senate, the same way you treat mike mansfield. you treat gerry ford the same way you treat speaker mccormick. they want something, you help them. we need them. we need them. and those bills, those civil rights bills could have never happened without republican votes, and lots of other bills never could have happened. and he also said with respect to medicare, it's a complicated piece of legislation. if we don't have half the republicans, we'll never get the health care bills, all the complicated bills through because they'll beat us in the states, they'll beat us in the appropriations committees. their guys in the corporations will beat us. he incull indicated us with that. >> you mentioned senator mcgovern. talk about that a little bit, senator. because you were on the end, the other end of a lot of it. you were against the war. you fought him. it was an epic battle.

but yet he still kept a part of that relation sort of compartmentalized, didn't he? frankly, he need you'd on a couple of things. >> well, before i ran for president, i had been hammering our vietnam involvement for ten years. i finally decided that the senate is a great place, but one senator from a small populated state like south dakota is not going to have much impact on a national policy such as the war. and i called up the white house and bill moyers took my call. >> and i said do you think you could arrange for me to see the president? and without thinking about it too long, he said yes, you can.

you want to come tonight about 7:00? the very same night. i thought he would say it would be a week or so before we can get to you. but that was the way the johnson white house functioned, it's the way the president functioned. so i walked in there that night. it was the first time i had been in the oval office, and i have to confess, i was kind of overwhelmed with the atmosphere. and johnson was a big man. he got up and took hold of both of my lapels here, and he stood up. he was two to three inches taller than i was. he's got his headway back like this. i was looking right up his

nostrils. and i learned later this was called the nostril treatment. and he said, now, george, i know why you're here to talk to me. i had joe row in here the other day, and he just wants me to pull out of there today, get our troops out of there. you know i can't do that. then i had scoop jackson in here, and he thinks we ought to bomb the hell out of them. and i can't do that. so i'm just following a common sense middle course. i'm trying to honor the troops that are there. i'm trying to keep in mind that the standing of the united states in the world is on the line. and we just can't surrender to a bunch of little communists out there in vietnam.

he -- it was difficult for me to speak after that. but i said, well, mr. president, i have a memorandum here. i don't want to take too much of your time. but i'd like to leave that with you. it kind of reviews the history of how we got in there. it also tells what happened to the french. they had the best army in europe in vietnam, and they got whipped by those miserable communists out there. and he said i can't either throw bombs at them or i can't pull out. i'm just trying to follow the middle course. i said well maybe you can look over my -- he said george, god darn it, don't give me another memorandum. i got a -- i got a drawer full

of the memorandums from bill fulbright and mike mansfield and god knows how many else. i don't have time for history right now. i've got boys out there on the front line that are dying, that are fighting for their country. i can't sit around here reading history lessons. so i thought i wasn't communicating very well. and i thanked him for listening to me. and i left. but he never held my option to the war against me. do you think he did, bill? you were in the white house then. >> no, you were exceptional. [ laughter ] >> right after i won the presidential nomination in '72, i called him and said we'd like

to come down to texas and see you and sarge shriver, who was one of my vice presidents went down with me. and they met us at the plane. we landed right at the ranch. and the president and lady bird were each driving a golf cart. and sarge went with lady bird. i went with the president. we went up to the house. and a it was a delightful experience. he said now let's get one thing clear, george. you think i'm crazy for keeping us in vietnam all these years. i didn't start that war, but i'm expected to finish it. and i know you think i'm goofy on it. i think you are.

so let's not talk about vietnam. and he gave me some good advice. he said, george, if i were you, you've been a great critic of your government the last ten years. if i were you, i would announce for president telling the country how much they have done for you and how much the united states government means to you. tell them about your war days. tell them about what you as a junior senator from south dakota, the debt you feel to the people of the united states. you know, he couldn't have given me better advice. i'm sorry that other things crowded in and i didn't stick

with that routine very much, but i should have. i think i would have gotten more votes. i might have carried two states instead of one. [ laughter ] >> bill moyers, what was it like to just work for lyndon johnson? >> you had to run just to stay up when he was walking. he never stopped. he was consuming in his passions and his objectives and demanding, but he never asked more of us than he gave himself. it took 12 of us, 10 of us i think there were in the white house to just keep up with him. he was 13, as i've said before of the most interesting complicated men i have ever met. and playing his moods and reading them and trying to integrate them and advance an agenda that all of us had a part of was really a demanding task. it was exhilarating.

