ŷ������

President Johnson's 1964 State of the Union address, 1/8/64

President Johnson's State of the Union address, 1964. 1/8/64.

Index terms: Speeches; Congress; State of the Union Address.

LBJ Library video donated by CBS. No usage fees.

Description:

President Johnson's State of the Union address, 1964.1/8/64.
Index terms: Speeches; Congress; State of the Union Address
LBJ Library video MP503 donated by CBS. No usage fees.

LBJ and Thurgood Marshall, 7/7/65

Telephone Conversation between President Johnson and Thurgood Marshall.

Citation No.: 8307

July 7, 1965

Time: 1:30 PM

Speakers: President Johnson and Thurgood Marshall

General Topics: Appointments & Nominations; Civil Rights; Congressional Relations; Crime & Law Enforcement; Diplomacy; Judiciary; Public Relations.

Topics: LBJ Asks Marshall To Accept Appointment As Solicitor General; Importance Of Having Negro As Govt's Top Trial Lawyer; Effect Of Appointment Of Negro On US Image Abroad; Experience Marshall Will Gain As Solicitor General, Possible Future Appointment.



More info on the LBJ telephone conversations: Telephone Conversations Description and Search Page.



President Johnson assigned his copyright to the United States government; however, the copyright of the President may not extend beyond statements made by President Johnson. Statements uttered by officials of the United States government in the course of their duties are considered to be in the public domain. Users of the recordings and transcripts are cautioned, however, that not all persons recorded were government officials. A number of the people recorded were, at the time of recording, private citizens. Therefore, those intending to quote from this material beyond the accepted limits of fair use are cautioned to determine the copyright implications of any intended publication.

LBJ and Jacqueline Kennedy, 3/25/65

Telephone Conversation between President Johnson and Jacqueline Kennedy.

Citation No.: 7158

March 25, 1965

Time: 4:56 PM

Speakers: President Johnson and Jacqueline Kennedy

General Topics: Civil Rights; Condolences & Greetings; Crime & Law Enforcement; Diplomacy; Federal Budget; LBJ Personal; LBJ Reminiscences; Legislation; Presidency; Public Relations; Speeches; Western Europe; Women.



Topics: Mrs. Kennedy Praises LBJ's Voting Rights Speech; LBJ Offers Presidential Plane To Mrs. Kennedy For Trip To UK To Dedicate JFK Memorial At Runnymede; LBJ Reminisces That Last Time He Saw Mrs. Kennedy Was Night He Learned Of Walter Jenkins' Arrest.

More info on the LBJ telephone conversations: Telephone Conversations Description and Search Page

President Johnson assigned his copyright to the United States government; however, the copyright of the President may not extend beyond statements made by President Johnson. Statements uttered by officials of the United States government in the course of their duties are considered to be in the public domain. Users of the recordings and transcripts are cautioned, however, that not all persons recorded were government officials. A number of the people recorded were, at the time of recording, private citizens. Therefore, those intending to quote from this material beyond the accepted limits of fair use are cautioned to determine the copyright implications of any intended publication.

LBJ and Tom Watson, 3/16/65

Telephone Conversation between President Johnson and Tom Watson.

Citation No.: 7071

March 16, 1965

Time: 4:19 PM

Speakers: President Johnson and Tom Watson

General Topics: Appointments & Nominations; Business; Civil Rights; Congressional Relations; East Asia & The Pacific; Economics; International Economic Policy; Legislation; National Politics; Pre-Presidential; Press Relations; Public Relations; Speeches; Western Europe



Topics: Watson Praises Voting Rights Speech; LBJ Offers Watson Nomination As Treasury Secretary; David Rockefeller And LBJ's Concern About His Views On Tight Money, Possible Conflicts With Nelson Rockefeller; Bill Youngman; Republican Reaction To LBJ's Speech

More info on the LBJ telephone conversations: Telephone Conversations Description and Search Page

President Johnson assigned his copyright to the United States government; however, the copyright of the President may not extend beyond statements made by President Johnson. Statements uttered by officials of the United States government in the course of their duties are considered to be in the public domain. Users of the recordings and transcripts are cautioned, however, that not all persons recorded were government officials. A number of the people recorded were, at the time of recording, private citizens. Therefore, those intending to quote from this material beyond the accepted limits of fair use are cautioned to determine the copyright implications of any intended publication.

Inauguration of the President and Vice President, 1/20/1965

Inauguration of the President and Vice President of the United States, 1/20/1965.



Public domain.

This film is from the LBJ Library moving picture collection created by the White House Naval Photographic Unit, aka the Navy Films. The films consist of monthly reports on the activities of President and Mrs. Johnson from 1963-1969.

Below are scene lists for this film, from the LBJ Library audiovisual archives. They include the stop and start times of each scene in seconds, and may include shots within those scenes with only start times. Due to the time conversions, scenes all have a margin of error of several seconds.The descriptions may be edited for length--for more information contact [email protected].

Inauguration of the President and Vice President of the United States, 1/20/1965. MP 802. Public domain.

0000 0056 Texas Hill Country, Pedernales River, LBJ Ranch exterion

0056 0071 LBJ working at desk at the Ranch


0071 0104 LBJ taking oath of office as President at Inauguration, Capitol Building


0104 0112 Title up: "Inauguration of the President and Vice President of the United States of America", minted coin of LBJ at right, fade to black

0104 Title up: "Inauguration of the President and Vice President of the United States of America", minted coin of LBJ at right, fade to black


0111 1176 Inauguration Ceremonies, 1/20/1965

0112 0137 -- LBJ exiting White House en route to Inauguration

0112 White House North exterior
0115 Close-up Presidential inauguration license plate
0117 LBJ, Lady Bird Johnson exiting White House, photographers gathered
0121 Medium shot LBJ, Lady Bird Johnson exiting White House
0126 Photographers taking pictures
0127 LBJ, Lady Bird Johnson entering limo
0130 Photographers taking pictures
0131 LBJ, Lady Bird Johnson in limo driving off

0137 0144 -- LBJ motorcade driving to Capitol


0144 0190 -- LBJ arrives at Capitol

to LBJ, Speaker McCormack, ? walking down steps
0188 Crowd applauding

0190 0221 -- Prayer given by Most Reverend Robert E. Lacey

0221 0280 -- Oath of office administered to Vice President V.P. Hubert Humphrey by Speaker John McCormack

0280 0350 -- Oath of office administered to LBJ by Chief Justice Earl Warren

0350 1176 -- Inaugural address of LBJ (sync)

1176 1533 The Inaugural Parade

1233 1252 -- LBJ watching Southwest Texas State University marching band

1252 1336 -- Armed services portion of parade

1336 1365 -- University of Texas band marching in parade; Texas float with LBJ Ranch

1365 1376 -- University of Minnesota band marching; Minnesota float for V.P. Hubert Humphrey

1376 1503 -- Parade footage, crowd looking on

1503 1524 Washington scenes: The Capitol, Jefferson Memorial, Iwo Jima Memorial, Washington Monument

1524 1528 Title up: "Produced for the President of the United States by the US Naval Photographic Center"

1528 1533 Jefferson, Lincoln statues, Washington Monument, title up: "The End"

Please feel free to post interesting podcasts, videos, or any interesting items or information related to LBJ or Reagan or the book Landslide.

I just have to mention that John Nance Garner is my husband's Great Great Grandfather. Cactus Jack died just a few months before my husband was born, but he lived for a few years in one of the family houses behind Jack's main house. Jack's house is still standing and is now the home of the Briscoe-Garner Museum. The museum just re-opened last December and we were able to attend the ribbon cutting/grand re-opening. He and his wife were fascinating people.

Briscoe-Garner Museum



Bryan wrote: "John Nance Garner:



John Nance Garner was born on November 22, 1868, in Red River County, Texas. As a young man, he worked odd jobs and played semipro baseball before departing for Tennessee, whe..."

Interesting, Teri.

Very interesting Teri - you might want to place your entire post under the FDR thread in the Presidential Series folders for all of the presidents. Also under American Government I believe - post this in the US Congress - House of Representatives thread. It should be in prominent places because Garner was such an important figure - your husband must be quite proud of his ancestor.

Here is the link to the House of Representatives thread:

/topic/show/...

FDR:

/topic/show/...

I'll do that tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, quite proud. We saw a documentary that the museum did on Jack's life. Quin saw some family photos he had never seen. We also didn't realize just how much he accomplished during his tenure in the White House. Definitely makes me want to learn more about our Vice Presidents.

Very good.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt



Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York on January 30, 1882. He was the son of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano Roosevelt. His parents and private tutors provided him with almost all his formative education. He attended Groton (1896-1900), a prestigious preparatory school in Massachusetts, and received a BA degree in history from Harvard in only three years (1900-03). Roosevelt next studied law at New York's Columbia University. When he passed the bar examination in 1907, he left school without taking a degree. For the next three years he practiced law with a prominent New York City law firm. He entered politics in 1910 and was elected to the New York State Senate as a Democrat from his traditionally Republican home district.

In the meantime, in 1905, he had married a distant cousin, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. The couple had six children, five of whom survived infancy: Anna (1906), James (1907), Elliott (1910), Franklin, Jr. (1914) and John (1916).

Roosevelt was reelected to the State Senate in 1912, and supported Woodrow Wilson's candidacy at the Democratic National Convention. As a reward for his support, Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913, a position he held until 1920. He was an energetic and efficient administrator, specializing in the business side of naval administration. This experience prepared him for his future role as Commander-in-Chief during World War II. Roosevelt's popularity and success in naval affairs resulted in his being nominated for vice-president by the Democratic Party in 1920 on a ticket headed by James M. Cox of Ohio. However, popular sentiment against Wilson's plan for US participation in the League of Nations propelled Republican Warren Harding into the presidency, and Roosevelt returned to private life.

While vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick in the summer of 1921, Roosevelt contracted poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis). Despite courageous efforts to overcome his crippling illness, he never regained the use of his legs. In time, he established a foundation at Warm Springs, Georgia to help other polio victims, and inspired, as well as directed, the March of Dimes program that eventually funded an effective vaccine.

With the encouragement and help of his wife, Eleanor, and political confidant, Louis Howe, Roosevelt resumed his political career. In 1924 he nominated Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York for president at the Democratic National Convention, but Smith lost the nomination to John W. Davis. In 1928 Smith became the Democratic candidate for president and arranged for Roosevelt's nomination to succeed him as governor of New York. Smith lost the election to Herbert Hoover; but Roosevelt was elected governor.

Following his reelection as governor in 1930, Roosevelt began to campaign for the presidency. While the economic depression damaged Hoover and the Republicans, Roosevelt's bold efforts to combat it in New York enhanced his reputation. In Chicago in 1932, Roosevelt won the nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for president. He broke with tradition and flew to Chicago to accept the nomination in person. He then campaigned energetically calling for government intervention in the economy to provide relief, recovery, and reform. His activist approach and personal charm helped to defeat Hoover in November 1932 by seven million votes.

By 1939, with the outbreak of war in Europe, Roosevelt was concentrating increasingly on foreign affairs. New Deal reform legislation diminished, and the ills of the Depression would not fully abate until the nation mobilized for war.

When Hitler attacked Poland in September 1939, Roosevelt stated that, although the nation was neutral, he did not expect America to remain inactive in the face of Nazi aggression. Accordingly, he tried to make American aid available to Britain, France, and China and to obtain an amendment of the Neutrality Acts which rendered such assistance difficult. He also took measures to build up the armed forces in the face of isolationist opposition.

With the fall of France in 1940, the American mood and Roosevelt's policy changed dramatically. Congress enacted a draft for military service and Roosevelt signed a "lend-lease" bill in March 1941 to enable the nation to furnish aid to nations at war with Germany and Italy. America, though a neutral in the war and still at peace, was becoming the "arsenal of democracy", as its factories began producing as they had in the years before the Depression.

The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, followed four days later by Germany's and Italy's declarations of war against the United States, brought the nation irrevocably into the war. Roosevelt exercised his powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a role he actively carried out. He worked with and through his military advisers, overriding them when necessary, and took an active role in choosing the principal field commanders and in making decisions regarding wartime strategy.

He moved to create a "grand alliance" against the Axis powers through "The Declaration of the United Nations," January 1, 1942, in which all nations fighting the Axis agreed not to make a separate peace and pledged themselves to a peacekeeping organization (now the United Nations) upon victory.

