by Joshua Zeitz
Buzz spent the evening of December 30: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ, Dec. 30, 1963, WHCF FG 1, LBJ Library.
Elizabeth Wickenden: Lemann, Promised Land, 144; Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 62.
“forces of learning and light”: Caro, Passage of Power, 543–44; Lemann, Promised Land, 144; Stossel, Sarge, 343–45.
“sound like something President Kennedy”: Caro, Passage of Power, 544.
campaign speech at Hyde Park: “The Office of Economic Opportunity During the Administration of Lyndon Johnson: Administrative History,” 7, LBJ Library.
“very often a lack of jobs”: Lyndon Johnson, Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, Jan. 8, 1964, Digital Collections, LBJ Library.
the term “poverty” had been entirely absent: Sundquist, Politics and Policy, 112.
first economic report to Congress: “Office of Economic Opportunity During the Administration of Lyndon Johnson,” 22–24; Andrew, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, 61–62.
“a better phrase”: Sidney M. Milkis, “Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society, and the ‘Twilight’ of the Modern Presidency,” in Milkis and Mileur, Great Society and the High Tide of American Liberalism, 10–11.
“widening participation in prosperity”: “Office of Economic Opportunity During the Administration of Lyndon Johnson,” 16–17.
pace of growth had slowed: Council of Economic Advisers OH, Aug. 1, 1964, 219.
The results were almost instantaneous: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 51–57.
federal revenue increased: Unger, Best of Intentions, 74–75.
Chapter 3: Second Day
“two-shift” day: “Johnson Herd Blends Two,” Newsday, Aug. 22, 1964.
“night reading”: “How the President Lives,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. 4, 1964.
Valenti’s steadfastness: “Boss Reports Valenti Late for the First Time,” Washington Post, Sept. 6, 1964.
“He called me at midnight”: Busby OH, April 23, 1981, 30.
After working from bed: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 42–43.
Valenti read more than 200,000 words: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 108.
“freedom from the white telephone”: McPherson OH, Dec. 19, 1968, 12.
“It’s real Orwellian”: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 42–43.
“Where do they get the stories”: Ibid., 44–45.
“fear-bent sharecroppers”: “It’s Open Season on LBJ,” Newsday, July 17, 1965.
“the head of the duchy”: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 102.
“heavy demands”: “The Men Who Wear the LBJ Brand,” Toronto Globe and Mail, June 16, 1965.
“Frankly, the people around Kennedy”: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 45.
Lillian Reedy: Reedy OH, Feb. 14, 1972, 43.
conflicts began to surface: Cater OH, May 8, 1969, 13.
“Court politics in the White House”: Reedy OH, Dec. 20, 1968, 7.
“interplay of egos”: Valenti OH, July 12, 1972, 17.
“Neither Kennedy nor Johnson”: Valenti, This Time, This Place, 173.
This dynamic led to duplication: Cater OH, May 8, 1969, 13–14.
“deliberately chaotic”: “Johnson’s Men: ‘Valuable Hunks of Humanity.’”
appointments secretary: Valenti OH, Oct. 18, 1969, 27.
“[He] believed it important”: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 117.
“the most accessible President”: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 83.
“been raising the eyebrows”: Ibid., 100.
“Kennedyite of the Kennedyites”: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 112.
in the White House pool: Goodwin, Remembering America.
“Instead of the quantitative liberalism”: Woods, Prisoners of Hope, 54.
“Why not enlarge the theme”: Valenti, Very Human President, 85.
While the White House tested the phrase: Bornet, Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, 101.
“the phrase bothered me”: Milkis, “Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society, and the ‘Twilight’ of the Modern Presidency,” 39n19.
Busby, for his part: Horace Busby, “The Great Society: A New American Dream,” Statements of LBJ, box 106, “5/22/64 Remarks of the President at the University of Michigan,” LBJ Library.
In a tart memo: Memorandum, Moyers to Valenti, May 18, 1964, WHCF/SP, box 161, LBJ Library.
“This is a political year”: Memorandum, Moyers and Goodwin to LBJ, May 18, 1964, WHCF/SP, box 161, LBJ Library.
