The Lady Bird Diaries (2023) Movie Script

1
Friday, November 22nd.
It all began so beautifully.
After a drizzle in the morning,
the sun came out bright and beautiful.
We were going into Dallas.
We have a brilliant
sun overhead,
and the President
will be riding in the open.
Its wheels are down,
and the President and Mrs. Kennedy
have arrived at Dallas Love Field.
To accompany the President
on these flights,
Vice President and Mrs. Johnson...
In the lead car,
President and Mrs. Kennedy,
and then a secret service car,
and then our car.
The streets were lined with people,
lots and lots of children, all smiling.
We were rounding a curve
going down a hill.
Suddenly there was a sharp, loud report.
A shot and then two more.
I heard over the radio system,
"Let's get out of here."
And this man who was with us
vaulted over the front seat
on top of Lyndon,
threw him to the floor
and said, "Get down."
The cars accelerated faster and faster.
I cast one last look
back over my shoulder,
saw a bundle of pink,
just like a, a drift blossom
lying in the backseat.
It was Mrs. Kennedy
lying over the President's body.
They led us into a quiet room.
It was from Kenny O'Donnell
that I first heard the words,
"The President is dead."
Mr. Kilduff said to Lyndon,
"Mr. President."
I looked up at a building,
and there already,
it was a flag at half-mast.
That was when the enormity
first struck me.
We have this from Washington.
There was a TV set on,
the commentator was saying,
"Lyndon Johnson, now President of the
United States."
There is no longer any doubt
the President is dead.
By that time,
Mrs. Kennedy had arrived and the coffin.
Mrs. Kennedy's dress
was stained with blood.
Her husband's blood.
I asked her if I couldn't get
somebody to help her change,
and she says, "Oh, no,
"I want them to see
what they have done to Jack."
And there, in the very narrow confines
of the plane,
with Jackie on his left,
very composed,
Lyndon took the oath of office.
I tried to express
something of how we felt.
I said, "Oh, Mrs. Kennedy, you know,
"we never even wanted
to be Vice President,
and now, dear God, it's come to this."
I would have given anything to help her.
This is a sad time for all people.
I know that the world shares the sorrow
that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear.
I will do my best,
that is all I can do.
I ask for your help and thoughts.
I felt like I was walking
onto a stage
for a part I had never rehearsed.
Incredible as it might seem,
I was going to be in a unique position,
as the wife of the President of
the United States.
And only I would see events unfold,
from that particular vantage point.
Liz Carpenter said,
"You ought to record this."
She brought me her son's little recorder,
and so, the first fairly quiet moment,
two or three days after the 22nd,
I began my diary.
It really was too important
a thing not to share it.
And it was incredible.
At President Johnson's
Washington home in Spring Valley
the first family of the nation
posed for their portrait.
They are photographed in the home
where they will remain
until Mrs. Kennedy is able
to move from the White House.
The First Lady,
and standing beside the President is
Lynda Bird, 19,
and Luci Baines, 16.
It might be noted that all of the family
have the initials LBJ.
Tuesday, November 26th.
I went to see Mrs. Kennedy
to discuss the housekeeping details
that any woman moving out would talk over
with any woman moving in.
She told me that she would
like to ask a favor of me.
What she wanted
was to let Caroline's school
go on in progress on the third floor.
And that was the easiest thing
to say yes to.
She went on to say a lot of things, like,
"Don't be frightened of this house.
You will be happy here."
She repeated that over and over as though
she were trying to reassure me.
After I moved into the White House,
for the first three or four weeks,
I was cold all the time.
I didn't have any appetite
and I lost about five pounds.
I find myself walking on tiptoe
and talking in whispers.
That's about over now,
one can't go on doing that.
Has there been any sense of elation
at reaching the job we're now in?
None at all.
Just a sense of how hard
this is going to be
and a determination
to make these 12 months
as good as I can.
President Johnson
attended St. John's Episcopal Church,
said prayers for John F. Kennedy,
and asked the minister of St. John's
to say prayers for him,
for Lyndon Baines Johnson,
whom an assassin's bullet
had suddenly catapulted into a job
that is the most important
and demanding on Earth.
Sunday, January the 12th.
One thing that's gone unmentioned
but not unnoticed by me,
Lyndon has been to church every Sunday
since the 22nd of November
and occasionally on some days in between.
It would be the understatement
of a lifetime to say
that a man of good sense
doesn't know how much
he needs help and solace.
He does.
There was talk that he might be dropped
from the Kennedy ticket next summer.
Now he will almost surely head
that election ticket.
His presidency, however long it lasts,
will not be a quiet one,
for his ambitions and determinations
far outrun his modesty or self-doubts.
And that, perhaps, is the way it should be
for the man who wields the ultimate power.
Saturday, March the 7th.
I have a brief statement on the economy.
I'm very pleased at the early
reaction to the tax cut.
The really high point of the day
was Lyndon's press conference on TV.
After it was over I phoned Lyndon
to tell him how good
I thought he had done.
When you were in college you trained
to become an expert in several fields.
You trained to be a teacher,
to be a journalist,
to be a secretary.
Why did you train for all those things?
Was it insecurity or just
a wide range of interest?
I thought being a journalist,
from those I knew,
puts you on the forefront of action
in places that were exciting.
A student from a very small town
in Deep East Texas,
all the doors of the world
suddenly swung open to me.
I did all sorts of assignments,
but I preferred the feature stories
because I would get to go
and meet interesting characters.
I knew I was gonna buckle down
to some kind of way of making a living,
although I always eventually
thought I'd get married,
just assumed I would.
He came on strong, and he was
very direct and dynamic.
And I do believe before the day was over
he did ask me to marry him,
and I thought he was just
out of his mind.
I suppose it takes a longer time
to confirm a judgment
that's supposed to last a lifetime.
My sense of excitement mounted.
What was gonna happen, I didn't know,
but I knew it was going to be, uh,
something important.
Does... Does the President talk over
world problems with you?
Does... Does he discuss the things
that are weighing on his mind?
I think he a-accords me the very, uh,
considerable respect of thinking
I have, I have good judgment
and he, he likes to hear
what I have to say.
And, uh, it's good to have
one person with whom
you can have a, a total, uh,
well, complete freedom
in what you talk about.
Sunday, March 22nd.
Lyndon got on the phone
and called up a most delightful
bunch of dinner guests.
The talk was of Vietnam.
Two weeks ago
Secretary of Defense McNamara
toured the country.
The position
of my government is clear,
we fully support
the people of South Vietnam.
It's pretty
terrifying to hear McNamara
speak of how dedicated
the opposition soldiers are over there.
They apparently have an intensive training
and ideas that is lacking on our side.
I saw the irritation and frayed nerves
that I remember from the hardest part
of the majority leader days.
This is my problem.
This is what I must solve.
That I can be tactful enough,
and sometimes even mean enough
to get Lyndon home at a reasonable hour,
bringing with him the components of work
and do it here in a somewhat
more relaxed atmosphere.
