Lew chronicles Lyndon B. Johnson’s vote rigging that brought him to the U.S. Senate. Johnson then ingratiates himself with the most knowledgeable Senate staffer about all the dirt and scandals in the body, Bobby Baker. At the same time, Baker is helping Johnson court the most powerful Democrat in the august body, Richard Russell. Russell then places LBJ in the Democrat leadership, where Johnson rises to Majority Leader.
LBJ was called the “Master of the Senate” and known by historians as the most effective Senate leader ever. The fuel behind Johnson’s power base: the rising monetary power of Texas exemplified by Johnson allies Brown and Root; Bobby Baker’s intel and blackmail files, the sponsorship of Richard Russell, and finally, LBJ’s close working relationship with popular “Republican” president Dwight David Eisenhower.
You can watch this episode on Rumble at the NewsForAmerica channel.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 - Have the men of the West
00:00:28 --> 00:00:29 - lost
00:00:29 --> 00:00:30 - the will
00:00:31 --> 00:00:31 - to live?
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 - It's midnight in America,
00:00:38 --> 00:00:39 - and this
00:00:40 --> 00:00:40 - is the hour
00:00:41 --> 00:00:44 - of decision. Tell me what you're gonna
00:00:45 --> 00:00:46 - leave
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 - behind if you go cutting off your life.
00:00:56 --> 00:00:57 - This is hour of decision.
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 - It's the one hundred and thirty third episode.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 - My name is Lou Moore.
00:01:03 --> 00:01:04 - And indeed, folks,
00:01:05 --> 00:01:07 - we're coming to the time of trial
00:01:08 --> 00:01:09 - where we're gonna find out
00:01:10 --> 00:01:11 - if the men of the West
00:01:12 --> 00:01:13 - do have
00:01:14 --> 00:01:15 - the will to live
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 - because it is midnight in America, and it
00:01:19 --> 00:01:21 - is the hour of decision.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 - So we're in a presidential
00:01:24 --> 00:01:25 - series now.
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 - I like presidential series,
00:01:29 --> 00:01:31 - for a number of reasons. One of them
00:01:31 --> 00:01:32 - is it,
00:01:32 --> 00:01:36 - I'm able to illustrate how the power game
00:01:36 --> 00:01:36 - is played,
00:01:37 --> 00:01:40 - played by our corporate masters, played by successful
00:01:41 --> 00:01:41 - politicians
00:01:42 --> 00:01:44 - that go to the pinnacle.
00:01:44 --> 00:01:46 - They go to the show, as they say
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 - in baseball, the big time,
00:01:49 --> 00:01:51 - to the presidency of The United States.
00:01:52 --> 00:01:53 - And, of course, history,
00:01:53 --> 00:01:57 - most self evidently, when you get true history,
00:01:58 --> 00:02:00 - is how we got here,
00:02:01 --> 00:02:02 - how we got
00:02:03 --> 00:02:04 - to where we are today.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:07 - So we returned now to
00:02:08 --> 00:02:12 - the vote fraud king and master manipulator himself,
00:02:12 --> 00:02:15 - Lyndon Baines Johnson, the thirty sixth president of
00:02:15 --> 00:02:16 - The United States.
00:02:17 --> 00:02:18 - In the introductory
00:02:18 --> 00:02:21 - episode, we talked just a little bit in
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 - general outline about this man's character.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 - We talked about his rise,
00:02:27 --> 00:02:28 - as a congressional
00:02:29 --> 00:02:29 - staffer
00:02:30 --> 00:02:32 - and member of congress,
00:02:33 --> 00:02:33 - bureaucrat,
00:02:34 --> 00:02:38 - actually appointee, state appointee, youngest in the country
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 - with the National Youth Administration, one of the
00:02:41 --> 00:02:42 - many, many, many,
00:02:43 --> 00:02:45 - what they called alphabet agencies that were created
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 - by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the New Deal.
00:02:49 --> 00:02:52 - We learned how Lyndon Johnson ingratiated
00:02:52 --> 00:02:53 - himself
00:02:54 --> 00:02:56 - with the speaker of the house who happened
00:02:56 --> 00:02:57 - to be from Texas and kind of
00:02:58 --> 00:02:58 - suddenly
00:02:59 --> 00:02:59 - is act
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 - the speaker is acting like Lyndon's his son.
00:03:03 --> 00:03:05 - The man has no children.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:06 - That was Sam Rayburn.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:08 - And then,
00:03:09 --> 00:03:10 - Johnson also
00:03:10 --> 00:03:12 - greatly ingratiated himself
00:03:13 --> 00:03:14 - with the big guy himself,
00:03:15 --> 00:03:15 - FDR,
00:03:16 --> 00:03:17 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
00:03:20 --> 00:03:21 - Roosevelt engineered,
00:03:21 --> 00:03:24 - Johnson staying out of combat world in World
00:03:24 --> 00:03:26 - War two, but also getting a silver star,
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 - the third highest combat medal that we award
00:03:30 --> 00:03:31 - in this country
00:03:32 --> 00:03:33 - for our heroes.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:38 - Johnson was in the congress. He tried for
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 - the senate in '41, didn't make it by
00:03:40 --> 00:03:42 - 1 votes,
00:03:43 --> 00:03:45 - but he went after it again
00:03:45 --> 00:03:47 - in 1948.
00:03:50 --> 00:03:51 - And
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 - the man he went after was a guy
00:03:53 --> 00:03:54 - named Coke Stevenson,
00:03:55 --> 00:03:57 - one of the most popular men in Texas.
00:03:57 --> 00:03:59 - He had been a three term governor. He
00:03:59 --> 00:04:00 - was the governor
00:04:01 --> 00:04:03 - in Texas running for the senate, running
00:04:04 --> 00:04:05 - under the,
00:04:05 --> 00:04:08 - flag of the Democrats, of course, because everybody
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 - were democrat was democrat in the South during
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 - this time in 1948.
00:04:13 --> 00:04:15 - Texas considered part of the South.
00:04:17 --> 00:04:17 - And,
00:04:18 --> 00:04:19 - Democrat and conservative
00:04:21 --> 00:04:22 - and establishment
00:04:23 --> 00:04:26 - by the standards of the day, Texas establishment.
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 - So Coke Stevenson thought he could just sail
00:04:29 --> 00:04:31 - in and, spend the the rest of his
00:04:31 --> 00:04:34 - career in Washington DC as a US senator,
00:04:34 --> 00:04:35 - but Lyndon Johnson
00:04:36 --> 00:04:38 - had other ideas.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:39 - He had been accumulating
00:04:40 --> 00:04:40 - power
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 - with his relationship with the speaker of the
00:04:43 --> 00:04:47 - house, with his relationship with Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
00:04:47 --> 00:04:50 - with his relationship with Brown and Root
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 - that use government contracts, primarily war contracts,
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 - to become an industrial powerhouse.
00:04:59 --> 00:05:01 - And this is the beginning, folks, of Texas
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 - becoming a real powerhouse and alternative
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 - literally to Wall Street,
00:05:10 --> 00:05:12 - to the E Eastern money and where they
00:05:12 --> 00:05:13 - kept that money
00:05:14 --> 00:05:15 - in Boston, in Philadelphia,
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 - and primarily in New York,
00:05:19 --> 00:05:22 - Texas opened up the Sun Belt
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 - as a major power center and a major
00:05:25 --> 00:05:27 - financial power center
00:05:28 --> 00:05:29 - primarily through oil.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 - Big deal. Johnson's in on the ground floor
00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 - and does plenty of things for Brown and
00:05:35 --> 00:05:35 - Root,
00:05:37 --> 00:05:38 - in order,
00:05:39 --> 00:05:41 - for them to grow and for his career
00:05:41 --> 00:05:42 - and his
00:05:42 --> 00:05:43 - power
00:05:44 --> 00:05:44 - to grow.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:48 - So Johnson is,
00:05:49 --> 00:05:50 - a very powerful,
00:05:51 --> 00:05:51 - young
00:05:52 --> 00:05:53 - member of Congress,
00:05:54 --> 00:05:56 - and he also wants to be the senator
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 - from the state of Texas. He's already tried
00:05:59 --> 00:06:01 - it once. He's gonna give it another shot.
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 - And so there's a titanic battle all across
00:06:05 --> 00:06:08 - Texas in 1948, and Johnson with his tremendous
00:06:09 --> 00:06:10 - energy and his tremendous
00:06:10 --> 00:06:12 - drive for power
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 - takes to, flying in a helicopter.
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 - So he's always in the air if he's
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 - not on the ground giving a speech somewhere.
00:06:21 --> 00:06:22 - This was new.
00:06:23 --> 00:06:24 - People didn't do this
00:06:25 --> 00:06:26 - in 1948,
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 - but he had all that corporate
00:06:30 --> 00:06:31 - behind him.
00:06:31 --> 00:06:33 - But he's running to the left
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 - of Stevenson, and he's got all the New
00:06:36 --> 00:06:37 - Deal folks behind him.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:39 - Roosevelt's dead now,
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 - but, that apparatus, that element in the Democrat
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 - party, of course, still very vibrant.
00:06:47 --> 00:06:49 - And so Johnson is running to the left,
00:06:49 --> 00:06:51 - and he runs the dirtiest
00:06:51 --> 00:06:53 - campaign. Oh, you can only imagine.
00:06:54 --> 00:06:56 - Lying his head off about Stevenson,
00:06:57 --> 00:06:57 - constant,
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 - larceny in terms of stealing
00:07:02 --> 00:07:03 - ideas, stealing,
00:07:04 --> 00:07:04 - themes,
00:07:05 --> 00:07:08 - in terms of, lying about, Stevenson's record.
