doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com let'sgive a mighty welcome to the first lady of our land, mrs. lyndon b. johnson. >> i don't think mother would have ever chosen politics for her career. >> there is lyndon. >> but shemar ried him for better, for worse. >> it feels as though something has happened. >> they were thrust into this position in a very violent way. >> she assures him that he is the right man to push america forward. >> lyndon johnson has great laws. >> lady bird couldn't escape the

pentacle of that war. >> she was the only person always telling the truth. >> lyndon johnson's mood shifts were guard gann ch juan. >> lady bird knew how to stabilize him. >> who privately ran the show? lady bird. without her, he would never have been president. . throughout her time in the white house, lady bird johnson recorded an audio diary. it's a unique insight into her life as first lady. >> friday, november 22nd.

it all began so beautifully. the sun came out bright and beautiful. we were going in to dallas. >> here they come. i can see mrs. kennedy. this comes the vice president and mrs. johnson smiling. boy, this is something. >> the johnson's were products of texas with outsize pride in their state. >> it is my high honor to present to the good people of ft. worth, our beloved president of the united states. >> over the past year, lady bird has watched her husband fall into a deep depression. >> lyndon johnson was possibly the most miserable vice president in american history. he did not like being second fiddle to anybody, not even the president of the united states. >> as always, lady bird was there to lift him up.

but lbj had episodes of depression throughout his life in times of great uncertainty. one thing lbj was uncertain about when he was vice president to john f. kennedy was his own political future. >> suddenly there was a shot, loud, and then two more. >> it appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route. manage, i repeat, has happened in the motorcade route. >> this man bolted on top of lyndon, threw him to the floor and said get down. cars accelerated faster, faster. i looked up and saw the

hospital. i believed this might be what it was. as we ground to a halt, secret service began to hustle us out. a drift lying in the backseat. i -- i think it was mrs. kennedy lying over her husband's body. >> i was in washington, d.c., and a young girl in my class came in saying, i've just been listening to the radio. the president's been shot. the president's been shot. >> i knelt on the floor and prayed that it wasn't going to be so because i loved president kennedy. >> president kennedy has been assassinated. it's official now, the president is dead. >> i saw a member of my father's secret service detail walking

towards me, and he said, i'm sorry, i'm sorry. >> suddenly i found myself face to face with jackie in a small hall. i don't think i ever saw anybody so much alone in my life. i went up to her, put my arms around her and said something like, god help us all, because my feelings far often don't allow us to put the words. >> lyndon johnson, of course he wanted the presidency. he didn't want the presidency in the manner in which he got it. >> i went in to see mrs. kennedy. i asked her if i couldn't get somebody to help her change, and she says, oh no, i want them to see what they have done to jack.

>> i tried to express something of how we felt. i said, oh, mrs. kennedy, you know, we never even wanted to be vice president. and now dear god, it's come to this. >> lady bird was keenly aware that she, like her husband, was so dramatically different than her predecessor. she had an east texas accent. it was as thick as gravy on a chicken fried steak. and in the kennedy white house, they were mocked as uncle corn and his mutton chop. >> the privacy of life as the new first family prepares for the ceaseless spotlights of the white house. >> i moved into the white house. it was all draped in black. there were a lot of mixed emotions. but it was the beginning of

letting go of limbo. >> i feel as though i'm suddenly on stage for a part i never rehearsed. >> lady bird johnson said people were looking at the living and wishing for the dead. they were looking at the new president and first lady, but their hearts were aching for president and mrs. kennedy. in that moment of crisis after he takes the presidency, while she might have felt insecure, i think lady bird johnson put that on the back burner. >> lyndon johnson called people around kennedy the harvards. and they brought out all his innate insecurities that he hadn't gone to an ivy league school. they made him feel every inch a country bump kin. >> lady bird johnson has to reassure him that he is made for this moment. if anyone can carry on in the wake of john f. kennedy, it's

lyndon baines johnson. >> has thrust upon me the awesome burden of the presidency. >> he realizes he has this moment to push through the first meaningful civil rights legislation. >> in his first address to congress as president, johnson announces he will enact kennedy's stalled civil rights bill. >> let us dissolve the john fitzgerald kennedy did not live or die in vain. >> he brilliantly used the death of john kennedy. >> he tells it, this is what your slain president would have wanted. >> it is time now to write the next chapter. ♪

