Recorded on October 8, 1960, in NBC's Washington Studios for telecast that evening on NBC-TV

     Mr. HUNTLEY. Senator, I should like to explore, if I may, your ideas about the office of the Vice Presidency. I would assume that you think the Vice President should be something more than the Presiding Officer of the Senate.
     Senator JOHNSON. Under the Constitution, the Vice President's sole duty, sole constitutional duty, is to preside over the Senate. Of course, the Presiding Officer of the Senate can be an effective force in the Senate, and a good many of our Vice Presidents have been. They have actually been the strong arm of the leadership of the Senate.
     In addition, the Vice President should be willing and ready to assume any duties that. the President might see fit to ask him to perform. That would depend entirely upon the judgment of the President, however.
     QUESTION. Should the Vice President be an Assistant President?
     Senator JOHNSON . No, I don't think so. I think that the Vice President should carry out any missions that the President would care for him to carry out, but I wouldn't want ever to think that he was a Deputy President, and was actually second in command of the executive department of the Government. I think he should sit in and have as much information available to him about the operation of the Government as possible. But there must be one unquestioned head of the Government, and that person must be the President of the United States.
     QUESTION. Your counterpart, Mr. Lodge, has been told that he would be put in charge of all nonmilitary aspects of external affairs. What do you think of that idea?
     Senator JOHNSON. I think it's a bad idea. First, I think it's rather sad that the Republican nominee doesn't feel perfectly competent to carry on all the duties of the President himself. Second, I don't think that's the function of the Vice President to take over the direction of our foreign policy. I think it's an insult to the President, and I do not think it would be understood by either the peoples of other countries or the people of this Nation.
     I feel very pleased to believe that Senator Kennedy is perfectly competent, with the assistance of the Secretary of State and the diplomatic people, to handle our foreign policy. If at any time I can make any contribution to it, I would be glad to do it at his request.
     QUESTION. Have you discussed with Senator Kennedy in any detail what your contributions might be as Vice President, what your job would be?
     Senator JOHNSON. No. Senator Kennedy and I from time to time have discussed various angles of the defense work, of the space field in which I have specialized, of appropriation matters, and foreign policy. But he has not been presumptuous enough to delegate to me the duties of the Presidency to which he has not yet been elected.
     I am sure when and if he is elected, that if he desires me to function in any particular capacity, he will advise with me, and I shall be glad to carry out his wishes.
     QUESTION. Senator, if the Republicans should win, would you want to continue as majority leader in the Senate?
     Senator JOHNSON. Well, that's a matter for my colleagues to decide. First of all, the Republicans cannot win the Senate. I assume you mean if they win the Presidency. If we lost every doubtful Democratic Senator - that is, every Democratic Senator from a doubtful State - we would still have a substantial majority of the Senate, and I have been majority and minority leader under Republican Presidents, and I would have to let that be determined by my colleagues and the facts that exist at the time.
     QUESTION. You don't know. You don't want to say now whether you would be a candidate for majority leader.
     Senator JOHNSON. I think that would depend a lot on the circumstances, what the wishes of my party members were. I don't think that you are going to be confronted with that kind of a situation. I think that Mr. Kennedy is going to be elected President of the United States by a somewhat overwhelming margin, and I think I will be Vice President, and then I think my colleagues in the Democratic Party will select the leader that they desire to replace me with.
     QUESTION. Still, of course this is hypothetical, but you have worked as majority leader for some years with Mr. Eisenhower in the White House. How do you think you, as majority leader, and the other Members of the Senate, the other Democrats in the Senate, would get along with Nixon as President?
     Senator JOHNSON. I don't think Mr. Nixon is a very effective leader of the Democrats, or the Republicans, for that matter.
     As an illustration, on the $1.25 an hour minimum wage bill that we considered in the last session of the Congress, although Mr. Nixon is supposed to be a very effective spokesman for his party, his party voted 18 against that bill, and 15 for it, split right wide open. If he cannot lead the Republican Party any better than he did on that bill, what's going to happen to him with a substantial majority of the Senate made up of Democratic Members? I think we will likely have stalemate government.
     I served as deputy leader during the Truman administration, and there was some differences between the Congress and the Executive during that period of time, but we reasoned together and worked those out.
