LBJ Time Machine
April 18, 1967. LBJ, Luci, and Lady Bird greet visitors the Ranch, including Mr. Robert Kleberg, nephew of Richard M. Kleberg--who was LBJ’s boss in Washington all those years ago.
“The President asked Luci Nugent when she was born - she replied 1947. The President then mentioned having worked for Mr. Robert Kleberg [sic] 14 years before Luci was even born.”
- The President’s Daily Diary, April 18, 1967. LBJ Presidential Library photo #C5093-7, public domain.
April 14-15, 1967:
12:33am - 1:55am. Returned to the Main House - to the Office - where Pres. and Mrs. Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Krim, were joined by Luci and Patrick Nugent (fm Mr. Krim) - conversation ranged from the Punta del Este successful trip to Johnson holdings, politics, Luci’s forthcoming baby, construction addition to President’s bedroom.
—The President’s Daily Diary, April 14, 1967. View Mathilde and Daphne Krim’s recollections of hanging out with LBJ here.
“When told that Cong. Gonzales had been unhappy because so many Republicans had been invited to the barbecue, the President said that he was President of all the people—Republicans and Democrats—rather than just the Democrats.”
April 1, 1967. 1:57 PM. The Latin American ambassadors enjoy barbecue at the Ranch, They are joined by many eminent Texans, including Governor John Connally and Cong. Jake Pickle, Senator John Tower, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Ben Barnes—and a mariachi band from Brownsville.
After remarks by emcee Cactus Pryor, a TV personality on the Johnsons’ station KTBC, entertainment is provided by Fort Griffin Fandangle of Albany, Texas. According to the Daily Diary, the troupe reenacted the history of Texas—complete with Indians, cowboys, missionaries, and covered wagons—with a cast of breathtaking diversity:
“The entire cast consists of amateurs ranging from the town doctor, a Methodist Minister, 3 millionaires, a number of graduates from Yale and Princeton, beauty shop operator, telephone operator, deputy sheriff, housewives and gas station operator.”
LBJ Presidential Library photos C4925-25a, C4885-11, C4885-34a, C4901-10, C4893-24a, C4887-13, C4894-9a, C4886-6, C4891-10, C4934-21; public domain.
April 1, 1967. The Latin American Ambassadors, having arrived safely in Texas on Air Force One, receive a briefing on the plans for HemisFair ‘68, and then tour the 92.6-acre site on the southeastern edge of the San Antonio business district The HemisFair will celebrate the “Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas,” and it will coincide with the 250th anniversary of the founding of San Antonio.
Photo of HemisFair Park by Traveling Fools of America. Street view of entrance to LBJ Ranch and Map showing distance from HemisFair Park to the LBJ Ranch.
March 31, 1967. 8:45 PM. LBJ and a number of Latin American ambassadors are aboard Air Force One travelling to Texas for a weekend visit. The party includes representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.
Yolanda Boozer makes a brief speech in Spanish, at LBJ’s request, above, and LBJ makes a brief statement himself upon arrival:
We have had a very delightful trip from Washington coming to this beautiful city of San Antonio.
We have visited individually with most of our neighbors in this hemisphere.
We have talked about our problems and our future.
Now we are going to enjoy a wonderful Texas weekend here as your guests to visit with you and exchange views about what is to come.
LBJ Presidential Library photo #A3929-18a, public domain.
March 18, 1967. Lady Bird records in her diary:
“This morning I went into the Yellow Oval Room to meet a student group from Texas, brought here by the Texas State Society for their annual brunch. Horace Busby was the entrepreneur and the purpose was to honor ‘the campus generation’ in Texas and especially the University of Texas. This provided an opportunity to show another face of our young people and another face of Texas.
The honor guests were the members of the University of Texas College Bowl Team, which has just won the championship on television in a contest of academic knowledge against teams from other major colleges. The competition was a cliff-hanging thriller. Dr. Harry Ransom, Chancellor of the University of Texas, ordered the lights on the Main Building tower turned orange when they won, just as for a triumphant football team.”
Texas-Ex Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary, New York: Dell Books, 1971, pg 503. Photo by Smarter Within via flickr.
February 15, 1967. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets briefly with his friend Jim Novy, a member of the Agudas Achim Congregation of Austin, Texas, and an important leader in the local Jewish community. His relationship with the President dates back at least as far as LBJ’s time as head of the National Youth Administration in Texas.
LBJ Presidential Library photo #A3695-4a, public domain.
Barbara Jordan recalls her first meeting at the White House on Feb. 13, 1967 (about 20 seconds from beginning of recording):
“Of course, everyone in Texas knew that Lyndon Johnson was a premier political figure in Texas. But when I was in the Texas State Senate—I served in the senate from January of 1967 until 1972 when I went to the Congress—Lyndon Johnson was president of this country, and I received a telegram at my home in Houston from Lyndon Johnson. The telegram was to the effect ‘we are having a meeting at the White House’ or having several people to discuss the future of a bill which was pending in the Congress. This bill was regarding changes in housing legislation to infuse that legislation with a civil rights component. And this telegram asked if I would meet at the White House to discuss this legislation, and it concluded, ‘Present this telegram at’ some gate of the White House.
