 Whenever old Johnson hands get together, we delight in telling Johnson stories, sometimes the same ones over and over. All of us at one time or another have thought it a shame that this wealth of Johnson material could not somehow be preserved. And now it has been, a lot of it at least. Under a project supported by the LBJ Foundation for the Benefit of the LBJ Library, Bob Hardesty and Harry Middleton have collected on videotape the reminiscences of 76 persons, comprising some 200 hours of priceless recollections. The entire collection will be an invaluable resource for Johnson researchers for decades to come. For this presentation, in the centennial year of President Johnson's birth, not all interviews could be used of course, nor could any complete interview be included. But these excerpts present a sample of that treasure trove and an opportunity once more for all of us to rebel in Venice, Johnsonia. He was very much like my mother's older brother, my uncle Ed. My uncle Ed back in South Carolina was an irasable, difficult person who wanted to be irasable and difficult because when you're that way, people have to handle you, they have to placate you, they have to settle you down. And it's kind of wonderful thing for the ego to be irasable and to have everyone have to adjust to you. And I realized that this personality, this enormous, the cliche was that he was larger than life, that his irasability was in a way a way of becoming the center of attention. The commanding officer wouldn't let LBJ sit at the head table because he said there's a war on and I don't want any politics. And here Johnson put the base out there. So he put Johnson out in the audience at one of the tables on the right hand side, at the same table where Joe Kilg and I were sitting along with Buck Hood. And there was Johnson sitting out there with a scowl on his face. They put lawyer Ed Clark at the head table because Ed had been a member of the Texas National Guard and therefore he was a soldier and there'd be no politics so he put Ed Clark at the head table and he put Johnson out in the audience and made him sit out there because wouldn't let Johnson sit at the air force that he had built because he didn't want any politics. And Johnson sat there and seized and kind of quietly raged about it. He said to himself and we looked at each other and Johnson leaned over to me and he said, I'll tell you one thing, according to the commanding officer, that SOB will never make general. To be in opposition pretty much across the board in a responsible way in dealing with the Johnson administration. Now sometimes that was a little too strident but when you're the leader you do have an obligation there. And Lyndon on a couple of occasions got quite irritated. He thought with my nitpicking so to speak and Lyndon had a thin skin on occasion and I forgot to quote what I think of was Jerry, nothing wrong with Jerry Ford except he played football too long without a helmet. Bill Nolan was a minority leader when I first went up there and I went into one time to talk to Johnson and he said, you know I just love Bill Nolan. I said just wonderful having him as minority leader and I just didn't quite sound like Johnson. I kind of looked quizzical about it and then he leaned over and said because he said, God damn dumb. And then I said, oh, he said I can beat him every time. He never figures it out until it's too late. We had a meeting with Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins and some of the civil rights leaders and they were talking about the liberals want this, the liberals want that and Johnson bends over to Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins. He says you know the difference between liberals and cannibals? He says cannibals eat only their enemies. Will Sparks and I were at this time the only full time speech writers in the White House and Bob Kentner who had just left NBC as president was coming on board the White House staff as a special assistant to the president and the president wanted him to meet Will and me. So he called us over and we sat there in the Oval Office, the president and his rocker and Will and me on one side and Bob Kentner and Jack Plenty on the other. Jack was leaving the White House and Kentner was coming aboard. And the president was talking about various things and things that we did and at one point he said now Bob and Will are the best speech writers any president has ever had. And I thought to myself well this is pretty heavy, heavy stuff. And then he explained the not temperamental, they don't miss deadlines and they don't get drunk the night before major speech. And he wanted to speak that day about the brevity of speeches. He said now take the number four. He said now you guys have all been to college. Can you count the four? One, two, three, four. Am I going too fast for you Jack? Harry? No. He said I want, no speech should be more than four minutes long. No paragraph should be more than four sentences long. No sentence should have more than four words. And most words, in fact all the important words have four letters. Well I thought of the four letter words I know. And he said take love and home and food and peace. He said I know peace is five letters but it should have four. In 1968 after Martin Luther King was assassinated and there were riots in the city of Washington. And a lot of us were around the White House, maybe not totally around the clock but with fairly late hours. And the president always wanted to know where everybody was. And Walt Rostow who was the national security advisor had been there at the White House for fairly late hours for two or three days and about six or seven o'clock one day he came to see me as he was leaving and he said Larry if the president asks about me I'll be back in a little bit. I'm going to go home. I haven't been home in 48 hours. I think he had been at the White House around the clock. I'm going to go home and have a martini with Elspeth his wife and maybe change my shirt and suit and then I'll be back down here. And so I said fine and sure enough LBJ inquired an hour or so later about him and said where's Walt? And I said well Mr. President