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career. >> lady bird would tell the white house whatever he needs comes first, my daughter second, and i'll take whatever is left over. >> they were in fact much more equals in terms of building that political career. and it became hers as well. she called it our presidency. >> i envision my job to be mom, sustainer and sometimes critic for my husband. >> there's a very revealing phone conversation that happens after a press conference. lady bird johnson gives him a very specific critique on how he performs. >> it isn't about one minute -- my critique. >> yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am. >> i thought that you looked strong, firm and like a reliable guy. >> all he wanted to hear was, i was wonderful. and all she was going to do was tell him the truth. >> during the statement, you were a little breathless and there was too much looking down, and i think it was a little too

fast from the change in pace. drop in voice at the end of sentence. >> and he's accepting it. he wouldn't have accepted it from anybody else. she was the only person who could be really blunt with him. >> she's talking to him about how she's articulating policy, and you can see he's relying on him. >> well, the trouble is they criticize you for taking so much time. >> and general, i say it was a good b plus. >> she gave him an overall grade, but it was just a b plus. and my father was aiming for the a's in life all his life. >> it's the spring of 1964, and johnson is still pushing for kennedy's proposed civil rights bill to end segregation. >> john f. kennedy had been incredibly cautious on issues of civil rights. so, johnson sees this as an opportunity to be on the right side of history and to make

really significant change. >> despite growing up in texas, very prejudice state, lyndon and lady bird johnson was very committed to racial equality. >> in the town where i was born built by slave labor in the 1850s. >> it was lady bird's nurse maid alice tittle who declared that baby claudia alta taylor was as pretty as a lady bird. >> she came from a working class family. >> when her husband was in the senate, lady bird johnson had seen first hand the scourge of segregation, legal apartheid, which she drove back washington, d.c. back to texas. >> lady bird refuses to say in

hotel of her cook. >> lyndon and lady bird johnson know there's an uphill struggle to get the civil rights of 1964. >> southern segregationists are still a contingency in the democratic camp. >> they helped him to ascend the ranks. and now they realize they're going to have to run over those same people. >> his aide said don't do this because you're running for election in november of '64. >> they know that it might cost him the 1964 election. and the presidency. >> despite what's at stake, the johnsons press ahead. >> lyndon and lady bird were wholly complementary human beings. johnson's way of getting things done was known as the johnson treatment. >> he uses his fiery temper but also his physical build to intimidate people, broker

bipartisan alliance between republicans and northern democrats. >> one of lady bird's least favorite roles was going after people who had been insulted, hue milliated, offended by her husband. >> she was more important to what he did in the white house than any staffer. >> she was an absolutely essential counterweight to his brutality. >> he could be extraordinarily cruel to lady bird johnson, particularly when she was pushing him to be his best self. >> he would compare her to other women he thought was more beautiful and say that looks like a saddle bag. why don't you take that off. >> he would not think twice about embarrassing her in public. a person with less steel could not survive. >> i wonder if lyndon johnson

let his demons graze because lady bird would summon his better angels. >> congress passes the most sweeping civil rights bill ever to be written into the law. >> just seven months into his presidency, johnson signs the 1964 civil rights act, ending legalized segregation in america. >> it's the first meaningful civil rights legislation, allow america to fulfill its promise of all men are created equal, long alluded in our history. but lbj was never going to rest on this because he knew the ephemeral nature of political power. to make a masterpiece. taste our delicious new flatbread pizzas today. panera. you can take advantage of $0 preventive dental care. ♪ wow ♪ uh-huh $0 copays on preventive dental care and the nation's largest medicare dental network.