i was exhausting. it was rewarding and it was sometimes punishing. but you always were satisfied that the result made the effort worthwhile. >> evan, how did he know so much? he seemed to know everything about everybody. >> well, j. edgar hoover helped him. [ laughter ] he was a sponge of political intelligence. today big controversy over these political intelligence firms that looked for the intelligence. lyndon johnson got it in the normal course of his business. he had the three teletype machines in his office. the three television sets in his office. he talked incessantly to people. he -- you thought when he was talking, he was only talking. but he was listening to your responses and to the silence between the sentences of your response. he always knew other people's price, other politicians' price. for some it was a dinner at the white house.

for some it was a photograph of -- a signed photograph for a mother-in-law. for others it was a dam. he once said to frank church, senator from idaho, whom he never forgive the way he did you for opposing him. when senator church tried to tell him what to do about vietnam and started quoting walter litman, the prominent columnist of the day, he said the next time you want a dam on the snake river, you go talk to walter litman. i spent more time at his instruction with republicans than i did with democrats. because he knew, as you said, he was going to need those votes. and judith and i, we worked together on our broadcast. and we were filmed screening a small clip the other day from the signing of the 1964 act, civil rights act a to which walter was the floor manager. and a deliverer. and when he finished signing that act with all of the pens,

one would have thought -- i thought standing in the become of the room he would take the first pen and hand it to martin luther king. he didn't. he took the first pen and handed it to everett dirksen. that was everett dirksen's reward for doing what lyndon johnson persuaded -- thought he persuaded him to do in that phone call. he understood the importance. you ask about washington today. president obama does not enjoy personal persuasion. he doesn't like other politicians, at least that's the impression i get as a journalist. i don't know him personally. lyndon johnson did. and he also did not have a party of no. the republican party today is not the party that we confronted and ran against in 1964. it's a party of no. so much rhetoric has poisoned people's attitudes towards the government, that is to the republican party's interest to make government inefficient so they can use it to gain power. well didn't have that.

there were still -- even on the most of the republican side, bert higgenlooper, a desire to make government work even though they wanted a smaller government. and there was that feeling that government needed to deliver. and he exploited that, knowing that they had that in common that isn't the case today. you know that better than anybody. >> let me ask you, evan, you were a young staffer working for him. we know he liked fdr and sort of almost thought of him as his father. but who were his role models? >> well, i asked him once in the closing months of the administration we were flying to texas. and there wasn't as much to do, and we had more time to talk. and i asked him on the plane what other politician, mr. president, other than yourself do you most admire. [ laughter ] i phrased it carefully.

and i expected that he would say richard russell of georgia. i expected that he would say fdr, who clearly there was an umbilical link between the two of them. i expected he might say mr. sam rayburn. without hesitation, he said the most skilled politician i ever knew in washington was dwight d. eisenhower. and he began talking about eisenhower's political genius, which was a revelation to me. he said who do you think the first person was that i called from air force one after the assassination -- the second person after i called rose kennedy? i called eisenhower. i said i haven't been elected in this terrible tragedy. i don't know what to do. i want you to come to washington right away and give me advice. and he said eisenhower came down from gettysburg and said mr. president, i'm a military man. i give advice in writing. and my secretary ann whitman is

retirement in about a apartment on connecticut avenue. let her come down and i will dictate to you while you go to the events of the funeral, i'll dictate my advice. and president johnson said the advice he wrote in that memo became the script for the first 100 days of my presidency. and he said during that entire time, when eisenhower advised me to speak to a joint session of the congress and make that my inaugural address, to call business leaders together and show the unity of the business community, all these things eisenhower recommended. take the kennedy program and make it a memorial to the slain president. he said during all the time that i was following the script, my approval ratings were way up in the 70s. and he said when i came to the last page of the script and it ended, my approval ratings went down to 50. but i thought it was amazing that -- an example of this bipartisanship that you heard of that people on this panel talking about that he selected a

republican president as the most skilled politician he had known. >> that's a new story. i had never heard that before. >> two quick points on that. in 1954 when i was a summer employee on his staff, i was 20 years old, a clerk in the mailroom of no significance, but he called me over and insisted that i go to an eisenhower press conference, the first press conference i had ever seen of a president. and he said, i can't remember the exact quote, but it was, you watch president eisenhower. he knows how to get what he wants by not appearing to want it. and johnson was partly that way. then on the night we flew back from dallas after the tragedy there and went to the executive office building where the vice president had his suite, the first call he asked me to make was to dwight eisenhower, and he allowed me to listen to that conversation. and again, after that conversation was over, he said amazing man, amazing man.