I did a little more work,
and then curled up in bed
for the most luxurious of all things,
a glass of wine and Gunsmoke,
my biggest self-indulgence.
All of which, I guess,
just proves that you can live
with disaster hanging over your heads.
Wednesday, April the 8th.
Washington's goodbye
to one of America's great heroes,
General Douglas MacArthur.
We lined up in a solemn single file.
Lyndon was on my right, and on my left
I found the Attorney General.
He looked tanned, healthier,
more relaxed than I had seen him.
And as the casket came by, flag draped,
I felt an echo of the November days
of President Kennedy's funeral.
He said, "You're doing a wonderful job.
Everybody says so."
And then, after a noticeable pause,
almost as with an effort, he said,
"And so is your husband."
I respect Bobby in many ways,
I admire him.
But I feel a peculiar unease around him
which I did not feel around his brother.
I haven't the vaguest idea
what is going on in his mind.
In his State of the
Union message,
the President called for
an all-out attack on poverty.
Are you going to make it
a major focus of your attention?
I think, Nancy,
the question that looms foremost
in everybody's mind
is the preservation of peace,
and the whole, the-the total
picture of poverty,
the black spot in our country,
that too is very important to me.
Do you plan to campaign
with him in the months ahead?
Yes, Nancy, I want to be on hand
in whatever he's doing.
Friday, April 24th.
We helicoptered into eastern Kentucky.
We landed in a meadow
close to the community of Inez.
This is the area
where mining once was king.
It's become a sick industry.
Nothing has really
come along to replace it.
We arrived at the home
of the Tom Fletcher's and I asked Lyndon
to please keep the photographers
away as much as possible.
This mustn't be a sideshow
for these people.
Lyndon hunkered down on the porch
with Mr. Fletcher for a talk.
They talked about
keeping the children in school
and how he made out to live
on $400 a year with eight children.
I expect it's a very limited diet,
and enough years of that
could be the reason
why Mrs. Fletcher look so faded
and dispirited,
and why there were no steps
up to the front porch of the house.
Hoisting myself up,
I had wondered why somebody
didn't at least go down
and saw off a stump,
and put it down for a step,
and then I realized,
how could I know what it was like
to try to raise eight children
on $400 a year?
It seems to me that the Johnson family
should follow the Christian admonition,
put your house, or houses, in order
before trying to preach this Gospel
to the tune of a one billion dollar
a year program.
Uh, good... a good many years, I believe.
Uh, Lady Bird inherited it
on her side of the family.
It appears that
two Republican congressmen
have made a trip to Alabama,
have gone out to interview
some of my tenants,
concealed tape recorders
in their briefcases,
have taken pictures of the houses
and quite miserable, indeed they are,
and are all prepared to try to prevent
Lyndon's poverty bill
with a flashy, gossipy, ugly information
that Mrs. Johnson has tenants
who live in squalor.
You pay 25% of your crop
to Mrs. Johnson in the rent
Yes, sir, well, that's right.
Have you ever heard of President
Johnson's poverty program?
No sir I have... Well, you mean the...
What do you mean the... Uh...
It's a program
the President is trying
to get passed by Congress,
to increase, he says,
"The standard of living of the
poor people of this country."
Uh, what do you think
this program might do
to increase the standard of living
of the people living in this house?
Well, as far as I know
I think it's going to help us.
I told Liz that where
we used to have
about 20 tenants on the whole place,
we now had about four.
One at least, Charlie Cutler,
has lived on the place
since grandfather's time.
Uneducated, unskilled,
and I believe in his 80s,
there's no place for Charlie to go.
However, we'll have to
batten down the hatches
for a nasty storm.
War in South Vietnam.
An ugly war in a far-off place.
We do not enjoy losing wars.
It is the official position
of the United States
that this one need not be lost.
In a very real sense,
it is not even ours to win.
It's someone else's war.
But the vital interests
of the United States
and the prestige of this country
as a great nation
would be grievously damaged
if it were to be lost.
Thursday, May 14th
began with a frontal assault on my desk.
The remnants of
a Puritan conscience drives me
to read a lot of the mail,
even, and sometimes especially,
the bad mail.
And then, when the desk was clearer
than it's been in a long time,
I left for Huntlands.
I called in to the White House
and asked Dr. Hurst if he and Jim
would like to drive out and
talk over Lyndon's problems.
I don't know, though,
that either one really understands
the depth of his pain,
when and if
he faces up to the possibility of sending
many thousands American boys to Vietnam.
Lyndon called me.
He was lonesome,
I could tell from his voice.
It was a sad talk,
largely about the Alabama tenants
and about his restive desire
to seek a way
out of the burdens he carries.
I wrote out about a nine-page analysis
of what I thought his situation was.
First, in case he definitely
decided he wanted to use it,
there was a suggested announcement
that he wasn't going to run again.
If he does not run,
we will probably return to the ranch
and he will enjoy the country he loves,
and me and Lynda and Luci
more than we ever have.
But there would be a wave
of hollow disillusionment,
and, "You let us down, Lyndon,"
among those people
who really looked to him
as the best candidate
of the Democratic Party.
There might well be periods of depression
as he watched Mr. X running the country,
and thought what he
would have done instead.
And he might look around for a scapegoat,
and I would not want to be it, then.
Then I put the alternative.
If he does run,
he will probably be elected President.
During the ensuing four years,
he, I, and the children
will be criticized and slandered
for things we have done,
and things we never did at all.
There will be times
when he will be frustrated
by the inability to achieve
his vaulting ambitions for this nation.
This will be painful.
My final conclusion was that,
I think he ought to run,
and then, some three years
and nine months from now,
in February or March of 1968,
announce that he won't be
a candidate for reelection.
And by that time,
I think the juices of life
will be stilled enough in him
that he can finish out that term,
return to the ranch to live out
the rest of our days quietly.
Roll 30, sound 19.
Tell me, uh, about your attitude
to the Civil Rights Bill
that's up in Congress and
being considered by the Senate?
I feel that it's, it's alright.
But I, I feel one thing,
that they should go on and pass it.
I don't see how in America
that people can actually say
that America is the land of the free
and the home of the brave,
when right here in America
Negroes have died
for no reason at all.
And actually, we are not
trying to take anything.
We just want a chance
to be decent human beings and citizens
that we can really say, as the song,
"O Say, can you see,
"by the dawn's early light,
what so proudly we hailed,"
and now I cry, America,
is this actually the land of the free
and the home of the brave?
Thursday, July 2nd.
At 6:30 the big news of the day,
and perhaps of the year, took place.
My fellow Americans,
I am about to sign into law
the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As I had slipped
quietly into a seat,
I had particularly noticed
the Attorney General
sitting on the front row,
and wondered what was
going on in his mind.
This bill that his brother
had sponsored so ardently,
had pinned so much hope on,
and that had finally come to passage,
I believe, with the earnest,
dogged help of Lyndon.
I watched the Attorney General's
impassive face,
and the very measured
clapping of his hands,
which would not have
disturbed a gnat sleeping
calmly in his palm.
