I was riveted to the television during the weekend of the JFK assassination, and of course, I saw LBJ’s brief remarks upon landing at Andrews Air Force Base:
This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help—and God’s.
I was fourteen years old and had not yet decided that I was an atheist, but I was certainly skeptical of the whole god and religion thing. Still, a simple little reference to a deity—why would that rub me the wrong way?
I can’t completely put myself into my state of mind back in those days, but I do remember that I used to watch the JFK press conferences when they were televised. I couldn’t help it; they were usually broadcast around 5:00 PM eastern time and interrupted the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons or whatever it was that I used to watch at that time. Anyway, the point is that JFK never used to sprinkle god in his answers, so I wasn’t used to the president invoking the deity. Of course, there was a reason for that. JFK, being the first Catholic president, was probably being careful not to bring up questions about his religion or give Protestants cause to think he was taking orders from the Pope.
It was a very different time. Presidents didn’t routinely interrupt prime time programming for press conferences or speeches, nor did presidential candidates try to prove which was more holier than thou.
Still, as far as I was concerned, LBJ had gotten off to a bad start. Of course, I considered myself a Republican in those days, and when the election rolled around, as I’ve written previously, I campaigned for Goldwater, to my parents’ horror.
Isaac Asimov had a different viewpoint:
I voted for Johnson on November 3, 1964, and settled down to listen to the results on television. From the earliest reports, it was clear that Goldwater didn’t have a chance, and by 8:30 p.m. I stopped pretending that there was any doubt in the matter, recorded “Johnson landslide,” in my diary and stopped making notes.
I was terribly gratified and terribly relieved. Now, I felt, we could wind down our Vietnam involvement.
What I didn’t know was that Johnson had already adopted an attitude very much like the Goldwater position he decried during the campaign. The difference was that Goldwater was honest enough to state what he believed even though it would lose him the election, while Johnson faked his own views in order to win the election. In later years, I said bitterly, “Given my choice, I voted for Johnson over Goldwater, and what I got was both.”
I never forgave Johnson.
— In Joy Still Felt by Isaac Asimov
In the ensuing years, I’ve changed my views quite a bit (actually, my views on the issues haven’t changed as much as one might think, it’s mainly my political affiliation but I’ll save that for a future post), and I have a different view of Johnson.
Johnson knew how the system worked and he knew how to push his legislation through Congress. And while he was completely wrong-headed about Vietnam, he was right about civil rights, Medicare, his war on poverty, etc.
The Solid South had already begun to crack before he became president, but his accomplishments saw to it that that trend would continue.
If not for his Vietnam legacy, which continued to haunt the Democrats for decades, I’d probably give him two thumbs up.