Transcripts For CSPAN3 First Ladies Influence And Image 20151019

A beautification, to my mind, is far more than a matter of cosmetics. To me, it describes the whole effort to bring the Natural World and the manmade world into harmony, to bring youthfulness, delight, to our whole environment and that, of course, only begins with trees and flowers and landscaping. That is it from a film created about the johnson family. Lady bird johnson talking about beautification, her signature issue as first lady. She was a natural campaigner, successful businesswoman and savvy partner to her husband, Lyndon Johnson. Good evening. Theght, we will tell you story of Claudia Taylor johnson known as lady bird, the wife of our 36th president. Here to tell her story are Cokie Roberts, political commentary for abc news and npr, also the author of two books, founding mothers and ladies of liberty. Betty boyle curly is an expert and working on a biography of Lady Bird Johnson. I want to start with the beginning, where we were 50 years ago this week, this is an administration birthed in national tragedy. What were the immediate challenges for the brand new first couple in the first terrible days after the assassination of kennedy. It was enormous. Nobody knew if it was a widespread plot so the country was in terror for a period of time and they had to be both taking over and making sure that there was a peaceful transition of power without seeming to take over because of the image of being pushing the kennedys out of the way so they had to be very, very careful in how they handled it and Lyndon Johnson was very lucky he had lady bird to help him with that because she had a good ear for knowing exactly what to say and when to say it. In particular, what did she do during those first weeks . She said she felt she was on stage for a part she never rehearsed but it would be hard to find a first lady better prepared than she was and she immediately started taking notes. We have her short hand notes while she was still waiting to hear whether president kennedy died and on the way back on the plane she started making plans for putting her Radio Station into some sort of blind trust so they would not be accused of profiting from it so she really took over very fast. She was a good study. I like to just play off of that idea of her taking notes because this was an administration which documented itself extensively. There was a daily diary she recorded of herself. There were also the Lyndon Johnson phone tapes which many people fabulous. Who love political history are aware of and there was a naval Television Crew that followed first couple around and documented. Is this new to this administration or had this been going on for a while with president s . I think the amount of documentation is new. She didnt record every day because some days were too full but she would she had a little recording machine and on days that were too busy, she would stuff brown envelopes with menus or lists of people she had seen and would get an hour or so some day and sit down and record so the recordings are still being transcribed. Theyre wonderful. Her white house diary which people may have read is i think 800 pages but thats only an eighth of what she has on those tapes so were waiting for the rest of it to come out. There were before this recordings, of course. We have kennedy recordings. We have roosevelt recordings. But John Quincy Adams wife wrote when she was first lady the autobiography of a nobody which tells you something about her state of mind at the time so there was i think most first couples have an awareness of the magnitude of the job but Lady Bird Johnson had such a sense of history that she understood, she said she dared herself to keep a diary and she understood that was something special. Throughout this program we will see some of the video from the naval crew that followed the couple around to document their days in the white house and hear some of the quotes. This is Lady Bird Johnson on november 22, 1963, recording that first tragic day that brought them into the white house. Mrs. Kennedys dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it and her right glove was caked. That immaculate woman, it was caked with blood, her husbands blood. She always wore gloves, like she was used to them and that was somehow one of the most poignant sights, exquisitely dressed and caked in blood. I asked her if i couldnt be of somebody to come in and help her change and she said, oh, no, thats all right, perhaps later ill ask for Mary Gallagher but not right now and then was something, for a person that gentle, that dignified, had an element of fierceness. She said, i want them to see what they have done to jack. It was decided that he should be sworn in there in dallas as quickly as possible. There, in the very narrow confines of the plane were jackie on his left, her hair falling in her eyes but very composed and then lyndon and then i was on his right. Judge hughes with a bible in front of him and a cluster of secret Service People and congressmen wed known a long time. Lyndon took the oath of office. What are you hearing there that people should understand be Lady Bird Johnson . Shes very specific. I had forgotten how she gets so many details and her description of that and before that when she talks about walking into the hospital and the kennedy car was still there and she saw this bundle of pink blossoms and the blood around it. Shes a very astute observer, wonderful. Wonderful writer and shes aware of that. She writes intentionally but shes clearly shes also clearly upset in that recording. You can hear it. And shes trying to both describe the situation but at the same time give homage to Jacqueline Kennedy, this very meticulous woman caked in blood, all of that to say, shes trying to tell you what was happening but not to in some way sensationalize it. For her following in mrs. Kennedys footsteps, Cokie Roberts referred to this sort of delicate dance of being respectful but needing to take control. What was the two womens relationship like . Well, Lady Bird Johnson, many people said, you must be this is a daunting act to follow. And she said, well, feel sorry for mrs. Kennedy, not for me, because i still have my husband. And i think she made a special effort not to imitate in any way some of the projects she considered, for example, beautifying the mall. Lyndon johnson advised her not to do that because the kennedys had done something similar but she was amazingly absent she didnt have envy of anybody. She seemed to consider the kennedys a different generation and i find her amazing in that regard that she knew that Jacqueline Kennedy was extremely popular and yet she knew that she had a lot to offer, too. She filled in for Jackie Kennedy many times. Thats something you have to keep in mind. There were lots of times mrs. Kennedy she was pregnant, she lost a baby, she wasnt well a lot of times, a lot of things she didnt want to do and mrs. Johnson filled in so she knew the role well and she was a quintessential washington political wife. She had been on the scene since the 1930s and she really knew it well and she had a cadre of other political wives who were just extraordinary women and they all gathered around her and that made that also made that transition somewhat easier. We should say at the outset, among those women who gathered around was your own mother. Can we talk about the friendship between your parents and the johnson . My father was first elected to congress in 1940. He was 26 and my mother was 24 and that was before world war ii so the rules were still there of calling. So you had to go calling and there was, you know, the Supreme Court on monday, the cabinet on tuesday im making up the days but the senate on wednesday, like that. And there was my mother, this 24yearold girl except people were older then than they are now so her first day of having to go calling and the horn honks outside and she goes running nd idown s Lady Bird Johnson and pauline gore, al gores mother, and they took her calling that first day and the friendship has been very warm ever since to the point, all through their husbands political lives and then when they both became widows they traveled together and had a wonderful time together. Were going to step back in time and learn more about the biography of the woman who became first lady on november 22, 1963. Before we do that, a reminder about your involvement. These programs are interesting because of your questions. We hope youll join in tonight. You can tweet us at cspans website. Were also taking questions from people on our Facebook Page and you can call in so, her biography. Where was she born and to whom . You cant really say a town because its a house outside the town which is really not much of a town, either. Karnak, texas, in 1912 december 1912, in a big house. One of the things i found in studying first ladies is how many of them married down. That is, they married into families considerably below theirs economically, socially, sometimes even education and it made a big impression on me to drive past the house where Lady Bird Johnson was born, the 17room house, and go 300 miles, near the louisiana border, drive 300 miles west and see the lowtotheground fourroom cabin where Lyndon Johnson was born so she came from a far wealthier background than she did. What were the important things to know about her childhood and what shaped her . I think the death of her mother. She was only 5 when her mother died in what i consider mysterious circumstances and she was a very lonely child although she said she wasnt but how would she know what any other childhood would be like. She had two older brothers but they were sent away to boarding schools. And they were a good bit older. A good