     I have served as minority leader with Senator Taft as majority leader during the Eisenhower administration, and the President hasn't been a deep partisan. He has been willing to exchange viewpoints and meet you halfway, and has never been dirty or hit below the belt, even when he politically differed with you. But I rather doubt that Mr. Nixon, with the various campaigns that he has waged upon individual Members of the Congress, and the type of campaign that he carries out - first, last week he was down in Richmond urging the people of the South to support him because he was talking in the language of Thomas Jefferson. And the next day he was up in the garment workers' district of New York City urging them not to vote for Jack Kennedy because he had a southerner on the ticket.
     Now what kind of a man is this that says he's against discrimination, that is, discriminating against anybody except southerners?
     QUESTION. May I ask you a couple of questions about the Presidency now, Senator Johnson. We have heard in this campaign quite a bit about a new national purpose, a new mood for the country. What can the President of the United States do to establish a new mood, a sense of national purpose?
     Senator JOHNSON. By his messages to Congress, by his statements to the people, by his moral leadership of the world, he can establish a national purpose and should; and I think Senator Kennedy, in his campaign in the primary, and his campaign thus far, has awakened an interest in government that we have never seen before.
     I observe every political meeting I attend is heavily dotted with young people who are taking a deep interest in government, an enthusiastic one, and perhaps for the first time, largely as a result of the appeal that Senator Kennedy has made, an appeal to enlist their aid and efforts to preserve this Government, to make it militarily stronger, to make it economically stronger, to make it morally stronger; and I think the great leadership that he has given this movement, this voice in this direction, has contributed to a reawakening of young Americans all through this country.
     QUESTION. What Presidents, in your opinion, sir, best comprehended and best employed the office of the Presidency in this century, let us say?
     Senator JOHNSON. Well, I was a great admirer of President Franklin Roosevelt. I think that he served ably and well. I think he preserved the Republic. I think except for his great hold on the people and their willingness to follow him, we might well have lost our form of government early in the thirties. He was my hero.
     QUESTION. Another question: What could or should a Democratic President of the United States do, let us say, about school desegregation?
     Senator JOHNSON. I think the President could have stated his position following the Supreme Court decision. I think the President could and should try to understand and recognize the problems that exist in all States in the Union, and should confer and communicate with the leaders of the various States, particularly their Governors, and attempt to bring about complete compliance with the law of the land.
     I think that the President's voice and influence in this field could have bean used much more effectively than it has been.
     I think we can do a great deal by using means of conciliation, communication, and reasoning that you cannot produce at the point of a bayonet.
     QUESTION. Did you see the debate last night, Senator?
     Senator JOHNSON. Yes.
     QUESTION. Vice President Nixon, at one point in a discussion of civil rights, said that he had chosen a Vice President who agreed with him, whereas Senator Kennedy had a Vice President who was opposed to a long list of civil rights proposals, had voted against them in the past, and was opposed to them now. What do you say about that?
     Senator JOHNSON. Well, the Vice President, as such, takes those little swipes with his brush. He may ask that it be deleted 3 or 4 hours later. Earlier in the week, he issued a somewhat similar statement quoting me as stating that I had been against any civil rights bill, and after the reporters had flashed it to their offices, and it had gone to print, about 4 hours later, it occurred to the Vice President that maybe he should withdraw it.
     So he called up and withdrew it. It kind of reminds us of the tactics of the old Nixon back in the McCarthy period. He does that.
     Now first of all, the convention selected the Vice President. The Democratic convention selected me upon the recommendation of Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy pretty well knew my views. If the Vice President had wanted to point out to the audience last night - he could have - namely, that when the Republicans were in charge of the Congress, and when I was the minority leader and had only a minority voice, they did not report any civil rights bill of any kind. They didn't even introduce a civil rights bill, and have it seriously considered. It didn't get to the calendar. It didn't consume 30 or 40 days' debate, as the bill of 1957, and the bill of 1960 did. They just didn't do anything about it, either in 1953 or 1954.
     It was only after the Democrats had seized the legislative machinery from the Republicans that the first civil rights bill in 80 years was considered. We passed that bill when I was majority leader in 1957. The President signed that bill. The Attorney General approved that bill. Most of the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate voted for that bill. I do not remember that Mr. Nixon made one contribution to it in any way. He certainly wasn't helpful to me in connection with it.
