Tell us what you think about our programming this weekend. You can tweet us at booktv, comment on our facebook wall or send us an email. Nonfiction books every weekend on cspan2. And now from the 17th annual texas book festival in austin, texas, a discussion of president Lyndon Johnson and first lady ladybird johnson. This is just over 50 minutes. Hi, and welcome to the texas book festival. D my name is carol dawson, and iw love being a moderator every year at the texas book festival, and i particularly love this task this year. Task this year i have had the privilege of reading two books that interlock so beautifully that it provided one hold 360degree experience in reading them. Before we begin, and i introduce our authors, i want to remind you all that all proceeds of book sales at the texas book festival goats the libraries of this great state. So, please avail yourself of the book tent and after a recession is over the book signing tents where you can get both of the signatures of these two wonderful gentleman on the front pieces of your books. Now, our panel today, as you know, is about ladybird johnson, an oral history, and it involves a total of 18 years worth of interviews with ladybird johnson. And indomitable will come lbj in the presidency, the interesting thing about these books is that ladybird memories and history leading up to the presidency, and where it leaves off mark up digress book about lbj begins, and it is a tapestry of voices commenting about lyndon b. Johnson. Michael gillett who assembled ladybird sorrell history directed the lbj Library Oral History program from 19761991. He later served as director of the center for legislative archives at the National Archives and is currently the executive director of humanities texas in austin. He is the author of launching the war on poverty, an oral history. To my right mark of the growth is the current director of the Lyndon Baines johnson president ial library and museum in austin, texas. A post he assumed in october of 2009. An Award Winning author and president ial historian, he has written three books relating to the american presidency, indomitable will lbj in the presidency was published by crown in march of 2012. Baptism by fire, a presidency took office in times of crisis in 2009 and second act, president ial lives and legacies after the white house. He spent much of his career at time magazine, first as president of time canada and toronto and then as los angeles manager. He has also been a publisher of Newsweek Magazine and the vicepresident of sales, marketing, and operations for yahoo canada, so he is obviously covering the digital ground as well as the historical and archival ground. Welcome to you both. Thank you both for these marvelous books. I have had such a good time reading them. And reading the overlaps and the discrepancies. The first thing i want to bring up actually is a very interesting discrepancy between the two. These two people who came together in marriage ladybird johnson and Lyndon Johnson incredibly different personalities. Im sure most, if not all of you are familiar with the idiosyncrasies and a famous legends about lbj, shall we say, iran stability, crudeness, largerthanlife personality, contradictory nature, and absolute will to get things done and the things he got done were very important things. He could not have done these things, it is my belief, especially after reading these books, without ladybird. Ladybird johnson, born Claudia Taylor was an incredibly gracious southern woman who grew up in a semi tomboyish practices and the surroundings very near catholic in far east texas in karnak. The fact that she grew up in a town named after a famous egyptian temple, i have always found very interesting. Not far from milesian fields, by the way. But she grew up isolated. Lbj grew up very much a part of a community, but in a very different part of texas. When they came together they formed a balance that i think is one of the most interesting marital histories in the history of political america. The one thing that i want to employ of really quickly is how ladybird got her neck and. How many of you have heard the story that she was named by her African American nurse when she was about two years old because she was as pretty as a ladybird. Please raise your hands. This is what mr. Up the growth tells us in his book, but Mike Gillette has Something Else to tell us entirely, and im going to let him tell us. His particular story of how that came to be. Well, she told me that the name was actually given to her by her to African American playmates, stuff and doodlebug. And, of course, ladybird is another word for lady bug. Apparently it was decided later at some point that it needed the name the name needed to be attributed to her adult nurse because to do otherwise might give the indication of social interaction between the races, but and i have never read that anywhere else, but that is what she told me anyway. Taken for what its worth. Isnt that fascinating . Its like the precursor to the Civil Rights Act. This conversation is taking a nasty turn since i found out i got my tac facts wrong. [laughter] you know, you got so many other facts right in your book, i dont think you need to worry. I would like you each to talk a little bit, starting with you, marc, about the different facets and aspects of the personalities to which you were privy, in particular in your case lbj and some of the dynamics and contradictions in lbj is personality as reflected by the many voices that you have included in this book. Well, im looking at in the audience. Many technology to people, one of whom is harry middleton. Terry was the first director of the lbj library, my predecessor, my dear friend, and so much of the