bit older and they were sent away to boarding school. Tommy, the oldest brother, she said she never knew him. When he died in 1959 of pancreatic cancer, she said she cried harder than she cried in her life so it was a lonely childhood. Even her name, lady bird, the typical story is it came from a nurse but she says in her interview with mike gillette, that it was really two little africanamerican playmates, the children of hired help, who decided to call her that because they didnt like claudia but it was not considered acceptable to say she had africanamerican playmates so the nurse was brought in and it was attributed to the nurse, the lady bird. And an aunt was someone she ended up having to take care of so there she was, this little girl, all by herself, in this big house, with a father who was around but had no clue what to do with her and this sort of nutty old southern aunt and some playmates here and there but the big advantage to that was she became a world class reader. How important was it for southwestern women of that vintage to get an education . Was it unusual that she went to college . Yes, slightly, but by that time more women were going to college. Were not talking the 1920s into the 1930s so yes. It was more common than it was clearly a generation before that. Do we know why she was interested in journalism . I think for a lot of do you have an answer to that . She was interested in high school so it was an early interest and i think it was part of her plan to get out of that area, to get out of that part of texas. I also think for a lot of women, they could write, they had learned to write and that was something they thought they could do. My mother wanted to be a journalist, too. And they both ended up as politicians. The interesting thing about her approach to it, here she was from a wealthy family but she not only got a College Degree but also a teaching certificate and learned stenography. Thats what a girl did to prepare for all possibilities. But isnt it interesting that she felt the need to prepare for all possibilities with as much money as she had. Yes, because she had a good income. I figured she was inheriting about 7500 a year in the 1930s which is about what five School Teachers could make but her aim was to get out of there. She said some faraway place like hawaii or alaska. She went to the same Journalism School as walter cronkite. They had the same professor, singled out the same professor as a favorite. Cronkite said he was a good professor. I think his name was paul bolten and she hired him to head the news division, that same professor, when she bought the Radio Station. So i think we forget how very well trained she was as a journalist. How did she meet Lyndon Johnson . Well, by chance, supposedly, but it was certainly through a woman they both knew and they must have heard something about each other before. It was a september afternoon when lady bird had dropped into the womans office. Her name was jean barringer, a woman lady bird had grown up with although the woman was older than she and lyndon dropped by the same office on the same day and it was as lady bird says in one of the interviews, it was electric going from the first minute. And the love letters which have just the courtship letters which were released by the library last valentines day. Everybody should read them online. Just put l. B. J. Courtship letters and they were conducting a hot and heavy courtship there. And fast. She was not going to waste any time. She was either going to marry him or not. He was at the time a congressional aide. Right. So she knew she would be selecting a life in politics . I guess so. You could be an aide and not run but he clearly had ambitions and she was for those ambitions. You call it whirlwind but it seemed like he was very directed. He knew he wanted her from the gitgo. Was she encouraging this . Did she have any feelings about it . From her own oral history, she basically said, hold on here, as anybody would, and he essentially said, well, i mean, are you going to marry me or not because if youre not lets just not see each other and she didnt want to have him gone so she finally said, ok. Did her father approve . He liked lyndon but he thought it was too fast. They met on september 6 and lyndon showed up on halloween, so what is that, seven weeks later i mean, the time they had spent together which was about five days, i think, and he was ready to get married right then so even the father said this is too fast and the woman who introduced them thought it was too fast and the aunt thought it was too fast so, yes, against really all the family counsel, she went ahead. I think she said when she got in the car that saturday morning and they drove down to san antonio to get married, she didnt know whether she would get out on the way so she didnt make up her mind until 6 00 when she went down to the church. And was very young. 22 and he was 26 when they married. She wasnt quite 22, was she . She was just 21 because her birthday came afterwards so that was normal. That was a normal time to get married. Before we learn more about their political life, lets take a few calls. Beginning with james in oakland, california. I had two questions. One is, did Lady Bird Johnson have any contact with Jacqueline Kennedy after she was first lady . And did Lady Bird Johnson ever have doubts about the vietnam war . Thanks very much. Did they continue their contact after the Johnson White house began . Yes. The tax bill, when that was signed, when Lyndon Johnson signed that, he went with Lady Bird Johnson to the house of Jackie Kennedy in georgetown and gave her four pens, one for her, one for each of the kids and one for the library. I think during the white house years, the contact was rather formal. The johnsons certainly invited mrs. Kennedy back but she never came back while they were there. They gave gifts to the children. I know the first christmas, for example, they gave john jr. A fire engine. They reached out to her. After the white house, in the 1980s, after she was widowed, Lady Bird Johnson and Jacqueline Kennedy i guess we wouldnt say renewed a friendship, really established a friendship when they were both on Marthas Vineyard for periods in the summer. When you look at the documentary evidence, certainly she supported her husband publicly, but in her private materials, did you ever find doubts she expressed about the vietnam war . I never saw anything. She said if youre going to start a war, it has to be because of some big event like pearl harbor and to me that meant she thought they didnt have it in vietnam. It was so hard with all of the protests and it was so personal and that, i think, would put you in a position where you just want to support him no matter what. Michael in washington, d. C. Hi. I wanted to let you know that this program is fabulous. Thank you so much. Ive watched it all the way from the beginning. My first question is, did Lady Bird Johnson have any of the former first ladies that were living at the time obviously Jackie Kennedy didnt come back because she didnt come back until the nixon administration, but did she have any of the former first ladies back at the white house and was she the oldest longest living former first lady . Thank you very much. The longest living, we just discussed this, was beth truman. Beth truman made it to 95 and Lady Bird Johnson and betty ford were both 94 so its very close. The other question about, did other first ladies come back . I dont remember who else was around to come back. Mamie eisenhower and beth truman. Lou hoover . No, lou hoover was dead in 1944. But the johnsons went to the trumans in independence because thats where they signed the medicare act and theres a picture of them all there but i dont remember anything about oh, they did, i think, confer with the eisenhowers about how to give the ranch to the nation, which is what the eisenhowers had done with the gettysburg farm but i dont remember having any luncheons with the former first ladies. Early in their marriage, Lyndon Johnson gave lady bird a movie camera, and there are many hours of what are really family home movies that are now recorded and accessible to historians and other researchers at the Lyndon Johnson library. Were going to see one of those next. It is from the 1941 special election. There i am. That hat and suit went all over texas. A night rally. Some of the gestures have persisted through the years. Weight was not his problem then. Sometimes hed sweat down three or four suits a day. All i did in those days was wait and look. This is in competition with a carnival. Never try to do it. They are fun to watch. Could i just say that those are accessible to anyone online. If you just put johnson lbj home movies, 35 of them come up and you can watch them all. She said that was her Favorite Campaign and thats the only one they lost. Would you talk about his progression from congressional aide to congress . When she married him he was a congressional aide and thats when she started out. She got there new years eve, 1934, shed been married five weeks or something and he served about a year before they went back to texas so he could be head of the National Youth administration and she goes back in 1937 when hes elected to congress and shes there for about a dozen years as a congressional wife and shes very good at networking with other women. Shes very loyal member of the Congressional Wives Club and then she gets elected to the senate in 1948 and shes a very loyal member of the senate wives. But in the house years, in 1941, after pearl harbor, lyndon enlisted. Hed been in the naval reserves and she ran his congressional office. I dont think we have another first lady who ever ran her husbands office. Beth truman worked in her husbands