 Good evening. We're on the air again with another edition of Patience on the News. Every time we begin, I usually allude to the number of years we've been doing this. And I think last time I said it was 14 years, and I think we're getting close to 15 years. But we've done a lot of shows. I think maybe 125 or 130 of these shows we've had many famous people, none more famous than the guy we're going to have on tonight. He's a dear friend of mine. We've known each other for 55 years. His name is Tom Johnson, W. Thomas Johnson. Tom Johnson was CEO of CNN for many years, retired from CNN. Prior to that, he was the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, publisher of the Dallas Times Herald. And prior to that, when he was a very, very young man, very young, he was executive assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson. I met Tom when he was in the first group of White House Fellows. Many of you have heard of the White House Fellows Program. It began in 1965. Tom was in the first group of 15 White House Fellows who came to Washington for a year to learn about the government and to educate themselves and, I suppose, educate others. And Tom stayed. Tom stayed because President Johnson liked him, relied on him, and he became a top aide to the president at a very, very young age. So Tom, welcome. We're delighted that you agreed to be with us. Well, I am delighted and honored to be here. I have been reading a book that I like very much. The author is Harold C. Pacious, and the title is American Journey. I love the book because I mentioned it several times, favorably, in it. It does have one major issue for me. There are not enough photos of me in the book, but I hope that your viewers, your listeners will know of this book. And seriously, I mean, the story of your life and your family life and amazing Greek tradition within the Pacious family is just spectacular. I'm also very pleased to know that you have been doing Pacious on the news. I mean, this has brought you really sort of over into my world of media, and I'm delighted to be a part of it. Well, thank you, Tom, because it's a little nerve-wracking. You have been at the pinnacle of journalism, both in the newspapers at the Los Angeles Times as publisher and at Dallas Times-Herald, but as the CEO of CNN. And so that brings me to my first question. There are going to be many questions. We'll have a discussion here, but I asked a lady the other day that was on a Zoom with, look, I'm going to be interviewing Tom Johnson, the former CEO of CNN. And what do you want me to ask him? And she said, oh, ask him about Ted Turner. I want to know about Ted Turner. And I suppose, did you know Jane Fonda too? Yes. So anyway, that's okay. Maybe you could summarize for the folks. This is a very interesting man, Mr. Turner, right? Until I met Ted Turner, I thought that LBJ, President Johnson, was the most complex man I've ever known. But Ted actually eclipses that. And I think, you know, Ted Turner, first, he wins America's Cup in his unbelievable sailing competition. He takes one of the worst teams in baseball, the Braves, then become the Anna Braves, from the bottom to win the World Championship. He wins the heart of Jane Fonda. But beyond that, and these are all creations of his headline news, CNN, airport channel, Turner Classic Movies, all of it. And I must tell you, he cares so much about leaving this world a better place than he found it, Hal. And just as an example, he gave $1 billion cash to the United Nations to strengthen any organization that he thought would help to bring about peace between the countries on the planet, rather than the wars on it. But Ted's an extraordinary guy. And I love working with him directly, reported to him directly for 11 years. Wow. Well, that's it. And that is, my friend is going to appreciate that answer because she was very, very interested in that. So our listeners probably don't realize, and I need to tell them that the miracle of Zoom allows us to interview you in Atlanta, Georgia. So you're in your home in Atlanta, correct? Okay. And I have over my shoulder. My wife went up, my wife of almost 58 years, who also knows how patience quite well, because when we came to Washington at early age, Hal was the very first person to welcome us to Washington and to a very different life of the public service and politics and the White House and trying to make the world a better place through what LBJ was doing and issues like civil rights and much more. But I owe it to Hal for not only a lifetime of friendship since then, but really an introduction to the world that was very different from any world that I had experienced in Macon, Georgia or Harvard Middle School or in journalism school. Well, we're going to move on with this. I appreciate that, Tom, the audience needs needs to know that they need the truth, which is rare these days, incidentally, they need the truth. It didn't take me to set Tom Johnson on his course through life, but I was pleased to be part of it at the very beginning. Tom, you're down in Atlanta and Georgia has been in the news a lot lately and you have a governor who kind of tried to do the right thing. You have a secretary of state who