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now, there's me and there is lyndon, a younger and slimmer lyndon. >> the courtship of lady bird and lyndon johnson has to be one of the most unusual in presidential history. >> lyndon proposed to lady bird on their very first date. she was a 21-year-old college graduate. she w he was a 26-year-old congressional aide. >> he sees something in lady bird, and she's schmidten right away. >> he's living and working in washington. his vitality and sexuality was all a turn on. >> lyndon was a lot like her father and she adored her father. >> i asked my daddy, big man,

tall and heavy. >> her mother died when she was 5, and i think it had an enormous effect on the kind of person she became. she had to be her own emotional balance from early on. >> lyndon johnson could start down the stairs in a good mood and arrive at the bottom in a bad mood and you could see that in the courtship paperers. >> they wrote nearly 90 letters in 90 days. >> he writes, i'm very unhappy tonight. all week i felt this way. in another he says i'm ambitious and very in love with you. and at the end he says how cruel it is to even let you know how despondent i felt last week. >> she discovers he is an emotionally brittle and needy person. >> she loved him, but she didn't need him as much as he needed

her. >> she was essentially a manic depressive, and lady bird evened him out. >> lady bird deliberated over lyndon's marriage proposal for two and a half months before he forced the issue. >> he says, if we don't do it now, we never will. >> 24 hours later, they were married. >> she recognized that he was the weaker person with enormous ambition, enormous possibilities, and she was willing to put up with the bad side in order to be part of the good side. >> as a democratic party delegates gather in atlantic city, all of the hoopla begins to build. >> on the eve of the democratic national convention which is about to crown its presidential candidate for the election of 1964, lyndon johnson has a profound moment of doubt. >> it's a chance for johnson to secure his own mandate, but he refuses to leave the white house.

>> i don't think i'm the man to unite the nation in this hour. >> he sees an increasingly divided nation, the civil rights act jeopardizing the southern states. they may well turn republican. he sees america is still deeply missing john f. kennedy, and they see bobby kennedy as an alternative. >> better prepared man and harvard educated man. >> johnson writes a statement, saying he is not the man to take the country forward. >> lady bird stood that he would not be happy if someone else was in the white house instead of him. >> with johnson's aides at a loss for what to do, lady bird writes her husband a carefully worded letter. >> you are as brave as harry truman or fdr or lincoln. you've been strong, patient, determined beyond any words of mine to express. to step out now would be wrong

for your country, and i can see nothing but a lonely wasteland for your future. >> suggesting to lyndon johnson that he's a coward is a brilliant way of getting him out of bed. but she also elevates his presidency to potentially being one of the greats in american history. >> i know it is your choice, but i know you're as brave as any of the 35. i love you always. bird. >> within hours of reading the letter, johnson is at the convention in atlantic city. >> my fellow americans, i accept your nomination. >> lady bird was absolutely essential to his emotional

well-being, and that was deeply tied with his ability to perform. >> prosperity for most has not brought prosperity to all. >> if lady bird johnson gets lbj to atlantic city, she is a crucial part of american history. >> most americans want an education for every child to the limit of his ability, and so do i. >> if lyndon had not won the presidency in 1965, we would not have the laws of the great society which provide the foundation for america. >> most americans want medical care for older citizens, and so do i. >> those laws that transform america at this turning point. >> i ask the american people for a mandate to begin. >> he needed the reassurance of the person he most trusted. and that was lady bird johnson.

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the 1964 presidential election is only four weeks away. >> the johnson family is busy on the campaign trail. lyndon and the mother the whistle stop in the south for a democratic defaction president. >> it's shortly after the civil rights act is passed, and southerners are furious. they think johnson is attacking

their way of life. >> many of my father's advisers said don't put campaign money into the south. they're not going to support us. but my mother couldn't give the south away without a try. >> i've got too much respect for the south and too much in common with it and too much love for it to count it off. >> it's incredibly dangerous to do this. and this is at a time when three people in mississippi were murdered simply for trying to get some african-americans registered to vote. >> johnson has no place here whatsoever. the whole state of georgia. >> georgia's range runs strong in my family. >> she challenges the very system she grew up in. and to say, i support civil rights, you should as well, she ends up being faced with threats from the ku klux klan. >> well, it was dangerous.