00:07:09 --> 00:07:10 - And,
00:07:11 --> 00:07:12 - the long and short of it
00:07:13 --> 00:07:14 - is Lyndon wins
00:07:16 --> 00:07:17 - by 87
00:07:18 --> 00:07:18 - votes.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:21 - 87 votes, folks.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:24 - And of all of the traits that we've
00:07:24 --> 00:07:27 - already explored with Johnson, probably the most pronounced
00:07:27 --> 00:07:28 - one
00:07:28 --> 00:07:29 - is his,
00:07:30 --> 00:07:33 - proclivity to be very close to the vicinity
00:07:33 --> 00:07:34 - of voter fraud.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 - And Johnson became kind of the master of
00:07:38 --> 00:07:39 - South Texas,
00:07:40 --> 00:07:43 - the Rio Grande Valley, the heavily Hispanic areas
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 - of Texas where voter fraud is endemic.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 - Voter fraud is a cultural thing. Voter fraud
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 - is a way of life, and I just
00:07:53 --> 00:07:55 - I don't just mean back in the nineteen
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 - forties. I've got an article here that was
00:07:58 --> 00:07:59 - on justthenews.com,
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 - John Solomon last week,
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 - talking about a judge
00:08:05 --> 00:08:05 - in Zapata
00:08:06 --> 00:08:06 - County.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:08 - Allegations,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 - according to affidavits unsealed as part of this
00:08:11 --> 00:08:12 - case,
00:08:12 --> 00:08:15 - involve a campaign allegedly paying staff
00:08:16 --> 00:08:18 - to assist hundreds of voters.
00:08:19 --> 00:08:21 - This is in a county of 14
00:08:21 --> 00:08:22 - folks, Apata County,
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 - telling them who to vote for
00:08:25 --> 00:08:26 - and watching
00:08:27 --> 00:08:28 - as they vote,
00:08:29 --> 00:08:30 - transporting and paying
00:08:31 --> 00:08:32 - the voters to vote.
00:08:32 --> 00:08:35 - In exchange for dropping community service hours, dropping
00:08:35 --> 00:08:36 - fines, etcetera,
00:08:38 --> 00:08:40 - this is a voter fraud ring run by
00:08:40 --> 00:08:41 - a judge,
00:08:42 --> 00:08:45 - not just for himself, but, evidently,
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 - according to the last sheriff that was,
00:08:48 --> 00:08:51 - excused from office, he claimed voter fraud.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:55 - And, the judge's candidate against him, Martha Morales,
00:08:56 --> 00:08:58 - is the one that has put these affidavits
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 - into court with a lot of information. This
00:09:00 --> 00:09:01 - is current news, folks,
00:09:02 --> 00:09:04 - in Zapata County,
00:09:05 --> 00:09:05 - Texas.
00:09:06 --> 00:09:07 - And that is certainly,
00:09:09 --> 00:09:09 - certainly
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 - the the way Lyndon Johnson behaved we talked
00:09:13 --> 00:09:15 - about this in the last episode when he
00:09:15 --> 00:09:17 - I I opened the show with it. This
00:09:17 --> 00:09:18 - is Robert Caro
00:09:19 --> 00:09:21 - depicting Johnson as a congressional staffer
00:09:22 --> 00:09:23 - sitting at a table with a pile of
00:09:23 --> 00:09:24 - $5 bills,
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 - handing them to people who promised to vote
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 - Democrat, most of them of Hispanic origin and
00:09:30 --> 00:09:33 - possibly not even speaking a good understanding of
00:09:33 --> 00:09:33 - English,
00:09:34 --> 00:09:36 - and having people go with them into the
00:09:36 --> 00:09:38 - polling booth to make sure they vote Democrat
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 - just exactly what's being alleged in 2026
00:09:42 --> 00:09:43 - in,
00:09:43 --> 00:09:44 - a nearby
00:09:45 --> 00:09:45 - county.
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 - So this is the culture, and Johnson was
00:09:48 --> 00:09:49 - the master
00:09:51 --> 00:09:52 - by 1948
00:09:52 --> 00:09:53 - of this culture.
00:09:53 --> 00:09:56 - And so he wins this US Senate race
00:09:56 --> 00:09:57 - in 1948
00:09:57 --> 00:09:59 - by 87
00:09:59 --> 00:09:59 - votes
00:10:00 --> 00:10:03 - forever being called landslide Lyndon after that time.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:05 - I he had that, he had that,
00:10:07 --> 00:10:09 - nickname, right up into the sixties until he
00:10:09 --> 00:10:10 - had a landslide
00:10:11 --> 00:10:13 - against Barry Goldwater. Still, it was a landslide,
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 - but a whole other direction, millions of boats
00:10:15 --> 00:10:16 - in his favor.
00:10:17 --> 00:10:19 - And people have come forward, folks,
00:10:21 --> 00:10:22 - about this election
00:10:23 --> 00:10:25 - in 1948
00:10:25 --> 00:10:28 - where, Coke Stevens alleged, the governor running for
00:10:28 --> 00:10:29 - senate, there was vote fraud,
00:10:30 --> 00:10:32 - but a man made named Luis Salas,
00:10:33 --> 00:10:36 - the election judge for Precinct 13 in Jim
00:10:36 --> 00:10:38 - Wells County, that's on the edge of the
00:10:38 --> 00:10:40 - Rio Grande Valley in South Texas,
00:10:42 --> 00:10:42 - and,
00:10:43 --> 00:10:44 - Precinct 13.
00:10:45 --> 00:10:47 - He was the election judge for what was
00:10:47 --> 00:10:49 - becoming an infamous box
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 - full of votes, Box 13.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:54 - In 1977,
00:10:54 --> 00:10:57 - he told the Associated Press he had certified
00:10:57 --> 00:10:58 - roughly 200
00:10:59 --> 00:11:02 - fake votes for Johnson just in this one
00:11:02 --> 00:11:03 - box of votes,
00:11:03 --> 00:11:05 - Added in alphabetical
00:11:05 --> 00:11:07 - order on orders of the local
00:11:08 --> 00:11:10 - political boss, George Parr,
00:11:11 --> 00:11:14 - who was in the, essentially, the Johnson
00:11:14 --> 00:11:15 - political machine.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 - Those 200 votes, folks, put Johnson over the
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 - top, made him a United States senator, and
00:11:22 --> 00:11:23 - sent him on his way
00:11:24 --> 00:11:25 - to the White House.
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 - Tapes of those interviews from Luis Salas
00:11:31 --> 00:11:33 - surfaced in 2023
00:11:34 --> 00:11:35 - and were,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:36 - played on NPR.
00:11:38 --> 00:11:40 - Just one little tiny county
00:11:41 --> 00:11:43 - in a really close election,
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 - But the allegations are that thousands of votes
00:11:47 --> 00:11:49 - were shifted to Johnson this way.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:50 - He was
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 - in no way more popular than this Koch
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 - Stephenson. He really didn't even have more resources
00:11:55 --> 00:11:56 - than Stephenson,
00:11:57 --> 00:11:59 - but he had this vote fraud operation in
00:11:59 --> 00:12:00 - South Texas,
00:12:01 --> 00:12:02 - and the rest
00:12:03 --> 00:12:04 - is history.
00:12:05 --> 00:12:07 - So Johnson goes to the US Senate.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:10 - And what does he do when he gets
00:12:10 --> 00:12:10 - there?
00:12:11 --> 00:12:13 - He hunts down an
00:12:13 --> 00:12:14 - a page,
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 - the lowest of of the aids, the lowest
00:12:19 --> 00:12:21 - of not not even really staff
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 - in the US senate, but he'd heard of
00:12:23 --> 00:12:24 - this guy.
00:12:24 --> 00:12:26 - His name was Bobby Baker.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:29 - And Johnson very much wanted to meet with
00:12:29 --> 00:12:29 - him,
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 - and he had two questions for him.
00:12:33 --> 00:12:36 - He said, who is the most important senator
00:12:36 --> 00:12:37 - for me to get close
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 - to to gain more power unto myself?
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 - And at at some point, would you be
00:12:43 --> 00:12:45 - willing to tell me where all the bodies
00:12:46 --> 00:12:48 - are buried? Where is all the dirt? Who's
00:12:48 --> 00:12:51 - sleeping with who? Who's getting kickbacks?
00:12:52 --> 00:12:55 - Who are these hidden campaign donors for all
00:12:55 --> 00:12:56 - of these various senators
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 - in 1949
00:13:00 --> 00:13:01 - now?
00:13:02 --> 00:13:04 - And Bobby Baker's like, this guy's unbelievable. I
00:13:04 --> 00:13:06 - don't even know this guy.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:08 - But he, ended up
00:13:08 --> 00:13:12 - working in a relationship with Lyndon Johnson
00:13:12 --> 00:13:16 - that lasted until the nineteen sixties and is
00:13:16 --> 00:13:17 - a central figure.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 - A central figure in the power base
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 - Lyndon Johnson built in the senate
00:13:24 --> 00:13:24 - and,
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 - a central figure,
00:13:27 --> 00:13:27 - in,
00:13:28 --> 00:13:29 - the Kennedy assassination,
00:13:30 --> 00:13:31 - in my opinion,
00:13:32 --> 00:13:34 - not because he was an assassin or was
00:13:34 --> 00:13:36 - plotting it because but because of other things
00:13:36 --> 00:13:38 - we'll get into in maybe in this episode,
00:13:38 --> 00:13:40 - maybe we'll get to there. But he was,
00:13:40 --> 00:13:43 - and then he was also an Achilles heel
00:13:43 --> 00:13:43 - for Johnson.
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 - And because Johnson was really worried when, the
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 - authorities came for Bobby Baker who was doing
00:13:50 --> 00:13:51 - all kinds of shifty
00:13:52 --> 00:13:54 - things in the senate, but we'll talk more
00:13:54 --> 00:13:55 - about him
00:13:56 --> 00:13:57 - down the road.