There was a ceremony in the East Room.
A signing of the Civil
Rights Bill, complete with TV,
with all the leaders of the Congress
lined up behind Lyndon
as he signed the bill with some
several scores of pens,
each one could hardly have
gotten to do one single letter.
I left the East Room feeling
that I had really seen
something start in this nation's history,
fraught with much good and much troubles.
We will not accept the Civil Rights Bill.
And we will campaign and campaign
until it is repealed.
In my opinion, this is not going to stop
Negro demonstrations.
It is not going to solve racial problems,
but it's going to increase tensions.
Are you concerned
perhaps, about the Democrats
taking advantage of this?
After Lyndon Johnson the biggest faker
in the United States,
having opposed the Civil Rights Act
for all the years of his life,
this is the phoniest individual
that ever came around.
I guess
because he was a southerner,
they didn't believe him.
When I would speak
out for Johnson, they would say
"Well, you are prejudiced
because you work for him."
And I'd said "No,"
I said, "In talking with him
I know it is for all of the Negro people."
And I knew what kind of man he was.
There's Zephyr and Lynda Bird.
One thing I'm gonna say
about Mrs. Johnson,
she was very nice about finding
nice places to stay.
And if we couldn't stay there,
she didn't stay there.
One time we stopped at a place
and the woman said
"Yes, uh, we have a place for you."
And she said, "Well,
I have these other two people."
She said, "No, we-we work 'em,
but we don't sleep 'em."
And Mrs. Johnson said, "Well,
that's a nasty way to be,"
and she drove away.
At sea, on land, and in the air,
the awesome United States military machine
is mounting a force
that can face up to any threat.
Reinforcements are being moved
into strategic locations
as part of a new strategy
in this frustrating war.
Tuesday, August 4th was
a momentous day.
You know great decisions are being shaped,
some completely beyond
the control of any of us,
some that have to be decided
by the man closest to me.
As McGeorge Bundy passed me in the hall,
he was looking extraordinarily grave.
I asked him something which
brought a portentous answer.
It left me thinking,
we might have a small war on our hands.
This is the Maddox,
one of the two destroyers
that were attacked
while patrolling international waters
in the Gulf of Tonkin near North Vietnam.
My fellow Americans,
it is my duty to the American people
to report that renewed hostile actions
against United States ships
on the high seas
in the Gulf of Tonkin
have today required me
to order the military forces
of the United States
to take action and reply.
Frightening as the situation is,
I had a certain feeling of pride.
Perhaps for Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy,
there were a long series of such days.
Obviously up until now
we've survived them all
but it's a perilous path to tread.
Mr. President,
it is widely believed
among the reporters around town
that you object rather strongly
to being criticized
in the papers and on the air. Is there...
Would you give us what your
true feelings on that subject are?
I assume that
almost anyone that is human, uh,
uh, would rather
have approval than disapproval.
Uh, some people have thought
that you put in too long and hard a day,
that you might endanger
your own health that way.
How do you protect your health
from day-to-day?
We do have long days,
and, uh, the problems, uh, that, uh,
require attention, uh, require time.
And, uh, you, you never have as
much time as you want to spend
before making these decisions,
but you must make decisions.
And I work at a rather feverish rate,
and the first hundred days were, uh,
filled, uh, to almost to
the breaking point.
He told me
that he was going to fly
up there the next morning and announce
that he wasn't gonna be a candidate
for reelection in Atlantic City.
And I told him he absolutely
could not do that.
I went immediately to Mrs. Johnson.
She has more ability to
reason with him than anyone else.
Good evening.
This convention city by the sea
bustled with political activity today.
A predominantly Negro group
is challenging the all-White
delegation from Mississippi.
We want to register
to become first-class citizens.
And if the Freedom Democratic
Party is not seated now,
I question America.
For 22 long minutes,
while his wife watches,
the delegates pour out
their affection for Bobby,
and for the man who was their President.
Mrs. Lyndon Johnson, Luci,
and Lynda have just arrived.
And there he is.
The President of the
United States,
and the next President
of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson.
I will begin the march
toward an overwhelming victory
for our party
and for our nation!
Election year 1964.
The White House is the prize,
and it's invaded by the ladies.
Four million more women voters
in the country than men,
and both parties
are wooing the feminine vote.
It's the year of the woman in Washington.
The ladies are claiming the title,
facing the responsibility.
Friday, September the 11th
began my planning for the
whistle-stop trip to the south.
I'm tired of everybody's acting
like the South is the step-child.
I belong to it and it to me,
and I intend to say so, even if
I, I get a rebuff for it.
I'm on the rear platform here
of the Lady Bird Special
talking with Elizabeth Carpenter,
Mrs. Johnson's press secretary.
Uh, Mrs. Carpenter, what's
the main purpose of this trip
as far as Mrs. Johnson is concerned?
Well, Marlene,
obviously there's an election on
and she's helping carry
the story of this administration
and of her husband's record
to eight states.
No one knows the story
better than Mrs. Johnson
and so I think that we'll find
victory there this fall.
Alexandria has been chosen
as the first stop
by one of the greatest
campaigners in America,
and I'm proud to announce...
And I'm very proud to announce
that I am her husband.
You think the state's
gonna go for Goldwater?
I think this whole
state will go for Goldwater.
It will be the first time
Georgia has ever gone Republican.
But they'll do it this time.
Democrats have always controlled Georgia.
So we thought we'd show her that
there are a few Republicans here now.
Can you tell me, Mrs. Johnson,
what were your original
expectations for this trip
and how have things worked out?
There have been mainly friendly
and large audiences
but scattered in there have been some,
uh, hecklers here and there.
Uh, do you feel that you will nevertheless
be able to, uh, help keep the South
in the democratic camp despite this?
That's a large order for a woman.
But I think we have to
look at this in perspective.
There have been a few, certainly,
they're entitled to their opinion,
but you were there,
you saw the thousands of people
who were cheering
and reaching out to shake hands.
We want Barry!
We want Barry!
My friends, this is
a country of many viewpoints
and I respect your right
to express your own.
Now, it's my turn to express mine.
- Thank you.
The Walter Jenkins episode
raises grave questions
of national security
which only the President
can and must answer.
Knowing the vulnerability
of morals offenders to blackmail,
the President should tell us
whether Mr. Jenkins was permitted
to sit in on meetings
of the National Security Council
and otherwise given access
to top military secrets.
Walter appeared
rather detached and dissociated.
I cannot measure the suffering
he's gone through,
it's been one of the most
painful things in my life,
more painful than death
of many close to me.
The voice of the
people was heard in the land.
Sixty eight million citizens
of the United States
go to the polls to exercise
their cherished franchise
and an overwhelming mandate
is handed to Lyndon Baines Johnson
who becomes 36th president
of the United States.
The man who was thrust into office
through the hand of tragedy
captures an overwhelming
percentage of the popular vote.