Riding back to Washington: Miller, Lyndon, 377.
“never really liked the term”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 83.
identified a divide: Reedy OH, June 7, 1975, 63–64.
“militant conscience”: “The President’s Closest Shadow,” South China Sunday Post-Herald, May 17, 1964.
“Mr. Busby would not seem conservative”: “Men Who Wear the LBJ Brand.”
“clashed very early”: Valenti OH, July 12, 1972, 15–16.
“I am not the praying type”: Memorandum, Busby to Liz Carpenter, Jan. 12, 1965, “Memos for Liz Carpenter,” box 18, Office Files of Busby.
displays of “evangelistic fervor”: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ, n.d. [ca. May 1964], “Memos to the President, May 1964,” box 52, Office Files of Busby.
“a bully good pulpit”: Memorandum (“The President’s Speech on the Great Society”), May 21, 1964, WHCF/SP, box 161.
“we are enjoying abundance”: Memorandum Outline: Suggested Theme of Remarks for Use at Proposed News Conference, Saturday, May 16, 1964, “Memos to the President, May 1964,” box 52, Office Files of Busby.
“while comfort has come to us”: Horace Busby, “The Great Society: A New American Dream,” Statements of LBJ, box 106, “5/22/64 Remarks of the President at the University of Michigan,” LBJ Library.
“Great Society rests on abundance”: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ (“Image Assessment and Suggested Activities”), n.d. [ca. May 1964], box 52, Office Files of Busby.
“economic well-being”: Memorandum, Cater to LBJ, Aug. 3, 1965, “Memos to the President: 5/64–8/64,” box 13B, Office Files of Cater.
“rejecting efforts to label”: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ, May 19, 1964, “Memos to the President, May 1964,” box 52, Office Files of Busby.
“Dick, I love you”: Risen, Bill of the Century, 138.
“one of the least prejudiced”: Reedy OH, Dec. 19, 1968, 28.
“Kennedy had made an intellectual appeal”: Risen, Bill of the Century, 62.
“If I were you, Charlie”: Telephone transcript: Johnson, Halleck, Dec. 24, 1963, time unknown, Johnson, Presidential Recordings.
“I’ve been around a long time”: Risen, Bill of the Century, 155.
“You’re with me!”: Telephone transcript: Johnson, Byrd, April 10, 1964, 4:55 p.m., Johnson, Presidential Recordings.
“had been able to hold the line”: Risen, Bill of the Century, 5.
“You couldn’t turn around”: Ibid., 148–49; Zelizer, Fierce Urgency of Now, 112–14.
speech at the College of the Holy Cross: Zelizer, Fierce Urgency of Now, 127–28.
“Desegregation was absolutely”: Sokol, There Goes My Everything, 8.
“How can I destroy the lingering faces”: Ibid., 99.
“racism permeated every aspect”: Ibid., 6.
“You have not lived”: Ibid., 7.
“This thing here is a revolution”: Ibid., 8.
“As law-abiding Americans”: Ibid., 191.
Julius Manger: Risen, Bill of the Century, 192.
only 10 percent: Keyssar, Right to Vote, 212.
readying federal departments to issue sweeping rules: Memorandum, Douglass Cater to LBJ, May 26, 1964, “Memos to the President: 5/64–8/64,” box 13B, Office Files of Cater.
Moyers found Johnson in a glum mood:
Moyers, “Second Thoughts.”
Chapter 4: Revolutionary Activity
“That’s a decent thing to do”: “How Kennedy Won the Black Vote,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 15, 1988.
“He was just enormously impressive”: Redmon, Come as You Are, 83.
“Shriver had the kind of charisma”: Peters, Tilting at Windmills, 134.
“Bill Moyers and I have been living on the Hill”: Stossel, Sarge, 215, 242.
“Sarge was no close pal brother-in-law”: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 169.
“The glands”: Stossel, Sarge, 347–351.
“Through all of this period”: Mankiewicz OH, April 18, 1969, 9.
“like he’s got a bomb”: Stossel, Sarge, 386.
Johnson would later salute: Ibid., 363.
