How would LBJ have handled Katrina?

[HamdenRice]

<The following is modified from a response to an OP by Hedgehog this morning in which he asked how other presidents would have handled Katrina. I just wanted to repost so more people could read this very moving op ed by NBC's Brian William about how LBJ handled Hurricane Betsy>

There is no need to ask, "what if" or "what would he have done" with President Johnson. Johnson faced essentially a very similar catastrophe almost exactly 40 years before Bush, when Huuricane Betsy hit New Orleans in September, 1965.

Hurricane Betsy caused Lake Pontchartrain to top the levies and flood New Orleans.

Where was President Johnson in the immediate aftermath of the storm? Before the winds had even died down, Johnson was in the 1965 equivalent of the Superdome (a shelter) personally listening to people and making sure they had water, comforting the poor and dispossessed. This is what a great-hearted, competent president like Johnson, does. This was recalled in a moving NY Times editorial by NBC's Brian Williams around the time of Katrina:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/opinion/24williams.ht...

September 24, 2005
L.B.J.'s Political Hurricane
By BRIAN WILLIAMS
New Orleans

GIVEN President Bush's final decision not to head to Texas in advance of Hurricane Rita, it's worth noting that American presidents have long found both political riches and peril at the scene of a storm. A listen to the tapes of President Lyndon B. Johnson's White House telephone conversations of 40 years ago reveals that history does indeed repeat itself, even if presidential reactions and motivations have varied widely.

On the evening of Sept. 9, 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 4 storm, roared into Louisiana with winds of up to 160 miles per hour. The next day, President Johnson followed coverage of the damage, watching the three television sets in the Oval Office and monitoring the news service wires clacking away inside the soundproof cabinet next to his desk. Then, at 2:36 in the afternoon, Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, son of the legendary Huey Long, called the president and urged him to come to New Orleans. Floodwaters had spilled over the levees, and three-quarters of New Orleans was under water.

The senator opened with a geography lesson. "Mr. President, aside from the Great Lakes, the biggest lake in America is Lake Pontchartrain," he said. "It is now drained dry. That Hurricane Betsy picked up the lake and up and put it inside New Orleans and Jefferson Parish." Long said that his own house had been destroyed, but that his true concern was "my people - oh, they're in tough shape."

<snip...Basically, Long pursuaded Johnson to cancel his schedule and fly to New Orleans.>

The presidential motorcade drove down Canal Street, broken store windows lining both sides, and made several stops. Johnson spoke with bystanders and toured a shelter packed with storm victims. An aide wrote, "Most of the people inside and outside of the building were Negro ... the people all about were bedraggled and homeless ... thirsty and hungry."

At one point, a woman rushed up to the president to tell him that both of her sons had drowned. The next day's New York Times reported, "according to Bill D. Moyers, the presidential press secretary, Mr. Johnson was 'almost overcome.' " He watched the stream of evacuees who had been rescued by boat from the rooftops of their houses and were now on foot, carrying whatever possessions were left.

When another woman asked the president for drinking water, Johnson dispatched a Secret Service agent to make sure it was delivered. An entry in the White House travel diary paints a grim picture: "Calls of 'water - water - water' were resounded over and over again in terribly emotional wails from voices of all ages." The president suggested that local soft drink bottlers (in an era before bottled water was an American staple) make their inventory available. Seventy-five people died in the storm, most of them in the city. Hurricane Betsy caused $1.4 billion in damage.

[raccoon]

1. At one time, I thought LBJ was the worse president the US had

ever had and I NEVER thought I'd have anything good to say about him.

Since 2000, I see how I have wronged him.

[SteppingRazor]

2. Not a single good thing to say?

About the man who signed the Civil Rights Act, despite knowing that it would mean hell to pay for the Democratic Party? Not a single good thing to say about the man who put civil rights ahead of party politics? Huh.


I mean, I realize there's Vietnam and all, but I think that's a bit of a harsh assessment.

[Art_from_Ark]

45. He also signed major environmental legislation

like the Wilderness Act of 1964, and his Great Society programs help to bring a lot of people out of poverty (How I fondly remember those great Great Society commercials which said that we can work together to make America a better nation for everyone, that people could improve their lives with a little help, determination, and understanding).

His wife was also very interested in beautifying America by planting trees and flowers and removing the mounds of rubbish that were building up along America's roadsides.

[raccoon]

60. I don't remember Great Society commercials, but

that sounds really good...and unthinkable in the present time.

Just as it's hard to imagine any president today saying, "ask what you can do for your country."

[Lisa]

69. Lady Bird was one of the first ...

... to make the connection between environmental quality and social justice. A lot of people, even prominent activists and scholars, were still thinking that there was a fundamental conflict between those two goals, up until the Brundtland Commission "Our Common Future" report in the 1980s. They thought that you could have jobs to lift people out of poverty, OR you could have a clean environment. Industrialists and developers would argue (and some of them still do) that environmentalists are elitists who don't care about poor people, and a lot of activists felt they had to "choose" one side or the other on this basis.

