Floor, where more than 600 guests were waiting. Why did you start it that way, and what were you talking about . Betty well, i wanted to draw the reader into the story, because that was a very important day for the johnsons. Remember, their older daughter was getting married, but it was also one of the worst periods in the presidency. You know, lady bird said that the first two years were wine and roses, and the last years were pure hell. And so, this was a happy family occasion, you could say, in the middle of what was really a devastating period for them. And i wanted to get the reader into the story before i began talking about her childhood, which was extremely troubled, as you know. Brian what else was there about the wedding, that you said in the prologue, that was important . Betty well, i guess for me, what stood out was, she says in her unpublished diary, that as lyndon walked down the aisle, because they are in the big east room for the actual ceremony, with linda on his arm, lady bird wasnt looking at her daughter, she was looking at lyndon, and she said she noticed that his hair was grayer than before. That is an amazing statement for her to make, that her eyes were not on the daughter, but the husband. Brian what was the symbolism for you that johnson left the reception to fly to texas . Betty i found that really hard to explain, how a father could leave his daughters reception just a few minutes after it started. I mean, he did dance with lady bird, but he took off with some friends, and that left the bridal couple. Can you imagine . A woman who has just been married and her father doesnt even stay around to see the guests leave. It was for lady bird to see the guests and bridal couple off. Brian we talked about the nine roosevelt women earlier. Why did you spend all this time on Lady Bird Johnson . Betty shes always been depicted as a plus one. She became, i think, the first modern first lady. In other words, she had a big staff, she had a very important project, she wrote her book as soon as she left the white house. She really invented the modern first lady. So i thought, how could she be so insignificant and do all those things . And then there was the mystery about how her mother died. There were a lot of things about her story where i thought i just wanted to write about her. After she died, many of the papers became available, her unpublished diary. She wrote a big 800 page book. She recorded eight times that much. I was dying to get my hands on that. I got the final segment this june. It was a very big help. Brian where did you have to go to find the diary . Betty remember, she did not keep a diary in the usual sense of writing everyday. She did not type. She recorded. She did not record everyday. The days she could not get to it, she had a big brown envelope. That had to be transcribed. Who transcribed it did not always understand her accent. I was told i would have to wait until it was retranscribed. It was told to me in the transcript that mrs. Johnson looked at a picture and said, oh, it looks like a bowl of jelly. They listened to the recording, and what she said was it looks like a botticelli. I got the final segment this year. Brian did you ever get an interview . Betty i did not. I got a note back from her saying she was ill. I did not follow up. Her office was good to answer. I would ask who worked for who and how many letters did her office receive. She always made sure they got answered. Brian her love letters were on the lbj library website. I went on there and got this one from Lyndon Johnson. Where were they both in september . Betty they met september 5, 1934. She had graduated from university of texas. They went to the office of somebody they both knew. They spent the next five days, she was introduced to his family, to his boss, some friends. Then, she took him back on monday to meet her father. Wednesday to monday, they spent those days together, and he was only asking her to marry him. He left Tuesday Morning to drive back to washington. September 11 was the first letter he wrote her, from the memphis hotel, that he wished she had married him. Maybe thats the letter . Brian they are all on the website. He said, it was hard to leave you. It is always hard to feel that you have not quite won. I would hope that you would want to go with me. If you did, i did not understand it that way. He goes on to say, you mean everything to me. I hope i may mean as much to you. It was hard to tell you how much it meant to be with you in your home. That is five days after they met . Betty yes. The letters are an incredible source for understanding the sort of man he was. Now, we know his insistence on secrecy. He would write, somethings happening, but i cant tell you what. The letters tell you a lot about his needs. I need someone like you to nurse me and help me climb. I could never figure out why someone as cautious as lady bird would marry someone just a few weeks after she met him. It is hard to figure out how many days they knew each other before they married. They met september 5. He left, came back on halloween, and she had already planned a visit to her aunt in atlanta, georgia. She went off on a trip. They were writing hot and heavy letters. She marries him. They get into a car starting towards san antonio. She says she figured she could always get out in austin before she got there. She didnt even unpack before she got back from her aunt. It always amazes me that a woman who saught advice on every single topic before she acted married him in a hurry. Brian heres kirk douglas reading these letters. Lets watch this. We walked through an old colonial mansion. It always gives me a very poignant feeling. There were the tallest magnolias ive ever seen. My dear, this morning i am ambitious, proud, energetic. I am madly in love with you. I want to see people, i want to do things with the drive. If i had a box, i would make a speech. Plans, ideas, hopes. I am bubbling over. Lyndon, tell me as soon as you can what the deal is. [laughter] im afraid its politics. I know i have not any business, not any proprietary interest. But i would hate for you to go into politics. [laughter] betty well, i think that letter about not