“Shriver’s own temperament”: Sundquist OH, April 7, 1969, 16, 36.
“the notion of organizing people”: Mankiewicz OH, April 18, 1969, 11–12.
“One of the choices”: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 107.
salon-style dinners at Timberlawn: Ibid., 192.
“crazy about these ideas”: Stossel, Sarge, 247.
“any radical shift of authority”: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 91.
“an essentially revolutionary activity”: Mankiewicz OH, April 18, 1969, 12.
“He’s got heads of departments”: “Lyndon Johnson and Bill Moyers on 7 August 1964,” Conversation WH6408-12-4815, 4816, 4817, 4818.
“Sarge’s idea of administration”: “The Poverty Non-war,” Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1964.
“Sarge . . . and many others in the Congress”: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 241.
elected officials from across the country: Stossel, Sarge, 411; Andrew, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, 73.
“using public funds to instruct”: Stossel, Sarge, 408.
“We are experiencing a class struggle”: Lemann, Promised Land, 165–67; Andrew, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, 73.
“Both of the agencies I’m running”: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 247.
“What in the hell”: Lemann, Promised Land, 167.
“Mayors all over the United States”: Ibid., 165.
“the program got off the ground”: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 103.
“I think it is a Liberal view”: Horace Busby, “Memorandum Outline: Suggested Themes of Remarks for Use at Proposed News Conference, Saturday, May 16, 1964,” “Memos to the President, May 1964,” box 52, Office Files of Busby.
In 1977, a survey: Blakeslee, “Community Action Program”; Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, 273–74.
“vast network of sergeants”: Moynihan, Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding, 130.
government employment helped lift: Thernstrom and Thernstrom, America in Black and White, 188–89.
Job Corps, a program modeled: Unger, Best of Intentions, 174–75.
George Foreman: Stossel, Sarge, 398–401.
generated ample cause for concern: Unger, Best of Intentions, 174–78.
Joe Alsop: Stossel, Sarge, 418–19.
prepare and launch a summer pilot program: Sugarman OH, March 14, 1969, 12–16.
To train the summer staff: Ibid., 17–19.
criticisms miss the mark: Ibid., 14–15; Andrew, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, 76–77.
“I don’t know of many other instances”: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 279–80.
Chapter 5: Frontlash
Lou Harris described for readers: Darman, Landslide, 175–76.
the term “white backlash”: White, Making of the President, 1964, 245.
“spoke of the practice known as ‘bussing’”: Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 85–86.
“If we aren’t careful”: Darman, Landslide, 176.
After launching his campaign: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 317–21; Carter, Politics of Rage, 202–3.
initial polling had Wallace: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 321, 342–44; White, Making of the President, 1964, 245.
laced with crude appeals to fear: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 326.
Between 1910 and 1970: Lemann, Promised Land, 6.
Racially restrictive housing laws: See Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, chap. 11; Connolly, Ghetto Grows in Brooklyn; Wilder, Covenant with Color, chap. 9.
“They are mostly Catholic”: Memorandum, Valenti to LBJ, Aug. 4, 1964, Handwriting File, box 3.
Richard Scammon: Memorandum, Scammon to Bill Moyers, July 21, 1964, box 3, Office Files of Moyers.
Buzz believed that there was ample room: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ, July 13, 1964, box 52, Office Files of Busby.
“The hour is late”: Zeitz, “Craziest Conventions in U.S. History.”
What one historian later dubbed: Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin, 97–123.
“likes to think of itself”: Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 31.
“Goldwater has a basic appeal”: Memorandum, Moyers to LBJ, Aug. 11, 1964, box 10, Office Files of Moyers.
Goldwater deplored the New Deal: Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 23, 28, 47, 55, 75–76, 84.
Teddy White observed: White, Making of the President, 1964, 108–10.
“We’ve got superpatriots”: Ibid., 125.
an obscure congressman: “Man in the News,” New York Times, July 17, 1964.
“complete zero”: Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 221.
“just nutty as a fruitcake”: Ibid., 69.
Buzz urged the president: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ, July 19, 1964, box 52, Office Files of Busby.