he's been here at the White House for about 48 hours straight and he said to tell you that he was going to go home and change his shirt and suit and have a martini with Elspeth and would be back and the president said oh poor Walt I wish I had known if he had told me he could have had a drink with me. I remember one time John Kenneth Galbeth was in his office and Ken was saying now Mr. President you haven't made an economic speech in quite a while as a matter of fact I haven't even heard one. You need to make an economic speech. A speech on economics. I remember the president saying Ken let me tell you about economic speech as he says president making an economic speech is like a Philippian down his leg it makes him feel warm but nobody else knows what the hell he's doing. Anyhow they were not though nobody realized that the best of friends for many years. Thomas would say you know I see you down there with Johnson all the time because you better watch him I'll tell you really now Jack and Johnson would say now you know you better keep an eye on old Albert. You know why those secret service men were on the running board when Roosevelt went to Houston and Thomas was there they didn't want Thomas to steal his watch. They were not. He had another bad habit. No it was a good habit but a bad habit. Johnson liked to tell stories and it was great to rock and tour. The one was he'd start those damn stories about three o'clock on Saturday afternoon whenever he wants to go home. He hates to go home and walk out but he hates to miss him because he really had some good stories. You must have heard the one about the guy from West Texas who scratched his leg on a barbed wire fence and got gangrene. He began to hurt pretty bad and he went into this is Johnson telling the story and I'm going to truncate it. The guy goes into a clinic in Odessa, West Texas. Doc said the damn legs give me problems. He said I never had anything like this before. Doc said he never had anything like this before. That's gangrene. He says what's that? He says that's an infection. It'll go through your whole system and kill you like that. Holy shit. Are you kidding? No I'm not kidding. He says what do you do? I tell you. It's the only one thing we do. Amputate. He said you mean cut it off. Yeah that's what I mean. Oh no no no. He said you have another choice. You can die. Okay. He goes through the operation. He's now coming out of the anesthesia and the first thing that comes into focus is a doctor. Well Doc, he said how'd it go? The doctor says Mac, I got some good news. I got some bad news. He said you son of a bitch. I know I shouldn't have come here. Where's my gun? I'll kill you. He said go ahead. Tell me the bad news first. Well he said the bad news is this ain't the male clinic. And I don't know how to tell you this but he screwed up. We took off the wrong leg. What's the good news? The good news is the other leg is going to be alright. Several people ask me what do you do as a consultant? And I am reminded of one of LBJ's best pieces of humor and his story of what a consultant really is all about. So I use it. It is the story of how in the spring of a particular year little puppies were just all over Johnson City. They were in the flower beds. They were pooping in the yards. They were running wild all around the town. The Johnson City Garden Club called a special meeting. Again this is according to LBJ. Probably a mythical story incidentally. But called a meeting of the Garden Club and then elderly head of the Garden Club of Johnson City said what are we going to do about all these puppies? They are running our yards. They are running our flower beds. They are stinking up this place. I mean this is unbelievable. The town is being overrun by puppies. And another elderly woman raised her hand and she said well I know the problem. It is that big black dog. I think maybe big black bulldog. And she said that dog is responsible for all of these puppies just about in this town. So they voted unanimously to have the dog fixed. But those of you who are not familiar with the verb fixed here in the south that is to have the dog castrated. And in case the next spring was arriving and the women were so excited they did not expect any more puppies to be running all over the city because they had the bulldog fixed. Well spring came. There are puppies everywhere. More puppies. More puppies. So I mean they called an emergency meeting with Johnson City Garden Club. The chairman once again said what in the world are we going to do? So we got more puppies here this spring we did last year. The same elderly lady raised her hand and she said it is still that G.D. black bulldog. And they said what do you mean it is that G.D. black bulldog. We had him fixed. And the little lady says I know but now he is acting as a consultant. We were at the end of the legislative session. We had appropriated the money. I got a call early one morning. And my secretary said President Johnson is on the phone. Of course you would always take that call immediately. And I did and he said well I bet I guess that in these little hot Texas summers when the kids go out there to swim in that swimming pool and to see the grass and to see the trees that they are going to say well I wonder why that Ben Barnes in the Texas legislature didn't have enough sense to drill more than two water wells. He said anybody knows that you got to have irrigation wells out here and two wells will not irrigate this park. So in August I guess they can put a sign on the state park out there. Ben Barnes would not drill enough water wells to have the water where the young Texas children can swim in the hot summers. And I said well Mr. President the bill is already gone to the governor's office. We are in the last day of the session. And he said well I guess we can get the signs ready. He said you know I really thought that you could get things done. I've been your friend. I've been helping you. And he said you know I don't ask you for much. It was not necessarily the truth at that time. But he said I just can't believe you can't do it. And lo and behold there was a way that you could pass a joint resolution