Senate Office for pay and Lady Bird Johnson was always very careful to say in all the letters she sent out that she was volunteering her services. Its remarkable. He just left her in charge and off he went and then various friends of his reported to him that she was running the office a whole lot better than he had but coming back to what betty was saying about networking with the political women, it was an Extraordinary Group of women to begin with but what they were doing was not sitting around drinking tea and tending to the tatting. They were very politically active both in their husbands campaigns and in the voter campaigns voter registration, organize conventions, all of that, but they were also very active in the district of columbia. It was before home rule and they, no matter where they were from, they worked with the africanamerican women here in washington on all kinds of social Service Issues and they really did create a social safety net. One thing that was interesting in the home film we just saw was that she said my job at that time was to sit and watch. This was 1941. At what point did it become acceptable for spouses of congressional candidates to be seen as active involved in campaigning . It was different in different places and some were active from the beginning. Louisa Catherine Adams talked about my vocation to get her husband elected president. God knows he wasnt working on it. They had been more active than anybody gives them credit for all through history and certainly Eleanor Roosevelt was out there doing campaigning. And it was considered bad form if you didnt do a certain amount of campaigning. But it was behind the scenes most of it and i think Lady Bird Johnson deserves credit for being the first wife of a president ial candidate to go off on a speaking tour of her own. That was really very new because even Eleanor Roosevelt campaigned for other candidates but i dont think she campaigned for her husband until he ran for the third term in 1940 because it wasnt considered, i dont know, ladylike to be open about your support for your husband. You were behind the scenes maybe organizing women to put up posters or sending out letters, thanking people. What did Lady Bird Johnson say, that the wife of a candidate, her job is to walk behind him and say thank you, thank you. So it was pretty behind the scenes until i think the 1960s. But Jackie Kennedy did do some ads in spanish for instance to try to get something we talk about all the time now trying to get the hispanic vote. Next is a question from owen in marietta, georgia. Hi, owen. Hi. Whats your question for us . I have two. First is, what were Lady Bird Johnsons hobbies and two is, what was her relationship with her kids . Ok, owen, how old are you . Im 9 years old. How did you become interested in Lady Bird Johnson . My mom has been telling me about these programs and i really like history for a while and i wanted to be able to call in and watch one and i am able to now. Thank you very much for participating. Thats great. So the questions were, did she have any hobbies . I would say her number one hobby was nature, the outdoors. She said it was my kingdom, my world. And people told me that if she was doing something she didnt particularly like or doing something that was boring, she would start humming or whistling and take herself to a place where birds sang and flowers bloomed. It was a wonderful defense to have. Photography, she enjoyed photography. Susan and the question was also about her children. She was a mom. There was no question but that she was a present mom. Linda johnson is two, three months younger than i am and lucy a few years younger. She was always around and so were they and she grew old, they were very wonderful caretakers for her. Susan we need to talk about about we said at the outset that she was a successful business woman in her own right. She was first selfmade millionaire among the first ladies. How did she become that . She inherited money and land from relatives and bought a Radio Station in 1943 and i think the figure generally given is 17,500 and she was very active in seeing that it was turned around from a money losing operations to a money making operation. She went down and lived in austin for six months or so and mopped floors and windows. I couldnt get over it when i read it in her oral history. She takes over a Radio Station and starts running it. How do you do that and she did it, she just went in, she changed the building, she changed the staff, she got the station up and cbs came in and it became this highly successful station that she was running and johnson basically said to her, go run that station. And off she went and did it. Susan and she drove the distance between washington she drove back and forth constantly from washington and austin. I did that as a kid, too, between new orleans and washington. It was no fun. There were no interstate highways, there was no air conditioning in the cars. It took a long time. Those trips is it fair to say she was a successful business person but it didnt hurt to have a politician who eventually became the majority of the senate as your spouse. Many people charged her, when it became time to apply for a tv station, that the fact that her husband was a senator, that others didnt apply for the license but she kept a careful eye on the reports, she demanded, when she was in washington, she demanded weekly reports and people said she went over them with a finetooth comb suggesting different sales pitches to use for air time and she was active in who got hired. So she was managing a good station. And it was just the beginning. It became a communications empire. With tv. Susan and also during this time period, the johnsons, with lady birds investment, bought the acres in the texas hill country known as the johnson ranch. Going to learn more about that in the next video. The living room is the oldest room in the house dating back to the 1890s. She would refer to this as our hearts home, this home on the ranch. And we do have a few things that speak to her connection to the room here. One of the things she wanted to highlight was the native American Heritage here in the hill country and we do have a small collection of arrowheads over there. Mrs. Johnson had her daughters, linda and lucy, look for arrowheads and paid them 1 for every arrowheads and she found out that linda was doing better at collecting them and learned that linda was getting them from her schoolmates and paying 50 cents. One of the objects that always gathers visitors space the president loved to watch the news and at that time the three Major Networks would all show the news at the same time. Mrs. Johnsons Favorite Program was gunsmoke and she would alter hear schedule to catch the episode. The ranch was dubbed a Texas White House and life at the ranch revolved around the home and to show you the importance of the ranch and the home, the johnsons returned home 74 times during johnsons five years as president. Mrs. Johnson, as first lady, loved to show off the texas hill country and her home, as guests to the ranch would often informally gather in the den and various heads of state came to visit. President diaz ordaz of mexico, Ludwig Erhard to name a few. The dining room was a special place for Lady Bird Johnson where she entertained her guests. She picked out the wallpaper depicting a country scene, similar to a scene she would have seen out of her picture window installed at her request. Mrs. Johnson gave a tour of the house in 1968 that was filmed where she featured the china you see her purchased in mexico, very colorful. The president would sit down at this end of the table where you see the cowhide chair with mrs. Johnson at the other end of the table and one feature next to the president , a handy telephone. President johnson loved working the telephones and in the middle of the meal could make a call or answer a call. Mrs. Johnson wasnt necessarily happy about that but got used to that. As first lady, mrs. Johnson spent a lot of time at the ranch and it was very important because it provided such a respite from the turmoil of washington, particularly later in the presidency where the johnsons could come home, recharge their batteries and make the connection back to the land in the place they valued so much. Susan how important was the ranch to them . She didnt like it at all when she said the house looked like a Charles Adams house. She was annoyed when he bought it but she got to love it and as you heard, called it her hearts home. Susan in the first ladies series where we referred to a lot, the biography of her is written by lou gould. He makes a pointed about the difference between the kennedys who were people of the east coast and people of the sea and the johnsons who were people of the land and spurred her love of conservation. Does that connection makes sense . Sure it does, makes a lot of sense. That whole being part of texas, which is a whole almost country of its own, is very different from the boston early part of the country, all of that. This is where the country spread to and grew up and became exciting and sort of on your own out there and being in the ranch like that really emphasizes it. But mrs. Johnson, again, was very interesting about they talked in the film clip about bringing chancellor erhard there and that was a Great Success of bringing him to the ranch and serving him texas food instead of it being a white house state dinner and that part of texas has a lot of people of german descent and they were also around and that was a great eyeopener for the chancellor and a wonderful moment for those people in texas. Many studies have been made and books written about Lyndon Johnsons Senate Majority leader career and what a powerful majority