“the attack should be broadened”: Memorandum, Horace Busby to LBJ, Sept. 28, 1964, box 52, Office Files of Busby.
Teddy White later: Making of the President, 1964, 367–370.
“We’re selling the President”: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 433.
The spots that DDB created: Ibid., 432–34.
“Daisy Girl”: Ibid., 413–14; White, Making of the President, 1964, 339.
“soundest national approach”: Memorandum, Scammon to Moyers, July 31, 1964, box 3, Office Files of Moyers.
“frontlash”: Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 190–92.
pursued their opponent without mercy: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 435; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 204.
central message of the president’s campaign: Darman, Landslide, 197.
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak observed: Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 137.
“Right now, the biggest asset”: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 436.
an operation almost unprecedented: Memorandum, Moyers to LBJ, Aug. 15, 1964, box 10, Office Files of Moyers.
Jim Rowe took leave: Memorandum, Moyers to LBJ, Aug. 11, 1964, box 10, Office Files of Moyers.
“Not since the 1920s”: Johnson, All the Way, 206.
“a hymn-singing group”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, 456–57.
“all dressed up”: Joshua Zeitz, “Democratic Debacle,” American Heritage, June/July 2004.
“I always had the feeling”: Ibid.
“if you value your party”: Kotz, Judgment Days, 205.
“They’re Democrats!”: Ibid, 218.
concentrate more effort on the South: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ, May 22, 1964, box 52, Office Files of Busby.
Lady Bird Johnson insisted: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 463–65.
the speech left reporters “gasping”: Leuchtenburg, White House Looks South, 321.
“respect and admiration”: Branch, Pillar of Fire, 515.
Earlier in the year: Updegrove, “When LBJ and Goldwater Agreed to Keep Race out of the Campaign.”
a wider constellation of grievances: New Republic, Oct. 31, 1964.
Walter Jenkins had been detained: Beschloss, Reaching for Glory, 72–80.
In a striking conversation: LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson, 9:12 a.m., tape WH6410.11, no. 5895, LBJ Recordings.
“a case of combat fatigue”: Perlstein, Before the Storm, 489–90.
Miller asked rhetorically: Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 263.
“likely to become Democratic converts”: Ibid., 246.
“not a normal American politician”: Darman, Landslide, 172.
Chapter 6: A Frustrating Paradox
Joe Califano later recalled: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 17–24.
Teddy White remembered: White, Making of the President, 1964, 54.
Horace Busby remarked: Memorandum, Busby to Carpenter, Feb. 2, 1965, “Memos for Liz Carpenter,” box 18, Office Files of Busby.
The Oval Office: Valenti OH, March 3, 1971, 9.
Walton transformed: “Their Home Away from Home,” Washington Post, July 18, 1965.
“a frustrating paradox”: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 112.
stumbled across Bill Moyers: Reedy OH, Dec. 19, 1968, 28–29.
When Reedy entered the hospital: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 113.
“Poor George”: Ibid., 114.
“more erudite”: Ibid.
“tended to view reporters”: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 120.
regularly savaged Barry Goldwater: “Goldwater Ready to Meet Johnson on Race Tensions,” New York Times, July 21, 1964; Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 140.
the president faulted Reedy: Reedy OH, Dec. 19, 1968, 33, 40.
“The White House press corps”: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 112.
“press was growing increasingly suspicious”: “Presidency: Press Criticism Overflows,” Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1965.
“an inquiry of Mr. Valenti”: “Johnson’s Men: ‘Valuable Hunks of Humanity.’”
“George Reedy was a Press Secretary”: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 122.
Asked in later years: Reedy OH, Dec. 19, 1968, 33.
out of step with Moyers and Valenti: Robert Dallek, Camelot’s Court, 115–17.
“$600,000”: Reedy OH, Dec. 19, 1968, 37.
Alan Otten: “The President’s Problems,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 6, 1964.
Merriman Smith of UPI: “It’s Open Season on LBJ.”
“relaxed demeanor”: Memorandum, Busby to LBJ, April 16, 1964, “Press Conference Memos to the President,” box 14, Office Files of Busby.
