by Joshua Zeitz
In 1911, a government commission: Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color, 78–82.
“The welfare of the United States”: Gillon, “That’s Not What We Meant to Do,” 163–64.
Immigration Act of 1924: Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color, 82–84.
Nazi race policy: Ibid., 101.
“a policy of deliberate discrimination”: Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 129.
The new law: Gillon, “That’s Not What We Meant to Do.”
In signing the law: Ibid., 168–69, 173.
By 1972: Ibid., 182.
Model Cities program: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 317–22.
higher education: Bridget Terry Long, “Supporting Higher Education,” in Bailey and Danziger, Legacies of the War on Poverty, 97.
spending on postsecondary student expenses: Ibid., 95.
“The important role”: Ibid., 101.
more middle-income students: Ibid., 95, 103–4.
federal grants account: Weissman, “Here’s Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free.”
“children whose nutritional”: Jane Waldfogel, “The Safety Net for Families with Children,” in Bailey and Danziger, Legacies of the War on Poverty, 154–55.
subsidized food stamp program: Ibid., 155–58.
Child Nutrition Act: Ibid., 158–59; Child poverty rates based on American Community Survey Briefs (U. S. Census Bureau), November 2011.
roughly three hundred such measures: Woods, Prisoners of Hope, 231–34.
“No longer is peripheral action”: Ibid., 235.
“Considering that the thrust”: Bornet, Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, 128–29.
Children’s Television Workshop: Stark, Glued to the Set, 150–51.
advertising techniques: Ibid., 152.
Not everyone shared the enthusiasm: Ibid., 153–54.
“dreamy vague proposals”: Woods, Prisoners of Hope, 57.
“living intellectually off”: Schlesinger, Journals, 232–36.
“Mr. President, this has been a remarkable”: Leuchtenburg, “Visit with LBJ.”
Chapter 10: Guns and Butter
“I don’t want to be known”: Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 736.
had heard of Vietnam: See Herring, America’s Longest War.
“If I don’t go in now”: Zelizer, Arsenal of Democracy, 193–94.
In World War II: Appy, Working-Class War, 27.
“all painted in their designer colors”: Baker, Nam, 33.
“you could cut the fear”: Appy, Working-Class War, 123.
a grim battleground: Engelhardt, End of Victory Culture, 177–78.
“I went to Vietnam”: Terry, Bloods, 243, 251, 255–56.
American war crimes: New York Times, April 6, 1971, 18; New York Times, April 12, 1971, 5; New York Times, April 11, 1971, E1; New York Times, April 9, 1971, 10.
“out there, lacking restraints”: Appy, Working-Class War, 252.
“I gave them a good boy”: Andrew Huebner, “The Embattled Americans: A Cultural History of Soldiers and Veterans, 1941–1982” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 2004), 329.
“I was shivering”: Leroy V. Quintana, “Old Geezers . . . Playing Taps on a Tape Recorder,” in Appy, Patriots, 538–39.
“it was never easy to guess”: Michael Herr, Dispatches (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977), 88.
They also turned to drugs: Appy, Working-Class War, 283–85.
over thirty thousand servicemen: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, “Vietnam Conflict—U.S. Military Forces in Vietnam and Casualties Incurred: 1961 to 1972,” table 590, 369.
trap of their own making: VanDeMark, Into the Quagmire, 154–55.
“credibility gap”: Unger, Best of Intentions, 240.
“The old C&O canal”: VanDeMark, Into the Quagmire, 155.
“simply not believed”: Unger, Best of Intentions, 202, 240–41.
playing hardball: “Is Ill Will Behind Piece ‘60 Minutes’ Plans to Do on PBS’ Bill Moyers?,” Baltimore Sun, May 29, 1992.
“The credibility gap was purely”: Jacobsen OH, May 27, 1969, 36.
“less and less successful”: McPherson OH, Jan. 16, 1969, 1.
“You just tell these reporters”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 165.
atmosphere of diminishing trust: Memorandum, McPherson to LBJ, Nov. 30, 1965; Memorandum, Carol Welch to Secretaries to the Special Assistants, June 21, 1966, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
thinly camouflaged contempt: “White House Curbs on Newsmen Slowly Mount,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 16, 1966; “White House Drops Recording of Calls,” Los Angles Times, Jan. 20, 1966.
“I did,” Califano told him: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 172.
“it was still the general economic opinion”: Schultze OH, April 10, 1969, 3–5.
“myth that education”: Woods, Prisoners of Hope, 241.
McNamara informed the president: Ibid., 240; Matusow, Unraveling of America, 160; Schultze OH, April 10, 1969, 10–11.
role of budget director: Schultze OH, April 10, 1969, 49.
thankless task: Ibid., 12.
“He had no stomach for it”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 249.
“Johnson pushed me”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 131.
jawboned labor and business: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 305.
“within the administration”: Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement, 133.
“complicated and difficult problem”: Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant, 307.
“nickel-and-dime”: Schultze OH, April 10, 1969, 24.
“great expectations”: Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement, 108–9.
sharp memorandum: Graham, Uncertain Triumph, 129, 139.