00:13:58 --> 00:14:01 - So the man that Bobby Baker told Johnson
00:14:01 --> 00:14:02 - to buddy up to,
00:14:03 --> 00:14:05 - the most important guy for him to get
00:14:05 --> 00:14:06 - to know really well
00:14:07 --> 00:14:10 - was a senator from Georgia by the name
00:14:10 --> 00:14:11 - of Richard Russell.
00:14:13 --> 00:14:15 - Richard Russell was a legendary
00:14:16 --> 00:14:18 - United States senator
00:14:19 --> 00:14:20 - from the state of Georgia.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:23 - He was more respected than any other senator,
00:14:23 --> 00:14:25 - at least on the Democrat side of the
00:14:25 --> 00:14:26 - aisle.
00:14:27 --> 00:14:28 - He was one of these guys that just
00:14:28 --> 00:14:30 - had an air about him.
00:14:30 --> 00:14:32 - He was very understated,
00:14:32 --> 00:14:33 - but he just,
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 - he just spoke power
00:14:37 --> 00:14:38 - and gravitas
00:14:39 --> 00:14:40 - and wisdom,
00:14:41 --> 00:14:43 - and we need to do what Richard Russell's
00:14:43 --> 00:14:45 - doing. And and senators would fight
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 - to get a seat next to him in
00:14:48 --> 00:14:51 - the congressional dining room at lunch.
00:14:53 --> 00:14:56 - He was a very, very powerful figure
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 - who, like Sam Rayburn,
00:15:00 --> 00:15:02 - was not married and did not really have
00:15:02 --> 00:15:03 - a family.
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 - And Lyndon Johnson
00:15:07 --> 00:15:08 - was offered
00:15:08 --> 00:15:11 - he got to the senate. He was offered
00:15:11 --> 00:15:13 - a place on the appropriations committee, the most
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 - powerful committee in the senate, the people that
00:15:16 --> 00:15:17 - hand out the money.
00:15:19 --> 00:15:21 - At least on paper, it's the most powerful
00:15:22 --> 00:15:25 - position, a brand new senator in a seniority
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 - system where he has no seniority.
00:15:29 --> 00:15:30 - I mean, he's at the bottom of the
00:15:30 --> 00:15:31 - totem pole,
00:15:32 --> 00:15:34 - and it very much was a hierarchy in
00:15:34 --> 00:15:38 - that senate, in the senate of 1949.
00:15:39 --> 00:15:42 - Lyndon Johnson gives up that opportunity
00:15:43 --> 00:15:44 - and asks and said to be on the
00:15:44 --> 00:15:46 - armed services committee.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:47 - Why was that?
00:15:48 --> 00:15:50 - Because Richard Russell was the chairman
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 - of the armed services committee. It was a
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 - smaller committee than appropriations.
00:15:55 --> 00:15:57 - And then Johnson, all he did
00:15:58 --> 00:16:00 - was try to get close
00:16:00 --> 00:16:01 - to Richard Russell.
00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 - And, of course, that required a little bit
00:16:04 --> 00:16:07 - of acrobatics because Lyndon Johnson, as you remember,
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 - was the apple of the eye, apple,
00:16:11 --> 00:16:13 - of the eye of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
00:16:14 --> 00:16:17 - Roosevelt's confiding in Johnson about plotting he's doing
00:16:17 --> 00:16:18 - against JFK's
00:16:19 --> 00:16:19 - dad.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 - Back in the early nineteen forties, Johnson put
00:16:22 --> 00:16:25 - his fixer, Tommy the Cork or, excuse me,
00:16:25 --> 00:16:26 - Roosevelt.
00:16:27 --> 00:16:27 - Roosevelt
00:16:27 --> 00:16:29 - put his fixer, Tommy the Cork
00:16:30 --> 00:16:30 - Gekorin,
00:16:31 --> 00:16:33 - on the case. Give Johnson what he needs.
00:16:33 --> 00:16:35 - Help him out. Help him climb the ladder
00:16:35 --> 00:16:36 - down there in Texas.
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 - Johnson was fair haired. He runs to the
00:16:39 --> 00:16:39 - left
00:16:41 --> 00:16:43 - of Coke Stephenson in order,
00:16:43 --> 00:16:45 - to win, to be in a position to
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 - cheat and to win the senate race that
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 - put him in the senate. But Richard Russell,
00:16:51 --> 00:16:52 - the guy he's now targeting
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 - to gain even more power unto himself, Richard
00:16:57 --> 00:17:00 - Russell's a conservative democrat, folks. He's a segregationist.
00:17:01 --> 00:17:02 - He's Jim Crow.
00:17:03 --> 00:17:06 - He's not a liberal of any kind. He
00:17:06 --> 00:17:07 - was one of the leadership
00:17:07 --> 00:17:08 - that put an end
00:17:09 --> 00:17:10 - to the new deal.
00:17:11 --> 00:17:12 - He was not,
00:17:13 --> 00:17:14 - he was the opposite
00:17:15 --> 00:17:17 - of the kind of people Johnson was hanging
00:17:17 --> 00:17:17 - around with.
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 - And Johnson made a big u-turn, and, of
00:17:21 --> 00:17:22 - course, he's already
00:17:22 --> 00:17:26 - building his base financially as Texas is building
00:17:26 --> 00:17:26 - financially
00:17:27 --> 00:17:30 - around principally the firm of Brown and Root,
00:17:31 --> 00:17:32 - as we said.
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 - And so Johnson's already kinda pivoting, becoming
00:17:36 --> 00:17:38 - more pro business.
00:17:39 --> 00:17:41 - But now but with, courting Russell,
00:17:42 --> 00:17:45 - Johnson makes a speech on the floor of
00:17:45 --> 00:17:46 - the senate against
00:17:47 --> 00:17:47 - civil rights.
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 - This is at a time where the civil
00:17:50 --> 00:17:53 - rights thing is becoming white hot. There's a
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 - congressman from Minneapolis by the name of Hubert
00:17:56 --> 00:17:58 - Humphrey. He will later become vice president
00:17:59 --> 00:18:02 - of The United States and, Nixon's opponent in
00:18:02 --> 00:18:03 - 1968.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:05 - Hubert Humphrey led a big,
00:18:06 --> 00:18:07 - civil rights,
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 - thrust at the convention, and that's when the
00:18:11 --> 00:18:14 - southerners left and started the Dixiecrat party. I
00:18:14 --> 00:18:16 - talked about this in my Truman episode because
00:18:16 --> 00:18:18 - I gave Truman a lot of trouble.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:20 - And so there's all this civil rights ferment
00:18:21 --> 00:18:23 - in the party, but, you know, Johnson is
00:18:23 --> 00:18:24 - a Texas politician,
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 - and Richard Russell is his key to power
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 - in his new place in the US senate.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:32 - So Johnson's out speaking against
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 - civil rights. He's out speaking against the unions.
00:18:36 --> 00:18:37 - One of the key
00:18:38 --> 00:18:41 - very key elements of the FDR coalition, but,
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 - of course, not key in Texas
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 - because the South is not unionized,
00:18:47 --> 00:18:49 - not hardly at all.
00:18:49 --> 00:18:51 - And so Johnson's making this pivot
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 - to appeal to, Russell.
00:18:55 --> 00:18:56 - And suddenly,
00:18:56 --> 00:18:58 - it looks to people like
00:18:58 --> 00:19:02 - Russell is treating Johnson like his long lost
00:19:02 --> 00:19:02 - son.
00:19:03 --> 00:19:05 - Just as Sam Rayburn, the speaker of the
00:19:05 --> 00:19:06 - house,
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 - was doing a few years earlier. These two
00:19:09 --> 00:19:11 - childless men that are powerhouses
00:19:13 --> 00:19:14 - in their respective,
00:19:15 --> 00:19:17 - bodies, the legislative bodies.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:20 - Rayburn in the house and now Richard Russell
00:19:21 --> 00:19:22 - in the senate.
00:19:23 --> 00:19:24 - So time goes on and we get to
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 - 1952.
00:19:27 --> 00:19:30 - And if you listen to my Eisenhower episode,
00:19:30 --> 00:19:32 - you know that the white David Eisenhower became
00:19:32 --> 00:19:32 - the
00:19:34 --> 00:19:37 - Republican candidate for president and wiped out the
00:19:37 --> 00:19:38 - Democrats, and
00:19:38 --> 00:19:41 - the Republicans took over the senate and the
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 - house for the first time in many, many
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 - years. Well, well, since 1946,
00:19:46 --> 00:19:48 - but, basically, they had a two year period
00:19:48 --> 00:19:49 - there. But, basically,
00:19:50 --> 00:19:52 - since it, started the depression,
00:19:53 --> 00:19:55 - and the leader of the senate became Robert
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 - Taft, my one of my heroes.
00:19:58 --> 00:19:59 - But the democrats,
00:19:59 --> 00:20:01 - suffered tremendous defeat.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:04 - And Richard Russell said, we have to get
00:20:04 --> 00:20:06 - new leadership. And, of course,
00:20:06 --> 00:20:08 - he's the power behind the throne
00:20:08 --> 00:20:10 - in the democrat caucus.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 - So who does he put forward
00:20:12 --> 00:20:14 - to be part of that new leadership?
00:20:15 --> 00:20:17 - Lyndon Johnson. We went we need some new
00:20:17 --> 00:20:19 - blood. So even though the senate is built
00:20:19 --> 00:20:22 - on seniority at this time, folks, completely,
00:20:23 --> 00:20:24 - and Lyndon Johnson
00:20:25 --> 00:20:27 - is still in his first term,
00:20:28 --> 00:20:31 - He's suddenly in the senate leadership sponsored by
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 - the most important Democrat senator
00:20:34 --> 00:20:35 - there.