leader he was and how happy he was, master of the senate for example. What was the Vice President ial years like for lady bird . They were great for her but terrible for him. Everybody says they were his worst years but she loved it. First of all, she traveled a lot and i think she talked about arriving in senegal and feeling like shed been put down in the middle of National Geographic so the travel was good. She really thrived of being second lady if thats what were going to call it and as cokie pointed out, she filled in a lot. Susan but if he was unhappy, and if her role really was to keep him having his political career and keep the domestic life going. How did she help him . She was always trying to get him to go to the gym because he put on a lot of weight and tried to get him to watch his diet and she invited people for him to see but everybody would agree that he did not do well. The Vice President , that job is a little difficult for strong people. But she started these women doers luncheons and she had them in places like senegal and again, people think this is something new under the sun, that just recent first ladies have been interested in women and womens issues and promoting the role of women around the world. Mrs. Johnson was doing that back when she was second lady. Susan and this 1960 campaign, this is the one where she really came into her own and campaigned, understood what it was like to be on the National Stage in a way she hadnt in the past, is that right . I dont think anyone knows what its like to be on the National Stage until theyre on it. I think thats always a shock no matter how experienced you are as a candidate or as a candidates family, to run as president and Vice President is a whole nother thing. How popular the 1960 ticket in the Southern States in particular with the Roman Catholic on the ticket had a big selling job to do and the south was changing at that time. Can you talk about how the johnsons approached to the people that lived in the south during that campaign . Mainly by identifying with them and mrs. Johnson was key in that. She emphasized her alabama roots where her mother was from and she spent time there with her cousins as a child and she she insisted on spending time in the south and but she also, when they went home to texas, they did have this one awful incident where they were attacked and she was very rudely and somewhat dangerously treated and there were a lot of political analysts think that threw texas to them because people were so shocked to see a lady, and particularly a lady like mrs. Johnson, treated in such a fashion but look, the main thing is that texas did go for the ticket and had it not, kennedy would not have been elected president and whenever were talking about the pick for Vice President and all that, the only time we can ever actually prove that a Vice President ial pick made a difference is the johnson pick. And she held those teas all across texas and insisted on shaking hands with all of the 400 or 500 women that showed up and after texas did go for kennedy in 1960, didnt kennedy said mrs. Johnson won texas for us. Susan when approached about the issue, how did she reply . Im not sure she ever replied to that question. Im not sure it was a question that would have been addressed to her. It was directed to the kennedys. Susan next call from john in charleston. Good evening, how are yall . Were great, thank you. I appreciate cspan having the first ladies series. One question i had, how was mrs. Johnson treated on the lady bird express. I know she came to charleston, 1964. I believe the congressman accompanied her, a big powerful congressman in the state. And he kind of went out on a limb to do the trip for her but i think she was treated pretty bad in charleston but overall how was she treated the rest of the south and what was their relationship with the rivers and the johnsons . Susan a little later on well have a clip from the lady bird express but it fits nicely with the Campaign Style in the south were talking about. In 1964, we were in a whole different place because the president signed the 1964 civil rights bill in the summertime and the south was up in arms and mrs. Johnson absolutely insisted on taking the lady bird special through the south saying this is the part of the country that i am from, i am not going to write off the south so they all got organized. I found just recently in my basement, since i live in the house i grew up in, all of the advance work for the lady bird special in my mothers handwriting and she said she has various places, we cant find a local politician to show up. But the women who were wives of members with them and my father, as the caller said, served as something of an emcee on the train but my mother told the story that they would have to go ahead because there were bombs along the way, there were threats all along the way and not only was mrs. Johnson on the train but the johnson daughters and thats a lot of courage. Susan we will have reflections from linda, the daughter, who was part of the campaign then. I wanted to ask this question when were talking about her approach to politics and campaigning, from a facebook viewer. David asking whether or not she could have had a political career in her own right if she had been born later. Thats an interesting question. I somehow dont see her as running for office but she developed the traits for example, she started taking speaking lessons, public speaking lessons, in 1959 so that was a far cry from where she started out where the only thing she did was working in the back room with the letters and getting other women to do the speaking. Lyndons mother and his sister were the ones she turned to in the 1940s so she did develop so maybe in another time she would have been. Also, what happened with my mother, her contemporary, my father was killed in a plane crash and my mother ran for his seat. That could have easily happened with mrs. Johnson but i will tell you that what she said to mother when mama called lady bird to say she was running, mrs. Johnson said, well, thats wonderful but how are you going to do it without a wife. Just to demonstrate the kind of partnership they had and how essential she was to Lyndon Johnsons public approach, we have a clip next for you that is pretty well known. It is lady birds critique of l. B. J. s speech, this was one that was right after a press conference and you can hear how very direct she is with the president in his approach and his presentation. You want to listen to one minute for my critique . Yes, maam. I thought that you looked strong, firm and like a reliable guy. You looked splendid. The closeups were much better than the distance ones. You cant get them to do it. I would say that there were more closeups than distance. During the statement, you were a little breathless and there was too much looking down and i think it was a little too fast, not enough change of pace, drop in 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 expression was noticeably better. I thought your answer on lodge was good. I thought your answer on vietnam was good. I didnt like the answer on the doll because i think ive heard you say i didnt believe you have said out loud that you dont believe you ought to go out of the country this year. What are we hearing . Youre hearing a very firm, a very educated evaluation of a speech. I think its wonderful. She clearly wanted her analysis. He relied on it but as you listen to that tape all the way through, he starts backing away from the phone and starts getting somewhat defensive. Well, they told me to do that, that kind of thing, because nobody really likes to hear that direct a criticism but he relied on her to tell him the truth. They were obviously very close and valued Political Partners but the flipside of this is that there were challenges in their marriage because of Lyndon Johnsons infidelity, something that he actually would occasionally brag about. How did this affect their partnership, if it did at all . People who knew them said that she always acted as though it didnt happen but she must have known it existed and i think its important to realize that journalists changed how they covered president s during the johnson years. She had lived in washington all those years and watched as Franklin Roosevelts relationship with lucy mercer and john f. Kennedys relationship with other women. Reporters didnt write about that but in the johnson years and perhaps encouraged by president johnson himself, they did start writing about the women who were around him. I think time magazine, in april of 1964, so Lyndon Johnson had been president only three or four months, had this article about Lyndon Johnson driving around the roads of texas at 85 miles an hour with a glass of beer on the dashboard and a beautiful young reporter at his side cooing into his ear, mr. President , youre fun, i think was the headline. I dont think youll find articles on previous president s so i think its important to remember that she came into the spotlight at the time when the spotlight had changed. Susan theres one critique of president johnson about this aspect of his life and the source is lou gould in his biography. Johnson preyed on some of the women who worked with him and was not above making advances on the wives of friends and reporters. Can you talk about the reporting relationship and how that has changed . You said nothing is new under the sun and we have many examples of prior first ladies who dealt with this but times were changing. I think i, trust me, was not somebody who was aware of this in terms of mrs. Johnsons views and all of that. Nobody would talk about certainly not the moms but i think that what happened in terms of reporting is that its only grown but part of that