Books, including the making modern economics. As always, we appreciate grace, jfk in the presidency. Mark updegrove. Were sitting here in the shadow of the Texas State Capitol in austin. Texas has played a rather outsize Role International political world, hasnt it . Absolutely. For texas goes, america goes in many respects. That has never been more true than today. Texas has always sort of lead the way for america in so many respects. We had three president s from here in the last 60 years. Lbj, president george w. Bush and president george w. Bush, so texas is an outsized presence in American Life, and texans wouldnt have it any other way. You have worked with one of those president s as well. Well, have you worked with all three in some capacity . Lets start with lbj who is right here in boston austin. Mark i with the director of the president ial library from 2009 to 2017 and now, the presidency or the lbj foundation. Ive written several books including one that we will talk about today, indomitable will lbj in the presidency. But one of the reasons i wanted to be the director of the library now 13 years ago was the fact that lbj is one of our most consequential president s and so many respects. I think he is known for predominantly, but there is so much more to his legacy. And while vietnam is a vitally important part of that legacy, the laws of the Great Society are just as important if not more so including very importantly the strides that he made on civil rights throughout the course of his presidency which fundamentally changed our nation and allowed us our most important ideal, that all men are created people, that egalitarianism that defines we are as americans. It is lbj who brings that to fruition and i didnt think that he was recognized for those accomplishments, so i very much wanted to come to the lbj library to illuminate americans on what lbj means to america. Particularly in the 21st century. How the things that he did during the course of his presidency continued to resound in todays america. Why did you move from the library to the foundation and what is the difference . Mark the library, as most are, is run under the auspices of the National Archives, the public side of the publicprivate partnerships that are president ial libraries. When i was the director, an employee of the National Archives, now im on the private side of that. We help the National Archives run that institution, putting money and resources into the library to make it even more for the American People. One of the things that the Johnson Family did was release all the audiotapes from the oval office. What was the reason for doing that . That was a pretty big gift to the American People, wasnt it . Mark a gift to history in so many respects. Harry middleton, more or less the inaugural director of the lbj president ial library and then a speechwriter for lbj in the white house found out about the existence of these tapes, the secret telephone tape that lbj had made during the course of his presidency after president johnson died. They were given to him by a secretary who was charged with holding them in her custody until the president died. The president asked that there be a seal on those tapes are 50 years which would mean that we would be opening them next year if he had gotten his wish. But he realized the importance historically of these tapes in documenting the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and in some ways, in documenting the presidency in general. They really get a glimpse into what the presidency looks like for not just end johnson, for any president. As a consequence, he took these to labor and said we think these are important, we think they should be processed, made available to the American People. And lydia johnson, to her everlasting credit, unflinchingly, without listening to a word of these tapes and how they reflected on her husband gave the green light to start processing these tapes and rolling them out to the American People and now as you know and so many historians and members of the American Public no, these are the crown jewels of the lbj president ial library archive. Well we are going to listen to one. This is lady bird talking to president johnson and here is one of the audiotapes. [audiotape] mrs. Johnson is calling asking if she could speak to the president. You want to listen for about one minute or which you rather wait . I thought that he looked strong, firm, and like a reliable guy. During the statement he was a little breathless and there was too much looking down and i think it was a little too fast. Not enough change of pace. Throbbing voice at the end of sentence. There was a considerable pickup in drama and interest when the questioning began. Your voice was noticeably better and your facial expressions, noticeably better. The mechanics of the room were not too good. But i heard you well throughout, every benefit. I did not hear the question is clearly. Well, the questioners wont talk. Mark updegrove, what are we listening to . Mark that was Lady Bird Johnson giving her husband a critique on what was his second press conference. She was, as you could hear, very candid in her assessment of how we did. You were a little breathless and you hurried a little. Some shots were better than others. Ultimately, she gave him a b plus and i will tell you a story about that tape. As you know from going to the lbj library in the museum exhibit, we