[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 1 (Monday, January 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12-S14]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH ADDRESS AT THE LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, last spring I joined my colleagues in 
honoring President Lyndon Baines Johnson when we hung a portrait of our 
former president on the one blank wall left in the President's Room in 
our nation's capitol. As I noted at that time, I could think of no 
other president or American who was as deserving of this honor as LBJ.
  As the Senate Majority Leader and President, LBJ was a man of immense 
skill, dedication and compassion. He is remembered by most Americans as 
a great leader whose strength of personality helped him preside over an 
extremely productive Senate that expanded Social Security, created the 
Interstate Highway system, and passed one of the most important civil 
rights laws of the 20th Century. Less well known, however, is LBJ's 
tremendous ability to compromise. He truly believed in the message of 
his favorite Bible verse: ``Come, let us reason together.'' Our nation 
and our government needs more men and women who share this powerful 
belief.
  Today, I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues and all 
Americans another aspect of LBJ's legacy that too often has been 
overlooked--his work to bring justice to disen-


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franchised ethnic minorities and to improve the lot of the large number 
of Americans suffering in unimaginable poverty. John Kenneth Galbraith, 
the noted economist and former presidential aide, recently highlighted 
LBJ's accomplishments in this area in an important speech at the LBJ 
library in Austin, Texas.
  As Professor Galbraith noted, historians often view LBJ's 
administration in terms of its involvement in the Vietnam War. While we 
should never underestimate the impact that war had on our country, 
historians are remiss to view LBJ through this narrow prism. Those who 
do fail to acknowledge his meaningful and lasting accomplishments in 
expanding civil rights, protecting voting rights, and fighting poverty. 
These victories have forever changed the face of America for the 
better.
  Professor Galbraith's speech is based on his personal and 
professional relationship with LBJ. It is a testament to LBJ's 
leadership and a tribute to the sometimes overlooked legacy of the 
Great Society. This speech is an important step towards setting the 
historical record straight and establishing a legacy of LBJ's 
Administration that is historically accurate as well as comprehensive.
  I ask unanimous consent that Professor Galbraith's speech be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                  Lyndon Johnson: History Reconsidered

                      (By John Kenneth Galbraith)

       The task of the historian is never finished. As first 
     written, history responds to the dramatic, tragic or 
     otherwise seemingly dominant events of the time. Only in 
     later, more careful, more detached and, one trusts, 
     professionally more competent view does the deeper truth 
     emerge. Were it otherwise, historians would not be needed; 
     history would not have to be reconsidered and rewritten. It 
     is with such reconsideration I am here concerned--with an 
     historical view in need of substantial modification. I am 
     seeking the needed historical reappraisal of Lyndon Baines 
     Johnson, a revision and correction of a history with which I 
     was myself associated, had a modest role, and one to which I 
     have contributed. I here offer a more thoughtful, I trust 
     more informed, view of Lyndon Johnson, and notably as 
     President of the United States. First, a word of personal 
     history.
       Lyndon Johnson was my age, or I his--he was born August 27, 
     1908, I a month and a half later. We were both of an amply 
     celebrated rural origin, and both had our early education in 
     country schools, rural-oriented colleges. Johnson arrived in 
     Washington as a congressional aide in 1931, I for a markedly 
     less impressive sojourn in 1934. We were both interested in 
     agriculture; I had a minor role with the Agricultural 
     Adjustment Administration--the Triple A--which continued as I 
     went on that year to Harvard. Johnson a year later became the 
     Texas director of the National Youth Administration. Two 
     years after that he was elected to the House of 
     Representatives.