In retrospect, what Lady Bird tried to do was way ahead of the time -- trying to get the two movements to agree that they actually had a great deal in common (that a sustainable, healthy society needed BOTH, and that sacrificing either was counterproductive). Many of the policy changes of the 1990s worldwide couldn't have happened, without that step of uniting two of the most important issues of our time.

Now it's common to see Al Gore, John Edwards, David Suzuki, Martin Sheen, and many other people talking about these issues -- about how poor areas get stuck with polluting industries and garbage dumps, and the resulting health hazards. But I always remember Lady Bird was one of the early leaders.

[raccoon]

62. See my post #59. nt

[VelmaD]

3. Because of Vietnam people forget...

how good Lyndon could be on domestic issues.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. Unfortunately, most of what is heard now about Johnson is in the

context of Vietnam. That was not one of his finer moments and it overshadows the gains he made on civil rights. If you didn't live in that era, you might know very little about it.

[HamdenRice]

6. Just curious -- were you born yet or did you hear that from others?

Because my impression as a kid when Johnson was president that he was very, very popular, despite the war because of his domestic policies. Of course to African Americans he was considered one of the greatest presidents ever because of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, as well as his tough enforcement of civil rights legislation.

The debate about Vietnam became really poisonous during the Nixon administration, especially because of the sense that Nixon campaigned on ending the war in 1968 and then inexplicably dragged it out and escalated it for the rest of his administration.

Your feelings toward Johnson -- did you "inherit" them or was this how you felt at the time?

[PsN2Wind]

16. Many here are probably too young

to remember Nixon's "secret plan to end the war in VietNam". He never mentioned that the plan would take 5 years to come to fruition. While in hindsight we can call the war a mistake. it wasn't really widely condemned by the general population until the latter half of the 60s decade. And LBJ was a sensitive enough bastard to remove himself from the campaign for the presidency.

On edit: changed wildly condemned to widely condemned although both were appropriate.

[raccoon]

59. That was how I felt at the time. I was a teenager at the time he

was president.

My impression of him, by '67-'68 at least, was that he was very unpopular.

Vietnam was the reason I disliked him so much. Vietnam dragged on year after year, guys were getting drafted year after year...it seemed like a never-ending stalemate quagmire.

Now I can see the good things he did--the Civil Rights act, and Medicare started up during his administration.

At that time, too, the economy was good, good jobs were plentiful, there was a lot of optimism in the air. Basically in the US, the economy had been pretty good since the end of WWII, and this seemed the normal state of affairs.

Ah, little did we know what lay ahead!

[Justitia]

7. He gets a black eye over Vietnam, but he made sweeping advances

in the improvements of millions of Americans lives.

He is the only American president, before or since, to actually reduce poverty by 50%! 50%!!
That is a stunning number.

And he signed the Civil Rights Act & the Voting Rights Act knowing it would be the death knell of both his career and his party in the south, and he did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do.

He gave us HeadStart, food stamps, Medicaid and Medicare.

Yes, his albatross is getting sucked into that Big Black Hole known as Vietnam, and unfortunately that overshadows the great and incredible accomplishments he made in the lives of millions of ordinary Americans.

There has NEVER been as great a Texan President as Lyndon Baines Johnson.

:patriot:

[Charlie Brown]

49. He also gave us public broadcasting

It's incredibly odd to think of a time without NPR/PBS. It was just commercial broadcasting prior to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

[HamdenRice]

4. Another account from the New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051003fa_fact


Johnson talked with a seventy-four-year-old black man named William Marshall and asked about what had happened and how he was getting along. As the conversation ended, Marshall said, “God bless you, Mr. President. God ever bless you.”

In the Ninth Ward, Johnson visited the George Washington Elementary School, on St. Claude Avenue, which was being used as a shelter. “Most of the people inside and outside of the building were Negro,” the diary reads. “At first, they did not believe that it was actually the President.” Johnson entered the crowded shelter in near-total darkness; there were only a couple of flashlights to lead the way.

“This is your President!” Johnson announced. “I’m here to help you!”

The diary describes the shelter as a “mass of human suffering,” with people calling out for help “in terribly emotional wails from voices of all ages. . . . It was a most pitiful sight of human and material destruction.” !” According to an article by the historian Edward F. Haas, published fifteen years ago in the Gulf Coast Historical Review, Johnson was deeply moved as people approached and asked him for food and water; one woman asked Johnson for a boat so that she could look for her two sons, who had been lost in the flood.

“Little Mayor, this is horrible,” Johnson said to Schiro. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” Johnson assured Schiro that the resources of the federal government were at his disposal and that “all red tape be cut.”

The President flew back to Washington and the next day sent Schiro a sixteen-page telegram outlining plans for aid and the revival of New Orleans. “Please know,” Johnson wrote, “that my thoughts and prayers are with you and the thousands of Louisiana citizens who have suffered so heavily.”