recalling a bill back from the governor's office if he had not already signed it. Well Governor Smith had not signed the bill. So we got a joint resolution adopting. Passed it through the Senate. I went over to Speaker even I think I even spoke on the House floor which I don't think the Lieutenant Goodner had ever done for a resolution or bill. But anyway we got it passed. Got the bill back. Put the money in there for I don't know seven, eight or nine water wells and got the LBJ part to have an ample water supply where the children when they go in July and August and those hot Texas summers were going to be able to see green grass and green trees and have water to swim in. And the President called me when it was heard he's done. He said well I know you can do it click. Listen when I wrote the put I didn't write it but when I put together Mrs. Johnson Sr. his mother's scrapbook about him and they talked to publisher into paying us over a hundred thousand dollars for that book just a copy of it. Bob Gutt who was head of this publishing house came to the White House to present the President the first copy. And we went in there and LBJ just praised him and then he just went through the whole book line by line correcting it here and there. His own mother's scrapbook and Bob Gutt when he just turned white he thought that the President was going to make him rerun the whole thing. When I first went over to the White House I had been there but a few days and there were a bunch of newly appointed federal judges in town. The President wanted to meet them and they were in a place where we could maybe in the Federal Judiciary Center we could reach them all at once. Seven or eight and so I called them. They came to the cabinet room they were thrilled to death of course. And I visited with them and then as they were leaving I tried to introduce them to the President. And he gave me a little pep talk. He wasn't asking for anything. He was very good about that. And so then there were pictures taken. He called me down in a couple of days and he showed me these pictures and said you see anything wrong with these pictures. I said well I like nice pictures to me. He said well you're in every one of these pictures. He said do you really think that they came to get your picture? I said does that teach you anything at all? Oh yes it does. I understand that very easily. And as I was the only Greek American in Congress I was invited to this reception and I greeted the President and the President said good to see you or something like that and he said I was glad to see you got that defense contract in your district this week. Pause. And I'm sorry you couldn't be with me on the farm bill. It's almost breathtaking to appreciate the degree to which he was informed on such matters. And when I was trying to explain what happened and getting cut off and the President said well it sounds to me like you were scratching your ass when you should have been scratching your head. I said yes sir. So that was my introduction really to the front and center Lyndon Johnson. I'm in his office at the ranch and I'm standing there at his desk and he said get a hold of I don't remember who it was and ask him and find out if such and such things are I don't remember the subject and I don't remember who I caught. But I do remember standing at his desk and saying to I got a hold of the President wants to know and he's standing there and he hangs up on the phone, hangs up. I look at him and he says damn it tell him you're stupid don't tell him I'm stupid. Yes sir. He was great at practical jokes with his staff. One time I remember in particular it was very embarrassing we were at the ranch again for a bunch of sessions I think and he had a bunch of congressmen down there and for something else but we overlapped and so we're walking around outside the ranch and there were a bunch of concrete forms that were still wet and OBJ had the idea he says why don't you guys write your names in it we're going to plan them here some path somewhere it will be interesting every young congressman had me do it well my name is spelled with an E on the end Schultz with an E and I hadn't paid enough attention when I started to write and I got to the end of the form and I didn't have room for the E so I kind of left it the OBJ's eagle eye looks down he turns to the congressman you wonder why we got deficit problems and I hired a dumb son of a bitch who's so dumb he can't even spell his own name. I remember one time we were flying off of the White House south lawn and we had three pads set up on the south lawn so the three helicopters could come in at once and then go off and we were getting ready to go on a major trip and the passengers in Air Force One were gathered in the diplomatic reception room on the south side of the White House and they were all getting ready for this trip and as the time went on we had assignments to all the people we had them identified when we called out the aircraft number coming in they knew that they would come out and get on the helicopters and fly out to Air Force One out at Andrews Air Force Base well the president had his assignment of course and he was in Helo One and I told the president that when his aircraft was on the ground I would come and get him because he was having a good time and he was in the diplomatic reception room glad handing all of the politicians and the people that were going to go with him on this trip and we were about two-thirds of the way through and the president walks out of the diplomatic reception room onto the south lawn and starts heading for one of the helicopters and I went over and I tapped him on the shoulder and I said, Mr. President, that's not your helicopter and he looked at me and he said, Major, they're all my helicopters and I said, yes sir he said, but you can tell me when the right one's in Danny who was all dressed up in his nice little neat blue blazer and dark flannel pants and a little necktie and his hair brushed and everything and he comes over and he pulls it quite literally pulls at the president's coat sleeve and the president was busy in this conversation he turns down, he sees this