Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973)
I. Introduction
- •the culmination of the "imperial presidency" and the welfare state
- •both trends brought into question by the Vietnam war
II. Johnson's career
- •Youth
- •early political career
- •member of staff of Congressman from Texas (1931)
- •married Claudia Alta Taylor ["Lady Bird"] (1934)
- •director of National Youth Administration in Texas (1935-1937)
- •House of Representatives (1937-1948)
- •Navy (1941-1942)
- •Senate (1948-1960) - Minority Leader (1954-1956) - Majority
Leader (1956-1960)
- •Vice President (1960-1963)
- •President (1963-1969)
- •Public Accommodations Act (1964)
- •Voting Rights Act (1965)
- •"war on poverty" [Economic Opportunity Act (1964)]
- •election of 1964
- •"Great Society"
- •Medicare (1965)
- •federal aid to education (1965)
- •rural development (1965)
- •urban reconstruction (1966)
- •war in Vietnam
- •from 16,000 to 500,000 soldiers
- •casualties and dissent
- •the "credibility gap"
- •inflation and the Great Society
- •the Tet offensive (Jan. 1968)
- •Eugene McCarthy and the New Hampshire primary (Mar. 1968)
- •the decision not to run for reelection
III. Conclusion
- •LBJ inherited a presidency strengthened by the New Deal, World War
II, and the cold war
- •He expected that his Great Society would be the largest expansion of
federal social welfare programs since the New Deal
- •But he also inherited a war in Vietnam that he didn't understand and
couldn't control
- •In the end, the war undermined faith in the presidency and helped to
raise serious doubts about the idea of the federal government as the
source of social welfare