More than 61%,
a plurality over Barry Morris Goldwater
of nearly 16 million ballots.
It is an historical sweeping victory.
New Year's Day began for me
with black coffee and orange juice
and good resolutions.
I spent all day in the
never-never land of clothes.
The coat I'm wearing
for the inaugural ceremony is elegant.
The dress? Well, we'll have
to wait and see.
I'm just not the type
for sketches and swatches.
I'm a go in and look on the rack,
put 'em on and wear 'em out type.
That too is one of
my New Year resolutions,
to look better at all public appearances
and to remember what is due the job.
I still find it very difficult,
very distasteful to say "First Lady."
Wednesday, January the 20th
dawned beautiful and bright and early.
The day had come.
We rode down the avenue,
Lyndon and I in one car,
the one with the bulletproof
glass top and sides,
crowds already thick along
Pennsylvania Avenue.
Then came the moment toward which
all the days of the last year
had been heading,
the moment when Lyndon
would take the oath of office
as the 36th President
of the United States.
It had been mentioned
to me that I should hold
the Bible for his swearing in.
I stood facing the throng,
between the Chief Justice and Lyndon,
while he took the oath.
I, Lyndon Baines Johnson,
do solemnly swear...
That you will faithfully execute...
...that I will faithfully execute...
...the office of the presidency
of the United States,
so help you God.
...so help me God.
Monday, February 1st,
begins the busy days again.
I woke about 7:00,
and finding Lyndon was awake
crawled into bed with him for coffee.
And heard Luci, mad as a hornet,
discuss an article in a magazine
called Women's Wear,
which had given the three Johnson women
pretty poor marks as dressers.
Luci was inclined to blame it
on Lynda Bird's bobby socks and loafers,
and was really quite
heatedly annoyed about it.
It is an endurance contest, this job.
Sunday, February the 7th
actually began after midnight.
Lyndon had heard of the Viet Cong attack
on American barracks in South Vietnam.
I was rather startled to hear him say
something I have heard so often,
but did not really expect
to come out of his mouth
in front of anyone else.
"I am not temperamentally equipped
to be commander in chief," he said.
They were talking about
the necessity of giving orders,
that would produce God knows
what cataclysmic results.
He said, "I am too sentimental."
It's odd how you can be so anesthetized
by your own pain or your own problem,
that you don't quite fully share
the hell of someone close to you.
Sunday, March 7th.
For quite some time
I've been swimming upstream
against a feeling of depression
and relative inertia.
Lyndon, too, lives in a cloud
of troubles with few rays of light.
Now it is the Selma situation.
Six hundred or so Negroes
who marched made little headway
toward the state capital
some 15 miles to the east.
They barely left Selma.
They marched in through the city of Selma
and were not stopped,
but once they crossed
over the Edmund Pettus Bridge,
it was a different story.
You've got
two minutes to turn around
and go back to your church.
Scores of
the marchers were treated
for tear gas burns,
open wounds and broken bones.
At nightfall, the sheriff of Dallas County
went on the radio
to urge everyone to stay off the streets.
It was a day
of tension and strain.
Out in front of the White House
pickets are marching,
a not unusual sight.
But in this context, with more poignancy
than before, I think.
Because Lyndon is a southern President,
because he won with such a great vote
from the Negroes last fall,
because the right to vote has been the key
to the whole civil rights issue
that he has hammered
and hammered since '57.
Oh, freedom
Well, it looks as if
yesterday's battle in Selma
was rather the end of the beginning.
For King's answer to Governor Wallace
is another march.
Same town, Selma.
Same destination, Montgomery.
The date, tomorrow, Tuesday.
And says King, "He'll lead it himself."
Oh, freedom
Oh, freedom over me
I heard later
that he did not know
when he turned,
whether anyone would be following.
But this was victory, this was sanity.
A temporary restraining lid on the volcano
to grant time for
the strong voting rights bill in Congress
to save us from catastrophe.
Oh, freedom over me
This is the rhythm of a city,
any big city, anywhere.
Today American cities are facing a crisis.
They are running a high fever
of unplanned growth.
They are overcrowded and overwhelmed.
For the first time,
Americans are beginning
to seriously examine
how their cities got that way.
Within our cities,
imaginative programs are needed,
to landscape streets
and to transform open areas
into places of beauty and recreation.
Lyndon made a speech,
and it was about the environment,
about conservation,
and I-I decided, that's for me.
From the time
we went into the White House,
you had newswomen saying,
"What is your role? What is your role?"
And Mrs. Johnson's reply at the time was,
"My role as First Lady
will emerge in deeds not words."
Our object was to convince Mrs. Johnson
to take the bull by the horns
and to form a committee
that would have the podium
of the White House
to air views and efforts
in making the city
of Washington more beautiful.
I think the time has come
in our national consciousness
to look at the environment
and question
what man was doing to harm it.
Growing up in the country,
I was pretty much left to my own devices.
And I did not have
many constant companions.
Nature was my friend,
and sustenance, and teacher.
It was a joy to me
and it's, it's never failed me.
Tuesday, March 9th
was the meeting
of my Beautification Committee.
Getting on the subject
of beautification is like
picking up a tangled skein of wool,
all the threads are interwoven...
...recreation and urban renewal,
and rapid transit
and highway beautification,
and mental health and the crime rate.
It's awfully hard
to hitch the conversation
into one straight line
'cause everything leads to something else.
At about 11:30 all 30 or so of us
departed on our field trip.
We stopped at
Green Leaf Gardens,
a housing area of modest,
little brick row houses.
This was Walter Washington's bailiwick
and his great enthusiasm.
Together, he and I
have been frequent visitors
at schools, housing projects
and in the neighborhoods of Washington.
He is a wise and able public servant.
We have traveled through this city.
Both of us determined that
a certain part of what she wanted to do
would be regarded as cosmetic,
and that really behind the monuments,
there was a big job to do.
And that there must be equal access
to the greatness and strengths
of our nation
and in our neighborhoods.
They must be available to all.
I am no authority,
just an interested, enthusiastic citizen.
I recognize I do have
a sort of a tool in my hands
by this title I carry,
and I want to use it.
Nothing is more important
than my involvement with beautification
but I want a new word for it.
Tuesday, July 13th.
History is my preoccupation,
our niche in it I mean,
for the next year or so.
The most significant part
of the day, of course,
the appointment
of a new US Solicitor General.
And it's Thurgood Marshall,
the first Negro to hold such a post.
A man with a wonderful record.
He admired Judge Marshall
and spoke of the possibility,
perhaps when a vacancy opened up
he might make him
a Justice of the Supreme Court.
July 30th, the Medicare Bill passed.
President and Mrs. Johnson
and Vice President Humphrey arrive
for ceremonies that will make
the Medicare bill
a part of social security coverage.
That impossible bill.
He has every reason
to feel fulfilled and proud.
Friday, August 6th.
I talked to Lyndon that morning,
He reminded me of the signing
of the voting rights bill.
Completely
inefficient, I forgot to watch,
but later I was proud to see
that Luci had not forgotten.