has to do with the increase in the numbers of women in the ranks of the reporters because there is a sense that the person was political and i think where you really saw the huge shift in that was in 1984 with gary hart but i think before that there was a sense of what happens on the bus or on the trail or whatever stays there and that did change with the increasing number of women on the bus. Susan back to phone calls. Dave in albuquerque. Hi, dave. Hi, how are you . I was wondering the series has been really great but one question that keeps occurring to me for both lady bird and all of the first ladies how big of a staff do they tend to have in the east wing . Do they have their own speech writers . I know they have the social secretary but how big of a staff is there generally that the first lady has at her disposal . Thank you for asking that because in many ways Lady Bird Johnson created the framework for the modern first lady. How did she do that . She went into office. She hired Liz Carpenter as press contact and chief of staff and bess able, who had been working for her, as social secretary and they really took over the east wing and then hired others, obviously, to help. But that was the first time there had been a press secretary, chief of staff who knew what they were doing. I tried to find out the number and i was told by her office that it varied because not only did she hire a large, competent staff herself but she also brought in, on loan, people from other departments. For example, for the Beautification Campaign she brought in people from the secretary of Interiors Office so it was not on her budget. So its hard to come up with a number. It was somewhere in the 20s. And she also still had this cadre of political women who worked with her on many of these things, particularly on headstart, for instance, when she got very engaged in creating headstart. My mother was very engaged with her as were several other of the political wives so she had a lot of volunteers, very highly trained, very smart volunteers, as well. Susan how long was it before the office of first lady was officially established and how was that done . Well, thats difficult to answer. Most people point to Mamie Eisenhower as having the first secretary as being listed in the blue book as secretary to first lady but way back in the beginning, it was mostly relatives or friends, you know, the sisterinlaw who did the volunteer work. The roosevelts had their volunteers but i think it was the johnson who is had the first professional staff. Elizabeth carpenter had been a reporter since 1942. Thats when lady bird met her. Their friendship went way back and they stayed with her the entire time in the white house. And after. And after. And the other thing that i think is remarkable, as mrs. Johnson became so much in demand on many of these issues, particularly on what they called beautification, really, environmental issues, people wanted her everywhere and so she had to create essentially an office of surrogates which is such a funny notion because we always think of the first ladies the surrogate for the president but there was an office of surrogates for the surrogate. Susan next is shirley in lady birds home town, austin, texas. Hi, shirley, youre on. Yes, hi. Well, im so pleased that youre doing this series. Its just wonderful, the first ladies are getting their due. I wanted to mention earlier in the program you asked if mrs. Johnson ever had former first ladies at the white house. I know she had two at the ranch mrs. Carter and mrs. Ford and i believe it was probably in the late 1980s. And also i wanted to mention that mrs. Johnsons centennial, her birthday was last december 22, 2012. And in honor of that, the post Office Issued a commemorative stamp and mrs. Johnson was only the fifth first lady to have a stamp and the others were Martha Washington and dolley madison, Abigail Adams and mrs. Roosevelt. Susan our producer tells me you have a personal connection with the former first lady. Yes. I was her executive assistant from 1991 until her death. Susan what is it that you would like people watching this program to know about mrs. Johnson . Oh, my. Well, first of all, cokie and betty are doing a terrific job. Thank you. She was very warm. She was unflappable. She had a delicious laugh. It was a hearty belly laugh. And she was just such a good role model for all of us who knew her and loved her. And when you worked for mrs. Johnson well, for the president , too, although i didnt know the president but you became part of the family. So she was my friend and i loved her but she loved me, too. So it was a privilege working for her and knowing her and her family, they have certainly followed in her footsteps and theyre all just terrific people. Anyway, its been an honor. Susan thanks very much for your call and adding your personal reflections to the program. At mrs. Johnsons funeral, all of the staff, no matter how far they were, came, including secret servicemen who retired long before but loved her so much that they made the huge effort to get there. Susan with all those kind words, regina is asking on twitter, is there anything in her white house diary that would shock us even today . She wouldnt have put it in. Im sorry to say. She was careful in the history she recorded. Lets go next to marvin watching us in los angeles. Thank you very much for the program. I was able to be at the texas delegation at the Democratic Convention where j. F. K. And l. B. J. Had a sort of a debate. It was very humorous and j. F. K. Said, i think youre such a great Senate Majority leader, you should stay there. My question, number one, is, did Lady Bird Johnson want l. B. J. To accept the v. P. Nomination and number two, would l. B. J. Have been as successful in all of his various jobs without the support of Lady Bird Johnson . I think we can start with the second one first. Everybody pretty much agrees that it would have been a different Lyndon Johnson without lady bird, would you agree . Absolutely and he would say that. And then on the 1960s question, it seems fairly clear that initially she and a lot of other people did not want him to take the second spot on the ticket. They considered john kennedy really a Junior Member of the senate and he should wait his turn but i think she came around. Nobody could have campaigned harder than she did. What happened was that sam rayburn had to be convinced and the story is that my father went to him and said, do you want Richard Nixon to win . And there you are. Susan on beautification, conservation, her cause. How did she choose it . First of all, it was a heartfelt thing but that first year in the white house, the year that they had the rest of the kennedy term, she didnt choose a project. She didnt even change the curtains that needed changing because she said the next family might not like it and she acted as though that would be the last year in the white house but after Lyndon Johnson won so big in 1964, she sent out really requests for advice on what she should do and the word came back that she, like, first ladies, should do something about washington and the beautification of washington really came out of that but very quickly i think it became clear that her committee, her beautification people had split and some wanted to go more national and thats where the emphasis on National Parks, highway beautification came. Mary lasker, thought she should do something. She said these highways are terrible. I think she was thinking of the new jersey turnpike, all those signs, it could be better. So it was good to think of the beautification project to be national and that was getting the junk yards removed or covered up with fences and even the washington part spread into two. One group wanted to plant tulips. I think they were called the dog wood set. The people who wanted to polish the statues and the others who wanted to go into the poorer neighborhoods where sports fields and recreational facilities were just not there and do something for those neighborhoods and the important cokie she tried to do it all. But what she also did was she personally lobbied the United States congress. And there was no hiding behind, you know, the man, and she did not pretend that she was not doing it. She was up there lobbying, and it was very tough. You know, it sounds all nicey, nicey beautification. But, in fact, you can imagine, the billboard lobby was completely against any of this. There were people, of course, as there always are in these situations, there were people pushing harder, saying she wasnt doing enough, you know, that it needed to be much a much bigger emphasis on cleaning everything up, and people saying youre going way too far. And she just hung in there, and she kept it up. I mean, even as the congress was really not to reauthorize, she kept it up. So she was a very powerful force. And that really was the first time there have been such first ladies have always lobbied, from Martha Washington on. But that was the first time there had been such public lobbying. Swain well, we promised you earlier we would show you the lady bird special train tour, and thats a good time to show it, because it demonstrates her political skills, which she put to her environmental issues. Lets watch that now. Lady bird johnson the south and the whole nation at this election are at a crossroads between past and future. We face many problems together. Peace is one, and Economic Prosperity is another. We have reached good and Workable Solutions in the past through this partnership. And it takes men in washington who care about the people of the south, and it takes citizens here at home with a vision of the future. Today, many parts of the south present one of the nations proudest pictures of progress. A Democratic