 This is May the 16th, we are in the red room of the presidential suite on the 8th floor of the library and the person being under the gun today is Elspeth Rostow. Elspeth, your association with President Johnson goes back a good many years but why don't you let's start talking about when you first encountered him and how and what take it from there. I certainly saw him during the Kennedy inaugural but always in a large group and I never had any sense of knowing him as a human being but during the Kennedy years I remember going out to the vice president's house and the first thing that startled me was my initial sight of a barren of beef. I had never seen I guess the rear end of a steer before on a dining room table and I was optimistic as someone who likes rare beef only to discover that it was well done beyond inability. I was told by someone not the president not vice president but by someone that if I had been a Texan I would never have eaten beef rare and this advice has remained in my mind if not in my mouth these many years. That was the first time I talked to the vice president then met Mrs. Johnson and saw the Elms a pleasant but not overwhelming house. The next time was much closer it was a dinner at Joe Alsop's and the guest of honor was of course the vice president still Kennedy years. It must have been summer because under Johnson was wearing a startlingly white dinner jacket. I have to add that protocol under Kennedy forbade white dinner jackets. He felt that appropriate summer garb was a black dinner jacket as winter so nobody in the Kennedy entourage ever took out their white dinner jackets. I think the memory was simply that this was Eisenhower image this was suburbia this was not chic so they with all the other men Kennedy style garb Lyndon Johnson not only towered physically but he shone brightly. It turned out that he was seated on Joe's right I was seated on Lyndon Johnson's right and you can fix it in time though I haven't checked because it was maybe the day at least the period when Deke Slayton had been washed out of the astronaut program because of a bad heart and LBJ thought this was most unfair and he he said that just because you've had a heart attack or had whatever trouble Slayton had shouldn't have disqualified him for big astronaut activities and to follow it up he to the eager interest of Joe who was following this closely said you know I've had a bad heart attack and of course we all remember that from the 50s but he had his electrocardiogram in his dinner jacket and he put his hand in and took out this small electrocardiogram and showed it to Joe who looking beyond him to me he didn't exactly wink but it was a static wink and he examined and said very interesting very interesting gave it back well we had other subjects that evening and it was a time when I had a sense that not only did I not understand Texas beef but I didn't really understand Texans I enjoyed the evening but I had a feeling that this was not a world in which I would find myself comfortable so the remarkable thing is that many years later I became politically socialized at least semi-socialized as a Texan and I've enjoyed now over 30 years here but those are the only memories that I have before Dallas you changed your ideas about beef no and during the the years that your husband Walt was in the State Department did you did you have a much reason to be in contact with President Mr. Johnson then yes from the time well Walt went to State Department in I think December of 61 and stayed there until 67 so it was a long time but after after President Kennedy was killed there were many occasions where I would be invited to women's activities in the White House there was a program you probably know what it was called something like women doers and I attended those I don't remember the dates but of course while Walt was in State I saw less people around the White House than I had both before and and after then came the time when he was called back in to succeed Mac Bundy right from that time on your lives were pretty much intricately woven with the Johnson's there had been rumors that Walt was going to be appointed there was a room with it I think that he was going to be there was it Bob Kittner anyway I had the impression maybe generated by the media that President Johnson didn't like he liked surprises when he made them but he didn't like leaks ahead of time so there was some media discussion of his impending appointment of Rostow and maybe Bob I don't know and President Johnson was said to be very unhappy about this we were out one night at a Japanese restaurant with English friends and a call the White House had tracked us down it was a restaurant was named the Osaka and I thought of this in retrospect is the night of the Osaka it was long before there were well the Osaka was not a restaurant where they could bring you telephones it was a fairly simple place and the only place where Walt could take a call from the president was by the cashier and LBJ was very noisy about a leak and it Walt had not leaked but president wanted to find out all that Walt knew about it and so the our two English guests and I could see from the distance Walt sort of holding the phone away from his ear while the president tore a strip off him it turned out to be the only time he ever did it he never again was the word abusive is wrong was not he never again was critical of Walt in that in that fashion but as we came back from the Osaka we were concluding that hit whatever chance he had of getting max job had had gone up in smoke literally while we were out presumably for an evening of jollity what we want to get into as delicately and but as efficiently as we can is your impressions of president Johnson through the surely the the rather special relationship that you had with him how do you see it more overall the first time I really thought that I liked him very much was out on a I don't remember the name of but it was not the honey fits something any cases on the Potomac big enough vessel it was again good weather and there were various people around first of all in the corridor I saw a group of men not playing poker I could tell that but as far as I could tell they were playing dominoes and I had never seen grown men with dominoes so this fascinated me one of them was Jake Pickles it turned out but I again realized that I had a learning curve that I'd better get on to and I was told that dominoes was a macho thing to do in Texas but the smoke that came out of the room the sight of these men busily playing with tiles that was first thing and then up in the deck I sat near the president who was in good form and funny and he was not at that moment playing dominoes but talking there couldn't have been too many people around and I began to see a warm and witty I use the word witty rather than just funny because he was both and a really very very nice fellow