 Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the White House Historical Association's 2021 Quarterly Lecture Series, White House History with Susan Page. I'm Stuart McLaurin, and I have the privilege of serving as the president of the White House Historical Association. Typically, I'd have the honor of hosting all of you in our wonderful headquarters at Decatur House on Lafayette Square. But I'm pleased that we have the opportunity to share this program with more people than we could accommodate in our space there. Before we get started, I want to take a moment to recognize and thank the members of our Board of Directors and National Council on White House History that are tuning in this evening. Their counsel and support are fundamental to our success as an association. I also want to say hello to our friends from our Presidential Sites Summit Network that are joining us today. There are actually hundreds of Presidential Sites across the country, and I encourage all of our viewers to learn more about some of your local sites in your area. This year, the White House Historical Association is celebrating our 60th anniversary. We were founded by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 as a non-profit, non-partisan organization. And since then, our mission has been to preserve, protect, and share the extraordinary legacy of the White House over its 221-year history. Throughout this year, we will host a series of programs and other initiatives that further this mission. I encourage you to remain apprised of all that we're doing on our website, WhiteHouseHistory.org. We've worked closely with our friends at the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation and LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas to produce this program on President Johnson. As you know, this year's White House Christmas Ornament, which we will reveal on April 1st, will commemorate President Johnson's legacy as the 36th President of the United States. Now I'd like to introduce my good friend, Mark Updegrove, to give his opening remarks. In addition to being a friend of mine, Mark is a terrific friend of the White House Historical Association. And he works very closely and collaboratively with us on our Presidential Sites Summit Planning Committee. Mark is the President and CEO of the LBJ Foundation and has been a wonderful partner in this program and many more. Mark? Thank you, Stuart. We're pleased to be working with the White House Historical Association throughout the year to honor President Johnson. And today you have a wonderful group of panelists who will shed light on his life and consequential legacy, including his daughters Linda Johnson-Rob and Lucy Baines Johnson, longtime aide Lloyd Hand, and USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page. We look forward to seeing many of you here in Texas this fall for the next Presidential Sites Conference. And congratulations to you, Stuart, and your colleagues at the White House Historical Association on your 60 glorious years. Thank you, Mark. It was a pleasure working with you on this program and with your colleagues who were very helpful and supportive as well. As President Johnson is the focus of our 2021 White House Christmas Ornament, I look forward to honoring him throughout our 60th year. And I can't think of a more appropriate way than hearing from his two daughters Linda Johnson-Rob and Lucy Baines Johnson to start us off, as well as his former Chief of Protocol and a good friend of mine, Ambassador Lloyd Hand. Now I'd like to introduce Susan Page, who will be our moderator for the quarterly lecture series throughout this 60th anniversary year. Among Susan's many accomplishments, she is the Washington Bureau Chief of USA Today. She's covered a number of presidential campaigns and administrations. She's interviewed nine presidents, and she's the author of the recent book on Barbara Bush. Thank you, Susan, and I know you all will enjoy this very special program. Thank you, Stuart. What a privilege it is for me to be able to participate in this wonderful series, and particularly this marvelous first episode of it, where we're going to hear from people who knew our 36th president so well can give us a glimpse of things, how things really were in the White House. I'm going to offer just very brief introductions to them, but we have longer biographies on our website, WhiteHouseHistory.org. You can learn more about their own remarkable lives and the many honors all of them have received. First, Linda Johnson-Rob. For more than a half century, she has been an activist on behalf of Children's Literacy. She is also a former First Lady of Virginia, the wife of Charles Robb, a former governor and senator. Welcome. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Next, Lucy Baines Johnson. She has worked for decades in business and philanthropy, especially on issues of social justice, health care, and the environment. Thank you so much for being here. I am delighted to participate. That's great. And Lloyd Hand. When Linda Johnson was a Senate majority leader, he hired Lloyd Hand, then a guy in his 20s, a recent UT graduate, as an assistant. And LBJ was in the White House. He hired him again as the USG of protocol. Lloyd Hand, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Let's talk about living in the White House. Linda Johnson-Rob, you were 20 years old when your parents moved into the White House. At the time you were happily a student at the University of Texas. Why did you decide to leave all that and move back in with your folks? Well, as Lucy knows, I did it reluctantly. I did not want to give up my independence. And I loved being in Austin. I think everybody who's ever lived in Austin wants to go back to Austin. But my parents tried to get me to do it and they