“Well, I was, of course, quite startled to receive a telegram from the President of the United States asking that I come to Washington to talk about anything! I said, “Well, I guess I will go.” And I took the telegram—I was in Houston when I received the telegram—came back to Austin for the senate and showed it to my colleagues in the senate. I said, ‘You see, I’ve got an invitation to go to Washington.’ They were kind of excited about just the prospect. Now at the time, John Connally was governor of Texas, and I hadn’t had very good relations with Mr. Connally, but here was this invitation to the White House, so I went.
“At that time you would fly to Washington to Dulles Airport and then you would take a limousine, which is really a bus, to Twelfth and K Streets at the Albert Pick Motel or Hotel. Then you take a taxi to where you wanted to go. So I flew to Washington. I got the bus to the Albert Pick. I took my bag—I wasn’t staying overnight so I didn’t have much luggage, and I put whatever I had in a locker at the Albert Pick transfer point, got a taxi and went to the White House, presented my telegram and got in, just like magic.
“I went up to what I now know was the Cabinet Room. There were other people assembled, people who were active in the civil rights movement. We sat and waited around a table for the President and the Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, to arrive. Well, as I sat there really at the far end of the table, I still said to myself, ‘Now, Lyndon Johnson probably doesn’t know who I am or what I am about, and my name probably just slipped in somehow and got into that [list].’ So the President came in, everybody stood up. He sat down, we all sat down, and we started to discuss this legislation, fair housing legislation.
And the conversation was going around the table. The President would call on first one person for a reaction and then another person for a reaction. Then he stopped and he looked at my end of the table, he said, ‘Barbara, what do you think?’ Well, I just … in the first place, I’m telling you, I didn’t know the President knew me, and here he’s looking down here saying ‘Barbara’ and then saying, ‘What do you think?’ So that was my first exchange with Lyndon Johnson. I’m startled. I got myself organized, of course, not so that I wouldn’t stammer, since it is not my habit to stammer when talking, and I gave a response and then this conversation ensued.”
February 3, 1967. LBJ receives this memo from aide Marvin Watson, asking for details on the planned Mexican-American Conference. The President agrees to meet with Watson and Joe Califano, but his handwritten note at the bottom of the page indicates that there has been a change of plans.
Memo, Marvin Watson to the President, 2/3/67, Handwriting File, Box 20, LBJ Presidential Library.
January 27, 1967. A reporter learns that there is, well, no story to speak of about the creation of the LBJ Presidential Library. From the Daily Diary:
“Andrew Glass of the Washington Post came into talk to the President about the Johnson library at Austin. He is doing a story for the Washington Post on the Johnson library, obviously inspired by the recent controversy in the Post over the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
“Glass had been to Austin for four days talking to University officials and others concerned with the Johnson library. He asked the President whether any other sites had been considered for the library, and the President replied that consideration was given to a number of others, including Baylor, Johnson City, San Marcos, Syracuse University, and the Library of Congress.
“The President described the reasons for the ultimate selection of Austin—the University of Texas provided important collateral sources for scholarly use and that as Mrs. Johnson’s and Lynda’s alma mater it had strong personal claim on the affections of the Johnsons. The President said the importance of the library to him was principally that it would house papers going back 35 years and encompassing many of the important public events of our times. Glass told the President that he had found—to his surprise—that there was no controversy over the library, no bad feelings or suspicion of any kind, and that he intended to write a story that would be favorable in tone.”
LBJ Presidential Library photo #d1773-3a, public domain.
This December 1966 Navy Film has it all: ambassadors, a staff Christmas party in the White House, anti-war protesters and a bake sale.
A fitting way to close out 1966. On to 1967!
We interrupt this regularly scheduled LBJ Time Machine:
To tell y’all that we have posted the 1934 love letters between LBJ and Lady Bird, available in full for the very first time, on the web. You can find them here: searchable, downloadable, and transcribed.
LBJ and Lady Bird met on September 5, 1934 and ”committed matrimony,” as Lady Bird described it, on November 17 of that same year. These 90-odd letters are their correspondence during the time of their (brief) courtship, while he was in Washington and she was in Texas. Enjoy—and Happy Valentine’s Day, from us to you.
— LBJ Presidential Library Archives Staff
December 30, 1966. Lady Bird Johnson, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Don Thomas look at art in the LBJ Ranch hangar.
LBJ Presidential Library photo #4219-0020, public domain.
December 21, 1966. Governor Harold Hughes of Iowa takes questions at the press conference after the Democratic Governors’ meeting at the LBJ Ranch:
“Q. Governor, reports from White Sulphur Springs talked of the unpopularity of the Johnson administration being a heavy factor in the 1966 election results. Was that discussed?
GOVERNOR HUGHES. All factors were discussed this morning.
Q. Did that include the President running again in 1968?
GOVERNOR HUGHES. No, ma’am, that was not discussed this morning.”
LBJ Presidential library photo #4166-31
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![April 18, 1967. LBJ, Luci, and Lady Bird greet visitors the Ranch, including Mr. Robert Kleberg, nephew of Richard M. Kleberg--who was LBJ’s boss in Washington all those years ago.
“The President asked Luci Nugent when she was born - she replied 1947. The President then mentioned having worked for Mr. Robert Kleberg [sic] 14 years before Luci was even born.”
- The President’s Daily Diary, April 18, 1967. LBJ Presidential Library photo #C5093-7, public domain.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/1f82468486563b26097265ebb050df0e/tumblr_mmg684hUDJ1qlv77lo1_500.jpg)