have headsets where you can hear some of these conversations in the context of that part of the exhibit and on the 10th floor of the library, there is a headset where you can hear president johnson giving what was famously or infamously known as the johnson treatment where he was applying is very unique brand of persuasion. And on the other one, you can hear some of the other conversations that lbj had with Lady Bird Johnson. We had barack and Michelle Obama to the library about eight years ago when they were in the white house. President obama was listening to lbj applying the johnson treatment on one of those handsets and Michelle Obama was listening to Lady Bird Johnson talking to president johnson on the other headset. And as she was listening to that conversation, she said barack has got to hear this. And she walked across the 10th floor, she got him off of his phone, brought him over to her phone. He listened to that conversation, but the handset down and said some things never change. So he can very much relate to the wife of a president giving an unvarnished critique on his performance and he appreciated it very much. We are going to look at your book indomitable will about lbj in the white house. I just want to go through some of the descriptions that people gave of president johnson. This is jack valente. I frankly didnt understand him. Harry middleton who was a staff assistant to the president said there were just too many nuances in him. Warren rogers who worked for Hearst Newspapers said that he was the most overwhelming human being ive ever met in my life. A friend of yours at one time, he has passed, he was with Time Magazine for so many years. Even larger and more important than ever, and he was in charge for every second according to marion means. Joseph califano. The Lyndon Johnson i worked with was brave and brutal, compassionate and cruel, incredibly intelligent and infuriatingly insensitive with a shrewd and uncanny instinct for the judgment of his adversaries. Mark he was a jumble of contradictions. I think bill moyers, who might be quoted in there as well said he is pretty much every adjective in the dictionary. He was extraordinarily mercurial, extraordinarily complex. He was capricious, unpredictable. I think everyone saw a different side of him. He treated everybody differently. He was able to read people really effectively and get them to rally around his will, hence the title of the book, indomitable will. And i think that ability to read people meant that he treated people vastly differently one person to another. Incredibly complex man, incredibly formidable presence, and i think incredibly consequential president. What would you grade him . Mark cspan, as you know, peter does this marvelous poll among historians, i believe 140 back in 2021, last year. And Lyndon Johnson was in the top quarter of all president s. Not at the pantheon with Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln and fort washington, not in the greats, but in the neargreat category. That is exactly right would put him, in a latter part of the near great category with eisenhower and harry truman in your roosevelt and jack kennedy. I think that is where lbj Ronald Reagan probably belongs there, too, for a variety of reasons. Every president has a mixed legacy. Vietnam is clearly the darker side of the Lyndon Johnson legacy, but again, if you look at the loss of the Great Society, absolutely transformational. At what point in vietnam become the overwhelming definition of president johnson rather than civil rights, Voting Rights, etc. . Mark i think the tide turned around 1967. The American People really started doubting our presence in vietnam, and the offensive that happened in the First Quarter of 1968 really turn things irrevocably. Shortly after that where a series of battles throughout vietnam, the u. S. Military won resoundingly in all of them. That is what we fail to remember at this point. But the fact is, the American People realized that no matter what we did, the opposition in vietnam was going to keep on coming. They were absolutely relentless. At that point, i think Lyndon Johnson reassessed his presidency and he opted not to run on march 31, 1968. He gave a very famous speech where he told the American People he would neither seek the nomination of his party nor run if it were granted to him. And i think that was done for two reasons. Principally, it was because of his health. He had a nearly fatal heart attack in 1955 at the age of 47. Whether he was going to live to face another term if he were to have another term in the white house, he worried that he would put the American People through a Health Crisis as Woodrow Wilson did during the latter part of his presidency and as Franklin Roosevelt did, dying in his fourth term in office. But i also think he was thinking about the vietnam war. You wanted to use the balance of his term to find a peaceful resolution which ultimately eluded him. I think he knew in his heart of hearts that it would be extraordinarily divisive in america. It would further divide american and a time when we needed really to be united. Mark, you quote president johnson as saying the president only has one year to get things accomplished. Mark it is true, and you can see it. Lyndon johnson is elected in his own right in 1964 with a mandate of 61 of the popular vote. It was the biggest electoral victory in our history to that point. And he knows