 well just do I just ramble a little bit you throw in a okay okay that's fine well I came to Washington I was up well just do I just ramble a little bit you throw in a okay okay that's fine well I came to Washington I was up in New York with the old life magazine for a couple of years but I came down to Washington in 1957 with life magazine I switched over to time in 1958 and that was really kind of the heyday of of the majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson and he was a far greater figure in town than perhaps we realized today because Ike was kind of somlent over there in the White House he'd had look let's face it he'd had a heart attack he'd had Iliadus he was ill he was kind of a fading star not that he didn't have power he was a very great influence but he just that wasn't Ike's style and Johnson was this flamboyant really driving a genius at legislation up on the hill and we all knew that and I went up at first with life magazine to just talk about him and and then later with time and of course Johnson being such a wonderful cunning animal in this political jungle instantly knew when a time and life man because they were important to him and he told me one time later on he said you he said I'd rather have one paragraph in Time Magazine than a whole column in any place else now you know that with a lot of that was Johnson exaggeration but there was some truth to that we were a time was really time life the only global media at that time radio hadn't penetrated I guess you might say National Geographic but no news media we really kind of blanketed the world that to the extent it was in those days and so Johnson understood the importance of the Kennedy John Kennedy told me he said I go around this world and he said I hit all these embassies he said the first thing the ambassador does is say I was reading in Time Magazine such and such it's a they said I it just unbelievable so I've got to deal with you guys is what this well LBJ what a figure he was and I remember I went up there and to the to the the magazine gallery which in those days was on the floor with his office it was the gallery floor and the majority leaders office was just down the hall in the corner and between the magazine got a periodical gallery it's called and is Johnson was a staff and it included George Reedy and Harry McPherson was in there and Jerry Siegel and and some of the old Johnson troops and and also we had Willie Day Taylor was in there I can't remember was whether Ashton Thornhill was in then but also Grace Tully who had come from FDR's administration and his figures rather prominently in the history well I was odd number one by the staff like you know they were famous people and delightful people I have to say and then and then well with life of course we did some picture stories but I didn't get into it it wasn't until I was made the political correspondent in 58 and the Hill course one of the Hill correspondents where Johnson really took an interest in me and he gave me the treatment now this was the initiation of anybody who came into this orbit and I remember George Reedy said he said the leader would like to see you and we went down the hall and that's before the thorn room throne room that big office that Johnson prepared for himself this was just a normal kind of office down the corner nice view down the mall and all in that Johnson behind his desk impressive figure I remember from the very start he was quite slender then and tall this was after he's heart attacked and he'd lost weight and and he was sitting behind the desk and I wish I'd had a tape recorder in those old days number number one he talked about the magazine he talked about he knew the editors some and he knew that Bowie how he liked to read the magazine and it wasn't that time but later on when when I was there where he called up one of the editors to tell him what a great man I was now he did that with everybody Russell Baker tells that story too and I and I think all of the people like that that came in got that treatment but I I was dazzled by it I have to admit and I and I as I look back on it there was a lot that was just Johnson hyperbole the old Texas stories but there was a lot that was real he talked about the meaning of the country he talked about his upbringing how about he talked about seeing the people on the Pyrton Alice grow old before their time because things were so hard he thought government was the way to help people and that's why he was in it and he and he was a little snide now and then about the banker's house up on the hill the big White House up there and and talked about Lady Bird and he talked about being down there in his campaigns it was a story somewhat of Johnson's life but it was it was really quite wonderful and then about the Senate and what he was trying to do and you know it was inspiring now there are a few little side things that I had to chuckle about later on because he's talking about how he wasn't interested to he was interested in the people's business he was interested in making this country great he was interested in these principles he didn't care about money well that was exactly true he said I got this shirt here at five dollars I probably paid for it nothing nothing you know five dollars he said I don't have anything else I don't have any other anything money doesn't matter to me well as we know his television station was turning into a gold mine down there and and as I looked around on the desk there were gold things all you know he had a wonderful gold wristwatch and gold cuff links and there were the desk set was all gold and that and but I didn't bother me then I didn't didn't mean much to me and I remember I went out and I wrote a memo