Cspan. Org history. Good evening. Im associate professor and chair of the Presidency Program at the University Virginia public affairs. On behalf of the center the lbjs foundation, like to welcome you to the lyndon b. Johnson in the white house takes on the ground jewel in the archives. President johnson he declared it is all here, the story of her time. Theres no better example of that history is 650 hours of telephone conversations that lbjs did covering key issues of the day and his recordings opening extraordinary of the Johnson Building and fighting were in poverty legislating for civil rights, and struggling policies. He also should shed light on his approach to the presidency and his press and many other issues of the day. In the past 20 years, my colleagues and i support from the National Historical publicly relations and commissions, have been transcribing and analyzing lbjs tapes and as of tonight, we are pleased to watch then collaboration with the lbjs Library Information a website that provides greater access to the content, lbjs. Org and visitors will revere some of the most significant and revealing conversations from the collection and everyone with especially during a time of transcript and each of which is embedded in a rich variety of Historical Resources we think this will be great value to students and teachers and scholars, interested public anyone who wants to learn more about president lyndon b. Johnson in the administration and the American Research and is celebrate the launch of the site and to commemorate the golden anniversary of the lbjs library, this evening special conversation about lbjs and please join me in welcoming Melody BarnesMichael BeschlossBrian Williams and the director library. Thank you mark and you so much for the center for this Wonderful Partnership thats resulted in this terrific new website that makes available widely and with more context than ever before these remarkable telephone recordings from the johnson presidency read and i now have the huge privilege of all coming right extraordinary individuals who are going to help us think about these conversations and think about the 36 president of the United States and the time in which he lived and is truly a dream team of commentators to help us with this path. And for small i want to welcome Melody Barnes who is the professor and codirector of Democracy Initiative at the university of virginia. Melody served as a senior policy advisor to president obama in 2020, the awardwinning podcast printed in the Great Society of a project that has very extensive views of the lbj recordings and i would like to welcome Michael Beschloss, enemy contributing to news and cbs news our and attend highly regarded books on president ial history include to dive deeply into the lbj recording and finally it would like to welcome Brian Williams, the anchor of the 11th hour, which airs weeknights on msnbc news. Brian Williams Service managing editor of the nightly msnbc news for decade which he earned every award that a broadcast journalist can earned. Brian williams, Michael Beschloss, Melody Barnes, welcome and thank you so much for being here. Now of course we want to play some of these types get your reactions to them. But lets talk a moment about what these are and why they were made they have come to light over the year. And michael, i think your experience with the case back at least in the 1990s if not further back pretty can you talk a little bit about how you first discovered the tape and little bit about how they came to light over the years that followed. Michael yes, i was having dinner with my friends and i always say, with joe dimaggio of president ial Library Directors i think markey would agree with that read and this was about 1993 or 1994 as having dinner with him and the jockey club in washington. And the owner date longer time aid in Public Service in other ways. Caribbean talking to me about these types they said know they existed and i said, i had heard that he had made some of those conversations but how many could be actually taped. And harry said, will over 700 hours and they go from the beginning of the presidency to the end. Then i said well, if these are real tapes, and numbers, not just lbj sing them earnest for peace and im doing this and doing that in the words as long as they were not tapes made for the later historians, this is going to be an amazing contribution to johnson scholarship to understanding him because number one, whatever historian dreams of which is suddenly running into a cash of an original source that is so immense and allencompassing change the way we see a president and everything he did and on the other thing is i said this to harry that evening and i would say it now and it you wanted for some lbj i probably would choose the conversations and assure would not choose letters as we all know, he wrote these lovely letters and many of them were not written by him, some of the most heartfelt give you real window under the heart but it is the heart of someone else. Lbj was not in the habit of pouring his innermost feelings into a letter. And some by aides who admired him are somewhat restrained and his memoirs was a noble effort i dont think anyone would say that there was a Vantage Point was helpful but in certain ways gives you a sense of lbj really talking and telling you what is really on his mind. But have these types and this what you really want and as opposed to lets say Dwight Eisenhower me what in particular want eisenhower quite reserved in private as he was in public in the same with Calvin Coolidge and the point is that if think harry, am glad you decided to open these things because this could be a revelation. Why did you do it and he said well we are doing it for two reasons, number one, the oliver stone law, the net first of oliver stone was making his film jfk to get files related to the kennedy assassination open and he said that i was advised paralegal people that we might