said, oh, we really need you. You're going to be able to substitute for mother when she's not able to be somewhere and you'll get to see all this history right in front of you. And I was a history student. So they played to my interest. And my mother said, now, I think you should keep a diary. It's a very good discipline. So anyway, I came up and I did get to substitute for mother when we had events. And I did have the great pleasure of getting to see a lot of things up close. The diary didn't do so well. It was mostly trash. I had to do it so it was okay. Thursday got up at 8 a.m., studied Latin. Gee, it's awful. I had a date with Jim. Jim is so handsome. I'm just crazy about him, whatever. It was worthless. Every once in a while, you come across something that's funny. And the other day I was looking at something and I realized that I had Warren Beatty at my table at a dance that we had had, I think it was Princess Irene of Breeze. But there he was and I remember him telling me, I'm working on a movie now and it's about the Russian Revolution. It's about an American name. And I think I remember his name was Reid, Jack Reid. And then, and that was in 1967, February. He didn't get that movie to the screen until 1981. So a lot of things take a long time between the time it was birthed and the time it's mature enough. There were a lot of funny things that happened to me and I enjoyed it. And sometimes that diary comes in handy. Well, it's certainly something to keep. I'm glad that your mother encouraged you to keep it. You know, Lucy, you were a teenager at that point. And when we were talking, you said that your first night in the White House, you almost burned it down. But I don't know what it was that you did. Can you tell us about that? I'd love to. Public life was like the family farm for many people where everybody had a job from grandma to the toddler. And as a young girl, I remember well bringing in my parents, friends, coats and putting them up on the bed. And so being involved in public life was a very natural for me. But of course, anything was natural other than the time after November 22, 1963. The nation had been assaulted. Our hearts were broken. We'd been draped in black. It was an exceedingly difficult time. And I found myself wandering up the stair steps of our home at the Elms and hearing my parents have raised voices. And that was an unusual thing. And I was sort of startled. So I did what I would not like to have to admit that I did. I sort of leaned in and listened. And my mother was saying to my father, Linden, any day but that. Any day. I just cannot move into the White House on December 7th. And I was not a student of history like my sister. I hadn't even had an American History course yet. And so I didn't appreciate why my mother was resisting so much. Starting their life in the White House on the day that would, for them, live in infamy for forever. The anniversary of the day for Harbor had been bombed. But of course, I came to understand that. And on December 7th, I found, like my mother and all the rest of the family, we were moving into the White House for the next five years. Well, my father had been working nonstop from dawn to midnight, as had my mother. And they decided to take a little bit of a respite to go to their good friend and staff member, Walter Jenkins, home and have a couple of hours of off time. And I asked Walter and Marjorie Jenkins, daughter Beth Jenkins, who was a very close friend of mine, to come over to the White House. I've been on stage for a couple of weeks and feeling enormous stress. Everything I said or did needed to be just right and mostly I needed not to be heard. And all of a sudden, there was with Beth in this beautiful room with this fabulous fireplace. And I turned to her and I said, Beth, you know anything about fireplaces. And she said, well, I think I know a little about fireplaces. And I said, do you think the flue is open? And she looked at it and she said, yeah, I think so. And so we went to light the fireplace. And of course you can tell what the rest of the story is going to be. The flue was not properly fully opened. And I had only been in that room a matter of a few moments and barely knew where the connecting bathroom was. And I fell my way through to the bathroom and picked up a little juice glass and filled it with water and felt my way back into the bedroom in front of the fireplace trying to put it out. And obviously that was not going to be an effective way of doing it. So I went back to the bathroom and it was getting smokier and smokier by the moment. And I took a trash can and I put it into the bathtub, filled it up and it was enough water to douse the fire. So I felt relieved over that. And I went over to my desk, which was in front of a large window in the north portico of the White House. And I was in my nightgown and I climbed up on the desk. And I pulled up in almost a seemingly herculean sort of way, the giant window that was in front of me to let the smoke out. And I saw a White House policeman looking up at me immediately under my nightgown. And as a young 16-year-old I was mortified. Well, the first week in the White House my mother had me helping others to clean the smoke off of the walls. It was certainly not the way I anticipated starting life off there. But it was a big humility lesson. And humility is a really good thing for all of us to have if we're fortunate enough to be residents of the White House. I got mine the first week. Praise God, I did not establish myself as a person who burned the White House down, but there were a few moments where I was deeply concerned that that might have been all that was remembered. I can only imagine the reaction of your parents when they came home and discovered what had happened. Lloyd, let me ask you something actually