definitely did the right thing. You have a deputy secretary of state, all Republicans who had to hold off and hold the line under enormous pressure from Donald Trump. Tell us a little bit about Georgia politics that these guys are now in trouble for trying to be honest, right? It's fascinating that three of the most significant Republican leaders in the state, starting with our governor, but also going to our secretary of state, and they audited, they checked, they rechecked the voting records here. I mean, they did every imaginable check and recheck and concluded that the voting was legal, that it was done by the highest standards. And I am certain that if they had seen misconduct, that they as Republicans and devoted supporters of President Trump would have reported it. But instead, they did not cave to the pressure that came down from President Trump. They said, Mr. President, there's no evidence of wrongdoing here. And in doing the right thing, they then were basically the targets of very, very harsh statements and even a pledge by former President Trump that he will come and campaign against this governor when he's up next. I mean, it's really, it's really sad to see that these men absolutely were ethical in their handling of this election. And as a result, they have just received enormous, even threats, I mean, personal threats to their lives and to their lives and their family. So, Tom, you know, you've lived, you've lived in California, you lived in Texas, you've been all over the world, but you were born and raised in Georgia, you live in Georgia now. You must know Republicans in Georgia who are very normal, traditional Republicans. Are they upset about what's happening? It's very interesting. First of all, it is amazing to me how many of the Trump loyalists continue to support him and support him no matter what new wrongdoing may be, an accusation may come out. But yes, there are Republicans who are embarrassed by that and also now embarrassed by a young Congresswoman from North Georgia who is a conspiracy theorist. And this is such a different world. And of course, Georgia is just one example of one state. I mean, this is happening in states throughout the country. Arizona is another example. What happened in Pennsylvania? Hal is such a different world than a world that you and I knew. We were in Washington. It's still tough for me to understand quite how we got there. Another Georgian, I think, Newt Gingrich, who was a very tough Republican Speaker of the House. A lot of it may have originated with Newt, but much of this has also been building for some time. Yeah. And I agree with your observation about Newt Gingrich. He was one of the more consequential politicians of the 20th century because he changed the tone in Washington. It was burn every bridge, burn the house down type of politics, and it's stayed with us. But back to Georgia again, this woman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conspiracy theorist who says absolutely crazy things. Nobody can think their same thing that she says she elected to Congress this year. So why is that? How does somebody who's crazy get elected to Congress? You don't know, but I don't know. Hal, I do not know that answer. How the public would vote for a person who has alleged that she would like kill others in public life, that she would kill Nancy Pelosi, the speaker. And it is really tragic. And of course, I am embarrassed for my state to be represented by a woman, a person of that usually. I mean, on one hand it's bizarre, but it's also almost evil in a way. And I so hope that responsible voters will recognize that and that she'll only have one term. And that's it. I try to stay out of partisan politics despite my background. I mean, I really do strive to make the calls based on the merits. I've voted for good Republicans. And I have very good Republican friends. But this world is, I'm hoping we've always heard that the pendulum of politics swings. And I'm hoping it's now been swinging over to the right back in the way that we haven't seen in quite some time. But there are also, though, there are a lot of fringe elements, very much fringe elements out on the left. How to reunite America, I think is the biggest challenge that those going into public service today have. How to reunite this nation. Well, the network you used to run at a special on last night that I watched about this issue. Yes. And it was it oppressed me. I'll be frank. You and I have been around a while and we've never seen anything like this in our lifetimes. And you particularly have been involved in public life as major newspaper publisher and the major network chieftain. It's a little bit scary. And I don't know how it's going to be resolved. But one of the things they pointed out, Tom, was that in the days when you and I were in Washington, the two parties were not at each other's throat. They had different views on certain things. But the Democrats had both liberals and conservatives in the party, Southern conservatives, and the and the Republicans had liberal and conservative. And that's how a lot got done. Do you as a southerner, do you think race plays any role in these monumental political dynamics? In my