University of Virginia Library

Lyndon Johnson

"My fellow Americans," he used to say to
us as he was about to tell us something he
knew would hurt...until it hurt so much that
many of the Americans could no longer
tolerate his fellowship. Even as much of the
nation began to disparage him, leaving him to
pursue alone a policy initiated by a
predecessor the nation nearly sanctified, he
never deserted the nation or its interests, as he
understood them. That aloneness was Lyndon
Johnson's saddest defeat.

America, including her leaders, came close
to hysteria during the last decade. Frustration
turned to furor for a people which could not
understand what her leaders were doing. We
began shamelessly (and ultimately stupidly)
branding each other and being branded as
either "madmen" and "war criminals" or
"freaks" and "traitors." Lyndon Johnson, the
one among us called upon to bear the burden
of the fateful decisions we, as a nation, had to
make, began to shed that protective political
skin which had made him a legend in the
stormy halls of Congress, and died a slow
death from exposure.

And he was so damned vulnerable. Swept
into the White House on a tidal wave of
public support, he was never prepared to be
dashed on the rocks of public fickleness. He
was so justifiably proud of his record as an
American, and as a leader of America, that he
had no way of knowing how low, in the name
of "conscience," some of those very people
he served would stoop to bring him down
when they could no longer understand the
way he perceived their interests.

The nation he had inspired to brotherhood
began to call him a murderer. The nation he
had sustained when it lay prostrate with its
stricken heroes began to call him a madman.
The nation he had proudly represented before
the world began to hurl abuse at him as if he
were a public enemy. And he was just a
compassionate enough man that it hurt him
when his countrymen became so incensed
that they began to get cruel.

That self-righteousness which led so many
armchair presidents to cast so many stones
was an epidemic in the nation, if anything
was. He was often poorly advised and may
have been sadly misguided in Vietnam,
(although that will probably be determined
after we are too old to remember), but the
name callers failed to recall that he did not
start the war, he did not wish to prolong it, he
did not seek to build an empire or to extend
one, and he did not want to see Americans or
anyone else die in Vietnam (or anywhere
else), the opinions of the real lunatics of the
country notwithstanding. He may never be
enshrined as a peacemaker, but he will never
be remembered as a warmonger by anyone
who has any conception of the way he really
felt about Vietnam.

So the Pedernales claims its son–home
after he tried to do his best and was treated
miserably for it. There are those whose
self-worth enjoins them from forgiving his
fallibility or recognizing theirs, but we can
never stand with them. We are all as
unsophisticated, as misguided, as scheming, or
as frustrated as he was at his worst, but which
of us is the giant humanitarian he was at his
best?

Like the wizened old cafe cook in Johnson
City, who was fortunate enough to know him
better than we did, "we hate to see that old
boy go."