to New York about that episode and basically it emphasized this fellow of where he'd come from and what he was all about and now he wanted this nation to run and the fly he always talked about the flag up there and that little poem you know but that he did when he was a schoolboy about my that's the most wonderful thing these old eyes have seen is that flag flying up there and I wrote all of that and then I just happened to throw in a paragraph or two about all the gold and about Johnson well as you might know in Time Magazine they used the stuff about the gold and I was summoned back to the office very shortly thereafter about where night how did that all happen and Johnson was very unhappy with me but he was still a little wary we didn't he didn't he didn't take me on at some point in there though I can't remember it must have been before I had the treatment where I was just introduced in the hall you know he clapped me and I was a big iron you know and they introduced me as a Hucity Time Magazine and he said he said never knew a reporter without a character flaw what's yours but anyway I got the treatment and I must say I loved it I was just intrigued with this man he's the single most fascinating human being I'd ever met and still remains you know just volcanic in his passions and and yet they streak a genius about how to run that place that I'd never seen or never seen since an understanding of people it seemed like almost like osmosis where he'd come up to you and he could kind of calculate you and as Johnson later said see and smell you and feel you and hear you all those things so I immediately got into the swing of things up there but realized also that particularly for my kind of journalism I had to deal with Johnson so I told him I said well I hope that I can talk to you well as it turned out Johnson knew my writing habits and deadlines and so Johnson set aside a little time for me every Thursday that's when I wrote he knew I was filing and it and both up in that old office building and then then he redid the route redid it and he put in this really really elegant office down below just off the floor of the Senate this other one was up in the gallery level I don't know what that office was down there but he took it over and you know that was another kind of explosion because we all wrote pieces about about the throne room it was it was dead fortunately I was not alone on that but he chewed me out about that what do you mean you know why can't I why can't your majority leader have a decent office you know well they were the lights that were shining down on him and he had a telephone it must have had 50 buttons on it you know and he hadn't and his secretary was over in the corner and he had a washroom and everything going there it was it was it was something as I look back on it not that big not that great a deal but it was new up there at so so we wrote about that but anyway at the he he knew the rhythm that I would write and he'd leave a little time for me and when I wouldn't come around he'd be upbraided me about it where you been where you been no I want to talk to you you know that that was a theme through his whole life you come to me you get it from me now naturally he wanted to give it a spin of course and but you know any any good reporter would understand that and my theory about reporting was always that those guys powerful people presidents majority leaders had a right to tell their story now we had a right if we decide it was wrong or they weren't telling the truth to point that out but that they had that right and so I you know at least at first got along pretty good with Johnson because I he'd tell me about how he managed bills how he dealt with certain people and and I'd write it get in the magazine a lot of it so we had a good good relationship Johnson could see some product come out of the other other end but it it was a wonderful time in the Senate and Johnson and Rayburn who was then the speaker were far more powerful than than the equivalents are today in Washington again it was because Eisenhower it kind of receded from view somewhat he was kind of his term was running down I can't recall whether Bob Taft was sick by then probably may have even been dead by then there was no no Republican that could really had this stature of Taft that took over in fact I remember Bill Nolan was a minority leader when I first went up there and I went in to one time to just talk to Johnson and he said you know I just love Bill Nolan said just just wonderful having him as as minority leader and I just didn't quite sound like Johnson I kind of he looked quizzical about it and then he leaned over said because he said God damn dumb he said I can beat him every time he never figures it out till it's too late so so that was Johnson I always a surprise kind of move here and there and I remember all those lines Bill Nolan beat him on something or got a bill got it got something that he wasn't supposed to by our count and I went and said mr. leader what's what happened he said and this is this is why Johnson it just so wise about these things John said you you don't want to win them all he said if you win them all or you think you want to pretty soon you're gonna be losing them all and he just just gives give give something to these other people including Bill Nolan I guess but I you know you I used to hover around that office because he'd sometimes and run into me grab me and pull me in there Johnson like to play big dog you'd like to show you how important it was I made me very uncomfortable sometimes he'd put me and he'd start to go through his mail and he'd hand me the letter you know from somebody and I'd read it but I you know I really didn't want to know