[Justitia]

12. these lines moved me to tears...how far we have fallen....

“This is your President!” Johnson announced. “I’m here to help you!”

"The President flew back to Washington and the next day sent Schiro a sixteen-page telegram outlining plans for aid and the revival of New Orleans."

We are soooo far down the rabbit hole....

:cry:

[HamdenRice]

36. Yes, they bring tears to my eyes also ...

I can't imagine that being said and done by any modern president, although Clinton or Carter might have.

[Reverend_Smitty]

41. Did they have FEMA or anything like that back then?

because if not, this story is that much more amazing

[Bucky]

57. Without FEMA there was less call for blame, but more room for improvising

Of course that "no call for blame" only works if you have a president who doesn't hint he was chosen by God. And the improvisation of relief efforts only work if you have government leaders who know what the hell they're doing.

[Lisa]

70. wow. I'm just imagining the reaction if Bush said, "I'm here to help you"

Thousands of people would be yelling, "So RESIGN!"

[Faygo Kid]

5. Magnificent in domestic policy. Deeply flawed.

His hero was FDR, and he wanted to emulate him; he genuinely felt for the poor and minorities; knew those people in Texas' Hill Country. He was ill served by most (not all - see Bill Moyers, George Ball) of his advisers. He was crude, strong willed, intelligent and genuine. Yet he bears responsibility for his abysmal failure to serve the nation about Vietnam. But let's also recognize, he deserves great, great credit for his civil rights work and work on behalf of the poor. Now, we have a president with all of LBJ's hubris, and none - zero - of his humanity. One more thing: LBJ wasn't going to feel the deep angst, the meekness of today's Dems. He would have kicked serious butt with this Bush-lite crowd.

[Bridget Burke]

10. LBJ was a master of domestic issues & had real compassion.

But he put too much faith in what the the Ivy League Hawks told him about Vietnam. After the fact, he did feel angst about the war. He declined to run & probably died early because of his sorrow.

Macnamara lived long enough to say he was wrong about Vietnam. Good for him.

However, I love to imagine him kicking Shrub in the butt (or some other area). With his cowboy boots. Which he actually wore when riding. On his working ranch. "You call yourself a Texan?"

[Arkansas Granny]

15. Your imaginary scene with Johnson and Bush brought a smile

to my face. Johnson was Texan through and through. I can just imagine his reaction to Bush clearing brush at his pig farm and claiming to be a Texan.

:rofl:

[Lisa]

71. Georgie would be whimpering and cringing ...

His phony bravado would be totally deflated, Bridget. I bet he would "play possum", as LBJ confiscated his $4000 cowboy hat and shiny presidential-seal boots, and shouted at him to quit fooling around and make himself useful by mucking out the horse barn.

What faygokid said: "none - zero - of his humanity" -- Bush likes to pretend he's LBJ, but he is only a shallow imitation. A lot of people are willing to ignore crude behaviour and loud outbursts, if someone is sincere and well-intentioned. Bush, however, is mean, petty, and selfish at heart.

[H2O Man]

14. He was ill-served by Bill Moyers.

It is fair to say that Bill didn't stand up and dare to tell LBJ the truth until the end of his time with the man who, but for "that ugly bitch of a war," might well be remembered as one of the three greatest American presidents. Moyers is a good and decent man because of what he bacame, not what he always was. People grow and change -- as those wonderful Beatle pictures show.

LBJ was a fascinating study as a congressman, and one of a small handful of great senators after the Civil War. His flaws were enormous, of course. My father used to tell me the biggest difference between FDR and LBJ was that FDR loved the poor from a safe distance, but was uncomfortable being i the same room with the "underclasses," while LBJ enjoyed being around everyone, even the political enemies he often despised.

* edited for spelling error.

[Faygo Kid]

18. Patrick, your post shows why I am on DU

Wonderful insight and story. Really don't know the young Bill Moyers, but will take your word on his growth, because I am an admirer now; have met and talked to Jack Valenti, who is mesmerizing (you are probably aware of him; imperfect, but what a fascinating conversationalist and bright man), and am an unrivaled fan of LBJ's Asst. Sec. of State George Ball, one of the most underrated Americans of all time (read, "The Past Has Another Pattern"). Thanks for sharing this. (And, you correct spelling errors - damn, that's of nucular importance).

[H2O Man]

29. George Ball was a good man.

Bright and honest. It was difficult for people to stand up to LBJ, and tell him what he needed to hear. Very few of his people were honest with him. Of course, after '66, those who attempted found it was too late.

Today's politicians do not measure up to him. I still get a kick out of the photos of him, as a senator invading everyone's "personal space," wraping his big arm around the victim's neck, poking him in the chest; as president, lifting the beagles' ears or showing his scar(!); and in retirement, growing his hair long. Most young people today do not realize that LBJ, as a young man, went through a "beatnic" phase, and as an older man, tried to show support of the hippies. He just didn't know how.

