the south to try to and especially in texas to try to win the south for the democratic party for kennedy, which is the principal reason why they brought lbj on her her amount of travel seems very impressive. Id say almost staggering the number of trips that she took during the campaign and even through the Vice Presidency. You you write that during the years of the Vice Presidency. She flourished while Lyndon Johnsons struggled with those that period why what was it about those years that she was able to do that. She hadnt perhaps as the wife the senate Majority Leader. Well as the way for the senate Majority Leader, she didnt have an international schedule much and although she was sort of queen of the Senate Spouses that was limited to Washington Dc once she moved into the position of second lady and as you said, the Vice Presidency for a man of who totally dominated the us congress and the legislative processes Majority Leader moving to the Vice President. He was was, you know, incredibly debilitating it stripped lbj of the the Power And Prerogative that he had become used to and under jfk. His portfolio was was not nearly as robust as he had the energy is to make it but Lady Bird in and so often he traveled abroad in Lady Bird went with him. And so that began a period of international travel that she really really enjoyed and also likewise back at home in Washington Dc Lady Birds stepped in quite a bit for first Lady Jackie Kennedy who wasnt the kind of political animal that Lady Bird was didnt love the Rope Line didnt thrive on so much ceremonial activity and Lady Bird stepped in for her. Quite a bit and it was energizing to her. It was just energizing to her While Lyndon was pretty much in a funk throughout the book. We see several episodes of her relationship with jacqueline kennedy. How would you describe the relationship between the two women . You know, its a its a very intimate and precious and complicated and emotional relationship and it has this arc that goes from from Lady Bird being the senior Senate Spouse when jack enters the senate shes already married to the Majority Leader and kind of bringing lady bringing jackie in doing it in a kind of gracious big sister way. She was almost 20 years older than jackie then moving to the campaign stepping in again for jackie and you know during the campaign theres a theres a scene in the book and also in our podcast where jackie is looking back and kind of trying to get her arms around the relationship between Lady Bird and linden. She says lynn Lady Bird could sit on the couch and on one side of the room this one the two campaign teams met in hyannis talking with the sisters and jacks sisters and jackie, but keep her ear on the conversation that linden was having across the Room And Jacket one point said, you know, it was a funny way of operating. She was almost like a trained hunting dog. That was a of course not what she was but they came from very different backgrounds and very different ways of operating in terms of the partnerships with their husbands. The assassination which we started with in this conversation kennedys assassination. Does for a time bring them together and the two of them together orchestrate. The most excruciating and and seamless transition in the 14 days between the assassination and when jackie and her two children move out of the white house on december 6th, 2000, excuse me, the 1963 so in that period of time i see a jackie Lady Bird relationship thats careful and respectful and jackie leaves many notes to that effect. Trying to help Lady Bird ease into the the role of the white house first lady now, and we hear Lady Birds narration over several days of that process. But once jackie leaves, washington and moves to new york, then the distance really does begin to sink in and theres lots of public and private snubbing and rumors and and it it becomes more. Tense and cold and it takes Lady Bird a while to feel like shes not walking. On eggshells in the white house herself and it sort of culminates in a very difficult powerful scene that Lady Bird narrates in 1968 at Bobby Kennedys Funeral in new York City after hes been assassinated and so really the two of them, im gonna round this out in a second dont recover. I think that intimacy and real love that. They felt for one another until the 1980s when they start meeting in Marthas Vineyard when both are there every summer and they begin to reconstitute that relationship. One of the documents that that you spend a good bit of time on in the book that seems key to many aspects of their relationship is the huntlands meadow a memos. Excuse me huntlands memo and it all centers around the question of whether or not Lyndon Johnson having assumed the presidency would run in his own right in 1964. Why did you see this particular document is so important to the story. The Heartland Strategy Memo is a document that i found in the Lbj Library in a folder called campaign letters mrs. Johnson to president johnson. And its dated may 14th 1964. Its much more than a letter and i like to call it a Strategy Memo because in fact its lays out a strategy Lady Bird strategy whereby linden and its a pro and con analysis of whether lyndon should run in november of 1964 on his own right or whether he should step down and announce that hes not even going to run for a proper term himself. At that time in may of 64, thats what he was thinking about. He was doubting his ability to keep the country unified. He felt the pressure of vietnam the Escalation Pressure of vietnam and civil rights were stuck in congress. So in the memo what