She was right there by daddy's side,
walking in, her hand in his.
It was a dramatic setting,
a dramatic occasion.
I recognize that from
outside this chamber,
is the outraged conscience of a nation,
but even if we pass this bill
the battle will not be over.
What happened in Selma is
part of a far larger movement
which reaches into every section
and state of America.
It is the effort of American Negroes
to secure for themselves
the full blessings of American life.
Their cause must be our cause too.
Here in Saigon...
The fact that there
had been many pluses
in the legislative achievements
of the week
had not prevented Vietnam
from dominating the news.
I have today ordered to Vietnam
the air mobile division
and certain other forces
which will raise our fighting strength
from 75,000 to 125,000 men
almost immediately.
He said, "Vietnam is getting
worse day by day.
"I have the choice to go in
with great casualty lists
or get out with great disgrace."
"It's like being in an airplane,
and I have to choose
"between crashing the plane
or jumping out.
I do not have a parachute."
When he is pierced, I bleed.
What do you think, about 11?
Eleven will be fine.
Do you think that's too much
exposure? We could do 16?
- About eight?
- I'd go down
towards eight, Mrs. Johnson.
Alright.
I'll just do another one.
Mrs. Johnson has
managed to tread the thin line
between her private role
as wife and mother,
and her public stance on beautification
which some special interests
groups in this country
have found abrasive.
Tuesday, August 17th.
I woke up early and worked with Liz
to talk about how the Beautification Bills
were faring in the House and Senate.
There are four of them,
all relating to highways.
There had been much talk in the
country and in the papers
and not much action on the Hill.
One of them is a goner.
The others about billboards and junkyards,
with three percent of the money
allocated for planting
along the interstate highways
have a better chance.
This
administration has no desire
to punish or to penalize
any private industry
or any private company in this nation.
But we are not going to allow them
to intrude their own
specialized, private objectives
on the larger public trust.
And that is why today
there's a great deal of real joy
to sign the Highway
Beautification Act of 1965.
How many times have I driven
up to the front door of Bethesda?
Really serious times.
Very present in my mind,
and I'm sure in Lyndon's mind,
was of his serious heart attack.
For the first few years
we passed those milestones
stepping softly with great trepidation.
Now we act almost as though
it had not been.
Though Lyndon and I will not forget.
There was a high sense of
theater about the whole thing.
They wheeled up a long cart,
and doctors assisted Lyndon on to it,
and then he said, "Let's go."
I felt like he was
putting on a performance,
to save us from being worried.
The gall bladder had been just
as they suspected, inflamed,
with one stone in it.
This meant a double operation,
more hazard,
and longer recuperation.
I walked into the room to find
Abe sitting quietly by Lyndon's bedside.
He was seeking Abe's advice
on how he could escape
from the burdens of the presidency
for the next indefinite period.
So here is the black beast of depression
back in our lives.
He was like a man on whom an avalanche
had suddenly fallen.
He said he didn't feel like making
a single decision right now.
"I want to go to the ranch.
"I don't want Hubert
to be even able to call me.
"They may demand that I resign,
they may even want to impeach me."
Mostly we sat in an atmosphere
of numbed silence,
with Abe offering quiet legal observations
on the alternatives.
Abe began to write out
what Lyndon asked him to.
And after Lyndon read it he said,
"Here, you had better
keep both these copies.
I don't want anybody to know about them."
I think it quite essential
that he have days,
maybe weeks of rest.
But how to buy a little time of quiet
when you are President
of the United States?
The question now, of course,
is what happens to
the Johnson style in 1966?
It will be a year in which
style alone won't solve things.
He has already learned
he can't put the arm on the Viet Cong
and the North Vietnamese
the way he can
on a recalcitrant congressman.
And learning this
has frequently seemed to produce
a kind of sulkiness in the President.
A resentment at questions he can't answer,
a petulance with the press,
a deviousness at times in his statements
about what has happened
and what is going to happen.
That inescapable
feeling of drama,
what will this new year hold for us all?
Will you tell us what you're sending
to Mrs. Johnson in your telegram?
- Would you like me to read it?
- Yes, please.
"We know you share our grief
at the loss of life in Vietnam.
"Please add your voices
to those calling for negotiation
"instead of bombing.
"There must be
an honorable diplomatic solution
to the situation in Vietnam."
Sunday, February 13th.
At lunch, Lafayette Park
had been full of picketers.
It's such a common thing now.
Lyndon said, this thing is assuming
rather dangerous proportions.
He talked about the individual
feelings of every mother
who had a son in Vietnam
and in comparison about his feelings.
He said, "There's not
a mother in the world
"who cares as much about it as I do
"because I have 200,000 of them over there
"and they think I am in charge.
And if I am not, God help them.
Who the hell is?"
Luci's wedding day
began clear and
bright and beautiful.
What I remember of the morning
was a montage.
One walks up the aisle
as though in a play.
Thinking not the deep thoughts
that this is the last moment
she belongs to us alone.
She was flawless
in her dignity and gentleness.
To his eternal credit
I do not remember Lyndon
looking at his watch
one time in the service
that lasted longer than an hour.
I myself did not see the pickets.
Only when it is extremely
raucous do we notice it.
I feel protective of Luci and Pat,
disgusted by the whole thing,
just as a citizen,
and not wise enough to cope with it.
Would you end all of the
speculation for us and tell us
A, if you intend to run in 1968
and B, if Hubert Humphrey
will be your running mate?
I didn't know, uh, Ms. Means,
there had been
that much speculation about it.
Uh, I'm not ready to make
a decision about my future
after Jan '69 at this time.
Down the road several months from now
would be the appropriate time
for an announcement
of what my future plans are.
Saturday, May 13th.
Many, many months ago,
I set March of '68 in my own mind
as the time when
Lyndon can make a statement
that he would not be
a candidate for reelection.
For the first time in my life,
I have felt that Lyndon
would be a happy man retired.
I find myself enjoying more and more
every return to the ranch,
and I do not know whether we can endure
another four-year term in the presidency.
If life can be said to have a pattern,
as we go into summer,
the crescendo of work mounts.
In a Rose Garden ceremony,
a 58-year-old great grandson of a slave
is nominated by President Johnson
to be a Supreme Court Justice.
He is Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall.
This morning I have welcomed
the members of the Commission
on Civil Disorders,
chaired by Governor Kerner of Illinois.
The American people
are baffled and dismayed
by the wholesale looting and violence
that has occurred both in small towns and
in great metropolitan centers.
Hey, hey, LBJ,
how many kids did you kill today?
Hell no, we won't go.
The pro's heavyweight champion
Cassius Clay
is found guilty of violating
the US Selective Service laws
by refusing to be inducted.
I've said it once,
and I will say it again.
The real enemies of my people
are right here, not in Vietnam.
Sunday, August 13th.
A cool front had blown in,
and there was a promise
of fall in the air.