     The bill of 1960 - we were there around the clock all night long for several nights, and we finally passed a bill, and passed it by an overwhelming vote. We would see an interview during the week now and then that he gave out, but if he made any contribution to civil rights legislation, I am not aware of it.
     So the point is this Mr. Brinkley. Mr. Nixon has been Vice President for 8 years. For 2 years his party was in charge; they did absolutely nothing. The three Congresses that my party has been in charge, we have passed two civil rights bills, and I think that he had better improve the Republican record before he starts criticizing someone else's record.
     As a matter of fact, the Vice President talks one way in the South and another way in the North, as I just pointed out - Richmond and the garment workers' district.
     QUESTION. Would you agree, Senator Johnson, that there is a kind of confused image about you here in this country?
     Senator JOHNSON. Yes, I think that's so.
     QUESTION. For example, some people say you're a liberal; some say you're a conservative. Some say in the Senate that you're a tyrant, and others just say you're efficient. How come?
     Senator JOHNSON. Well, I presume each one has a certain amount of information, and a man's judgment is no better than his information on the subject. Maybe all of them are a little right.
     QUESTION. I will depend upon you for rescuing this question from being a gross oversimplification. It is sometimes said that you're more interested in how a government functions than what it does. Any truth in that?
     Senator JOHNSON. No, I don't think so. I am interested in achieving results. I always seek the best and do the possible, and some people would rather create issues than resolve them, and a man has to get in the middle sometimes as a leader and try to resolve some of these issues, try to ring up a record of achievement; so I would say that my philosophy is that I am a freeman first, an American second, U.S. Senator third, and a Democrat fourth, in that order. And that in the Senate as a leader of the Senate, I try to do the very best I can for my country. At all times I seek to achieve the best, and then I have to content myself with the possible, because there are 99 other members of that body that come from 49 other States. They have diverse viewpoints. Harry Byrd and Wayne Morse don't always see everything alike. Jim Eastland and Hubert Humphrey have differences of opinion from time to time. Each of them represent great States in the Union, and they are men who have statements to make, and their voice is to be heard. Finally, a majority determines what the attainable course is.
     QUESTION. Senator, one of the most difficult, or one of the most controversial, or one of the most argued issues in the campaign is our strength as compared to Russia's, principally military. You ran in the Senate a preparedness subcommittee that investigated this whole field that had been especially interested in the military. Are we weaker or stronger than Russia now, militarily?
     Senator JOHNSON. Well, I think that we are stronger. I don't think we are as strong as we should be, and I don't think we are as strong as we will be, and I think that the gap, had it been yet coming closer together, as the months have come on, I don't think that we are putting all the effort into our defense program that we should be. But that's a matter of judgment.
     If Russia has no designs on this country, and she is not out to colonize the world, why, perhaps we are spending too much. If she does have designs and is out to colonize us, why, we are not spending enough. So it depends largely on a man's judgment.
     QUESTION. What's yours?
     Senator JOHNSON. Everyone's judgment depends upon the information. Our committee had hearings for nearly 3 months. We issued a unanimous statement of all Democrats and all Republicans, and the net of that statement was that we should be going farther faster. Each Congress, contrary to the implication of the Vice President's statement last evening, during the present administration has appropriated more funds for the defense of this country than has been spent for the defense of this country.
     There are now some $400 or $500 million impounded, or frozen, or not yet allocated, in the Defense Department. We think that those funds ought to be spent. We think that our Army ought to be modernized. We think our Marine Corps ought to be increased. We think that we ought to have more modern bombers. We think we ought to have a better airlift. We think we ought to have more of an airborne alert. We have made all of those recommendations. You can take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can appropriate money, but you can't make them spend it.
     One of the great weaknesses - and I think bad things this administration has done - has been to refuse to allocate money for defense purposes that a substantial majority of the Congress has appropriated for those purposes. I don't think that has been right. I think they have allowed a budget clerk to supersede the will and the judgment of all the representatives of all the people, and that is bad when you let that happen.
     QUESTION. I am trying to clarify exactly what this issue of strength and weakness is about. You say we now are stronger militarily than the Russians are, is that right?
