He may also have rescued himself from history's enduring opprobrium. His presidency, which in its first couple of years had made immense strides toward guaranteeing and protecting full rights and opportunities for all Americans, had bogged down in the quagmire of Vietnam. Around the country, college students and other protesters viewed Johnson with utter hatred -- perhaps the cruelest of their chants was "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? The March 31, , speech didn't change all that immediately, but as Busby reports toward the end of this uncommonly engaging and revealing book -- the manuscript was discovered among his papers in , three years after Busby's death -- it made people see Johnson in a new light.
The day after delivering it, Johnson flew to Chicago for an engagement and invited Busby to join him.
At the hotel where he was to speak, Johnson was greeted by the large crowd in the lobby with "thunderous and insistent" applause. By the time of the speech, Busby had been at Johnson's right hand for two decades. Though the focus of Busby's memoir is on the famous speech, much of "The Thirty-First of March" is devoted to his early years in Johnson's office and to the personality and behavior of the eternally fascinating, surprising and bewildering LBJ. In Busby was a couple of years out of the University of Texas, working as a reporter covering state government in Austin, when a mutual friend told him that Johnson, then a member of Congress, wanted Busby to join his staff.
Busby was baffled; the two had never met. But Johnson, it developed, had been impressed by Busby's editorials for the famous old college paper the Daily Texan, and wanted him to come to Washington and be Johnson's egghead. Johnson wanted him right away -- actually, whenever Johnson wanted anything, he wanted it yesterday -- but Busby deliberated for months before saying yes.
As soon as he got to Washington he realized that Johnson's "obsessive" pace was not for him, yet the two managed to work out a modus vivendi with which both were comfortable:. From the first month to the last year of our association, my colleagues were to complain that I led a privileged life in his employ: The man was a dominant figure in US politics for over 20 years, which goes some way to explaining why he has been written about so prolifically.
Few books though can surely be as intimate and interesting as Horace Busby's memoir of the man he worked with for most of Johnson's career on the national stage. The twenty-four year-old Busby joined then Congressman Johnson's team in , a few months prior to Johnson winning a Senate seat. His initial brief was to "put a little Churchill" and motivation into the Texas politician's speeches. He remained with Johnson, in some capacity as adviser, speechwriter, confidante and sometimes almost as therapist until March 31 when Johnson made his famous utterance to the US people that "I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President," - lines written by Horace Busby.
This is a wonderfully warm, penetrating look at the psychology, temperament and mindset of LBJ particularly in the days prior to his famous announcement. The manuscript was discovered by Busby's son after the author's death in , hence the publication date of Unfortunately, much of the manuscript seems to have been lost as it does not deal at all with the President's period in the Senate, which by all accounts he bestrode like a colossus.
The reader can appreciate why Busby was so highly rated by his political patron. Much of the book contains wonderful writing and descriptive passages including a very humorous account of how the infamously impatient Congressman Johnson treated Busby when he first reported for work in - three days later than expected. Busby crafts some wonderful images, not least when he recounts the terrible events of November 22nd, The author was in Washington when President Kennedy was assassinated in Johnson's home state of Texas.
Co-incidentally, Busby's wife was in Johnson's Washington home doing some research for Lady Bird Johnson at the time of the shooting. She stayed in the house until Mrs. Johnson returned from Dallas - "she saw as no one else did that day, the cold passing of power," as the secret service took control of the house and presidential communications infrastructure was put in place, even before the residents returned from Dallas. Busby appears to have been a true confidant of the towering Texan. Few if any who worked under Johnson would claim he was an easy person to deal with.
He could be mean, nasty, uncouth, self-centered, insecure and tyrannical, yet he had very strong motivational skills, sometimes conveyed with great good humor. Johnson was blessed to have a number of very loyal and competent aides - Jack Valenti, Joe Califano and of course Busby who writes of Johnson almost as a son might of a father. Because of his close relationship with LBJ, Busby writes compellingly on a number of little known episodes about the President including a dirty tricks campaign initiated by White House insiders to prevent Vice-President Johnson from gaining the nomination to run with Jack Kennedy for the presumptive campaign.
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Many of Johnson's family and aides did not wish the President to remove himself from the race and blamed Busby for influencing his decision. Unlike his predecessor, JFK, Johnson never mastered the new media of television. For those interested in one of the most intriguing characters to attain the presidency, this book is a little jewel. The one regret is that it covers such a short period of the political life of a man whom the author writes was "extroverted, gregarious, and roughshod," but who "sheltered a sensitive, introspective, and unaccountably fragile self inside.
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Jul 20, Eric rated it really liked it.
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A terrific read that the author, one of LBJ's closest aides, never really intended to have published. It was a personal memoir found in his effects by his kids after he died.
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Really great insight into LBJ, whom you'll like a lot better after you finish it. It is almost always riveting reading anything about a famous figure written by someone 'inside', a confidant, a relative, etc. The author details his complex relationship with Lyndon Johnson, beginning when he arrived in Washington DC in the late s when the future president was a Congressman.
Here I was able to see tha It is almost always riveting reading anything about a famous figure written by someone 'inside', a confidant, a relative, etc. Here I was able to see that there were many more, less obvious reasons why and why that was such a burden off his shoulders after he announced that. This is yet another book I 'stumbled' across while in the public library.
Thank heavens for those! Apr 28, Chip Rickard rated it liked it Shelves: This isn't the definitive biography of LBJ but that's not what Busby was going for. Still he walked right up to the election and then skips right past it to That's somewhat like writing about Babe Ruth, going up to when he was traded to the Yankees and then skipping to his retirement.
Also, in the book, LBJ kept saying he wasn't in the pockets of the oilmen and utilities but that's not true since he used the oil companies to raise funds for other Democratic candidates. It was great insight into LBJ's state of mind when he decided not to run again. It gave a good idea of the conflict between LBJ's desire to step down and his staff and family's hope that he would run. Apr 17, Chris Dean rated it really liked it. Very interesting account from someone in the inner circle.
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Busby goes back to explain their history which gives the reader an understanding of the man and ultimately the reason for his decisions. Jul 26, Martha Hanna rated it really liked it. Quick read about LBJ's decision not to run for re-election. Funny stories about an interesting guy. Anthony Bergen rated it it was amazing Jun 21,