Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965

Michael R. Beschloss

[CounterCounterCulture]

Eminent presidential historian Michael Beschloss has now transcribed the most revealing and historically important conversations taped by Lyndon Johnson during his presidency-the period between fall 1964 and 1965. In these conversations Johnson demands that Congress pass landmark Civil Rights legislation, even as he allows the FBI to spy on Martin Luther King. He pushes his Great Society legislation, including Medicare, through Congress as he escalates the war in Vietnam. Beschloss places each conversation in historical context as he plays passages from the tapes, which capture Johnson’s presidency at its most crucial stage. ¹

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Book Description

Reaching for Glory lets us eavesdrop on LBJ's private, often tortured thoughts during the most crucial year of his presidency -- when his dreams of being hailed as the equal of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were destroyed by the war in Vietnam.

As Reaching for Glory opens, LBJ is campaigning for the greatest presidential landslide in history. To win, he hands embarrassing secrets about Barry Goldwater to friendly reporters. When Johnson's closest aide is arrested in a sex scandal, he tries to keep it from exploding before the election.

This audiobook reveals the secret history of how Lyndon Johnson took us step by step, often by stealth, into Vietnam. While publicly boasting that there will be victory in Vietnam, he privately worries that the war can never be won and that it will crush his presidency. He foresees the backlash against the war, civil rights, and the Great Society that will bring Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to power.

Reaching for Glory lets us hear LBJ's private telephone conversations with Jacqueline Kennedy just after her husband's assassination. It allows us to live at Lyndon Johnson's side, day by day, through the dramatic, triumphant, catastrophic, and pivotal year of a turbulent presidency that continues to affect all of our lives. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. ²

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Michael Beschloss wrote the essay on George Bush for the book Character Above All published ... by Simon & Schuster. He also participated in the PBS television adaptation of that book.

Mr. Beschloss is an historian specializing in the U.S. presidency and American politics. His books include The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963 (1991); Eisenhower: A Centennial Life (1990); Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (1986), which was adapted in February 1996 for an episode of the PBS series The American Experience; Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (1980); and At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War with co-author Strobe Talbott (1993).

Mr. Beschloss is familiar to PBS viewers. He is a regular contributor to The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He served as chief historical adviser and appeared in a 1994 two-part documentary on Dwight Eisenhower which aired on The American Experience series. He also appeared in the PBS documentary "The Kennedys" (1992).

Mr. Beschloss holds degrees from Williams College and Harvard University. He has held appointments in history at the Smithsonian Institution, St. Antony's College, Oxford University and the Harvard University Russian Research Center.

He is married to Afsaneh Beschloss, Director of the World Bank Pension Fund. They have a son, and live in Washington, DC. ³

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[CounterCounterCulture]

An interview of Michael Beschloss was played this morning on KSFO 560AM (which was a rerun from Wednesday). The KSFO website has another replay scheduled for Sunday, November 25, at 6AM PST.

I heard a few audio clips that were quite intriguing and disturbing. The first was a conversation between the flirtatious Johnson and an adolescent-sounding Jackie Kennedy, which ended with Johnson making a kiss-kiss sound over the phone. Another clip was about the Vietnam War with Robert McNamara.

[uvular]

Did you hear the one where he is talking to his tailor, about making some pants for him, 'the color of women's powder', asking for extra room from where his ba--- hang to his 'bunghole', and belching in the tailor's ear?

Roe and Garry play this on WLS, plus several conversations he had with Jackie; in one he tells her to tell Caroline and John Jr., that 'I wanna be their daddy'.

[CounterCounterCulture]

The first one, no. The second, YES!

[SocialMeltdown]

I heard some of them too.

Johnson never should have been president. He was out of his league.

Clearly Kennedy picked him for his southern support and his incompetence which Kennedy must have felt would have precluded any future power play. Had Kennedy lived, Johnson would eventually been shown as the fool that he was though now we have the tapes.

[Bommer]

The first was a conversation between the flirtatious Johnson and an adolescent-sounding Jackie Kennedy, which ended with Johnson making a kiss-kiss sound over the phone.

They replayed the interview on Brett Humes show yesterday. He said to Jackie that he wished he was John Johns and Carolines father. Lady-Bird must loooove these tapes!

I guess the bigger question is why do the majority of Democraps (Truman excluded) think with their d!cks?