00:20:36 --> 00:20:37 - And before long,
00:20:38 --> 00:20:39 - he's the minority leader.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 - And then as Eisenhower begins to dismantle the
00:20:43 --> 00:20:44 - Republican Party,
00:20:45 --> 00:20:47 - something I talked about in the Eisenhower series
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 - because he wasn't really a Republican, and I
00:20:49 --> 00:20:51 - won't get back through go back through all
00:20:51 --> 00:20:52 - of that right now.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:57 - The Democrats immediately take power again in 1954,
00:20:57 --> 00:20:59 - and Lyndon Baines Johnson
00:21:00 --> 00:21:01 - is now
00:21:02 --> 00:21:03 - the majority leader
00:21:04 --> 00:21:06 - of The United States Senate as he's,
00:21:07 --> 00:21:09 - after he runs for reelection successful. So he's
00:21:09 --> 00:21:11 - just starting his second term.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:13 - He's now the boss
00:21:13 --> 00:21:14 - of the senate.
00:21:15 --> 00:21:18 - And people nobody has ever seen anything like
00:21:18 --> 00:21:18 - this guy
00:21:19 --> 00:21:21 - because he he pulls out the stops
00:21:22 --> 00:21:23 - in every
00:21:23 --> 00:21:24 - direction
00:21:25 --> 00:21:27 - to get people to do what he wants.
00:21:28 --> 00:21:29 - And he also sucks up
00:21:31 --> 00:21:32 - to, shamelessly,
00:21:32 --> 00:21:35 - to the so called Republican president Dwight Eisenhower,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:38 - who loves Johnson.
00:21:38 --> 00:21:40 - Because Johnson is willing to do just about
00:21:40 --> 00:21:42 - anything he wants, and he doesn't really want
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 - the Republican agenda. So Lyndon Johnson is all
00:21:45 --> 00:21:47 - about getting rid of Joe McCarthy. Lyndon Johnson's
00:21:48 --> 00:21:49 - he's the single most,
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 - next to Eisenhower, he's the single most responsible
00:21:54 --> 00:21:56 - for destroying the Bricker Amendment,
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 - the national sovereignty amendment to the constitution
00:22:00 --> 00:22:01 - that did have a,
00:22:02 --> 00:22:05 - two thirds majority, but then ended up losing
00:22:05 --> 00:22:06 - it.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:09 - And, due to delays that Johnson was involved
00:22:09 --> 00:22:10 - with.
00:22:10 --> 00:22:13 - So Johnson and Eisenhower were almost joined at
00:22:13 --> 00:22:13 - the hip,
00:22:14 --> 00:22:16 - and Eisenhower was perfectly happy
00:22:17 --> 00:22:19 - to work with a Democrat majority leader
00:22:20 --> 00:22:21 - in the US Senate
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 - who is willing to play ball at all
00:22:24 --> 00:22:24 - times
00:22:25 --> 00:22:26 - with the internationalist.
00:22:28 --> 00:22:29 - And, that, of course,
00:22:30 --> 00:22:32 - folks, is Lyndon Johnson. But, you know, you
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 - you hear about the Johnson treatment
00:22:35 --> 00:22:37 - where he would walk up to a senator.
00:22:37 --> 00:22:40 - These guys are all treated like little mini
00:22:40 --> 00:22:41 - gods. They were.
00:22:41 --> 00:22:43 - He walks up to a senator
00:22:43 --> 00:22:46 - and to where his nose is one inch
00:22:47 --> 00:22:49 - from the guy's face, and he's looking down
00:22:49 --> 00:22:51 - at him in in almost every case because
00:22:51 --> 00:22:52 - Johnson's very tall.
00:22:54 --> 00:22:56 - And, you know, he pulls everything.
00:22:56 --> 00:22:57 - Intimidation,
00:22:57 --> 00:22:58 - bullying tactics,
00:22:59 --> 00:23:00 - praising people.
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 - I mean, praise I mean, it's so sickening,
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 - folks. You've listened to any of the Johnson
00:23:05 --> 00:23:05 - tapes.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:07 - I mean, this guy,
00:23:08 --> 00:23:09 - he pulled every different thing out of the
00:23:09 --> 00:23:11 - hat he had,
00:23:12 --> 00:23:13 - and all the while,
00:23:14 --> 00:23:16 - he's collecting money.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:19 - And in a system that he developed where
00:23:19 --> 00:23:22 - he never got any big bribes, just a
00:23:23 --> 00:23:24 - continual continual
00:23:24 --> 00:23:25 - conveyor belt
00:23:26 --> 00:23:27 - of smaller bribes
00:23:28 --> 00:23:29 - of different items.
00:23:30 --> 00:23:31 - A lot of them, he he got so
00:23:31 --> 00:23:32 - many tractors.
00:23:33 --> 00:23:35 - You know, he didn't need that many tractors
00:23:35 --> 00:23:36 - on his ranch.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:37 - So he would,
00:23:38 --> 00:23:40 - he'd get give these tractors to other people.
00:23:40 --> 00:23:43 - Other people he was also rigging elections for.
00:23:43 --> 00:23:45 - So he's continuing to build the power base
00:23:45 --> 00:23:47 - in Texas, but he's now spreading out. He's
00:23:47 --> 00:23:49 - now the most powerful senator
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 - before too long. He really is, folks.
00:23:52 --> 00:23:53 - In The United States
00:23:54 --> 00:23:55 - Of America
00:23:56 --> 00:23:58 - as, we're in a period of gatekeeping
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 - to keep the gains of the New Deal
00:24:01 --> 00:24:05 - in a conservative era, but with a, very
00:24:05 --> 00:24:05 - dubiously
00:24:06 --> 00:24:07 - Republican president
00:24:08 --> 00:24:09 - who is very happy
00:24:10 --> 00:24:12 - to work with Lyndon Baines Johnson.
00:24:13 --> 00:24:16 - So that's that's Lyndon Johnson. They called him
00:24:16 --> 00:24:18 - the master of the senate.
00:24:19 --> 00:24:21 - He mastered all the rules.
00:24:21 --> 00:24:22 - But more than that,
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 - he had a lot of inside information.
00:24:26 --> 00:24:28 - He had a lot of corporate money at
00:24:28 --> 00:24:29 - his disposal,
00:24:30 --> 00:24:31 - and he was not afraid
00:24:32 --> 00:24:33 - to acquire and use
00:24:34 --> 00:24:35 - power.
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 - My name is Lou Moore, and you are
00:24:37 --> 00:24:39 - listening to Hour of Decision on Liberty News
00:24:39 --> 00:24:40 - Radio,
00:24:40 --> 00:24:43 - and we'll continue our presidential series. Lyndon
00:24:44 --> 00:24:44 - Baines Johnson
00:24:45 --> 00:24:46 - is our subject
00:24:46 --> 00:24:47 - right after the news.
00:24:57 --> 00:24:58 - Second half
00:24:59 --> 00:25:01 - of the hour
00:25:01 --> 00:25:02 - of decision
00:25:03 --> 00:25:05 - with Lou Moore starts
00:25:07 --> 00:25:08 - right now.
00:25:13 --> 00:25:13 - Yeehaw.
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 - Welcome back to Hour of Decision. My name
00:25:17 --> 00:25:18 - is Lou Moore. We've been talking about the
00:25:18 --> 00:25:21 - thirty sixth president of The United States,
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 - Lyndon Baines Johnson, who I have uncharitably
00:25:25 --> 00:25:26 - characterized
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29 - as the vote fraud king and master
00:25:30 --> 00:25:33 - manipulator. We've been talking about his time in
00:25:33 --> 00:25:34 - the senate.
00:25:35 --> 00:25:37 - The master of the senate is historians
00:25:38 --> 00:25:41 - have called him. He was the majority leader
00:25:41 --> 00:25:43 - from 1955
00:25:44 --> 00:25:45 - until 1961
00:25:45 --> 00:25:46 - when he assumed
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 - his next role as vice president
00:25:50 --> 00:25:51 - of The United States.
00:25:52 --> 00:25:53 - So,
00:25:53 --> 00:25:56 - the whole time during the fifties when Johnson
00:25:56 --> 00:25:57 - was running the senate,
00:25:58 --> 00:25:59 - the situation was
00:26:00 --> 00:26:02 - the country was conservative,
00:26:02 --> 00:26:02 - generally.
00:26:03 --> 00:26:04 - The tone was generally conservative.
00:26:05 --> 00:26:06 - Ike in the White House,
00:26:09 --> 00:26:12 - but Ike doing nothing to strengthen the Republican
00:26:12 --> 00:26:14 - Party to sabotage it, in my opinion. I
00:26:14 --> 00:26:16 - mean, folks, in '19 in the nineteen fifty
00:26:16 --> 00:26:17 - eight
00:26:17 --> 00:26:18 - congressional
00:26:18 --> 00:26:19 - elections,
00:26:20 --> 00:26:21 - when the dust cleared,
00:26:21 --> 00:26:24 - there were 64
00:26:24 --> 00:26:24 - Democrats
00:26:25 --> 00:26:27 - in the United States Senate
00:26:28 --> 00:26:29 - to 34
00:26:30 --> 00:26:30 - Republicans.
00:26:32 --> 00:26:34 - And the house was 283.
00:26:35 --> 00:26:36 - 283
00:26:36 --> 00:26:36 - Democrats
00:26:37 --> 00:26:40 - to 153
00:26:40 --> 00:26:41 - Republicans.
00:26:42 --> 00:26:44 - Now as I said, the country was in
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 - a conservative mood. Ike's role Ike's role was
00:26:47 --> 00:26:47 - a gatekeeper,
00:26:48 --> 00:26:49 - not as the
00:26:49 --> 00:26:52 - next Franklin Roosevelt. But with numbers like that,
00:26:52 --> 00:26:54 - you would think at least on paper
00:26:54 --> 00:26:57 - that Eisenhower could have launched the next big,
00:26:58 --> 00:27:01 - legislative initiative, but he didn't. He didn't do
00:27:01 --> 00:27:01 - that.
