Had he lived, Lyndon Johnson would be 100 today. He's been gone more than 35 years, though, and his legacy remains clouded. He is revered by many for his efforts on behalf of black Americans and the poor. He is reviled by many more for escalating the war in Vietnam, a war that would claim more than 58,000 young American lives. He is not a neutral figure.

One thing is clear: Lyndon Johnson was a complex man, a man of tremendous ambition and ego. His political prowess is legendary, as is, perhaps, his ability to rouse the dead to vote for him.

He rose from poverty in a tiny Hill Country town to the highest levels of power, accumulating great wealth along the way. As Senate Majority Leader, Johnson used his impressive powers of persuasion to hold together a Democratic caucus split over civil rights and other issues. On matters of foreign policy, Johnson worked closely with President Eisenhower, a Republican.

Johnson ran an epic battle with fellow Sen. John F. Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960. When the junior senator from Massachusetts won the nomination, he was almost forced to accept Johnson as his running mate, although the two were never close and were opposites in style.

With Kennedy's assassination, Johnson became president and immediately set out to push through laws that would promote equality for all Americans. He also expanded U.S. involvement in Vietnam, an involvement that would bring about his downfall. After slightly more than four years in the White House, a broken LBJ announced he would not be a candidate for a second full term in 1968.

Johnson left office in January 1969 and all but disappeared from public view. Four years later, Lyndon Johnson was dead. America was still involved in Vietnam, but shortly before Johnson died, President Nixon called LBJ to tell him that a peace accord had been reached.

Even though our feelings about LBJ himself may be mixed, his wife, Lady Bird, was one of the most beloved figures in Texas until her death a year ago.

Thirty-five years after his death, however, Lyndon Johnson himself remains an enigma. We aren't sure what to make of him, but he is ours. He wielded power with a scalpel and with a club. He changed the course of American history, for good and bad.

Lyndon Johnson was larger than life. He was a Texan, perhaps the quintessential Texan.

And, at a time when our nation desperately needs a forceful and effective leader, we miss him.

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3 comment(s) found!

Posted by: Don Bray On: 8/28/2008

Comment Title: LBJ Education President
Lyndon Johnson left a very strong legacy in education, which has the benefit of giving people skills which they can use to help themselves. Many of our buildings on the TAMU campus originated from the education programs of LBJ's Great Society. His great plans were derailed by the Vietnam War. He may have mishandled that situation, but it was not of his making. We can thank the beloved JFK for Vietnam. I was in the Navy when LBJ became president and I thought that finally we have a president who does not speak with an accent!

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Posted by: arnie On: 8/27/2008

Comment Title: LBJ right
LBJ was correct. The southern states moved far right, and the horrid spectacle of the neo-con evangelicals rose and now begin to fall. 50 years is about up and the wiser, more socially and ethically aware Democrats are about to get a good run.

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Posted by: David C. Nelson On: 8/27/2008

Comment Title: Progress Has its Cost
My favorite Johnson story comes from the Pulitzer Prize winning author, the late David Halberstam. In his book on the civil rights movement, The Children, he quotes Johnson's press secretary, Bill Moyers, who found the president uncharacteristically depressed the afternoon LBJ signed the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965. Asking President Johnson why he was so glum after a significant civil rights victory, LBJ replied: "Bill, I've just handed the South to the Republicans for fifty years, certainly for the rest of our life times."

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