he just understood how you could get what you want by not appearing to want it. twice he said that. >> senator mondale, i'm really struck by what i'm hearing here. here is a man who called people when he needed help and was not afraid to say i really need some help here. i really need you to help me. you're kind of -- you can talk about both of these worlds. how is, and bill touched on this. how is washington today different from what it was in those days? >> i think bill touched on it. i'm i would say depressed about it. i was there in the senate, a young man, replaced humphry who became vice president. johnson was in his honeymoon period. he had this wonderful program of social justice that i believed in and believe in today. and he was using his energy and

his strength, we talked about it, to keep the system moving. and he did it on a bipartisan basis. don't forget that about 20 democrats were southerners. and most of them were committed to discrimination, and that was the center of their political careers. a lot of good people there, but that was the reality. so in order to get progressive legislation passed, the numbers told you unless you could do it on a bipartisan basis, forget it. so everything we did there, and johnson was leading, hubert was in there and the rest, began with how can we make this a bipartisan program. every civil rights bill of any significance ended up in dirksen's office. if you wanted a civil rights act, sooner or later you went to see dirksen. and if he would sign on, you could pass it. if he wouldn't, he wouldn't.

i remember i handled fair housing. and it looked finally they were going to pass it. and phil hart said to me what can i do for you. i said i would like my name on this bill soy tell the folks back home i'm getting something done. he said can't do that. why not? dirksen's name goes on the bill. and that's how we got things done. now it seems to me that whole dialogue, everything that is a train wreck. there is no sense of getting things done or serving broader purposes. and we got to do something about it. johnson did in his time. i don't think it's being done now. >> well, what happened? what caused this change? ervin? >> i think what we have seen over the years is what might be called the emptying out of the center. richard scanlon who was president kennedy's census director used to say that the

game of politics in america is played between the 45 yard lines. and if you stray into the end zones, you lose support. the congress of the united states today has emptied out the space between the 45 yard lines, and everybody on both sides is clustered in the end zones. and solutions happen in the center. solutions hap s happen when peo the 45 yard lines work things out. i had a young lawyer working for me at the fcc who once observed that political agnostics are the ones who get things done in washington. those who are not idealogically so committed to one side or the other that they cannot can compromise. and those political agnostics who simply love the process, love the idea of solving problems together get together, and they're not so idealogically divided. they can find solutions together. we've had an emptying out of the center and a filling up of the extremes, both in the country

and in the congress. and i think that's the change. >> well, joe, i mean compromise has now become a dirty word. compromise is something that will get you beat when you run for congress now. >> sure. when you say i'm willing -- >> and you have to give. and god knows we gave. but i think there are a couple of other things there was real focus. i mean, i don't think any of us had any doubt about where johnson wanted to go, what he wanted to get done. civil rights was an overarching issue. whatever other diversions there were, the war on poverty that was mentioned earlier, or the health bills or what have you. and i think -- i think you also knew how to grab an opportunity. even the grimmest opportunity. we proposed civil rights in 1966. nothing hammed. '67, nothing happened. finally in early '68, he managed to get it out of the senate -- i

mean the fair housing bill, i'm sorry. finally managed to get the fair housing bill out of the senate. it was impossible to move it in the house. you may recall manuel seller, the congressman from brooklyn, jewish district with blacks moving in, didn't want to touch the bill. martin luther king is assassinated. i will never forget this. it was an awful night. the next morning, before he invited all the black leaders in from all across the country to sit around that cabinet table that morning. but he said to me, we're going to get our civil rights bill. give me a draft of the letter to speak mccormick. if we get nothing else, we'll get our fair housing bill. now he sent a letter to the speaker that morning, and he sent a letter to jerry ford. he said we've got to do this. and had to find a floor manager.