from President Johnson's perspective. Of course, you knew him well. Presidents have a lot to worry about. And I wonder if President Johnson worried about his daughters who were then living with him in the White House. And was he glad that they were living there? You know, I'm not sure that I remember much about that. He loved those girls and he loved having them around. We lived when we go back and forth in Austin and Washington. We lived in the home of the LBJ in Austin and he would come there with them. But I don't remember, frankly, Susan, him saying anything one way or the other about it. I'm sure he did. I'm sure that he loved having him near to him. He was quite unusual in many ways. And I'm sure we talk about some of that. But one of them was that he loved buying clothes for his daughter and wife, staff members. I remember the first visit of the Pope. And we were all in the Waldorf Towers awaiting the Pope. I was supposed to get him in Cardinal Spellman. And President had dress designers in the suite, had dresses in the suite for the different ones to try on. It was just something. He visited us in California. He always wanted to go shopping for the girls and Mrs. Johnson and others. So it would be inconceivable to me that both of them would love to have their daughters near them, particularly in the White House. You know, that's such a great story. I didn't realize that Linda Johnson was a personal shopper for his daughters. Did he have good taste? Did he buy stuff that you liked? My father was a giver. He took enormous pleasure out of being able to give something to somebody that would give them pleasure. And so he would send others to go out and try to find dresses, not just for Linda and me and Mother, but for every member of the staff, especially those that might be away from loved ones during the holidays, that sort of thing. And to see a shining face looking back at him saying, I really appreciate what you've done, gave Linda Johnson just, it buoyed his spirits in a way that all of us were grateful for. Now, I'd just like to add to that, Lucy, that he didn't necessarily understand the fact that we might not all want to be wearing the same dress. I went with him on a trip when he got found a local designer, and they brought in a big rack of clothes. And Daddy went through and said, OK, Linda, you try this one on, and I would try them all on. And he found one he liked. So he said, OK, I'll take it in brown. Oh, he liked the right color. So he'd had it in blue and red. And he gave the same dress to me and to the cook at the ranch and to Lucy and to one of his secretary's. Everybody got the same dress. And I don't think he quite understood that it would have been a little better if it had been different dresses for us. But he liked the dress. And so he thought it would just look great on everybody. And it always, well, most of the time we let him think it did. And the other thing Lucy didn't say is he always wanted when he gave a gift, he wanted you to put it on if it was a dress. And so he would, we'd get this great package for Christmas, whether it was a dress or whether it was a pair of slacks that he found that he liked. He would get it and then he'd want you to immediately go into another room and put the outfit on. And anyway, he did care very much about all of us. You know, by the way, there's I've been watching the crown on Netflix, as as most of America, I think. And there is an episode on the crown that involves the Johnson White House. It was a black tide dinner that was given for Princess Margaret in Lord Snowden. And the depiction on the crown is of a really quite a wild evening of drinking and dancing and dirty limericks. And you were the chief of protocol at that point. Can you tell us about the dinner? Was that a pretty accurate depiction of what went on? That was an absolutely fake news description. I couldn't believe it. I turned to my wife and I said, you know, that is outrageous because we were involved from the beginning to the end. And in those days, when there was a particularly important, particularly state visit, although this is what we call private visit, President wanted me to take his car and his driver rather than the one that I had assigned him. So, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowden were staying at the British Embassy. We went to see them and had our pictures taken inside and book and all of that. So we got into the limousine. I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember, but there were those days, limousines that had a drive shaft down the middle and banquet seats faced each other. And I was seated opposite Princess Margaret and was opposite Lord Snowden. And the car started off and the drive shaft spun and then caught on. And when he did it threw me right in her lap. Well, everybody thought that was really funny. I felt a little awkward to think it off. But so I had a feeling this evening was not going to go well. We got to the White House and the dance was before the dinner. Lord Snowden grabbed my wife Anne and they were off dancing. And I said, you're all behind us, would you care to dance? She said, no, I'll let you know when I want to dance. And she was tapping her foot impatiently with him that he had taken Anne to dance. So I knew that wasn't going too well. But I will tell you there was none of that described. You know, they showed a bathroom sink. There's no bathroom in the whole White House. It looks like this. It's kind of a bathroom you'd see in a stadium or some other kind of a mansion. I mean, it was just all made up. The dialogue, the vulgarity, the drinking. Of course there was drinking at the White House. I must say I've never seen anybody inebriated at the White House with Anne. But I'll add just a little bit because I've answered your question. There was