It's strange, you feel soothed and happy
about the companionship of your
daughter and your grandchild
and exactly simultaneously
you're weighed down
by the troubles
that you must try to solve.
The growing virus of the riots,
the rising list of casualties,
and the voices of your own friends
or former friends in Congress,
and most of the bitching
is coming from the Democrats.
We watched Martin Luther King on TV.
We are losing both.
We are losing the war
against poverty here at home.
We are losing the war in Vietnam,
morally and politically.
And I think we're losing...
To me, it seemed
the old charisma is fading.
He was not as exciting
as I had remembered him.
Today's poll has Lyndon down to 39,
the lowest he's ever been.
And my instinct tells me
the only reaction to it
should be to work harder,
be staunch and keep smiling.
But it is hard.
We have
grown enough strength to say,
you know, that Vietnam War
is for the Birds.
Lynda Bird, Lady Bird...
Let the Birds go take care of it,
we gonna sit here and watch.
The new left has at best
perhaps 300,000 members.
The young radicals scorn communism
and they see liberals as their enemy.
The discontent of the new left
has been noted
by the politician most
identified with young people.
They see us willing to fight a
war for freedom in Vietnam,
but unwilling to fight with
one-hundredth the money or force
or effort to secure freedom
in Mississippi,
or Alabama, or the ghettos of the north.
I read a very thoughtful editorial.
It's a frantic effort
of some of today's young
to find a tangible method of revolt.
Their revolt happens to be
almost totally negative.
It is a sterile thing,
against the velvet prison of affluence,
conformity, and isolation.
Merely to be bizarre in strategic spots
gives people a lot of exposure
in this day of saturation coverage
of the major events by television.
They think they are doing something
when they are noticed by the TV cameras.
Many of the young confuse it with action.
Monday, October 9.
My journey into academia.
At about three o'clock
we arrived at New Haven.
It was a sizable crowd
of picketers carrying signs
that said, "Stop beautifying
North Vietnam"
and displayed pictures of
people supposedly burned by napalm.
I got out of the car.
The measured slowness,
and walked to meet Dr. Brewster.
Quite soon, the feeling got across to me
that my presence here
was really an imposition on him.
His manner was absolutely correct.
But if I have any antenna at all,
I sense that he wished
he had no part of it.
Can a great democratic society
generate the energy to build
projects of order and beauty?
That answer will unfold, I think,
in the next two decades.
Thank you very much.
I was never so glad
to be finished with a speech in my life.
On our way out, I shook hands
with everybody I could reach,
and not even a Secret Service was gladder,
I'm sure, that an evening was nearly over.
That was also a lesson to me,
I must not live in the White House
insulated myself.
I want to know what's going on,
even if to know is to suffer.
A rather striking
foursome emerged
from the White House today
and strolled across the South Lawn.
Marine Captain Charles Robb,
his bride to be,
and his prospective in-laws.
There will be a White House wedding,
and then the President's son-in-law
will go off to fight in Vietnam.
Lynda's wedding day,
Saturday, December the 9th.
The ceremony began on time.
How would one describe the bride?
Queenly, radiant, stunningly beautiful,
every heart in the place lifted.
Beautiful as she was, it was
he I watched all the way,
such a mixture of quietness
and farewell in his look,
his hair looked whiter than I'd ever seen,
and I was full of tenderness for him.
I have never seen a lovelier ceremony.
Lynda's wedding dress
fulfilled every expectation,
and I hope I live to see
a granddaughter wear it,
and I'm sure it will be just as good then.
Saturday, January the 13th.
And so we returned to what
really seemed like New Year's,
the beginning of the hardest year
with our big problem still unresolved.
We drove to Luci's house
and there was Lyn, all smiles,
apparently over his ear infection,
absolutely enthralled
at seeing his grandfather.
Lyndon spends more time with him
than he ever did
with either of our children.
He said, "There's one job I want,
and that's to be a full-time grandfather."
It was both humorous and pathetic.
Wednesday, January the 17th.
The day of the State of the Union.
Lyndon had asked George
to draft him a statement,
announcing that he would not run.
My own, which Lyndon had asked
me to produce, was feeble,
and if there was anything
that we ever ought to say
with words that have
wings and fire, this is it.
I keep the statement I had written in '64,
when Lyndon was facing
going to Atlantic City
and did not want to go,
in the right-hand drawer
of my desk in my bedroom.
I brought it out and we reread
what I had said then.
It sounds better now.
Lyndon put George's statement
in his inside pocket.
It was not to be included in the text
of the State of the Union.
If he made it, it would come at the end,
beginning with a line something like this,
"And now I want to speak to you
about a personal matter."
He looks from one to another
of those close to him
for an answer,
for some wisdom,
some foresight, beyond any he can have.
And he said, "Well, what shall I do?"
I looked at him
with that hopeless feeling,
and said, "Luci hopes you won't run.
"She wants you for herself,
and Lyn and all of us being together.
"Lynda hopes you will run.
"Because her husband is going to war,
"and she thinks there will be more chance
"of getting him back alive
"and everything settled
if you're President.
"And me, I don't know,
I've said it all before.
I can't tell you what to do."
Mr. Speaker,
the President of the United States.
I wish with all of my heart
that the expenditures
that are necessary to build
and to protect our power
could all be devoted
to the programs of peace.
But until world conditions permit
and until peace is assured,
America's bravest sons
who wear our nation's uniform
must continue.
Somewhere in it
the teleprompter went out.
I could see him leafing
through three or four pages
of the text in front of him
while he interpolated.
As we approached the end
I tightened up in my seat.
Would he reach in his pocket?
Did I want him to?
Would I be relieved if he did
or if he didn't?
Can we achieve these goals?
Of course we can.
Thank you and good night.
He did not reach in his pocket
for the draft that I knew was there.
Thursday, January 18th.
I went over my guest list
for the Women Doers' Luncheon,
our subject, "Crime on the Streets."
A few of the guests had been late
and some of the staff
ushered them up to speak to me,
Eartha Kitt among them.
I work with inner city kids,
so that's why I was invited
to this luncheon.
I didn't want to go,
but the White House kept calling me
and saying, "Yes, Mrs. Johnson
definitely wants you to come."
Crime is a grim subject
for a pleasant meeting like this,
but I believe that
everybody is increasingly
determined to face up to it.
Then in walks President Johnson.
He puts his elbow on the pulpit
that was suddenly out there.
Miss Eartha Kitt,
who had been seated at the
table close to the podium,
rose in his path and said...
Lyndon paused a moment,
but fortunately, he had the answer.
She sat down stubbed
out of cigarettes
tossing her long hair,
and from then on I watched her
expecting something,
I didn't know what.
She smoldered and smoked.
I asked the guests for their
observations and discussions.
I noticed Miss Kitt's hand going up
and I knew that I must,
in turn, get to her.
I did not know what to expect,
only that it would not be good.
She rose and began
to talk swiftly, passionately,
beginning with anger that the fact
of welfare checks were so small.
And then, mounting to a crescendo,
she came to her real destination,
to denounce the war in Vietnam.
