Dead Presidents

In 1964, a familiar refrain during the Presidential campaign was “Hello, Lyndon!”, a version of the title song from that year’s popular Broadway hit, “Hello, Dolly!”, sung here by Ed Ames.  It was a happy time for Lyndon Johnson, who had been thrust into the White House under tragic circumstances in November 1963 with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  One year later, LBJ was elected President of the United States in his own right, routing Republican nominee Barry Goldwater in one of the biggest electoral and popular vote landslides in American history.

Four years later, many things had changed — both positively and negatively.  But on March 31, 1968, the lyrics of “Hello, Lyndon!” were far from President Johnson’s mind.  That night, at the end of a televised speech from the Oval Office in which Johnson announced an unconditional halt to the bombing of North Vietnam in order to help find a path towards a peace settlement, LBJ stunned the nation, other politicians, many members of his family, and most of his White House staff.  With a campaign for another term as President beginning, instead of singing “Hello, Lyndon!” as in 1964, the bombastic Texan who had spent his life loving, needing, and mastering the use of power looked across his desk into the television cameras that beamed his images into millions of American homes — and Lyndon said good-bye.

There was an ugly mood in the country in 1968 with protests against the unpopular Vietnam War, racial and civil unrest in many cities around the nation, and debates and disruptions on college campuses often turning violent.  Crime rates were rising, rioting was breaking out, and the situation would worsen less than a week after Johnson’s announcement when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.  The United States was at war in Vietnam, but there was also a war of sorts within the country’s borders, and LBJ addressed that divisiveness in his March 31st speech as he shifted from the change in Vietnam policy to the personal decision he had come to:

The ultimate strength of our country and our cause will lie not in powerful weapons or infinite resources or boundless wealth, but will lie in the unity of our people.

This I believe very deeply.

Throughout my entire public career I have followed the personal philosophy that I am a free man, an American, a public servant, and a member of my party, in that order always and only.  For 37 years in the service of our Nation, first as a Congressman, as a Senator, and as Vice President, and now as your President, I have put the unity of the people first.  I have put it ahead of any divisive partisanship.

And in these times as in times before, it is true that a house divided against itself by the spirit of faction, of party, of region, of religion, of race, is a house that cannot stand.

There is division in the American house now.  There is divisiveness among us all tonight.  And holding the trust that is mine, as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and the prospect of peace for all peoples.

So, I would ask all American, whatever their personal interests or concern, to guard against divisiveness and all its ugly consequences.

Then LBJ recalled the afternoon that an assassin’s bullet elevated him to the Presidency, along with the achievements that his Administration and Congress accomplished for the American people, particularly in the first two years of his time in the White House as Johnson tried to lead the nation to realize his “Great Society”:

Fifty-two months and 10 days ago, in a moment of tragedy and trauma, the duties of this office fell upon me.  I asked then for your help and God’s, that we might continue America on its course, binding up our wounds, healing our history, moving forward in new unity, to clear the American agenda and to keep the American commitment for all our people.

United we have kept that commitment.  United we have enlarged that commitment.

Through all time to come, I think America will be a stronger nation, a more just society, and a land of greater opportunity and fulfillment because of what we have all done together in these years of unparalleled achievement.  Our reward will come in the life of freedom, peace, and hope that our children will enjoy through ages ahead.

What we won when all of our people united just must not now be lost in suspicion, distrust, selfishness, and politics among any of our people.

Three years earlier, Americans were amazed and some — including Martin Luther King, Jr. — were moved to tears when President Johnson adopted the inspirational words of the Civil Rights Movement and told a Joint Session of Congress that in the struggle against racial injustice, “We shall overcome.”  Now, the American people heard words that surprised them for a very different reason:

Believing this as I do, I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year.

With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge right here at home, 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.

But let men everywhere know, however, that a strong, confident, and a vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace — and stands ready tonight to defend an honorable cause — whatever the price, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifice that duty may require.

Thank you for listening.  Good night and God bless all of you.

In the days following LBJ’s withdrawal from the 1968 campaign, the President seemed to feel refreshed and his approval ratings increased, but the mood darkened once again on April 4th when Dr. King was assassinated.  Robert F. Kennedy, one of the Democrats who jumped into the fray and sought the party’s Presidential nomination following Johnson’s withdrawal, was killed two months later.  As the Democratic National Convention approached — an event which was marred by violence in the streets of Chicago between Chicago police and demonstrators — Johnson privately hoped that his troubled political party might turn to him and draft him as the nominee. He didn’t know if he would accept it, but as always, Lyndon Johnson wanted to be wanted.  Instead, the Democrats nominated Johnson’s Vice President, Hubert H. Humphrey, who lost the election in November to Richard Nixon.

Was LBJ’s withdrawal from the 1968 campaign a self-sacrificial act on behalf of his party and country in order to focus on the job at hand?  No, of course not.  It’s no secret that Johnson, as Commander-in-Chief of a tremendously unpopular war, was himself tremendously unpopular.  Few people had better political instincts than Lyndon B. Johnson, and he could certainly read and understand approval polls. 

