April 10, 1967. Sen. Mike Mansfield (Democratic Majority Leader) and Sen. Everett Dirksen (Republican Minority Leader) attend LBJ’s bipartisan Congressional leadership meeting in the Cabinet Room.
LBJ Time Machine
Taking a trip through time, from the birth of Lyndon Johnson in 1908 through 2013 at the LBJ Library and Museum.
http://lbjlibrary.org
LBJ Time Machine
April 6, 1967. LBJ presents a posthumous Medal of Honor to Specialist Four Daniel Fernandez, US Army. The President and First Lady met in the Oval Office with members of the Fernandez family, along with guests from the Dept. of Defense, Congress, Veterans’ Administration, and other agencies.
LBJ Presidential Library photo #C4970-8, public domain.
April 3, 1967. Leaving behind the informality of their weekend at the Ranch, LBJ and Lady Bird return to formal Washington. They host the Turkish President Cevdet Sunay at the White House.
LBJ Presidential Library photos #C4907-13, arrival ceremony at the White House; #C4939-33, the reception that night. Public domain.
March 28, 1967. The Prime Minister of Afghanistan, His Excellency Mohammed Hashim Maiwandwal, pays a state visit to the White House.
LBJ Library photo C4831-24, public domain. L-R: Amb. Arthur Goldberg, P.M. Maiwandwal, LBJ. White House, Washington, DC.
“March 22, 1967. 12:40 PM.
The President came out of his office, singing ‘Happy Birthday,’ to Yolanda. Yolanda stood and said ‘Thank you. Mr. President.’ as the President leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. Okamoto was in the door, and the President said ’Late as usual,’ and then posed for a birthday picture w/ Yolanda.”
LBJ Library photo A3891-10, public domain, Text from the Daily Diary.
March 18, 1967. Evening. It’s been a long but typical day at the White House, including worries about the loss of support for the Vietnam War and lots of meetings with the state governors, including the new Governor of California.
Now: it’s time to have some fun with Guys and Dolls!
LBJ Library photo #C4755-14a, public domain.
March 18, 1967. 9.05 AM. LBJ welcomes state governors, including new California Governor Ronald Reagan, above, to the White House for the “White House Conference of Governors on Federal-State Relations.”
“We are here to advise and consult with each other, as public executives, on the central business of our governments—the welfare of the American people. We are here on common ground, nonpartisan ground—as elected officials charged with the obligation of using public resources for the public good.”
LBJ Presidential Library photo #A3858-22, public domain. Read the rest of his remarks here.
March 16, 1967. LBJ has a meeting with his National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity. Attendees listed in the Diary include:
- Mr. Morris Leibman, Chairman - Chicago Attorney
- Rev. George Davis - Washington, D. C. (Pastor National City Christian Church)
- Mr. Otto Eckstein - Harvard Professor (former member of CEA)
- Dr. Hector Garcia - Corpus Christi. Texas
- Mr. Jesse C. Kellam - Austin. Texas - KTBC-TV, Austin
- Dr. Walter Lane - Temple Terrace, Florida
- Hon. Theodore McKeldin - Mayor of Baltimore
- Mrs. Robert McNamara
- Mr. Albert Rains - Attorney, Gadsden, Alabama
- Mr. David Sullivan - Pres. , Building Service Employees Int’l Union
- Mr. Cato Valandra, President of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Rosebud, So. Dakota
- Hon. Louis Welsh - Mayor of Houston .
- Mr. Whitney Young - Executive Director National Urban League
- Hon. Horace Busby - 1225 19th St. , N. W. , Wash, DC
- Rev. John P. Cody - Archbishop of Chicago
- Sargent Shriver
- Hon. Chas. Schultze - Director, BOB
- Harry McPherson
LBJ Library photos: A3834-2a, before the meeting begins: A3834-30, Mrs. Robert McNamara (L) and Whitney Young (R) in conversation. Harry McPherson (behind Young) and another Council member look on; Whitney Young (at right) in conversation with an unidentified Council member. All public domain.
March 8, 1967. Meeting in the Cabinet Room, White House. (L_R) Walt Rostow, John McCloy, Francis Bator, Sec. Dean Rusk, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Sec. Robert McNamara LBJ Library photo #C4651-25, public domain.
Bottom left: Seated at table (l-r) Secy. Henry Fowler, John McCloy, Francis Bator LBJ Library photo #C4651-28, public domain.
Bottom right: Sec. Henry Fowler. LBJ Library photo #C4652-9, public domain.
March 2, 1967. Lady Bird welcomes to the White House family members of former Presidents: FDR’s granddaughter; President Taft’s son; Ike’s daughter-in-law, Barbara Eisenhower; and Margaret Truman and her husband Clifton Daniel.
“We sat around in the West Hall with a cup of tea and talked about their life and times here….They all seemed excited, but not as excited as I was.”
Lady Bird Johnson A White House Diary, New York: Dell Books, 1971, pg 538. LBJ Presidential Library photo #C4632-17, public domain.
February 16, 1967. Lady Bird Johnson and Mary Lasker accept on behalf of their beautification program a surprise donation of flower seeds to be used in Washington, DC school grounds, in a presentation at the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden of the White House.
LBJ Presidential Library photo #C4560-20a, public domain.
February 14, 1967. It is Bill Moyers’ last day in the White House. Moyers calls the President at 9:50 AM to say goodbye, and in response to LBJ’s query “What do you know that I need to know?” he briefly discusses his support for the resumption of bombing in North Vietnam, and press coverage of the administration.
Moyers dropped off his letter of resignation, pictured, at 1:14 PM that afternoon, according to the Daily Diary.
“Operator—Call Mrs. Johnson in the bowling alley and tell her I am upstairs.”
—-LBJ, February 13, 1967, 7:30 PM, according to the Daily Diary.
Photo: Muriel Humphrey and Lady Bird Johnson bowl as others watch, 3/1/1966. LBJ Presidential Library #C1387-6a, 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.”
