the nation and the world's reaction is one of bewilderment. and grief. at the dulles airport, 99 minutes after mr. kennedy's

death, vice president lyndon johnson and his wife at his side and the grief stricken widow with them takes the presidential oath aboard the jet, which brings him together with the body of the late president. back to washington. lyndon johnson becomes america's 36th president. john f kennedy chose him as his deputy. together, they were elected by the american people who now look to lyndon johnson to assure continuity of government upon him. now falls all the weight of leadership. and that was some of the newsreel footage from friday, november 22nd, 1963. and that deadly and dramatic day in dallas when president john kennedy was assassinated and his vice president, lyndon johnson, took office as the country's new leader. well, for the next hour, we'll hear about president johnson's work to try to heal the nation and move it forward after the

tragedy. welcome to our american history tv series, the first 100 days where we look at the early months of a new presidential administration. it's accomplishments and setbacks and the impact up to present day. our guest to discuss lyndon johnson's first 100 days is julian zelizer. history and public affairs professor at princeton. and author of the book the fierce urgency of now lyndon johnson, congress and the battle for the great society. professor zelizer, was lyndon johnson in the motorcade in dallas with president kennedy on that day. he was in the motorcade side and he was a few cars behind the president's car. so he was there at the tragedy and of course, will be sworn in soon after. what did the country know about lyndon johon on that day? well, he had been a figure in washington politics.

he had been the senate majority leader before becoming vice president. he loomed very large in washington politics. i think many people still saw him as a southern dam grad, someone liberals didn't necessarily trust, an insider, someone who was very much a creature of washington. and as vice president. president kennedy had not given him that much to do to his frustrate nation. so they didn't really know much more about him. some civil rights leaders were starting to think because of some of the speeches he makes as vice president, that he might be supportive of of what they were doing. but overall, he was not a very exciting, charismatic figure. he was not john f kennedy and i think there was a lot of questions about what exactly would he do now that he was the one in power? well, he was sworn in, of course, on air force one on the flight from dallas back to andrews air force base when the

plane landed. here's a little bit of what lyndon johnson had to tell the country. this is a sad time for all people. we have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed for me. it is a deep, personal tragedy and i know that the world shares the sorrow that mrs. kennedy and her family bear. i will do my best. that is all i can do. i ask for your help and god. lyndon johnson called it a sad day in america and he would address congress a few days later. correct. you are sad and he would do many things in his speech to congress. the most famous term from that, the words that people still

remember is when he say let, when he says, let us continue. and he had different objectives when he speaks to congress, part and to the nation part is to provide people a sense of continuity and stability, which was very important. this is still the height of the cold war, and there's all kinds of fears of what happens at a moment like this. he wanted to connect hself to the deceased president, who was very popular, including talking about civil rights in that message and assuring the country that he was going to move forward with the bill that president kennedy had finally sent to congress. after civil rights activists had changed the political tenor of the country. and it was also in many ways to introduce himself to the country. he didn't follow senate politics. he might not really have ever seen him. and here was the opportunity. so it was a speech with many ideas and themes. but let us continue in many ways was the basic message that he

wanted to convey and which he did convey. professor zelizer it was only 18 years prior that harry truman had taken over for fdr. did johnson use that as a model at all for his own president? see, to some extent. you know, johnson is very much someone who remembered the late 1940s and fifties in addition to the new deal. he was formed in that period. and that is another obviously transition that happens at the very end of the war, the beginning of another, the end of world war two, the beginning of the cold war. and that, too, when fdr dies, is a moment when the nation is concerned and policymakers are concerned about that transition to power. so for him, that had happened in his adulthood and it happened when he was part of washington. and it was very much on his mind again when he was determined not only to set up his administration, but to assure both the country and the soviet

union that this would be a moment of constant unity and stability, not one of disruption. well, we all know lyndon johnson was a man of motion and energy. what were his immediate actions? well, right away, he meet with his advisers later in the evening, and he outlines to them a very ambitious agenda. he meets with them at bedside, which he sometimes they he made them come into his bedroom. sometimes ladybird would be sleeping there. as he started talking to advisers. and he says he wants to get the civil rights bill done. he wants to bring it to a conclusion which would be a historic moment. the civil rights act of 1964, which disagreed. gates public accommodations and sets up a commission to deal with discrimination in employment. he also has ambitions to do what harry truman was unable to do when kennedy had started, meaning health care for the