opinion, race plays a major role in all of this. And I think we have seen it here in my state and in my region of the world for many, many years. But I think it is playing a role throughout our nation. And I hope that there will be much more discussion about race and how we can support each other. Good citizens of both sides can look at issues of race. And of course, that would clearly also include the role of Hispanics and certainly, you know, our gay and lesbian friends and Asians. I mean, there is a serious problem that exists. And the only way to deal with it is openly, honestly, admit that our educational institutions have much more to do. But how I think so much, but also as family, that, you know, fortunately, I had parents who were not racist. And fortunately, as a young man here in the middle of Georgia, I had African American young friends. It helped me. But so much of us being brought together was at least in the early stages. A lot of it had to do with our parents and our grandparents and their thoughts. The schools, certainly the churches, but I must tell you, I think racism is almost a part of every institution in our society. You were, you went to the University of Georgia and when you were a student there, you were, you ran the University of New, University newspaper, the college newspaper. Was the university being integrated while you were there? Yes. In 1962, Charlene Hunter, later to become Charlene Hunter Galt, and Hamilton Holmes, desegregated the University of Georgia because of my role as a campus reporter and also as reporter for the Macon Telegraph. I've actually stayed near Charlene as she entered the University of Georgia and as she attended classes and even was out front of her dormitory on at least two nights when there were demonstrations there. First of all, the violence at University Georgia was not as difficult as it had been in other universities such as the University of Mississippi. I befriended Charlene at the beginning of a lifetime friendship. She and I actually worked together at one point at CNN. She was the Africa correspondent for CNN but she and Hamilton did integrate it and at that time I built some lifetime friendships. Also, Vernon Jordan, the legendary Vernon Jordan, accompanied her as she came through the gates of the University of Georgia. But how I saw as she walked along the campus early days, people shouting some of the most vile comments at her. I saw on one occasion a young student try to reach out and spit at her. It missed her but it hit one of the security officers walking with her. She came down and worked with us on the red and black, the campus paper, but even there she did not receive the kind of welcome that I had expected she would get even from some of the young student journalists. So she did not stay on the paper yet she went on to great recognition as a professional journalist with the New York Times. So it just, I picture all of this and you wonder the virulence, the hate, the hate. They didn't know her. They didn't know anything about her other than the color of her skin which was enough for them to hate her. It's just incredible. But Tom, leaving Georgia for the moment and talk a little bit about what's happening in Washington, I've been wanting to ask you a question because you spent far longer with LBJ than I did. But Donald Trump condemned everybody who wasn't with him. He's going to run people against Republicans and primaries unless they do what he wants them to do. He punishes people who don't do exactly what he wants or who are not sick of fans and kissing up to him all the time. Now, Lyndon Johnson, he had, there were Democrats who I remember particularly when the war got going and in 67, 66 prominent Democrats in the Senate who were opposed to the war and who were a real thorn in Lyndon Johnson's side, some of them friends of his. You were there. You watched it. Well, it's certainly Senator Fulbright and Senator Wayne Morse. They were very strong critics of the war. It pained LBJ to have that opposition. But hell, it was really interesting because both Wayne Morse and Senator Fulbright would support President Johnson on his domestic program and vigorously oppose him on Vietnam. And LBJ taught me a lesson which was today we may lose their vote today on Vietnam, but we lead their vote tomorrow on Great Society Initiative, housing, fair housing, or education, or, you know, corporation for public broadcasting. And LBJ, while he was an incredibly sensitive person and would like to have everybody love him, he had, but he understood some of that. And of course another best example was his closest friend was former Senator Richard Russell who was a strong segregationist. He went to grave a segregationist. President Johnson had to literally just sort of overpower Senator Russell to pass the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. But Senator Russell was one of the strongest supporters of our policies in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. So he didn't want to make enemies of people even when they were opposed to him on something. Is that right? Well, with one exception I think he had a very awkward, difficult relationship with Senator Robert Kennedy. You