nothing, not an iota of truth to their portrayal in the crown. But there was a sort of a dramatic event during the dance. Bob McNamara, Linda remembers this. Bob McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, was purling around the room. Christine Ford, the wife of Henry Ford. It was a beautiful, actually gorgeous woman in a low cut white gown. And as he was twirling her around, she had a wardrobe malfunction. And people, oh my God, I was wrong. But you know, she corrected it very quickly. But you can imagine that. That was in the dinner of the evening. Later at dinner, I was not seated at the table with the president. But she was, of course. And there was Kirk Douglas and Happy Rockefeller. But the summary answer was none of that portrayed in the crown was accurate. Well, let me just add that. Quite a few of the social aids claimed to have been the one dancing with Mrs. Ford. And it's all, I saved her. I pulled, you know, helped her pull it up and so forth. But I mean, it has been a story for over 50 years. Every time the social aids get together, we talk about what were you doing? And what did you say? Well, I was there. She corrected herself. I'm sure Bob McNamara was trying to figure out how he could do that. Maybe so. That was their fantasy. But talk of the town. Actually, there was a press secretary for Mrs. Johnson, who was known for her humor. Name Liz Garbinder. And Christine Ford had a flower, probably a daisy, woven into her. I would call it a big tail, but it probably has more sophisticated description than that for women's coiffure. So the next day, Liz Garbinder had a flower, big tail, that she was wearing in the office. Everybody knew exactly what she was doing. But it was a little humor. That's true. Well, just one more thing about it that was very interesting about Daddy. He loved to dance. And of course, he always liked to dance with pretty ladies. And he, of course, would always be seated next to the wife of whoever we were honoring that night. And he would dutifully do his dancing with this spouse. But he wanted to dance with everybody else. And he knew that the next day when people went home, they'd like to be able to say, last night I danced with the president. So he told the social aides, I want you to cut in on me. Now nobody of this present generation knows what that is, but you used to dance with somebody and then you would go over and tap the shoulder and you would switch partners. So it was very unusual for some social aid to be interrupting the president. But they dutifully did it. And that way he was able to dance with many, many more women at the dance. And that was always a great honor for Daddy and for the person who he chose to dance with. But it was very funny for the social aides to be interrupting the president to switch partners. Well, it's great that he could enjoy those those dinners. Let me ask you about a more serious matter. You talked about all the really historic events and historic people that you had a chance to meet or to see while you were living in the White House. Can you talk about something that you saw or someone you spoke to at the White House that you really feel like may have an impact on you for the rest of your life? Well, we had in the White House what I call Daddy Diddy. And Daddy Diddy was sort of the command performance when my father was having some sort of official experience and I would go and look adoringly. And the civil rights movement was also very public and yet so very personal for me. On my 17th birthday, my father wrote me a little note telling me how much he loved me. He was busy that day. He didn't actually have time to go out and buy a birthday card. And so the only handwritten note I really have from my father was written for me on July the 2nd, 1964. And about five or six hours later, he was downstairs in the East Room signing the 1964 civil rights legislation into law. Nobody will ever get a better birthday present from anybody than that birthday present from me that year. A year later, August the 6th, 1965, I was on Daddy Diddy and my sister and mother were away, I think, in New York City. And I was supposed to be with my father when he was going to sign the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law. Well, in my adolescence, I assumed something none of us should ever do in public life, but I assumed that the event would take place in the East Room of the White House. After all, the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had taken place there. But my father asked me to meet him in the diplomatic reception room. And I said, yes, sir, of course, but it was quizzical to me. I didn't quite understand why I was going from upstairs in the residency to downstairs into the diplomatic reception room, back upstairs to the East Room. But I said, yes, sir, and we got to the diplomatic reception room. And my father said, come on, let's go. And I said, where are we going, Daddy? And he said, we're going up to the Capitol. Well, I realized I had places to go and things to do. And I assumed that I was going to be on Daddy's duty for about an hour or so. And I realized we were going up to the Capitol. It was going to take a lot longer. And what was I going to do and say? There were no cell phones in to call and cancel your dates. You just sort of just didn't show up then. And my father said, as he often did when he was somewhat disappointed in me, he referred to me by my double name. And he said, Lucy Baines, we are going to the Capitol because there are going to be many brave men and women who will not be returning to the Capitol because of the courageous vote they took to support the voting rights bill. And there are going to be some extraordinary men and women who will be coming to the Capitol as a result of this legislation who could have otherwise never