scholarship about ladybird johnson comes from the work that harry did in the lbj library. The other one sitting next to him is surely a chance to work for mrs. Johnson for many years into recently prevailed with the United States post office in getting a postage stamp in honors of ladybird johnson. [applause] a friend of mine and harrys ensure lease was a speechwriter like kerrey for Lyndon Johnson, and i think he put it very aptly when he said, allowing for shades of subtlety there were many lbj is as there were people who knew him, and as often as not people they saw or contradictory. And i think that says so much about lbj. He treated everybody differently because i think as Hubert Humphrey called him, the worlds best psychologist, he understood how to get people who mattered to say yes, and that meant treating people in very different place. So that is why i think that one of the reasons that people saw him so differently from person to person. Thank you. Mike, would you please talk a little bit about what you discovered about ladybird personality through your many interviews with her and the interviews that you read that she had given . Well, i remember at one. When i was directing the Oral History Program under harry middletons lead, might add, for 20 years, we had a contract Transcription Service come in and transcribe maybe 500 interviews that had never been transcribed under the project that you tea had done that we inherited. And i asked the test crabbers when they finished that project what that take away for them once, and it was hell much they came to admire mrs. Johnson, just from hearing what other said about her. And so that is one level. The other level is that when you meet her you discover that she is just as warm and gracious to a Government Employee as she would be to Laurence Rockefeller in her home. She was really a wonderful hostess, and she treated everyone with such warmth and kindness, and that was particularly valuable when her husband was as volatile and demanding as he was. She could soften the lbj treatment and nullify the people that he had irritated pipit. I think they were utterly symbiotic. A perfect partnership, and i think per refines charms, her smooth to his rough edges. Calling his frequent storms, and i think they both gave each other something. I think she gave him solace in so many ways. Very tempestuous personality. I think she sues stamp in so many ways. And i think he, by her own account, sort of allowed her to reach beyond her own dissidents, natural any dissidents and to become in her words more than she would have been. That certainly is the impression that i have gathered from both books. As she herself put it, we were Better Together than we would have been, and the implication is as individuals apart. One of the things that impressed me mike in your book was when she said to lbj about his temper and his moodiness and when he became angry, she said you can go in that room and be quiet by yourself and raise cain to yourself. You can raise cain with me and i wont let myself be hurt by it. You know, that is a remarkable offering for a woman to make in order to not only assist her husband, but a Sister Country because she was up buffer between him and his extremes and the other people that he worked with and the rest of the world. Another aspect, though, that you commented to me about that comes through so strongly in this oral history is her sense of humor. Would you talk a little bit about that and give us a good example . Well, she did have a good sense of humor, and she was often the butt of her stories. She had a wonderful sense of humor in telling stories on herself, less so lbj, but, you know, in that wonderful southern accent, i have a couple of excerpts that i can play in a moment that would give you a sense of her sense of humor, her mimicry, if you will. Lbj was a famous mimic, as we all know, but you will hear an example of mrs. Johnson altering her voice to mimic an old lady. So can you please give us a really good cleaned up version of lbj sense of humor . And i dont mean what he said Ted John Kenneth Dale about economic speeches. [laughter] hilarious. You know, he was a great storyteller, and he was a great joke teller. One of my favorite jokes that he has told was about the School Teacher in desperate need of a job during the great depression. His little town of johnson, texas. There is an opening, and the School Board Meets with the School Teacher. They asked him, well, do you teach that the world is round or flat . The poor fellow needed a job so bad he said, i can teach it either way. [laughter] i always thought that was interesting because if you look at lbj as an historian you can teach him either way. He is so vast, the personality that you can look at him in so many different ways. I think that joe, for me, has a certain resonance. Mrs. Johnson describes the trip there she took to china to me, and on that trip she had a rare delicacy of a thousand year old egg. And her comment was, i like them not more than two weeks of myself. [laughter] well, another good example, i think, of lbj humor was when he was talking about how back in johnson city the old timer setting aside and played dominoes and one of them says to another, yes, he sure comes up in the world. He wants of the most important political principles, in order of importance our loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty loyalty. Courage and compassion are the other two qualities that i think cemented the bond between these people. Because they knew that they could trust each other absolutely in these areas. Mike, would you talk a little bit about transcends courage and give us a good example of that . Welcome i suppose the best example is in october of 1968. She and