[WI_DEM]

26. ill served by McNamara, Rusk, Bundy, and the rest of "The Best

and the Brightest."

[H2O Man]

28. I agree.

LBJ's genius was in systems and domestic policy. Depending on McNamara was an error; though McNamara meant well, he was weak and lacked the insight to deal with SE Asia. Bundy was a snake.

I find the relationship between LBJ and RFK to be one of history's most fascinating. While I tend to favor the post-64 RFK to any other American politician, LBJ actually tried to move beyond their differences, but RFK was stubborn. Yet in many ways -- except on Vietnam -- the two might have been allies, working toward a common goal. But both were human: RFK wanted "the President" to get credit for Great Society programs, even those beyond what JFK advocated; and LBJ was trapped by a war against an enemy he could not understand (his attempts were clearly based on his previous relationship with Mexicans/ Mexican-Americans), and a military that he realized he did not have full control over.

[Don Claybrook]

31. A question about Moyers for you, or anyone else

What you say is very interesting, and you may be right. And I'll admit up front that I greatly admire Bill Moyers and I don't know much about his service in the Johnson admin. But I do know he was press secretary. In that role, was he in a position to advise the president on anything? Did he advise Johnson in other areas besides Vietnam?

I cannot conceive of this idiot McClellan or Fleischer before him advising nimrod about anything. To be fair, I'm not under the impression that McCurry or Joe Lockhart gave much advice to Clinton. I thought that the press secretary was in sort of a sequestered position, not being told much so that they couldn't inadvertantly spill the beans to the press on whatever topic a given administration wants to keep quiet.

Was the role of press secretary different back then, or at least in the specific case of Johnson/Moyers?

Thanks.

[H2O Man]

44. Take the time

to read about that era. Check the role of the press secretary under both JFK and LBJ. It might be interesting for you to check what Mr. Moyer's education and world view was. In particular, you might look towards books that reflect his views of King.

It might be unrealistic to think that a person like Bill Moyer started his life's journey much like the person he has become. I think it is fair to say that he is a bit more gifted than Scotty McCellen; thus, it increases the chances that he learned and actually grew because of the experiences he had, including the 1960s. It might be worth considering his very sincere interest in the concepts taught by those that made for his most fascinating interviews, from Joseph Campbell to Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons. There is a reason he interviewed those individuals.

[MichiganVote]

42. Not an easy path to follow an assassinated president

Personally, I don't think Johnson ever recovered from what can only have been a strong sense of ambivilance.

[H2O Man]

46. Interesting.

LBJ told his closest friends that he knew no president ever treated a vp better than JFK treated him. I do not think that he had serious problems with the president. It is true that he had believed in 1959-50 that he should be president (but had no appreciation for a national campaign -- he believed he could win the nomination through his power in the senate); he was often sullen and withdrawn in settings where international issues were being discussed, and had disagreements on the approach being advocated for introducing civil rights bills; and was very aware of the contempt that many of the "northeasterners" held him in. My opinion is that he never got over what he witnessed in Dallas. It would be difficult to follow, as you note. And he also had some huge personality flaws.

[MichiganVote]

72. I can't imagine anyone seeking that office w/o a Texas sized ego

Johnson did not suffer fools gladly and lacked the polish of his Senate colleagues to pan his way thru issues that he had very strong feelings about. Poverty, of course, was his no. 1 priority. I believe that these men tend to say to themselves, 'If you've made it to the top of the heap, you should at least be able to get what you want, when you want.'

What he lacked in ability he made up for in cleverness. He was ruthless and tender by turns and confused many an adversary with this duality. But Johnson had an illness, a mental illness, that took its toll on him as surely as the other afflictions of this particular political office. He was a petulant man in many ways among those whose smarts he was afraid would deprive him of the one thing he could not live without--power. Every president has craved power. It drives them and they drive others by it.

And no, for a man who had known hard knuckle depravity as a kid...I don't think he ever got over Kennedy. And I don't imagine too many of us would. The 2nd Kennedy murder, Bobby, is what I believe stirred him to eventually turn his back on Washington for good and all.

Johnson knew more than most people thought then or think now.

[pitohui]

8. what a great reminder

say what you like abt their flaws but russell long and lbj gave a damn

give it a kick, folks, we need to celebrate our heroes when they do something right & the longs and lbj sure took a lot of shit for trying to help the common man

[Swamp Rat]

9. GWB and the Response to Hurricane Katrina

[Usrename]

64. He did a little more than just strummed, remember?

He pulled first responders from their rescue efforts to be be stage dressing for his dog and pony show photo-ops down there. Is there a more monstrous abuse of power imaginable? He even had the lights turned on for a few minutes one night to make it look like they were doing something to aid the recovery. The contrast is, well, um.. sickening?