I remember telling love afterwards that I thought I was going to like like him but it was an aquatic experience it was a again the president was wearing very simple clothes appropriate to the occasion shorts and I felt that I was in a different world but that I was going to be comfortable in it it is any any particular part of his any particular episode of his demonstration of his humor occur to you sticks in your mind no it was I think I may be wrong but I think it was hill country stories he was he was talking a bit maybe I had raised the question of dominoes maybe he was the one who explained it but he talked in a warm and a very engaging fashion about a a rural part of this country which I someone from New York City had little had no experience of and he talked about his family later on when we had teenage children who had teenage problems I remember him talking again about how his father when he I think he wrecked a car his father drove him around town said telling everyone this is my boy Lyndon and standing behind him as we had a son who not wrecked a car but and distinguished himself and I liked this I liked the fact that he was always compassionate with same members of his official family who had problems and he just struck me as someone who didn't fit the image of a brutal boss someone who put the put his arm on people and he certainly as far as what was concerned never did he knew that Walt played tennis wanted to play tennis as often as possible but he instructed the White House Board not to bother him if he was out in the court but haven't called back afterwards and sometimes they'd call home in winter what would play and I don't know where I never went there some covered court and he would leave at 6 45 in the morning get into his whites before dawn take his clothes along and change get to the office by I don't know eight sometime but if a call came from White House the instructions were oh he's playing tennis don't bother him so that that kind of consideration his chivalry towards my mother who lived with us at that point who was very old and his almost flirtatious attitude towards her of course she warmed up to him in instinctively he knew how to be chivalrous as well as I'm sure very direct but his he literally apologized several times in my presence for using the word damn and I had heard it before and I was not shocked and I felt really quite comfortable with a fellow who'd use the word damn but the apologies came it's well known that he had a great regard for your judgment and your abilities did he ever you recall any instance of which he asked for your your advice or your participation personally in anything once at Camp David at that long table and I think with Laurel Lodge the late last window acted as a mirror after dark if you were sitting in I was I was on his left he was at the end of a long table and he turned to me and said what do you think President Roosevelt would have done in my situation I assumed that this had something to do with Vietnam but I then began to talk about how fortunate FDR was and coming in at a time when the situation in the country was such that he was given a free reign I said I thought that FDR is good fortune who would normally think that being a president of the Depression and a war was a lucky break but it in terms of presidential activism it was and Roosevelt could push his policies through Roosevelt could act as Dr. New Deal in the Depression as he called himself Dr. win the war during World War two as he called himself and the country accepted this so I talked about how different the world of the late 1960s was in my eyes from the situation that Roosevelt had encountered but I think probably in the end I said that the president took very seriously President Roosevelt that is took very seriously his commitment to fight Hitler and he might have assumed that the Cold War imposed the same kind of imperative on his successor and my hunch was that Roosevelt would have acted much as FDR as LBJ did under very different circumstances when quote the grain of history was not running with him to the extent that it run with the second Roosevelt he often asked me what I was teaching and how I found the students in fact at one point I think there's a picture we have some state dinner where a Middle Eastern guest was present I think it was an Arab and FDR getting my presence jumbled and LBJ turned to his Arab guest and said I'm going to teach a course with Mrs. Rostow when we get to Texas this was of course at the very end and the expression of amazement in the eyes of the guest turned out to be prophetic because of course never materialized but he did he did show it as I think all presidents well I'm not sure all of them but most of them have a sense of sequence have a sense of the other people who've been in that building in that job and well for example once on Air Force One I found him reading a biography of James Buchanan of all people and I asked why why Buchanan who was clearly not one of the outstanding presidents he said well he was he was president at a time when the country was about to get into war and he didn't do anything that helped I he didn't finish the sentence but my hunch was that he was trying to see what kind of mistakes he could avoid in a dissimilar but somehow evocative period a century later. What is your personal assessment of the relationship between the president and Walt? I think he I think LBJ respected Walt for his mind for his willingness to stand up for principal and they seem to get along very well. He often talked to me about how helpful Walt was to him. The most spectacular moment for this came when the day Clark Clifford was sworn in as Secretary of Defense there was a meeting in I guess it was the in the East Room and then a reception afterwards and Walt left to go back to his office and I went down the line and the president was effusive about something that Walt had done and he he kissed me rather moist kiss on my forehead and as I left and went out a man seized me and said I haven't seen you for a long time and kissed me roughly on my chin and that was Bob Kennedy and I went back to teach that afternoon and I wondered whether I should not wash my face for a while but preserve these wet smacks at two different levels of altitude from two quite different human beings but it proves that Bob Kennedy was there at the Clifford swearing in but it also the the enthusiasm with the president talked about what Walt was doing I think was real and he he went out of his way to emphasize it and he I think he was more well to me at least he talked more about Walt's virtues than he did to wall sometimes at the ranch he talked to me about how helpful Walt was and certainly Walt stood by him you you and and Walt were in the White House on the day that president Johnson announced that he was not going to run again yes did that announcement come as a surprise