have come. Well, we got up to the Capitol and I stood behind my father and I found myself no longer thinking about my adolescent whims and where I was going and what I was going to be doing. But what an honor, by accident of birth that I was standing behind the President of the United States as he signed this legislation into law, a piece of legislation that would do so much to make ours a more just country. I watched this all take place and when we got back into the car, I asked my father again a question that sent him into a moment of disappointment. I said, Daddy, why on earth when you signed that legislation with all the great civil rights leaders there, why did you give that pen used to sign the Voting Rights Act to that old grumpy, disheveled Republican leader, Everett Dirksen? And my father shook his head again in disappointment that his own daughter didn't get the obvious lesson because Daddy was forever a school teacher. And he said, Lucy Baines, I gave that pen to Everett Dirksen because if he hadn't been willing to support this legislation and bring his folks with him, those great civil rights leaders and I, we'd have had a bill, we'd have never had a law. In October of that year, I was with my father again on Daddy's duty. I think that our wonderful chief of protocol, Lloyd Hand, has already made reference to the fact that the first pope was coming to the United States for the, excuse me, the pope was coming to the United States for the first time. And I was a Roman Catholic convert. My father knew mean something to me to be there with him and so he had invited me to come. But before we went to that, walled off our story to meet the pope, we were going to be outside in front of the Statue of Liberty. Signing that first big comprehensive immigration bill into law. And there I was once again witnessing life changing forever in my country and I believe for the better. So here I've mentioned three phenomenal pieces of legislation that I was an eye witness to or had a significant role in my personal life. It was all so very public yet it was all so very personal and I am forever grateful that I got to be a witness to history. Those memories will stay forever in my mind. And you know one of those great men that came to the Capitol as a result of that voting rights bill. He died last summer and along with him par all of America's heart. John Lewis was a giant of a man and I was privileged to get to know personally on a variety of other occasions. And so yes, those memories will be forever precious to me and I will be forever grateful to have shared. Such a remarkable moments of history. You know, Linda Johnson, I mentioned a photo to you that's on the cover of a book that John Dickerson wrote that came out last year. The book is called the hardest job in the world and has this photo of your of your father looking his head almost on a table listening so intently to an old style tape recorder. When I mentioned you instantly knew what the photo was showing. Tell us what that photo was showing. Well, Chuck and I got married in December and he left in March to go to Vietnam. And I moved back in the White House. We had gotten married and we moved to a little rented a little place for us to stay until he left. And since I was pregnant and didn't have any other place to go, I went back to my same room in the White House. And I wrote Chuck every day and I also began to send him tapes. These were cassette tapes. He tried not to write me about some of the things that he witnessed. He was a company commander and a rifle company, which he says is the best job in the Marine Corps, except maybe being common that, but it was a very important job for him and it changed his life. And he is in April coming up. He's going to be publishing a book about some of his adventures and there'll be lots of stories I think in there about Vietnam. But so daddy thought it'd be a good idea. Chuck would send me some tapes, but mind you, he's in the middle of nowhere. But he did send me several tapes and they were meant for me. They were meant for his wife, not the President of the United States. But I made a mistake one time of listening to one of the tapes and it was very dramatic about, I think it was about an Amtrak that he was in and leading his troops through the area and they would send somebody out to try to check the road to make sure it wasn't bombed, but you never knew. And so he on this tape told about how he was behind an Amtrak and it went over, I guess, it went over something and caused the whole thing to go up in fire. And he was trying to get all of his troops off and he lost a lot of men and of course it could have been his Amtrak. He was right behind it. They were a bunch of them. And I made the mistake to let daddy listen to it. And so he took it and he had it put on what we called a real drill, a big, big machine that he could play it on. And that photograph taken in the cabinet room shows him and his terrible, painful, painful worry about Vietnam. Worried about all of those men and some women who were over there who were doing their best to bring us peace and trying to resolve this. And Lucy's told so many good, good stories about how she was present at different things. And one thing I was just thinking about and this is a new thing that's come to me. I went with daddy to Glassboro and their daddy met with a Premier Cossigan and they met and it was in private. And I went off with Mrs. Cavisiani, his daughter, and we toured the sand dunes or whatever in New Jersey there. And I never knew what they said to each other or what went on in this meeting. I just knew that it was an outreach that daddy was making to the Russians to try to see how we could make this a safer world. And just in the last five years it has come out that at Glassboro he got Cossigan to agree