after he gets the presidency through this mandate that political capital, regardless of the popular mandate that he got, is ephemeral. In fact, he says when a president is first elected, he is a giraffe. Six months later, he is a worm. While Lyndon Johnson is standing tall in the presidency, he got as many of the laws of the Great Society through as possible, what he might not have anticipated here is the founding controversy around vietnam that would come later in his term as president. When he was Senate Majority leader and i might be misquoting you you say he was the most powerful man in washington or the most powerful Senate Majority leader of all time. Did i get either of those quotes right . Mark he was certainly the most powerful Senate Majority leader of the 20th century. There is an argument to be made for being most powerful Senate Majority leader of all time. We did have a president place, Dwight Eisenhower, a pretty hefty presence as well, but there is no question that if washington was a jungle, in many ways, Lyndon Johnson was the king of the beasts. What was his relationship with eisenhower during those years . It was very harmonious, a great example for what i partisanship can look like when we are more united as a nation. They worked together very closely on a variety of different initiatives, including things that affect us today like the eisenhower interstate highway system and the creation of nasa. The soviet union had launched sputnik in 1957. We realized that the soviet union during what was essentially the height of the cold war should not dominate the heavens, and we mobilized to create nasa. And that with the work of congress and the president putting it together and ultimately, as you know, we would go to the moon ahead of all other nations and what was a tremendous reflection of what our country can do when we work together. Before we move on to other residents and other president ial history, you spent a bit of time talking about president johnsons father, and his attitude, especially toward the ku klux klan. Mark i do. We were just sitting in the shadow of the state capital here where Lyndon Johnsons father was a legislator. I think Lyndon Johnson was schooled at his knee in many respects about what politics is and what one can do if one holds political office. He got Lyndon Johnson intoxicated about the world of politics, but you are absolutely right. The ku klux klan at that time in history, the early part of the last century was dominant in this part of the world, and they made threats against legislators that did not toe the line. Lyndon johnsons father refused to do so. As carol, and his physical peril. They threaten his life and there were several lights are johnsons father and uncle stood awake on their porch with arms at the ready in case the ku klux klan came. They defied the ku klux klan, refusing to yield to their racist and bigoted wishes, and i think that with a lesson to Lyndon Johnson, too. In many respects, Lyndon Johnson is our civil rights president. There is nobody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln who does more for the cause of civil right thing Lyndon Johnson. At least, as president. The role of ladybird in Lyndon Johnsons political career. There is no question that she was an absolutely indispensable asset to him. She was somebody you could rely on completely, could trust completely. She knew how he thought. She knew his heart. She knew his mind. I think in many ways, Lyndon Johnson let his demons roam knowing that they would be quietly warded off by Lady Bird Johnson, who would summon the better angels of his nature. She could be relied on to do so. Often, she saw the very worst in him and would expel all the while. His greatest doubts about himself, knowing that she would talk him off the ledge. But also, she was incredibly astute. She had an incisive political mind which she relied on. I think in so many ways, she was his most trusted, reliable and able, in many respects, advisor. Why do you refer to George H W Bush and george w. Bush as the last republicans . Mark well, the Republican Party has changed so dramatically since George H W Bush and george w. Bush were in the white house. If you look just at george w. Bush, who was the governor of the state and spent a lot of time in the mansion to our right and to the statehouse to our left, this is a different Political Party. George w. Bush strove not only to bolster democracy in our country, but throughout the world. He was proimmigrant. In many ways, it was not a nationalist, he was not xenophobic. It is a different Republican Party today and when the bushes talk to me on the record for the last republicans, i think they expressed concern that donald trump would be not only the standardbearer for the Republican Party, but at the time, a possible successor to them in the white house. We had spoken before donald trump became president in 2016. The last interview that i did with them for the book were in the latter part of 2016 and donald trump had yet to be elected president. What was the relationship between the bushes . Mark i think there were a lot of misconceptions. As you know, there were 70 misconceptions about that relationship. There was the thought that George H W Bush was schooling his son behind the scenes and saying son, youre not doing this or that right. Telling him how he should behave in the role as president. And in some ways, undermining his p