Lyndon Johnson were leaving the baker hotel in dallas, walking across the street to an event at the adolphus hotel. Focusing on welltodo women who were therefore a event. They carried what mrs. Johnson described in her oral history is a sea of angry slogans. She says that they did not like lbj and they hated kennedy. And this mom essentially blocked the passage. It made a very different and difficult for them to get through. And you have to realize the potential for some sort of mob action. She described it as just an animal like tense atmosphere where the slightest thing could trigger a riot. At one point, one of the signs not mrs. Johnsons hat off. Lbj recognized that she wasnt going as fast as she should have. But they were making the most of this event for television. It would display the behavior of his opponents. So that is certainly an example of courage. Also on the lady bird special. When she toured the south after she signed the Civil Rights Act, which im going ask mark to talk about. Can you please tell all of us what his response to russell was when he was pushing the acts through . You mentioned loyalty and compassion and courage. This story merges all three of those qualities and exemplifies were Lyndon Johnson stood off. It was 1964. John f. Kennedy had been assassinated, the Civil Rights Act of 1963, which essentially would rid the south of all jim crow laws that were oppressing people of color. That became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lyndon johnson was very much in support of that act. He had been opposed to some civil rights legislation early in his life when he was the representative here in texas. But as he said very pointedly, when he became president in the wellknown speech, now that i have the power, i need to use it. Never expected to be the president of the United States. He has to realize hes going to run over a lot of the senators and a lot of the representatives with whom he worked when he was in the house and senate. One of them was richard russell. His friend and mentor. A giant senator from the state of georgia who vehemently opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He knows hes going to have run over him to get this passed. And they have a very somber conversation. Russell says lbj, you know, you can pass the sack. You have the legislative ability to do it. Jack kennedy in, but you do. But im warning you, if you do, you will lose the Democratic Party to the south. You may well lose the presidency in the election of 1964. Johnson listens to this, and he says very somberly, dick, if that is the price for the spell, i will gladly pay it. A remarkable story of hers. If i may just help one more quick story about his loyalty. As harry knows, he was fiercely loyal to those who worked with him. When the staff was leaving the white house in 1959 and they were going back and finding jobs, lbj wanted to make sure that everybody landed in a good job. Transitioning with good prospects. There was one guy who worked as a Legal Counsel for lbj. He signed out of the white house in order to go to los angeles to talk about starting a Washington Office for this prosperous firm. The new that he had signed out in order to take this interview. Going to los angeles, he meets with the partners of this law firm in a Conference Room and they are all hundred together. They are very frustrated and one partner says, okay, you take a call from the president. They all leave and pearson gets on the phone. And he says, i dont know if you noticed, but i signed out of the white house and im in los angeles. Lbj said, yeah, i know that. And he says, mr. President , what can i do for your . And he said oh, nothing for my supper call it help. [applause] [laughter] i love that story. I really love that story. There was another example of loyalty in the books, in both books that have to do with the necessary resignation of Walter Jenkins during the scandal that burst upon the administration. That occurred with a longterm loyal message. He may as well have been a member of the family of ale bjs and administration. One time i was just electrified because it is such a beautiful handling of the situation that ladybird did with Lyndon Johnson but acknowledged his prerogatives and power. Out of their deep compassion about Walter Jenkins that led to her actually, quietly informing him in a subtle way he was going to be defying him. Defying the instructions in terms of a vocal public support for Walter Jenkins. Would you like to talk about a little bit . Yes, i would. This is, perhaps, the best telephone conversation between the president and mrs. Johnson in the recordings. Walter jenkins has been arrested on homosexual accusation during the 1964 campaign. I think it is october. President johnson is concerned that if he or mrs. Johnson will make a statement support of jenkins, a Double Dragon presidency, and that will inflate the problem even more. Mrs. Johnson is thinking first about the loyalty to Walter Jenkins and his family. Reaching out to him with a statement of support. And she essentially says, is carol has indicated, i know you cant do it, lyndon, but i am going to make a statement. She just goes ahead and does it. It is a very well worded and thoughtful statement. She backed it up with years of friendship with Walter Jenkins. Is a very moving story. That story alone is who was reading both of these books for. I think. This was one of the most productive president ial terms in the history of this country. It is amazing how many bills got passed under lbj. That, again, was the product of this symbiosis between the two. I have a long list here of the accomplishment of that administration, and i would rather ask mark to please designate as many of the acts that he signed the