He gave priority to the western European front and had General George Marshall, Chief of Staff, plan a holding operation in the Pacific and organize an expeditionary force for an invasion of Europe. The United States and its allies invaded North Africa in November 1942 and Sicily and Italy in 1943. The D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches in France, June 6, 1944, were followed by the allied invasion of Germany six months later. By April 1945 victory in Europe was certain.

The unending stress and strain of the war literally wore Roosevelt out. By early 1944 a full medical examination disclosed serious heart and circulatory problems; and although his physicians placed him on a strict regime of diet and medication, the pressures of war and domestic politics weighed heavily on him. During a vacation at Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, he suffered a massive stroke and died two and one-half hours later without regaining consciousness. He was 63 years old. His death came on the eve of complete military victory in Europe and within months of victory over Japan in the Pacific. President Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of his estate at Hyde Park, New York.
(Source: )

More:





(no image) FDR: The New Deal Years 1933-1937 by Kenneth S. Davis (no photo)
by Jean Edward Smith
by Eric Larrabee (no photo)
by Kenneth Davis (no photo)
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
by James MacGregor Burns (no photo)

Dwight D. Eisenhower



Born in Texas and raised in Kansas, Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of America's greatest military commanders and the thirty-fourth President of the United States. Inspired by the example of a friend who was going to the U.S. Naval Academy, Eisenhower won an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Although his mother had religious convictions that made her a pacifist, she did not try to stop Eisenhower from becoming a military officer.

Popular War Hero

After graduating from West Point, Eisenhower experienced several years of professional frustration and disappointment. World War I ended a week before he was scheduled to go to Europe. After peace came, his career stalled. He did enjoy the personal fulfillment that came from marrying Mamie Doud in 1916 and having a son, John, in 1922. During the 1920s, he began to get assignments that allowed him to prove his abilities. He served as a military aide to General John J. Pershing and then to General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines. Shortly before the United States entered World War II, Eisenhower earned his first star with a promotion to brigadier general.

After the United States entered the war, Eisenhower went to Washington, D.C., to work as a planning officer. He so impressed the Army's chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, that he quickly got important command assignments. In 1944, he was Supreme Commander of Operation Overlord, the Allied assault on Nazi-occupied Europe. In only five years, Eisenhower had risen from a lowly lieutenant colonel in the Philippines to commander of the greatest invasion force in history. When he returned home in 1945 to serve as chief of staff of the Army, Eisenhower was a hero, loved and admired by the American public.

Acknowledging Eisenhower's immense popularity, President Harry Truman privately proposed to Eisenhower that they run together on the Democratic ticket in 1948—with Truman as the vice-presidential candidate. Eisenhower refused and instead became president of Columbia University and then, after the outbreak of the Korean War, the first Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe. In 1952, he declared that he was a Republican and returned home to win his party's presidential nomination, with Richard M. Nixon as his running mate. "Ike" endeared himself to the American people with his plain talk, charming smile, and sense of confidence. He easily beat Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and again in 1956.

Moderate Republicanism

Eisenhower was a popular President throughout his two terms in office. His moderate Republican policies helped him secure many victories in Congress, even though Democrats held the majority in both the House and the Senate during six of the eight years that Eisenhower was in the White House. Eisenhower helped strengthen established programs, such as Social Security, and launch important new ones, such as the Interstate Highway System in 1956, which became the single largest public works program in U.S. history.

Yet there were problems and failures as well as achievements. Although he secured from Congress the first civil rights legislation since the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War, he refrained from speaking out to advance the cause of racial justice. He never endorsed the Supreme Court's ruling in 1954 that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional, and he failed to use his moral authority as President to urge speedy compliance with the Court's decision. In 1957, he did send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, when mobs tried to block the desegregation of Central High School, but he did so because he had a constitutional obligation to uphold the law, not because he supported integration.

Eisenhower also refrained from publicly criticizing Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who used his powers to abuse the civil liberties of dozens of citizens who he accused of anti-American activities. Eisenhower privately despised McCarthy, and he worked behind the scenes with congressional leaders to erode McCarthy's influence. Eisenhower's indirect tactics eventually worked, but they also prolonged the senator's power since many people concluded that even the President was unwilling to confront McCarthy.

Waging Cold War

Six months after he became President, Eisenhower agreed to an armistice that ended three years of fighting in Korea. Only on one other occasion—in Lebanon in 1958—did Eisenhower send combat troops into action. Yet defense spending remained high, as Eisenhower made vigorous efforts to wage the Cold War. He placed new emphasis on nuclear strength, which was popularly known as massive retaliation, to prevent the outbreak of war. He also frequently authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to undertake covert actions—secret interventions to overthrow unfriendly governments or protect reliable anti-Communist leaders whose power was threatened. The CIA helped topple the governments of Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954, but it suffered an embarrassing failure in 1958 when it intervened in Indonesia. Eisenhower avoided war in Indochina in 1954 when he decided not to authorize an air strike to rescue French troops at the crucial battle of Dienbienphu. Yet after the French granted independence to the nations of Indochina—Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam—Eisenhower used U.S. power and prestige to help create a non-Communist government in South Vietnam, an action that had disastrous long-term consequences. During his last years in office, Eisenhower also "waged peace," hoping to improve U.S.-Soviet relations and negotiate a treaty banning nuclear testing in the air and seas. But the Soviet downing of a U.S. reconnaissance plane—the U-2 incident of May 1, 1960—ended any hope for a treaty before Eisenhower left office.
(Source: )

More:






by Dwight D. Eisenhower
by Carlo D'Este
by Stephen E. Ambrose
by David Eisenhower (no photo)
by Jonathan W. Jordan (no photo)
by Geoffrey Perret (no photo)
by David Eisenhower (no photo)

Fireside Chats



The fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio addresses given by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944. Although the World War I Committee on Public Information had seen presidential policy propagated to the public en masse, ‘fireside chats�� were the first media development that facilitated intimate and direct communication between the president and the citizens of the United States. Roosevelt’s cheery voice and demeanor played him into the favor of citizens and he soon became one of the most popular presidents ever, often affectionately compared to Abraham Lincoln. On radio, he was able to quell rumors and explain his reasons for social change slowly and in a comprehensible manner. Radio was especially convenient for Roosevelt because it enabled him to hide his polio symptoms from the public eye.

Origin of Radio Address
According to Pulitzer Prize winning historian and Roosevelt biographer James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt first used what would become known as "fireside chats" in 1929 as Governor of New York. Roosevelt faced a conservative Republican legislature, so during each legislative session, he would occasionally address the citizens of New York directly. In a New York History Quarterly article on the fireside chats' origin, Geoffrey Storm notes that while a WGY radio "address of April 3, 1929 was Roosevelt's third gubernatorial radio address, historian Frank Freidel asserts that this was the first fireside chat." In these speeches, Roosevelt appealed to radio listeners for help getting his agenda passed. Letters would pour in following each of these "chats," which helped pressure legislators to pass measures Roosevelt had proposed. He began making the informal addresses as president on March 12, 1933, during the Great Depression. According to Russell D. Buhite and David W. Levy, in their introduction to Roosevelt's Fireside Chats, "The term 'Fireside Chat' was not coined by Roosevelt, but by Harry C. Butcher of CBS, who used the two words in a network press release before the speech of May 7, 1933. The term was quickly adopted by press and public, and the president himself later used it."

Chronological List of Presidential Fireside Chats
1. On the Bank Crisis - Sunday, March 12, 1933
2. Outlining the New Deal Program - Sunday, May 7, 1933
3. On the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program - Monday, July 24, 1933
4. On the Currency Situation - Sunday, October 22, 1933
5. Review of the Achievements of the Seventy-third Congress - Thursday, June 28, 1934
6. On Moving Forward to Greater Freedom and Greater Security - Sunday, September 30, 1934
7. On the Works Relief Program - Sunday, April 28, 1935
8. On Drought Conditions - Sunday, September 6, 1936
9. On the Reorganization of the Judiciary - Tuesday, March 9, 1937
10. On Legislation to be Recommended to the Extraordinary Session of the Congress - Tuesday, October 12, 1937
11. On the Unemployment Census - Sunday, November 14, 1937
12. On Economic Conditions - Thursday, April 14, 1938
13. On Party - Friday, June 24, 1938
14. On the European War - Sunday, September 3, 1939
15. On National Defense - Sunday, May 26, 1940
16. On National Security - Sunday, December 29, 1940
17. Announcing Unlimited National Emergency - Tuesday, May 27, 1941 (the longest fireside chat)
18. On Maintaining Freedom of the Seas - Thursday, September 11, 1941
19. On the Declaration of War with Japan - Tuesday, December 9, 1941
20. On Progress of the War - Monday, February 23, 1942
21. On Our National Economic Policy - Tuesday, April 28, 1942
22. On Inflation and Progress of the War - Monday, September 7, 1942
23. Report on the Home Front - Monday, October 12, 1942
24. On the Coal Crisis - Sunday, May 2, 1943
25. On Progress of War and Plans for Peace - Wednesday, July 28, 1943
26. Opening Third War Loan Drive - Wednesday, September 8, 1943
27. On Tehran and Cairo Conferences - Friday, December 24, 1943
28. State of the Union Message to Congress - Tuesday, January 11, 1944
29. On the Fall of Rome - Monday, June 5, 1944
30. Opening Fifth War Loan Drive - Monday, June 12, 1944

Rhetorical Manner
Sometimes beginning his talks with "Good evening, friends." Roosevelt urged listeners to have faith in the banks and to support his New Deal measures. The "fireside chats" were considered enormously successful and attracted more listeners than the most popular radio shows during the "Golden Age of Radio." Roosevelt continued his broadcasts into the 1940s, as Americans turned their attention to World War II. Roosevelt's first fireside chat was March 12, 1933, which marked the beginning of a series of 30 radio broadcasts to the American people reassuring them the nation was going to recover and shared his hopes and plans for the country. The chats ranged from fifteen to forty-five minutes and eighty percent of the words used were in the one thousand most commonly used words in the English dictionary.

No longer was the message of the administration to be tinkered with by the interpretations of the press, Roosevelt was simply going to tell the people what he was doing and why. This level of intimacy with politics made people feel as if they too were part of the administrations decision-making process and many soon felt that they knew Roosevelt personally and most importantly, they grew to trust him. He was thus able to implement the most radical social overhaul in U.S history without much internal dissent.

Weekly Address and the Effect on the Press
Every U.S. president since Roosevelt has delivered periodic addresses to the American people, first on radio, and later adding television and the Internet. The practice of regularly scheduled addresses began in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan started delivering a radio broadcast every Saturday. Conservative journalist William A. Rusher, who publicly urged Reagan to begin the series of broadcasts, explicitly referred to the "fireside chats" and compared Reagan's communications skills to those of Roosevelt. Although the "fireside chats" are sometimes thought of as weekly events, Roosevelt delivered just 30 addresses during the course of a presidency that lasted for 4,422 days, or 631 weeks, an average of one address every twenty weeks.

Reagan's successors have continued his practice of making weekly addresses, though such addresses have rarely attracted large numbers of listeners (perhaps because of the much more fragmented mass audience than that of the Roosevelt era). When President Barack Obama took office, he began providing his address in both audio and video forms, both of which are available online via whitehouse.gov and YouTube. It has long become customary for the President's Weekly Radio Address to be followed an hour later (on the radio) by a 'response' (not always a topical response) by a member of the opposing political party. The respondent from the opposing party changes weekly, while the President is the same for the entirety of their term. Occasionally the Vice President may deliver the address in the absence of the President.

The conventional press grew to love Roosevelt because they too had gained unprecedented access to the goings-on of government like never before. Roosevelt’s opponents had control of most newspapers during his first bid for the presidency but he cleverly circumnavigated their influence by penetrating directly into the living rooms of citizens with radio addresses. It became increasingly difficult to voice opposition to government policy because the president carried more clout than any reporter or other politician. He was able to personally address the nation if any issue was controversial, like he did on October 16, 1940, when he spoke on the radio about the first ever peacetime draft he had ordered a month earlier. He did this less than a month before presidential elections were to take place, which for any other president would probably have been political suicide, but Roosevelt was able to use his new media techniques to garner domestic support for this international policy. The effectiveness was again proven when he was re-elected with 10% more of the popular vote than his opponent.