       At some time during these years we became acquainted; we 
     were brought more closely together by the two great human 
     rights advocates from Alabama, Virginia and Clifford Durr, to 
     whom we were both devoted, Johnson and I were proudly New 
     Dealers, fully committed to FDR who had our unstinting 
     support. Our friendship, if not close, lasted for nearly a 
     lifetime, to be ended by an unforgiving event central in the 
     appraisal of Lyndon Johnson and the correction of which I 
     here seek. That correction places him next only to Franklin 
     D. Roosevelt as a force for a civilized and civilizing social 
     policy essential for human well-being and for the peaceful 
     co-existence between the economically favored (or financially 
     fortunate) and the poor. History has settled on the great 
     contribution of the New Deal. Much needs yet to be said of 
     the achievements of the Johnson years, still sadly blotted 
     from memory by foreign and military policy and action. Next 
     only to Roosevelt, and in some respects more so, Lyndon 
     Johnson was the most effective advocate of human social 
     change in the United States in this century.
       This was not a matter on which he left one in any doubt. On 
     the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination, I was in 
     Washington at the White House working on the sudden and 
     compelling array of funeral tasks. I was called by L.B.J. to 
     his vice-presidential, now his presidential, offices in the 
     Old State Department building. (I offer this revision of the 
     history on the 36th anniversary of L.B.J.'s first full day in 
     office.) We discussed a range of domestic problems and the 
     needed action. He spoke in Johnson language and emphasis of 
     his strong commitment. Knowing perhaps that nothing would 
     more assure my belief, he asked me to do a draft of the 
     speech he would shortly make to the Congress. The eventual 
     speech, which relied rather more heavily on Theodore Sorensen 
     and on L.B.J. himself, made clear his intention.
       For Roosevelt it was the New Deal. Kennedy had given 
     currency to the phrase the New Frontier. For Johnson it would 
     be the Great Society--possibly a less compelling title. 
     Nonetheless, the action so taken has become part of our 
     everyday life and acceptance. But not in the history. The New 
     Deal is large in public memory; so, if somewhat less, is the 
     New Frontier. Much less is made of the Good Society and the 
     years of Lyndon Johnson. What was then greatly needed, even 
     urgent and wonderfully accomplished, lies in the historical 
     backwater. That we must recognize and retrieve.
       The first and most important step taken by Lyndon Johnson 
     was simply to make all Americans full citizens and full 
     participants in the democratic process. This, in the Kennedy 
     years, had become an issue of major importance. In June of 
     1963, a few months before his death, Kennedy had called for 
     enabling legislation. His position, and especially that of 
     his immediate and strongly committed subordinates, was not in 
     doubt. But the decisive civil rights legislative action 
     remained for Lyndon Johnson. A further and major step was the 
     Voting Rights Act of 1965, this at the beginning of Johnson's 
     own new term and more than one hundred years after 
     emancipation.
       In the New Deal years ethnic equality was only on the 
     public conscience; in the Kennedy presidency it was strongly 
     urged by Martin Luther King and many others. From buses to 
     lunch counters to  restrooms to public accommodations, 
     agitation had focused attention on the issue and brought 
     some action. It was with Lyndon Johnson, however, that 
     citizenship for all Americans in all its aspects became a 
     reality. Not only were black citizens (as I choose to say) 
     rewarded; distracting agitation and conflict came largely 
     to an end. Not alone civil rights but civility in behavior 
     to the peace and benefit of all. All were rewarded by the 
     new peace. This we owe to the Johnson presidency. There 
     was much more.
       Related to ethnic difference but going far beyond was the 
     continued existence of a mass poverty--of life at or below 
     the margin of survival. This also, a neglected point, means 
     denial not alone of the basic enjoyments of life but also the 
     denial of liberty. Nothing so limits the freedom of the 
     individual as the total absence of money. This, as too often 
     with the commonplace, we take for granted, ignore. This too 
     Lyndon Johnson recognized and addressed.
       The problem of massive urban poverty and the more diverse 
     affliction in rural America, especially in the mountain 
     valleys down from New England to the Deep South, was a 
     continuing fact. There were (as there are still) two lines of 
     thought on how this should be addressed. One was to insure 
     everyone a basic income by public action. This a rich country 
     could afford; to this all the industrially advanced countries 
     are in some measure committed. The other course is to counter 
     poverty by specific remedial action designed to minimize its 
     more specific adverse effects and, most importantly, to 
     provide the mental and physical means for escape. The main 
     effort of the Johnson years was of the second order; the 
     basic steps in this effort continue to this day--money for 
     deprived educational communities, for education in general. 