to having the Russians intervene with the North Vietnamese who they were supporting and to bring the North Vietnamese to the peace table. And this was in Paris and of course daddy had said he wasn't going to run because he wanted to devote all of his energies to trying to bring solution to the war. And at that table they had the North Vietnamese and the Americans and the South Vietnamese. And I never knew that the North Vietnamese were there to the peace table because the Russians had made this agreement with daddy. Now unfortunately somebody went to them and said that don't make this deal. Leave the peace table because you'll get a better deal with Nixon. And so we almost, almost got the war coming to an end then but it didn't work out. And that was forever one of the very, very sad things that... Because daddy he loved his great society and he wanted things like Head Start and Aide Elementary and Secondary Education and so many of those wonderful civil rights programs that Lucy was talking about. That was all part of this great society. And he had such hopes and he could see that the war was taking all the energy and the support that was in the country away from those programs and replacing it with the terrible, terrible war that my husband was over there trying to do his best, his job for this country. And daddy knew that all of those people who were over there, our military, were trying to do their best to bring peace. And we had the chance and I never knew that Glassboro was a part of it until just a few years ago when it was, I guess, the national security people decided to release the information. But it came out and I learned something about those times that I had no idea about. And that picture symbolized daddy's frustration and hurt and anger and it was a very difficult time for all of us. Daddy was so relieved when Chuck came home and greeted his little daughter who was at that time six months old and he had never seen her. So it was a time that was just so horrible and it's the story of what might have been and how many people would have, lives would have been saved if we could have brought, could have had peace then. So that's not, he's telling about happy things and I'm just having to tell you what I was witness to. I know with with every presidency and certainly with with your father's presidency there's a mix of things in that in that history it's so interesting to hear both of your perspectives and this this photo I it's so it's so captures I think the pressures and responsibilities of the presidency as John Dickerson said the hardest job in the world. We have just a few minutes left and I want to close by talking not about your father but about your mother, because she made a really enormous contribution to the White House Historical Association. Jackie Kennedy founded it, planted the seed, your mother made sure that those seeds took root to preserve and protect and honor the history of the White House. I wonder if you could just talk about why, what what she thought. Why did she want to do that and maybe talk and start with Lloyd Lloyd do you have any insight into that from your work with at the White House at that time as a protocol chief of course you were around a lot of events you have a sense of why Lady Burr Johnson had this commitment to preserving the history of this of this house. Well I think it began much earlier. She did much to beautify around the ranch around the area where the President was born and grew up. But it began when she was pushing hard to remove the ugly billboards that you probably not old enough to remember that lined most of the highways around the country. She was successful in that in the beautification act. And then she said about beautifying Washington. I will tell you Susan that outside of my own family. She's one of the most wonderful women I've ever known. When I was a young best out of law school going to work for him when he was a Majority Leader. And there was a tough fall for me. Man and I talked about it decided we're going to Washington for one year's experience. Well didn't work out quite that way. But but she was rather shy. And when there would be meetings at the at the ranch. She was starting to be out on one side. She was studying Spanish. She was taking elecution courses. She and I don't mean to deprecate the president at all. But many people considered her the real intellectual and the family. It was not a secret. LBJ had to read a lot of novels or other books. But she was a prodigious reader. And was the anchor, I would say. Many times he would be at times very upset about things. And she would put her hand on top of his the back seat of the memo said now now and now now and he would gradually calm down. He was he was a stabilizer. And and of course she had a beauty about her that came within. So she was manifesting that and and the wildlife flowers in the gardens in and around Austin and Travis County. But but around Washington D.C. The beauty that you see in terms of the flowers. Those were those the ideas of Mrs. Johnson Lady Bird. I never call her Lady Bird. But but those who were Irish friends in others others who didn't know her very well. But I think that it was a love of beauty and wanting to make a difference. And you know she she following Jack Lee Kennedy. I can say this the daughters are going to say this but but she suffered because people quit to contrast this young Svelte very fashion model with an older woman who had a twang in her voice. And and she would be mocked. But over time she became one of the most outstanding first ladies ever. You read many articles about first ladies. There was recent theories on CNN about first ladies. And if you haven't listened to that you heard what I'm saying. So answer your question. I think that it came from within her to try to make