but that was just him he kind of sweep you into the orbit at that time and I remember when I when they opened the new office I think one of the first times I went in and it had a little haul you came in and the office was off to the side and when I came in Johnson had this I think it was a life-sized photograph of himself down which you got it in there Johnson and there was a desk in front for receptionist here's this here's this nice-looking young man I couldn't have been I figured you know about 18 or 19 and I went up it introduced myself and and I said I'm you sidey and he said I'm Billy Don Moyers and that's the first time I met Bill Moyers he was outside the receptionist we got to know each other talked about it he was living in Johnson's basement at that time he was a young aide and he went on to all his his great fame and achievement but I would hang around there and I would I'd go in and see him every Thursday night and they were sometimes wild sessions I remember and you see that was the day also when Johnson would go down to the for the leadership meeting and he'd meet Ike and they'd talk about the bills and space was very big then again I'd mentioned earlier about how Rayburn and Johnson were larger than life they were really in many weeks months back then the preeminent political figures in America they were the ones that that commented on space and the Cold War and the Soviet Union you know and their word was powerful because of appropriations the money but also particularly in the space race Johnson had moved in there after Sputnik and really made that kind of his baby and moved moved ahead son and on in defense appropriations and that was the time as you remember when we were to the missile we were developing the missiles and the nuclear submarines and that whole thing Congress very much involved with all of that and Johnson right at the forefront so you know you really wanted to know how things would go you needed to plug in with those fellows and Johnson of course used it to the hill but those Thursday nights were crazy I mean you know something he didn't like in the magazine why he would oh he just raised came here where'd you get that you know now you come to talk to me that's just crazy I remember once he was he was we were in the in the office there and he we were we were I don't know what it what I done or something magazine had done but anyway anyway he he was changing shirts he was going out to some formal dinner and he you know Johnson there that big body of his and he was stripped down and he was washing himself with the washcloth all over and he's chewing me out I mean and I kind of was I was standing because I because he was over in the washcloth and he started to stalk me around the table I move around this table he had to kind of get out of the way you know because how he thrust his nose right down on your nose I'd say yes we're supposed to go home Mr. Mr. Leader don't know no I sight of here nothing but a whore for the Republican Party that's all you are working for Time Magazine or goddamn Republican I'm a registered Democrat I've been all my life that doesn't matter you know and around and round we went with this you know him swabbing himself with the with the washcloth they were they were some nights I was in there in a very sad night too and here again it was a little uncomfortable when he swept me in it was the night that they got the word that John Connelly's daughter had been killed the daughter as I remembered had run off with a boyfriend and they were in a motel and the story was that he was he was cleaning the gun and it went off and killed her and I was sitting there we were talking about something and the phone call came and Johnson and I must say Johnson never panicked he just said oh oh and then about that time the lady ladybird burst in she was there the kids were there and and he called up Connelly and she talked to Nellie and it was all there and I tried several times I tried to get up and leave Johnson wouldn't have it no you stay right there you stay right there unbelievable kind of scene but this Johnson that just again kind of possessed you kept you kept you in there there were many times that as the campaign heated up to people to be in there I'd be in there talking to me he didn't come in Dick Russell for instance I I was in awe of senator Russell from Georgia but I'd be there and senator Russell come in sit down kind of nod to me and they'd conduct a little business John which told me you know there's so much written about how Russell created Johnson and I think that's true in many ways but also at that point Johnson was the dominant figure there's just no question I mean I you know I did you to thought out of respect for the old gentleman and he just said all right you could come back and live now I just stay right there as if what he said to Russell wasn't going to be too important so you got to feel and then there were a lot of wonderful things back as the campaign came out Kennedy came in one night and when the campaign was charging up Johnson was in there and as you know Kennedy was very much involved in the labor reform Taft-Hartley act he was one of the floor managers for it Bobby Kennedy had been on the rackets hearings that brought all that out that really created that bill in many ways and I remember Kennedy came in and Hoffa had attacked John Kennedy in the paper I forget what the charge was but he'd attacked him and and Kennedy came in for something that and and Johnson said well I senator how'd you get that done he said that guy's the best campaigner you got how'd you get Hoffa to attack you he said he said that's better and have your mother out there it's Kennedy broke up you know he said yeah he