00:27:02 --> 00:27:03 - But anyhow, this is the power
00:27:04 --> 00:27:05 - of the Democrats
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 - in the house and the senate, and this
00:27:08 --> 00:27:09 - is the power
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 - now that Lyndon Johnson is just increasingly
00:27:14 --> 00:27:14 - gravitating
00:27:15 --> 00:27:15 - onto himself
00:27:17 --> 00:27:18 - as the,
00:27:18 --> 00:27:20 - senate majority leader.
00:27:22 --> 00:27:23 - The country was anti communist,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:27 - and Johnson was anti communist.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 - The republic the country as a whole was
00:27:31 --> 00:27:33 - not for civil rights.
00:27:34 --> 00:27:36 - Johnson was not for civil rights.
00:27:37 --> 00:27:37 - The
00:27:38 --> 00:27:39 - country had rebelled against
00:27:39 --> 00:27:40 - labor,
00:27:41 --> 00:27:42 - starting, with the
00:27:43 --> 00:27:45 - congressional elections in 1946.
00:27:46 --> 00:27:48 - And Johnson was
00:27:48 --> 00:27:48 - tepidly,
00:27:49 --> 00:27:52 - carefully anti labor. He had a coalition, folks.
00:27:53 --> 00:27:56 - He had the solid south of Democrat
00:27:57 --> 00:28:00 - senators from every Southern state, every Confederate state,
00:28:00 --> 00:28:03 - South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,
00:28:04 --> 00:28:05 - Florida, Texas, Louisiana,
00:28:08 --> 00:28:10 - Arkansas, etcetera, etcetera. He had the the all
00:28:10 --> 00:28:11 - Democrats,
00:28:13 --> 00:28:15 - automatic, all with a lot of seniority.
00:28:16 --> 00:28:17 - Must have been there a long time,
00:28:18 --> 00:28:21 - but he had senators who were from New
00:28:21 --> 00:28:21 - York.
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 - He had senators that were not
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 - so conservative, and he had to be their
00:28:27 --> 00:28:30 - leader too. And we'll talk in a minute
00:28:30 --> 00:28:32 - about some of give you an example of
00:28:32 --> 00:28:33 - his smooth operations,
00:28:34 --> 00:28:35 - smooth operator
00:28:36 --> 00:28:38 - in the United States senate when he wasn't
00:28:38 --> 00:28:39 - bullying
00:28:40 --> 00:28:41 - senators.
00:28:42 --> 00:28:44 - But, you know, he had a power base,
00:28:44 --> 00:28:46 - and that power base was the growing financial
00:28:46 --> 00:28:47 - power of Texas,
00:28:48 --> 00:28:50 - specifically a Brown and Root company.
00:28:51 --> 00:28:54 - His relationship with Sam Rayburn, the a powerful
00:28:55 --> 00:28:56 - speaker of the house,
00:28:58 --> 00:29:00 - then his power that he achieved by
00:29:01 --> 00:29:03 - becoming the long lost son.
00:29:04 --> 00:29:06 - I mean, this stuff's incredible, folks.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:09 - Richard Russell. This guy didn't even like to
00:29:09 --> 00:29:10 - socialize with people.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:12 - Had no family.
00:29:13 --> 00:29:16 - He took Johnson right in. He come over
00:29:16 --> 00:29:17 - to the house after,
00:29:18 --> 00:29:19 - after the end of the day in the
00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 - senate with Lady Bird and Linda Bird and
00:29:22 --> 00:29:23 - all the birds
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 - of the Johnson family. And, oh, you know,
00:29:27 --> 00:29:28 - he was pretty much uncle Dick
00:29:29 --> 00:29:30 - over there. Unbelievable.
00:29:31 --> 00:29:32 - Unbelievable.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:35 - And then Johnson had Bobby Baker,
00:29:36 --> 00:29:38 - a man who would really come to know
00:29:38 --> 00:29:40 - every secret in the senate
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 - and share it all with Lyndon Johnson. So
00:29:43 --> 00:29:45 - he had the finances behind him. He had
00:29:45 --> 00:29:48 - the powerhouse leadership behind him. He had a
00:29:48 --> 00:29:49 - ton of intelligence
00:29:50 --> 00:29:50 - information,
00:29:51 --> 00:29:52 - including
00:29:52 --> 00:29:53 - blackmail
00:29:53 --> 00:29:54 - type of information.
00:29:55 --> 00:29:56 - He had a flow
00:29:57 --> 00:30:00 - of illegal contributions unto himself.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:03 - He was building his own personal empire
00:30:04 --> 00:30:04 - in Texas.
00:30:06 --> 00:30:08 - In Johnson City, Texas, there was this little
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 - radio station there or t I guess it
00:30:10 --> 00:30:12 - was a maybe a TV station. I'm I
00:30:12 --> 00:30:13 - actually don't have that in front of me.
00:30:13 --> 00:30:15 - Which one? I mean, probably both.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:17 - And he was charging
00:30:19 --> 00:30:20 - people
00:30:20 --> 00:30:20 - national
00:30:21 --> 00:30:22 - advertising rates.
00:30:23 --> 00:30:25 - National advertising rates
00:30:26 --> 00:30:28 - for a market that I think maybe included
00:30:28 --> 00:30:29 - Austin,
00:30:30 --> 00:30:33 - but not any other big city in Texas.
00:30:34 --> 00:30:37 - And people were advertising on top of this,
00:30:37 --> 00:30:38 - they were advertising
00:30:40 --> 00:30:41 - on his station
00:30:41 --> 00:30:43 - that had no business in Texas
00:30:44 --> 00:30:46 - that didn't do any business there.
00:30:47 --> 00:30:49 - And he's just getting wealthier
00:30:49 --> 00:30:50 - and wealthier
00:30:50 --> 00:30:51 - and wealthier
00:30:52 --> 00:30:53 - and wealthier.
00:30:55 --> 00:30:56 - And it was so bad.
00:30:57 --> 00:30:58 - I had a a dear friend, I won't
00:30:58 --> 00:30:59 - name him,
00:31:00 --> 00:31:02 - in my political career, Democrat,
00:31:03 --> 00:31:04 - but always talk about
00:31:05 --> 00:31:05 - that,
00:31:06 --> 00:31:08 - when Lyndon got to the White House, when
00:31:08 --> 00:31:10 - he got to be the big guy, the
00:31:10 --> 00:31:12 - president after Kennedy's assassination,
00:31:14 --> 00:31:17 - some of his old buddies would come up,
00:31:18 --> 00:31:20 - from Texas to visit, and Johnson would have
00:31:20 --> 00:31:22 - him come right in the Oval.
00:31:23 --> 00:31:25 - They'd have a sack full of cash for
00:31:25 --> 00:31:28 - him. Because every time they greeted Lyndon all
00:31:28 --> 00:31:30 - the way back from the time he was,
00:31:30 --> 00:31:31 - you know, a congressman
00:31:33 --> 00:31:34 - in in South Central Texas,
00:31:35 --> 00:31:37 - they would bring him a bag full of
00:31:37 --> 00:31:38 - cash.
00:31:39 --> 00:31:41 - And they say, don't do that now.
00:31:41 --> 00:31:41 - Don't
00:31:42 --> 00:31:44 - bring don't bring the president of The United
00:31:44 --> 00:31:46 - States a bag full of cash into the
00:31:46 --> 00:31:47 - Oval Office.
00:31:48 --> 00:31:50 - A lot of them still did.
00:31:51 --> 00:31:53 - Interesting life to be a staffer
00:31:54 --> 00:31:56 - for Lyndon Johnson. And if you were a
00:31:56 --> 00:31:57 - female staffer, oh,
00:31:58 --> 00:32:00 - there were some other aspects to that job
00:32:00 --> 00:32:03 - that we won't discuss here on this family
00:32:03 --> 00:32:04 - program.
00:32:06 --> 00:32:08 - And then finally, in this power base,
00:32:08 --> 00:32:10 - with all the intelligence information he was getting,
00:32:10 --> 00:32:12 - all the blackmail material,
00:32:13 --> 00:32:14 - all all of the leverage he had, all
00:32:14 --> 00:32:17 - of the strength of these other men that
00:32:17 --> 00:32:18 - he could draw on,
00:32:19 --> 00:32:20 - in persuading
00:32:21 --> 00:32:23 - members of the senate, particularly members of the
00:32:23 --> 00:32:26 - Democratic caucus to do it his way. All
00:32:26 --> 00:32:26 - the financial
00:32:27 --> 00:32:28 - power,
00:32:28 --> 00:32:30 - business power that he was,
00:32:31 --> 00:32:33 - developing through the fact he was the principal
00:32:34 --> 00:32:37 - representative from Texas that was becoming a financial
00:32:37 --> 00:32:38 - powerhouse.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:40 - Beyond all of that, he had that relationship
00:32:40 --> 00:32:41 - with Eisenhower,
00:32:42 --> 00:32:45 - the most popular politician in America at 75%
00:32:45 --> 00:32:46 - approval
00:32:46 --> 00:32:49 - and not even a Democrat, at least supposedly.
00:32:50 --> 00:32:51 - So
00:32:52 --> 00:32:53 - Johnson became the master
00:32:55 --> 00:32:55 - of the senate,
00:32:56 --> 00:32:58 - and I'm gonna give you an example of
00:32:58 --> 00:32:59 - how Johnson operated.
00:33:00 --> 00:33:02 - So in 1957,
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 - kind of a sticky wicket. They're pushing there
00:33:05 --> 00:33:06 - in the North,
00:33:07 --> 00:33:09 - northern Democrat liberals and northern Republican
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 - liberals, which we still had.
