LBJ
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Congressman Lyndon Johnson
When the congressman representing Austin and the Tenth Congressional District died on February 22, 1937, the candidates to replace him—senior politicians holding various offices, such as the late congressman Buchanan’s trusted manager, C. N. Avery; the district’s state senator, Houghton Brownlee; and Austin’s mayor, Tom Miller—politely deferred entering the race pending a decision by the widow Buchanan on whether to run or not. Lyndon was virtually unknown in the Tenth District, as Blanco County had been moved into that district only two years before, so he had no base there in 1937. Lyndon sought his father’s advice on how to proceed, knowing that his lifetime goal of becoming the president depended upon him winning this seat. Sam advised Lyndon to announce his candidacy as soon as possible, since Mrs. Buchanan was “an old woman … too old for a fight.”63 Johnson immediately announced his candidacy, and Mrs. Buchanan bowed out of the race. A special election—not a party primary, but a “sudden death” vote after which the winner would become the congressman regardless of party—was scheduled with eight names on the ballot, including a number of older, more experienced local politicians who faced off against twenty-eight-year-old Lyndon Johnson (whose campaign would constantly refer to him as being “almost thirty”).64 Johnson quickly assembled a campaign organization determined to have his poster nailed to every fence and telephone pole in the county. He told his boys that he wanted his picture in every paper in the district, so that “you can’t wipe your ass on a piece of paper that hasn’t got my picture on it.”65 During a long and bitterly fought campaign, he aligned himself with Roosevelt, worked himself sick, and spent, according to Ed Clark, Lyndon’s sponsor and fund-raiser for the rest of his political career, between $75,000 and $100,000—the most expensive congressional race conducted in Texas history at that time. While his opponents concentrated on the cities and larger towns, Johnson focused on the most rural parts of the district, driving down long winding country roads, stopping at every general store to politick the owner and any farmers who were around. He correctly figured such a strategy was the only way to win with so many competitors in the race; their division of the “easy votes” in the cities seven ways allowed him to triumph by a margin of over three thousand votes out of about twenty-nine thousand cast.66
Johnson’s overzealousness during his early years in Congress caused considerable friction with other congressmen; he broke unwritten rules, one of which related to a luncheon every Wednesday that was supposed to include only the members of the Texas delegation: two senators, twenty-one representatives, and Vice President Garner. Once per month, guests could attend; the other three luncheons were supposed to be closed to outside visitors, but Johnson, through his connection with Sam Rayburn, regularly brought guests to them anyway, despite the other members’ bitter reactions. Johnson also preemptively announced to thousands of Texans the granting of major projects in congressional districts other than his own, before the member representing the affected district could do so. To his fellow Texas congressmen, including Dick Kleberg, his former employer, Johnson was simply usurping credit for successes he had nothing to do with. They began treating the new congressman with barely checked contempt, their animosity exacerbated by Johnson’s overbearing personality, the way he strutted through the House dining room as if he were a famous Hollywood celebrity, smiling and nodding to his fans as he meandered through the tables, talking too loudly to whoever would reciprocate as other congressmen rolled their eyes and muttered under their breaths.67