Victory means we will face new challenges together with imagination and zeal. We draw on the past our strengths, but we do not plan to turn back. Lynda johnson robb, daughter of lbj and lady bird mother didnt want the south to think that we didnt want their vote, that just because we knew that there were a lot of people who didnt like the civil rights bill, for instance, she hoped that she could appeal to them to recognize that that was a time that was coming and that change had to be made and we were moving forth, and that there were also a lot of africanamerican citizens who we were there, and we wanted to reassure them. Now, we ran into some people that didnt like us and that were very vocal. We heard that there were threats that they were going to blow the train up, and so they ran a car through before ours, just think, if it was on the tracks, theyd blow up the sidecar and not get us. And then there were threats all along the way, but it was a wonderful success. And mother would stand on the back of the train like she had seen harry truman do, and she would tell him how proud and how happy she was to be here, and she hoped that they would vote for her husband. Swain and, Cokie Roberts, right behind Lady Bird Johnson is who . Cokie was my father, hale boggs. Nice to see him. Swain and those political skills applying to the campaign Beautification Campaign, how did they stand her in good stead . Cokie mentioned how controversial this was. But was it really a tough job selling this to the congress . And was it a difficult job with the lobbying groups . Betty the highway the billboard lobby was very strong. I think we forget how strong it was. And i think maybe now the judgment is that she tried to do too much on that, that that was really very hard, but she did. Cokie and washington i mean, people dont realize that this beautiful city we live in is much, much, much more beautiful because of her and mary lasker, her friend, who was a wonderful philanthropist. But, i mean, this perfusion of flowers and trees, and the fact that you just come into the city and are greeted by just total beauty is a result of her having been here. Swain and this was a complement to Lyndon Johnsons Great Society programs . Or was it truly an independent campaign . Betty well, it was a little of both. I mean, we certainly associate it. Thats something i think that weve required almost of every first lady since her, what will be your project . I think Michelle Obama was asked that even before the nomination. So it was a little of both. It was a complement to the Great Society, and it was also uniquely hers. Cokie but the first ladies who have succeeded her, particularly both Michelle Obama and laura bush, have said have quoted her that she has said, you know, i realized and i think thats part of what betty was saying. You know, it took her a while, and she had to have that big landslide, that she was no longer the heir to the job. But she said, i realized, i had a pulpit and i could use it, and i could use it to do good. And she determined that she was going to do that. And they have taken those words and followed them very consciously quoting her. Betty Rosalynn Carter also has made a point. And remember that she continued that work after the beautification, if we want to use that terrible term cokie right. Betty which she hated, also. Cokie she hated it. Betty but she continued it after she left the white house, i think until 1990, which is whatever it is, 22 years after leaving the white house, she continued to give that highway beautification award out of her own pocket to highway workers in texas who had done most to beautify the highways of texas. So im always interested in which first ladies continue their projects afterwards and which one forget that they ever did that. Swain here are some of the key accomplishments and challenges of the johnson administration, including the passage of a major education bill, the establishment of public broadcasting, the establishment of medicare and medicaid, the signing of the civil rights act, which had been Kennedy Administration legislation, the Warren Commission report, with the findings on the johnson i mean, excuse me, the kennedy assassination, the establishment of the outer space treaty, which people say today still is the framework for how the International Community treats outer space, and of course, the vietnam war. Cokie and the Voting Rights act of 1965 betty yes. Cokie which i think is probably the most important civil rights piece of legislation, because it made it clear that people could get the vote and then work to get themselves in a better situation. But the civil rights bill of 1964, youre quite correct, of course, susan, that it started under president kennedy, but i dont think theres any way on earth president kennedy could have gotten that bill through congress. And i think it took Lyndon Johnson and his great skills as a former majority leader and an incredible armtwister to get that bill through. And the tapes certainly show us that. Swain in each of these programs, weve talked about how the first lady, but the the first couple have used the white house as a base for their lobbying, as it were, their relationships in washington. How did the johnsons used the white house . Betty they used it very differently than the kennedys. I think they had there was a month of mourning, of course, after the assassination, and so there was no entertaining. But by early january of 1964, they were having their two or three evenings a week getting congressmen and their spouses in there in small groups. They could have done it in one big reception and gotten some footage, but they did it a dozen at a time and got much more got much closer to the congressmen. Also, i was struck by the fact that she used the white house many of the congressmens wives had never been upstairs, and certainly the kennedys didnt open the second floor. But she had them and the women reporters up there i think january 8. I mean, she had only lived in the white house about a month, and she had the women reporters going through the family bathrooms and looking at the living quarters. It was completely different from Jacqueline Kennedys attitude that the upstairs was offlimits and it was private. Cokie and dont underestimate the power of that, because people, when they feel that theyre in the inner sanctum and theyve gotten something special, theyre likely to be nicer to you. Swain i also read that women reporters were coming into their own during this time period. And mrs. Johnson, by having lots of news to cover, helped them with their careers. Betty yes, im sure they they appreciated her being so open. I was struck by the fact that she had when she had the women reporters through the upstairs quarters, she said, i felt good about it, because ive always been open about my life, and i think thats why i am pleased to share most aspects of that with the reporters. But she said one thing shed do next time was put away the books she was reading, because i think a week later, an article appeared which may have been coincidence but listing the books that mrs. Johnson liked, so even she, i guess, would have cokie put a different one out. Put the bible out there. Swain mrs. Johnson fired mrs. Kennedys french chef, but she also continued mrs. Kennedys restoration of the white house, but she insisted that all of the acquisitions be americanmade, which was a bit different than Jacqueline Kennedys approach to the white house. We saw her on a video saying, i want the finest things, no matter where they came from. Betty right. And Jacqueline Kennedy told her to get white house china made in france, and she did not. She got it made in the u. S. With a wildflower theme. So she was her own woman. Swain also, on the social side, they had the First White House wedding in 53 years. Cokie right. Well, first, lucis wedding, and then lyndas, so they really had they had both of their daughters marry while they were in white house. And, of course, that was a very joyous thing to have, because and by this time we were getting into the vietnam war and into the into some of the real nastiness. And to have the weddings was a really nice moment of just of sitting back and saying this is a family. Swain who did the daughters marry . Betty well, luci married in august of 66, right . She married pat nugent in a catholic ceremony cokie right. Betty not in the white house. So lyndas is the First White House wedding of a president s daughter, i believe, since the wilson daughter in what would be 1914. So this and she married he had been a military aide, charles robb. Swain and what was mrs. Johnsons role in it . And was she very much involved in the planning of all these things betty oh, yes. I mean, everything became political, whether or not there was a union label in lucis gown. Her diary has a lot about what an ordeal that was for her. I think the day after cokie they had to make two dresses. Betty to get swain is that right . Betty and the day after lucis wedding, i know she fled to the virginia farm where she sometimes went when she didnt want to see anybody. And, of course, after lyndas wedding, the president fled, so i think they both found it stressful. Swain barbara is watching us in san francisco. Hi, barbara, youre on. Barbara yes, good evening. I want to say, i love your program. The question that i have is, what are luci and lynda doing now . And how many children do they have each . Thank you very much. Cokie well, lynda is here in the virginia suburbs of washington. Her husband, chuck robb, was governor of virginia and a senator from virginia. And lynda has been very, very active in all kinds of causes where shes been very effective. And she was the first lady of virginia, and she has been a political wife herself