     Senator JOHNSON. Yes.
     QUESTION. You think we will continue to be in, say, 3, or 4, or 5 years, or 10 years?
     Senator JOHNSON. I think that would depend upon the future policies during the next 3, 4 or 5 years. I think if we continue to impound our funds that Congress appropriated and the President sat there and refused to spend them, and the Budget Director says we don't need them, and are content to take things in stride, I don't think we would be.
     I think if we do what we will do under Senator Kennedy's leadership, I think we will remain militarily strong, and I think we will remain first in the world.
     QUESTION. The weakness then we hear about is one that may exist in the future but does not exist now?
     Senator JOHNSON. I think it does exist now, but I don't think that we are second by any means. But I think that we are quickly getting into that position if we continue another 8 years the practices of the past 8 years. We need our Army modernized. We need our missile program expedited. We need a better airborne alert than we have. We need an airlift. We need better planes. We need a stronger Marine Corps - all those things. We haven't been doing them.
     We have appropriated money for them. We appropriated money to modernize the Army in the last two or three Congresses. That money has been impounded.
     QUESTION. Not spent.
     You mentioned in the campaign that you would eliminate some fat from the Pentagon. What nature does this fat take?
     Senator JOHNSON. I think our reports go into some detail on that. I think there is a good deal of duplication, the various services each trying to do the work that one could very well be assigned and do.
     I think that the new President would effectively reorganize the Pentagon. Congress intended it be reorganized and the duplication avoided, eliminated, when it passed an act the year before last. But I don't think that is very effectively, used.
     QUESTION. Would you mean that you might favor a unified single service?
     Senator JOHNSON. No; I think that the President has authority to keep the Air Force from duplicating the work of the Army, and the Army from duplicating the work of the Navy. One service could be assigned the function of doing a particular job, and doing it much more efficiently than all three trying to get there first. I don't think that necessarily means a single Chief of Staff.
     QUESTION. Senator, do you see the Vice Presidency as a stepping stone to the White House?
     Senator JOHNSON. I see the Vice Presidency as the constitutional presiding officer of the Senate, and the helpmate of the President in connection with anything that the President might feel the Vice President was equipped to do.
     QUESTION. Well it does also have a political aspect. You don't think of it as a way of becoming President, as it could be with Mr. Nixon?
     Senator JOHNSON. After Senator Kennedy defeated me for the nomination, he told me that he wanted very much to be President of all the people of this country, and to see the voices of all the people represented in his administration, and he would like very much for me to be his running mate.
     I carefully considered that request, and felt that I could be of service, and if he felt that he wanted me, that I had no right to say that I would refuse to serve in any capacity, whether it is a private or colonel.
     So I accepted with that understanding. If I am elected, as I expect to be, I am going to do everything I can to see that Senator Kennedy has a successful administration, and see that the people of this country have the best government possible.
     QUESTION. Could I ask you here a question that is somewhat in the past, but I think it is interesting as a matter of historical record.
     You went to Los Angeles as a candidate for President, and you were nominated as Vice President, and we were told at the time some of your advisers were opposed to your accepting the vice presidential nomination. Apparently, they changed their minds. Is that the case, and how did that come about? Why did they change their minds, if they did?
     Senator JOHNSON. Well, some changed their minds, and some didn't.
     QUESTION. Some of them were still
     Senator JOHNSON. I think I have an unusually large number of warm and genuine, and dedicated friends, and they wanted to see me nominated very much. I think when I was not nominated that they were disappointed, and some of them did not want to see me take a second place on the ticket. Some of them did not approve of the ticket. Some of them did not approve of the platform.
     So from time to time they made recommendations that I not consider, the second place on the ticket. I carefully weighed those recommendations, and I finally concluded that the thing I had to do was what I thought was best for my country, and in the light of what the nominee had said, I thought I could render the greatest service to my country as Vice President.
     I told my friends that, and I think most of my sincere, genuine friends, understand it, and I think most of them are out there doing everything they can to see the Democratic ticket elected, because they realize that there is no future for them in the Republican Party.
     QUESTION. Do you mind if I ask you what Speaker Rayburn - he's one of your fine, sincere friends - what was his reaction? Did he think you should take it?
