Lyndon Johnson

To Understand America's Failure on Housing Desegregation, Look at the Capital City

by Kaila Philo

With federal support, the private housing market was built around racial segregation. To understand how federal fair housing law and policy adopted since the 1960s failed to undermine it, it's not necessary to venture too far from Capitol Hill. 

LBJ was Hoover's Co-Conspirator in the FBI's War on King and Civil Rights

by Jonathan Eig and Jeanne Theoharis

Americans have been taught to think of J. Edgar Hoover's efforts to discredit and destroy Dr. King as the work of a singular, personal animus. Recently declassified documents show that President Lyndon Johnson was well aware and supportive of Hoover's efforts, demonstrating the wide resistance of the establishment to challenge. 

Fifth LBJ Volume by Caro "In Works"

The latest volume is planned to cover the years from Johnson's first full year in the presidency in 1964 until his death in 1973.

1968: A Year of Dashed Hopes

by Walter G. Moss

While people seek to confront life's challenges with hope and courage and banish fear and doubt, some years, like 1968, don't make that easy. 

When Eartha Kitt Disrupted the Ladies Who Lunch

In 1968, real life imitated "Batman" as the Catwoman actress broke the veneer of politeness at a luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson to denounce the war against Vietnam. But while Catwoman always got away, Kitt's career was destroyed for a decade.

Adulation for Today's Space Race is Misplaced. So is Nostalgia for the First One

by Catherine Devlin

It is impossible not to compare today’s billionaire space race to the iconic celestial competition of the 1960’s. But what if neither is worthy of adulation?

Ramsey Clark, Attorney General and Rebel With a Cause, Dies at 93

Ramsey Clark's tenure as Attorney General saw the aggressive enforcement of civil rights law; his liberalism strained his relationship with Lyndon Johnson, who blamed Clark in part for energizing the "silent majority" that led Richard Nixon to victory. He continued in private life to represent unpopular defendants and oppose American militarism.

Will Afghanistan make Biden's Presidency Turn Out like Truman's or LBJ's?

by Joe Cirincione

"Joe Biden can be a great president. But not if he is so afraid of attacks from the right that he repeats LBJ’s blunder and stumbles into a war we cannot win and never need fight."

The Lost Story of Lady Bird

by Julia E. Sweig

"It is perhaps ironic that so many historians, intent as they are on the president, have missed her sway in the White House, because Lyndon himself was not shy in acknowledging Lady Bird’s crucial role in his administration."

How the 1968 Presidential Transition Compares to Today’s

by Marc Selverstone

Taped recordings from the Lyndon Johnson White House reveal the conflict between LBJ and Richard Nixon over the degree to which a president-elect could expect to influence policy before being inaugurated. 

The Supreme Court We Need

by Linda Greenhouse

The veteran Supreme Court reporter argues that the nation needs the court to enable government to actually take action to solve big national problems. 

Lyndon Johnson Addresses the Nation on Civil Disorders (July 27, 1967)

Lyndon Johnson's words after rioting erupted in Detroit speak to ongoing concerns in American society.   

2020 Is Not 1968. It May Be Worse.

by Niall Ferguson

The Hoover Institution Senior Fellow suggests that the current political climate--a reelection campaign amid multiple national crises--has both similarities and differences from 1968. 

Can 50 Years of Minimizing Nuclear Proliferation Continue?

by Ivo H. Daalder

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has mostly succeeded in keeping more countries out of the nuclear club. But as U.S. alliances fray, its future success is not assured.

The End of Privacy Began in the 1960s

by Margaret O’Mara

Choices that Congress made decades ago allowed tech giants to become as powerful as they are.

What “All the Way” Reminds Us Is How Complicated LBJ Was

by John Baick

He was Hillary, Bernie and Trump rolled into one.

When Lame Duck Lyndon Johnson Lost on the Supreme Court

by Mark K. Updegrove

They say past is prologue, and the waning days of the Johnson presidency are a lesson for President Obama in his upcoming Supreme Court fight.

This Is Something Else the Leading GOP Candidates Don’t Understand

by Gregory Sumner

The president of the United States has to be a Moral-Leader-in-Chief

When Did Police Start Looking Like Soldiers in a Combat Zone? No, You're Wrong. It Wasn't in the Aftermath of Iraq.

by Alex Elkins

Lyndon Johnson hitched his War on Poverty to a War on Crime that combined community outreach and “get-tough” policing.

50 Years Ago Congress Gave the President a Blank Check for War

by Leonard Steinhorn

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the hubris behind it were the linchpins of Johnson’s Shakespearean Vietnam tragedy – and ours as well.