not only have a lawsuit of that time for any of the tapes that you deal with a assassination but also more generally so i talked to missus johnson i said, if a recommendation for which it can we keep these close or should they be opened. And she said, go ahead and open them. And essentially im proud of what my husband did and i know there will be things on them that i dont like because i havent heard them but am confident enough in what linden did that more people find out about what he did both in the strengths and the flaws, the better which was just the kind of president ial relic you would want and she showed amazing insight and la changed history but i think really change the ways which her husband is seen now by historians. One of the questions that hangs on the tape is why lbj made them in the first place. Why would you be made these and for that matter, why did american president s from roosevelt to nixon make similar kinds of recordings. Michael lbj when he was a center used to make records of the conversations. Basically, the Walter Jenkins and listening in on extensions and making notes very exact notes of lbj for instance getting information from the senator and there was one leg in the johnson entourage to refer to these notes as the dickies scroll. The reason why lyndon b. Johnson did this was if the senator doublecrossed him, i believe it or not, in the 1950s, occasionally that would happen, he could go back to the senator and say what you me yesterday and i quote and then have the exact amendment that had been made the senator would wonder why lyndon b. Johnson had perfect recall. So the technology had improved so that by the time he became president in november of 1963, he thought that only with the spieth a historic. Would also help him as a manager in the same way that it had in the senate. And so as a result from almost the moment he came to the white house, from dallas these tape machines began rolling. Mark i would just remind everybody that we have lbj to thank for huge parts of the watergate because it was lyndon b. Johnson was at one time on his hands and needs chinese he walked the dixon through the amazing recording and that he was saying that you will want these as a record of your conversations. What an incredible gift in historians like michael that we have these as michael currently said to the forward to his first of the two books on the tapes. The only thing worse and anything bad that comes out of the state, anything bad that we hear in lyndon b. Johnsons comments would have been a in lyndon b. Johnsons view, to have been forgotten. This has kept him so relevant and yet so intimate the experiences of listening to these conversations. Mark melanie in these podcasts that you debuted last you use the conversation extensively in your project, what was it that made the so valuable. Melody a couple of things, one ill step back for a second it cannot answer that question through the lens of my experience as a staff person so having been ted kennedys chief counsel and having been obamas domestic policy advisor, is much as happened in the room estimate happens in the fall. In written material cant capture that. But a memo looks like by the time it that it gets to a senator or a president , is often been edited and reedited lots of people put their opinions and and they said things back in scribbles and notes. It will tell you something but when you have the conversations, you get the nuance commute in the tone of voice and you get the humor and anger and things that you cannot necessarily interpret from the written word. Now all of a sudden our very visible and certainly the oratory is available to you and it gives you a sense of the moment in a way that nothing else really can. And for the purpose of the podcast, i know those who listen to it, and came back to me said that oh my gosh, i kneel that lyndon b. Johnson was a character but i never knew that and they never had a sense of that. And i also know from their experiences that i have had it, dealing with other Media Companies as they have interviewed civil rights leaders. From the period of people negotiating with him that after listening to the tapes they said, i wish i had known that, i had no idea he thought that. So it gives you a real window into what he was thinking and feeling and the strategic mind and for us, it puts us in the room right happened in a way that nothing else can. Mark lets listen to some tapes. Melody and a of your favorites is the conversation with sergeant schreiber ahead of the peace corps in this one comes from february 1st of 2054. And in this we hear lbj informing schreiber and all of his legendary persuasive powers that schreiber is about to be named the new head of the war on poverty. Lets roll the tape think back to all. Good morning mr. President how are you. [inaudible]. I think it was the advice but if you dont mind company has wisdom and i wanted to sit down with a couple of people to see what we can give no have some sort of 19 what happens is you know somebody and someone else in the dome of the heck theyre doing with with this program is going to be specifically. And. [clapping and cheering]. And what are you going to do. Well, just go away and go to camp david and figured out we need something. I will say to them in ive got to myself about yesterday and work out your peace corps anyway you want to and head of the committee and have some acting operator and let him do that dont do anything but i one announcement and quit getting all these other pressures and and i think hes going to do it you just cant run a dance of course if we get behind this, the better we can talk to the president heck of a lot easier than you can talk to them with a thesis. [inaudible]. And speaks to me. Mark , the what are your thoughts. This is one of your favorite conversations. Melody i love this conversation for so many reasons and some of them may not be apparent as the conversation goes on, theres these humorous