and there were some threats to drove the train. you would see signs that said, black bird, fly away home. lady bird's husband was running against barry gold waur who was trying to take advantage of the opportunity to woo southern democrats to the republican party. >> there were a lot of people who would try to drown you out. i got mad and i was ready to go out and whip them. >> this, my friends, this is a country of many people, and i respect your right to express your own. now, it's my turn to express mine. thank you. >> lbj fears he's lost the entire south. the three of the eight states lady bird campaigned in will buck the trend and go for her husband on election day. >> my father met us at the end

of the road. she looked at him, and you could see in his eyes, you got an a plus, girl, you got an a plus. >> two weeks before the election, johnson's presidential campaign is hit by a scandal. news is about to break that chief aide walter jenkins as been arrested after being caught having sex with a man in a ymca men's room. >> as a president who must be using every power of his office to cover up the sorriest of rumors. >> the arrest of walter jenkins is titanic. it was stigma. lbj knew that it would be not just a stain on his administration but on the presidency itself. >> jenkins was so close to the president, he could easily be

blackmailed. he knew everything, foreign policy, things that nobody else knew. >> if this type of man had information vital to our survival, it could be compromised very dangerously. >> walter jenkins had been working for lbj for 25 years. and he is suicidal. >> lady bird immediately steps in and calls her husband, who is away campaigning. >> i'm going to say that this is incredible for a man that i've known all these years, a devout catholic, father of six children -- >> it's not something for you to get involved in, now. >> she is all about humanity, and he is all about cut him off. >> then she appeals to johnson's own self-preservation. >> i think if we don't grant some support to him, i think

that we will lose the entire love and devotion of all the people who have been with us. >> the presidency, honey. >> they're going back and forth. and she is like a rock. she is not budging. >> finally, lady bird decides to act alone. >> my love, i pray for you along with walter. you're a brave, good guy, and if you read some things, it'll be along the lines i just said to you. >> lyndon wanted her to keep quiet, but she was like a ship under sail. it was absolutely defiance of lyndon's orders. >> lady bird summons the editor of the "washington post" and issues a personal statement. >> my heart is aching today for someone who has reached the end point of exhaustion and dedicated service to his

country. he is now receiving the medical attention he needs. >> nothing could persuade her not to issue this statement. she is johnson's moral compass. >> i know our family and all of his friends, and i hope all others pray for his recovery. >> in that moment, you see the steel magnolia that is lady bird johnson. >> the johnsons win the election, a landslide victory. >> an overwhelming mandate has elected lyndon b. johnson. >> getting the greatest landslide in american history at that point gave lyndon johnson the mandate he needed to push through the most ambitious ledge slaw tif agenda since franklin roosevelt pushed through the new deal.

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i, lyndon baines johnson, do solemnly swear that i will faithly execute the office -- >> handed a clear mandate, lyndon johnson pushes through one of the most ambitious political programs in american history. >> in the land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. >> if today the president passes one bill that's considered a great achievement, lyndon johnson passed hundreds of bills, med kaicare and medicaid the fair housing act, all the civil rights acts, clean air and clean water. we are living in lyndon johnson's america today. >> this is an exciting experience for me to know that hundreds of thousands of children are being given the devotion and attention they

need. >> that's always a program to give poor children preschool education that affluent children are getting. and lady bird was a major factor in getting the head start program passed. it's one of the most popular programs you've ever been asked today. >> but at the same time, lady bird watches a dark cloud descend over her husband. >> u.s. navy films show our jet fighter bomber plastering north vietnam facilities. >> johnson approves sustained bombing in north vietnam and deploys the first american combat troops. but privately, he has been harboring doubts about the war for the past year. >> it just worries the hell out of me. i don't think it's worth fighting for and i don't think we can get out. it's just the biggest damn mess. >> lyndon lives in a cloud of trouble with few ray of light. every moment a new struggle,