Advancing a step toward me
and looking with intense directness at me,
she's a good actress, she said,
"Mrs. Johnson, you are a mother too,
"although you have had
daughters and not sons.
"I am a mother and I know
the feeling of having a baby
"come out of my gut.
"I have a baby and then
you send him off to war.
No wonder the kids rebel and take pot."
Miss Kitt stopped for breath
to a stunned silence in the room.
One woman who was
sitting to my right,
she said, "Thank you, Eartha,
for saying what you've said,
"we all feel the same way
"but unfortunately 75 percent
of the women in this room
husbands work for President Johnson."
I stood very composed, I think,
and said goodbye
to everyone who came along.
Protest was back outside
the White House today
after scoring a resounding blow inside.
These women are marching
in support of Eartha Kitt,
whose outburst at a White House
luncheon yesterday
against the war, taxes,
and the alienation of youth
drew attention rivaling
the standard responses
to the State of the Union.
Miss Kitt succeeded where picketers
and political opponents have failed,
and bringing dissent
directly to the first family.
The communists had launched
a massive New Year's
offensive late in January.
Martial law was declared by
South Vietnamese President Thieu.
Who won and who lost
in the great Tet Offensive
against the cities?
I'm not sure.
The Viet Cong did not win by a knockout,
but neither did we.
The referees of history
may make it a draw.
It seems now more certain than ever
that the bloody experience of Vietnam
is to end in a stalemate.
And with each escalation,
the world comes closer
to the brink of cosmic disaster.
It is increasingly clear to this reporter
that the only rational way out then
will be to negotiate, not as victims,
but as an honorable people
who lived up to their pledge
to defend democracy
and did the best they could.
This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.
I am announcing today my candidacy
for the presidency of the United States.
I do not run for the presidency
merely to oppose any man,
but to propose new policies.
I run because I am convinced
that this country is on a perilous course
and because I have such strong feelings
about what must be done
and I feel that I am obliged
to do all that I can.
Finally my decision reflects
no personal animosity
or disrespect towards President Johnson.
I am required now
to permit the entry of my name
into the California primary.
Mr. President, how does it
affect the commander in chief,
so to speak, to know
that his new son-in-law
is going off to war?
Well, I guess that, uh,
you're glad that you have a son-in-law
that has had the training several years
in an elite group like the Marines,
who is prepared and equipped
to look after his country's interests.
I, uh, feel that way
about all the Marine Corps
and the boys in the other services, too.
Sunday, March the 31st
Lynda was coming in on the
red-eye special from California,
after having kissed
Chuck goodbye the night before.
She looked like a ghost.
She said "Mother, they were awful.
They kept on pushing
and shoving to get to us."
She meant the press.
Captain, how soon do you expect
to be in combat?
And there were lots
of other wives there
saying goodbye to their husbands.
I took her into her room
and she went to bed.
And I went into Lyndon's room
he was crying.
It's the first time
since Mrs. Johnson died
that I have seen him cry.
But he didn't have time to cry.
At nine o'clock in the evening
he was to make his talk on the war.
And I can't see where a period is or not.
Uh, the step for him is
I just have to go on.
We have to do it.
We can't change it, but it's...
I had spent a good
part of Saturday
working on it myself.
I felt quite positive
about my few changes.
Lyndon came in.
I went to him and said quietly,
"Pacing and drama."
And I did not know what the end would be.
Good evening, my fellow Americans,
tonight I want to speak to you
of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
It was magnificently delivered,
his best I think.
With American sons in
the fields far away,
with our hopes and the world's hopes
for peace in the balance every day,
I do not believe
that I should devote an hour
or a day of my time
to any personal partisan causes
or to any duties
other than the awesome duties
of this office,
the presidency of your country.
Accordingly,
I shall not seek,
and I will not accept,
the nomination of my party
for another term as your President.
Thank you for listening.
Good night and God bless all of you.
At last the decision
had been reached and stated.
And as well as any human can,
I knew our future.
I rose to my feet and went to him
and threw my arms around him
and kissed him.
It had been nobly done.
And almost in its way,
as dramatic as our entrance into this job.
Although the actual exit
is still nine months away.
Thursday, April 4th.
I asked Lyndon
about his meeting with Kennedy,
he said Sorensen had accompanied him
and that they wanted Lyndon
to support them.
Bobby said he wanted
to maintain the position
of unifying the country,
but he felt perfectly free
to express his feelings
in any way he saw fit.
Lyndon said he had
never seen such arrogance.
Then I went downstairs with Liz,
we worked on the Texas trip.
Seldom has there been a trip
I looked forward more to.
I have a passion for
showing foreigners our country,
and showing them our home.
It was some time while
Mr. Pierre was fixing my hair,
and Lynda Bird had been
listening to the TV,
that she came flying into my room.
"Mama, mama. Dr. King's been shot."
And from that moment on,
the evening assumed a nightmare quality.
I have some very sad news for all of you.
Martin Luther King was shot
and was killed tonight
in Memphis, Tennessee.
If we were silent,
the TV was not,
it blared constantly.
The nation has not known such shock
nor has it been so stunned
since the assassination
of President Kennedy.
Everybody's mind
began racing off
in its own direction
as to what this would mean,
to racial violence in our country,
to the work of so many
to try to bring us together.
I ask every citizen
to reject the blind violence
that has struck Dr. King,
who lived by non-violence.
I pray that his family
can find comfort in the memory
of all he tried to do for
the land he loved so well.
Friday, April 5th,
I was up early.
Probably not to anybody in the city
was it a restful night.
I went into Lyndon's room for coffee.
He was still firm in
his feeling that I should go.
Liz called and I told her it was on.
We both recognized we'd have
to make some changes
in the speeches,
the world had changed overnight.
I put out my hand and met
all the foreign correspondents,
thirty-eight from
thirteen European countries.
I sensed the feeling of uncertainty,
tension in the air.
As soon as we were aloft
I went to the PA system,
and in a quiet, serious voice said,
"We travel with a heavier heart today
because of the tragedy
of Dr. King's death."
And then I put it behind me
with a change of tone,
and welcomed them on a journey
to the part of our country
that I know best.
When white America
killed Dr. King last night,
she opened the eyes of every
Black man in this country.
When White America killed
Dr. King last night,
she declared war on us.
Talked to Washington, to Lynda.
She said the White House
was like a fortress,
nobody gets out, nobody gets in.
Washington, Chicago, Detroit,
Boston, New York, these are
just a few 'of the cities
in which the Negro anguish
over Dr. King's murder,
presumably by a White man,
expressed itself in violent destruction.
This is
a part of the confrontation
that's unfortunate.
The most tragic death of
this great humanitarian has
brought, uh, brought disorder to a head.
President Johnson has made
some unprecedented strides
in the direction of human equality
and he is deeply hurt by what he considers
unjustified criticism.
In less than four years he has signed
three landmark
civil rights bills into law.
He named Negroes to the Supreme Court,
then to the Cabinet
for the first time in our history.