     Head Start, food for needful children at the beginning of the 
     school day, food stamps for the old and hungry, the Jobs 
     Corps and major initiatives in education . . . including the 
     Elementary and Secondary Education Act sending funds to local 
     school districts along with support to higher education and 
     those pursuing it. And major help for those previously denied 
     health care and life itself from lack of money. This list of 
     humane accomplishments could be extended. The emphasis was 
     not alone on what the Federal government should do but also 
     on helping individuals and communities to help themselves.
       The New Deal initiatives were more centralized, more 
     visible and more dramatic; those of the Johnson years were 
     less visible but not less important for aiding human 
     survival. What Johnson initiated is now accepted even by the 
     wonderfully adverse orators of our present age.
       The work for civilized well-being is not complete. I have 
     long believed that we should accept, as we do only 
     reluctantly and partially now, a minimum income for all 
     Americans. This, to repeat, a rich country can afford. It 
     requires that we eliminate the welfare stigma and other 
     adverse attitudes. Some who are favored by a basic income 
     will not work; so with many who are now favored by a higher 
     income. Leisure is an evil thing for the poor; it is 
     rewarding for the affluent, sometimes even for professors. 
     Accordingly, our social effort must continue. But let there 
     be no doubt; in the years of Lyndon Johnson both ethnic 
     minorities and the poor became citizens of the republic, the 
     first by legal action, the second by still imperfect but 
     highly relevant remedial legislation.
       Nor did this happen because of newly recognized need. It 
     happened because Lyndon Johnson was the most effective 
     political activist of our time. It is easy to advocate the 
     right action; it is something else and much more to obtain 
     it. Lyndon Johnson was not content with citing the need, 
     recommending the legislation. He was content only as he 
     obtained (and on occasion forced) the requisite action. No 
     President in our time has had such a commanding role as 
     regards the Congress, the result of both solid experience and 
     strong personality. Johnson's authority was based on 
     knowledge--he had a clear and comprehensive view of what he 
     urged. But

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     there was more. Individuals at all levels in Congress and in 
     the Executive knew him. He was a good friend, had an engaging 
     personality and a compelling range of speech. No one went to 
     see him without returning to tell of some prescient 
     observation by Lyndon Johnson, some amusing or slightly off-
     color metaphor.
       Liking Johnson, politicians and other leaders aligned with 
     him. All wanted the association preserved, so they did as 
     Johnson commanded. We speak much of the power of personality; 
     in Lyndon Johnson it was evident, effective and had its own 
     distinctive style. Long before he became President, this was 
     well recognized in the Congress. Asked after the 1960 
     Convention why he had chosen Lyndon Johnson as Vice-
     President, John F. Kennedy gave several reasons. The last and 
     perhaps the decisive reason: ``It wouldn't be worthwhile 
     being President if Lyndon were Majority Leader.'' When 
     President, Lyndon Johnson was effectively both. Kennedy, as 
     I've said on other occasions, used less power than he had as 
     President; Johnson used more.
       I summarize: on civil rights and on poverty, the two truly 
     urgent issues of the time, we had with Johnson one of the 
     greatest changes of our time. I turn now to the historical 
     correction which, along with others of my political faith, I 
     need to make.
       My association, even friendship, with Lyndon Johnson came 
     to an end with the Vietnam war. We had intensely discussed 
     it: Johnson's case was not unpersuasive. ``Ken, you have no 
     idea what the generals would be doing were I not here.'' And 
     this, I must add, I did not know. Next year the Harvard 
     University Press will publish ``American Tragedy: Kennedy, 
     Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War'' by David Kaiser. 
     It makes full, intelligent, even exhaustive use of newly 
     declassified documents--all are now available except for some 
     continuing and perhaps well-considered reticence by the CIA. 
     Kaiser tells in extensive and, to this day, alarming detail 
     of the military pressure on Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. 
