In a very personal way. Hes authored 12 books. Im incompetent to properly introduce bill moyers theres simply not enough time. Before a studio audience a man known for his modesty and his reluctance to talk about himself, agreed to sit down with me for a conversation i shall never forget. Ladies and gentlemen, mr. Bill moyers. upbeat music audience applause it started in marshall, texas but it started before you were a journalist. Something unusual occurred in marshall that taught you about this america. You were the son of one of the poorest people in town anywhere else, in any other time, you wouldnt have had much of a shot. How did it happen that a poor boy got the shot you got . I was the beneficiary of affirmative action for poor, white southern boys. If you studied hard, worked hard, moved around town, met people, there were men particularly men in the town who would say, hes a comer lets help him. Hes a poor boy lets help him. So the rodeo club gave me a scholarship, the City Commission let me come in and sitin on their meetings. I was just constantly touched by people older than i am who saw something in me that i didnt see in myself. So they just kept moving me from one opportunity to another. But you know in those days the gap of income inequality was not so great. One of my best friends was anne blalock, who was the daughter of the richest man in town. But we went to the same school, we went to the same parties, we went to the same dances. And i never felt uncomfortable in the presence of the kids in town whose parents were really the more fortunate ones. And thats changed in this country today to a very disturbing extent. Theres very little conversation, theres very little intercourse, theres very little communication, very little participation between the poorest people, poorest kids in our country, in our cities, and those who are well off. But i, it never occurred to me, that i wasnt as good as anne, or it didnt occur to her that i was not her equal in our relationship, and so that little town said to me, you signify, you matter. It doesnt matter that your dad is poor. So those benefits in this small town were available to an ambitious young man who was white. You are 14 years old, youre in marshall, texas, and theres a political rally, and for the first time in your life you see in person Lyndon Baines johnson, the senator of the state of texas. What did you think when you first saw him . I was bowled over by the helicopter. audience laughs i was on the town square and the helicopter landed. He traveled the state, this is the 1948 election, which he was beaten by 87 very contested and i have no doubt illegal votes down in the valley of texas. But he was campaigning hard in a helicopter, so who didnt want to see a helicopter in 48 the first year that helicopters were used in campaigns . So i went down to the town square and when he got off the helicopter took his big stetson and tossed it into the crowd. Now i later learned that he did that at every stop and he had somebody on his staff who went and got the stetson and returned it to the helicopter at the next stop so he could toss it again. I mean i learned a lot about politics in that very moment. That realization that this was part of the game. This was just not that he had an Endless Supply of stetsons in the helicopter, but i remember that he spoke to the crowd without a microphone. Must have been 1,000, 2,000 people, at courthouse square. Big man, boisterous, stentorian in his tall, commanding presence, and i remember being stunned by the power of his persona. Something you didnt see again, really, until the campaign of 64 when he was running for president for the first time in his own right. So you, north texas, university of texas austin, southwest theological seminary, would stop in edinburgh and spend some time to study. Committed to becoming a preacher, preaching in two churches upon graduation. But in there somewhere is a letter that you sent to lbj suggesting that the young voice wasnt being heard as much, and maybe you knew something. And he was struck by that apparently, because he called you. I had been at North Texas State College in upstate texas and i would go stop at the Student Union from time to time and watch the mccarthy hearing. Some of you dont remember the mccarthy hearings but the extremist Joseph Mccarthy a senator from wisconsin on anticommunist crusade had gone beyond the limits of reasonable dialogue and reasonable politics and the senate had called him to question was about to censor him. And sitting in the Student Union watching those hearings i became very engaged. Dont ask me exactly why it was, as i say, i was 20 im 82 now that was a long time ago. But i felt maybe i wanted to be a political journalist. I planned to be a journalist i was working my way through the colleges on the publicity staff of the college covering the sports from the college and writing newsletters. I went to my office on a saturday afternoon wrote a letter to, i had never met senator johnson except to see him from the helicopter. And i wrote a letter saying, id like to learn about politics and youre in a campaign down here where youre trying to reach young people and i think ive got something for you and youve got something for me. The letter got to his desk, he always wanted to have bright, young men around him. John connally became governor and many others were young men on his staff at one time in his career. And i went to washington and spent the summer in fact when i got off the trolley that brought me over to the capitol where his Senate Majority office was he was getting onto the trolley, and he took my hand and said, come on, he didnt even have a warm greeting he just took me down a long corridor in the basement of the capitol opened the door and took me down to an addressograph machine, an addressograph