moments but johnson is employing every tool that he has any self aimlessly uses. His bullying, he is charming it, he is relentless. And he is doing this and fern entered furtherance of an objective, event objective that he has read so he has his idea with regard to the war on poverty and he wants to move quickly. And he understands from his experience in congress that he has got to be able to keep the peace, that is the press, no offense. Brian. [laughter] and assure them as a nation that he notices that hes moving forward so he knows what he wants to accomplish and he rightly understands that Sergeant Shriver is the right person to do that and he doesnt care that Sergeant Shriver is grieving quite frankly. He cares but for his objective he does not care. He just lost someone a family member, president kennedy and he doesnt care that he already has a fulltime job running the peace corps and he doesnt care that he is a family who just returned home from being overseas from a period of time and he is focused on what he wants to get done and the reason that i appreciate the tape is because it tells you what kind of leader he is the good of the bad and the if youre Sergeant Shriver and it tells you that he is relentless in pursuit of his large objective and that he understands the personnel policy that is got to get the right people in those jobs and moving and you see that throughout his administration. Even as early as that first night when he tells, just get on the plane predict and jack is in texas and in asking why am i getting on the plane and he said just go on the plane youve goto get the right people are places. In order to execute on this agenda that he has that he was to bring to fruition knowing that the window is going to be narrow as it is for every president and he is going to execute. So thats why appreciate this moment. Mark even before we had the tapes, we knew that lbj was incredibly persuasive and about the johnson thing but the tapes he provided so much more evidence of those persuasive skills. And what wasnt do you think the maid lbj legendarily persuasive. Michael any think it is so many contributing factors in a big one is to say that texas and his upbringing there, he was the personification of everything bigger in texas and he would use all of his physicality and michael is this in barnyard ways that we can talk about. Brian and as a huge physical presence. He had an enormous wingspan and he knew exactly what he was doing. And he had a command of the language encoded mailed this marvelous mixture of washington talk and texas talk read and you would not want to go up against him. We know that from all of the kindhearted souls who tried and lost over the course of these days. Mark and even able to do it over the telephone with virtue of the physical sense. Brian that is right. Mark many of the conversations showed different dimensions of these persuasive skills that johnson treatment there are a few small number perhaps of the conversations that reveal a different even submissive side to lbjs personality and what i would like to do now is to play very different kind of conversation in this one between lbj and the first lady. Lady bird johnson and this one comes from our seven, 1954. The comes just have the president has given a press conference and shortly thereafter missus johnson called of her husband and offers a critique of his performance. During press conference. Missus johnson is calling. Do you to listen to that one. My critique. I thought that you look strong firm and dazzled guy and a closeup was much better the distance. [inaudible]. Will i cite this, also from the distance. And during the statement you are a little breathless. And too much looking down and think it was a little bit to in a change of pace. Not enough, and also in the senate. There was a considerable pickup and drama and interest when the questioning began. Your voice was noticeably better interfacial expressions were noticeably better. In the mechanics of the room were not too good. Although i heard you well throughout, i did not hear your questioners clearly. Will the questioners wont talk. Some of them he could hear but definitely you cannot hear them very well. Every now and then you need good quick answer contains a pace pretty thats why was very glad when you answered one man and you answered both of their questions. I thought your answer was good and i thought your answer in vietnam was good. I really didnt like the answer on the. [inaudible]. I heard you say you actually had set out others you dont want your country to hear. In night was convenient for the people pretty. Im not going to have that conversation i didnt say what i was doing. I didnt say at all. In fact i reaffirm that i would not go pretty. I see, i just didnt hear a durkin the meaning of it that everybody else did. I think that the outstanding thing with closeups were excellent. You need to learn when youre going to put have a prepared statement you going to need to have the opportunity to study in a little bit more and read it with a little bit more conviction and interest. And change of pace. Was certainly criticized, they wont use it all. Mark we learn from this conversation. Michael we learned that it was impossible for lyndon b. Johnson to be a great president if Lady Bird Johnson had not been first lady. And the problem here is almost every first lady i think and melody would probably agree with this is they always say i really have very little influence on the present to the credit to him. It was all his doing and she would have guessed for state dinners or Something Like that it lady bird is no exception. In those conversations and i will have with her, she said the same thing. It will if did not know any better, just think that she was sort of this polite minor figure in the entourage. One of the great are actually one of the revelations is that lbj taped his wife without her knowledge and answer, did you know that he was taking you a