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15 - I mean, open liberals like Jacob Javits of
00:33:15 --> 00:33:17 - New York is a perfect example. They're all
00:33:17 --> 00:33:18 - Rockefellers.
00:33:18 --> 00:33:19 - Perfect
00:33:19 --> 00:33:22 - example. Rockefeller Republicans as they called them back
00:33:22 --> 00:33:22 - in the day.
00:33:23 --> 00:33:24 - And they were pushing
00:33:25 --> 00:33:28 - timidly, but they were pushing this here civil
00:33:28 --> 00:33:29 - rights.
00:33:30 --> 00:33:32 - And they were pushing getting the federal government
00:33:32 --> 00:33:33 - more involved
00:33:34 --> 00:33:36 - in that arena, which, of course, eventually,
00:33:36 --> 00:33:39 - they did because of Johnson. Don't wanna get
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 - ahead of myself. But in 1957,
00:33:42 --> 00:33:44 - Johnson's trying to keep his caucus together,
00:33:45 --> 00:33:48 - and he's got this problem of people in
00:33:48 --> 00:33:51 - his caucus pushing this civil rights, which most
00:33:51 --> 00:33:53 - of his power base did not like.
00:33:55 --> 00:33:58 - So I'm gonna read now from Grock, giving
00:33:58 --> 00:34:00 - you a perfect example of how Johnson operated
00:34:00 --> 00:34:01 - in the senate.
00:34:05 --> 00:34:08 - Johnson engineered a cross regional vote swap in
00:34:08 --> 00:34:10 - 1957.
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 - He got five southern Democrats,
00:34:13 --> 00:34:15 - including Richard Russell,
00:34:16 --> 00:34:18 - who opposed the same bill before,
00:34:19 --> 00:34:21 - a civil rights bill.
00:34:22 --> 00:34:24 - Oh, no. That's not right. He opposed
00:34:26 --> 00:34:28 - building a big federal dam at Hells Canyon
00:34:28 --> 00:34:29 - on the Snake River
00:34:30 --> 00:34:31 - in Idaho.
00:34:32 --> 00:34:34 - He had opposed it. These other guys opposed
00:34:34 --> 00:34:35 - it,
00:34:37 --> 00:34:38 - and it passed
00:34:39 --> 00:34:40 - 45 to 38.
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 - Johnson switched these votes. They passed his bill.
00:34:44 --> 00:34:44 - So what?
00:34:45 --> 00:34:47 - In return, five western liberals
00:34:49 --> 00:34:51 - westerners very concerned at this time
00:34:52 --> 00:34:54 - about the building of this dam and the
00:34:54 --> 00:34:57 - power generation that benefits and whatnot. But five
00:34:57 --> 00:34:58 - liberals from the West,
00:34:59 --> 00:35:01 - Wayne Morris of Oregon,
00:35:01 --> 00:35:01 - Warren,
00:35:02 --> 00:35:04 - Magnuson, both Murray and Mansfield
00:35:05 --> 00:35:07 - from Montana. Can you believe Montana in the
00:35:07 --> 00:35:08 - fifties folks was electing
00:35:09 --> 00:35:11 - two liberals to the US Senate?
00:35:12 --> 00:35:14 - And, oh, Mahoney of Wyoming.
00:35:15 --> 00:35:15 - Wyoming.
00:35:15 --> 00:35:16 - Liberal. Anyway,
00:35:17 --> 00:35:19 - they voted against.
00:35:19 --> 00:35:20 - They had been for it.
00:35:21 --> 00:35:24 - But in trade, for getting their dam
00:35:25 --> 00:35:28 - through Johnson, through Richard Russell, on the Snake
00:35:28 --> 00:35:31 - River, they voted against putting a civil rights
00:35:31 --> 00:35:32 - bill on the calendar
00:35:34 --> 00:35:35 - in the senate.
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38 - And then they allowed the southerners,
00:35:39 --> 00:35:41 - the southern Democrats to attach
00:35:42 --> 00:35:44 - a jury trial amendment
00:35:45 --> 00:35:47 - that gutted its enforcement teeth
00:35:49 --> 00:35:50 - because a lot of this had to do
00:35:50 --> 00:35:52 - with, you know, what they believe were rig
00:35:52 --> 00:35:53 - juries and whatnot, and this
00:35:54 --> 00:35:56 - kept that from being a factor in this
00:35:56 --> 00:35:56 - bill.
00:35:57 --> 00:36:00 - Russell Long from Louisiana later described it as
00:36:00 --> 00:36:01 - a quote gentleman's agreement.
00:36:02 --> 00:36:04 - Four of us vote for the dam. Four
00:36:04 --> 00:36:06 - of us on the other side,
00:36:06 --> 00:36:06 - vote,
00:36:07 --> 00:36:08 - with us.
00:36:08 --> 00:36:10 - Four liberals vote
00:36:10 --> 00:36:12 - against civil rights.
00:36:15 --> 00:36:17 - It was a masterpiece of Lyndon Johnson's
00:36:19 --> 00:36:20 - behavior. Now there are other things involved. It
00:36:20 --> 00:36:22 - it didn't end up to be quite
00:36:22 --> 00:36:24 - as big of a vote as any of
00:36:24 --> 00:36:26 - these guys thought as they went into this
00:36:26 --> 00:36:28 - negotiation, but this was Lyndon Johnson
00:36:29 --> 00:36:30 - to a t.
00:36:33 --> 00:36:34 - So
00:36:35 --> 00:36:38 - Lyndon Johnson had this great thing going, all
00:36:38 --> 00:36:40 - his money flowing and all the stuff I
00:36:40 --> 00:36:41 - was just talking about, but he also had
00:36:41 --> 00:36:43 - a massive heart attack
00:36:44 --> 00:36:47 - and became a national news story himself
00:36:48 --> 00:36:50 - and had to convalesce for three months
00:36:51 --> 00:36:52 - and nearly died.
00:36:54 --> 00:36:56 - But he he used it very cleverly, used
00:36:56 --> 00:36:57 - the media cleverly.
00:36:57 --> 00:37:00 - He had all the big Democrats coming out
00:37:00 --> 00:37:02 - to the ranch. This was the first time,
00:37:02 --> 00:37:03 - folks.
00:37:03 --> 00:37:05 - I'm sure you've held about heard about the
00:37:05 --> 00:37:07 - LBJ Ranch, and that was kind of his
00:37:07 --> 00:37:08 - prop,
00:37:09 --> 00:37:11 - that he used, throughout his career and and
00:37:11 --> 00:37:13 - mainly when he was the president.
00:37:14 --> 00:37:16 - But, yeah, early on, he had people like
00:37:16 --> 00:37:17 - Adlai Stevenson,
00:37:18 --> 00:37:20 - this egghead from Illinois,
00:37:21 --> 00:37:22 - Ultra Lib,
00:37:22 --> 00:37:25 - the sacrificial lamb that lost badly
00:37:26 --> 00:37:29 - to Dwight David Eisenhower twice in 1952 and
00:37:29 --> 00:37:30 - 1956.
00:37:30 --> 00:37:32 - You see you can see pictures of him
00:37:32 --> 00:37:32 - out there.
00:37:33 --> 00:37:36 - Very uncomfortable sitting next to Johnson who's convalescing
00:37:36 --> 00:37:37 - from his heart attack.
00:37:38 --> 00:37:39 - And so,
00:37:40 --> 00:37:41 - people said you'll never be able to go
00:37:41 --> 00:37:43 - for president, Lyndon. People don't allow that when
00:37:43 --> 00:37:45 - you got a bad ticker. But, you know,
00:37:45 --> 00:37:48 - Eisenhower had two heart attacks during this period
00:37:48 --> 00:37:48 - of time.
00:37:49 --> 00:37:51 - And, and, anyway, Johnson was, you know, I'm
00:37:51 --> 00:37:53 - gonna quit drinking, which he drank like a
00:37:53 --> 00:37:55 - fish. I'm not getting all this stuff with
00:37:55 --> 00:37:56 - Johnson, but
00:37:57 --> 00:37:58 - people said he drank a quart and a
00:37:58 --> 00:37:59 - half of a
00:38:00 --> 00:38:00 - day.
00:38:01 --> 00:38:03 - There are witnesses testifying to this.
00:38:03 --> 00:38:05 - I can't even visualize that,
00:38:06 --> 00:38:08 - folks, but and maybe it's not true. But
00:38:08 --> 00:38:10 - people say people say it was true,
00:38:11 --> 00:38:13 - and and that he could eat that they'd
00:38:13 --> 00:38:14 - bring in a platter of sandwiches
00:38:15 --> 00:38:17 - into a meeting, and Johnson would just take
00:38:17 --> 00:38:19 - the whole platter and put it in for
00:38:20 --> 00:38:22 - a breakfast seat and eat the whole platter
00:38:22 --> 00:38:24 - of sandwiches while other people watched.
00:38:25 --> 00:38:27 - Typical Johnson move, kind of a power move,
00:38:27 --> 00:38:27 - but also
00:38:28 --> 00:38:30 - unbelievable appetites
00:38:30 --> 00:38:32 - of all kinds. Lyndon Johnson.
00:38:33 --> 00:38:35 - So, anyway, he's power hungry.
00:38:36 --> 00:38:38 - That's the main theme of this whole series
00:38:38 --> 00:38:39 - so far,
00:38:39 --> 00:38:41 - and he would like to now become president
00:38:41 --> 00:38:43 - of The United States.
00:38:44 --> 00:38:46 - Senate majority leader, that's pretty good.
00:38:47 --> 00:38:48 - But president of The United States, now that
00:38:48 --> 00:38:50 - is really something.
00:38:50 --> 00:38:51 - So,
00:38:51 --> 00:38:54 - how people got elected and, you know, he
00:38:54 --> 00:38:55 - wasn't that photogenic.