     Senator JOHNSON. Once he understood that the nominee wanted me to take the place, and he discussed it with me in some detail the next day, and also with Senator Kennedy, Speaker Rayburn said that he thought it was the thing to do; and I consider him one of the great Americans that I know.
     I have talked to President Truman about it, both at the convention and since the convention, and I think that he definitely felt that it was a thing I should do, and I am not aware of any great body of thought in the Democratic Party that was friendly to me that didn't feel that I should comply with the request.
     QUESTION. Some southern Democrats, Senator Johnson, seem to say that they feel you have let them down, that you have turned your back on them, mainly, I suppose, because of the platform. Does this pain you or disappoint you in a way?
     Senator JOHNSON. Oh yes; you're always pained when you disappoint any of your friends, and unquestionably some of these people you speak of, ex-officeholders largely, they would like to see me desert my party and oppose Senator Kennedy's election, because I was defeated by him.
     I don't think they represent any large numbers. I think most of the leaders of the South are supporting the ticket. I do not know of a single elected public official in any of the Southern States that has endorsed Mr. Nixon. I don't know of a single Governor that has embraced the Republican platform, or the Republican ticket, or the Republican nominees. I don't know of a single U.S. Senator that has recommended that his people vote for Mr. Nixon. I don't know of a single Member of Congress from any of the Southern States - in my own State, the great Governor of my State, Price Daniel, and Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey, and Will Wilson, all 21 Congressmen led by Speaker Rayburn - they're all supporting the ticket.
     We do have an ex-Governor here and there who is out of office who has deserted the Democratic Party that elected him, and I know of at least two or three instances in the South, some ex-officeholders are running the campaigns for the Republicans. The Republicans have got a good deal of money, and they are well financed, and they are putting on a pretty good campaign; but I actually don't expect them to carry any Southern States.
     QUESTION. Is it difficult to be a Southern Democrat these days, Senator?
     Senator JOHNSON. Well, I like to think of myself as a Democrat, period, without prefix or suffix. I remember reading not long ago the first speech that Speaker Rayburn made in the House of Representatives in 1913 after he was elected, and he said "I want to know a country and a party that knows no North, no South, no East, and no West."
     So I try to take the position that - I am the grandson of a Confederate veteran. I am very proud of that, but I think that I'm an American first, and I don't want to see our country divided up into regions, or religions, or races, and have one played against the other.
     I think there are some divisive forces at work abroad, and I have observed some here at home. If they keep on fighting the battle of the 1860's, we won't have the energy, talent, ingenuity, and imagination necessary to fight the battle of the 1960's.
     QUESTION. Senator, on that point, this is a question that keeps coming up, and you're an expert and experienced in the legislative field; I'd like to have your opinion on it.
     The Southern Members, the Southern Democrats, or the Democrats from the South, if you prefer, very often vote with Republicans in both the House and the Senate, and very often defeat the kind of legislation that Senator Kennedy is now saying he would like to have. How would you propose - what would you propose to do about, that?
     Senator JOHNSON. You can't change a man's views. I think your statement is correct, that people from the South sometimes have views very much like some of the leaders in the Republican Party. Also, some of the strongest support we have for the Democratic platform, and for the Democratic programs, come from people from the South. Most of the leaders of our committees are Southern Senators. They are among the ablest that we have.
     I don't think you can say that there has been any real coalition between the Southern Democrats and the Republican leadership in the Senate during my administration as either minority leader or majority leader, although on some issues they have a viewpoint very much alike. But that is frequently true of some of the Southern Democrats and Northern Democrats, and we have had more unity in our party than the Republicans have had.
     For instance, some Southern Democrats voted against the minimum wage bill, but half of the Democrats didn't. And the Republican Party, a majority of their party voted against raising the minimum wages and maximum hours - they just voted against the bill 18 to 13 on final passage. Now that wasn't true of the Democrats. We had much more unity in that instance than they did. I think it depends on the issue.
     QUESTION. You think in the future, though, you and Senator Kennedy would be able to get through the Congress these things that he is talking about?