every moment a new direction. >> lyndon johnson didn't start. this was a conflict that truman was involved in and eisenhower and kennedy. >> johnson was out of his depth and listening to the so-called experts who were cooking the numbers. >> they all said, just a few more troops, mr. president, and we've got this thing won. but he's getting reports every single day about how many troops won't come back. >> ours was the last presidential family that had two sons-in-law that went to war. so, my father felt not just as a president but as a father and a grandfather. >> chuck left for vietnam and my father did see me worrying. and i represented all those other mothers and wives of all the men that were over there. >> we see these men going off to war, even though lady bird never

quite gets herself to say, my husband can't be responsible for the deaths of my sons-in-law. that's the oxygen she begins to breathe. >> nature had always been my mother's solace. it was her first love. when her mother died and she was three months shy of six, she knew that nature could lift the spirits of all our people. >> the countryside sprang to life today with the arrival of mrs. johnson and her entourage. >> this is my first trip to the redwoods. i've been wanting to come here all my life. >> she embarks on a campaign to beautify america. >> getting on the subject of beautification is like picking up a tangle wool, all the threads interwoven, recreation

and urban renewal and mental health and the crime rate and the war on poverty. >> when she talks ability urban poverty and race and access to national beauty, these are big ideas. >> lady bird made the connection between an impoverished blighted environment and how people behave. >> she was an environmental pioneer. >> in had an effort to clean up the delap dated capital, lady bird builds landscape parks for others to follow. >> she also saw how billboards scarred the earth, and she wanted them removed. >> lady bird leads the fight for a highway beautification act, to restrict billboards and relocate junkyards. >> it was a very controversial piece of legislation, and a terrific battle with the billboard lobby, which had a tremendous amount of power. >> the billboard industry targeted her as someone who was overstepping. she was not an elected figure. >> when republicans try to sink

the bill, her husband steps in. >> johnson said, i love this woman, this is what she wants and we're going to get it done. >> johnson's relentless. there's a congressional party at the white house. he would not let members of congress come down until they passed lady bird's bill. >> the highway beautification act is the result of the first open political partnership between a president and a first lady. >> thank god for that bill. if you're driving in the united states today, you can see the land. the key to getting that done was lady bird. >> as the death toll from vietnam mounts, protesters converge on washington. >> we could hear people marching down pennsylvania avenue. and the next morning, that was our wake up call as well. >> lyndon johnson signed a letter to the spouse or mother

of everybody that was killed in vietnam. it took an enormous toll. >> he really only had lady bird as his solace. and johnson was unraveling in the white house. >> she's worried that the stress of vietnam's going to kill him. >> just five years before, we had lost john f. kennedy to an assassins bullet. lyndon johnson nearly died of a heart attack in 1955, and she doesn't want to put the nation through a crisis like that. >> lady bird couldn't escape the pentacle of that war. >> sometimes she would go down to the basement where there was a bowling alley, and she would release some of her tension. that was the tragedy of the johnson era, that it was completely swamped by this distant war that tore the nation

apart. it was the deepest rupture in our country since the civil war. >> this was the largest demonstration in new york's history. best estimates were around -- >> johnson is under attack over vietnam by both doves and hawks. his popularity has plummeted. polls show he would lose an election by a landslide. >> she was concerned about splitting the nation and intense feeling for and against vietnam, the war. and i think she felt that he couldn't unite it. >> lady bird feels it's time for them to leave the white house. she urges johnson to declare he will not seek a second term. >> this is the same man who has this hunger for power and what it can do for america. and he sees a little more juice in the presidency. before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new?