Legacy
Radio technology, along with Roosevelt’s charm in his approach to the media, had once again revolutionized the relationship between the public and the administration. Simultaneously, the role of the president had begun to change; it was now imperative that he be a charismatic impromptu speaker as well as classically stoic in formal situations. The president’s personality was becoming an increasingly important factor in elections. Such a huge development would not be seen again until the next great technological communication tool reached maturity, and that was to be television.
(Source: )

More:





by Jean Edward Smith
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
by Franklin D. Roosevelt
by Russell D. Buhite (no photo)
by Amos Kiewe (no photo)

Sam Rayburn



Sam Rayburn, a Representative from Texas; born near Kingston, Roane County, Tenn., January 6, 1882; moved to Fannin County, Tex., in 1887 with his parents who settled near Windom; attended the rural schools and was graduated from the East Texas Normal College, Commerce, Tex., in 1903; studied law at the University of Texas at Austin; was admitted to the bar in 1908 and commenced practice in Bonham, Fannin County, Tex.; member of the State house of representatives 1907-1913, and served as speaker during the last two years; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-third and to the twenty-four succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1913, until his death; chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce (Seventy-second, Seventy-third, and Seventy-fourth Congresses); majority leader (Seventy-fifth and Seventy-sixth Congresses), minority leader (Eightieth and Eighty-third Congresses); elected Speaker of the House of Representatives September 16, 1940, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Speaker William B. Bankhead; reelected Speaker in the Seventy-seventh, Seventy-eighth, Seventy-ninth, Eighty-first, Eighty-second, Eighty-fourth, Eighty-fifth, Eighty-sixth, and Eighty-seventh Congresses; died in Bonham, Tex., November 16, 1961; interment in Willow Wild Cemetery.
(Source: )

More:





(no image) Congressman Sam Rayburn by Anthony Champagne (no photo)
(no image) Sam Rayburn : a biography by Alfred Steinberg (no photo)
(no image) Rayburn: A Biography by D.B. Hardeman (no photo)
by Robert A. Caro
by Robert V. Remini (no photo)

New Deal





The Great Depression in the United States began on October 29, 1929, a day known forever after as “Black Tuesday,�� when the American stock market–which had been roaring steadily upward for almost a decade–crashed, plunging the country into its most severe economic downturn yet. Speculators lost their shirts; banks failed; the nation’s money supply diminished; and companies went bankrupt and began to fire their workers in droves. Meanwhile, President Herbert Hoover urged patience and self-reliance: He thought the crisis was just “a passing incident in our national lives�� that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to try and resolve. By 1932, one of the bleakest years of the Great Depression, at least one-quarter of the American workforce was unemployed. When President Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly to try and stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of experimental projects and programs, known collectively as the New Deal, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans. More than that, Roosevelt’s New Deal permanently changed the federal government’s relationship to the U.S. populace.

On March 4, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address before 100,000 people on Washington’s Capitol Plaza. “First of all,�� he said, “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.�� He promised that he would act swiftly to face the “dark realities of the moment�� and assured Americans that he would “wage a war against the emergency�� just as though “we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.�� His speech gave many people confidence that they’d elected a man who was not afraid to take bold steps to solve the nation’s problems.

The next day, the new president declared a four-day bank holiday to stop people from withdrawing their money from shaky banks. On March 9, Congress passed Roosevelt’s Emergency Banking Act, which reorganized the banks and closed the ones that were insolvent. In his first “fireside chat�� three days later, the president urged Americans to put their savings back in the banks, and by the end of the month almost three quarters of them had reopened.

Roosevelt’s quest to end the Great Depression was just beginning. Next,he asked Congress to take the first step toward ending Prohibition—one of the more divisive issues of the 1920s—by making it legal once again for Americans to buy beer. (At the end of the year, Congress ratified the 21st Amendment and ended Prohibition for good.) In May, he signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act into law, enabling the federal government to build dams along the Tennessee River that controlled flooding and generated inexpensive hydroelectric power for the people in the region. That same month, Congress passed a bill that paid commodity farmers (farmers who produced things like wheat, dairy products, tobacco and corn) to leave their fields fallow in order to end agricultural surpluses and boost prices. June’s National Industrial Recovery Act guaranteed that workers would have the right to unionize and bargain collectively for higher wages and better working conditions; it also suspended some antitrust laws and established a federally funded Public Works Administration.

In addition to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and the National Industrial Recovery Act, Roosevelt had won passage of 12 other major laws, including the Glass-Steagall Banking Bill and the Home Owners�� Loan Act, in his first 100 days in office. Almost every American found something to be pleased about and something to complain about in this motley collection of bills, but it was clear to all that FDR was taking the “direct, vigorous�� action that he’d promised in his inaugural address.

Despite the best efforts of President Roosevelt and his cabinet, however, the Great Depression continued–the nation’s economy continued to wheeze; unemployment persisted; and people grew angrier and more desperate. So, in the spring of 1935, Roosevelt launched a second, more aggressive series of federal programs, sometimes called the Second New Deal. In April, he created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to provide jobs for unemployed people. WPA projects weren’t allowed to compete with private industry, so they focused on building things like post offices, bridges, schools, highways and parks. The WPA also gave work to artists, writers, theater directors and musicians. In July 1935, the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, created the National Labor Relations Board to supervise union elections and prevent businesses from treating their workers unfairly. In August, FDR signed the Social Security Act of 1935, which guaranteed pensions to millions of Americans, set up a system of unemployment insurance and stipulated that the federal government would help care for dependent children and the disabled.

In 1936, while campaigning for a second term, FDR told a roaring crowd at Madison Square Garden that “The forces of ‘organized money�� are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.�� He went on: “I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match, [and] I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces have met their master.�� This FDR had come a long way from his earlier repudiation of class-based politics and was promising a much more aggressive fight against the people who were profiting from the Depression-era troubles of ordinary Americans. He won the election by a landslide.

Still, the Great Depression dragged on. Workers grew more militant: In December 1936, for example, the United Auto Workers started a sit-down strike at a GM plant in Flint, Michigan that lasted for 44 days and spread to some 150,000 autoworkers in 35 cities. By 1937, to the dismay of most corporate leaders, some 8 million workers had joined unions and were loudly demanding their rights.

Meanwhile, the New Deal itself confronted one political setback after another. Arguing that they represented an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court had already invalidated reform initiatives like the NRA and the AAA. In order to protect his programs from further meddling, in 1937 President Roosevelt announced a plan to add enough liberal justices to the Court to neutralize the “obstructionist�� conservatives. This “Court-packing�� turned out to be unnecessary–soon after they caught wind of the plan, the conservative justices started voting to uphold New Deal projects–but the episode did a good deal of public-relations damage to the administration and gave ammunition to many of the president’s Congressional opponents. That same year, the economy slipped back into a recession when the government reduced its stimulus spending. Despite this seeming vindication of New Deal policies, increasing anti-Roosevelt sentiment made it difficult for him to enact any new programs.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. The war effort stimulated American industry and, as a result, effectively ended the Great Depression.

From 1933 until 1941, President Roosevelt’s programs and policies did more than just adjust interest rates, tinker with farm subsidies and create short-term make-work programs. They created a brand-new, if tenuous, political coalition that included white working people, African Americans and left-wing intellectuals. These people rarely shared the same interests–at least, they rarely thought they did–but they did share a powerful belief that an interventionist government was good for their families, the economy and the nation. Their coalition has splintered over time, but many of the New Deal programs that bound them together–Social Security, unemployment insurance and federal agricultural subsidies, for instance–are still with us today.
(Source: )

More:






by Michael A. Hiltzik (no photo)
by Randall Bennett Woods (no photo)
by William E. Leuchtenburg (no photo)
by Kevin Hillstrom (no photo)
by Burton W. Folsom Jr.
by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Thank you Kathy and Bryan

Civil Rights Act of 1964



Title I

Barred unequal application of voter registration requirements.

Title I did not eliminate literacy tests, which were one of the main methods used to exclude Black voters, other racial minorities, and poor Whites in the South, nor did it address economic retaliation, police repression, or physical violence against nonwhite voters. While the Act did require that voting rules and procedures be applied equally to all races, it did not abolish the concept of voter "qualification", that is to say, it accepted the idea that citizens do not have an automatic right to vote but rather might have to meet some standard beyond citizenship.[38][39] It was the Voting Rights Act, enacted one year later in 1965, that directly addressed and eliminated most voting qualifications beyond citizenship.

Title II

Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private".

Title III

Prohibited state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, color, religion or national origin.

Title IV

Encouraged the desegregation of public schools and authorized the U.S. Attorney General to file suits to enforce said act.

Title V

Expanded the Civil Rights Commission established by the earlier Civil Rights Act of 1957 with additional powers, rules and procedures.

Title VI

Prevents discrimination by government agencies that receive federal funds. If an agency is found in violation of Title VI, that agency may lose its federal funding.

General

This title declares it to be the policy of the United States that discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin shall not occur in connection with programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance and authorizes and directs the appropriate Federal departments and agencies to take action to carry out this policy. This title is not intended to apply to foreign assistance programs. Section 601 �� This section states the general principle that no person in the United States shall be excluded from participation in or otherwise discriminated against on the ground of race, color, or national origin under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Section 602 directs each Federal agency administering a program of Federal financial assistance by way of grant, contract, or loan to take action pursuant to rule, regulation, or order of general applicability to effectuate the principle of section 601 in a manner consistent with the achievement of the objectives of the statute authorizing the assistance. In seeking the effect compliance with its requirements imposed under this section, an agency is authorized to terminate or to refuse to grant or to continue assistance under a program to any recipient as to whom there has been an express finding pursuant to a hearing of a failure to comply with the requirements under that program, and it may also employ any other means authorized by law. However, each agency is directed first to seek compliance with its requirements by voluntary means.

Section 603 provides that any agency action taken pursuant to section 602 shall be subject to such judicial review as would be available for similar actions by that agency on other grounds. Where the agency action consists of terminating or refusing to grant or to continue financial assistance because of a finding of a failure of the recipient to comply with the agency's requirements imposed under section 602, and the agency action would not otherwise be subject to judicial review under existing law, judicial review shall nevertheless be available to any person aggrieved as provided in section 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. § 1009). The section also states explicitly that in the latter situation such agency action shall not be deemed committed to unreviewable agency discretion within the meaning of section 10. The purpose of this provision is to obviate the possible argument that although section 603 provides for review in accordance with section 10, section 10 itself has an exception for action "committed to agency discretion," which might otherwise be carried over into section 603. It is not the purpose of this provision of section 603, however, otherwise to alter the scope of judicial review as presently provided in section 10(e) of the Administrative Procedure Act. (Source: )

More:





by Susan Dudley Gold (no photo)
by Jason Skog (no photo)
by Robert H. Mayer (no photo)
by Susan P. Wright(no photo)
by Todd S. Purdum(no photo)
by Judy L. Hasday (no photo)
by Robert D. Loevy (no photo)

The National Voting Rights Act of 1965



The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. § 1973��1973aa-6) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S.

Echoing the language of the 15th Amendment, the Act prohibits states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color."

Specifically, Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which Southern states had prevented African-Americans from exercising the franchise. The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, who had earlier signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.

The Act established extensive federal oversight of elections administration, providing that states with a history of discriminatory voting practices (so-called "covered jurisdictions") could not implement any change affecting voting without first obtaining the approval of the Department of Justice, a process known as preclearance. These enforcement provisions applied to states and political subdivisions (mostly in the South) that had used a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote in 1964. The Act has been renewed and amended by Congress four times, the most recent being a 25-year extension signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2006.

The Act is widely considered a landmark in civil-rights legislation, though some of its provisions have sparked political controversy. During the debate over the 2006 extension, some Republican members of Congress objected to renewing the preclearance requirement (the Act's primary enforcement provision), arguing that it represents an overreach of federal power and places unwarranted bureaucratic demands on Southern states that have long since abandoned the discriminatory practices the Act was meant to eradicate. Conservative legislators also opposed requiring states with large Spanish-speaking populations to provide bilingual ballots. Congress nonetheless voted to extend the Act for twenty-five years with its original enforcement provisions left intact. (Source: )

More:





by Garrine P. Laney (no photo)
by Brian K. Landsberg (no photo)
by Chandler Davidson (no photo)
by Howard Ball (no photo)
by David M. Hudson (no photo)

Coke Stevenson



In 1928 he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat, and served there from 1929 until 1939. In 1933, he was elected Speaker of the House; he was re-elected in 1935, becoming the first person in Texas history to serve two consecutive terms as Speaker. After five terms in the House, he was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1938, serving under Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel.