     Senator JOHNSON. I think we have had a very constructive and very responsible record under the majority, leadership in both the House and the Senate, and I think one reason for that is because we have had most of the Democrats working together most of the time: They don't all think alike all the time. Of course, when everyone sees everything alike, it means one man is doing all the thinking. But our record has been a constructive one, and we have had unanimous votes on several things, and large substantial majorities on most things. I would say most of the rollcalls in the Senate have been in excess of 75 Senators on one side to less than 25 on the other side.
     QUESTION (Mr. Brinkley). I would just try to clarify this because, as I say, it keeps coming up. In the extra session in August, the medical bill Senator Kennedy supported was defeated by votes of Republicans and many Democrats from the South. Why wouldn't that happen again in 1961 when the same bill comes up again?
     Senator JOHNSON. It could happen again. I don't think it will happen again. I think the whole story ought to be told in connection with the medical program.
     This administration has had 8 years to do something about a medical program for the aged, and it has done absolutely nothing. The Democrats have tried to do something about it. The administration wouldn't make recommendations. The Secretary of Health and Welfare wouldn't take any position. The President couldn't figure out what his position was. The only way we could ascertain the Vice President's position was to read some leak in some column, and finally we evolved our own program.
     That program was presented. It went to the Finance Committee just 3 or 4 days before we had to go to the convention. When we came back from the convention, the Vice President and the President, and the Secretary of Health, Education, arid Welfare, got together on a medical program, and that was voted upon in the Senate, and the President, and the Vice President. and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare's program got 28 votes. So it was defeated overwhelmingly, better than 2 to 1.
     Then the program that I favored, and Senator Kennedy favored, was voted on, and we got 44 votes. A change of three votes would have passed our program. So a majority of the Senate, all but 28 didn't want the Nixon program, and only 44 wanted the Kennedy program; so we had to take a compromise between them.
     The next session I think we will have a President from our party. We won't have the Republican opposition we have. We will have a Democratic leader in the Senate, and a. Democratic Vice President, and a Democratic President, and I think that we can pass a reasonable and fair program at an early date.

     [Piano selection.]
     Mr. McGEE. Well now, Lucy, that was very nice.
     Miss Lucy JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. McGee.
     Mr. McGEE. Is that one of your own compositions?
     Miss Lucy JOHNSON. Yes, it happens to be a composition that I wrote for a very dear friend of mine a few weeks ago. It has a lot of sentimental value.
     Mr. McGEE. Does it have a title?
     Miss Lucy JOHNSON. Yes, it's called "Please Remember Me." We were very close friends, and I haven't seen the person in a long time, so I wrote it for our long friendship which I hope will continue.
     Mr. McGEE. That's fine. Linda, do you play musical instruments?
     Miss LINDA JOHNSON. No, Mr. McGee, I wish I did.
     Mr. McGEE. Well, what are your interests?
     Miss LINDA JOHNSON. I am very interested in politics, in history, in people.
     Mr. McGEE. Would your father's calling have anything to do with your interest in politics?
     Miss LINDA JOHNSON. I am sure it would have a bearing on it. I mean if you are brought up with something, you feel a little more close to it.
     Mr. McGEE. I suppose so. And you have got an opportunity to get a unique inside look into politics that most of us are denied.
     Miss LINDA JOHNSON. Yes; I think so.
     Mr. McGEE. Mrs. Johnson, everyone calls you Lady Bird; may I?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Please do. I feel much more at home with it.
     Mr. McGEE. And how did you get this name, Lady Bird?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. I was nicknamed that by the nurse in our house when I was 2 months old, and it stuck.
     Mr. McGEE. Have you tried to get rid of it?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Once, Mr. McGee. When you're about 13, you don't like to be different from other children. I went to a new school and told everyone my name was Claudia, which it was. For a year I managed to get by as Claudia, but gradually old friends began to infiltrate and said "Back home everybody calls her Lady Bird," and so soon I was once more Lady Bird.
     Mr. McGEE. And it remained so ever since. You're Lady Bird Johnson, and Lucy Baines Johnson, and Linda Bird Johnson, and then Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJ. Your initials are the same and were the same when you first met. Did this have anything to do with bringing you together?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. No, Sir. In fact it didn't occur to us until a long time later.