and knows those ropes. Luci was married to patrick nugent. They divorced. I think she had four children and now is married to ian betty turpin. Cokie turpin. And he had children, too. So lucis christmas cards are just have a million kids, and its adorable. Swain but the grandchildren, there were seven all together. Cokie right. And lynda now has three grandchildren. Swain and ian turpin has a connection with the johnson family. He is with the foundation . Betty yes, hes head of part of the business in texas. Swain Gary Robinson wants to know and i think you alluded to this what was lady birds most challenging time in the white house . Was it the vietnam years . Cokie i think so. I think the vietnam years were very hard on everybody. They were hard on the whole country, but we also were going through this huge generational fight. And i think that having people outside the white house screaming, hey, hey, lbj, how many kids did you kill today . Can you imagine . And this is somebody that you know means wants to do the right thing by the country, and it is a horrible thing to have that. Betty but she kept going out and giving speeches in spite of those. Remember, the Williams College cokie right. Betty the yale . She said, i dont want to shut myself up, which would have been easy to do. Swain in 1999, Lady Bird Johnson gave an interview to cspan, and she spoke about vietnam. Brian lamb, cspan host wheres vietnam going to fit in . Lady bird johnson as a wretched obstacle along the way, which he couldnt solve, couldnt escape, couldnt shake off. Lamb when did you see him at his lowest . Lady bird johnson during those days, i think when the bags began to come home. By that i mean lamb body bags . Lady bird johnson they would come in at night on freight trains. And i dont know whether this was good planning or just happenstance. But several times, i would be on my way back from a trip to new york from somewhere, and at the station, as i would get off, there would be freight trains, and those bags would be were being unloaded and put onto i dont know what kind of vehicle. In that, i knew what he was doing, and i knew i couldnt help him. Lamb did you try to help in any way . Lady bird johnson yes, yes, of course. Lamb what would you do . Lady bird johnson id just say, youre doing the best you can, and i think a lot of those people understand it. And there really isnt much you can do in a situation like that, except to say, im here. Swain as the public sentiment against the war mounted, can you walk us through the president s ultimate decision not to seek reelection and what lady birds role in that was . Betty well, she says and i think theres other evidence to support this that she well, in fact, she wrote in her diary in 1964, i know when the time to leave will be, and it is exactly and she picked march of 1968. I dont she was such an authentic person that i dont think she dreamed that up later. Certainly, as 1967 wound on, there was a big meeting, i think, in september of 67 at the ranch, and she talks about being called in with the top advisers, and she says, i dont want another campaign; i dont want to ask people one more time to help out. But it was hard for Lyndon Johnson to walk away from the presidency, i think. And i believe there was a sentence written that he would include in his state of the union, and then he said he forgot it or he couldnt find it in his pocket or something. But i think she very much wanted him not to run in march of 68. And he, of course, found it difficult to walk away. Cokie apparently, she was worried about his health. And what we havent talked about is his swain heart attack, yes. Cokie heart attack in 1955 swain right. Cokie which was really a massive heart attack, and he was quite affected by it, and the whole family was affected by it. And so i think that that was something that they always had hovering over them. And she had been very protective of his health and of his diet, as best she could be. And so it was something that was always on her mind. And, in fact, he did die in january of 1972. Swain so she had four years after the white house betty 73. Cokie 73, right. Betty right. So i think he lived like four days beyond the what would have been another term. Cokie second term. Betty and he had a serious he couldnt have been president. He had that serious heart condition during that time, another heart attack. Swain and the tumult National Tumult continued in 1968 after that announcement was made with the Martin Luther king assassination, then the Robert Kennedy assassination. And how did the johnsons hold this all together, knowing that theyd be leaving . Cokie well, i mean, it was a terrible time. 1968 was just a year that you know, here we are in the week of the 50th anniversary of the 1963 assassination. And that was the beginning, you know, of americas loss of innocence, in a way, but we had no notion what was going to happen after that happened. And just trying to keep the country together and keep it in some sense of not falling into despair was something that all the political leaders had to do. And the president tried, but it was very hard for him, because he was seen as the symbol of the problem by so many of the people. Swain as we said, Lyndon Johnson lived just four years after he left office in 1969, lady bird living 38 more years, and many of those active ones. Were going to return to the lbj library to learn a little bit more about how they worked there and prepared the library for the are and prepared the library for the recording of the johnson administrations history. Marjorie morton, social secretary for first lady johnson were in the private office of mrs. Lyndon johnson at the lbj library. I was her social secretary fm 1976 to 1990. And a typical day would begin with her coming in, in the morning, probably around 9 oclock, and she would come in toting a straw bag in each hand filled with some of these things you see on her desk that she had taken home for signing, or a speechwriting, or event planning, whatever she was working on. And she would always say when she came into office that she felt like a little burrow, because she had a straw satchel in each hand like saddlebags. And shed come in and get to work. Her desk was always very orderly. She had her calendar that she worked in her daybook, and she kept files on her desk, files she was working on, trips she was taking. She was on the board of one of the banks, National Geographic, smithsonian, she would keep in large envelopes on her sofa with either the title or the dates on them, so that she could pick them up, work on them, and close everything back in them. And as she worked on her desk with letters that she was processing or things, when she completed things, she would put them on the floor. But she stayed at the office most of the day, making phone calls or working on projects that she loved so much. She loved this office because she could look out at her alma a matter and then a corridor through to the capital in the city she loved so much. She would stay here all day, and that was pretty much monday through friday. And when we are having guests at the ranch, she would sometimes go out a few days early and stay in the different guest rooms to check on the water and then the lights, electricity to be sure everything was working, the tvs, in the different rooms. And wed also make a stop on the way out to the ranch to the store to pick up magazines that were guestspecific for whoever was coming to the ranch for the weekend. She was very thoughtful, very meticulous, and very gracious at and that. We had three office staff at the time. We had a person who handled her calendar. We had a person who came from the white house as her press secretary who helped her work on speeches, and then i was in the office. So that chair was usually occupied by one of us a good part of the day as we rotated doing projects that she was working on. By friday afternoon, she was ready to leave and go to the ranch, which she really called home. And about 3 30 in the afternoon, she would say, do i have anything else to do . And if the answer was no, shed say, tell the secret service im ready to go. And shed get up, and wed pack those little saddlebags up, and shed take off and head out to the ranch for the weekend to be back there on monday morning, normally. I was so fortunate to be here and learn so much from her in the way she did things, in the way she entertained. And i like the way she entertained. I think thats one reason we did so well together. I really loved her sense of making people feel at home. She was so, so good at it. Cokie the business of being guestspecific, she was so thoughtful about things being for you. And when i got married, they were in the white house when i got married, and she sent out to the house a beautiful which, of course, weve had since a picture, a print of the capitol seen from the white house in the 19th century. And it was just so perfect. You know, they because the capitols building i grew up in, and their but their view of it now, and its, of course, signed by them. Swain so weve learned from you and from this tape that she continued to be a very active first lady, postfirst lady, and into her very late years. Betty into the 1990s, i think the Macular Degeneration in the 90s she had to stop reading, and thats when she really stopped giving speeches, i was told, because she couldnt see the notes well enough. So but certainly until the 90s she wavery active. And then we were talking earlier about how even after the stroke, she continued to see people, just so valiantly going out to restaurants, and even though she couldnt voice her reaction, she laughed and made people feel that she really appreciated them. Cokie and she was very active at the library and very, very