LADY BIRD JOHNSON

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TIME - Like everyone else who studied the couple, [Time's Hugh] Sidey
had wondered during his coverage of the Johnson saga, almost from day
one, how Lady Bird stood it and never - yes, never - retaliated with
anything but a serene and enduring love of the rarest kind. "I adored
him," was about as far as she would go to describe her feeling which he
said was "awesome in both its physical and intellectual dimensions." She
found a natural force, understood that and guided it to the top.
Otherwise she might have been a forgotten housewife in clunky shoes and
he just another eccentric and embarrassing politician in mohair suits
who marched into oblivion. . .

Many political observers believe she can claim a big part of her
husband's lopsided win over Barry Goldwater in 1964. The South, angry
over LBJ's civil rights efforts, was smoldering when she whistle-stopped
from Virginia to New Orleans on the Lady Bird Special, at first enduring
catcalls and hostile placards ("Fly Away Black Bird") but the same soft
tolerance she used on her husband she used on the southern crowds: "In
this country we have many viewpoints. You are entitled to yours. Right
now I am entitled to mine." By New Orleans the stories of her sweet
courage had turned the risky political journey into a roar of approval
and pride. . .

As first lady, Lady Bird created a legacy through her passion for what
the press called "beautification" and the legislation it produced. She
had the billboards and junk yards banished from the federal highway
rights-of-way; and she inspired the carpets of daffodils and tulips that
delight tourists who come to the nation's Capital. She was more than a
gardener. She was one of the first true environmentalists of our times.
Even LBJ liked the idea, complaining proudly one day that he had a hell
of a time taking a nap because Lady Bird and Laurence Rockefeller and a
bunch of other beautification folks down below his bedroom were holding
a meeting and talking loud and he could not go to sleep. "She's going to
beautify us right out of existence," he said.

Lady Bird never liked the term "beautification." What she was doing went
beyond that, something to hold the land, bring grace and meaning to
scarred lives. "You reporters come up with another word," she used to
say. . .

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1642536,00.html

SAM SMITH, MULTITUDES - Only a few national figures gave more than
passing attention to the capital city. The most striking exceptions were
Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. When Congress wouldn't act on home rule,
LBJ gave the city its own de facto government through the expediency of
a bureaucratic reorganization, his appointees instructed personally by
the big man to "act as if they had been elected." And Lady Bird
personally directed a beautification program for our neighborhood. This
was no publicity shot, rather a carefully designed program in which she
enlisted the efforts of premier landscape architect Larry Halperin who
produced one of the few urban plans I've seen that didn't involve the
probable displacement of currently resident citizens. Further, she
assigned a White House staffer to work with neighborhood leaders --
using skill instead of spin -- in carrying out the project. There would
be periodic reports of a White House limousine arriving in our
neighborhood as Mrs. Johnson quietly checked on how things were going.

Mrs. Johnson is one of the most underrated of president's wives,
ignored, for example, by the boomer women who fawned over Hillary
Clinton.  In fact, Mrs. Johnson had certain similarities with HRC.  She
was fiercely independent, she struck out on her own, she was a
professional, she made her own money, and she had to deal with a husband
who was abusive and a sexual predator. The difference was that Lady Bird
took on these challenges with skill, wisdom and integrity. Add in the
far greater prejudice against women of her time and this becomes truly
impressive.  For example, Lady Bird had the nerve to major in journalism
long before the days of ubiquitous blow-dried blonde anchorwomen. There
weren't glass ceilings back then but heavy, locked doors. She was the
first woman in the White House to earn a million dollars on her own. And
she ran her own television operation.

Instead of heavily contrived "listening tours," Mrs. Johnson took a
four-day 1,628 mile trip through the south to sell the 1964 Civil Rights
Act to towns, writes one biographer, that "were in such racial turmoil
it was not considered safe for Johnson to go. Her message was that the
Civil War should at long last come to an end which could only happen if
the South shed its racist past and moved into the modern world." As the
Washington Post noted years later, she faced "bomb threats, snubs from
local governors, rumors of riots, and heckling from crowds." When key
Johnson aide Walter Jenkins was spotted in homosexual activity at the
local Y, Lady Bird urged LBJ to let her give him a job at her television
station so it wouldn't look at though they were deserting the Jenkins in
their time of need. Said LBJ, "You won't have your license five
minutes." Replied his wife: "I'd just rather offer it to them and let
the license go down the drain." Being that her husband was LBJ and the
time was the 1960s, Lady Bird eventually capitulated.

http://emporium.turnpike.net/P/ProRev/30year.htm

ANN GERHART WASHINGTON POST - When fate forced her to follow the elegant
and beloved Jacqueline Kennedy into the White House, Lady Bird told
Americans her role would emerge in deeds. She traveled the country
speaking up on Head Start and her husband's War on Poverty. . .

Lady Bird came from a generation of women who insisted on carrying out
their wifely duties with dignity and professionalism, even as their
husbands rebuked them, derided their appearance and took mistresses. To
offer this traditional support to her husband during his presidency, she
created the modern institutional apparatus of the First Lady. "She was
the first to have a press secretary and chief of staff, and an expanded
liaison with Congress and a structure to deal with outside groups," said
Lewis Gould, author of "Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environmental First
Lady."

"She was the first to have somebody to advance her appearances and write
her speeches, and you began to get the bureaucracy around the role. She
was an activist.". . .

"My theory on Mrs. Johnson is that she decided as smart women did in
Texas in the '30s that she was probably smarter than 90 percent of the
guys she encountered, but if she let them know that, she was going to be
in difficulty. She internalized that and felt that effectiveness was
more important than credit," said Gould.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/11/
AR2007071101757_pf.html


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