know more about that perhaps than do I, but I think Senator Kennedy, who in so many ways was a brilliant, inspirational, certainly US Senator and later candidate for the presidency, I mean there was just a continuing sort of clash between the two men. I regretted that and yet I don't, there was no solution that any of us could come up with. And I must say that Senator Ted Kennedy and LBJ got along well. Mrs. Kennedy and the Kennedy family got along very, very well with LBJ. But we talk about, we really talk about tough opposition or not unfavorable attitudes about each other. That was probably the toughest, toughest one. You were, because you were around LBJ a lot, particularly in the last two or three years in the White House. And were you around him the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated? I was standing by the two tickers outside the office that you and I shared and just happened to be standing by the ticker when a flash, which is the highest form of a bulletin, all of the bells on the two ticker machines went off. I looked down and I saw the AP lead, one sentence, Dr. Martin Luther King has been shot and I just ripped it off and walked right over. I had went right through the President's two secretaries and I said I must take this usually you had to stop, explain yourself, maybe get rejected by either Marie Faber or one of you Roberts. But I took it right in and handed it to the President and he was sitting there incidentally at the time with the Chairman of Coca-Cola, Robert Woodruff, and a man who went on to become Governor of Georgia, Carl Sanders. So I handed him the advising him of the fact that King had been shot. Now the first flash did not notify the world that Dr. King had been killed. That came in a later notice. And what about when Robert Kennedy was assassinated? Were you around the President that day? It was very much around him along with then appointment Secretary Jim Jones. The President said provide them, meaning members of the family, with everything that needed. So from that point forward whether it was presidential aircraft, the 707s, the jet stars, whatever was requested. And I had a lot of direct ties with the staff all the way through all that. And of course, Brother Johnson called Mrs. Kennedy, she called family members and he was greatly pained. I mean you think about the assassination of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy both in the year 1968, which is a year where we were having unbelievable body counts of the losses of Americans in Vietnam. I mean sometimes up to 400 a week body bags. So that was an incredibly tough year. And so you saw what it was doing to a youth. You think that the burden of that of all the deaths of people had to weigh on him. And do you think he felt trapped that he obviously wanted to get out of Vietnam and couldn't figure out how? So wanted to get, he so wanted to find a way to get a peace agreement signed between the United States and Hanoi, between the United States and the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese. And one of the reasons he decided to step down, March 31st of 1968, was not just because his health, because his health was not good or because of the campaign and Senator Kennedy and others deciding to run against him. But more than anything, he wanted on his watch to be able to bring about a peace with South Vietnam. And we got at least as far as getting them to the conference table finally in Paris for discussions that would be led on our side by Evil Harriman. But I must tell you, peace eluded him. And the only thing I have told a few people privately is that President Nixon did advise him on the day R2, I don't know which, before his death. And it looked as though we were going to be able to have quote a peace deal with honor. So while we're on President Nixon, so President Johnson's number one goal was a peace being made. They were in Paris talking, there were peace talks going on, hopes were up. But you personally have knowledge that President Nixon was responsible for ruining those peace agreements, don't that peace talk? I want to be very careful about my facts, especially with you. Yeah. It was only after we left the presidency that I was able to get documentation. And they were notes that were made by Bob Hollerman in a conversation with President Nixon, in which President Nixon told Bob to have Mrs. Chinalt continue with her efforts. And the story there of course was that after all this time and effort and billions of dollars that we put in and finally to get the four sides, Hanoi, Viet Cong, South Vietnam and the United States, the conference table, the South Vietnamese pulled out, they backed out. And we're sitting there saying, my God, why would they? Well, as history and the archives now show, Mrs. Chinalt, the winner of the famous Claire Chinalt. And a Nixon go between for the staff of President Nixon and were able to get the South Vietnamese convinced that they would get a better deal if they waited for President Nixon to be elected than they would out of LBJ and human Humphrey. LBJ considered that treason. And I to this day don't fully understand why human Humphrey, who was advised of this, decided that the