Stevenson succeeded to the governorship on August 4, 1941, when O'Daniel resigned to take a seat in the U.S. Senate, which he won in a special election. In dramatic contrast to the flamboyant and unpredictable O'Daniel, Stevenson's approach was so conservative and taciturn that his critics accused him of doing nothing. Stevenson was elected to a full term in 1942, winning the Democratic primary with 69% of the vote and being unopposed in the general election. He was elected to a second term in 1944, effectively unopposed. When he left the governorship in January 1947, he was the longest-serving governor in the history of Texas and had presided over a broad and deep economic recovery during the years of World War II.

In 1948, Stevenson filed his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. He led the Democratic primary with 39.7% to 33.7% against U.S. Representative Lyndon B. Johnson of Austin. A third candidate was George Peddy of Houston, originally from Shelby County in East Texas, who had been an Independent write-in candidate for the Senate in 1922 but was defeated by Democratic nominee Earle Bradford Mayfield. As the lowest finisher in the primary, Peddy was eliminated from the runoff election.

In the hotly contested runoff between Stevenson and Johnson, Johnson won by only 87 votes out of 988,295 cast - one of the closest results in a senatorial election in U.S. history. (As there was only a weak Republican Party in Texas at the time, winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to victory.) Stevenson challenged the result on grounds of ballot stuffing, a charge widely acknowledged as accurate today on the basis of evidence presented by Johnson biographer Robert Caro, such as the testimony of Luis Salas, the Texas election judge who certified the disputed ballots. However, the Democratic State Central Committee sustained Johnson's victory by a 29��28 vote. The tie-breaking vote was cast by publisher Frank W. Mayborn of Temple, who rushed back to Texas from a business trip in Nashville, Tennessee, at the urging of Johnson's campaign manager, John B. Connally. Stevenson was granted an injunction by the federal district court, barring Johnson from the general election ballot. However, Supreme Court Associate Justice Hugo Black, sitting as a circuit justice, ruled that the federal district court lacked jurisdiction, and that the question was for the Central Committee to decide. He ordered the injunction stayed, and his ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court.

After the loss to Johnson, Stevenson retired to Junction. Disenchanted with the Democratic Party, he supported Republicans for the rest of his life, including John G. Tower for the Senate and Richard M. Nixon and Barry Goldwater for the presidency.

In 1964, he met at his ranch with the Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Crichton of Dallas. He did not specifically endorse Crichton over John B. Connally, who had worked for Johnson against Stevenson in the disputed 1948 vote, but meeting with Crichton was seen as a sign of Stevenson's support.

Stevenson's character became a subject of historical discussion after the publication of Means of Ascent (see citation below), the second volume of Robert Caro's best-selling biography of Lyndon Johnson, which covers the disputed 1948 election. Caro portrayed Stevenson as an honorable statesman and reluctant office-seeker, in contrast to the venal and intensely ambitious Johnson.

Caro's editor, Robert Gottlieb, argued that Caro idealized Stevenson because of distaste for Johnson. As an example of Stevenson's place as a traditional, conservative Texas Democratic politician of the early to mid-1900s, when a black man was lynched in Texarkana, Texas in 1943, Stevenson did little in response. In private he is alleged to have said, "Well, you know these negroes sometimes do those kinds of things that provoke whites to such action." (Source: )

More:





(no image) The Governors of Texas by Ross Phares (no photo)
(no image) The Governor's Stake: The Parallel Lives of Two Texas Governors: Richard Coke and Lawrence Sullivan Ross by Tonia Alexander (no photo)
by Books LLC (no photo)
by Robert A. Caro
by Robert A. Caro

James Barrett Reston



James (Scotty) Reston was perhaps the most influential journalist of his time. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for reporting, Reston flourished at a time when there was consensus among Americans about policy �� when the most important goal was to avoid defeat by the Soviet Union. Instrumental in the creation of the first op-ed page in U.S. newspapers in 1970, he wrote extensively about forefront events and issues of his time, including World War II, the Bay of Pigs invasion, Vietnam and Watergate.

Truly a paradigm of the poor immigrant who makes good in America, Reston was born in Clydebank, Scotland in 1909. When he was 11, his family immigrated to the U.S., settling in Dayton, Ohio. More enthusiastic about sports than school, Reston became an excellent golfer; his father had hopes he would turn pro. Reston was even named Ohio High School Golf Champion in 1927. Though he never made it to the PGA, an incident on the golf course at the Dayton Country Club swung his career into motion. As a teenager, Reston carried golf clubs for Ohio Governor James Cox, who was also publisher of the Dayton Daily News.

After finishing college in 1932, Reston was hired by the Cox-owned newspaper in Springfield, Ohio. Paid 10 dollars a week to cover sports, the ambitious Reston stayed with the Springfield Daily News for one year.

His only departure from journalism took place early in his career, when Reston resigned at the Springfield Daily News to try his hand in public relations. Reston took a job with the Ohio State University as a sports publicist. A year later, he moved to Cincinnati to fill the post of press agent for the Reds.

In 1935 Reston married his college sweetheart, Sarah Jane Fulton, the daughter of an Illinois judge. Together they had three sons: Richard Fulton, James Barrett, Jr., and Thomas Busey.

Using the connections of an old friend from high school, Reston made the leap to New York City, landing a job with the Associated Press. From 1937 to 1939, Reston reported for AP in London, covering the famous London Blitz.

The New York Times took notice of the promising young Reston and hired him to staff the Times�� London Bureau. He quickly proved himself and was transferred to the paper’s Washington, DC bureau, where he covered events during World War II and into the late 40s.

Famous for cultivating high-ranking sources, Reston was promoted to correspondent and given his own column, which he maintained for more than 40 years. Throughout his career, Reston interviewed eight presidents. Despite personal invitations by rival publisher Katherine Graham to join the Washington Post, Reston remained at the New York Times, ascending to the position of Washington bureau chief at age 43. He continued to advance at the Times, from bureau chief to vice president and finally, to director of the New York Times company.

In 1945, Reston received his first Pulitzer for an exclusive series of articles on the creation of the United Nations. He won his second Pulitzer in 1957 for a series on President Eisenhower’s illness and its impact on the functioning of government.

Reston believed journalists were obligated to inform and persuade. “To meet this responsibility,�� said Reston “a man must be not only a reporter and editor, but an educator, historian and philosopher.

What’s more, Reston shared the sense of purpose felt by government and political leaders. In 1961, he was sharply criticized for his decision not to publish details of the planned Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, even though Reston knew about the impending attack. His devotion to America and its national security clouded his journalistic impulse to promptly report the facts. The 1961 invasion proved a disaster and Reston took heat from President Kennedy, among others, for withholding information that might have prevented the colossal mistake.

Nevertheless, high-ranking politicians trusted Reston with classified information that resulted in numerous scoops for the New York Times. World leaders sought him out as a means to reach the minds of opinion-makers, including the President. Reston was particularly close to Henry Kissinger, and became one of his best supporters in the news media, calling the advisor to President Nixon “one of the most intelligent, imaginative and effective public servants of his time.�� Kissinger convinced Reston that he was opposed to 1972 bombing of North Vietnam when, in fact, the idea to bomb Hanoi was Kissinger’s. Reston persuaded Pentagon reporters to downplay allegations that Kissinger was behind the attack, a move that damaged Reston’s reputation.

Reston said that, as a decision-maker at the Times, he was most proud of transforming the newsroom from a pool of secretaries to a stable of promising young men. Known for his appalling insensitivity to female staff members, Reston came up with the idea while observing the function of Supreme Court clerks. The young Russell Baker, Iver Peterson, and Anthony Lewis were among those who endured clerical work in hopes of learning the business at the prestigious New York Times.

Scotty Reston retired from the Times in 1989. He died of bone cancer six years later at the age of 86.
(Source: )

More:








(no image)Prelude to Victory by James Barrett Reston
by Heinz-Dietrich Fischer (no photo)
by Donald A. Ritchie (no photo)
by John F. Stacks (no photo)
by James Barrett Reston

Harry Truman



Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri on May 8, 1884, the son of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen (Young) Truman. The family, which soon included another boy, Vivian, and a girl, Mary Jane moved several times during Truman's childhood and youth - first, in 1887, to a farm near Grandview, then, in 1890, to Independence, and finally, in 1902, to Kansas City. Young Harry attended public schools in Independence, graduating from high school in 1901. After leaving school, he worked briefly as a timekeeper for a railroad construction contractor, then as a clerk in two Kansas City banks. In 1906 he returned to Grandview to help his father run the family farm. He continued working as a farmer for more than ten years.

From 1905 to 1911, Truman served in the Missouri National Guard. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, he helped organize the 2nd Regiment of Missouri Field Artillery, which was quickly called into Federal service as the 129th Field Artillery and sent to France. Truman was promoted to Captain and given command of the regiment's Battery D. He and his unit saw action in the Vosges, Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns. Truman joined the reserves after the war, rising eventually to the rank of colonel. He sought to return to active duty at the outbreak of World War II, but Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall declined his offer to serve.

On June 28, 1919, Truman married Bess Wallace, whom he had known since childhood. Their only child, Mary Margaret, was born on February 17, 1924. From 1919 to 1922 he ran a men's clothing store in Kansas City with his wartime friend, Eddie Jacobson. The store failed in the postwar recession. Truman narrowly avoided bankruptcy, and through determination and over many years he paid off his share of the store's debts.

Truman was elected in 1922, to be one of three judges of the Jackson County Court. Judge Truman whose duties were in fact administrative rather than judicial, built a reputation for honesty and efficiency in the management of county affairs. He was defeated for reelection in 1924, but won election as presiding judge in the Jackson County Court in 1926. He won reelection in 1930.

In 1934, Truman was elected to the United States Senate. He had significant roles in the passage into law of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 and the Transportation Act of 1940. After being reelected in 1940, Truman gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. This committee, which came to be called the Truman Committee, sought with considerable success to ensure that defense contractors delivered to the nation quality goods at fair prices.

In July 1944, Truman was nominated to run for Vice President with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On January 20, 1945, he took the vice-presidential oath, and after President Roosevelt's unexpected death only eighty-two days later on April 12, 1945, he was sworn in as the nations' thirty-third President.

Truman later called his first year as President a "year of decisions." He oversaw during his first two months in office the ending of the war in Europe. He participated in a conference at Potsdam, Germany, governing defeated Germany, and to lay some groundwork for the final stage of the war against Japan. Truman approved the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945. Japan surrendered on August 14, and American forces of occupation began to land by the end of the month. This first year of Truman's presidency also saw the founding of the United Nations and the development of an increasingly strained and confrontational relationship with the Soviet Union.

Truman's presidency was marked throughout by important foreign policy initiatives. Central to almost everything Truman undertook in his foreign policy was the desire to prevent the expansion of the influence of the Soviet Union. The Truman Doctrine was an enunciation of American willingness to provide military aid to countries resisting communist insurgencies; the Marshall Plan sought to revive the economies of the nations of Europe in the hope that communism would not thrive in the midst of prosperity; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization built a military barrier confronting the Soviet-dominated part of Europe. Truman's recognition of Israel in May 1948 demonstrated his support for democracy and his commitment to a homeland for the Jewish people. The one time during his presidency when a communist nation invaded a non-communist one -- when North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950 -- Truman responded by waging undeclared war.

In his domestic policies, Truman sought to accomplish the difficult transition from a war to a peace economy without plunging the nation into recession, and he hoped to extend New Deal social programs to include more government protection and services and to reach more people. He was successful in achieving a healthy peacetime economy, but only a few of his social program proposals became law. The Congress, which was much more Republican in its membership during his presidency than it had been during Franklin Roosevelt's, did not usually share Truman's desire to build on the legacy of the New Deal.

The Truman administration went considerably beyond the New Deal in the area of civil rights. Although, the conservative Congress thwarted Truman's desire to achieve significant civil rights legislation, he was able to use his powers as President to achieve some important changes. He issued executive orders desegregating the armed forces and forbidding racial discrimination in Federal employment. He also established a Committee on Civil Rights and encouraged the Justice Department to argue before the Supreme Court on behalf of plaintiffs fighting against segregation.

In 1948, Truman won reelection. His defeat had been widely expected and often predicted, but Truman's energy in undertaking his campaign and his willingness to confront issues won a plurality of the electorate for him. His famous "Whistlestop" campaign tour through the country has passed into political folklore, as has the photograph of the beaming Truman holding up the newspaper whose headline proclaimed, "Dewey Defeats Truman."

Truman left the presidency and retired to Independence in January 1953. For the nearly two decades of his life remaining to him, he delighted in being "Mr. Citizen," as he called himself in a book of memoirs. He spent his days reading, writing, lecturing and taking long brisk walks. He took particular satisfaction in founding and supporting his Library, which made his papers available to scholars, and which opened its doors to everyone who wished to have a glimpse of his remarkable life and career.