     Mr. McGEE. By the way, how did you meet your husband?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. When I graduated from the University of Texas, in the summer of 1934, my daddy gave me a trip to New York and Washington for a graduation present. A good friend of mine said "I know just the nicest young man. He's a secretary in Washington, and he will show you the town, and I am going to write his name and address down, and put. it in your purse; and then I'm going to let him know you're coming."
     So I carried the name all summer, and saw more of Washington than I ever have since, really, and had a wonderful time, but never called him, and never intended to. I thought that was a little brash. And then quite by chance he came walking into this friend's office a month or so later when I was there visiting her.
     Mr. McGEE. And you met then. Well then, how long was it before the two of you decided that this was going to be more than just a casual friendship?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Rather quickly, Mr. McGee, which my children throw up to me a bit.
     Mr. McGEE. I suppose so.
     Mrs. JOHNSON. We met the first week in September of 1934, and we were married on the 17th of November.
     Mr. McGEE. That's about 2 months, isn't it?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Two and one-half.
     Mr. McGEE. Texas style courtship.
     He was a secretary, I believe, to a Congressman at that time, so in a sense he was in public life even though he did not hold a public office himself.
     Did you know at the time that you were married that he intended to become a politician?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. No, I didn't. Nothing could have been farther from my own background. My daddy was a country merchant. and a farmer, and I knew nothing about politics. I should have been able to forecast it, though, because, well, everything Lyndon has done has been in a straight line in that direction. When he taught school, it was history; in government and public speaking, and then when he became secretary to a Congressman, that's the best learning place in the world to go on into being a Congressman.
     Mr. McGEE. So it seems to have been almost preordained.
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Yes, and a strong blood strain in his family. His father was in the legislature about 20 years, off and on, and then other ancestors, a Governor of Kentucky, and a legislator from Kentucky.
     Mr. McGEE. When you did find out that he was going to be a politician, how did you react? What did this mean to you?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Well, Mr. McGee, that's a long time ago. I will have to think back to being 23, and we had just finished almost 2 years of working with the National Youth Administration, when a Member of Congress from that district died, and the decision had to be made at once, "Shall we run, or shall we not?"
     I could not foresee what lay before me, no indeed, but I am very glad we did, because it's been Lyndon's whole life, and the thing for him.
     Mr. McGEE. Did you have any misgivings at that time about being the wife of a politician?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Oh, no, sir. Just the full knowledge that I would have to learn and expand, and grow a lot, because I surely didn't know anything to begin with.
     Mr. McGEE. Well now, this was in 1937.
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Yes.
     Mr. McGEE. That would be what has been called the Roosevelt years.
     Mrs. JOHNSON. And very, oh, exciting, tumultuous years they were, and Lyndon was right in the middle of it.
     Mr. McGEE. We would like to ask you two questions on this, the first being, what was it you felt that made the Senator decide that public office, holding public office, or being in public life, was the way to accomplish what it was that he wanted to do? What precisely was it that he felt needed to be done, that galvanized him into this?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Mr. McGee, those were days when things were happening in the country. It was a period of crisis, just as it is now, and Lyndon wanted to be in there and get his shoulder to the wheel. He saw things that needed to be done in that 10th District of Texas, that he wanted to be a part of doing, like the REA, and the dams on the lower Colorado, and the public housing. That was a very yeasty period.
     Mr. McGEE. And he was caught up in the whole spirit of the time?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Yes.
     Mr. McGEE. Now the other question that I had in mind is, Has this period, the Roosevelt years, shaped the Senator's political philosophy, his outlook on life?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Well, it has left an imprint on his heart and on his philosophy that will always be there; yes.
     Mr. McGEE. Now let's come a little closer to the present. This past summer in Los Angeles provided an experience for you and your husband, as well as your daughters. The Senator wanted to be nominated by his party as the presidential candidate. He went to Los Angeles, I think, firmly convinced that he might just do this, and it did not materialize this way.
     Then he was asked if he would accept a second place on the ticket and become the candidate for Vice President. We know that you played a very vital part in those hours, and in helping him reach the decision that he reached. There is still a little aura of mystery about that. Can you tell us just what went on, and how you felt, and how he felt as you made this decision?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. It was certainly the most dramatic and emotion-laden day in our lives. I was surprised when the Senator called and asked Lyndon to go on the ticket as his running mate.