00:38:56 --> 00:38:58 - He didn't travel around the country,
00:38:58 --> 00:38:58 - barnstorming,
00:38:59 --> 00:39:02 - but that's not how people got the nomination
00:39:02 --> 00:39:04 - back in that day, folks. I mean, John
00:39:04 --> 00:39:06 - f Kennedy broke the mold in 1960, and
00:39:06 --> 00:39:08 - I talk about a lot of this stuff
00:39:08 --> 00:39:10 - in, my Kennedy series.
00:39:11 --> 00:39:13 - But Johnson had all the inside players,
00:39:15 --> 00:39:17 - not just in the senate, but throughout the
00:39:17 --> 00:39:18 - party now
00:39:19 --> 00:39:21 - sucking up to him, and they were the
00:39:21 --> 00:39:22 - people that decided
00:39:22 --> 00:39:23 - at the convention,
00:39:24 --> 00:39:25 - the delegates
00:39:25 --> 00:39:27 - who who were at the convention,
00:39:29 --> 00:39:30 - who would become their nominee.
00:39:31 --> 00:39:32 - But Johnson had this problem.
00:39:33 --> 00:39:36 - He was kind of against civil rights. Oops.
00:39:36 --> 00:39:37 - That's not good
00:39:37 --> 00:39:39 - for a lot of those eastern delegates. He
00:39:39 --> 00:39:42 - was kind of against labor, carefully now. But
00:39:42 --> 00:39:43 - labor was huge.
00:39:44 --> 00:39:45 - Like, 25%
00:39:45 --> 00:39:46 - of the delegates came from labor.
00:39:47 --> 00:39:49 - On the floor of the nineteen sixty
00:39:49 --> 00:39:52 - presidential convention. And now going back,
00:39:52 --> 00:39:55 - Adlai Stevenson was given the nod in '52
00:39:55 --> 00:39:57 - and '56, got wiped out by Eisenhower both
00:39:57 --> 00:40:00 - times. But we're now the whole focus, even
00:40:00 --> 00:40:02 - before the election of fifty six,
00:40:02 --> 00:40:04 - was on 1960.
00:40:04 --> 00:40:06 - And that's why there was the pressure on
00:40:06 --> 00:40:07 - JFK
00:40:07 --> 00:40:09 - to come up with a new legislative,
00:40:10 --> 00:40:13 - initiative like Franklin Roosevelt had so we could
00:40:13 --> 00:40:16 - really get back to democrat governance, which is
00:40:16 --> 00:40:17 - Fabian socialist governance
00:40:18 --> 00:40:19 - in the White House.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:22 - And so the democrats are coming up. Their
00:40:22 --> 00:40:25 - big chance is 1960, but they don't really
00:40:25 --> 00:40:26 - have a good candidate.
00:40:27 --> 00:40:30 - Stevenson is kinda making noise about running, and
00:40:30 --> 00:40:32 - he's kinda built a cult around himself even
00:40:32 --> 00:40:35 - though he's a terrible candidate with two terrible
00:40:35 --> 00:40:37 - runs for the White House. And he's getting
00:40:37 --> 00:40:40 - some pretty prominent democrats that won't support anybody
00:40:40 --> 00:40:42 - else because he's playing coy like maybe I'm
00:40:42 --> 00:40:44 - gonna run. And he keeps waiting and waiting
00:40:44 --> 00:40:45 - and waiting.
00:40:46 --> 00:40:48 - Meanwhile, John f Kennedy is running full blast,
00:40:49 --> 00:40:51 - but John f Kennedy is a Catholic.
00:40:52 --> 00:40:53 - John f Kennedy
00:40:53 --> 00:40:53 - is
00:40:54 --> 00:40:54 - hated
00:40:55 --> 00:40:57 - by the Democrat establishment
00:40:58 --> 00:40:58 - because
00:40:59 --> 00:41:02 - he didn't wait his turn. He didn't come
00:41:02 --> 00:41:03 - up through the ranks. He didn't come up
00:41:03 --> 00:41:05 - through the ranks like Lyndon Johnson did. His
00:41:05 --> 00:41:09 - dad bought him a house seat in 1946
00:41:09 --> 00:41:11 - and then bought him a senate seat in
00:41:11 --> 00:41:12 - 1952.
00:41:14 --> 00:41:16 - He he had a huge organization and a
00:41:16 --> 00:41:18 - very loyal one, but it was all running
00:41:18 --> 00:41:19 - on money.
00:41:20 --> 00:41:22 - And it was outside the Democrat machines.
00:41:23 --> 00:41:24 - Outside, folks.
00:41:25 --> 00:41:28 - He was using the mob to cheat
00:41:28 --> 00:41:30 - in some of the elections he was in.
00:41:30 --> 00:41:30 - But anyhow,
00:41:31 --> 00:41:33 - without getting all the way back into Kennedy,
00:41:35 --> 00:41:36 - Kennedy was hated
00:41:37 --> 00:41:40 - by most regulars in the Democrat party, by
00:41:40 --> 00:41:42 - most union people,
00:41:42 --> 00:41:44 - by the left. The left didn't trust him
00:41:44 --> 00:41:46 - because his dad supported Joe McCarthy.
00:41:47 --> 00:41:48 - His dad also supported,
00:41:49 --> 00:41:50 - Richard Nixon
00:41:50 --> 00:41:53 - in the nineteen fifty senate race, the Titanic
00:41:53 --> 00:41:54 - senate race in California,
00:41:55 --> 00:41:57 - where Nixon beat what he called the pink
00:41:57 --> 00:41:58 - lady,
00:41:58 --> 00:42:00 - Helen Gahagan Douglas, who, by the way,
00:42:01 --> 00:42:04 - was a paramour and, who slept with Lyndon
00:42:04 --> 00:42:05 - Johnson for many years
00:42:06 --> 00:42:08 - in the late nineteen forties. That is a
00:42:08 --> 00:42:09 - side note.
00:42:09 --> 00:42:11 - We'll talk a little bit more about Johnson's
00:42:11 --> 00:42:12 - womanizing,
00:42:12 --> 00:42:14 - but not gonna get to any more of
00:42:14 --> 00:42:15 - that quite yet.
00:42:16 --> 00:42:17 - But, anyway so Kennedy
00:42:18 --> 00:42:20 - is unknown quantity.
00:42:20 --> 00:42:22 - He's kind of a television candidate, and they
00:42:22 --> 00:42:24 - never had one of those before.
00:42:24 --> 00:42:26 - Most of the delegates are not gonna be
00:42:26 --> 00:42:27 - picked in primaries
00:42:28 --> 00:42:30 - where where you run TV ads and you
00:42:30 --> 00:42:32 - barnstorm the state, and then you win, and
00:42:32 --> 00:42:34 - then the delegates are assigned to you in
00:42:34 --> 00:42:35 - a primary.
00:42:36 --> 00:42:38 - Most of the delegates are coming from the
00:42:38 --> 00:42:38 - back room.
00:42:39 --> 00:42:41 - They're coming through the caucus system, through the
00:42:41 --> 00:42:42 - precincts and the caucuses,
00:42:43 --> 00:42:44 - the ward healers,
00:42:45 --> 00:42:45 - the machine
00:42:46 --> 00:42:48 - guys that ran the machines.
00:42:49 --> 00:42:50 - And so
00:42:51 --> 00:42:53 - this could have been ideal for Johnson except
00:42:53 --> 00:42:55 - how he had to position himself
00:42:56 --> 00:42:57 - to be the head of the senate that's
00:42:57 --> 00:42:59 - still full of all these segregationist,
00:43:00 --> 00:43:01 - Democrats.
00:43:01 --> 00:43:04 - Adlai Stevenson couldn't run again, but he was
00:43:04 --> 00:43:06 - taking up a whole lane, and then there's
00:43:06 --> 00:43:06 - Kennedy.
00:43:07 --> 00:43:09 - And so finally,
00:43:10 --> 00:43:11 - by people like Harry Truman,
00:43:12 --> 00:43:13 - who also hated Kennedy,
00:43:13 --> 00:43:15 - who also said Kennedy didn't wait his turn,
00:43:15 --> 00:43:18 - and who also said Kennedy was too young
00:43:18 --> 00:43:18 - and inexperienced
00:43:19 --> 00:43:19 - to be president,
00:43:20 --> 00:43:22 - they pushed Lyndon Johnson.
00:43:22 --> 00:43:25 - And so Johnson ends up taking on the
00:43:25 --> 00:43:25 - Kennedys
00:43:26 --> 00:43:27 - in 1960.
00:43:27 --> 00:43:28 - And Johnson,
00:43:28 --> 00:43:31 - he hates people from Harvard right off the
00:43:31 --> 00:43:31 - bat.
00:43:31 --> 00:43:33 - He tells them Harvard. Even the people working
00:43:33 --> 00:43:35 - on his staff, he he doesn't like them.
00:43:36 --> 00:43:38 - He he he he thinks they all snicker
00:43:38 --> 00:43:40 - behind his back because he's a Texas hillbilly.
00:43:41 --> 00:43:44 - Yeah. Culturally, he doesn't like them. He doesn't
00:43:44 --> 00:43:46 - like the Kennedys because
00:43:46 --> 00:43:48 - they didn't come up to the ranks. He
00:43:48 --> 00:43:51 - doesn't like the Kennedys because they're more arrogant
00:43:51 --> 00:43:53 - than he is, and they play
00:43:53 --> 00:43:55 - at least as much hardball
00:43:55 --> 00:43:58 - as he does. Let me assure you folks,
00:43:59 --> 00:44:01 - Kennedys, it's hardball city if you go up
00:44:01 --> 00:44:02 - against the Kennedys.
00:44:02 --> 00:44:05 - And, and Joe Kennedy was determined.