said at any time I could get one of those guys to take me on it helps Johnson went on and laughed all about I never Johnson's Johnson was the funniest man to be with your sides would ache after an hour or two with him and yet I don't think he had a sense of humor in the classic sense he couldn't laugh at himself it was just a little too serious but but honest to goodness with other people if you just had this rye way of dealing with him I and I love to watch him on the floor you know he had those mohair suits I don't know where he got those things but you know they were kind of glistening they were bright hard shiny finish and a bowtie like my I kind of wore my bowtie and commemoration of old lbj because he and I used to wear bowties back there and he had a Vicks in the like he had that thing he and he was had it up his nose you know get maybe be able to talk more but he had his papers down there I used to watch him and he and he and he had these gestures to you know to speed up the vote count to slow down the vote count so and so so and so go out the back door into the cloakroom I he would just uh he he would just superb I mean it was his universe and he knew everything not a sparrow fell that he didn't bobby baker would come in you know whispering his ear out he'd go and and it was just marvelous and johnson will look up at me every now and then wink you know it if we're doing a story and uh uh I I don't know I I uh I admired the technique and I also felt secure I there was just a quality about him that made you feel good that even when you disagreed with him even when he was outrageous which he was now and then that that he knew what he was doing he knew this this distinguished body and you had a lot of powerful senators around too that they could have challenged in this the day of kennedy and simington and george aiken of vermont and press bush of connecticut you had all of dick russell and bob kerr from oklahoma a formidable bunch and they could have challenged him but he he handled it well never never did these were his days when he drank two it's before he he uh cut off i that wasn't that was an operation that uh absolutely amazed me and my wife always told me she could tell the night that i'd been with lbj because I was I was I was quite tiddly by the time I got home and there were some of those nights that were just great I got got wonderful stuff and couldn't remember it when I finally sat down at the typewriter but he used to drink and he he had these he had these uh apparently got his hands got cold with a regular glass and johnson was a gadget man he just love loved all these new things that came in that you know that's why he was the first man to use a helicopter in campaigning a bullhorn down there and so he discovered that there was the insulated glass it was plastic glass with with two layers like a thermos jug but they were glasses they and they wouldn't get his hands cold and I I was kind of tickled by it but then I began to understand what it was all about johnson would uh johnson would come in at whatever drinking time it was and he'd hold his hand and I forget who his personal valet or his personal assistant was there but he he uh you know he he johnson publicly said he drank bourbon I suppose all southern senators had to tell that was nonsense cutty sark was what he drank the doctor told him to that after he's heart attack johnson said you know it's the three s's you three s's I said really he said scotch sleep and sunshine this was his formula for so anyway he'd sit there and he'd be talking to me and he'd hold out his hand and the guy would spot it and he'd just have his hand out there and pretty soon he'd slap in a drink cutty sark and soda drink and johnson might hold it for another five ten minutes I've seen him just hold it like that then he had as near as I could tell I haven't examined this with medical authority he had an epiglottis that he could control he didn't have to swallow he'd just drain the whole thing just open his mouth and the whole thing would go down without gulping or swallowing oh and he'd hold it out and the guy'd grab the glass and go back behind the screen johnson would talk a little bit and then his hand would go on this this this procedure absolutely fascinated me I'd never seen anything like it before in my life as as as we talked and I and let me tell you went through a lot of them but they were half strength people talk about his drinking they were half strength I never saw johnson lose control I saw him when he probably shouldn't have drunk as much I'm kind of stunned but particularly on the floor up there I never saw him what I would say really drunk or really out of control or anything I never saw it so I'm he was always in command as near as I could I could tell but he but he had this routine with the cutty sark and soda that was that was just hilarious and uh but there were great moments now uh bob caro has opened uh opened his second book with one of those and that was the 57 uh civil rights bill and I thought that I always felt that that was more important than people suggested uh the 64 bill was the one and everybody come talks about it I think probably in the long run it was it was important but I think internally in the senate the 57 bill was very important in which he convinced his southern colleagues dick russell and those people to go along with him on this or at least not to oppose it and he got that done and all always remember his near midnight as I recall when the bill was passed and and by then I was I was somewhat familiar with johnson and I went up to the gallery to watch that and that vocal vote roll call vote and johnson again with these hand signals and as I recall it was kind of a gray