1. LBJ Biography
• Born Stonewall, Texas (1908)
• Unlike JFK, Lower Class
• No electricity
• No running water
• No refrigerator
• Attended SW Texas State
Teacher’s College
• 1st job-teaching Mexican
Americans English
• War Hero-WWII
• 1st member of Congress to serve

2. Political Career
• 1937-House
• Elected by people that he taught in TX
• 1949-Senate
• Probably the most powerful majority leader of all time (Johnson
Treatment)
• 1961-VP
• Mixed Reaction-LBJ despised every minute of the job
• Unsuccessfully tried to “Stop JFK” at the convention

3. The Johnson Treatment
• The Treatment could last ten
minutes or four hours. It could
happen wherever Johnson
might find a fellow Senator
within his reach. Interjections
from the target were rare.
Johnson anticipated them
before they could be spoken.
He moved in close, his face a
scant millimeter from his
target, his eyes widening and
narrowing, his eyebrows rising
and falling. The Treatment an
almost hypnotic experience
and rendered the target
stunned and helpless.

4. Personal Stories
• Had to be the Best!
• Notorious for driving 90
mph around in Lincoln
Continental
• “Rome was not built in a
day, that was because I was
not the foreman.”
• Foreign Diplomat asked if
LBJ was born in a log cabin
• “No that was Lincoln. I was
born in a manger.”

5. Foreign Policy
• Remember, Just like the Measles(Chickenpox)
• Get over them!!
• Johnson inherited the Vietnam problem from JFK
• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
• Operation Rolling Thunder
• Pacification
• Body Count

6. LBJ Domestic Policy (Pre-
1964)
• Focus on tax cuts, civil
rights, and poverty
• 1. Tax Cut-4% JFK Idea
• 2. Civil Rights Act (1964)
• Barred discrimination in
employment and public
accommodations
• Actually began to enforce
school desegregation (Brown
v. the Board of Education-
1954)

7. The War on Poverty
• 3. Office of Economic
Opportunity
• $1 Billion in Economic Aid
• A. Food Stamps-made
permanent
• B. Job Corps-training program
for 16-21 year olds
• C. VISTA –Domestic Version of
the Peace Corps
• D. Head Start-education for
pre-schoolers (low-income)
• E. Upward Bound-education
focused on college prep
(SAT/AP)