we see is Lady Bird being very very analytical laying out for him the consequences for not running or the alternative for running and winning and then one of the reasons i see this is so important is that she says in the memo i think you should run. And youll probably win. And at that point you can try to have three years and several months of a great presidency and announce in february or march of 1968 that you will not be standing again for the candidacy of the president. And that is in fact precisely what lbj does he runs into 64 and on march of 1968, march 31st, he announces and its a virtual secret to everybody but Lady Bird in a handful of others that he wont be running again and the document itself has been barely written about although its been in the archives since the night since 1970. But it really becomes significant susan when i tracked it against. The sweep of her diary entries because starting in the fall of 1967 especially but even before she starts writing about how shes going to get linden to focus on his Exit Strategy that theyve already agreed to and we see over and over her recounting the two of them talking about it and a near opportunity that he doesnt take and then finally the leadup toward the decision and the drafting of his statement, which is all so involved in and its announcements. So i feel like the arc of the Lbj Presidency and the rationale for not running. A second term is is laid out way earlier than i think anybody ever assumed the assumption had been that it was Vietnam And Bobby Kennedy And Eugene mccarthy and and the the embattlement the embattled nature of his presidency as a whole that compelled him to walk away from power. But in fact, it had been a part of a strategy that theyd been executing for the previous four years earlier. We mentioned the name Liz Carpenter and as Lady Bird begins to establish herself in the role of first lady and tackle the big issues that were important to her. Liz carpenter is part of that strategy. We have a bit of videotape from our archives of Liz Carpenter talking about her work for the johnsons and then well come back. I worked for president johnson. I was in dallas that dreadful day and the moment that changed Everyones Life and ended up back in washington on Air Force one. I wrote those 58 words that the president delivered when he stepped off the plane at andrews Air Force base. This is a sad time for all people and so forth. And so then for five years i worked at white house as Press Secretary and Staff Director for Lady Bird Johnson and sometimes funny Speech Writer for lbj when he was willing to use my guys. We worked very hard in the war on poverty while he was trying to subdue the war in vietnam, which got a lot more attention, but its when Head Start was born the Job Corps Respond when Lady Bird would go out to try to inspire people to make this planet cleaner. So Julie Swag how important was the partnership between Lady Bird Johnson and Liz Carpenter during those five years. You live Carpenters Role as Advisor And Press strategist and operator. I mean their Lady Burden lives i think were a total team and it was incredibly important. In what way what did she bring to the partnership . Well number one. She brought press savvy Liz Carpenter was a cub reporter. In fact going back to the 1930s. She was also from texas and she came to washington and began to cover Eleanor Roosevelt when Eleanor Roosevelt held her womens only keys which were really press avails for the first lady and female reporters in Washington Dc. So Liz Carpenter had a very long history of knowing how to operate with press in washington and she helped Lady Bird right away to establish a very direct communication with the female pressboard. These were the days when the gendered Press Coverage was such that it was by and large exclusively women who covered the office of the first lady and men by and large but not totally who covered the office of the president liz was very important in helping Lady Bird make the transition and establish her own independent identity separate from that of jackie kennedy. So very important on the press and very important in terms of political operations in the 1960 campaign. And then in the 1964 campaign the civil Rights Component of the 1964 campaign as a place where Lilys Carpenter really shined there was a moment in october in 1964. When liz and Lindy Boggs who is a very important. Part of this story married to congressman from louisiana go to the south and they organize with Lady Bird and four Lady Bird a Whistle Stop Tour through eight southern states over four days 47 stops, and its Liz Carpenter whos generating the Press Material helping with the speeches and partnering with Lady Bird on the essential objective of trying to send a message to the south that the democratic party and its commitment to civil rights is something that southerners ought to embrace. I was a special issue Lady Bird Johnson is most identified with something called beautification and the final pages of your book. You have her lamenting that as she calls them lindens boys managed to use the title of beautification to somehow diminish the overall impact of the work. What was her program all about really . Its a beautification is a word that she didnt like because she thought it was prissy and it was a euphemism that as you say and she said later kind of masked what she was a really about. She had a very ambitious environmental vision. Which going back to her early childhood was premised on the idea that human Beings Cant be fully human without access to nature and its true that we