to you go over that your feelings about that time of course had been gossip rumors about Johnson's intent it was a Sunday as I recall it Susan Mary also had been around in the afternoon she was trying to persuade my mother to write another book mother was in her 90s or anyway no she wasn't in her 90s she was in her 80s but mother wasn't at that point energized to write another book and Susan Mary was pushing her in this direction so I didn't have much time to prepare for the evening but went off and I when I saw the president when he went down to give the speech that included the decision not to run again he'd asked Walt and others to check earlier when Harry Truman made a similar statement in 1952 and found that it was at the end of March so Walt was prepared as I was not for this possibility and Walt knew that there had been a part of this I guess it was the State of the Union message which included the statement that Sherman s statement I will not run and etc etc so one half of the family was prepared for this I was the part that was not and seeing the president go off I could see that members the family looked stricken Linda was there Lucy was there I don't remember seeing Mrs. Johnson ahead of time but I must have done so in any case then came we watched on television we were asked if we want to go wherever it was that the taping took place but some of us said no and stayed behind and again there's a picture of Marnie Clifford and me take an I imagine just about the moment the president was saying he was not going to run and we we look in shock not in shock and all just shock and amazement gave way then to a sort of a discussion of what happens now president came back and he was really jolly I can't think of another word for it well he was pumped up he made this big decision and then he started making telephone calls to David Rockefeller I think a call came in from Nelson to other people the Krims were around they of course had known much more about it they'd been there all day and I think it tried to persuade him dissuade him from making the announcement but there was a it was not exactly atmosphere of awake well I've never been to a formal wake so I don't know what the atmosphere is but it had some I'm sure some of the qualities of awake for those who had been a part of the Johnson administration and I remember going home and finding a call from Susan Mary saying why didn't you tell me and my answer was of course that I didn't have anything to tell at that earlier hour as of you you've known President Johnson on two levels a personal level and then as a although involved and attached nonetheless as a scholar and an historian what is your assessment of him as president speaking now not just as a friend but but as a as a scholar he'll get very high marks for his social policies the fact that people who had been highly critical earlier have switched is I think understandable I'm talking about people like John Kenneth Galbraith author Schlesinger even George McGovern who attacking LBJ across the board at first have now decided that he did remarkable things on the plane social policy civil rights 64 voting rights 65 what the the long list the first administration to pass legislation for higher education creation of new bodies the national endowments etc etc he's going to stand people I think probably at least in the short run going to make a distinction a disjunction between Johnson the domestic president and Johnson the figure associated incorrectly by the way but associated almost exclusively in many minds with Vietnam in my own view the president's policy was intermestic this is a horrible word but it puts together international and domestic and I see a great similarity between what LBJ did at home for the other America to use that word that phrase and what he did abroad he really was concerned with human human beings with values and with protection of vulnerable cohorts whether they were children elderly and people in developing countries who had no way to solve their problems on their own so I see the Johnson who held the line as he often called it in Vietnam as being the same kind of president that fought for civil rights and that even went against his old friend Dick Russell to push the 1964 act through he of course was aided by the guilt reaction after Kennedy's death but it wasn't strictly guilt it was a good deal LBJ's powerful presence that got us that landmark decision and perhaps even more important voting rights act the next year so the assessment it bound to change revisionism is the stuff of presidential history about half a century ago suddenly historians decided that James K. Polk was a great president no one had thought that and they began to find virtue in Polk Harry Truman leaving office with abysmal approval rating suddenly became sainted sanctified not just David McCullough but a general sense that this little man had stood strong and tall at a time when he was needed so revisionism will occur with LBJ it's already occurring and the switch that you see in terms of domestic policy I think is a preamble to a a new view of the whole Johnson period with an effort to stem the tide in Asia from a possible communist takeover during the Cold War and what he was trying to do at home he was he remembered his own past and he was he was frightened by the possibility of China entering the war in the Pacific so what he did was to limit the so-called terms of engagement which dictated how we fought the Vietnam War dictated the fact that you couldn't do certain things in respect to the Ho Chi Minh trails that General Westmoreland and others wanted to have done and he I'm sure and I'm not sure I think overestimated the possibility of a Chinese entry he saw a parallel between China entering Korea and China acting as it might do in Vietnam and after all he was his ideas and foreign policy were not formulated during the Korean War but they were fixed I think so a false parallel in his mind I believe was the Chinese situation in 1950 and the Chinese and the Korean situation and the Chinese situation in respect to Vietnam in the 60s I can understand it but I I regret it and as for Westmoreland's reaction to this in in this library he said that he felt that he'd been forced to fight in Vietnam with his hands tied behind his back by which he meant that the terms of engagement did not permit him to conduct the kind of war that might have won if winning had been possible and he felt that it might wall happened to agree with Westmoreland disagree with the president president knew this and Walt's view was I'm not elected president it's his call not mine but he he very much regretted the way the the conduct of the war developed just because in the same argument that Westy put forward later on James how are we doing you need to change this would be a good time because I want to ask a question I was gonna involve a little discussion