And he chose a Negro to be
the first mayor of Washington.
But for all of his efforts,
there was something missing
in this total performance
that failed to prevent
the drifting apart of the races.
We want Kennedy!
We want Kennedy!
Thank you very much.
We want Kennedy!
Thank you very much.
What I think is quite clear is,
is that we can work together
in the last analysis.
And what has been going on
within the United States
over the period of the last three years,
the divisions whether
it's between Blacks and Whites,
between the poor and the more affluent,
or on the war in Vietnam,
that we can start to work together,
we are a great country
and a selfish country
and a compassionate country,
and I intend to make
that my basis for running
over the period of the next few months.
My thanks to all of you,
and now it is on to Chicago,
and let's win this. Thank you very much.
Wednesday, June 5th.
It had been a short night.
The phone jarred me awake
from a deep sleep.
It was Lyndon saying tersely,
"Will you come in here?"
He was propped up against
the pillows in his room,
looking as though
he had never been to sleep,
and all the TV sets were on.
And I realized at once
something was happening.
I am not sure whether I heard
it first from the TV set
or from Lyndon.
Senator Kennedy had been shot.
There was an air of unreality
about the whole thing.
"It couldn't be.
You dreamed it. It had happened before."
He had been celebrating the victory
in the California primaries.
The whole thing had taken place
under the eye of a television camera.
We need a doctor here!
What happened? Do you know?
Somebody said he's been shot.
Faces of the television
kept repeating their hideous story.
The senator was going in
for brain surgery.
It had been determined
that the bullet had lodged
somewhere behind the ear.
All day long, I had heard
this cacophony over and over
of the reactions of people questioned.
What is our country coming to?
What is happening to us?
Are we a sick society?
I have a
short announcement to read.
Senator Robert Francis Kennedy
died at 1:44 a.m. today,
June 6, 1968.
Saturday, June 8th,
was a day for me,
completely detached from the normal,
a capsule of time
suspended in unreality...
...the burial of Senator Bobby Kennedy.
To be remembered
simply as a good and decent man,
who saw wrong and tried to right it,
saw suffering and tried to heal it,
saw war and tried to stop it.
One of the Catholic
dignitaries came
and leaned over to tell Lyndon
that he should leave first.
And then we walked to the right
past the front row,
where all the Kennedy family was seated
and stopped to speak first to Ethel,
whose face was beautiful, sad, composed.
And she said, to Lyndon, very simply,
"You've been so kind."
And then I found myself in front of
Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy.
I called her name and put out my hand.
She looked at me as though
from a great distance,
as though I were an apparition.
I felt extreme hostility.
Was it because I was alive?
At last, without a flicker of expression,
she extended her hand very slightly.
I took it with
some murmured word of sorrow
and walked on quickly.
It was somehow shocking.
Never in any contact with her
before had I experienced this.
We were back at the White House by 11:00.
Tomorrow would be a day of mourning,
as Lyndon had proclaimed.
And Monday we would all make a new start.
Tuesday, August the 27th,
Lyndon's 60th birthday.
There had been talk about
going to the convention
to make a sort of a Valedictory speech.
When the convention virtually
erupted on Monday,
the chances of our making the trip
dwindled to almost nothing.
The Youth International Party,
Yippies they call themselves,
converged on Chicago
to protest the war,
poverty, racism, and other social ills.
This may be the last
of the old style ritualistic
political convention.
It may also be the end
of the Democratic Party
as we have known it since Roosevelt.
The world is
undergoing convulsions
all around us.
Our party,
our country, the whole world.
And so, we go on to this strange year,
and personally, it is a happy year,
within the close circle of our family
because I think we are proud
of what each one of us is doing,
all of us together.
How strange that might sound
from somebody on the outside
who is looking at us.
Lynda lets us read her letters from Chuck.
She holds her personal life close.
She flinches when her daddy quotes him.
Lyndon is plowing right along,
working as hard as he can every day
on those things he can control.
Sometimes I think the
greatest courage in the world
is to get up in the morning
and go about the day's work.
That is one of the things
I like about him,
he keeps on and on and on.
This last of the three
annual beautification luncheons
means more to me
than nearly any social event.
It was one of the biggest days
I have ever spent.
We went out the southwest gate,
and then one of my prides and joys,
the great masses of azaleas
that were planted fall of '65
along Pennsylvania Avenue.
A major entrance to the city,
a big shot in the arm
to a decaying business area.
Since our committee
for a more beautiful capitol
was formed a little over three years ago,
we have devoted particular attention
to improving the physical surroundings
of public schools in the city.
Children will respond affirmatively
to improvements that they can see
and touch and take part in.
Her heritage as First Lady
ends not in Beautification, per se,
it's in communication,
it's in the desire to identify
a human being with his environment.
As you may know, my concern
has been expressed in an effort
called Beautification.
I think you also know what lies beneath
that rather inadequate word.
For 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 man-made world into harmony,
and that of course only begins with trees
and flowers and landscaping.
This has been
one of the most lovely springs
I can remember in Washington's history.
It has also been one of the
most poignant and grave.
That fact underscores the urgency
of improving our environment
for all people.
Monday, January 20th.
I was up early, like when I was a child,
and it was a day to go to the country fair
and I didn't wanna miss a thing.
The big black car rolled up,
and out stepped the president-elect,
and Mrs. Pat in a smashing,
rosy red outfit.
And then, the funny little business
about who goes in the door first,
until I took Pat's arm firmly
and said, "Shall we go in?"
Try as I did to soak everything up,
I cannot remember for sure.
I think that when Lyndon walked in
they played Hail to the Chief.
He looked very tall
and handsome and impressive,
and very relaxed, too, I thought.
And finally, the country's new President.
The hands of the clock prodded us on.
We flew over Washington
and landed at Andrews,
and there was a big crowd,
lining the fence and drawn up
around Air Force One.
We mounted the steps,
Lyndon carrying
his faithful companion Lyn.
We stopped at the top and turned and waved
a conscious goodbye tableau.
It was a quiet flight down,
and about 5:30 we arrived at Bergstrom.
There was a big sign
above the base operations that said,
"Welcome home, Mr. President and family."
A little past 9:00, I went to bed,
with a line of poetry ringing in my mind,
I think it's from India's Love Lyrics.
"I celebrate my glad release,
the tents of silence
and the camp of peace."
And yet, for me,
it's not quite the exit line,
because I have loved
almost every day of these five years.
A better go-to-sleep line
was one of the signs
I had seen today, my favorite,
"LBJ, You Were Good For The USA."
I can't keep up with you, that's a fact.
Maybe here comes one I can keep up with.
See these little trees around here,
that one and that one and that one?
- Uh-huh.
- Those are cypress.
Welcome back, Lady Bird,
it's good to have you home.
Well, thank you, sir.
Michelle was in particular
interested to a... of a recording
in which, uh,
Lady Bird is critiquing
President Johnson's performance.
Some things do not change.
Even 50 years later.
Captioned by Point.360