associate her with beautification of american highways and that was is part of her Legacy And Planting bulbs and tulips in the touristy and monumental part of Washington Dc, which is a very significant part of her legacy, but she was also in Washington Dc and also in american cities, but its special in the District Of Columbia trying to figure out how to bring together. Civil rights and what we would call environmental justice today, and so she developed working with Stuart Udall Secretary of interior with walter washington. Who was the head of the national housing the national Capital Housing Authority and then appointed as the first mayor of dc to and then with a very interesting Landscape Architect from california to develop ways to bring to desegregate access to nature in Washington Dcs most underserved neighborhoods was a black Majority City at the time and with no statehood and very little representation of any in congress. So so it was a pretty radical vision in fact, but it was dressed up in this idea of beautifying and sometimes what happened and what did happen is that she was criticized for this ornamental approach at a time of major social cleavage and radical politics in the country and she was conscious of that and and tried and to to have that Beautification Idea Shed and become more of a overt environmentalist by the end of her term backstage. There was a lot of hard knuckle politics involved in many of these issues you talk about interaction with the Auto Industry and also with the Billboard Industry, which was very lucrative certainly a lot of racial tension around some of the ideas for changing cities. How did she navigate those politics . Kind of seamlessly. I mean she was a big tent operator. So when she first had these when the east wing first without a budget but withstanding convened these Beautification Committee meetings as you say she would have individuals from the Auto Industry from the Petroleum Industry the garden club. Very very well known architects and Landscape Architects. She would have every but a sort of a big ten operation to try to get as much build a broader political coalition as possible and she had philanthropists who helped under right the financing of the planting or maybe the renovation of a school. Playground over time and this we see it in 1965 though the pushback starts when she becomes associated in this, you know shades of Hillary Clinton. She becomes associated with something. That sounds kind of fluffy but really isnt which is this Highway Beautification Act which starts as for four bills, and then it comes together in 1965, but the the larger pressures that shes against have to do with the 1950s which when we saw the beginning of the interstate Highway System that Highway System us are under eyes and power that began to be constructed in the country was done with very little regulation very little attention for which neighborhoods were being destroyed as entrances and exits from cities were being constructed. Certainly. No, i toured aesthetics and so the Billboard Industry and the Automobile Industry and a concrete industry are sort of all of a peace and to have the first lady of the United States come in and try to regulate what one sees when one drives down a highway to get junkyard screened and the scale of billboards managed so that they werent these hideous towering screeching ads. All of that was quite threatening and by the time that legislation passes theres um the republican party spokespeople in the congress are attacking her and attacking lbj for having a wife whos putting herself out there so much. Another area of interest was womens rights. You describe, washington in 1963 and 64 as a city separated by both race and gender. How did she use her Doers Luncheons to advance the cause of womens rights. I i love this aspect of Lady Bird Johnson because its not a very bold all caps approach. Its a quite subtle approach 1963 is when the feminine mystique by betty fordan is published and the Womens Movement is just beginning to pick up steam. She is from a different generation and this concept of Doers Luncheon is another way of kind of its another euphemism for highlighting professional women and the first few people she has about not quite two dozen of these luncheons over the course of her time in the white house, but the first two people to me that she has to speak are very instructive. One of them is Barbara Solomon who at the time has begun to put together. What we know is the Schlesinger Library at radcliffe today. She is a professor at harvard and she comes to the white house to talk about the importance of documenting Ones History and keeping all of the material and ephemera, but keeping a record and a diary and of course Lady Bird has already started this and she does it with incredible discipline throughout her presidency, and it goes to Lady Birds own Ear And Eye toward documenting the Lbj Presidency as a whole. So Barbara Solomon is the first the second is Jane Jacobs who is of course the the pioneering advocate in american cities in new York City for humane cities and Jane Jacobs comes and she lives invites her Liz Garbage or her and Jane Jacobs comes and speaks. Lady bird calls her somewhat salty and somewhat controversial speaker, which shes talking about is her critique of the urban renewal projects all around the country that have really laid waste to poor communities in american cities and that is of course a seed that is planted with Lady Bird and one that she begins to follow and nourish in Washington Dca. We have about 15 minutes left and gosh theres so