00:44:06 --> 00:44:07 - The man who Franklin Roosevelt,
00:44:08 --> 00:44:09 - destroyed his reputation
00:44:10 --> 00:44:10 - and,
00:44:11 --> 00:44:11 - told
00:44:12 --> 00:44:13 - if you remember in the last episode,
00:44:14 --> 00:44:16 - ran his finger under his throat
00:44:16 --> 00:44:19 - when he was talking to Kennedy and looked
00:44:19 --> 00:44:21 - across the room at a young Lyndon Johnson
00:44:21 --> 00:44:21 - and smiled.
00:44:23 --> 00:44:25 - Joseph Kennedy, he wanted to be president,
00:44:25 --> 00:44:28 - either in 1940 or elected in '40 or
00:44:28 --> 00:44:29 - '44,
00:44:29 --> 00:44:31 - who Roosevelt said he would help, and then
00:44:31 --> 00:44:33 - he destroyed him
00:44:33 --> 00:44:35 - and left, forever
00:44:35 --> 00:44:36 - the term antisemite
00:44:38 --> 00:44:40 - over, he hoped, the whole Kennedy clan.
00:44:41 --> 00:44:43 - So Joseph p Kennedy had the money,
00:44:44 --> 00:44:46 - and, and then there was Bobby.
00:44:47 --> 00:44:50 - Bobby had the drive. Bobby was a political
00:44:50 --> 00:44:53 - machine and one of the best political operatives
00:44:53 --> 00:44:55 - ever produced in The United States Of America.
00:44:55 --> 00:44:58 - That's Bobby Kennedy senior, who also, by the
00:44:58 --> 00:45:00 - way, was on the staff of Joe McCarthy,
00:45:02 --> 00:45:02 - as a Democrat
00:45:03 --> 00:45:05 - in the early nineteen fifties.
00:45:06 --> 00:45:09 - And so he was JFK's campaign manager
00:45:10 --> 00:45:11 - in 1960.
00:45:12 --> 00:45:14 - So Johnson's trying to work the inside game
00:45:14 --> 00:45:17 - and get all the machine people behind him,
00:45:17 --> 00:45:17 - but,
00:45:18 --> 00:45:19 - you know, they just don't they look at
00:45:19 --> 00:45:21 - him and they go, I'm not sure about
00:45:21 --> 00:45:23 - this guy. I don't think the public's gonna
00:45:23 --> 00:45:25 - like him. We don't he's too conservative
00:45:26 --> 00:45:27 - on civil rights, and
00:45:28 --> 00:45:30 - he's a little too much anti communist there.
00:45:31 --> 00:45:33 - He didn't he said some bad things about
00:45:33 --> 00:45:34 - the union. So
00:45:34 --> 00:45:36 - Johnson just can't
00:45:36 --> 00:45:37 - quite
00:45:37 --> 00:45:40 - get it done. He can't convince enough
00:45:41 --> 00:45:42 - leadership
00:45:43 --> 00:45:45 - and the machines and of the different state
00:45:45 --> 00:45:47 - delegations to move the lemming
00:45:48 --> 00:45:48 - delegates,
00:45:49 --> 00:45:52 - in mass over to him. And more and
00:45:52 --> 00:45:55 - more, they're persuaded that they don't like Kennedy,
00:45:55 --> 00:45:57 - but that Kennedy can get them the White
00:45:57 --> 00:45:58 - House, and they've been out.
00:45:59 --> 00:46:02 - After all that solid days of FDR and
00:46:02 --> 00:46:04 - the fact that Truman won when he wasn't
00:46:04 --> 00:46:07 - supposed to win, giving them, you know, an
00:46:07 --> 00:46:09 - unbroken chain of twenty years
00:46:10 --> 00:46:11 - in the White House,
00:46:12 --> 00:46:13 - they want back in.
00:46:14 --> 00:46:16 - Ike was nice and everything, but, they, you
00:46:16 --> 00:46:17 - know, he wasn't a democrat.
00:46:18 --> 00:46:20 - He wasn't putting giving out democrat patronage,
00:46:21 --> 00:46:23 - and he wasn't getting on with the next
00:46:23 --> 00:46:25 - version of the new deal.
00:46:26 --> 00:46:27 - And so they were persuaded
00:46:28 --> 00:46:30 - to go with Kennedy
00:46:30 --> 00:46:31 - and not Johnson.
00:46:32 --> 00:46:35 - And Johnson hated Kennedy for that, and Kennedy,
00:46:35 --> 00:46:36 - particularly
00:46:37 --> 00:46:38 - Bobby Kennedy,
00:46:39 --> 00:46:39 - hated
00:46:40 --> 00:46:41 - Lyndon Johnson.
00:46:41 --> 00:46:42 - And,
00:46:43 --> 00:46:45 - Joe the old man, Joe Kennedy, he used
00:46:45 --> 00:46:48 - to criticize John. He was that he was
00:46:48 --> 00:46:49 - too soft.
00:46:49 --> 00:46:51 - He was too weak, and he had physical
00:46:51 --> 00:46:51 - issues,
00:46:52 --> 00:46:53 - physical ailments.
00:46:53 --> 00:46:55 - He was a combat veteran in World War
00:46:55 --> 00:46:56 - two,
00:46:56 --> 00:46:57 - but Bobby
00:46:57 --> 00:46:58 - was the knife.
00:46:59 --> 00:47:00 - And, Joe Kennedy,
00:47:01 --> 00:47:03 - always bragged up Bobby's willingness
00:47:04 --> 00:47:05 - to stat
00:47:06 --> 00:47:07 - to to deal the blade
00:47:08 --> 00:47:10 - to the opponents of the family,
00:47:11 --> 00:47:13 - which he did on many, many, many occasions.
00:47:15 --> 00:47:15 - And so,
00:47:16 --> 00:47:18 - anyway, Bobby and JFK
00:47:18 --> 00:47:19 - win,
00:47:19 --> 00:47:21 - and Johnson loses, but
00:47:22 --> 00:47:23 - but
00:47:24 --> 00:47:27 - people are whispering. And JFK's here, oh, you've
00:47:27 --> 00:47:30 - gotta put Linden on the ticket. And, you
00:47:30 --> 00:47:31 - know, you don't have a good relationship with
00:47:31 --> 00:47:32 - a lot of these
00:47:33 --> 00:47:34 - people in the house and the senate, and
00:47:34 --> 00:47:36 - you're gonna wanna put your
00:47:36 --> 00:47:39 - program forward. And, you know, Linden can get
00:47:39 --> 00:47:41 - that done for you. So you need to
00:47:41 --> 00:47:42 - put Linden
00:47:42 --> 00:47:44 - on the ticket with you.
00:47:45 --> 00:47:45 - And,
00:47:46 --> 00:47:48 - RFK totally against this,
00:47:48 --> 00:47:50 - violently opposed to it.
00:47:51 --> 00:47:53 - But Kennedy overrules
00:47:53 --> 00:47:54 - care uncharacteristically,
00:47:55 --> 00:47:56 - JFK, John f.
00:47:57 --> 00:47:59 - Kennedy overrules his brother
00:48:01 --> 00:48:01 - and fortuitously,
00:48:04 --> 00:48:06 - for the fortunes that is of Lyndon Johnson,
00:48:07 --> 00:48:09 - put him on the ticket. And Johnson went
00:48:09 --> 00:48:10 - to Bobby Baker,
00:48:11 --> 00:48:12 - his fixer,
00:48:13 --> 00:48:14 - his eyes and ears
00:48:15 --> 00:48:16 - who had call girls running around all over
00:48:16 --> 00:48:19 - the place sleeping with about half the senate
00:48:19 --> 00:48:21 - and reporting to Johnson all about this.
00:48:25 --> 00:48:28 - Bobby can't Bobby Baker told Johnson, he said,
00:48:28 --> 00:48:30 - you know, it's a terrible job, but you're
00:48:30 --> 00:48:31 - one heartbeat away
00:48:33 --> 00:48:34 - from where you wanna be from the presidency.
00:48:36 --> 00:48:37 - And so, faithfully,
00:48:38 --> 00:48:38 - he accepts,
00:48:40 --> 00:48:43 - and, we go into the campaign of nineteen
00:48:43 --> 00:48:45 - sixty, the Kennedy Johnson ticket
00:48:46 --> 00:48:49 - for president of The United States.
00:48:50 --> 00:48:52 - Folks, I don't wanna forget to tell you
00:48:52 --> 00:48:54 - to go to securevote.news.
00:48:54 --> 00:48:56 - I read you this story about this judge
00:48:56 --> 00:48:58 - down in South Texas doing a lot of
00:48:58 --> 00:48:59 - the things Linden did,
00:49:00 --> 00:49:02 - helping people vote, helping people right go right
00:49:02 --> 00:49:05 - into the polling booth to vote, handing them
00:49:05 --> 00:49:07 - a little sugar for doing it or doing
00:49:07 --> 00:49:09 - some other favor for them. Well, we we
00:49:09 --> 00:49:11 - report on not just those kind of things,
00:49:11 --> 00:49:13 - but on the most consequential
00:49:13 --> 00:49:15 - election integrity issues
00:49:15 --> 00:49:16 - every week
00:49:17 --> 00:49:18 - at securevote.news,
00:49:18 --> 00:49:20 - and we're coming up to an election, folks.
00:49:20 --> 00:49:21 - There's a lot of stuff on there you
00:49:21 --> 00:49:25 - need to know about. So go to securevote.news.
00:49:25 --> 00:49:28 - We're gonna continue the LBJ series
00:49:28 --> 00:49:30 - on this program, which is called hour of
00:49:30 --> 00:49:31 - decision
00:49:31 --> 00:49:34 - on Liberty News Radio. My name is Lou
00:49:34 --> 00:49:36 - Moore, and I will talk to you again
00:49:36 --> 00:49:37 - next week.