[Swamp Rat]

68. Dat's true

You don't need to tell me about it, cuz I am from New Orleans... and I'm STILL here! :kick:

[Coastie for Truth]

11. We moved to NO in the fall of 1966

And the city was definitely rebuilt and functioning - even the 9th Ward school where my wife taught.

[pacalo]

17. I went to that very site last night when I got curious...

I was going to post this conversation LBJ had with Sen. Russell Long & Robert Phillips, the Director of the Government Readiness Office of the Office of Emergency Planning. Here's part of the conversation & an mp3 is also available http://www.whitehousetapes.org/exhibits/betsy/">here:

President Johnson: Mr. Phillips, this is Lyndon Johnson. Senator Long is here in the office, and we have reviewed the problems that are a result from this terrible disaster that we’ve suffered there, and we have gone from agency to agency beginning with the Corps of Engineers, and the Veterans Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, Agricultural Department, Small Business Administration, all the services—Army, Navy, and Air Force—the National Command Center, Department of Agriculture, Interior, Maritime, Housing and Home Finance, and Bureau of Yards and Docks and Navy, Federal Communications, Federal Aviation, Bureau of Public Roads, Treasury, Commerce, and Interstate Commerce Commission.

Now, in times of distress, it’s necessary that all the members of the family get together and lay aside any individual problems they have or any personal grievances and try to take care of the sick mother, and we’ve got a sick mother on our hands. And as I said the other night when I was there, we’ve got to cut out all the red tape. We’ve got to work around the clock. We’ve got to ignore hours. We’ve got to bear in mind that we exist for only one purpose and that’s to the greatest good for the greatest number. And the people who’ve lost their homes, people who have lost their furniture, the people who have lost some of their crops and even their families are not going to be very interested in any individual differences between federal or state or local agencies.

So I hope that all the government people can put their shoulder to the wheel without regard to hours, without regard to red tape. Bring to these people the kind of assistance they need in this emergency which is worthy of a great government and a great country. And I want to thank all the local officials and the city and county and state and parish officials, and I want to assure you that up here, if you have any problems, well, let me know about them. We’ll get them straightened out. And down there, I don’t want any problems to . . . that the . . . that Betsy didn’t create to exist. I don’t—

Robert Phillips: Who will follow those orders, sir?

President Johnson: Well, here’s Senator Long. He wants to say a word to you, and we’ll do the job here. We expect you all to do it there.

[Justitia]

20. Wowsa - those quotes are really something, aren't they? -eom

[pacalo]

25. Very enlightening comparison between a man & a boy.

We are in a living hell under this administration.

[mcscajun]

21. Right in there is THE sentence that defines Democratic policy and thought

vs. Republican policy and thought.

"We’ve got to bear in mind that we exist for only one purpose and that’s to the greatest good for the greatest number."

I can't think of One Republican who'll sign onto that.

[pacalo]

24. And the maturity level between LBJ & GWB is glaring.

Now, in times of distress, it’s necessary that all the members of the family get together and lay aside any individual problems they have or any personal grievances and try to take care of the sick mother, and we’ve got a sick mother on our hands...And the people who’ve lost their homes, people who have lost their furniture, the people who have lost some of their crops and even their families are not going to be very interested in any individual differences between federal or state or local agencies.

Compare that to the way Gov. Blanco, Mayor Nagin, & Mayor Broussard were treated by the boy king.

[HamdenRice]

35. It's an unbelievable quote - and I'm afraid that ...

no Republican and very few Democrats would subscribe to that philosophy today.

[raccoon]

61. I'm afraid you're right about that. nt

[Maru Kitteh]

19. Thanks for sharing this.

I have made a decision now to restudy this President, LBJ. I know shamefully little about him and I need to change that.

[bobbieinok]

23. remember LBJ was senate majority leader for years; he KNEW

how to play the game

I was in grad school CA from 61 to 68.....for a long time I disliked LBJ b/c of Vietnam.......but his record when president on civil rights was phenomenal

I became fascinated by JFK in high school ..... in 56 he was nominated for the dem veep at the dem convention ...... OK's senator Robert S Kerr stopped that cold b/c (from what I remember) JFK was catholic and Kerr was from OK where 'nearly everyone' (what I thought as a kid growing up in OK) was southern baptist

I remember being very angry at JFK's inability to pass any civil rights legislation and thinking about maybe voting for a republican if a good one ran in 64........after JFK's assassination, senate majority leader LBJ's long history of arm twisting and knowing everyone's secrets enabled him to push through the 1964 civil rights bill and the 1965 voting rights bill.....one of the reasons he pushed these 2 so hard was b/c he was furious over the murders of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney in MS in 64 and the crimes and murders committed during the march from Selma for voting rights

one of the people murdered in Selma 1965 was Viola Liuzzo

http://www.geocities.com/gury4u/viola1.htm

....

After March 7, 1965, many ordinary people, horrified by the televised attacks of state troopers on peaceful marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, went to Selma to add their voices to the cry for justice. One who answered Dr. King's call was a Detroit housewife, Viola Liuzzo, 40, mother of five. She left for Selma alone in her car, despite her husband's concerns.