Harry S. Truman died on December 26, 1972. Bess Truman died on October 18, 1982. They are buried side by side in the Library's courtyard.(Source: )

More:





by Wil Mara
by Harry S. Truman
by Margaret Truman
by Thomas J. Fleming
by Robert Dallek

LANDSLIDE - LBJ



1964 Election results by county. Lyndon B. Johnson (Blue) Barry M. Goldwater (Red) Unpledged electors (Green)

Lady Bird was stronger than you might think!


Lady Bird Johnson
--Bettmann/Corbis

An article by Jonathan Darman:

The Politician America Really Needs: A Certain First Lady
Jonathan Darman @jonathandarman Sept. 29, 2014

Jonathan Darman is the author of Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of A New America, out this month.

Forget the LBJ fantasies—if we could have Lady Bird back, things might be different.

In this dismal hour of American politics, there is no better way to strike just the right note of sober-minded weariness than to speak, wistfully and longingly, about the wonders of Lyndon Baines Johnson. What we wouldn’t give for the impresario of arm-twisting—the president who, in the mid-1960s, forced greatness out of Washington that transformed people’s lives. The steward of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The man who delivered Medicare. If only we had LBJ around, who could force even our do-nothing politicians to do something.

The sad truth is that today’s politics are probably too hopelessly polarized to make good use of a legislative wunderkind. What we need are politicians who are unafraid to go to the most difficult places, to look painful realities in the face. And for that, we don’t need LBJ. We need his wife.

This might seem strange, sure. In pictures from the 1960s, Lady Bird often looks like the ultimate example of a smiling, silent good wife. Throughout her long career in Washington, she was always guided by a simple question: how to serve her husband best. To serve Lyndon, a wild-tempered man of expansive appetites and unending need, that often meant suffering indignities that were shocking even in a pre-feminist era. Jackie Kennedy, who watched Lady Bird write down every one of Lyndon’s thoughts and wishes, thought Lady Bird looked “like a trained hunting dog.��

But Lady Bird’s dutiful subservience obscured her strength: a rare willingness to see the world as it really was. Despite his modern reputation as a pragmatist, LBJ often struggled to look at the future realistically, preferring to alternate between fantasies of great glory or doom and gloom. At key moments in the Johnson presidency, when Lyndon would give in to paranoia about the future, Lady Bird was a lone voice of reason.

During the historic campaign of 1964, as delegates to the Democratic National Convention gathered in the late-summer heat of Atlantic City, a woe-begotten Lyndon, worried about the demands of the office, took to his White House bedroom, saying he might refuse the nomination and let the presidency go. Lady Bird wouldn’t have it. In a letter to her husband she was kind but clear: “To step out now would be wrong for your country, and I can see nothing but a lonely wasteland in your future. Your friends would be frozen in embarrassed silence and your enemies jeering.�� Lyndon got on a plane to the convention and accepted his party’s nomination as planned.

In the fall, even as landslide victory began to look like a sure thing, Lady Bird worried about the South, where white Democrats were enraged over the Administration’s handling of Civil Rights. Though southern politicians said they could not guarantee her safety, she set off for the confederacy in a train dubbed the “Lady Bird Special�� to make the case for her husband.

And trouble came. In Charleston, she was greeted by angry protesters and a crude sign calling her “BLACK BIRD.�� In Columbia, South Carolina, her words were temporarily drowned out by a booing mob. It was enough to shake a seasoned politician but Lady Bird simply held her white-gloved hand in the air. “This is a country of many viewpoints,�� she said. “I respect your right to express your own. Now it is my turn to express mine. Thank you.�� And with that, her harassers hushed.

Just weeks before the election, the political world convulsed with the news that Walter Jenkins, the Johnsons�� closest aide, had been caught having sex with another man in the basement of a Washington YMCA. Lady Bird urged her husband to show public support and compassion for a man who had served their family for decades. When he refused, Lady Bird defied the advice of his counselors and released her own public statement: “My heart is aching today for someone who has reached the end point of exhaustion in service to his country.��

In the course of the ��64 campaign, Lady Bird displayed a deep realism about human nature that is far more rare in a First Lady than we might think. President Obama, like his predecessors, promotes his wife as a source of real-talk, the one person who is unimpressed by his office and still gives it to him straight. But a First Lady, like any spouse, often feels the criticisms of her husband more acutely than does the president himself. A bunker of denial and recrimination can be an enticing escape for both partners in a political marriage. Hillary Clinton provided many assets to her husband during their time in the White House, but relief from paranoia and self-pity was not among them.

Even Lady Bird’s powers had their limits. As the Johnson presidency wore on, Vietnam overwhelmed everything, including Lady Bird’s ability to cut through the illusions in her husband’s head. It is tantalizing to imagine an alternate history of the Johnson presidency in which the First Lady was empowered to help her husband in Vietnam the way she helped him in other areas.

And it is tempting to imagine what would happen if more leaders today had Lady Bird’s spirit, her willingness to go to the unkind places, to face the fury of hostile crowds. Imagine how things might be different if our leaders had faith that when you look at the hard things plainly, they often to turn out to be far less frightening than they seem. And then imagine what would happen when a truly gifted leader broke that silence and spoke.

About the Author: Jonathan Darman, a former political correspondent for Newsweek, is the author of Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of A New America, out this month.

Author: Acting Set Stage for Ronald Reagan's Biggest Role

Working in Hollywood, Reagan learned to revere and read public opinion, a skill that served him greatly in politics, a new book argues


Ronald Reagan, right, talks with a crew member on the set during the filming of an episode of "General Electric Theater," circa 1960.

Ronald Reagan’s acting past helped the future president more in politics than just enabling him to deliver a good speech, the author of a new book argues.

Jonathan Darman, who wrote “Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America,�� which was released Tuesday, tells Whispers that a lot of Reagan’s political smarts came from his days of working in Hollywood and being susceptible to public mood swings, acumen that he later took all the way to the White House.

“If you were a movie star in the old Hollywood studio system public mood is this force �� that you have to revere,�� Darman explains. “And when you’re an actor who works in that system you understand that the public does have broad tastes and they change over time and you have to be paying attention to it or you’re not going to eat and that’s something that Reagan understands in politics.��

In 1964, before President Lyndon B. Johnson wins his “landslide,�� Reagan argues that GOP nominee Barry Goldwater should “make love to Democrats,�� as Darman puts it, because Americans weren’t yet pushing back at Johnson’s Great Society programs. Reagan got booed, but he also got it right. “That same sort of obsession with �� How is this going to play with normal, average Americans in the middle? �� Is what makes him effective at taking the conservative message to a much broader audience just two years later,�� Darman explains. “For me, I think that what was really revelatory about that was learning how so much of that came from his background as a movie star.��

The author, a Newsweek alum, had covered the 2004 presidential election and was intrigued at how, even with all the pressing news of the day, the campaign had devolved into stories about the ��60s �� basically John Kerry and Swift Boats. “It’s really had this remaining pull on our politics,�� Darman says.

So in setting out to write a book about the 1960s, the writer always knew that LBJ would be a central character in the story. Darman then decided to focus on the ��1,000 day reign of Lyndon I,�� a quote from a Newsweek article from the time, and a period that began the day Kennedy was assassinated and ended when Democrats in Congress got walloped in the 1966 midterm elections. “The Emperor of American politics became just a president again,�� the magazine said of Johnson.

Discovering that Reagan’s political roots really sprouted during this time was an added bonus. “It wasn’t really until I dug into it and looked at what Reagan’s journey is across that 1,000 days �� going from underemployed actor to newly-elected governor of California, and the face of resurgent Republicanism, that I realized he’s got a great story here too and in many ways it’s totally tied up with Johnson,�� Darman says.

Early news reports of Reagan that Darman found portray the politician pathetically. “It’s not quite as extreme as whoever the sort of C-list celebrities that get attributed to the Republican Party, that the Republican Party uses as their token celebrities now, because Reagan had actually been involved in political circles for a lot of time,�� Darman explains. “But it’s not much better in terms of the tone in which it’s talked about.�� The vintage articles link Reagan’s name to a desperate and sad GOP, while a Democratic majority was predicted to hold for years to come. But Vietnam, civil rights, the burning of American cities �� a number of issues began to spark more political change.

Throughout most of the book Johnson is unaware of Reagan, worrying more so about Bobby Kennedy and Richard Nixon being future political rivals. Reagan is very much aware of Johnson, using rhetoric against Johnson and his big government ambitions to eventually become governor of California. That race finally puts Reagan on Johnson’s radar. And Reagan’s rhetoric �� the idea that government is the problem �� is what the GOP still uses today.

Writing about his main characters' lives finally crossing was a favorite for Darman.

“It’s really quite this dramatic moment because Johnson is being confronted with someone who’s not going to be just a big political story that year,�� Darman says. “But really is going to play the biggest part in really dismantling a lot of the work that Johnson is so proud of in the Great Society.��

Author of Article:
By Nikki Schwab Sept. 25, 2014 | 5:03 p.m. EDT
Nikki Schwab is a reporter for U.S. News and World Report.

Source: US News and World Report

Here is another introductory film that I did not put up on the main page:

Also very good intro to the book:

Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan

'Daisy Girl' political ad still haunting 50 years later

Monique Luiz, the young actress in the vintage B&W 1964 spot “Peace Little Girl��, recalls her role in the most famous-or notorious-political attack in U.S. history aimed at Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Cheryl Evans/The Republic

What Hillary Can Learn From LBJ

Can the presumptive Democratic nominee channel the 36th president? And should she want to?
JONATHAN DARMANAUG 11 2014, 7:00 AM E


Lyndon Baines Johnson is having an awfully good year. Fifty years after he was swept into the White House by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Americans are remembering Johnson’s presidency with previously unknown fondness and nostalgia. This summer marked the 50th anniversary of his signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an achievement which, along with his landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, made Johnson the most consequential crusader for the cause of racial equality to serve in the White House since Lincoln. In All the Way, the popular Broadway play, Bryan Cranston has reincarnated President Johnson in his golden 1964 glory, a larger-than-life master of the legislative process, not yet besieged by Vietnam. In a country ruled by political paralysis and polarization, people are understandably drawn to the image of a leader who could force Washington into action—a modern day LBJ.

Remainder of article:

McGeorge Bundy



From 1945 to 1947, Bundy worked with Henry L. Stimson as co-author of his third-person autobiography, On Active Service in Peace and War (1947). Stimson had recently retired as US Secretary of War.

In 1949, Bundy took a position at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York to study Marshall Plan aid to Europe. The study group included such luminaries as Dwight Eisenhower, commanding general of the Allied forces; Allen Dulles, Richard M. Bissell, Jr. and George Kennan, diplomat to the Soviet Union. The group's deliberations were sensitive and secret, dealing as they did with the classified fact that there was a covert side to the Marshall Plan, by which the CIA used certain funds to aid anti-communist groups in France and Italy.

Due to his high-level experience, Bundy was appointed at Harvard University as a tenured professor of government. (He had a bachelor's degree and had not taken academic classes in government.) In 1953, Bundy was appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard at the age of thirty-four, the youngest dean in the school's history. An effective and popular administrator, Bundy led policy changes intended to develop Harvard as a class-blind, merit-based university with a reputation for stellar academics. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1954.

Bundy moved into public political life in 1961 when appointed as National Security Advisor in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. One of Kennedy's "wise men," Bundy played a crucial role in all of the major foreign policy and defense decisions of the Kennedy administration and was retained by Lyndon B. Johnson for part of his tenure. Bundy was involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. From 1964 under Johnson, he was also Chairman of the 303 Committee, responsible for coordinating government covert operations. Bundy was a strong proponent of the Vietnam War during his tenure, believing it essential to contain communism. He supported escalating United States involvement, including commitment of hundreds of thousands of ground troops and the sustained bombing of North Vietnam in 1965. Studies of the memorandums and policy papers since those years have revealed that Bundy and other advisors well understood the risk but proceeded with these actions largely because of domestic politics, rather than believing that the US had a realistic chance of victory in this war.

He left government in 1966 to serve as president of the Ford Foundation, succeeding his brother William Putnam Bundy. He served in this position until 1979.