country had just had too much that year, too much catastrophe. And he did not leak it. I'm convinced had it been leaked. So they would have been elected in 68. I will go to my grave, believe it. And by Tom, but nobody leaked it. But Tom, there's some people that say, why didn't Johnson say something about it? And LBJ later told me, and he told Clark Clifford and Abe Fortress, who was two advisors, I think, two advisors on that decision, that it was up to human Humphrey. That I should tell you, we had used intercepts. We had used taps on the Vietnam embassy. We had used other surveillance techniques that were questionable in terms of legality, perhaps. And I think had we gone with it, all of those, all of that would have been public. And it probably would have come as no surprise that the United States tapped the lines of the South Vietnamese embassy for its conversations. But how he let human Humphrey make that decision. And I don't know whether it was one of the most patriotic acts of anybody in public service. I mean, I loved human Humphrey. But it was either one of the most patriotic acts or one of the acts that I just, I mean, not announcing it led to the Nixon presidency. Now, the Nixon presidency had a lot of watergate, probably the worst, but Nixon presidency did a lot of peace with China. And my God, the work that they did, I mean, by comparison with the Trump presidency, the Nixon presidency deserves, you know, peace, every peace award you get. Yeah. So, Tom, I want to talk a little bit about the press LBJ and the press because he, the press was really on him heavy. The criticism was substantial. Yeah. And it must have hurt. He didn't like it, did he? LBJ, I mean, literally, LBJ wanted all the press coverage to be positive. He wanted, and you knew Hugh Seidey and Phil Potter and, you know, all the various people, the Texas press like Margaret Byer and Merriman Smith, LBJ had this, he wanted to have a wonderful relationship with Muriel Dobbin and all of the reporters covering the White House. And he would walk the grounds of South Crowns with them and he'd take them in his Lincoln convertible at one occasion with them throwing beer cans out the window, which I think Muriel Dobbin wrote about in The Baltimore Sun. But the press wanted access to LBJ and my God, I mean, if he saw something on the ticker that he offended him, he wouldn't just call lawyers or Christian or me, he'd call the reporter directly. And if Dan Rather didn't give him any satisfaction at CBS News, he'd call Frank Stanton, the chairman of CBS. I mean, God, you know, and then he had to, he read every newspaper, according to Baltimore Sun, he read all the wires, he was the most informed presidency, and when he wasn't able to get it fast up, he would open the lid on the wire services and read it right down, it was getting sort of tight out coming through. But he had the credibility issue and the big issue was the reports that were coming back to the Pentagon and to the White House that we were using. General Westmore was telling us, I can just slide at the end of the tunnel, and that we were killing far more, far more Vietnamese than we were losing. We were presenting a much more positive perspective, a much more positive report on Vietnam than the truth. And there were reporters out there, David Halvestam and Peter Arnett, who were writing stories that were saying how terrible the war was going. And Cronkite finally said, there's no victory out here for America, it's a stalemate and we better negotiate a peace, at which point LBJ said, if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost, I've really lost America on it. But the press was, I really think the press was more accurate then in reporting on Vietnam than our reports that we were putting out at the Pentagon and sometimes at the White House, because that was what we were being fed back. Thank goodness the CIA director, Dick Helms, seemed to always tell LBJ, straight talk, usually just one-on-one. But we were badly damaged by our press policies related to Vietnam. And Tom, you were, some place I wasn't, you were on the inside when they had these Tuesday lunches with Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, the CIA director and the president, and you, you were in the room. And so you were privity to all of the discussion. So I was, I was not a policymaker. I was sitting there with my reporter notebook, taking down notes as best I can. LBJ had even sent me to morning classes. I think Mickey McCann might have been a part of those classes, but I know there were a couple of others to learn to do shorthand. I remind people there was no Sony Walkman in 1965, 66, 67. They were these large real really. But yes, I was there not as a policymaker, but as a note taker. And sometimes I was sort of stunned by what I heard. And but all I was doing is getting those notes, trying to get them down. And hopefully all of them are all available down at the LBJ lobby. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes there, fortunately typed for those like Robert Carrow who are at work on their books. Tom, I'm going to ask you to talk about the difference in the media now and then and the importance of the fact that we just had three networks. There were three highly respected networks. But what I want you to tell that story. And then I want you, I have to get it up and get something to plug in my, my iPad that I'm using to conduct this interview, because I just saw that it's running out of power. So you you keep talking about the networks and and and then tell them I was in the White House. There were three highly respected news divisions of three networks, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News. There were very highly regarded anchors like John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite and others. And it really was only in 1994, our news network CNN that we sort of the world changed dramatically. And of course, since then, there have been other 24 hour services, primarily Fox News and MSNBC. The three cable news channels and three network channels became really quite, quite different. The network news channels maintain just a morning news show and an evening news show. And even to today, those three networks do an outstanding job. I mean, ABC, NBC, CBS do an outstanding job. In my opinion, what really changed was when Rupert Murdoch installed Roger Ailes as the creator and the owner and creator and the president of Fox News. Murdoch and Roger Ailes saw that there was a ditch that conservatives did not feel that the media was what was reporting their perspectives. They saw the media as liberal. They saw CNN, which in my opinion was not, but they saw CNN and some except you must NBC is more liberal. This is a very personal view, one that I have not shared with many people at all. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes did more to take down journalism in the United States and in case of Murdoch in other countries where he had ownership than any other fact and they did a brilliant job. First of all, adopting fear and balance as their slogan. No network was ever less fair or less balanced under Roger Ailes' reign, but and I also have to admit that Roger was a friend of mine. And when I tell people that they just they just they're stunned in a way, but Roger took Fox News way down about as far as it's going and later we learn about many of his personal transgressions. But today we have so many other sources of information, sources that are not edited, no editing, no fact checking of so much of what flows like gushers out of this vast internet online world that we have today. And all I can say is thank goodness that we still have The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, but we have too many other services that are just devoted to almost conspiracy theories and sensationalism and fax me damn. Yeah, Tom, when you I want to just switch years a little bit. Uh, when Lyndon Johnson retired from the presidency, you went with. Yes, and that's advice of Bill Moyers. Yes. And you you left and you actually flew with you went to the inauguration and you and LBJ and others get on Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base and flew to Texas. And you were his executive assistant in his retirement in Texas and then you ran his radio and television stations and other businesses, right? Well, I became executive vice president and chief operating officer of what was called Texas Broadcasting that own radio stations, television stations, music, photo processing, banking, cattle, ranching, a few other things. I mean, I found myself learning to do such things as how to pregnancy test account. I mean, and my role as head of head of head of Co-Anchie Cattle Company. But you know, it was a fascinating experience, but I should tell you how I continue to want to go back to my profession. I had journalism in my blood. I had print ink flowing through my veins and and and I finally I was getting some good offers. And I finally told President Mr. Johnson shortly before his death that that I hope that I could return to my profession. And I know a lot of people said, why didn't you stay on they even offered you an equity position in Texas Broadcasting. But but I felt it was it was it was time for me to get back while I was still young and try to earn my way up the ranks. I still wanted to become a newspaper publisher, which is what I told those interviewing me for the White House Fellows in 1969. I hope one day that I can get to be a newspaper publisher. You mentioned Texas Broadcasting, all of those businesses that Johnson family businesses and everybody thought thinks that LBJ, you know, conniving and so built that business. And he was he was responsible for and his wife was just the front for it. But he did not run the LBJ family businesses. They were run, but first on a daily basis by a man named J. C. Kellam, who had been with them since early days. And I was one of two people brought in to succeed Mr. Kellam. And Mr. Kellam decided he didn't want anybody to succeed him. And I think he died at his desk later. But Mrs. Johnson took her inheritance from her family inheritance. And it was that money that Jesse Kellam used to invest in this small radio station, which later was was built into a TV station. And of course, what was so interesting is for quite some time, there was only one television tower in Austin. And in