Oath of office aboard Air Force One (1963)
Sworn in by Judge Sarah T. Hughes at Love Field, Dallas, with Jacqueline Kennedy beside him
US Presidents · 20th century
Lyndon B. Johnson
1908–1973 · American
Democratic
In office: 1963–1969
Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president, took office on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. A formidable former Senate Majority Leader, he passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Great Society programmes including Medicare, but his escalation of the Vietnam War led him to decline to seek re-election in 1968.
How to spot them
- ▸LBJ; sworn in aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field
- ▸The Great Society and the War on Poverty
- ▸Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; escalation in Vietnam
- ▸'The Johnson treatment'; a Texas ranch; family members all with the initials LBJ
In office
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (1964)
Outlawed discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex or national origin
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)
Congressional authority for military action in Vietnam
The 'Daisy' advertisement (1964)
Campaign ad of a girl picking petals before a nuclear explosion, against Barry Goldwater
The Great Society and the War on Poverty (1964–1966)
Programmes including Head Start, food stamps and federal aid to education
The Voting Rights Act and the creation of Medicare and Medicaid (1965)
Ended discriminatory voting practices; established federal health cover for the elderly and poor
Announcement that he would not seek re-election (1968)
Made in a televised address on 31 March 1968
Key ideas
- The 'Johnson treatment': intense personal persuasion used as Senate Majority Leader
- The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended national-origins quotas
Quick-fire facts
- •36th president; born near Stonewall, Texas
- •Sarah T. Hughes remains the only woman to have sworn in a president
- •Won the 1964 election against Barry Goldwater in a landslide
- •Appointed Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice (1967)
- •His wife Lady Bird and daughters Lynda Bird and Luci Baines all shared the initials LBJ
- •Protesters chanted 'Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?'
- •Robert Caro's multi-volume biography includes Master of the Senate
- •Died on 22 January 1973 at his Texas ranch
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Sources
- Miller Center, University of Virginia — Lyndon B. Johnson
- Robert A. Caro — The Years of Lyndon Johnson