From 1979 to 1989, Bundy served as a professor of history at New York University. He helped found the group known as the "Gang of Four," whose other members were Robert McNamara, George F. Kennan and Herbert Scoville; together they spoke and wrote about American nuclear policies. They published an influential article in Foreign Affairs in 1983, which proposed ending the US policy of "first use of nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet invasion of Europe". During this period, Bundy wrote Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (1988). Their work has been credited with contributing to the SALT 2 treaty a decade later.

Bundy was scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Corporation from 1990 to 1996. (Source: )

More:





by McGeorge Bundy (no photo)
by Gordon M. Goldstein (no photo)
by Andrew Preston (no photo)
by Kai Bird
by David Halberstam

Hubert Horatio Humphrey



Hubert H. Humphrey was born on May 27, 1911, in Wallace, South Dakota. He left South Dakota to attend the University of Minnesota but returned to South Dakota to help manage his father's drug store early in the depression. He attended the Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado, and became a registered pharmacist in 1933. On September 3, 1936, Humphrey married Muriel Fay Buck in Huron, South Dakota. He returned to the University of Minnesota and earned a B.A. degree in 1939. In 1940 he earned an M.A. in political science from Louisiana State University and returned to Minneapolis to teach and pursue further graduate study, but began working for the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration).

He moved on from there to a series of positions with wartime agencies. In 1943, he ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Minneapolis and returned to teaching as a visiting professor at Macalester College in St. Paul. Between 1943 and 1945, Humphrey worked at a variety jobs, including teaching at Macalester, serving as a news commentator for radio station WTCN, and managing an apartment building. In 1945, he was elected Mayor of Minneapolis and served until 1948. In 1948, at the Democratic National Convention, he gained national attention when he delivered a stirring speech in favor of a strong civil rights plank in the party's platform. In November of 1948, voters in Minnesota elected Humphrey to the United States Senate. While in the Senate, he was known as a Senate liberal, working on issues of civil rights, social welfare, and fair employment. He served as the Senate Democratic Whip from 1961 to 1964.

In 1964, at the Democratic National Convention, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked the convention to select Humphrey as the Vice Presidential nominee. The ticket was elected in November in a Democratic landslide. In 1968, Humphrey was the Democratic Party's candidate for President, but he was defeated narrowly by Richard M. Nixon. After the defeat, Humphrey returned to Minnesota to teach at the University of Minnesota and Macalester College. He returned to the U.S. Senate in 1971, and he won re-election in 1976. He died January 13, 1978 of cancer. After Humphrey's death, the governor of Minnesota appointed Humphrey's wife, Muriel Buck Humphrey, to fill the vacant Senate seat. She served until November 7, 1978, and was not a candidate for the unexpired term.

Hubert Humphrey's papers are located at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, Minnesota; the phone number is: 651-296-2143.
(Source: )

More:






(no image) Humphrey: A Candid Biography by Winthrop Griffith (no photo)
by Carl Solberg (no photo)
by Hubert H. Humphrey (no photo)
by Timothy N. Thurber (no photo)
by Robert T. Mann (no photo)

George C. Wallace



George Corley Wallace was born to George C. and Mozell (Smith) Wallace at Clio, Alabama, on August 25, 1919. A farmer's son, Wallace and his brothers Jack and Gerald and his sister Marianne attended local schools and helped out on the farm. In 1936, while attending Barbour County High School, Wallace won the state Golden Gloves bantamweight championship and held the title for the following year. He was also quite active with the high school football team until his graduation in 1937. Wallace enrolled in the University of Alabama Law School in 1937, the same year his father died, leaving the family with limited financial resources. Wallace worked his way through law school by boxing professionally, waiting on tables, serving as a kitchen helper and driving a taxi. Finding time to take part in school activities, he was president of his freshman class, captain of the university boxing team and the freshman baseball team and a member of the highly regarded law school honor court. He received his degree in 1942.

Following a brief period in the U.S. Army Air Forces (Wallace received a medical discharge), he returned to Alabama where he served as an assistant attorney general for the state. In 1947, running as a candidate from Barbour County, George Wallace was elected to the state legislature. His legislative tenure was quite productive. Among the highlights were several Wallace-sponsored bills which greatly enhanced Alabama's industrial environment by attracting more than one hundred industries into the state and the GI and Dependents Scholarships Act which provided college and trade school tuition to children and widows of war casualties. Wallace was elected judge in the Third Judicial Circuit in 1953, a position he held until 1959, During subsequent years he also served the Democratic party in many capacities.

In 1958, Wallace formally entered the governor's race and received more than a quarter million votes placing second in the primary to John Patterson. Patterson ran strong on the racial issue and accepted the support of the Ku Klux Klan; Wallace refused it. Wallace thereupon received the endorsement of the NAACP. In the run-off, Patterson defeated him by over 64,000 votes. This devastating loss forced Wallace to significantly adapt his socio-political ideologies to appeal to the state's voters. (Stewart, p. 214)

Following his devastating defeat to Patterson, Wallace resumed his legal duties all the while forming a plan to achieve his goal - the governor's office. Wallace's views on race relations and segregation underwent a drastic metamorphosis following the defeat. By the primary of 1962, Wallace defeated his mentor Folsom, among others, and in the run-off he defeated the rising young politician Ryan DeGraffenried. In the general election of November, Wallace polled the largest vote ever given a gubernatorial candidate in Alabama up to that time. (Stewart, p. 214).

Wallace's first administration was marked by social tension. Among the major incidents of the administration were racial demonstrations in Birmingham and Montgomery, desegregation of schools in Macon County, his dramatic "stand in the school house door," and the nationally publicized fire hose and police dog incidents of Birmingham. Furthermore, during this administration, Wallace made his first sortie into the North. In 1964, he entered the presidential primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Indiana and showed a surprising strength, receiving as high as forty-three percent of the vote. (Stewart, p. 215).

In September 1965, Wallace called the legislature back into session, ordering them to draw up an amendment to allow a sitting governor to run for a second term, which had theretofore been emphatically forbidden; however, opposition to this amendment led by Wallace's political foe, Ryan DeGraffenried, stymied Wallace's attempt. Wallace needed only twenty-one votes to approve the amendment, but to stop filibuster through cloture and vote on the bill, he needed twenty-four senators; he didn't get them. Wallace prevailed on his wife Lurleen to run as his stand-in. The only strong opposition to any Wallace candidate was Ryan DeGraffenried, making his second bid for governorship. But DeGraffenried, while campaigning in mountainous northern Alabama, was killed in the crash of his small private plane. After much contemplation, Lurleen Wallace announced as a gubernatorial candidate. (Stewart, p.216)

Following an unsuccessful run for the presidency, Wallace returned to the state political scene. In the first primary election of 1970 Albert Brewer, Lurleen's successor and former Wallace ally, out polled Wallace 421,197 votes to 414,277 votes; however, Wallace out polled Brewer in the second primary. Subsequently, Wallace won the general election of November and was inaugurated in January of the following year. (Stewart, p. 216)

In 1972, Wallace again entered the presidential primaries, this time within the Democratic party. He led off with a Florida victory in which he carried every county in the state. In May 1972, while campaigning in Maryland, Wallace was felled by would-be assassin, Arthur Bremer. As a result of the assassination attempt, Wallace was paralyzed in both legs. This spelled the end of Wallace's presidential aspirations; however, he did go on to garner subsequent presidential primary victories in Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee and North Carolina. After his hospital stay Wallace returned to his duties as governor. In the Democratic primaries of May 1974, Wallace easily won the gubernatorial nomination for a third term without a run-off election; a move allowed by Alabama Constitutional amendment 282, approved in November 1968. The amendment stated that all previously authorized laws regarding "self-succession" were thereby repealed and allowed gubernatorial officeholders to succeed themselves once, but not more than once. (Stewart, p.217).

During these successive administrations, Wallace sponsored the largest highway expansion program in the state's history. Additionally, federal revenue sharing funds were used to set up the Death Trap Elimination Program. In fiscal year 1973-74, Wallace made a record educational appropriation of more than five hundred million dollars. Capital investment in 1973 in Alabama exceeded 1.5 billion dollars, doubling the 1972 rate of investment and resulted in over 1,000 new or expanded businesses and approximately 43,000 new jobs for citizens. (Stewart, p.217).

Wallace also made vital improvements in the Alabama Law Enforcement Planning Agency. He doubled expenditures for improved health care, allocating revenue sharing funds to mental health care. The Alabama Office of Consumer Protection was established in 1972. In 1973, farm income exceeded 1.5 million dollars, doubling the previous year's income. Maximum old age pensions were raised to $115.00 per month. By 1974, unemployment compensation and workmen's compensation showed a 130 percent increase for the decade. Essentially, the state enjoyed a reasonably prosperous economic environment during this era without any exorbitant increase in state taxes. (Stewart, p.218).

In 1982, following a four year political hiatus, Wallace returned to the state political scene. In the first primary Wallace won easily taking 425,469 votes to George McMillan's 296,271 and Joe McCorquodale's 250,614. Wallace subsequently defeated George McMillan in the second primary and Montgomery mayor Emory Folmar, the Republican challenger, in the general election. (Montgomery Advertiser-Alabama Journal Supplement, 1987).

Wallace's final gubernatorial conquest was characterized by an unprecedented amount of black voter support during the general election. For the former advocate and chief spokesman of the state's segregationists, this spelled a complete turnabout in his political career.

During his final term, Wallace masterminded a constitutional amendment that created an un-spendable oil and gas trust fund. Interest from the Alabama Trust Fund will be pumped into the General Fund which finances all non-education segments of state government. Furthermore, he sponsored a controversial bill that re-wrote the state's job-injury laws. He also worked quite closely with the legislature in the preparation of a $310 million education bond issue. However, Wallace's attempts to get the legislature to raise property and income taxes in order to provide a stable pool of money for education were unsuccessful. (Montgomery Advertiser-Alabama Journal Supplement).

Wallace's final administration was marked by health problems; however, he continued to push for the state's economic stability. Furthermore, his final administration was characterized by ideological alignment with and overwhelming support of some of the state's more prominent political factions/interest groups, the so-called "Wallace Coalition;" this coalition included the Alabama Education Association, organized labor, black political organizations and trial lawyers.

George Wallace died in Montgomery on September 13, 1998.
(Source: )

More:







(no image) The Governors of Alabama by John Craig Stewart (no photo)
(no image) George C. Wallace: Alabama Political Power by Alice Yeager (no photo)
by Jody Carlson (no photo)
by Stephan Lesher (no photo)
by Dan T. Carter (no photo)
by Dan T. Carter (no photo)
by Kerwin Swint

Thanks Kathy, Jill, Bryan.

Fidel Castro




Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban politician and revolutionary who served as Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration the Republic of Cuba became a one-party socialist state; industry and businesses were nationalized, and state socialist reforms implemented throughout society. Internationally, Castro was the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and from 2006 to 2008.

The illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, Castro adopted leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista's military junta, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, he traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group with Che Guevara and his brother Raúl Castro, referred to as the 26th of July Movement. Returning to Cuba, Castro led the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. As anti-Batista sentiment grew, Castro took a leading role in the Cuban Revolution which ousted the president in 1959, and brought his own assumption of military and political power. Alarmed by his friendly relations with the Soviet Union, the United States government unsuccessfully attempted to remove him, by assassination, economic blockade and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro formed an economic and military alliance with the Soviets and allowed them to place nuclear weapons on the island, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

In 1961 Castro proclaimed the socialist nature of his administration, with Cuba becoming a one-party state under Communist Party rule; the first of its kind in the Western hemisphere. Adopting a Marxist-Leninist model of development, socialist reforms introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported foreign revolutionary groups in the hope of toppling world capitalism, backing the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada, and also sending Cuban troops to aid leftist allies in the Yom Kippur War, Ethio-Somali War, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement, led to Cuba gaining a greater profile on the world stage and earned him great respect in the developing world. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its economic "Special Period", before forging alliances in the Latin American Pink Tide �� namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela �� and joining the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas in 2006. Due to failing health, in 2006 he transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who formally assumed the presidency in 2008.

Castro is a controversial and divisive world figure, lauded by his supporters as a champion of socialism, anti-imperialism, humanitarianism, and environmentalism who has established Cuba's independence from American imperialism. Conversely, he is viewed by his critics as a dictator whose administration has overseen multiple human-rights abuses, an exodus of more than one million Cubans, and the impoverishment of the country's economy. Through his actions and his writings he has significantly influenced the politics of various individuals and groups across the world.
(Source: )

More:






by Che Ruz (no photo)
by Ángel Esteban (no photo)
by John Krich(no photo)
by Servando González (no photo)
by Thomas M. Leonard (no photo)
by Volker Skierka (no photo)
by Peter G. Bourne (no photo)
by Clive Foss (no photo)
by Tad Szulc (no photo)
all by Fidel Castro

Inauguration of Ronald Reagan 1981

This is the first inaugural ceremonies of Ronald Reagan - this particular very complete rendition is not available to be embedded.