Upon taking his congressional seat, Johnson inherited a major dilemma involving the construction company owned by Herman and George Brown, who would become some of his strongest backers. His predecessor, James P. Buchanan, had approved the start of construction on a huge government project, the Marshall Ford Dam, but the House Rivers and Harbors Committee had never voted on it, nor even held a hearing on its merits. Appropriations were not supposed to be made until a project was authorized; the only “authorization” had been an informal approval from President Roosevelt, who casually told Buchanan “he could have his dam” after Congress recessed for the year. Buchanan then persuaded the comptroller general’s office to allow work to begin since he had received Roosevelt’s verbal approval and Harold Ickes initiated the necessary order. When Johnson became congressman, the Brown & Root Company had already invested $1.5 million in equipment and preliminary work on the dam; shortly afterward, it was discovered that the federal government did not and under state law could not own the land upon which it was being built. Johnson’s first congressional victory, with help from his lawyer-consultant Alvin Wirtz, was pushing Roosevelt to override what had been thought to be insurmountable legal ownership issues through a presidential order. In this manner Johnson repaid Brown & Root for their early support: the Marshall Ford Dam was the company’s first major project, and it netted them $2 million.68
As soon as the legal issues were resolved and the appropriations resumed, the Browns clamored to make the dam higher, at an additional cost of $17 million, using the argument that the original height was inadequate for effective flood control; why this shortcoming was not considered earlier was never explained. Again using the able Alvin Wirtz’s help, the original 190-foot-high dam would no longer be classified as a flood-control but as a power dam. That the flood-control portion of the dam—the additional seventy-eight feet—was not yet built would enable the Bureau of Reclamation to legally pay for it. But a gap remained of over $2 million that Wirtz’s legal creativity could not eliminate. Johnson found a more creative lawyer, Abe Fortas, who rewrote the entire plan so that the initial 33 feet over the original 190 was classified as “dual use”—flood control and power generation. As a result, a third agency, the Public Works Administration, would pay for it.69 The above legal morass would not be the last or most important that Fortas would be asked to solve, as will be noted below. The resolution to the Marshall Ford Dam cemented Johnson’s long and fruitful relationship with the Brown brothers and their company, which would eventually become part of the corporation known as Halliburton.
Johnson inherited a poor staff when he arrived at Congress; two of his assistants were knowledgeable but undependable alcoholics. He immediately sought to correct this situation and looked for young Texas men, mostly recent graduates, especially campus newspaper editors and student leaders from the University of Texas in Austin. His first hire was John Connally, and the others that followed were mostly friends or acquaintances of someone who had already joined Johnson’s staff in Austin or Washington. Walter Jenkins, who was invaluable to Johnson’s career, came because he had worked in Connally’s campaign for student body president. After following John to Washington, he started as a policeman at the Supreme Court and volunteered in Johnson’s office after-hours. Johnson would arrange to place men in other government jobs, on other payrolls, where he could evaluate them at arm’s length and use them as intelligence sources while admonishing them to avoid becoming known as “Johnson men.” Such a practice would allow him to test their willingness to comply with his demands, especially that they work long hours for free as volunteers in his office. Though they worked for agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or the Agriculture Department (USDA)—two of his favorites for placing his people—Johnson made it clear to them that they were beholden to him for those jobs and he expected favors to be returned; they knew that their future careers were tied to his success.
Horace Busby came soon after Walter Jenkins, and later Jake Pickle, George Reedy, Cliff Carter, Bill Moyers, and Malcolm Wallace. Wallace, like Connally, had been president of the student union at UT. Unlike the conservative Connally, however, Wallace was a socialist—in fact, a Marxist. His psychological issues quickly become apparent as his association with his boss developed. Wallace exemplified how Johnson would exploit the weaknesses he perceived in other men; in this case, the results would be deadly for a number of people on the wrong side of Lyndon B. Johnson.