much to talk about but one of the shes stopped those luncheons because as you you divide your book chronologically the first two years full of accomplishments for the johnsons the passage of the historic civil rights act the Head Start and other programs being passed then of course the rising number of deaths coming out of the Vietnam War and also the racial strife going around the country really polls started to drop and be being a champion for other issues really got superseded by this the troubles in the country in fact you write and she wrote in her Diary Linden lives in a cloud of troubles and there are boiling masses of humanity on the streets. I wanted to very quickly tell a story about her last Doers Lunch and because it brings all of these together she invited Eartha Kitt to the white house and have her talking about how that luncheon turned out from her perspective. I raise my hand to a point. She would recognize me and i said i think weve forgotten what the subject of this london is all about. And i recited what the subject was. And as one of the reasons why our boys are running away from the United States because they come to me wherever i am in the world and they tell me what they feel. Our position in vietnam, they dont like being within their long enough to realize we cannot win this war. Its a silly war. Its an unwinnable war and we dont want to go that thats not that we dont love america, but we dont want to be involved with that war. So i told her what the kids had told me the boys. Suddenly the meeting was over i understand that she started to tear up. I dont know. I was not close enough to see that. But i was i had a car that they at the hotel at the white house had sent for me to come there. But then all of a sudden now, i dont have a car. Im walking around waiting for a car. And i had to hitchhike my way back to the timing for this was january 1968 Lyndon Johnson hadnt announced his intentions for the 68 campaign, but vietnam and civil rights were following the johnsons everywhere at this point. Why is this luncheon an interesting point in time in that story . Well, the the other aspect of whats following the johnsons everywhere our riots in american cities. Beginning in 1965, but especially 1966 1967 the political uprisings we call them riots, but think of them as as of uprising against some of the very same issues that were seeing race the racial reckoning in this country around Today Police Brutality lack of job opportunities housing discrimination. These are the issues that black americans are demanding get more resources. And so what Eartha Kitt does when she comes to the white house, and this is a white House Lunch and thats focused on crime the crime bill that Lyndon Johnson has just announced the night before at the state of the Union Address now, were moving into a political Election Season and lynda has an as you say and announced that hes not going to run again yet, but the the Law And Order backlash is rising and we hear people like Richard Nixon and George Wallace pushing on the Johnson Administration to take a stronger stand on this thing called law order. So fighting crime, which is one way of that. This issue was discussed is the theme of the luncheon and Eartha Kitt is invited by the white house to attend because she has been an activist for civil rights, but also in watson Los Angeles and in anacostia and Washington Dc to try to do what we would think of as like basic Youth Empowerment how to empower local kids to feel that. They actually have an Opportunity And Possibility and so shes putting her her wealth behind dance classes and training programs and shes testified before congress about it. So thats why shes invited to come. The what she does that is. Treated with such controversy is a couple of things one. She says what we heard her say just now which is people are in the streets. She brings she brings a critique of vietnam into a discussion thats supposed to be about whats happening at home and in the white house, you know, you dont cross lanes like that if youre asked to speak about subject i used to speak about subject a you dont challenge the first family in the first lady on subject b, so that was one kind of line that she crossed the other line that she crossed had to do with kind of the choreography of the day and it got Lyndon Johnson had dropped by before Eartha Kitt and Lady Bird had their exchange and what just to say hello and he speaks for a few minutes and then as hes walking out Eartha Kitt stands up and stops him at the podium. And this he seems totally fine with it. They have a little conversation, but it sets the tone then and creates this tension so that when Lady Bird does call on earth a kid an Eartha Kitt gives a very long statement bringing together crime and riots and the Youth And Vietnam into the the first familys home. The circle the Wagons Kind of dynamic in the room shifts and there are a couple of journalists there and they go out and they report. Kind of inaccurately what was said what wasnt said and the whole thing blows up with the white house taking a very tough stance against Eartha Kitt and and basically like executing a Smear Campaign against her in the aftermath. That has a very longlasting professional negative professional effect on her. With our time short, what did you learn in lady . Birds diaries about the incident thats useful to understand how she approached such things. Well, she documented that incident in the usual way that she did which was she gathered lots of material together clips and statements and transcripts and news coverage, but i