he knew seller wouldn't take it. peter rudno, talked peter rudino into taking the billiton floor. we passed the fair housing bill within a month. peter rudino incidentally almost lost reelection in 1968 because he was a floor manager for that bill. he barely won. but then years later, as he had one black primary opponent after another, he kept beating them because of what he did on the fair housing bill. and the other thing, let me just -- bill knows this. he had a phenomenal sense of humor. i mean, i think back to those awful riots after the king assassination. i would keep bringing him reports from the fbi, one city after another. we had to bring in troops, and we kept doing that. and i got this message about stokley carmichael. and there was a -- it was a

report. i brought it over to the mansion. johnson read it. said stokley carmichael is organizing a mob at the corner of 14th and u streets to march on georgetown and burn it down. well, georgetown is where all these columnists and tv commentators that were driving johnson crazy lived. and johnson looked at it, read it, he said goddamn, i've waited 35 years for this night. [ laughter ] >> two other quick points on that. >> let senator mcgovern was just wanting to say something here. >> i just wanted to say as a critic on the vietnam issue, that before i went into politics, i was a history professor. do you believe that? >> yeah, i do. >> anyway, i used the gi bill to go all the way through northwestern university to a ph.d in history.

and i think, just thinking about what johnson did on civil rights, what he did on poverty, what he did on education, all these other things, that whole great society, program, those were good ideas. some people ridicule the great society. why would you ridicule a president who was trying to build a great society in the united states? i thought every point in that program made america stronger. and if we had gotten the whole thing in full force, it would have made us even stronger. i honestly believe, and i'm speaking now as an old history prof that with the exception of roosevelt, who had four terms in the white house, i think lyndon johnson was the greatest president of the 20th century.

[ applause ] >> senator, let me ask you one thing. do you think that had kennedy not gone to vietnam, do you think that had it to do over, do you think lyndon johnson would have gone to vietnam? >> well, i can only say this i never knew during all that debate time about vietnam that president johnson knew that we made a dreadful mistake getting involved in vietnam militarily. you read a brilliant historian who is on the program tomorrow, mr. beschloss, who has written a book, not so much written a book, but published a book on the johnson tapes. i didn't even know that johnson had a tape recorder going either. i thought that was just nixon. [ laughter ]

but anyway, here is -- here is the tapes. and he is talking to richard -- >> russell. >> richard russell of georgia, who is chairman of the senate formulations committee. and this is in the first days when president johnson was sworn in, after john kennedy's assassination. in those first days, he said dick, what the hell are we going to do about that mess out there in vietnam? we never should have gotten into that place. and dick russell, who i also didn't know felt the same way about it, he said i agree, it's a mess. i don't know how you get out of there now. maybe one thing you could do, you could find those guys out there in saigon that got rid of

old zian who was assassinated and get that gang to send a communique to us asking us to leave. and he said maybe if our so-called allies out there are asking us to leave -- but he said i don't know how you get that done. well, he went on some time about it. dr. beschloss can give more on this. but lyndon johnson understood perfectly everything i knew about vietnam, everything fulbright knew, everything mike mansfield knew, but he didn't know how as a sitting president of the united states to get out of if there without looking like he was the first president to surrender in war. and he was very proud of america. he was proud of our country, and he had great feeling. he was very proud of the united

states government, not like these crazy extreme right-wingers that are assailing the federal government day and night on television, wherever they can be heard. he loved -- lyndon johnson loved the united states government. he loved the senate. he loved the house of representatives under sam rayburn. he admired the supreme court. he loved the constitution, the declaration of independence, the whole shebang. and he just didn't want to surrender under those conditions. >> bill, you were about to? >> you feed into what i was going to say a moment ago about what has changed. he was a master parliamentarian. he would have been terrific in the house of parliament, i think, and he was a great majority leader. that's when i spent is some of my time, early time with him. and he understood procedure, respected proceed year. yes, politics is improvisation. it's scratch my back, i'll scratch yours.

but it's also about procedure. and that has changed. when richard russell who was his dutch uncle, he was much closer to lbj than lbj was to fdr. when richard russell was beginning to mount a filibuster on the civil rights legislation, lbj asked him to come down to the white house. and he called me on the phone in my office, said bring me a copy of the constitution. so i didn't know why, but i took him a copy of the constitution. and he asked me to stay. and he also said put less scotch in my drink than you put in richard russell's, which i did. and so when russell was ratcheting up his argument about why he had to lead a filibuster, lbj handed him the constitution. said dick, go through that. russell said i've read that, mr. president. i know what's in the constitution. no, i'm serious. point out how many times it umentions the filibuster. the constitution doesn't mention the filibuster once. one of the great differences