“not closing the door”: Memorandum, McPherson to Moyers, Dec. 13, 1965, “Bill Moyers,” box 51, Office Files of McPherson.
pressure from powerful liberals: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 111–12.
Johnson snapped: Ibid., 142.
the unemployment rate: “Consumer Price Index, 1913–,” Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis; “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor.
“was taking a toll on his credibility”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 143.
many stalwart defenders: Cater OH, May 26, 1974.
“tired and disheartened”: Telegraph, Moyers to LBJ, Dec. 1965, “Poverty,” box 7, Office Files of Califano.
“take a rather sizeable”: Memorandum, Shriver to LBJ, Dec. 22, 1967, “Memos to the President, 12/22–12/31/1967,” box 8, Office Files of Califano.
implored the president: Gillette, Launching the War on Poverty, 206.
“a lot of the Congressional dissatisfaction”: Memorandum, McPherson to Moyers, July 22, 1966, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
“massive school building program”: Memorandum, McPherson to Moyers, June 29, 1966, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
“there was no reason to believe”: Memorandum, McPherson to George Christian, Dec. 28, 1966, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
“move in liberal circles”: Memorandum, Califano to Busby, June 22, 1965, “Joe Califano,” box 18, Office Files of Busby.
stony resistance: Lemann, Promised Land, 187.
“How nice it is to have”: Unger, Best of Intentions, 202.
“neurotic and demagogic”: Memorandum, McPherson to Moyers, Oct. 10, 1965, “Bill Moyers,” box 51, Office Files of McPherson.
“a beautiful
and creative”: Memorandum, McPherson to Moyers, July 18, 1966, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
“Stable, rapid, noncyclical, noninflationary”: Collins, More, 59–60.
“Let no one doubt”: Ibid., 55–57, 58.
“snot-nosed little son-of-a-bitch”: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 66.
“sonny boy”: Ibid., 34.
“you’ve got to learn to handle”: Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 96.
“Lyndon Johnson has compared”: Caro, Passage of Power, 106.
“just awful . . . inexcusable”: Ibid., 247.
“we just insulted”: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 104–5.
“Bobby symbolized everything”: Caro, Passage of Power, 249.
“When this fellow looks”: Ibid., 228.
“I don’t understand you”: Ibid., 229.
“Our President was a gentleman”: Ibid., 243.
“always afraid of Bobby”: Ibid., 246.
“What does [Johnson] know”: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 176.
“It’s too little”: Lemann, Promised Land, 187.
The empathy was real: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 130–31.
“not want to upset the entire program”: Ibid., 300.
attempted to find middle ground: Ibid., 265–67, 289–90.
his seeming dual loyalty: Ibid., 291–92.
KENNEDY: HAWK, DOVE, OR CHICKEN: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 2:836.
It did not escape LBJ: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 296–99.
“interesting parallels”: “No. 2 Texan in the White House,” New York Times, April 3, 1966.
urged Johnson essentially to ignore RFK: Memorandum, McPherson to LBJ, June 24, 1965, “RFK,” box 21, Office Files of McPherson.
the president’s obsession with Kennedy: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 357–61.
official visit to Paris: “Kennedy ‘Signal’ Echoes in Capitol,” New York Times, Feb. 12, 1967.
“your State Department”: Shesol, Mutual Contempt, 366–67.
Chapter 11: Backlash
evening of August 11: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 61–63.
ghetto conditions: Zeitz, White Ethnic New York, 148–52; Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 203–18; Patterson, Grand Expectations, 30–31.
“I would just like to say”: Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement, 149.
George Meany: Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 90–93.
liberal bastions like New York City: Wilder, Covenant with Color, 169, 173; Freeman, Working-Class New York, 180–81; Glazer and Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, 30–31.
“commodity riots”: Cohen, Consumers’ Republic, 376–80.
They saw minority neighborhoods: Jonathan Rieder, Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 24, 83.
national crime rate increased: Walsh, “Stretching His Arms Out to Either Side,” 7.
annual murder rate: Mason, Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority, 21.
rights of the accused: Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet.
Other rulings: Jenkins, Decade of Nightmares, 42–44.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children: Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement, 25.
rolls almost doubled: Patterson, Grand Expectations, 672–73; Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, 321–38; Jackson and Johnson, Protest by the Poor, 75–207; Patterson, Freedom Is Not Enough, 96.
“We’ve got to end this”: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 51.
constituent mail: Perlstein, Nixonland, 107.
Douglas’s home state was ground zero: Ibid., 117–20.
“We mostly talked about civil rights”: Memorandum, McPherson to Moyers, Aug. 15, 1966, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
a correspondent for Time: Memorandum, McPherson to Moyers, Sept. 20, 1966, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
“Who is responsible for the breakdown”: “If Mob Rule Takes Hold,” U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 15, 1966.
“Last summer I went to Mississippi”: Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 87.
Prior to World War II: Ibid., 95.
“They always seem to be wanting”: Ibid., 97.
in loco parentis: Ibid., 99.
feeling of oppression: Ibid., 101.