So I am including the link here:



Fabulous footage and people long gone.

Ronald Reagan



At the end of his two terms in office, Ronald Reagan viewed with satisfaction the achievements of his innovative program known as the Reagan Revolution, which aimed to reinvigorate the American people and reduce their reliance upon Government. He felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore "the great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism."

On February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born to Nelle and John Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. He attended high school in nearby Dixon and then worked his way through Eureka College. There, he studied economics and sociology, played on the football team, and acted in school plays. Upon graduation, he became a radio sports announcer. A screen test in 1937 won him a contract in Hollywood. During the next two decades he appeared in 53 films.

From his first marriage to actress Jane Wyman, he had two children, Maureen and Michael. Maureen passed away in 2001. In 1952 he married Nancy Davis, who was also an actress, and they had two children, Patricia Ann and Ronald Prescott.

As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan became embroiled in disputes over the issue of Communism in the film industry; his political views shifted from liberal to conservative. He toured the country as a television host, becoming a spokesman for conservatism. In 1966 he was elected Governor of California by a margin of a million votes; he was re-elected in 1970.

Ronald Reagan won the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980 and chose as his running mate former Texas Congressman and United Nations Ambassador George Bush. Voters troubled by inflation and by the year-long confinement of Americans in Iran swept the Republican ticket into office. Reagan won 489 electoral votes to 49 for President Jimmy Carter.

On January 20, 1981, Reagan took office. Only 69 days later he was shot by a would-be assassin, but quickly recovered and returned to duty. His grace and wit during the dangerous incident caused his popularity to soar.

Dealing skillfully with Congress, Reagan obtained legislation to stimulate economic growth, curb inflation, increase employment, and strengthen national defense. He embarked upon a course of cutting taxes and Government expenditures, refusing to deviate from it when the strengthening of defense forces led to a large deficit.

A renewal of national self-confidence by 1984 helped Reagan and Bush win a second term with an unprecedented number of electoral votes. Their victory turned away Democratic challengers Walter F. Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro.

In 1986 Reagan obtained an overhaul of the income tax code, which eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes. At the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression.

In foreign policy, Reagan sought to achieve "peace through strength." During his two terms he increased defense spending 35 percent, but sought to improve relations with the Soviet Union. In dramatic meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he negotiated a treaty that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Reagan declared war against international terrorism, sending American bombers against Libya after evidence came out that Libya was involved in an attack on American soldiers in a West Berlin nightclub.

By ordering naval escorts in the Persian Gulf, he maintained the free flow of oil during the Iran-Iraq war. In keeping with the Reagan Doctrine, he gave support to anti-Communist insurgencies in Central America, Asia, and Africa.

Overall, the Reagan years saw a restoration of prosperity, and the goal of peace through strength seemed to be within grasp.
(Source:)

More:










by Deborah Hart Strober (no photo)
by James Mann
by H.W. Brands
by Ronald Reagan
both by Lou Cannon (no photo)

Richard Daley



Richard J. Daley, in full Richard Joseph Daley (born May 15, 1902, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died December 20, 1976, Chicago), mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death; he was reelected every fourth year through 1975. Daley was called “the last of the big-city bosses�� because of his tight control of Chicago politics through widespread job patronage. He attained great power in national Democratic Party politics.

Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1933, Daley served as a state representative and senator (1936��46), state director of revenue (1948��50), and clerk of Cook County (1950��55) before being elected mayor. During his mayoralty he gained the confidence of the business community through large-scale urban renewal and highway construction projects and through a sweeping reform of the police department.

Daley’s administration was criticized, however, for its reluctance to check racial segregation in housing and in the public schools, for its encouragement of the construction of tall office buildings in the downtown area, and for its measures taken against demonstrators during the Democratic National Convention in 1968. His last years were marred by scandals centred on members of his administration, though none of these touched Daley himself. Daley’s eldest son, Richard M. Daley, was mayor of Chicago from 1989 to 2011.
(Source:)

More:








(no image) Himself!: The Life and Times of Mayor Richard J. Daley by Eugene C. Kennedy (no photo)
(no image) Requiem : The Decline and Demise of Mayor Daley and His Era by Len O'Connor (no photo)
by Mike Royko (no photo)
by Adam Cohen (no photo)
by Roger Biles (no photo)

Edmund Brown



Pat Brown's story is an American tale of a young man who could not afford college, struggled to pay for night law school, but against all odds rose to hold the state's highest office. This documentary film is a journey into the heart and mind of the man who historians agree ushered California into the modern era.

Politicians from both sides of the aisle site Pat Brown as the "Architect of the Golden State." A simple chronicle of Pat's sweeping successes paints an impressive portrait: the Fair Housing Act, the Fair Employment Act, the Master Plan for Higher Education, which arguably made the state's public college and university system the best in the world, the building of highways, and what historians have called the "most significant public water project in world history." How did he do it? Why wasn't he paralyzed by bipartisan politics? How did he persuade lawmakers to pass the then highly progressive legislation? How was he able to win the public's approval to raise the necessary taxes to build massive public works? If Brown were alive today, he might answer that it was "responsible liberalism" — a phrase he coined. I believe it was a brand of politics whose character and spirit provide a viable template for what we can expect from leaders today.

Pat Brown's drive to build the Water Project offers a window into his political style at its best. This odyssey tested his leadership ability on a political obstacle course of voters, the legislature, federal government, and corporate interests. Pat sailed through, riding the momentum generated by his genuine love of people, his relentless optimism, and his bounding faith that government could be an agent of progress. He believed in his task, took risks, made deals, and tirelessly campaigned to achieve it.

Champions of Brown would sooner forget the dramatic events surrounding Pat's oversight of the death penalty case of Caryl Chessman, which generated international attention and unleashed a political backlash from all sides. Still, the unfolding episode offers a fascinating look at the vulnerabilities of leadership to the destructive potential of mass hysteria and media spin. Pat openly admitted his struggle to uphold a law to which he was morally opposed, then was branded a "tower of Jell-O," despite the fact that while he was in office, he commuted more death sentences than any California governor.

When the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley rocked the country, and the eruption of violence and destruction that was the Watts Riots brought the fight for civil rights to California, Brown lost his political footing again. A telegenic Ronald Reagan stepped onto the world stage and blamed the civil unrest on Brown's liberal politics, which effectively led to Pat's crushing defeat. Pat's departure signaled an end to an era of expansive liberal government and foreshadowed a conservative movement that continues to this day. Did Pat's leadership style fail him in the face of a new cultural era, or does the spirit and character of Brown's leadership have relevance today?
(Source:)

More:










by Ethan Rarick (no photo)
by Ted Widmer (no photo)
by Kevin Starr
by Edmund Morris

Thank you Jerome good adds.

Some speeches in which to compare and contrast LBJ and Reagan:

Reagan, a gentle man addressing the nation and Gorbachev:



Reagan was the president that told jokes and stories during his speeches and seemed to know how to connect with the public. Here's another neat clip of Reagan telling some of these jokes/stories:



Then compare to the more stoic and serious Johnson:



Even when he is talking about his personal life:



I'm sure part of it is that during Johnson's time, the president was expected to be more business and less human, but I think that Kennedy was also able to connect more, like Reagan did.

Thank you Teri.

Jane Wyman, Reagan's 'Button Nose'
By NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 11, 2007


The actress Jane Wyman, who died yesterday at 93, had already been married twice before she became the first Mrs. Ronald Reagan.

The match was unequal from the start. He called her cutely "Little Miss Button Nose" and she dubbed him cruelly "America's number one goody two shoes." By the time the youthful Reagan arrived in Los Angeles from Tampico, Ill., Wyman was already an established Warner Brothers leading lady with all the usual Hollywood trappings: an imposing Spanish-style mansion, a reputation for being difficult on set, and a wandering eye. In Reagan she found a rare simplicity and honesty, qualities that some 40 years later would ensure his election to the White House.

In retrospect, it is chilling to hear Reagan boasting of his newfound love: "I believe we belong together and that we will end our days together." There was little chance of that. Not long after they took their wedding vows, in 1940, Wyman was badmouthing Reagan to her friend the actress June Allyson. "Don't ask Ronnie what time it is because he will tell you how a watch is made," she complained.

A daughter, Maureen, an adopted son, Michael, and a miscarriage later, the marriage was on the rocks. When Reagan returned from testifying in Washington before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he found Wyman had packed his bags and loaded them into the convertible she had given him for his 37th birthday. Brokenhearted, he drove to the home of his friend William Holden and bunked there for weeks, waiting for Wyman to return to him.

Before long, Wyman went public that she was having an affair with her co-star in the film "Johnny Belinda," Lew Ayres, and even then Reagan acted the big lug, ready to take her back at a moment's notice. He blamed her genius for acting and getting too close to a role for the breakdown of their marriage. "The trouble is, she hasn't learned to separate her work from her personal life. Right now, Jane needs very much to have a fling and I intend to let her have it," he told sniggering reporters.

The divorce, in 1948, came as a surprise to no one except Reagan. "I suppose there had been warning signs, if only I hadn't been too busy, but small-town boys grow up thinking only other people get divorced," he said. "The plain truth was that such a thing was so far from ever being imagined by me that I had no resources to call on."

Wyman would never have guessed it at the time, but her divorce from Reagan would guarantee her a place in American history. As the first wife of the first president to be divorced, she became an interesting anomaly, the first first lady we never had.

More significantly, she made way for one of America's most applied and determined first ladies, Nancy Reagan, born Anne Frances Robbins in Flushing, Queens. A Reagan presidency without the untiring support and devotion of a doting Nancy is unthinkable �� just ask the chief of staff she edged out of the White House, Donald Regan.

In addition, Wyman's contribution to American political history is that she, entirely unwittingly, contributed to the end of divorce being a deal-breaker for presidential nominees. Just as before John F. Kennedy being Roman Catholic was considered an insuperable inhibition to being elected president, so divorce remained an insurmountable hurdle, particularly in the GOP, the party of Christian vows and family values.

Reagan became such a firm favorite with conservatives after delivering what became known as "The Speech" in support of the failed presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964 that the fact of his divorce became irrelevant, even among conservatives. At its peak, in 1980, divorce brought to an end about 40% of all American marriages. Since then, the proportion of marriages ending in divorce has slowly declined.

Had it not been for Jane Wyman, the current Republican presidential lineup would be without its front-runners. There would be no Mayor Giuliani, divorced twice, married three times, currently married to a twice-divorced wife, Judith; no Fred Thompson, divorced once, married twice; and no Senator McCain, divorced once, married twice, currently married to a divorcee, Cindy. All three might raise a toast to Wyman.

Eventually, Reagan and Wyman were reconciled, and she was prominent among the mourners at a 2004 ceremony held for the former president at the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library in Simi Valley, Calif. She came to blame herself, not Reagan, for the divorce that made history. Ruminating on marriage, she said: "I guess I just don't have a talent for it. Some women just aren't the marrying kind, or anyway not the permanent marrying kind, and I'm one of them."

Mr. Wapshott's "Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher" is published by Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin USA, on November 8.

by Nicholas Wapshott

Source: NY Sun

General Electric Theater



General Electric Theater featured a mix of romance, comedy, adventure, tragedy, and fantasy. Occupying the cushy Sunday evening spot on CBS following the Toast of the Town/Ed Sullivan Show from 2/1/1953 to 5/27/1962, General Electric Theater presented top Hollywood and Broadway stars in dramatic roles. The first two seasons established the half-hour anthology format of adaptations of popular plays, short stories, novels, magazine fiction and motion pictures. The Eye of the Beholder, for example, a Hitchcock-like telefilm thriller starring Richard Conte and Martha Vickers, dramatized an artist's relationship with his model from differing, sometimes disturbing psychological perspectives.

The addition of Ronald Reagan as program host commencing the third season (9/26/1954) reflected GE's decision to pursue a campaign of continuous, consistent company advertising. The Reagan role of program host and occasional actor brought continuity to disparate anthology offerings. The casting of Don Herbert of TV's "Mr. Wizard" fame in the role of "General Electric Progress Reporter" established a clear-cut company identity for commercials. Reagan, in the employ of the BBDO advertising agency, helped merchandise the concept within the company itself. The first of many promotional tours orchestrated by BBDO and the GE Department of Public Relations Services sent Reagan to twelve GE plant cities in November 1954 to promote the program idea, further his identity as spokesman, and become familiar with company people and products.