wanting him to go into politics has been taken out of context. She was political as a young woman. She was writing in the same letters, do you like to debate economics and socialism, religion . As a student at the university of texas, she would go to the legislature to listen to debate. I think that was taken out of context. She was interested in ambitious young men. She saw lyndon as one. If it was politics, she was willing to go. Brian the same thing that baffles a lot of people is her reaction to his womanizing. Im going to pull this out. You say lyndon needed a bevy of beauties around him, and bird made room for all of them. Betty when you look at her background, her father, you look at the letter in which she tells him off about how hes out dancing with another woman, and later, he is dining with that same woman. I looked for her response to that. She doesnt reply to anything about this. Later, she says she knew the relationship was not platonic. Theres a very complicated history, what she wanted why she wanted beautiful women around him. She says he did better work, with his ego. In the book, i talk about how lyndon always wants the most beautiful women beside him, and tonight it is, and then she names a woman. When you read her history, you understand. Brian another quote. Although youre telling a story from horace busby. Lyndon drove with one hand and used the other hand go under the skirt of the woman seated between him and bird. Betty some people say, and i quote a woman reporter, that in a way, lyndon made a show of affection in order to rile lady bird. Whenever they were walking sidebyside, lyndon would take her hand, if she was in view, as though he was having his sexual relation with the woman reporter. He flaunted his attractivness. Brian melvyn douglas, he was an actor, she was a congresswoman. I want to show you some video of Helen Douglas who ran against dick nixon and lost. She condemned the fear of internal communism as irrational and the host of the distance of the House Committee on unamerican activities. Politicians in both parties called the former actress a bleeding heart liberal, a dogooder. John f. Kennedy quietly gave nixon 1000 to defeat her. Mrs. Douglas was the perfect target for nixons style of campaigning. It was an unseeded campaign he waged against me. The essence of that kind of campaign is this to avoid the issues, you work up bogus issues. Betty the relationship with lyndon goes back to their days together in the house. When she came in the house of representatives from california in 1945, she was gorgeous, hollywoodsmart, and glamorous. She was the most glamorous woman in the house. She stands out like a birthday cake on the salad bar. She is in Lyndon Johnsons office the first day she is there. She was attacked on the house floor by congressman rankin for the same thing set in the 1950s, being a communist. She stood up and said, are you referring to me . There was a scene. Lyndon gets the speaker and gets rankin to answer helens question. Rankin says he wasnt, which is not true. It is interesting, how public lyndon came to her rescue. They would walk handinhand, his car would stay over at her house. Brian he was married at the time . Betty yes, for 11 years. But you read in lady birds diary how much she liked helen. Where do they go to commiserate . This was shocking to many people. We think of fdr as being sick for a long time. People knew he did not look good. Lady bird said he looked tired, but there was shock. This was the only president many people had ever known, certainly in the johnson case. Lyndon said he was like a daddy to me. Where do they go to commiserate . They go to the house of Helen Douglas. Brian on our radio station, we ran phone conversation with Lyndon Johnson. This was in 1964, january 1. Lady bird is on the phone. Listen and see what you think. He never knew you the way i did. I said he might be one of the really great ones. Hello. That is what i said. This man might turn out to be one hell of a present. Well, i hope i am good as a president. I ran into your friends, right and left, and liked them all so much. Tell them that evelyns out here. Shes running the big law office for wyman. I know them. I like them. Keep your ear to the ground. California is a messy place, worse than texas. I asked her to keep her ear to the ground. Tell her to report to us every now and then. I like the women to like him, and i like him to like them. He said he and roz did well, partly because of you. There are complications, but its going very well. Betty that is so typical for her to get on the phone and ooze charm. Theres a later case where helen goes over to the white house and they invite her to stay. Ladybird has breakfast with her and is so enthusiastic about how great she is. This is after 15 years of washington talking about lyndons affair with helen. Betty it was a fairly open marriage at that point. Brian we might come back to that point. I want to go on to another part of the book, where you talk about Lady Bird Johnsons business experience. You had figures on how much money was dispensed to her and the children. Lets start with this. A man named a. W. Morrison was a trustee. The two men did not speak for the remainder of lyndons life. Betty he was a rancher, a neighbor. That was the first stop on most of their trips back to texas. When it came time to appoint a trustee to look after their holdings, when lyndon became president , he was one of the people they could trust to do that. His family had lent money to lyndon to go to college. This was a relationship that went way back. It became complicated. A. W. Was lending. It was very complicated. When it came time to end the relationship, to settle the property after the presidency ended, lyndon said they decided to split the blanket. They never spoke again. Brian Bill Morrissey cut him off. And tom johnson, who was his press secretary. Betty after the presidency ended, tom johnson wanted to give a book party for bill moyers. They call Lyndon Johnson and say they want him to come to the party. The phone went dead. Johnson said he could not sever the relationship. He went to lady bird, and she talked to lyndon. She said to him, just because