(August 27, 1908–January 22, 1973), was the 36th President of the United States, 1963–69; Vice-President under John F. Kennedy, 1961–63, assuming the Presidency upon Kennedy’s assassination; initiated the Great Society program of social legislation, passed the Civil Rights Act, escalated U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964; U.S. Senator, 1949–61, becoming Senate Majority Leader in 1954; Lieutenant Commander, Commander in U.S. Naval Reserve, active duty 1941–45; sent to Pacific as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Representative, 1942, awarded Silver Star Medal; U.S. Representative, 1937–49; Texas Director of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal program of F.D.R., 1935; married Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor, 1934; secretary for U.S. Representative Richard Kleberg, 1932; attended Georgetown University Law School; taught school in Houston, Texas, 1930; and graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College, 1927.
On Friday, November 22, 1963, at approximately 2:40 p.m. Central Standard Time, just a few hours after John F. Kennedy was shot, Judge Sarah Hughes administered the oath of office to Lyndon Baines Johnson in the stateroom aboard the Air Force One, parked at the Love Field Airport in Dallas, Texas, with his hand upon a Catholic Missal, as a Bible could not be located:
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.3564
On Friday, November 22, 1963, at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, as he disembarked the Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington D.C., President Lyndon B. Johnson stated to the press:
This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. 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 God’s.3565
On November 23, 1963, former President Dwight D. Eisenhower had driven from Gettysburg to Washington D.C., to meet with President Lyndon B. Johnson and deliver a confidential memorandum:
Confidential Notes for the President. …
I am bold enough to suggest that you call a Joint Session of the Congress to make a speech of not over ten or twelve minutes. I think it might cover the following points:
A. Point out first that you have come to this office unexpectedly and you accept the decision of the Almighty, who in His inscrutable wisdom has now place you in the position of highest responsibility of this nation … 3566
On Wednesday, November 27, 1963, in his first formal address before a joint session of Congress, with members of the Supreme Court and of the Cabinet in attendance, President Lyndon Johnson stated:
John Kennedy’s death commands what his life conveyed—that America must move forward. The time has come for Americans of all races and creeds and political beliefs to understand and to respect one another. … Let us here highly resolve that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not live—or die—in vain. And on this Thanksgiving Eve, as we gather together to ask the Lord’s blessings and give Him our thanks, let us unite in those familiar and cherished words:
America, America,
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown they good
With brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.3567
On May 14, 1964, prior to his 1964 Presidential Campaign, President Lyndon B. Johnson received a note from his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, encouraging him to run for the office:
If you win, let’s do the best we can for 3 years and 3 or 4 months—and then, the Lord letting us live that long, announce in February or March of 1968 that you are not a candidate for re-election.3568
On August 25, 1964, at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, President Lyndon B. Johnson wrote his thoughts concerning campaigning for President, while in the Oval Office:
In the time given me, I did my best. On that fateful day last year I accepted the responsibilities of the Presidency, asking God’s guidance and the help of all of the people. For nine months I’ve carried on as effectively as I could.3569
On Wednesday, January 20, 1965, in his Inaugural Address, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated:
My fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath I have taken before you and God is not mine alone, but ours together. We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen, but upon all citizens. …
Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith. … We have discovered that every child who learns, every man who finds work, every sick body that is made whole—like a candle added to an altar—brightens the hope of all the faithful. …
Let us join reason to faith and action to experience, to transform our unity of interest into a unity of purpose. …
We have no promise from God that our greatness will endure. We have been allowed by Him to seek greatness with the sweat of our hands and the strength of our spirit. …
In each generation—with toil and tears—we have had to earn our heritage again. If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgement of God is harshest on those who are most favored. …
If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we believe. For we are a nation of believers. …
Our enemies have always made the same mistake. In my lifetime—in depression and in war—they have awaited our defeat. Each time, from the secret places of the American heart, came forth the faith they could no see or that they could not even imagine. It brought us victory. And it will again. …
For myself, I ask only, in the words of an ancient leader: “Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this, Thy people, that is so great?”(I Kings 3:7–9)3570
In commenting on his desire for the Water Quality Act, which passed in Congress in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated:
I wanted, as I once expressed it, to leave to future generations “a glimpse of the world as God really made it, not as it looked when we got through with it.”3571
In explaining his support for the Model Cities Act, passed by Congress in September of 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated:
Every family in America deserves a decent home, whether a farmhouse or a city apartment, rented or owned, modest or splendid. What matters is that the home be a place for a family to live in health and grow in dignity. I have been criticized for such statements by people who think I raised hopes that can never be fulfilled, but I believe in the wisdom of the Bible—“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”(Pr. 29:18)3572
On November 2, 1966, after touring many Asian and Pacific nations, President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived in Dulles Airport where he recalled, to those waiting, a prayer offered ten days earlier while they attended Sunday service in the Cathedral Church of St. James, Townsville, northern Australia:
O God, Who has bound us together in the bundle of life, give us grace to understand how our lives depend upon the courage, the industry, the honesty, and the integrity of our fellow men; that we may be mindful of their needs and grateful for their faithfulness, and faithful in our responsibilities to them.3573
On Sunday, March 31, 1968, after attending church at St. Dominic’s in Washington D.C., President Lyndon B. Johnson noted his feeling concerning his daughter Lynda’s husband, Chuck Robb, and his daughter Luci’s husband, Pat Nugent:
They were so very young, and they had such promising and happy lives ahead of them, if they were lucky. Pat already had his orders for Vietnam. In a matter of days, by his own insistence, he would be with Chuck Robb in action in Vietnam. The good Lord had blessed us with two brave sons-in-law, and no man could have been prouder of them than I. Now, for a year or more, their wives would wait and pray, as other wives across America would, for their husbands to return to them and their babies.3574
At 9:01 p.m., Sunday, March 31, 1968, President broadcast an address from the Oval Office:
Tonight I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone, where the continuing enemy build-up directly threatens allied forward positions and where the movements of their troops and supplies are clearly related to that threat. …
Fifty-two months and ten 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, and united, we have enlarged that commitment. …
With America’s sons in the field 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, a confident, and a vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace—and stands ready tonight to defend an honored 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.3575
Recalling January 20, 1969, after Richard M. Nixon had been inaugurated as the 37th President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson noted:
I heard Richard Nixon conclude his oath of office with the words “so help me God.” To me, they were welcome words.3576
President Lyndon B. Johnson encouraged:
Come now, let us reason together.3577