everett dirksen

In this episode, we come to the end of the tumultuous year that was 1968 and we watch the winding down of the Lyndon Johnson Administration. It is truly an end to an era, as few men have ever dominated the public stage as Lyndon Johnson did our country for over two decades, even before he wound up in the White House. 

Joe Califano, an aid to President Johnson, is correct when he says the United States today is more a reflection of the hopes and dreams of President Lyndon Johnson than of any other President. If not for the catastrophe of Vietnam he would arguably be considered one of our great Presidents, if for nothing else but his work to guarantee equal rights for all Americans.

In this episode we watch him wind down his career and re-evaluate his impact on our country. We will listen as he addresses the nation and both houses of Congress in a rare, end of an administration "State of the Union " Address given just a week before he left office. Then we listen as the reigns of power are transferred from him to Richard Nixon.  

Then after an assessment from historian Michael Beschloss and some final thoughts from our host , Randal Wallace, we give the final word to the person closest to President Lyndon Johnson throughout his many years of public service, his wife, Lady Bird Johnson.

 Mrs. Johnson sat down in 1995 for an interview with ABC News Correspondent Barbara Walters for the program 20/20,  where she discusses everything from wildflowers, to changes in the social programs that were then under fire, to the place in history she felt her husband would occupy. It is one of my favorite interviews with any historic figure, and it will endear Lady Bird Johnson to an audience like few public figures in our history. 

This episode opens in the final two days of the 1968 campaign as the election polls  have tightened to an even race. Vice President Hubert Humphrey has made up enormous ground and with the announced bombing halt of North Vietnam it looks like all the momentum is with him. Here you see both Humphrey and former Vice President Richard Nixon out on the stump working overtime trying to get the race won. In a last day rally in Texas at the Houston Astrodome President Lyndon Johnson comes out to sway Texas voters on behalf of the Democratic standard bearer. 

The race is to close to call but finally by the closest of  margins, even closer than the 1960 election, Richard Nixon holds on to win the Presidency. Hear both candidates speak to their supporters and hear President Lyndon Johnson console the Humphrey's just moments after Vice President Humphrey concedes the race. 

Then we listen in as President Johnson puts to use all his skills to persuade Senator Everett Dirksen and President - Elect Richard Nixon to work on making the Paris Peace talks happen. It is in these calls, and in another to Florida Senator George Smathers, that we hear what Johnson really thinks about who has been meddling in the attempts to bring the South Vietnamese to the table. It is the Un-smoking gun that sinks the Chennault Affair as being an act of treason committed by Richard Nixon, if you really care about truth that is.  

You will also hear a promise from Richard Nixon to Lyndon Johnson the we will see Richard Nixon live up to throughout the next four years, at his own political detriment. 

It is a fascinating end to a fascinating year of massive UPHEAVAL in our country, the United States of America. 

This is the second episode examining the phone calls so often cited as proof of the Chennault Affair and Lyndon Johnson's acknowledgement of Richard Nixon's "treason". 

When you listen to them all it will often leave you wondering if there is any there, there. Or is it the hope of a man, prone to paranoia, looking for an excuse as to why something he hoped so totally would come to pass, peace in Vietnam under his watch, would come true. 

Here you will hear them all, from start to finish, not snippets meant to prove a narrative, but the entire phone call, and it will give you a fuller sense of what Lyndon Johnson actually knew, and or believed he knew. 

These are the calls made after the Bombing Halt announcement on October 31, 1968 but before the November 5, 1968 Presidential General Election. 

 These are a collection of phone calls, in their entirety of President Lyndon Johnson talking to the three Presidential candidates, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, Republican Leader Everett Dirksen, Democratic Senator Richard Russell, and cabinet members Dean Rusk and Clark Clifford.

In it you will hear Lyndon Johnson talking to people with different goals in mind. He is sending messages to others through some people and developing strategy for how to deal with situations with others and seeking reassurance in still others.  It is a real glimpse at how LBJ operated and how he often thought out loud as he worked his way through problems. Unlike the news reports or historical documentaries, we are playing these calls in their entirety, not just snippets trying to prove our point. You will get to hear LBJ talk about Treason, and people's kids , the mundane, to the outrageous, and you will get to hear for yourself the messages, and the thoughts, of our 36th President, as he struggles with trying to force his will on a war, an election, an ally, and an entrenched enemy, all at the same time.  You will get to hear for yourself the use of the Johnson treatment with all its bombast, bullying, flattery, deceptiveness, and delusions, plus his real desire and hope to play a role in peace, and ending this war. A war that brought his career to an end. These calls were the ones made before the announced bombing halt on October 31, Halloween 1968. 

Not since the Civil War had America been this divided. The decisions to both go to war in Vietnam and to pass several Civil Rights Bills that changed how America interacted socially led to an explosive Presidential Election year.  Never had their been a campaign with more extreme lows as this one had. 