silver suit he had on and uh he had his vixen haler and he had it all orchestrated and the people came in when he when he gestured and I it was a magnificent sort of drama of american work by a skilled man I just loved the whole thing and of course I was down at the white house later on and when he was president and uh and he wasn't on the floor then I guess the bills passed were probably uh more significant then but this was this was johnson at work as a majority leader and it was just marvelous work yeah and I back there then he got of course he got mixed up in the campaign what I didn't understand was that he was uh that serious of a candidate tell tell later because johnson kind of cloaked it and put it aside he always used to tell me I'd go in there and say are you can't you running now mr president or mr leader you're running or are you going to handle it oh you no no no he said I would not begin to think about it until I'm sure that the american people want me well I remember once I was up there on the subway of the senate and uh john kennedy was going on the subway and he said come on so we sat again he said what are you learning he said well I was just in with johnson he said well well what's what's the word is he going to announce his candidates I said I said senator he told me he wasn't going to do anything till he was sure the american people wanted him kennedy looked at me scornfully he said you we've all decided long ago that the american people can't live without us I said well you're probably right but johnson kind of put it aside he had the he had the the legislation to work it but in any event I you know it got got pretty heated and I spent a long time in it you know one of johnson's monologues would go an hour sometimes to get off on this bill and that bill and he'd tell old stories about fdr uh I remember uh well I'm I'm your head of myself here we we got in there and then I can't he a little edge began to creep in his talk about john kennedy right up to the campaign and that's that was that famous outburst I think I've written about that but a famous outburst he's talking about how old Joe kennedy was a crook and should have been put in jail and now his kid is going to run for president of this rickety little guy you know he got yellow jaundice and his legs aren't any bigger than this rickety rickety little guy it just went on and on and I'm sitting there by then I was wise to it I always you know you knew what to discard with johnson if you if you're a really good reporting you've been around you knew what to with to discard with him you know he was over the top and and this this was just johnson doing his bit and I suppose it was wrong our talks were always kind of background I just had a sense of what you could use what you couldn't what you should use what you shouldn't if there was a question I went to him asking my is this something we quote you on that sort of thing but most of it was background he was just telling me what his feelings were and these moments would flare up like with with kennedy and then I think it was that same one as he got to talking about that rickety little guy I think he also threw in the phrase you know he's supposed to have venereal disease and he got all these other things and I think it was that and then he started to talk about old Joe he told me this story he said he said you know the old man fired him Roosevelt fired him said you know he's a crook he should have been put in jail he said he said you know I happened to be down there I said he said I was I was there he said you know old man Roosevelt he said you know he was got off a lonely down there he said you know he crippled there his stamp collection but he said he came in he said I was I ran with Roosevelt I ran and he always had a fondness for me because I'd I'd support him everybody else in 36 and run the other way they thought Al Flannan was gonna do some make it might beat him and he said I didn't I stuck with Roosevelt and I his platform was my platform so he said Johnson you just call me down for lunch and and said this day I went down there and he said I don't know he said we're in there the poor man's all alone he said you know his sons are out there screwing starlets and Eleanor's off with the niggers someplace I now forgive me but those were his words and he said here he is alone he said well we're having lunch and talking about the hill and he said and the phone rings I think he may have said Grace Tully came in and said Mr. President Joe Kennedy just landed in New York this was these were in the 10th year it's 3940 Joe Ambassador Kennedy and he wants to talk to you and so he said Roosevelt he had it in the phone he said Roosevelt threw that wonderful head of his back and said Joe my old friend so good dear voice went on and on Joe hurry down here I must talk to you can you get the plane down we'll have dinner tonight we'll have a couple of drinks and we'll have dinner we'll talk about things when he when he put the phone downs Johnson said I said something Mr. President I thought he was in real trouble for what he said about the war he said Roosevelt looked at him and said Lyndon I'm going to fire the son of a bitch this is Johnson's story how much of it's true I don't know but these sort of things in these in these monologues that would go on and on all of these stories that kind of roll out of of his time with these people and and it's just wonderful stuff I have no doubt about it that you know you had to take about 50 percent of them and then worry about the other 50 percent how true how true they was but he did have a marvelous relationship he told me another wonderful story about when he was a congressman this goes clear back and when he was