LBJ was certainly spooked by the results of the Democratic primary in New Hampshire on March 12, 1968.  Although LBJ won the primary with 49%, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota won 42%.  Prior to the New Hampshire primary, there were no Democrats willing to challenge LBJ for the nomination.  McCarthy’s showing led RFK to enter the race, even though he had previously declined to run.  Facing a challenge for the Democratic nomination probably was a factor in LBJ’s decision to withdraw from the race, but I don’t think it wasn’t the main reason.

As LBJ suggested in his withdrawal speech, a general re-election campaign takes a President away from his duties, but having to beat back a challenge for his own party’s nomination would require even more campaigning.  Still, a politician with LBJ’s experience and an incumbent President with the advantages of a built-in political team, massive war chest, and nominal control of all aspects of the Democratic Party (the President is always the head of his political party) would be a tough opponent for any challenger within the party to overcome.  I think LBJ would have won the nomination (and relished a chance to defeat Bobby Kennedy), and a general election battle between LBJ and Richard Nixon probably would have gone LBJ’s way.  Hubert Humphrey nearly beat Nixon despite his relatively low-profile and without the advantages of Presidential incumbency that Lyndon Johnson would have possessed.

So, the political challenges were a factor, and the determination to focus on the troubles gripping the nation were a factor, but I believe the main reason for Lyndon Johnson’s decision to withdraw from the 1968 campaign and not seek re-election was his health.

In every campaign that Lyndon Johnson ever participated in — dating back to his first bid for Congress in 1937 — he worked so hard that he became sick.  Johnson, who suffered a massive heart attack that nearly killed him in 1955, was convinced that he would not live long.  According to Leo Janos in The Atlantic, LBJ didn’t think he would survive another term.  ”The men in the Johnson family have a history of dying young,” he told Janos in 1971, two years after leaving office.  ”My daddy was only 62 when he died, and I figured that with my history of heart trouble I’d never live through another four years.”

Johnson also told Janos, “The American people had enough of Presidents dying in office.”  As someone who succeeded an assassinated President and who saw Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt (who “was like a daddy to me” according to LBJ) die in office, a weakened or incapacitated President resonated deeply within Johnson.  He spoke often to aides about how one of his biggest fears was ending up like Woodrow Wilson who was crippled by a stroke in 1919 and spent the last two years of his Presidency as an invalid.  When she was young and a member of the White House Fellows program, Doris Kearns Goodwin was an aide to LBJ and, in retirement, helped him complete his Presidential memoir, The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency, 1963-1969.  In her own book about LBJ, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream — a book in which a far more candid LBJ emerges — Kearns Goodwin writes about how deeply the Wilson nightmare truly haunted Johnson:

Hating the days, Johnson hated the nights even more.  He began dreaming again the dream of paralysis that had haunted him since early childhood.  Only this time he was lying in a bed in the Red Room of the White House, instead of sitting in a chair in the middle of the open plains.  His head was still his, but from the neck down his body was the thin, paralyzed body that had been the affliction of both Woodrow Wilson and his own grandmother in their final years.  All his Presidential assistants were in the next room.  He could hear them actively fighting with one another to divide up his power: Joe Califano wanted the legislative program; Walt Rostow wanted the decisions on foreign policy; Arthur Okun wanted to formulate the budget; and George Christian wanted to handle relations with the public.  He could hear them, but he could not command them, for he could neither talk nor walk.  He was sick and stilled, but not a single aide tried to protect him.

The dream terrified Johnson, waking from his sleep.  Lying in the dark, he could find no peace until he got out of bed, and, by the light of a small flashlight, walked the halls of the White House to the place where Woodrow Wilson’s portrait hung.  He found something soothing in the act of touching Wilson’s picture; he could sleep again.  He was still Lyndon Johnson, and he was still alive and moving; it was Woodrow Wilson who was dead.  The ritual, however, brought little lasting peace; when morning came, Johnson’s mind was again filled with fears.  Only gradually did he recognize the resemblance between this dream and the stampede dream of his boyhood.  Making the connection, his fears intensified; he was certain now that paralysis was his inevitable fate.  Remembering his family’s history of early strokes, he convinced himself that he, too, would suffer a stroke in his next term.  Immobilized, still in office nominally, yet not actually in control: this seemed to Johnson the worst situation imaginable.  He could not rid himself of the suspicion that a mean God had set out to torture him in the cruelest manner possible.  His suffering now no longer consisted of his usual melancholy; it was an acute throbbing pain, and he craved relief.  More than anything he wanted peace and quiet.  An end to the pain.

It was thoughts and feelings like these that led Lyndon Johnson to make his famous speech 45 years ago tonight.  It sounds crazy and seems insane that the power-hungry, power-loving Lyndon Johnson would allow himself to be chased out of office by a fear of death.  But Lyndon Johnson thought he would die at the age of 64 and Lyndon Johnson was worried he wouldn’t survive another term.  That term would have ended on January 20, 1973.

Lyndon Johnson died on January 22, 1973.  He was 64.