it ever. She did anybody talks about the beautification people at the interior department. Many other countries. She was very much involved in the cherry blossom around the turning basin when the Japanese had to replace some that were lost. Mrs. Johnson were very much involved in that. She was a great supporter of the Blair House the President's guest house. She was very much involved in trying to make a difference. And yet she was low key. She was not flamboyant. She wasn't trying to be anything except what she was. But she was a solid smart beautiful lovely woman. Even I remember the last time I saw her and was in the Chuck's house. They had a dinner for her. This time she had lost her voice. And so when she talked to you she had to write a little note down on the note that she would just laugh about whatever the subject matter was. She was undaunted by whatever befell her. She had just a very special element quality about her that was rare. And my wife and I were privileged to know her and to be a part of the Johnson family. And I guess that's why I spent 16 years with them often on the payroll. Mostly on the payroll. Well Lucy and then let me give you a chance to say perhaps a final word about your mom and how she felt about living in the White House. Lucy do you want to go first? I'd love to. When my mother was editing her White House diary she brought it to me and asked me to help with the project. I was deeply flattered but knew the limitations of my skills and said mother I'm just going to support your efforts here. But over the years as time progressed I would go back and read and reread looking through a different prism. A prism of an older individual. And I recognize over time just in the first weeks of my mother becoming First Lady of the Country just how much the White House Historical Association meant to her. And how deeply concerned she was at these fabulous people that had joined with Mrs. Kennedy to try to bring back a life and a history to the White House that had abdicated. Because you see in the beginning our forefathers were very concerned about giving too much of a budget to the presidency lest they become an imperial presidency. So presidents would come and they bring their own possessions they bring their own furnishings and then they take them away. And those furnishings would be handed down to descendants or sold. And what was left of the White House itself was not necessarily of the quality or the history that Mrs. Kennedy had hoped for. So she had brought together an extraordinary group of people who had beautiful taste and interest in history. An understanding of fine arts and decorative arts. And frankly the economic capacity to either purchase themselves and give or find others who might be willing to. Well November 22nd happened and my mother was deeply concerned that all of those people who had joined the White House Historical Association and its efforts might want to leave because their allegiance was primarily to Mrs. Kennedy. And mother was a prodigious reader as Lloyd Hand has just made reference. And I remember her getting down to her papers and trying to master and understand just exactly what the issues were for the White House Historical Association and how desperately concerned that she rise to the occasion and show these people who were involved that she too was a student of history. She had an undergraduate degree in it she had an appreciation for all the hard work they did. She wanted them to come and stay and help because they were invaluable to the history of this great House that is indeed the president's house a house for all of us to love. A house that tells the story of the American presidency but yes the American people. And so when I've gone back and reread the White House diary in its first weeks and months I've realized just how deeply important the White House Historical Association was to mother and how proud I've been that she rose to that occasion as she did so many out of love of country and a hope that she could do her part. President Johnson graduated from University of Texas. President didn't he was South West Texas. But the reason the LBJ Library and the LBJ School of Public Affairs are on the campus of the University of Texas because of Mrs. Johnson. You know so it's so wonderful to hear the stories and of course the whole nation is grateful to your to to Mrs. Johnson for what she did in preserving and starting that process that continues today at the White House. Linda Johnson I wonder if we could tell the story that you told me when you're preparing for this which is it goes to your mother's understanding of how thrilling it could be for America to be able to just see a bit of the White House and it involves the story of her. I guess as a young woman going to the gate just as a tourist with a camera. Can you tell us that story please. Well daddy gave mother a movie a movie camera and mother used it. And so we now have the LBJ Library movies mother standing outside the White House gates taking pictures taking movies of Mrs. Roosevelt and leaving the White House. She has pictures of Mrs. movies of Mrs. Roosevelt coming to the Senate ladies luncheons. And they're wonderful wonderful movies because she saw this as a tourist. She was a great tourist. She loved going and seeing historical homes and that's why she wanted the most beautiful things that belong to America. The history of America in the White House. And she also invited White House descendants with the hope I will say this exactly but I think she wanted to have them come with the desire that they might give a piece of their family their descendants artifacts things they used in the White House. And I know we got a beautiful beautiful piece from the Adams family. I think the Adams family are probably the best because they were so