trying to get the dams on the lower Colorado River now that's one of Johnson's great monuments I think that never have gotten enough credit as he got those dams on the lower Colorado River so there was water there was power and that was a wonderful thing when I used to cover Johnson when he was president I'd rent a car and drive down along those lakes and you know how that transformed that part of the world and and Johnson it you know told the story about how he got the dams true or not I don't know but he says said he'd call up Abe Fortess he knew Abe Fortess or Paul Watson I guess it was and said I need to see president I need to talk to him we need to get some money we got to get these projects going down there and so he said I'd go in there he said I remember one time I went in there and he said I'd get 10 minutes Paul Watson you got 10 minutes he said I'd I'd walk up to the president's desk there and he said before I could say anything my president said let it he said I'd just been sitting here talking with ambassador bullet he's just back from Moscow why he tells me the darnedest stories and he started to tell stories and Johnson's there with these papers you know waiting and he said then and and and ambassador says those women they work in the fields they work on the railroad so they've got arms as big as your legs they got more muscles and I think he's had Johnson would describe a naked Russian woman to him and he said about that time Watson would grab him on the shoulder said time's up congressmen and out he would go so he said I went to I went to Abe Fordist I said hey buddy how do I how do I get this Abe looked at it and he said oh this is the damn he said I'll tell you what Linda and he said Roosevelt thinks he's a big architect and he loves dams and buildings and that so get some get some pictures of dams and that get some photographs some drawings and that so he said I went down there I went down there one time and I he said I had all this stuff under my arm said same thing started to happen he said Lenin I've got a story to tell you or something like he said I had these out he said about about about a minute into it he could see Roosevelt was looking at said Lenin what do you got there he said well Mr. President we're trying to get these dams on the lower Colorado River and of course Lenin understood Roosevelt was besieged with requests I mean everybody wanted money then and so he said well I've just got so he said come around here he said we spread out and Roosevelt said oh look here's a super super reinforced concrete whatever it was oh that's that's a nice design there he said what was it you wanted what you want he said well I wanted appropriation I wanted to get this going he said he right there he called Harold Ickes and there was a there was a rule that you couldn't get these appropriations unless your population density was a certain level and Johnson down there along the lower Colorado they didn't have enough people to get the money so he called up Harold Ickes and he said Harold said got Lenin Johnson in here he needs some dams down there on the lower Colorado River he said there's a lot of muffled conversation and he's and he says oh Harold you say there aren't enough people he said he said Roosevelt looked up at him and said Harold he said if I know those cedar cutters down there by the time you get those dams down there'll be enough people and he said I got my I got it I got it through and that started that whole thing Johnson story again how much is right I don't know but it was wonderful for the kid reporter like myself sitting there listening to how business was done and not how these things happened it was just wonderful and particularly from that new deal time when there was so much sentiment of course he still had the people around him I run into Abe Fortis all the time that was there and and and and then his private lawyers were around old Leonard Marks and and and the other Jim row from the Roosevelt a lot of the Roosevelt people were still around and still plugged into Johnson and those in that majority in that majority leader term now we come up to the campaign and and they want I did the cover stories I reported the cover stories and all of them Simington Humphrey Humphrey was another one Kennedy and then Johnson and so I wrote I remember I wrote a file for New York and they didn't like it they said oh that's this enough you got to get some color in there so I went up to them and said well I don't have enough and John said I'm going the ranch come on down so I said well I can't right now but he said join come on down the ranch spend the weekend so this was in the spring of 60 I believe so off I went another one of those wild times but I saw him in the native habitat I and that was invaluable first time I'd been down there and on the ranch and of course he took me all through the ranch and explained to me about the family told me the stories about this whoever it was his great-grandmother that the fort of the Indians she'd been alone and they had a little trap door and I pulled a rug over the gut down there stuffed a diaper in the in the mouth of his grandfather his father I forget which so they didn't cry when the Indians came in and they didn't and they escaped that way a lot of wonderful old Texas stories and of course I was absolutely mesmerized we he took me on the tour around the county there and the and we went there they were starting the lbj park there was the lbj ranch house there was the lbj birthplace there was the lbj boyhood home there was the l lbj school there was the lbj lake there was the lbj rea and I got tickled about it and the wrong move I said something about it I said aren't they going to name the school