First came a major offensive by the enemy in Vietnam during the Vietnamese New Year known as Tet. The offensive was actually a military failure but you would never convince anyone of that in the United States. It led to an upstart Senator from the State of Minnesota named Eugene McCarthy to challenge his own party's President in the New Hampshire Primary. He nearly won capturing over 40% of the vote. 

That brought in the younger brother of the slain former President, the former Attorney General turned New York Senator, Robert F. Kennedy into the race for President.  Over on the Republican's side, several Governors, George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller and even the new California Governor Ronald Reagan saddled up to run against Lyndon Johnson, but on that side of the aisle there was one clear front runner, Vice President Richard Nixon. 

Just six years before, in 1962, Nixon had lost a bid for the California Governorship and appeared totally washed up in politics. He had appeared to be a loser. But after the Republican's nominated an extremist candidate for President in 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater, many Republicans had abandoned the party and voted for President Lyndon Johnson in an unprecedented landslide election. Richard Nixon had not. He stayed loyal and worked harder for Goldwater than Goldwater did.  He then went out and campaigned all over the country for Republicans in the 1966 mid terms. 

Now Nixon was back, rested and ready, with a platform he had developed over many years in the wilderness and he, like all the democrats in the race, set dead aim on Lyndon Johnson, but LBJ had a surprise for them and when he bowed out it turned the entire election upside down. 

Sadly, just a few days later the Civil Rights Leader  who had led a movement of nonviolence and helped change the country for the better, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. It set the country on fire, and was just the first of many tragedies that 1968 would see happen. Relive this period of tumult in this first episode examining the critical year of Upheaval that was 1968. 

Ranked 4th as one of the best American History Podcasts of 2024
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Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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He was known as the Wizard of Ooze, a disheveled, elderly man with a distinctive voice and a great sense of humor and a thoughtful, cautious style.  He was the leader of the Republican Minority in the United States Senate. He often had only 36 members in his caucus. But that was often enough votes to break a filibuster and deliver enough votes to pass major legislation that would not happen with the majority party divided. 

Senator Everett Dirksen was a powerful figure in the country in the 1950's and 1960's. He was a man that John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson both depended on,  especially in the area of civil rights. Everett Dirksen worked with Lyndon Johnson to make sure it happened three times and when the 1965 Civil Rights act was passed, Senator Everett Dirksen, the Republican Leader, got the first pen. 

In this special edition of "Bridging the Political Gap" we honor this extraordinary man who often is forgotten in the story telling of the effort to pass civil rights.  Here we get to know him,  enjoy his Grammy winning version of the Pledge of Allegiance, and his tour through the U.S. Capital with ABC News anchorman Howard K. Smith and  even his guest appearance on "What's My Line?",  

Ranked 4th as one of the best American History Podcasts of 2024
https://podcasts.feedspot.com/american_history_podcasts/

Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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If President Lyndon B. Johnson has a real claim to greatness it is for his work to pass the Voter's Rights Act of 1965.  It was the act that guaranteed every citizen in this country the right to vote. It came after a horrifying Sunday in the Alabama town of Selma. It was there that a contingent of Alabama State Troopers attacked a group of protesters as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The entire country watched it all on television, including the President.

Lyndon Johnson had just passed a Civil Rights Act in 1964 that had guaranteed access to all Americans to public places. But that Act did nothing about laws and restrictions all over the country that were used to prevent African Americans from voting and registering to vote. Johnson knew that something had to be done and it could wait no longer. It had been a century since President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation and won a war to insure African Americans their freedom in America. During the century that had followed a  period of racist, shameful segregation had been allowed to exist unchallenged through out the land.

Lyndon Johnson knew that his chance to gain a permanent place of greatness in our nation's history would be "to finish what Lincoln began." Here listen in as he works with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,  Senator Everett Douglas, and many others to get the 1965 act passed and to insure the safety of thousands of protesters in Alabama as they marched to secure their rights as Americans. Listen in as he pressures the Alabama Governor, George C. Wallace (no relation) into securing the safety of the marchers. It is truly a historic moment in the history of our country and thanks to President Johnson's taping system and the gift of audio recording we can listen in as it all unfolds. 

Ranked 4th as one of the best American History Podcasts of 2024
https://podcasts.feedspot.com/american_history_podcasts/

Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
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Two old friends from when one was a brand new Congressman and the other a congressional elevator operator. But fate would land one in the White House through assassination, and it would coincide with the culmination of 100 years of struggle for civil rights in America. 

Lyndon Johnson would make it his priority to "finish what Lincoln began" but to do it he would have to turn to an old friend, from a different political party, another man like Lincoln, from Illinois, Everett Dirksen , the Republican Leader, to get it done. 

Here watch them horse-trade and maneuver past a maze of obstacles to get the 1964 Civil Right's Act and the 1965 Voter's Rights Act passed, two of the most important pieces of legislation in all of American History.  

Ranked 4th as one of the best American History Podcasts of 2024
https://podcasts.feedspot.com/american_history_podcasts/

Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!