Lady Bird Looks Back
In her own words, a Texas icon reflects on the lessons of a lifetime.
(Page 2 of 4)
And I remember Lyndon told them, “What’s political capital for then, if you don’t use it?”
What would he think of the changes his legislative agenda has brought about?
Lyndon took great satisfaction in getting the Voting Rights Act through Congress. However, he seemed to know intuitively that the bill would make us more of a two-party nation. I remember that he walked into the family quarters of the White House, and there were a few people there ready to do a postmortem on the bill. There were always a few close friends who gathered around at the end of a long fight just to talk things over.
“Well,” Lyndon told them, “I think I just may have handed the solid Democratic South to the Republican party.”
As Lady Bird talked, we were seated on the back porch of her two-level home. She wore white-rimmed dark glasses to shade her eyes from the sun. In the distance stood the Capitol and the University of Texas tower. It was pleasant just to listen to the sound of her voice: Its rhythm is velvety, lilting, definitely Southern, but with hardly a twang at all. By the sound of it, she could be from Charleston or Atlanta. “That was a won-n-n-duh-ful day,” she said, recalling one of many days past. “I’ve had so many won-n-n-duh-ful days.”
I showed her a copy of a letter she wrote to Lyndon when he worked as an administrative aide to Congressman Dick Kleberg. It was written one month after their first date, over breakfast in the Driskill Hotel in Austin, and one month before they were married in San Antonio. Lyndon had asked her to marry him on that first date, and by the time she wrote the letter, the “wine of youth,” as Lady Bird described it to me, was clearly flowing.
Dearest Beloved,
Your letter Saturday morning just came. I think it’s funny nobody has noticed that I look different. I feel different.
Lyndon, please tell me as soon as you can what the deal is. I’m afraid it’s politics. Oh, I know I haven’t any business—not any proprietary interest—but I would hate for you to go into politics. Don’t let me get things any more muddled for you than they are, though, dearest! . . . [her ellipses]
Bird.
Did you change your mind about politics?
Oh, yes, I did. I remember the first public utterance of mine was about politics. I guess it was in the first congressional race in 1937, when Lyndon and I were just starting out in public service.
I was sitting at a banquet when somebody leaned over and said, “You might be called on to say just a word or two.” So I wrote something down on the back of an envelope. It was very simple, about two sentences long, about how politics could be a wonderful life for a man and his wife. And so it did turn out for me, but I cannot say that’s true these days.
Many biographers have had unpleasant things to say about your husband’s private life. Some have suggested that he may have been a manic-depressive. Do you think that’s true?
I think the world is too strung up about psychology today and too intrusive into the private thoughts of public figures. When people ask me these sort of things, I just say, “Look to your own lives. Look to yourself, everybody. Fix yourselves, and keep your problems to yourself.” The public should weigh what their public servants are doing, not their private, innermost feelings. We need to ask, “Are these policies working for America, or are they doing harm?” I think we are getting into a state of wanting to know so much about the intimacy of everyone’s lives that we don’t judge people by what they do for the country.
Lyndon was certainly a man of high emotions and strong feelings, of strong joys and strong pains. Life with him was an adventure, always exciting! He was awfully happy about his victories and awfully crushed about his defeats, but I never saw him too crushed to keep working.
How did you feel about his accepting the vice-presidential nomination after he lost a chance at the presidency?
I cannot say that I really wanted Lyndon to accept the vice presidency in 1960. It all happened so fast, and I was uncertain that it was the wisest course, but his role as majority leader of the Senate had played out. He’d done all he could do. I guess you could say that the orange had been sucked dry.
Lyndon knew that it would not be the same job in a new administration. He had served with a Republican president and a sizable Democratic majority and a very powerful Democratic Speaker in the House. Those were political characteristics that allowed Lyndon to work and get a lot of things done. It would be a very different atmosphere to have a Democratic president and a Democratic majority. The White House would be setting legislative policies, not the majority leader.
On the other hand, he realized the vice presidency had no real power and wouldn’t be as important a job either. But the way I viewed it, at least as vice president he’d still [preside over] the Senate, and it could be the capstone of his career there.
Do you think Lee Harvey Oswald killed president Kennedy?
I have no doubt that the findings of the Warren Commission are correct. I guess the two oddest committees Lyndon ever had to put together were the one to decide what to do about Senator Joseph McCarthy and the one he appointed to look into the assassination.
Lyndon was very concerned about the possibility of a conspiracy when it first happened. The reason he wanted to get on that plane in Dallas and get airborne as soon as possible and get sworn in as president had to do with his fears about a conspiracy, but he certainly wasn’t going to get the plane in the air until the president’s body and Mrs. Kennedy were aboard.
He appointed the best people he could find to look into the matter, and they researched it until they sucked all the information dry. After the report came out, we just all wanted to get on with the business of the nation.
When did things start to return to normal after the assassination?
We didn’t move into the White House until December 7. The main thing I remember was how black it all was. The White House was full of beautiful chandeliers, but they were all swabbed in black net. Everywhere I looked, the house was draped in black.
It has long been the custom in our country to mourn the president for a month, and so on December 22—which happened to be my birthday—Lyndon saw to it that the black net came off. We put up Christmas decorations, and I walked the well-lit halls for the first time with a sense that life was going to go on, that we as a country were going to begin again.
What was your relationship like with Jackie Kennedy?
There was a distance of age between Mrs. Kennedy and me, and frankly she belonged in a different society frame than I do. However, I liked her, and I think she liked me. In private, she had humor and a laughing side. But I felt—and I think a great many people felt—that she came across as a little girl you wanted to help. On the other hand, I always recognized there was steel beneath that exceedingly youthful exterior.
After the assassination, Lyndon and I treated her exactly as she asked to be treated. She sent word to us that the house held too many sad memories [for her ever to visit there]. She wanted her privacy, and we gave it to her, although I was real proud of Lyndon for writing to her and to her children. She knew he would have done anything he could to ease her grief.
On the last summer of her life, I had lunch with her on Martha’s Vineyard. Her home had her unmistakable imprint, and oh, how she loved it. I guess one of the sad, sad things about her death was that she had finally attained what she had wanted and that was not to be a public figure.
Which former first ladies are you closest to, and how do you think the role of first lady has changed over the years?
My Library
