JFK and LBJ: The Last Two Great Presidents

by Godfrey Hodgson

Overview

A firsthand observer weighs the achievements—and failures—of two fabled American presidents  

As a young White House correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson years in Washington, D.C., Godfrey Hodgson had a ringside seat covering the last two great presidents of the United States, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, two men who could not have been more different. Kennedy’s wit and dashing style, his renown as a national war hero, and his Ivy League Boston Brahmin background stood in sharp contrast to Lyndon Johnson’s rural, humble origins in Texas, his blunt, forceful (but effective) political style, his lackluster career in the navy, and his grassroots populist instincts. Hodgson, a sharp-eyed witness throughout the tenure of these two great men, now offers us a new perspective enriched by his reflections since that time a half-century ago. He offers us a fresh, dispassionate contrast of these two great men by stripping away the myths to assess their achievements, ultimately asking whether Johnson has been misjudged. He suggests that LBJ be given his due by history, arguing that he was as great a president as, perhaps even greater than, JFK.
 
The seed that grew into this book was the author’s early perception that JFK’s performance in office was largely overrated while LBJ’s was consistently underrated. Hodgson asks key questions: If Kennedy had lived, would he have matched Johnson’s ambitious Great Society achievements? Would he have avoided Johnson’s disastrous commitment in Vietnam? Would Nixon have been elected his successor, and if not, how would American politics and parties look today? Hodgson combines lively anecdotes with sober analyses to arrive at new conclusions about the U.S. presidency and two of the most charismatic figures ever to govern from the Oval Office.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300219760
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	08/24/2016
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	750,056
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Godfrey Hodgson was a White House correspondent during the Kennedy and Johnson years. He taught at Oxford University and lives in Oxfordshire, U.K.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction A Parting of the Ways 1

Part 1 The Actors

Chapter 1 Life Is Unfair 27

Chapter 2 One Brief Shining Moment 69

Chapter 3 Doctor Fell 83

Part 2 The Actions

Chapter 4 Rumors of War, Rumors of Peace 107

Chapter 5 Other Americas 134

Chapter 6 Surpassing Kennedy 150

Chapter 7 No Umbrella Man 180

Conclusion 217

Notes 231

Acknowledgments 261

Index 263

Interviews

What prompted you to write this book?
 
Over the years, as I studied different fields of twentieth-century American political history, I came to feel more and more strongly that LBJ deserved a more positive reassessment, that he had not been given his just due.
 
 
How would you characterize the main differences between the two presidents?
 
As men, in background and temperament they could hardly be more different. JFK was highly educated, though not academically especially brilliant. LBJ’s formal education was undistinguished, though those who dealt with him all commented on his exceptional intelligence. JFK was the child of great wealth; LBJ, if his family’s poverty has been exaggerated, came from a family of local notables that had fallen on hard times. If JFK was all charm, LBJ was forceful and relentless. As politicians, LBJ was a populist, JFK a Whig in the British sense, an aristocrat with a passion for liberty and a devotion to public service.
 
 
How did JFK and LBJ differ on civil rights and Vietnam?
 
LBJ was profoundly, viscerally committed to the idea that the time had come to give African Americans equality. JFK came late to understand that the civil rights movement was the most urgent item on the national political agenda. On Vietnam, they were essentially agreed: that American “credibility” demanded defeat of communism in Vietnam.
 
My argument boils down to two counterfactuals: Would Kennedy, had he lived, have carried out LBJ’s remarkable domestic agenda? Would he, in 1965, have avoided LBJ’s commitment of American forces to the Vietnam War? Recognizing that the answers are ultimately unknowable, I offer carefully argued answers that illuminate the qualities and achievements of both presidents.

Editorial Reviews

Godfrey Hodgson has written a provocative and perceptive (and affectionate) history of his time and ours, arguing that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson—battered and humbled by multiple crises at home and around the world—were the last presidents who genuinely believed the United States could make life better for our people and for the world.”—Richard Reeves, author of President Kennedy: Profile of Power

“Stylish and absorbing from the first page to the last. As a young reporter Godfrey Hodgson covered the two presidents who are his concern, and he has spent the intervening half-century reflecting on the two men's places in the pantheon of modern American leaders—and on what might have been. The result is a lucid, concise, wonderfully opinionated book.”—Fredrik Logevall, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam

“Hodgson has long had a deserved reputation as a shrewd and knowing observer. JFK and LBJ has an authenticity and freshness that should command attention and trigger lively and often partisan conversations. The mixture of the autobiographical and the historical makes it all the richer.”—Mark Lytle, Bard College

“The British have a remarkable record of sending journalists to Washington whose insights are more astute and nuanced than those of the locals, but even in this class Hodgson stands apart. His latest biography may be his best, for no one has written of the JFK/LBJ relationship with more penetration and sensitivity. Gripping portraits, lucid analysis unfettered by the conventional cant, and keen historical judgments make this a compelling book.”—Philip Bobbitt, author of The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History

From the Publisher

2015-03-17
British commentator Hodgson (Martin Luther King, 2009, etc.) dissects the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. As a White House correspondent beginning in the early 1960s, the author quickly learned the ins and outs of politics in Washington, D.C. He recalls plenty of fortuitous meetings, the people who helped him with background information, and dinner-party politics. During that time period, a more open environment, he was able to absorb the capital's methods. Here, Hodgson looks at the two men and two significant questions: if he had lived, would Kennedy have expanded the Vietnam War as Johnson did, and could Kennedy have passed Johnson's vast domestic reforms? The author compares these two men, certainly apples to oranges, simply stating that Kennedy's qualities were exaggerated and Johnson's, underestimated. To be sure, their ambitions were different. Kennedy looked to make his name in foreign policy but was hampered by domestic problems, especially the civil rights movement. Both were devoted to continuing the New Deal and its attendant policies, but Kennedy's approach was much more cautious. Johnson broadened the scope and accelerated the timetable for projects begun under Kennedy. Of course, Johnson was also undone, in his case by the Vietnam War. Hodgson does an excellent job of analyzing Kennedy's administration in both the Cuban and Berlin crises. The author also applies his sharp observations to Johnson and his astounding domestic reforms: Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, immigration reform, and federal aid to education. Occasionally, Hodgson gets bogged down in Johnson's nemesis, the Vietnam quagmire, but his portrayal of these two presidents clearly demonstrates how "how vulnerable public opinion in a democracy is to deceptive stereotypes." A deeply detailed, fascinating characterization of two men, a country, and an era. Sometimes it takes a non-American to see what we all missed.

Kirkus Reviews