interested in the work and very proud of the work of the library. I was there at least three times in this century, the 21st century, so and she was always there. Betty and she was so important in the building of the library. I mean, she looked into the smallest detail, how they were going to attach certain things to the wall. She had herself raised in a crane so she could see what the view would be from her office, which is on the top floor. She was very important in the building of the library, and where it would be located, because she had traveled to the fdr library and thought the hometown might not be the best place. She wanted it at a university. Swain karen in cleveland. Hi, karen. Karen karen hi, good evening. I had two questions. One was i was wondering about how mrs. Johnson felt about her daughter, luci, getting married at such a young age. And the second question was about her involvement in the work in the Johnson School of government at the university of texas after her husbands death. Swain thank you. Cokie well, her work at texas was very much as part of the work at the library. It was all of a piece. And she was very interested in that work. And thats a great place. Its a wonderful school. You know, she was private about her views about her daughter getting married young, but obviously it was something worrisome. But then once luci had made up her mind, her parents embraced it and embraced her husband. Swain in her postwhite house years, her work for conservation and beautification was recognized with a president ial medal of freedom in 1977 and the congressional gold medal in 1988. Also, the National Wildflower center was created as a result of her work. Where is that located . Betty its in austin. When she first started it, it was called the National Wildflower center. I think it was on her 70th birthday, and it has since moved, but its still in austin, and its really quite an operation, answering questions from all over the world about what species will grow where and showing people model gardens. And she continued to visit that right up until she was in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank, i think. Cokie she was very betty and she knew the people who worked there. She really continued to be active in that. Swain as our time about Lady Bird Johnson comes to an end, were going to return to the ranch in texas one last time. Dave schafer this is mrs. Johnsons private bedroom. It was part of the 1967 remodeling. She specified to the designers that she wanted this to be her forever room. She specified certain elements she wanted a fireplace, eastfacing windows, and a large bookcase to display so many mementos and keepsakes she gathered through the years, the birds, the china, and also cameras. Lyndon johnson actually gave mrs. Johnson a camera for her wedding gift, and she became quite a really photojournalist. She had an eightmillimeter camera to capture home movies. We have hours and hours of her home movies, as well as a recorder here where mrs. Johnson, every night at the white house, would record her daily observations. And this became the basis for the book, a white house diary, which is a very insightful chronicling of those tumultuous years of the 1960s. Now, mrs. Johnson, though, for 34 years after the president s death, in her later years, mrs. Johnson loved to sit here at this desk to keep up with her correspondence and all of her activities as a very active former first lady. Also in this space, we have mrs. Johnsons closet, with all of the clothing her formal wear, the ranch clothing, with the boots and the hats, a lot of her colorful outfits, and her shoes, one of my favorites, the straw hat with the blue bonnets painted on top, and then her private bathroom that is, again, very reflective of the importance of family, with all of the photographs of those who mattered so much to her. And to her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, she was known as nini, a very, very special person in their lives. Lady bird johnson had a great sense of history. In fact, during her years in washington, she would often be a tour guide for texans who went to the nations capital. I had the fortune to meet Lady Bird Johnson while working at Harry S Truman National Historic site, and i was very impressed that she wanted to see how the truman story was being interpreted, knowing that one day her story would be told here at the lbj ranch. Swain after mrs. Johnsons death in 2007, the ranch was then ceded to the National Park service as its curators, and it is available for you to visit if you happen to be in that part of texas, in the texas hill country. Its well worth the stop. You really get a sense of the johnsons life when youre there. So she died at the age of 94. Sheldon cooper wants to know, how did the country respond to her death . Betty oh, there was an outpouring of cokie absolutely. Betty respect and love. Cokie and, you know, everybody showed up, former president s and first ladies. And as i say, the and members of congress, and all the official people that you would expect to be there were there. But also this wonderful response of her staff and those secret service men. I mean, seeing them come in was really quite something. But i think also the point that we just heard, the park service gentleman make about her sense of history is something that really we can enjoy so much. And betty has made the point several times, all of this is available to us. All we have to do is go to our computers and mrs. Johnson has made it possible for us to see their home movies, read their love letters, and most important, from my perspective, hear those johnson tapes. She allowed those tapes to be open to the public without knowing what was on them, which is very gutsy, and we have learned an enormous amount about american politics and American History from listening to those tapes. Swain and where is she and the president buried . Betty just down the road from the ranch house, in the family cemetery. Swain so not at the library, but they chose to be out in the countryside, the country that they loved to go. Betty right. There is a picture of the family cemetery, where his some of his siblings i believe his mother and father are buried there. Its all you can walk from the ranch, to the cemetery, to the birthplace, to the school in 10 minutes, i dont know. Very short time. Swain so as we close here, i have a question for both of you, is what should her legacy be seen as among first ladies . Betty i think she was an outstanding first lady who really wrote the book for modern first ladies, what they needed to do to be noncontroversial and yet contribute to a spouses legacy. And it will work for a man, too, you know. Cokie thats right, first guy. But she understood that she had a megaphone and that she could use it for good, and she did that and instructed all of her successors to do the same. Swain as we close here, and we do each week, our thanks to our colleagues at the White House Historical association for their assistance in this entire series on the biographies of first ladies. And thank you for being with us once again tonight. In American History tv is featuring cspans original series. Burst latest influence and image at 8 00 eastern on sunday night throughout the rest of the year. Next week look at pat nixon, this is American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan3. They were wives, and mothers, some had children and grandchildren who became president s and politicians. They dealt with the joys and trials of motherhood. The pleasure and chaos of raising small children, and the tragedy of loss. First ladies looks at the personal lives of every first lady in American History. Many raised families in the white house, lively stories of fascinating women, and an illuminating entertaining, and an inspiring read based on original interviews from series. First lady first ladies is available in hardcover or ebook. From your favorite bookstore on or on online. This monday on cspans new series landmark cases, by 1830 in Mississippi River around new orleans have become a breeding ground for color, yellow fever, due to slaughter houses in the area having their byproducts into the river. To address the problem louisiana allowed only one slaughterhouse. Crescent city operated within the district. The other down the court. By formerjoined solicitor general and constitutional law attorney and michael ross author of the book justice of shattered dreams. Of thesonal stories butchers, the state of things in new orleans, and the attorneys answer pretty Court Justices involved in this decision. Be sure to join the conversation as we take your calls, and Facebook Comments during the Program Using the landmark cases. Live monday on cspan, cspan3, and cspan radio. For back ground on the case ordered your copy of landmark cases companion book available for 895 plus shipping at 8. 95 plus shipping at cspan. Org. Former naacp chairman died in august on sunday october 25 American History tv features an oral history with mr. Bond where he remembers going up in the segregated south. This involvement with a nonviolent coordinating committee, and his later political career. This is one of several oral histories with an Africanamerican Community leader that we feature in coming weeks. There conducted by the university of virginias explorations in black leadership project. Sunday, october 25 at 10 a a. M. Eastern on American History tv am on cspan3. Many news reports and Public Officials refer to the current refugee crisis in the European Union as the worst since the end of world war ii. Next on American History tvs reel america, a look back to 1946 with seeds of destiny. A 20 minute War Department film depicting the situation faced by millions of orphaned and homeless cren