By the time General Electric Theater concluded its eight-year run in 1962, Reagan claimed to have visited GE's 135 research and manufacturing facilities, and met some 250,000 individuals. In later years, Reagan's biographers would look back upon the tour and the platform it provided for the future President of the United States to sharpen his already considerable skill as a communicator. General Electric Theater left the air in 1962 in a welter of controversy surrounding the U.S. Justice Department's anti-trust investigation of MCA and the Screen Actors Guild talent waivers granted to MCA-Revue. The hint of scandal discounted Reagan's value as company spokesman and program host. As SAG president in the 1950s Reagan had, after all, signed the waivers, and later benefited from the arrangement as a General Electric Theater program producer himself. The suggestion of impropriety fueled Reagan's increasingly anti-government demeanor on tour, and his insistence upon producing and starring in episodes combating Communist subversion in the final season of General Electric Theater.
(Source:)

More:










by Thomas W. Evans (no photo)
by Lou Cannon (no photo)
by Anne Edwards (no photo)
by Marc Eliot (no photo)
by Thomas F. O'Boyle (no photo)

Thank you Hunter:

Here's the blog about meeting Jonathan and Jon Meacham in Nashville last week. Jonathan knows his subject matter, no doubt. He is not only a fantastic writer but a skilled speaker, too. I'm impressed.

Saturday with Meacham and Darman @ParnassusBooks1 #Nashville

Like most things of importance, it started with a tweet. One lone tweet from Jon Meacham, or maybe it was from Jonathan Darman or Parnassus Books in Nashville. The tweet simply invited readers to the bookstore on Saturday, December 6 for a conversation with Meacham and Darman as they discussed Darman’s brilliant best selling novel, Landslide.

One phone call to my college roommate, who still lives in Nashville, and a call to my husband to let him know what I was doing and where I was going, and I was headed north from Atlanta to Nashville. Jon Meacham is an author I greatly admire. His writing combines literary flare with precise documentation and research. The fact that he has won a Pulitzer Prize and is from Tennessee is simply icing on the cake. He is a genius.

Jonathan Darman is a new novelist. His book Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America is currently featured by one of the Book Clubs I’m a member of on ŷ������, The History Book Club.

I am completely drawn in by Darman’s ability to weave a political story, yet not make the book political. He reveals to us the stories of LBJ and Ronald Reagan, two political power figures who appear diametrically opposed, yet as men, they share more in common than you would ever believe. The book revolves around LBJ’s 1000 days in office and how that era shapes modern politics.

Northward I journeyed through rain, thunder storms, rays of sunlight and even underneath one tiny rainbow at the foot of Monteagle Mountain. I arrived at Parnassus Books forty five minutes early in order to get a good seat, front and center. I also wanted to have a look around. It is a fantastic book store! If you are ever in Nashville you should make time to visit. Their First Editon Club is a rare treat, as are the numerous books by local and well known authors. It is a dream come true for any avid reader and book addict.

As time for the event approached, I was so thankful I arrived early. The place was packed �� SRO �� as should be expected. The first thing to catch my attention was the ease of both men in front of a large audience. Aren’t writers supposed to be reclusive and uncomfortable in front of crowds? These gentlemen were relaxed and set the pace for a chat which felt as if we were in someone’s home, not in the middle of a book store.

As Meacham fired off a series of questions to Darman regarding the 1960s and the two US presidents, Darman answered each with the precision of a marksman. He knows the era as well as any history teacher I ever studied with and better than the majority of politicians I have known.

A few items which are of interest:

Reagan had a photographic memory.
LBJ was a powerhouse in person yet could not convey his skills via the media platform of network TV.
Lady Bird Johnson saw the changing political landscape before her husband and his advisers did.
Reagan didn’t like being pigeon-holed as a Conservative. He felt he was a pragmatist.
As the event ended, the two speakers opened the floor to any questions from the crowd. Then, believe it or not, they took the time to talk with us individually and sign our books. It was Darman’s event, but each graciously gave any of us who were interested time to chat and share conversation. I’m still a bit star struck. Never in a million years did I think Meacham would pull up a chair and have a conversation with me. Darman has that same approachable personality.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early in order to get a makeover. It was my third Girl’s Night Out in fifteen years and a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, right? However, I did return to Parnassus Books the next day and finished my holiday shopping. If these two ever visit Atlanta or anywhere in the Southeast, I have two pages of questions already prepared for them regarding their books. As for Landslide? To find out more, you will have to read the book.

Rating: 10.0/10 (3 votes cast)

Bentley, I didn't jump ahead & remained within T&C guidelines.Jonathan will vouch for me.

Hunter - make sure to place your questions for Jonathan on the Q&A thread.

This is AP's: Explore: JFK Assassination 50th Anniversary

J. Edgar Hoover



John Edgar Hoover was born in Washington, D.C. on January 1, 1895. Upon completing high school, he began working at the Library of Congress and attending night classes at George Washington University Law School. In 1916, he was awarded his LL.B. and the next year his LL.M.

Mr. Hoover entered on duty with the Department of Justice on July 26, 1917, and rose quickly in government service. He led the Department’s General Intelligence Division (GID) and, in November 1918, he was named assistant to the attorney general. When the GID was moved in the Bureau of Investigation in 1921, he was named assistant director of the BOI. On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed the 29-year-old Hoover acting director of the Bureau, and by the end of the year Mr. Hoover was named Director.

As Director, Mr. Hoover put into effect a number of institutional changes to correct criticisms made of his predecessor’s administration. Director Hoover fired a number of agents whom he considered to be political appointees and/or unqualified to be special agents. He ordered background checks, interviews, and physical testing for new agent applicants and he revived the earlier Bureau policies of requiring legal or accounting training.

Under Director Hoover, the Bureau grew in responsibility and importance, becoming an integral part of the national government and an icon in American popular culture. In the 1930s, the FBI attacked the violent crime by gangsters and implemented programs to professionalize U.S. law enforcement through training and forensic assistance. For example, the Bureau opened its Technical Laboratory to provide forensic analysis on Bureau investigations as well as services to other federal, state, and local law enforcement officials.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the Bureau garnered headlines for its staunch efforts against Nazi and Communist espionage. During World War II, the Bureau took the lead in domestic counterintelligence, counterespionage, and countersabotage investigations. President Roosevelt also tasked the Bureau with running a foreign intelligence service in the Western Hemisphere. This operation was called the Special Intelligence Service, or SIS. In the early years of the Cold War, the Bureau took on the added responsibility of investigating the backgrounds of government employees to ensure that foreign agents did not infiltrate the government. More traditional criminal investigations including car thefts, bank robberies, and kidnappings also remained important.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Bureau took on investigations in the field of civil rights and organized crime. The threat of political violence occupied many of the Bureau’s resources as did the threat of foreign espionage. In spite of Mr. Hoover’s age and length of service, presidents of both parties made the decision to keep him at the helm of the Bureau. When Mr. Hoover died in his sleep on May 2, 1972, he had led the FBI for 48 years.
(Source: )

More:





by Kenneth D. Ackerman (no photo)
by Richard Gid Powers (no photo)
by Joseph L Schott (no photo)
by Curt Gentry
by Tim Weiner

Daniel Moynihan



a Senator from New York; born in Tulsa, Tulsa County, Okla., March 16, 1927; attended the public and parochial schools of New York City; attended City College of New York 1943; graduated, Tufts University, Medford, Mass., 1948; received graduate and law degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy 1949, 1961, 1968; studied as a Fulbright fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science 1950-1951; served in the United States Navy 1944-1947; Navy reserve 1947-1966; assistant and secretary to New York Governor W. Averell Harriman 1955-1958; member, New York State Tenure Commission 1959-1960; director, Syracuse University’s New York State Government Research Project 1959-1961; director, Joint Center for Urban Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University 1966-1969; author; held cabinet or sub-cabinet positions under Presidents John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford 1961-1976; Ambassador to India 1973-1975; United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations 1975-1976; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1976; reelected in 1982, 1988, and 1994 and served from January 3, 1977, to January 3, 2001; was not a candidate for reelection in 2000; chairman, Committee on the Environment and Public Works (One Hundred Second and One Hundred Third Congresses); Committee on Finance (One Hundred Third Congress); awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 9, 2000; professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School 2001; senior scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 2001-2003; died of complications from a ruptured appendix on March 26, 2003; interment at Arlington National Cemetery.
(Source: )

More:





(no image) Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Biography by Steven R. Weisman (no photo)
by Godfrey Hodgson (no photo)
by Robert A. Katzmann (no photo)
all by Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Thank you Bryan

Black Jack



Some spirits will never be broken. Black Jack the horse was one of those spirits. The indomitable strength of his heart brought courage and comfort to millions of Americans. He is best known for his role in the funeral of John F. Kennedy.

Footage of JFK’s funeral shows Black Jack serving as the riderless horse in the funeral procession. He is seen prancing along, turning sideways, pushing the hand of his cap walker with his nose. In the day of grief, the spirited funeral horse would not be broken. This unbrokenness mended many broken hearts.

As a riderless horse, Black Jack appeared in funeral processions with an empty saddle. His stirrups held the fallen soldier's boots, reversed to look back at loved ones one last time. He was a sacred symbol of the fallen soldier, never to ride again.

Black Jack served his county as a riderless horse in over 1,000 Armed Forces Full Honor Funerals. Riderless horses, or caparisoned as they are often called, are a special honor reserved for officials of high rank. Black Jack took part in the funerals of three presidents and one five star general:

John F. Kennedy (1963)
Herbert Hoover (1964)
Lyndon B Johnson (1973)
Douglas MacArthur (1964)

Black Jack’s beauty of body and fight in heart made him ideally suited to be a funeral horse. In fact, the military could not get him to do anything else. The fiesty equine refused to cooperate with riders and would not pull anything. He was majestic and stately, however, with a black, smooth body and a white star on his forehead. In a last ditch effort to find a job for him, the military decided to utilize his looks as a riderless horse in funerals.

At his first funeral, Black Jack was a ruckus. He would not walk soberly, but danced along, throwing his head and tossing his mane. The military was so ashamed of his lack of reverence that they issued a formal apology to the family of the deceased. The family refused to accept the apology. They insisted that he reminded them of the fire in the heart of their loved one. His refusal to submit spoke of the unconquerable nature of life. Black Jack became a symbol of strength and endurance even in the presence of death.

Black Jack served his country for 29 years before passing away in 1976. He is one of only two United States horses to be buried with full military honors. The other was Comanche, an animal whose loyalty would not be shaken.
(Source:)

More:










(no image) Black Jack: Americas famous riderless horse by Robert Knuckle (no photo)
by Robert M. Poole (no photo)
by Howard Brinkley (no photo)
by Brad Steiger
by Vincent Bugliosi

Mary McGrory



Mary McGrory (August 22, 1918 �� April 20, 2004) was a liberal American journalist and columnist. She was a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War and was on Richard Nixon's enemies list for writing "daily hate Nixon articles."

Born in Roslindale, Boston, Massachusetts to Edward and Mary McGrory, she shared her father's love of Latin and writing, and she graduated from the Girls' Latin School and began her career as a book reviewer at The Boston Herald. She was hired in 1947 by The Washington Star and began her career as a journalist, a path she was inspired to take by reading Jane Arden comic strips. She rose to prominence as their reporter covering the McCarthy hearings in 1954.

McGrory won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1975, for her articles about the Watergate scandal. After the Star went out of business in 1981, she went to work for The Washington Post. In 1985, McGrory received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. She died in Washington, D.C. at the age of 85.

McGrory wrote extensively about the Kennedy presidency. She and JFK were close in age, both of Irish descent and from Boston. McGrory's exchange with Daniel Patrick Moynihan after the president's assassination was quoted widely: “We will never laugh again,�� said McGrory. Moynihan, who worked for President Kennedy responded, “Mary, we will laugh again. But we will never be young again.��

McGrory was assigned by the Star to travel with Robert F. Kennedy during his ill fated 1968 presidential campaign and became close to his wife Ethel at the time.
(Source: )

More:







by Phil Gailey (no photo)
by David Mixner (no photo)
by Maria Braden (no photo)
by Donald A. Ritchie (no photo)
by Robert Dallek

Thank you Jerome and Kathy