many of them all the different Adams. And so they had lots that they could do but she also wanted to share the White House with everybody. And so while daddy would be downstairs meeting with members of Congress and having receptions and they would be learning about different pieces of the great society or what was going on in the war. Or whatever daddy wanted to personally talk to about the spouses were invited to come upstairs and they were people whose husbands had been in Congress for 20 30 years and they had never been upstairs in the private quarters. And that was one thing that she did that I think everybody loved because it was exciting and she divided them into say four or five different receptions. And she also sometimes had the entertainment upstairs. So one of the things that she would do is she would invite some young people that had connections with Congress to come and speak. And she had Jay Rockefeller come to talk about what he was doing in West Virginia with the one of the one of the great society programs that he was involved in. She had quite a few presidential descendants who came and spoke at these receptions and it was just great fun. And I love to hear all the stories about what other first families had done. But it was a great opportunity to share the presidency and the rooms with with other people. And you know Alice Longworth had lived there when she was a young woman and had gotten married. And so when Chuck and I got married we got her manual and said OK what did you do about this and that and the other. And I think people liked it better when Lucy got married because although we told everybody we did not want any state gifts. We did receive a silver cup from Great Britain and there were several things like that. And that of course we were following Alice and she was telling us about these rugs and all of these Oriental presence we had received. And she still had some of them in her house. So it was great meeting the people who were there before I was there. And so that was exciting and mother loved sharing all of those memories all those exciting things with everybody else. And she was first and foremost because she she knew that if you do something for someone's wife or their children they appreciate it sometimes much more than if you do it for them. And so she wanted to share all the good things that she was enjoying in the White House with with everybody. And it was a wonderful wonderful time. Well we're all we're all grateful that it truly is America's house. You know a lot of people know the White House Historical Association through that the Christmas ornaments it offers each year which began years ago with first and ornament honoring George Washington our first president. I'm glad to report that this year the White House Historical Association has worked its way up finally to Lyndon Johnson our 36th president that ornament is going to be unveiled soon and we're all looking forward to seeing it. And I want to thank all of you for joining us today and sharing some of these wonderful historic remarkable and in some cases pretty funny stories about life in the White House Linda Johnson Rob Lucy Bains Johnson Lloyd hand. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was our joy to be able to share these moments of history and family times with you and we hope that they turn out to be helpful to the White House Historical Association because I can tell you admit the world mother and we hope to be a credit to it and to my parents administration. Well thank you all and let me now turn it back to Stuart Stuart it's all yours. Thank you Susan Linda Lucy and Lloyd for your wonderful insights on President Johnson as father friend and leader of our country. We're honored to have had the opportunity to work with you on this program. Thank you all for joining today's program. I hope you'll continue to remain engaged with the numerous initiatives and programs that we will be undertaking during this 60th anniversary year. And remember the White House Historical Association is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that relies on the support of people like you. If you're interested in supporting the White House Historical Association I encourage you to visit our website at WhiteHouseHistory.org backslash support. I now want to welcome one of our National Council on White House History members Terry Cole. She will close our program. Terry and her husband Marty both attended the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Thank you Terry for your support and encouragement of all we do. Hello everyone and thank you Stuart for the introduction. It's my honor to be a part of this program reflecting on the many accomplishments of President Johnson. I'm joining you today from my home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In addition to being a current member of the White House Historical Association's National Council many years ago my husband and I were students at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. The LBJ School gave us the opportunity to interact with interesting people from President Johnson's administration. There was even the opportunity to visit the Johnson Ranch and have tea with a kind and gracious Mrs. Johnson. I enjoyed hearing today from those who knew President Johnson best Linda Johnson-Rob, Lucy Baines Johnson and Lloyd Hand. During my time at Austin I gained an appreciation for the significant impact that President Johnson had in helping people reach for the American Dream. With his leadership in civil rights, voting rights and the great society programs like Head Start. I would like to thank the White House Historical Association for hosting this program. The Association does a masterful job preserving and celebrating the history of the People's House, the White House.