2.5 million men served: Appy, Working-Class War, 17–18.
Roughly 25 percent: Ibid., 24–26.
“When I was in high school”: Baker, Nam, 13.
Among enlisted men who fought: Appy, Working-Class War, 28.
Unemployment rates for young men: Ibid., 45.
“You try to get a job”: New York Times, July 12, 1967, 4.
“I was in school”: Appy, Working-Class War, 46–47.
“Most poor and working-class kids”: James Lafferty, “No Draft Board Ever Failed to Meet Its Quota,” in Appy, Patriots, 165.
Because of the built-in bias: For a more positive view of the Selective Service System, see Flynn, Draft, 188–223.
Where a man lived: Appy, Working-Class War, 12–14.
compulsory national service: Memorandum, McPherson to Califano, Nov. 12, 1965, “Califano,” box 50, Office Files of McPherson.
ended the deferment system: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, “Vietnam Conflict—U.S. Military Forces in Vietnam and Casualties Incurred: 1961 to 1972,” table 590, 369.
“most people in the middle”: Memorandum, McPherson to George Christian, May 12, 1967, “Press Talks,” box 32, Office Files of McPherson.
“Here were these kids”: Rieder, Canarsie, 157.
“I’m bitter”: Coles, Middle Americans, 131–34.
“You won’t have Nixon to kick around”: Small, Presidency of Richard Nixon, 22.
During his eight years in office: Perlstein, Nixonland, 72.
“I don’t know, I’ve never played”: Darman, Landslide, 133.
Yet Reagan had been an avid student of politics: Ibid., 137.
“If you and I don’t do this”: Ibid., 143.
“How much are they paying you”: Evans, Education of Ronald Reagan, 63.
“California is the most populous state”: Darman, Landslide, 311.
“We’ve just got to go after him”: Ibid.
“If anyone chooses to vote”: Perlstein, Nixonland, 113.
He avoided Goldwater’s angry dogmatism: Darman, Landslide, 295, 312.
“I disagree with almost everything”: Perlstein, Nixonland, 113.
adroit at channeling backlash: Ibid., 71, 83, 113.
“one of the great victories”: Matthew Dallek, Right Moment, 51.
Proposition 14: Perlstein, Nixonland, 91–92.
On September 14: Matusow, Unraveling of America, 207.
“Go . . . into any home”: Ibid., 214.
“Now the wraps are off”: Darman, Landslide, 289.
By 1966, a small but influential group: Steinfels, Neoconservatives.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Patterson, Freedom Is Not Enough, 11–13, 15.
critical of Aid to Families with Dependent Children: Ibid., 11–13, 15–17.
Of equal inspiration: Ibid., 28–35.
controversial and flawed report: Ibid., 54–55.
equality of outcome: McPherson, Political Education, 343.
how to handle the report: Patterson, Freedom Is Not Enough, 47–63.
took great umbrage: McPherson, Political Education, 342–43.
growing skepticism: Unger, Best of Intentions, 195; Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement, 97–102.
challenge to the intellectual foundation: Andrew, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, 124–28.
a multifront w
ar: Unger, Best of Intentions, 157–58.
Shriver’s handwritten resignation: Stossel, Sarge, 452–67.
Chapter 12: You Aren’t a Man in Your Own Right
“extremely demanding”: “Working for Johnson Is Hard but Rewarding.”
“more important than a valet”: Roberts, LBJ’s Inner Circle, 82.
“You didn’t take work home”: Valenti OH, March 3, 1971, 32.
“the most stereotyped image”: “The Transition Over,” New York Times, June 13, 1965.
“When the crunches came”: Valenti OH, July 12, 1972, 32.
“What the hell did you say”: Valenti, Very Human President, 94–97.
“love-that-boss”: “It’s Open Season on LBJ.”
Motion Picture Association of America: “How Valenti Hit the Jackpot,” Boston Globe, May 8, 1966.
summoning him to Manila: Valenti, Very Human President, 252–57.
“admired Lyndon Johnson”: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 122–23.
“probably the single greatest influence”: Kalman, Abe Fortas, 224.
“provide our people”: Ibid., 215.
“It seems to me I’m on opposite sides”: McPherson OH, Jan. 16, 1969, 29.
persuaded Fortas to accept: Kalman, Abe Fortas, 243–45.
“The President has got too much respect”: McPherson OH, Jan. 16, 1969, 29–30.
extraordinary even by contemporary standards: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 160–63.
stringent anticrime bill: Ibid., 153–54.
“I was intimidated by the stature”: McPherson OH, April 9, 1969, 15–16.
“We on the White House staff”: “No. 2 Texan in the White House.”
modern-day “Elmer Gantry”: Goldman, Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, 109.
“a rather unfortunate predilection to flattery”: Reedy OH, Dec. 20, 1968, 32.
“They made it appear”: McPherson OH, Jan. 16, 1969.
“developed a relationship”: “No. 2 Texan in the White House.”
“Moyers was always undercutting somebody”: Jacobsen OH, May 27, 1969, 33–36.
“He’s way out in front”: “No. 2 Texan in the White House.”