machine was like a sewing machine, you would hit the pedal and a metal plate would come through, the stamp would come down, and print the address on the envelope. So inbetween eight oclock at night, and seven the next morning, i addressed by foot 275,000 envelopes. I hadnt even unpacked my bag and i hadnt gone to the room where i was staying, and that impressed him. So then he moved me over to his own office to answer his own correspondence and there i was at 20 totally inexperienced in this, writing his letters to eisenhower, writing his letters to the secretary of state, writing his letters to his contributors in texas, and we bonded. I was going back to this Small College at the end of the summer, and Lyndon Johnson at his desk said, you know, i think you ought to transfer to the university of texas. Thats where he lived and thats where he had a television station and i said, mr. Leader i dont have any money, im going to get married, and ive got a job in north texas in denton, he said, ill give you a job [don] ktbc . [bill] ktbc the Radio Station which somehow mysteriously was the only station in the country that could broadcast all three networks. audience laughs i wonder how that happened. They had a monopoly, the favorable gods were looking down, and i got a job with him. He had promised me that he would pay me a hundred dollars a week that was astonishing in 54. It was more than my father had ever made in his life as i said earlier and i went down and he worked me 40 hours a week but we bought the first mobile unit in texas. And i used to tool around town study, covering accidents and murders and the state senate the state legislature and that was probably the biggest crime scene in austin. audience laughs but anyway that fall i had a deep, profound experience i still have a hard time describing it. And i decided that politics wasnt, and journalism wasnt going to satisfy my instincts and my intuitions, or even be a healthy place to work. So i decided to go and teach at a religious institution, id get my phd first, so i went to the seminary four years. And i was graduating in late december of 59, judith and i, my wife, were packing our boxes to move back to austin where i had been accepted to do my phd in American Civilization and had a teaching assistantship at Baylor University which is a Baptist School in waco halfway between dallas and austin. And the phone rang, it was two days after christmas, and it was Lyndon Johnson, i hadnt talked to him in two and a half years. He said, bill how are you doing . Im fine, mr. Leader. What are you doing, he said. Im packing to go back to austin. And he said, no, no, im going to make a run for it, i dont think ill get it but i need you back. I hung up and i said, judith pack for washington, not for austin. And we went up, on the way she said, what did he offer to pay you . D i said, i have no idea he didnt mention it. audience laughs and so i spent that year back in his office traveling with him, spending every night in some hotel, around the country, seeing all of the politicians, meeting them, watching what happened. They were heavy drinkers in those days, and after all day of campaigning theyd come to the hotel and they would drink until 1 30, 2 30, 3 30 in the morning and i had to stay up until it was over. Of course i learned a lot, but gradually, that led me in the direction of washington for my career. When he didnt get the nomination he did get picked to be the Vice President ial running mate. I started to go back to texas then, and he said, no stay through the election then you can go. And so i did and during the campaign i was the liaison on the Vice President s plane the swoose named after the plane he had been on in the pacific, briefly during world war ii, and the caroline which was John Kennedys plane. And i got to know the irish mafia, to be frank and others have written this, i was the only person on johnsons team who could talk boston and interpret boston to austin. audience laughs and i became in their eyes somewhat valuable. So when the election came and we won, barely, as you know, john kennedy came down to the lbj ranch and im sure that lbj set him up for this, but john kennedy was leaving and he turned on the porch of the lbj ranch saw me leaning in the corner, came over and said, i hear youre not coming with us. I said, no, im going to teach at a Baptist School and ill get my phd. And he said, dont you know harvard was founded by a baptist preacher . He said, we need you in washington, so i went. And just a few months into working in the Vice President s office, boring job, he was bored out of his mind, it was a nonjob at that time, and i had written a speech for lbj, he said, i dont have a speech, im going to speak at this university give me a speech. So i sat down on my little portable typewriter and wrote a speech proposing a youth corps, where did i get the idea . From Hubert Humphrey in minnesota he had b been advocatg a youth corps a peace corps, kennedy of course picked it up but so did we. And after the election i realized as kennedy announced that he was going to start the peace corps, thats what i wanted to do so i began what became a strenuous and almost futile effort to rest myself free of the Vice President s office. And i was one of the founding organizers of the peace corps, became its first Deputy Director and i had the three best years of my life. You know it was a new effort to send young people who were not in military uniform out to help shape the identity of america in the world and to give them a sense of the world that they would bring back. And i cant tell you every time i come to minnesota, every time i go to the Hubert Humphrey institute, i gave the keynote speech at the Humphrey Institute when they opened it. People come up to me, my age and younger, and they say, we were in the peace corps, it