little kid and he says, just a minute and he turns back and keeps on with his conversation a couple more minutes go by and Danny tugs again and the president looks down and he says, I asked you to wait a minute and a little bit gruff, you know so the other minute goes by Danny pulls again the president turns back to him and he says, Merry Christmas, Mr. President and the expression on Johnson's face was just wonderful he just beamed and he knelt down talked to Danny for a couple of minutes one day I came into the office and I had my hair done the president said to me, today's a Wednesday you don't have your hair done till Friday what's going on? again, typical LVJ, right? and I said, well Mr. President, my parents are here and they're in town for a convention or whatever they were here for two or three days and so I had my hair done today and he said, your parents are here where are your parents? and I said, well they're staying at the Washington Hilton and two hours later my mother called me and she said, Phyllis, we just had a knock on the door and we have an invitation to the reception after the White House dinner tomorrow night for President Tubman of Liberia what am I going to wear? she said, where's your father going to get a tuxedo? I said, I don't know mom but we'll figure that all out and unbeknownst to me he had invited my parents to come which of course was such an exciting moment for them because they didn't really know the President and First Lady and of course when they went through the receiving line Mrs. Johnson said all those wonderful things that you say to mothers about their children and it was a very, very special night the one story that I remember and we'll always carry my affection for President Johnson to the grave as a result of was in December of 1968 when he and we were lame ducks and all of us were trying to determine what we were going to do next in life I had an overture from a large California law firm to consider opening a Washington office for me and I set a note into President Johnson and told him that I would like to go to Los Angeles that I'd only be gone two days but I'd like to go out and have a meeting with them and as he always did with things that went into him in night reading he would just check off and he checked off approved and off I went to Los Angeles I was meeting with the board of directors of the firm in their fine paneled conference room when a secretary came in all of Twitter and said Mr. Pearson the president is on the phone and says he really needs to talk to you right now well the senior partners of this firm said look we'll just clear out of this office and you use it as long as you need and let us know when you're ready to resume the talk well I was sure but he'd forgotten that I was in Los Angeles and had just called for me and so I came on the phone and sure enough the president was on the line and I said Mr. President I'm not in Washington I'm in Los Angeles and he said oh I know that I remember you were going out to Los Angeles and I said well then Mr. President what can I do for you and he said oh I didn't have anything I just thought the call might be helpful he said this is Lyndon Johnson and I'm in Lubbock, Texas and tonight I'm going to give a party up at the ranch for a fellow named Cantiflus he's a Mexican entertainer I said yes I know about Cantiflus he's sort of the Will Rogers of Mexico he said well I want you to get some people that would be he'd be comfortable with and the cocktail party started 7 o'clock and we'll see you there, click so I spent part of the day gathering up people that I thought Cantiflus would be comfortable with I got the professor of Spanish at the University of Texas the drummer, the head of the drama department and people from the Mexican consul in Austin and there was a cocktail party it was very nice and Cantiflus was very polite but you could see that he was just bored to death and Johnson could see it too so he disappeared for a while and came back with all of his ranch hands of Hispanic descent and they're still in their work clothes with their wives and the kids and Cantiflus' eyes just lighted up with his brightest stars of course he was the champion of the little man in Mexico and it became a wonderful party and everybody kind of melded together after that piece of legislation was passed he went and took the first pin and gave it to Everett Dirksen and we got back into the car and I said daddy there were all those civil rights leaders up there why didn't you give that first pin that most important pin to one of these great civil rights heroes he looked at me again shook his head and said you don't get it do you you don't and he said because all those civil rights leaders were already for that legislation I didn't have to do anything to convince them it was Everett Dirksen making the courageous state that he did and stepping up the plate like he did and bringing the people he brought with him that made the difference and made these civil rights leaders dream and my dream come true that's why he got the first pin I remember going in there and daddy introducing me taking me in that door because he saw Senator Taft going in and Senator Taft had cancer at that time and daddy knew he was not going to live very long and daddy took me and introduced me to him and said I want you to meet this great man I want you to have the opportunity to say I met Bob Taft and he was very cognizant of history and how even though at this age I wasn't going to appreciate it that maybe I would remember it the finest people of Sydney about 300 were gathered in a room to meet the president and he was about an hour or two late and he turned to me and he said do I have to go in there first he turned to Marvin Watson he said Marvin I got to go in there and he said no sir you're the president of the United States and you go do anything you like and he turned to me and said what do you say Mr. President these people have been waiting now for about two hours and they're the finest people of the Sydney society and they're anxious to see you and it would be sad and perhaps unfortunate if you didn't take advantage of this opportunity so