     Mr. McGEE. What surprised you?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Because they are very different people; but I think it was a very independent, and a wonderful decision on the part of Senator Kennedy, and with the intention of unifying the country and the party, and I am mighty proud that Lyndon made the decision he did.
     There would have been no other one possible for a man that had spent 24 years working for the country, 12 in the House and 12 in the Senate, and in truth he tried just as hard as he could for the top spot, and not having gotten that - 800 of the delegates chose Kennedy, 400 chose him - then his choice was simple: "Shall I just," as he expressed it, "pick up my marbles and go home? Or shall I throw in my experience and ability, and my worth, whatever it is, in the job I am asked to do?"
     Mr. McGEE. During that short period of time, really, did he ask you what he should do?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. We talked about it; yes.
     Mr. McGEE. And what did you tell him?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. The only thing you can do in a momentous time like that, Mr. McGee, is do what your heart tells you is your obligation to do, and it is something if you look back later and know that you have fled from what you should do
     Mr. McGEE. Well, Linda, you were in Los Angeles, and I presume you enjoyed yourself at the convention.
     LINDA JOHNSON. Well, I certainly did. It was very exciting and it has never happened before.
     Mr. McGEE. What I would really like to ask you is how did you feel when your father decided to accept a second place on the ticket?
     LINDA JOHNSON. I was very surprised and excited. I was very glad that he had done it.
     Mr. McGEE. Mrs. Johnson, you have been campaigning with the Senator now for about 24 years, I suppose. You cannot look at this man simply as a candidate for public office, one with whom you agree completely on political matters. He is, after all, your husband, and you have this intense personal interest in him from that standpoint.
     When he's standing on a platform and speaking to a crowd, and you know better than anyone else what it is he wants so badly to say, and the impression that he wants to leave, how do you feel in these moments?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. I guess I feel a good deal of tension, and a good deal of compassion, and that sort of spills over to the other candidates, too, because, well, I know what they are going through.
     Mr. McGEE. What has happened in the Senator's public life that has given you the greatest feeling of pride and satisfaction in him?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. I suppose, Mr. McGee, it's hard to get concrete about something like that, but an achievement that I look on with happiness every time I fly over it is in the first 4 years of his life in Congress, we succeeded in building a series of dams along the lower Colorado River, which resulted in REA being brought to that whole area-wide section. We had more connected customers than any co-op in the country at that time.
     That changed the economy and the recreation life of that whole area, and there you can say, "That's something that I have done," and I'd put that on my tombstone if I had to say something.
     Mr. McGEE. And it's a source of pride?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Yes.
     Mr. McGEE. Well, now, the Senator has spent, as you say, 12 years in the House and 12 years in the Senate, and the essence of life there is compromise. You never really get all that you set out to get. Sometimes you fall far short of what it was you hoped to get; so there are many disappointments in it as well. When the Senator is disappointed, does he bring this problem home with him, and how does he act?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Yes, Mr. McGee, he brings it home with him, and what better place would there be to bring it to? And I have tried to remind him that there is always tomorrow, and that you regroup and try to regain your strength and set out and try to achieve tomorrow that which you haven't gotten done today.
     I think I heard him once put it in a capsule that typified the man to me when he said, when Lyndon said, "I strive for the best and do the possible," and I like the accent on the word "do" because in legislative matters, well, you have got to take a step forward.
     Mr. McGEE. Now let me ask you one more question. Perhaps the most sustained attack that has been made on your husband in this campaign has been in the field of civil rights. Without going into the really known actions that he has taken in the Senate, what I would like to know is what kind of an effect this has on him personally when he finds himself being criticized on the issue of civil rights. How does he react personally?
     Mrs. JOHNSON. Well, there is a sense of sorrow that people from our own section of the country, some of them, should object to it, and there is a sort of a sense of frustration that people from other sections of the country should find it fall so far short of the full victory they seek. But I think most of all there is just a sense of achievement, that it is a step of progress, and you're not going to get all the way in one leap. You have to have legislation that the whole country can live with, and implement, and can become a part of the country.
     And so mostly I think he feels proud that he has had a sizable part in the only two bills that have been passed in that direction in 80 years.
     Mr. McGEE. Well, thank you so much, Mrs. Lady Bird Johnson, and Lucy Baines, and Linda Bird.