was a defining moment of my life. It was mine, i couldnt have been happier. And one day in early october of 63 i got a call from Kenny Odonnell who was then John Kennedys most powerful assistant, bill we want you to go to austin, the president is going to go down there. We sent an italian, advance man from boston, whom i knew, jerry bruno, we sent him down there, and he just cant, they cant understand each other. Our efforts, weve got to raise money. Weve got to speak in houston, and youve got to go down there and hold hands. So i did, i went down and i was Holding Hands with the governor and the labor people, and the liberals and the conservatives until the president got out of town. Sitting at the Forty Acres Club at the university of texas having lunch with the chairman of the state Democratic Committee and the most promising young member of the state senate, ben barnes the maitre d came over to me and said, mr. Moyers youve got a call, so i went and took it. It was bill paine the secret Service Agent assigned to me in dallas and he said, bill, the president s been shot. I immediately went back and told my colleagues and went right out to the airport, on the way, ben barnes arranged for a little aircraft to carry me to dallas, halfway between austin and dallas, robert trout on cbs said, in a haunting voice, the president is dead. I landed at love field, started to town, to the hospital, Parkland Hospital and got a dispatchers call saying, the president , Lyndon Johnson now, was on air force one at love field, right where we had landed. Went back, went up to air force one, the secret service stopped me, he didnt know me, and i wrote a note what did it say . Its in the library. Mr. President , dont ask me why intuitively i started calling him mr. President. Id always called him senator, or leader. Mr. President im here if you need me, bill moyers. A few minutes later the secret Service Agent came back and called me up the steps and there i was on air force one. [don] what was going through your mind . No awesome, my god, look at this, it was very practical, how do i help him . Whats he going to do now . cause he had never expected to be president , wasnt ready for it, wasnt really prepared for it. I was a practical guy. I mean in the campaign of 60, organizing the peace corps, those were administrative and managerial jobs. And i had never even been in the white house and i was standing at the back of that plane, saying, how can i be helpful . And when he went back into the bedroom of air force one security had closed all the portholes, but he had opened the one in that inner office, inner bedroom, inner sanctum and he was looking out. Quietly, very calmly, and i said, mr. President what are you thinking . And he said, are the missiles flying . Here were in the midst of a cold war, the cuban missile crisis was not long behind us, and i realized then that he had things on his mind he had never had on his mind before. And i just started filling in with the small details. Calling the speaker of the house, just functional things, and i was good at that, and one reason he came to trust me was because i had that sense of doing the details and not being conspicuous about it. But there were no great and noble, or fearful thoughts in mind on that plane coming back. Hi, everybody. My name is don shelby. Im the person whos sitting next to bill moyers in the program that youre watching. And it has been the highlight of my life. When i was first asked to host the program and to ask the questions of bill moyers, i knew that he was not going to be as forthcoming because hes a very modest person and doesnt like to talk about himself. In fact, in the first break that we took, he leaned over and apologized to me and said, im sorry im talking so much. No, thats cool, you can talk as much as you want to. This show that youre watching was, for me, a labor of love. The opportunity to interview him and spend some time with him, and to be able to ask him about those incredible times during the johnson administration, when he was present at the creation of so much of what we now call history, which is perfectly fitting for journalists because its always been said that journalists write the first draft of history, but much of what he has seen and covered and reported has become itself history, and the way he has written it and the way he has spoken it to us will stand as a landmark of the great journalism that is produced. Im so glad that youre watching this program. And supporting this television station. What an absolute privilege it is to be watching this superb program with you this evening. It is truly remarkable to hear bill moyers tell us about his Life Experiences. Imagine, he is the only one still living from that plane on the day that kennedy died. Wow. Hi, im margaret pressrud and im a member of Public Television and im asking you to give your support this evening, as well, around this Wonderful Program. When you do it with a gift of 84 or 7 a month, we will be happy to gift you the Wonderful Program that were enjoying. As don mentioned, its not just the program that were seeing, that theres almost an extra hour, as well, because we just were not able to fit it all into this program. It is truly a special recollection from bill moyers. With a gift of 156, or 13 a month as a sustaining member, our gift to you will be the program that weve been enjoying as well as a examine companion book to bill moyers as journal. It is 554 pages, 43 interviews. Every interview has a personal introduction by bill moyers, setting the stage, telling you how it was that day in the studio. Its just a fascinating read. With a gift of 252, or 21 a month as a sustaining member, we will send you the power of myth, where bill moyers and Joseph Campbell talked about mythology and how it impacts our lives. It is just fabulous. N