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p; Johnson’s World War II “Service”
After Pearl Harbor, Lyndon Johnson decided his political career would benefit from a stint in the navy. He visited Admiral Chester Nimitz, a Hill Country native, who signed the forms necessary to install Johnson as a lieutenant commander, even though he had no training or experience to justify such a position. He originally wanted to be assigned a job in Washington but went to Undersecretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal to procure orders to conduct an inspection tour of West Coast training programs with his administrative assistant, John Connally, who had enlisted in the Naval Reserve. Johnson’s lack of training caused his failure to salute an admiral. His reflection was characteristically self-absorbed: “I did not fully appreciate that my uniform completely concealed my status as a congressman … the fact that I looked like any other junior officer and … was expected to salute my superiors.”70 Perhaps Johnson felt the admiral had erred in not saluting him, Congressman Lyndon Johnson. Johnson spent several weeks in Los Angeles where one of his financial supporters, who was counsel for Paramount Pictures, arranged for Johnson and John Connally to attend screenings and parties and long sessions with a Hollywood photographer and voice coach to help Johnson improve his speaking style and posing skills; meanwhile, dispatches came in describing the fighting going on in such places as the Bataan Peninsula and the Makassar Straits.71
Apparently, the contrast between Johnson’s wartime experiences and the battles being waged in faraway places caused his mistress, Alice Glass, to become disillusioned with his character. After five months of politicking and partying on the West Coast, Johnson tried to legitimize his responsibilities by securing an overseas assignment; his secretaries back in Washington had been telling his constituents that though his present location was unknown, he was en route to the war zone in the Pacific. He was finally dispatched with two other congressmen as “observers,” a capacity that made them useful to General Douglas MacArthur in relation to his own political necessities; evidently, Johnson subjected MacArthur to his famous treatment at some point, given the bounty he would bring back to Washington.
Johnson arrived early in June in an area of northern Australia that was considered a combat zone. Commander Johnson, like the other observers, accompanied a squadron assigned to bomb an enemy airfield. The mission of June 9 was code-named Tow Nine and involved eleven twin-engine bombers known as Martin B-26A Marauders of the Twenty-second Bombardment Group from Port Moresby, New Guinea. Their target was Lae airdrome, an important Japanese installation on New Guinea’s northern coast. At this point, two completely different stories of Johnson’s short ride in a Marauder emerge. The first is Johnson’s own, which was subsequently reshaped into an account (The Mission, by Martin Caidin and Edward Hymoff) that was published in 1964 just as he was preparing his run for the presidency. Caidin was an already-established aviation writer, best known for books on space exploration and WWII in the Pacific; Johnson had doubtlessly heard of his books and apparently commissioned him to create another one.
The second version of Johnson’s ride on a Marauder couldn’t have differed more from The Mission, but considering that it was told by veterans who were actually there, it is the more believable story. The following quotations regarding the story of Johnson’s mission, and the Silver Star controversially awarded to him, were taken from the B-26 Marauder Historical Society’s website:72
The fact is LBJ never got within sight of Japanese forces. His mission, like so much of his life, was a lie … The exact origins of the contrived decoration remain unknown. Major General R. K. Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff, made the award in MacArthur’s name on June 18, 1942, just nine days after the alleged episode. The following day Brigadier General W. F. Marquat wrote Johnson, filling LBJ’s request for a signed copy of the citation. In his cover letter, Marquat stated, “Of course, your outstanding bravery in volunteering for a so-called suicide mission in order to get a first-hand view of what our Army fliers go through has been the subject of much favorable comment since your departure. It is indeed a great government we have when members of the Congress take THOSE chances in order to better serve their fellow men in the legislative bodies. You surely earned your decoration and I am so happy about your having received the award.”
Clearly, the perception of Johnson’s valor as characterized in General Marguat’s letter was not shared by aircrews at the sharp end. Far from the “suicide mission” the general alluded to, 22nd Bomb Group airmen had a far more realistic attitude toward Lae. Records and combat veterans attest that the group lost twice as many aircraft over Rabaul, the naval-air bastion on New Britain, as at Lae. Colonel Leon G. Lewis, USAF (Ret), who flew with Lieutenant Hayes in Shamrock, recalled, “The targets, Lae and Salamaua, were milk runs; on the other hand, Rabaul was a tough mission. We were not aware at the time of Lyndon Johnson’s write-up for the Silver Star; they were scarce for aircrews.”