....

...As soon as their passengers were dropped off in Selma, Viola and Leroy Moton, a black teenager who had been using her car all day as an airport shuttle, headed back toward Montgomery for a second load. After several harassment incidents and on the way out of Selma, they stopped at a traffic light, and another car pulled alongside.

....

...While she attempted to outrun her pursuers, she sang at the top of her lungs, "We Shall Overcome." As the Klansmen closed in, a man named Wilkins put his arm out the window. Mrs. Liuzzo turned and looked straight at him and he fired twice through the glass.

....

Within 24 hours, President Johnson was on television, personally announcing the arrest of the four assailants and vowing to exterminate the KKK.

....

The evening before, Anthony Liuzzo talked with the president who told him the four Klansmen had been arrested and that: "I don't think she died in vain because this is going to be a battle, all out as far as I'm concerned..." Liuzzo thanked Johnson and said: "My wife died for a sacred battle, the rights of humanity. She had one concern and only one in mind. She took a quote from Abraham Lincoln that all men are created equal and that's the way she believed."

....

Ugly lies circulated about Mrs. Liuzzo's character. In an attempt to prejudice the case, rumors began to circulate that Viola was a member of the Communist Party, a drug addict, and had abandoned her five children in order to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement. It was later discovered that these highly damaging stories that appeared in the press had come from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). The rumors fueled sentiment among some that Mrs. Liuzzo was out of "her place" in Selma, that she should have stayed home with her children. A Ladies Home Journal survey showed that only 26 percent of readers approved of Viola's mission in Selma. Mrs. Liuzzo's friends knew her as a caring person who gave of herself without regard to public opinion, and her children were fiercely proud of their mother.

more....

[HamdenRice]

32. Thanks- Also here are some pics of "The Johnson Treatment"

That is a wonderful recollection by someone old enough to know. You mention that Johnson was great at getting things done because of his experience in the Senate, and that he "knew everyone's secrets".

But one thing I find fascinating about him, especially since the tapes have come out, is that Johnson rarely threatened anyone. He was amazingly convincing just on the force of his personality.

Johnson was a genius at psychological manipulation and intimidation. One of his favorite ploys was getting right up in someone's face and grabbing their arm and asking for their support. It was called "The Johnson Treatment," and few people could resist.

Here is a photo of LBJ giving "The Johnson Treatment" to Abe Fortas and Theodore Green. Their respective body languages say everything. Who really could say no to the president under these circumstances.

[bobbieinok]

47. I remember hearing about Viola Liuzzo....and the lies about her

I think it's important that, according to the link, the lies were planted by the FBI

many who weren't alive then or haven't studied much about the civil rights movement do not know that Hoover hated MLK and that many FBI agents were opposed to the civil rights movement

I remember when Mississippi Burning was released.....many in the civil rights movement were furious about the movie, b/c it says that the FBI played a major role in bring the MS Summer murderers to justice, which is a LIE

there is another, much more accurate movie about MS Summer....I saw it on BET a few years ago.....nowadays MS Burning with its false 'information' seems to be all that people find if they want a movie about the period

the movie I saw a few years ago on BET was haunting....it brought back the whole atmosphere of fear that even a white girl in grad school in CA felt......MS at the time totally terrified me; terror is even today my first reaction when I read or see anything about MS

** a bit of explanation for my 'MS fear'....2 male friends from grad school took part in MS Summer.....within about a week after they were supposed to have arrived in MS it was reported that 3 males working with MS Summer had disappeared after being arrested in Philadelphia MS and then escorted out of town by the police.....the 2 white guys could have been my friends!

[Justitia]

58. and here is a pic of "The Johnson Treatment" - the friendly version

He is showing some love to his good friend and mentor (& fellow Texan), Sam Rayburn.

What a commanding presence indeed.

[Neecy]

30. He was an interesting person, to be sure

As much as I disliked him over the war, he was the only truly liberal president in my lifetime.

Try reading the volumes of White House tapes that were published a few years ago edited by Michael Beschloss - they're fascinating reading and often very funny.

[hedgehog]

22. He was certainly one of the most interesting presidents

He was a very strange man, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I think you could spend years studying him and still not understand just who he was. I think he fits the definition of the classic tragic hero, the good man destroyed from within by the fatal flaw.

[WI_DEM]

27. LBJ was a real Texan too not a fakir with a phony ranch

who doesn't even know how to ride a horse.

[eppur_se_muova]

39. I visited his ranch, twice. Interesting place.

The original houses are "pioneer" level housing. Partly because of age, partly poverty, partly just too far from the rest of the world to have much brought in.

Lady Bird was out on the porch when the bus drove by, and when it stopped Lucy Baines came out to talk to people, and some had their pictures taken with her. Of course I didn't have my camera with me that time.