the campaign of 1964, Harry Goldwater said yes, he could always recognize Austin, Texas, when he was flying himself around America, because it was the only major city in America, they only had one TV tower true at the time. So tell us about Mrs. Johnson, you are very close to Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson was the person who had great wisdom, thoughtfulness, balance, whenever LBJ would sort of go into either a deep funk about something or get upset about something. I'll never forget when he would get upset with her. Mrs. Johnson would sort of place her hand on his on his lower arm, and say, now London, now London, she would calm him down. And she also was such an individual force of nature. She wanted the highways of America not to have used car lots with old cars, just damaged cars all along the freeways. She didn't want billboards that Ted Turner and others were erecting all the nation's highways. So I mean, she created this effort to quote, beautify America. And she worked very hard on her own with our national forest. And yet, and when I drive around Washington today, or down the highways of Georgia, or Texas or so many others, and I look at those wildflowers each spring that pop up. I think about her, but it was far more than that. She was the one that encouraged him to step down and not to seek a new term. She saw his health was not good. She saw it was tearing him apart. She recommended not seek a new term. And she also just solid, solid. And I admired her immensely. Now LBJ a couple of times found that I was responding directly to Mrs. Johnson and taking orders directly to Mrs. Johnson. He called me in one morning. They said, Tom, I want to make one thing really clear to you. And he sort of bumped me on the chest like this. And he said, Tom, you work for me, not Ladybird. He said, they understand you work for me, LBJ, not Ladybird. I said, yes, sir. So in any case, I continued to work with Mrs. Johnson because the two in combination were vastly stronger than either one of them separately. Tom, you know, you were, of course, in his last years around President Johnson all the time in the weeks leading up to his death, you knew he was pretty sick, didn't you? He was taking nitroglycerin tablets and placing them beneath his tongue. The doctors, Dr. DeBakey and Dr. Cooley in Houston had told him that he was not a candidate for any type of heart surgery. He damaged his heart too much when he was in the Senate in a heart attack there. And his last real major event was a civil rights, a big civil rights event at the LBJ Library just days before his death, in which he basically recommitted himself. And all of those in attendance to let's overcome the wrongs that exist in our society. He had seen the way young Mexican students were treated in Cotula, Texas. He had seen as he was a dexic crap how segregation that kept blacks from eating at lunch counter from going to the restroom in the restaurant, from staying in a hotel that was an all-white hotel, he saw it in his core. And if there was one subject that mattered to him, it was to try to give the poor people of America an opportunity to improve themselves. When he died, were you there? Were you, you were an officer? I was at my desk. Mrs. Johnson called me and her exact words were, Tom, we did not make it this time. Linda, this dead. I'd like for you to handle the announcement and the arrangements. The arrangements had already been worked out with a part of the Department of Defense that does that for every president and first lady, former president, first lady. And so I did announce it and it turned out that Walter Cronkite took my call live on CBS Evening News. And so he got the break on that story largely because he didn't ask for a call back to Double Jack. He didn't go wait for the wire service to come across, but he got a break of quite a break on the world by just back that we knew each other and he took it. But you know, LBJ left the way he wanted. He with no advance notice to the press, how patients and I could rarely get any kind of advance notice on when the president was leaving on a trip, what he was going to fly out that day to the ranch or something else. I think because of the kidney assassination, when the schedule was published ahead of it and the route of travel, everything, I think LBJ thought that too much lead time would enable a Lee Harvey odds wall. And God knows we've had many deaths and attempts on the lives of President Reagan and President Ford and others. But in any case, LBJ was a complicated guy. I worked directly for him for eight years. I survived. I love the old man. I mean, despite all he could be mean, he could be tough, but also he could be generous and thoughtful and kind. He wanted to use his time, the workaholic that he was. He wanted to use his time to make America a better place. And he did. Tom, most of our listeners have a lot of attention to public affairs and so forth. And so they're very aware, some of them, most of them are aware of the fact that Robert Caro has written four volumes about Lyndon Johnson and is working on the fifth volume. It's a monumental work, perhaps I would say one of the two or three most monumental works