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did you go to the white house today with a personal anti-vietnam war protest? >> i did not go to the white house with a personal anything. >> as the president continues to agonize over whether to seek a second term, lady bird walks into a storm. >> what i said to mrs. johnson upset her, i was telling her the

truth. >> when you aursa kit is invite the white house, she confronts lady bird. >> you shot the best in this country off to be shot. they don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched from their mothers to be shot in vietnam. >> when those people are disproportionately black, disproportionately poor and disproportionately working class. >> the parents themselves are angry. i've bourn a child that is going to be taken away from me and get thrown into something that i don't even understand. >> lady bird being called out for something she had no control over, she had no way of changing the course of this war. >> and i think that she saw no end in sight. >> since the middle of january, more than 48,000 south vietnamese -- >> today was a crescendo of a

day. at 9:00 in the evenings, lyndon was to make his talk on the war. the speech was not yet firm. there were revisions. >> i can't read this substitute you've got here. >> only lady bird and a few white house insiders know about johnson's deliberations over whether to seek a second term. >> even lady bird johnson doesn't know whether he's going to actually do it or not. >> we all wanted him to run. nobody in washington could do things with congress that he had done. >> and i -- what did i feel was cry out to go on right up to the last. and if we lost, well and good, we were free. but we could be free without all this. >> daughter linda johnson is three months pregnant. that morning her husband boarded a plane for vietnam. >> i was scared to death to let him go.

if i could have run up the stairs to the airplane, i could have done it. >> linda said to her father, if he gets killed, i'll never forgive you. and lady bird said she never saw such a hurt look in his face since his mother died. >> we saw it was killing him, but he would fight to bring our boys home. >> lyndon went to him and said quietly, remember pacing and drama. i did not know what the end would be. >> good evening, my fellow americans. tonight i want to speak to you of peace in vietnam and southeast asia. >> johnson announces a partial halt to the bombing and calls for hanoi to join peace talks. but that's not the end of his address. >> with american sons in the field far away, i do not believe that i should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal

partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office. >> the speech takes a turn. wholly unexpected by the american people. >> i shall not seek and i will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. >> that is colossal news to the american people and to the world. >> we all went up to him and told him how much we cared about him. >> it looks like a thousand pounds has been lifted off of his shoulders. >> just as lady bird johnson plays this pivotal role in her husband getting the presidency in his own right in 1964, she also plays just as pivotal a role in ensuring that he steps down from the presidency with honor. >> he wants to give all of his

attention to try to get peace and not trying to get elected. >> lady bird johnson had inserted in the speech, i will not accept. she is putting a definite closure on the situation by saying not only will i not seek it, but i won't accept it either. and i think the mesh peopameric saw it rightfully as an act of political courage. >> at last a decision had been reached, although the actual exit is still nine months away, for these nine months i'm going to bring the best i possibly can. >> martin luther king, jr., was killed tonight in memphis, tennessee. >> the johnsons last months in the white house are some of the most tumultuous in american history. the assassination of martin luther king, jr., sparks riots across the nation.

>> senator robert kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. today. >> the stations of the television kept repeating this hideous story. this can't be happening. remembering martin luther king just two months ago today and president kennedy. what is happening to our country? >> thank god lyndon johnson was not running for re-election. that was like the hand of god was on the shoulder of the united states because he was able to say, i'm just trying to hold this country together. >> in the wake of bobby kennedy's assassination, lyndon johnson uses that moment to push through much needed gun control legislation, the most comprehensive america has ever had. >> the golden coin is spent. this is the last full day in the white house. >> peace in vietnam has alluded johnson, but by the time they exit the white house, the

administration has left behind the greatest legacy of social reform in american history. >> i went to bed with a line of poetry ringing in my mind. i celebrate my glad release, the silence and the camp. and yet for me it's not quite the exit line because i had loved almost every day of these five years. >> it's hard to overrate lady bird's importance in the johnson presidency. >> i can't even imagine lyndon johnson operating in the white house without lady bird. she had a great deal of power, but she worked very hard to conceal it. >> he could never have done what he did without her. >> lady bird never stopped working to protect the environment.

on her 70th birthday, she founded the national wild fire research center, dedicated to preserving native landscapes, the culmination of her life long love of nature. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com great to have you along this hour. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm robyn curnow. you're watching cnn. just ahead on the show, covid vaccine shots could be in the arm of some americans by mid-december. the head of operation warp speed is counting on it as a record number of americans spent tonight in hospital with the virus. a shake up in president trump's legal team as his effort to overturn the election results reaches a critical point. >> president-elect biden stocking his cabinet with experience and diversity.