When Johnson grew wealthy, he added some features that you won't find on every ranch, but it remained a working ranch. You wouldn't call it "luxurious" except for the size of the main house. Almost everything there is functional, not ostentatious.

The grave yard is a pretty somber place. He could have been buried in the nation's capital, I suppose, or in some highly public mausoleum in Austin, but he chose to be buried on his family's home ground. Clearly, in his later years, he was haunted by a sense of failure, but the grave site looks like it was chosen by a man who felt he had nothing left to prove to anyone, or didn't care to do do. He was once the most powerful man in the country, if not the world, but any successful businessman could -- and probably would -- have chosen someting more grandiose. Maybe he just had few illusions left.

[Douglas Carpenter]

33. LBJ was a good man who fell victim to the blindness of cold war ideology

I seriously doubt that if any other person had been in the oval office at that time that they would not have also escalated the Viet Nam War. Some people suggest that everything would have been just hunky dorey if Mr. Kennedy had been around. This I'm afraid is simply romanticized wishful thinking. If Mr. Kennedy had been around he would have had the very same strategic advisers guided by the very same cold war ideology and the very same political zeitgeist of the era.

I hope that we don't end up with another good man and progressive president who is led astray in the name of "the war on terror" and once again derail the Democratic Party and the progressive agenda.

Just as America could not afford both the war against Indo-China and the War on Poverty, America cannot afford to maintain the social fabric of our society and continue down the road of full spectrum military dominance.

[Art_from_Ark]

43. Kennedy wanted to get out of Viet Nam

"In 1963, Vietnam was a place President Kennedy wanted to get out of after winning reelection in 1964. JFK approached Vietnam with the same tough-minded political realism that he brought to all major decisions. "If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy Red scare on our hands," one aide recalled Kennedy saying, "but I can do it after I'm reelected. So we had better make damned sure that I am reelected."

http://www.lossless-audio.com/usa/index0.php?page=1680970232.htm

[Douglas Carpenter]

50. and LBJ didn't particularly want to escalate either

I have seen no evidence whatsoever even from the info from the link above or anywhere else that supports the notion that JFK would have gone against his advisers, the ideology and real-politics of the time

[Art_from_Ark]

51. Kennedy himself said he wanted out of Viet Nam,

and told his advisors in private that he would get out if he was re-elected in 1964. He had even signed an order in October 1963 that would have started the withdrawal of American military advisors from Viet Nam. The catalyst for accelerating American involvement in Viet Nam was the fictitious Tonkin Gulf "incident" of August 1964. If Kennedy had lived, would this "incident" still have been "created", and if so, would Kennedy have believed it?

[Douglas Carpenter]

56. Johnson himself said ,""We are not about to send American boys nine or ten

thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves," link: http://www.americanpresident.org/history/lyndonbjohnson/biography/foreignaffairs.common.shtml

It was simply the political reality of the time no American president could be seen as "losing Vietnam to the communist". Once the Saigon regime which never had very much support to begin with finally started to collapse it would have be almost politically impossible for any American president to withstand the pressure to escalate the American involvement.

President Kennedy's personal or perceived liberalism aside, he was still an ardent anti-communist who criticized President Eisenhower for being too soft during his 1960 campaign. (IE: the "missile gap" and failure to deal more affectively with Castro).

Sorry, but I cannot find any evidence that President Kennedy signed an order to begin the withdrawal of American advisers from South Viet Nam. I would be interested if you have any sources on that matter. According to the sources in the link which you provided above --only one adviser, Ken Hughes spoke of Kennedy wanting to withdraw after the election. I have not come across this with any reports from any of his senior strategic advisers. There were already 16,000 American "advisers" at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. It was during the Kennedy period that the counterinsurgency efforts were launched which drove much of the South Vietnamese peasantry off their land in an effort to separate the National Liberation Front from their base of popular support. Also the defoliation program with agent orange and significant bombing of South Vietnam to counteract "internal aggression" had already begun prior to LBJ becoming President.
link: http://vietnam.vassar.edu/overview.html

[HamdenRice]

34. Johnson also worried about being assassinated ...

Don't have the cite now, but there was a fascinating article in Salon a few years back about how every president after Kennedy has eventually come to the conclusion that Kennedy had been assassinated by elements within the military-industrial-intelligence complex, and that Johnson came to believe that and was was "haunted" by the probability.

[eppur_se_muova]

37. posted to wrong place -- self delete

[eppur_se_muova]

38. I can't believe no one's plugged Robert Caro's biographies on this thread!

"The years of Lyndon Johnson", a multivolume, years-long effort which has been described as setting new standards in the art of biography. Oh, and a Pulitzer winner (for 3rd vol, "Master of the Senate"). When you have some time, and want to absorb some truly masterful writing, try starting with the "Path to Power", the first volume. WARNING: be sure you have plenty of free time on your schedule. They're really, really hard to put down.