The decoration remains a sore point with many 22nd Bomb Group veterans. The Hare’s crew chief, retired Master Sergeant W. H. Harrison, said, “As to the strangeness of LBJ’s Silver Star … no other crew member aboard 1488 received one.” Equally adamant was the Hare’s regular gunner Robert Marshal, who said, “We didn’t know (LBJ) was awarded the Silver Star until the book came out. We didn’t like it. If he got it, then so should everyone else on the mission.” In truth, if any decoration was awarded the various observers on the mission, it should have been the Air Medal. Ordinarily presented for five or more missions, it was regarded by aviators as an “I-was-there” award; a means of setting apart those who have performed a combat function. Award of the Silver Star—even had Johnson’s citations been accurate—was an insult to every man who earned the medal. (emphasis added)
The two leading biographers of Johnson, Robert Caro and Robert Dallek, commented on Johnson’s Silver Star in a CNN report, The Story of LBJ’s Silver Star, by Jamie McIntyre (CNN military affairs correspondent) and Jim Barnett (CNN producer):
Robert Caro: The most you can say about Lyndon Johnson and his Silver Star is that it is surely one of the most undeserved Silver Stars in history. Because [even] if you accept everything that he said, he was still in action for no more than thirteen minutes and only as an observer. Men who flew many missions, brave men, never got a Silver Star … I would say that it’s an issue of exaggerations. He said that he flew on many missions, not one mission. He said that the crew members, the other members of the Air Force group, were so admiring of him that they called him Raider Johnson. Neither of these things are true.
Robert Dallek: What I concluded was that there was an agreement, a deal made between LBJ and Gen. MacArthur. And the deal was Johnson would get this medal, which somebody later said was the least deserved and most talked about medal in American military history. And MacArthur, in return, had a pledge from Johnson that he would lobby FDR to provide greater resources for the southwest Pacific theater … It matters that the record is accurate because it speaks volumes about the man, about his character, about his place in history, about judgments that historians make on him. Is he to be trusted?
When Johnson returned from his war experience, he initially told others that he didn’t deserve the medal, claiming that he wouldn’t wear it. He even wrote a letter of formal refusal, stating “I cannot in good conscience accept the decoration” and had the letter typed, ready for his signature, but it was filed away, unsigned and never to be mailed.73 Instead, he arranged to have the Silver Star presented to him in public, several times. He purchased a jeweler’s quality battle ribbon emblematic of the Silver Star at a store in Washington and wore it often in public appearances; once at an American Legion post in Fort Worth, he had the commander pin it on him while “a crowd of Legionnaires cheered and Johnson stood before them, head bowed, face somber, hardly able to blink back the tears.”74 To make sure people recognized it, he would place his left hand on his lapel and pull it forward and back, waving it, as he extolled his own heroic and patriotic, death-defying actions during his twe
nty-minute airplane ride.
Joe M. Kilgore, a Texan who worked for Lyndon Johnson for twenty years, finally realized that Johnson would believe only that which he wanted to, that Johnson often mistook his delusions for truth. Some instances, such as his grandfather’s supposed death at the Alamo, were relatively harmless; others, like his belief that he and he alone knew how to beat back the Communists in Vietnam, were highly destructive.75 According to Kilgore, Johnson went from feigning surprise at receiving the Silver Star, and uttering doubts about whether it was deserved, to complaining that it was “only” the Silver Star; he came to believe he had been shortchanged and should have been granted a superior medal—the Medal of Honor: “He believed it totally.”76 Johnson’s propensity to become convinced that the lie was the truth, no matter what, would manifest over and over throughout his career.
The Johnson Recruits—Class of 1948–49
Johnson recruited three of his men during the tumultuous year of 1948, concurrently with the infamous campaign that culminated in his successful theft of the election to the Senate. Johnson met Cliff Carter in 1937 and got to know him further in 1946 when Carter became involved in Olin Teague’s congressional campaign. Apparently Carter had impressed Johnson because two years later, as Johnson prepared for his Senate campaign, he called Carter to ask him to be the campaign manager for the Sixth District; thus, their association began in May, 1948. Carter furnished an oral interview explaining how he was appointed to a position of U.S. marshal he not only did not solicit but did not even want:77