tom is loyal to bill moyers doesnt mean he isnt also loyal to you. It was mended, a little. Brian back to business. How did their business start, and what was it . Betty lady bird had a journalism degree. She was the first lady to have 2 degrees, and the only one up to hillary clinton. She said she always wanted to own a newspaper, but it was too expensive. In 1942, a station in austin came up for sale. It was losing money. She had money inherited from her mother, who had died a long time ago. It partly came from uncle claude, whom she was named for. She could not buy it without doing research. She went to a member of the fcc and who had been a johnson friend. She said, do you think it is a good idea . He says yes. She buys the station and goes down there in 1943. I have evidence she washed the windows and dealt with programming and got into it. Of course, that little station gradually became the basis of an empire. It didnt make money. Her first money was in august of 1943, and the profit was 17. She used the entire amount to pay a dental bill. Of course, when television became an option, that, i found interesting. One of the interpretations given to the broadcasting history of the Johnson Family is that lady bird had nothing to do with it. There is so much evidence to the contrary. Their lawyer talks about a meeting, where they had to decide whether to go into television or not. It was expensive, so much equipment and programming. Its a bigger deal than radio. Lyndon holds back, but lady bird says its a risk she wants to take. So, they go into tv. Brian there was a time when the one television station in austin belonged to Lyndon Johnson. Betty its impossible to think about a senator being on the commerce committee, in charge of communications, the fcc, not having influence with the people making decisions. To what extent he actually, it has never been shown, any concrete evidence that he influenced people. It seems to me to be absolutely clear that just being in that job was an influence. I compared it to the obama daughters getting into college. I bet they both go to their first choice. When you are the daughter of the president , you have clout. Lady bird johnson was a person who people said, in the case of getting a license for tv, he said, i didnt apply. I knew johnsons wife was applying. Just the fact that he was on the committee in the senate, the committee in charge of the fcc, we dont have to say anything more. Brian the station was sold, and at one point, johnson worked for the los angeles times. The amount of money that was distributed, how did you find it . Betty i use printed sources. There were some subjects that became too complicated to follow up individually, like certain gifts he gave the staff members. I relied on other sources, like the wall street journal. Ive never heard those amounts were wrong. Brian you talk about president johnson having a falling out, after going out of the white house with Walter Cronkite. What was the falling out about . Betty when he left the white house, both johnsons, i think they were the first couple to do this, they signed contracts to write books. Lady birds got out by 1970, and lyndons by 1971. Their money goes to the lbj library. Lyndon was to do an interview with Walter Cronkite, but he felt the editing did not do him justice. He felt it was not a fair presentation of his handling of subjects like vietnam. I have a picture in the book of lady bird and Walter Cronkite, after lyndon died. They were boating together off of marthas vineyard. Remember, he was a classmate of lady bird. They were both in the journalism school. It is interesting to see the way she keeps this friendship. Cronkite, johnson, after lyndon has broken off. It is a very Important Role she plays in his life while he is alive, to mend the fences. He could be crude, cruel, make fun of them because of their weight or what they were wearing. Theres a famous story of how he criticized jill kelley sondra. He would say he did not like the way someones tie was tied. Lady bird would say, maybe he likes his tie that way. She would say, youve been delivering bad messages. Sometimes, you confuse the message with the messenger. She was good when it came to mending problems. Brian these are your words. It sits in during the Walter Cronkite interviews. He went on and on about how communist controlled the three Major Networks and dozens of other communication outlets. According to richard goodwin, he even named names. Walter lippmann is a communist. You would be shocked by the things revealed by the fbi. And he accused cronkite. Betty you are reading from the description of the ranch. Richard goodwin let loose with all these names. It was lady bird who said, now lyndon, dont you think you should think twice . Some of those reports might not be correct. The crisis that was averted, she would never confront him, but to say, now, lyndon. She called it infiltration. Brian the interview we did with her in 1999, the first question was about a taping system. The answer was a surprise. Did it bother you when you heard you were recorded . Lady bird no. Not that i recall. It would not have bothered me. It happened. I knew vaguely that it was happening. I let it happen. Someone had been under the bed with a microphone. No, i wasnt hurt or shocked. Mostly, i just knew this was the real, raw stuff of what went on. Betty she was amazingly courageous to let those tapes be opened. His recording system was created so he knew he would quote someone correctly. The recording system would be left on, because it always shocked me a bit to see he was recording his own wife. Secretaries told me other people could turn that on. There were, i think, 800 hours of recorded conversations. He gave them to his most trusted secretary, and he asked him not to open them until 50 years after his death. That wouldve been 2023. Harry middleton knew about the tapes and went to lady bird in 1990. He asked if they should open them. She said, yes. Now, you can hear her telling him how bad his press conference was. You can hear her argue with him about how to treat the Walter Jenkins matter. Brian keep in mind, she does not know shes recorded. What happened to Walter Jen