     The generals and their civilian acolytes took over, were even 
     eager for a war. Nuclear weapons were freely proposed. One 
     reads with relief and gratitude of the Presidential 
     resistance, that of Kennedy in particular but also that of 
     L.B.J. The widening military intervention was relentlessly 
     pressed. And so the war and the deaths.
       Knowing that part of the world from presence and 
     experience, I knew that Communism was irrelevant in a 
     primitive village and jungle economy--as Marx would have been 
     the first to agree. There was also the irrelevance of our 
     military establishment in the densely covered countryside 
     that characterized much of Vietnam. The military forces of 
     the Viet Cong would have been swept aside in a few days in 
     Normandy. Here they could retreat conveniently and safely to 
     the jungle, or even to the water-laden reaches of the Delta. 
     Accordingly, I joined with others in opposition to this cruel 
     and hopeless effort and to sending our youth, still under 
     draft, to serve and die. In the political campaign of 1968, I 
     was accorded a measure of leadership. I do not regret my 
     effort against this error. One must, however, regret the way 
     in which we allowed the Vietnam war to become the totally 
     defining event of those years and likewise of the history. In 
     the Johnson years it was the Vietnam war and nothing else. 
     And so in the history it remains. Those of us who were 
     involved allowed that response; at the time, perhaps it was 
     inevitable. But certainly we have done far too little to 
     correct the history since.
       The needed correction is clear. In the Johnson years two 
     major flaws in the American community and its polity were 
     addressed. What was called the American democracy became in 
     reality a democracy. All Americans became citizens. There was 
     a long step toward peaceful coexistence between ethnic 
     groups. And for the first time we had a clear recognition of 
     the presence of deep, unforgiving poverty in this generally 
     affluent land. The danger to domestic peace and harmony was 
     recognized. Poverty, economic deprivation, is still with us. 
     Income inequality is great and still growing. But recognition 
     of this together with the belief that something can and must 
     be done--that there can be remedial action--goes back to the 
     Johnson years. And so does the range of action for the young, 
     the poor, the ill and the old without which all would be much 
     worse.
       Three Presidents in our lifetime have seen the social need 
     of their citizenry from their particular position in life. 
     Franklin D. Roosevelt, as I've elsewhere said, saw the people 
     of the United States as a tenantry stretching out from Hyde 
     Park. For them and their depression hardship he had a 
     landlord's responsibility. From Irish Boston, John F. Kennedy 
     saw a great minority still seeking to escape--and his family 
     had escaped--the trials and oppressions of a once beleaguered 
     community. (It helped that it had become a political force.) 
     Johnson's identification was with a larger, less easily 
     identified, politically less powerful community--the widely 
     distributed urban and rural poor. What Kennedy and his family 
     had escaped, Johnson had experienced at first hand. (His 
     personal encounter with rural privation was never 
     understated.) The basic motivation of all three Presidents 
     was the same: the sense of responsibility for a larger, less 
     fortunate community within the range of actual observation 
     and experience.
       There is a final, greatly needed revision. We must accord 
     much more emphasis to the dangerous, even insane military 
     pressures to which Kennedy and Johnson were subject. We 
     should note that these were especially strong in 1965, the 
     time when Johnson's mind and effort were sharply focused on 
     poverty and civil rights and the requisite legislation.
       When we think of Vietnam, we must think much more of the 
     generals (and associated civilians) who pressed powerfully 
     for the war, for the risks of a greater war and for an 
     opening for nuclear weapons. That, in the full light of 
     history, there were presidential errors here cannot be 
     doubted. We must, however, be grateful for what was resisted.
       Thus the historical revision I seek, we must all seek. The 
     initiatives of Lyndon Johnson on civil rights, voting rights 
     and on economic and social deprivation and the responding 
     role of the state must no longer be enshrouded by that war. 
     Those of us who helped make the war central to the public 
     attitude and politics of the time have a special 
     responsibility here. That responsibility I would like to 
     think I have partly assumed on this favored evening.

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