think in this instance, this is a and i and i did this with a lot of her diaries, i would go and check the accuracy of what she was reporting on in this particular instance. I think she got sucked into the spin. I think this is one of the lowest moments of Lady Bird Johnsons presidency because she is very negative about Eartha Kitt and very unself reflective about her own. Allowing the white house allowing Liz Carpenter to paint earth a kid in the aftermath of this incident we have about five minutes left. I want to put one last piece of videotape on and thats Lady Bird Johnson herself just to fast forward the story. Were already into 1968 Lyndon Johnson announces in march that he is not going to run for the presidency again, and it is one of the most momentous years in american modern american History Martin Luther king assassinated on april 4th. Robert f. Kennedy assassinated on June 5th the violence at the political conventions all the last year of the johnsons in the white house Lady Bird Johnson reflected on why she thought it was important that he leave the white house in 1968. Lets listen. In the end. Why did he quit . My opinion is that he knew he didnt have. In case you won he didnt have four more years. 16hour days left in him. Yeah, they were wearing thin and costing too much in just pulling up your spirits right out of your boots and and going on and it was if he lived he would not be able to do the sort of job as president that he wanted to do and something that hony to us. Was the picture of Wilson Woodrow Wilson which was painted old such a shame after it had first stroke. And so we didnt want to reach that point. We wanted if we got sick. We wanted to be sick on our own time. Not on the governments time. Actually swag your reaction to her description. It brings together all of the elements that that in the actual time. She was in the white house she was talking about and and that the specter of him dying or becoming debilitated even worse while in office really did drive them. In the Closing Part of your book you write and you alluded to this before that Lady Bird Johnsons legacy is so tied up with lg lbjs that the work of disentangling her contributions is complex. So after spending so much time with her what should people know about her singular contributions to american history. I dont think the Johnson Presidency would have been possible without Lady Bird her singular contributions have to do with both that presidencys successes around the war on poverty and civil rights and the great society and also the blinders that both she and lbj had when it came to vietnam. She also shaped. An approach to political partnership in the white house in the way. She used the platform of the east wing that i think is quite singular and really has not been fully appreciated and i hope until now can you give an example as we close . That environmental agenda. Helped raise public consciousness in a way that allowed what came subsequently under Richard Nixon the creation of the environmental Protection Agency the establishment of the redwood national forest the celebration in 1970 of the first Earth Day by the american public the the the second nature we now with which we now approach to keeping our our natural environments clean and beautiful and preserving it. All of that is something that Lady Bird Johnson. Put into the american consciousness with during her time in the white house. After spending this much time with Lady Bird Johnson if you could have her seated right here and ask her a question, what would you want to know from her . I would like to know if she was as aware. I would like her to talk about her awareness of her influence on the Lbj Presidency in real time. Shes such a modest person. She was so habituated to deflecting attention, but sometimes i wonder whether all of that documentation was a direct and conscious manifestation of her awareness of her influence or not. Thats it for our time. Julia swag. The book is called Lady Bird Johnson hiding in plain sight. Its also available as a series of a podcast that folks can find wherever they find their podcasts. Thank you for spending an hour with cspan. Thank for having me susan. All q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast at cspan. Org. Weeknights this month were featuring american History Tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3 thursday american History Tv visits san francisco to hear the story of chinese people in america from historian charlie chin. He leads a group of college students through the chinese historical society of america and then on a tour of chinatown. Thats thursday starting at 8pm eastern and enjoy american History Tv every weekend on cspan 3 ice acting director ty johnson testifies on Homeland Security operational priorities for the agency on Thursday Morning before a House Appropriation Subcommittee watch live beginning at 10 eastern on cspan 3 online at cspan. Org or listen on the free cspan radio app. American History Tv on cspan 3 every weekend documenting Americas Story Funding comes from these television companies and more including mediacom. The world changed in an instant the mediacom was ready Internet Traffic Sort and we never slowed down schools and businesses went virtually and we powered a new reality because immediacom were billed to keep you ahead mediacom along with these television companies supports american History Tv on cspan 3 as a public service. Here Karen Tumulty your new biography of Nancy Reagan the triumph of Nancy Reagan says in the intro that she exercised an influence unlike any first