Oh, and after starting on the LBJ books I couldn't resist reading his "Power Broker" -- another mind-blowingly good bio, of Robert Moses, the "Master Builder" of New York.

[Reverend_Smitty]

40. I think Bill Moyers quit NOW to work on an LBJ biography...

I remember reading that somewhere, that ought to be an interesting read one day.

[H2O Man]

48. Caro's books

are fantastic. They are as good of political biographies as have ever been done.

Two other books I consider of great value on LBJ are Michael Beschloss's "Taking Charge" (The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-64); and Robert Dallek's "Flawed Giant" (the years 1961-73). There are numerous other quality books which either feature LBJ, or cover him as a central player. I enjoy Arthur Schlesinger, Jr's descriptions of him in his books on JFK and RFK.

[jeffrey_X]

53. Thank you...

I've been looking for a good read on LBJ.

[GRLMGC]

55. I love them

I can't wait for the next installment. I can tell he dislikes his subject intensely (I don't hate his subject) but Caro is a very good writer and you can easily become absorbed in the books.

[tn-guy]

52. not a good comparison for LBJ vs. GWB

Check the time line. Betsy made landfall on Sept. 9. LBJ's conversation with Russell Long took place the afternoon of Sept. 10. It wasn't until after that that any sort of meaningful federal response started to be put in place. Katrina was a stronger storm that Betsy and did considerably more damage. How many hours following Katrina's landfall were federal rescue operations being made? I'll tell you that the answer is not going to make those who think LBJ was more active than GWB happy. (Hint: Check on what the USS Bataan was doing immediately after Katrina landed.)

[HamdenRice]

63. Actually, you are dead wrong -- check the timeline

LBJ was in New Orleans less than 24 hours after Betsy hit NO -- that is by the late afternoon, early evening of Sept. 10.

Katrina hit NO early in the morning of Monday 9/29. Bush refused to cut short his vacation on the pig farm, playing guitar, and eating cake. It was not until Friday morning that Bush's staff was able to get through to bubble boy with a video of news coverage of the horrific conditions.

Meanwhile, Michael "Social Darwinism" Chertoff was making statements to the effect that the people left in NO had made bad choices and had to suffer the consequences.

Other Bush administration officials prioritized fly fishing, shopping for shoes, seeing Spamalot and the US Open to responding to the crisis.

About 75 people died in Betsy. Estimates are that over 1500 people died in Katrina, and from news reports we know that many, many of those people drowned, died of hunger, thirst, exposure or lack of medicines between Monday and Friday/Saturday when the federal government roused itself to begin to respond.

You can't be serious comparing the two responses, right? You're joking right?

[tn-guy]

73. You're right, I'm right. I'm wrong, you're wrong.

You are 100% correct that LBJ personally arrived on the scene way earlier following Betsy than Bush did following Katrina. I have absolutely no disagreement with you there.

On the other hand if the question is how quickly did meaningful federal response begin to arrive, then the response to Katrina and Betsy were not all that different, provided one takes into account the relative strength of each storm and the destruction each wreaked on the area.

I am friends with a CSM who was part of one of the first military teams deployed to New Orleans. From talking to him I know at least when military efforts were underway and some of what they involved.

I'm not too sure what I know from news reports. From them I also learned that snipers were firing on rescue helicopters and that there were dozens of dead in a makeshift morgue in the Superdome. I kind of doubt that those reports were all that accurate.

[Hekate]

54. LBJ had a human heart and a conscience -- both lacking in Bush

God, I do remember how much I wanted him to get us out of Vietnam, how hard I worked for Gene McCarthy, and all that.

But in retrospect, LBJ accomplished SO MUCH here in the US. A flawed human being, to be sure, but one with a compassionate heart. Even before reading the essay on his response to Hurricane Betsy, I thought to myself: "He would have immediately called out the National Guard to help, for starters. He would have wanted continual updates. He would NOT have gone off on vacation and ignored the situation."

The more we are subjected to what the Republicans have become, the better he looks.

Hekate

[IronLionZion]

65. American Democrats: awesome at home, awful abroad

American Republicans: awful at home, awful abroad.

What we need to do is elect Democrats and keep them at home.

Yes, President Johnson was a great leader on domestic issues: Great Society, Hurricane Betsy, Civil Rights, NASA, War on Poverty,

Many African-Americans view Johnson as America's first honorary "African-American" president and Clinton is the second.

[WI_DEM]

66. I don't know about that--Clinton was well liked abroad as was

Carter--Carter was more appreciated abroad for his diplomacy than he was in the states.

[IronLionZion]

67. Iran, Israel, Somalia, Rwanda,

Americans just aren't good with foreign policy. It's impossible to perceive the world the way other nations do so naturally we tend to fuck things up. The concept of 1 superpower policing the world is asinine at best.

In all fairness, Carter and Clinton meant well. They really wanted peace.

Most people don't even know what Carter did at home because Reagan dismantled most of it or stole credit for it. Carter's economic policies didn't quite take off until the early 80's.