he said he looked at me like I'm going to get you and he went in and oh Mr. President great and the cheer went up in the room and next thing you know he's working his way through that room shaking every single hand and he comes out the other end the finest people I've met in my life what a great thing I would do so you see you couldn't always depend on his mood because and he would I remember one time he dealing with a secret service he was going over to some other department in Pentagon and they'd set up the motorcade and the Washington police and the secret service and everybody involved and after about a block of this motorcade he made the driver turn off go on another street go a different route just left those motorcycle cops just out tooting around with no president and this is a sort of maybe a bad statement he said I get tired of all this business acting like I'm a Mexican general he hated the motorcycles and the sirens and all that stuff the son of the editor was that apparently there had been a story in the paper day or so before in the Dallas morning news that Lyndon Johnson was out raising a million dollars or more for a new house a new home for the chancellor of the University of Texas and the thrust of the story according to Lyndon Johnson was that he was doing this because he wanted to become the chancellor of the University of Texas and he thought that was outrageous he said after all I've done for that young fella brought him down and showed him the park that I'm honest I am about these things and he looked at me and he said what in the hell after all I've been through what in the hell would I want to be the president or the chancellor of the University of Texas for and I shrugged my shoulders and I said God I have a great why and there's long pause and he pointed at me and he said but if I wanted to be the chancellor of the University of Texas I'd be the best one they ever had but we got ready to go home and Johnson announced to the group that I want a photograph of this he looked around for a photographer and he was not one there I suspect he corrected that later but he saw me with my camera and he says can you make a picture of us this group and I said sir it ain't got any film and I've used up all my film he says shoot it anyway so he lines them all up gets in the picture they pose I click my camera not any film at all on my camera and I suspect they ever knew that but they sure didn't get it because of the pictures I'll tell you he was on a tapioca diet then and Lady Bird kept trying to to get him on diets because he was constantly gaining weight and he was overweight and so she would ration him so he'd get up in the middle of the night and eat more tapioca and she heard him she must have the ears of an Apache she heard him and she'd come in so one morning he calls Joe Layton and says that Lady Bird had heard him it was a spoon clanking against the bowl so he asked Joe Layton to go buy him a wooden spoon so I suppose you think that if I pick up the paper now and I read about something that has been done on the basis of papers out there that I will let you know about it and I acknowledge that that thought had indeed occurred to me and he said well if that ever happens here's what I want you to do I want you to go out and I want you to sit on that hillside in front of the library and you look back at it and you think of all that we've been through to get this library open because it's been a long road you think of all of that and then you come back in here and you call me because I'll be waiting right here I'll know what you're calling about and I'll be waiting for your phone you get me on the phone and you say Mr. President because that's the way you talk you're always very polite you say Mr. President one of us is full of shit and let's decide right now who it is No reporter in Washington or whoever covered the White House has ever had as much access to a president where you could walk down the street with him two or three times he invited me into his limousine to take a ride to a certain place where he was going to speak and maybe my AP competitor also I mean I can assure you that never happened before and has never happened since of course he did not take kindly always to a reporting and when he didn't he let me know about it almost instantly for all of his realism which he never abandoned him and for all of his practicality he was an idealist I mean this was a man who believed he could end poverty you know how glorious and who believed he could end racism you can't get more idealistic than that more wonderfully idealistic but he always worked out in a very practical hard headed realistic way I think that commitment to civil rights is measured in the speech to the joint session of Congress and the spring of 65 after the march on Washington after the march himself went to Montgomery and when the president in that speech came to the theme of the movement and when he's standing in the well of the Congress said we shall overcome that was it that was an exhilarating moment it was a vindication of so much of what we were trying to do and getting the attention of the American people and he was the leader of the free world the president of the United States uttering with commitment and conviction we shall overcome I should never forget that the president told me he said look I'm going to get to the civil rights I'm going to lose a lot of friends and he said the country might go Republican the South might go Republican and he told me that and I know one of his best friends a senator from Georgia what is his name? Russell Russell he used to come to the ranch all the time in Hunt sent him to the ranch to the ranch in Hunt well after that civil rights I never saw senator Russell from that day to this I think that one of the great memorials to Lyndon Johnson is here in Washington really on the banks of the Potomac River a little forest that was planted with wonderful evergreens because he was evergreen and the monument at the heart of it was a great slab of Texas granite and I think that's the right monument for Lyndon Johnson not a piece of polished marble but a great slab of Texas granite