ever done on an American president. And he is obviously fascinated by Johnson and all these different dimensions of him. And so do you think that these volumes, the fact that Robert Caro decided to devote a significant part of his own life and create five volumes about Lyndon Johnson has been great or good for Lyndon Johnson's legacy? The answer is yes. Robert Caro has done an extraordinary job in researching not just the documents, but he would like going out and living for a period of time in Central Texas. He interviewed early on so many of the Johnson closest allies like John Connolly or Walter Jenkins or others, Mrs. Johnson to some extent, that are no longer alive today. I expect his final book will have some extraordinarily tough reporting about decision making as it related to Vietnam. And I expect that, and I expect that it will be, it will probably, I don't know, it probably will be the best read of his books, all of which I've read. But in any case, Robert Caro is, I mean, he used his title Master of the Senate in his, one of his volumes about LBJ. Robert Caro is the master of the LBJ story, sort of the good, the bad, I mean, the epic highs and the lowest lows. Some of the, every president has aides like you and people that are close to them. And then there are others that are sycophants, you know, they just, whatever that President Dez says is great with them. George Rudy called me a sycophant and that really hurt. Who did? I must tell you, George Rudy, who had been a press secretary briefly for President Johnson, basically said he took a bunch of sycophants with him to Texas. I really tried to be, I really tried to be very honest with LBJ and I also tried never, ever, ever to leak because I knew two things would destroy any relationship if he thought I leaked information or if he thought that I was disloyal. So I would have conversations with him in complete privacy, just the two of us, just sort of talking. I mean, a young guy from Georgia and an aging warrior, and we'd have conversations. And sometimes, I mean, he taught me how to drink scotch and soda on it. Anyway, I developed this personal friendship with him. But I think if you could ask LBJ today, did I try to design my relationship with him so that I agreed with him? No. And I actually have some notes that make it pretty clear. And I hope I'm not remembering it in Carol's book as a sycophant because I really tried to be independent and honest and truthful with him. And I felt the only way I could really serve him was that way. And anyway, I guess perception matters and we'll wait and see how it all turns out. Tom, I will say one thing as we wrap this up. I've known you for 55 years and I know you. I know your personality. I know your values. You couldn't be a sycophant to anyone. There is no human being to whom you could be a sycophant. It is not in your nature. I hope that I've tried, Hal. And I think that we talk about truth versus lies today. There's a battle going on between truth and lies today in our society, not just in media, not just in politics, but there's a battle that's underway between truth and lies. I don't know how it's all going to end up. I hope that truth prevails because I don't know what America would be like if truth doesn't prevail. But we're in a period right now of testing to determine whether the people like this member of Congress from North Georgia are all these Trumpians and their view that really Donald Trump didn't have anything to do with taking over the Capitol or whatever. We're in a period of testing now and I hope that forces of good can win. But I am carefully optimistic, but I'm not so sure. You've been around a long time, Tom Johnson, and I can sense the concern you have about the state of our nation today and the question of truth, which is always first in the minds of journalists like yourself. None of us know what the answer is, but we hope, we hope, and I'll be specific, that Republicans all across this country will say they stand on the side of truth and they're going to do something about it because they're the only ones with the power. The people are the only ones with the power to make sure that truth once again becomes ascendant. Well, we have a wonderful new president and I hope that he can, I've known him since maybe 40 years and I know that he wants to be a bipartisan. I know he wants to be a good leader. I know he wants to represent all Americans. He said that several times and it's not bullshit. He wants to represent all Americans and I just hope he's given the opportunity. Tom, I can't thank you enough for taking the time with us. You've been absolutely terrific, fascinating discussion with you. Oh, that book, you know, it's not for sale. I want everybody to get a copy, even if he has to go out and buy them for you, of American Journey. It is a wonderful book. I'm a part of it. It should be a more major part of it, but the real story of how Patience is family and what it's like to come to America and make it in America. It's a hard, hard task at times, but the Zacos family, but the Patience family, they'll have another family, the Zacos family who did it too. But thank you for having me as a part of today. I have been honored.