JFK Survives Dallas. What Happens To LBJ?

Pretty much so, particularly considering the rise of Connally as primo Dem boss in Texas during the Kennedy administration, as mentioned above.

I'm reading Randall Wood's bio of Johnon after having read Dallek and several of Caro's volumes, and once again I'm confronted by the same old explanation for Johnson taking the V-P slot: 'he had to do it lest he be left out in the cold (if Kennedy won), or in case he be accused of having let Kennedy fail by not joining the ticket.'

But I'm less and less convinced it was in Johnson's immediate shortterm interest that he accept running mate at Los Angeles.

He must have been betting everything on Kennedy's Addison's disease killing him before '64.
Interesting... perhaps he didn't expect death to come as early as it did and still saw it as a possible springboard to the presidency at the time? I'm no expert, just speculating.
 
I have to retract something I wrote in my last post, about how LBJ only moved to the Right on civil rights after 1948; that's not correct, he voted against anti-lynching legislation when he was in the House, and against the Fair Employment Practices Commission as well.

But I stand by what I wrote about his support of the bulk of New Deal economic policy designed to help AAs and Hispanics. He never forgot his experience as a National Youth Administration official in that respect.

according to several biographies on the subject, LBJ was intensely suspicious of Nixon sabotaging the 1968 'Peace Process'

LBJ's last SecDef, Clark Clifford, later in retirement, eventually became the leading public voice against Team Nixon's 1968 gambit.

My point being Johnson never dumped on Richard Nixon for any of this; his sense of propriety, 'keeping up appearances', that obviously outweighed whatever desire he had for revenge against Nixon.

This is why I doubt he would ever seek revenge against Jack Kennedy if he's dumped from the ticket in '64. Not that that deal would apply for any future nominating races involving RFK...

These quotes are in the book Nixon, A Life, and Robert Caro's third LBJ book.

In 'Master of The Senate'? I don't remember Caro skipping so far ahead in that volume.

Interesting... perhaps he didn't expect death to come as early as it did and still saw it as a possible springboard to the presidency at the time? I'm no expert, just speculating.

Another thing to consider is that LBJ still held out hope for 1968 in his own right before he was sworn in as VP; it wasn't until after he became VP that he realised he was in political purgatory, rejected by his old senate colleagues, isolated and scorned by the White House. He became seriously depressed. His health would surely have continued to go down hill if he stays in that state beyond 1963.

Regardless of whether or not he gets dumped from the ticket in 1964, I just don't think he makes it through 'til the nominating race in 1968.

I think he most likely ends up declining to run, and he throws whatever weight he has left behind HHH to become Kennedy's successor. If he's still alive and functioning, that is.
 
LBJ's last SecDef, Clark Clifford, later in retirement, eventually became the leading public voice against Team Nixon's 1968 gambit.

My point being Johnson never dumped on Richard Nixon for any of this; his sense of propriety, 'keeping up appearances', that obviously outweighed whatever desire he had for revenge against Nixon.

This is why I doubt he would ever seek revenge against Jack Kennedy if he's dumped from the ticket in '64. Not that that deal would apply for any future nominating races involving RFK...



In 'Master of The Senate'? I don't remember Caro skipping so far ahead in that volume.

Ok, no problem. Not sure of what was going on myself, just some sources posted from what previously I read.

About master of the Senate, that was mostly in the 50's in Caro's book. The other source more stressed his continuing ability into the early 70's.
 
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