elderly, medicare. that was also very much in play. and and he tells his advisers he wants to complete with those president could not. and then he has other ambitions he wants to tackle poverty in part based on his own experiences when he's younger with a big poverty bill. and and much, much more. and one other thing which people often forget. he also wanted to finish work on a tax cut that kennedy had put into motion. a tax cut for middle class americans in particular, because he believed once he did, that he could shift attention to civil rights. well, let's go back, professor zelizer, to foreign policy. what was the was there a reaction then from the soviet union? did vietnam come up early in his administration? it's not really. vietnam's already underway. obviously, several administra tions had already increased the u.s. presence there, including president kennedy, who ramped up the number of advisors there.

but if you look at public polls, for example, most americans didn't really know anything about vietnam. we don't have a military presence there during this moment. the bombing campaign he will orchestrate will be several months from then. so it's not a really big issue at the time for the united states. it's already, you know, a raging battle in vietnam and the gop. political stakes in the minds of leaders are clear, but it's. not front and center of his agenda. it won't really accelerate until august of 1964. and what about the soviet union? was there a response to the kennedy assassination and the johnson presidency early on? well, from what we know, i think the effectiveness of what johnson did was pretty strong. i mean, he doesn't give any indication from his own actions or even he quickly sets up a commission to investigate the

assassination that u.s. policy is going to change very much, even keeps on. dean rusk as secretary of state to show there's not just continuity between him and kennedy, but with some personnel and and i think, you know, in some ways, some of the instability instability might have been more prevalent with kennedy, who was younger, who was less experienced, who was seen as someone khrushchev and the soviets could test, then than with johnson. so i think overall, from what we've learned, he does a pretty good job of achieving that perception, at least. speaking of continuity, did he keep the kennedy cabinet intact for a while? he keeps some of them. so secretary of state dean rusk is one example. secretary of interior stuart udall. he keeps someone named larry o'brien, who's the legislative liaison on his team, the person who counts votes essentially for the white house. willard wirtz, the secretary of

labor. he keeps some cabinet members and that's very important to him. he also makes sure his relationship ship with the first lady, with jackie kennedy is as strong. but he also brings in his own team in addition to the cabinet, you start to see more from people like bill moyers and george reedy and walter jenkins advisors who johnson had been working with for a long time back through texas in many cases. and they're there as well. so it's a mix. but it's enough of a mix that you could see kennedy's team is not gone. and that continuity is also entrenched through the personnel. well, it was five days after the assassination of jfk that lyndon johnson spoke to congress. here's a portion of that speech. all i have to i would have given gladly. not to be standing here today.

third, the greatest leader of our time has been struck down by the families of our time. today, john fitzgerald kennedy lives on in the immortal words and works that he left behind. he lives on in the mind and memories of mankind. he lives on in the hearts of his country. no words are sad enough to express our sense of the love. no words are strong enough. to express our determination to continue the forward thrust of america that he began.

the dream of conquering the vastness of space. the dream of partnership across the atlantic and across the pacific as well. the dream of a peace corps in less developed nations. the dream of education for all of our children. the dream of jobs for all who seek and need. the dream of care for the elderly. the dream of an all out attack on mental illness. and above all, the dream of equal rights for all americans. whatever their race, our.

these and other american dreams have been vital not by his drive and by his dedication. and now the ideals and the ideals which he so nobly represent must and will be. translate into effective action. on the 20th day of january, in 19 and 61, john f kennedy told his countrymen that our nation will work, would not be finished in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.

but he said, let us begin. today and this moment of new resolve. i would say to all my fellow americans. let us continue. this is our challenge. not to hesitate, not to pull, not to turn about and linger over this evil moment, but to continue on our course so that we may fulfill the destiny that history has set. arms. our most immediate past are here

on this hill. for first no memorial oration or eulogy. good, more eloquent, we honor president kennedy's memory than the earlier possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long. we have talked long enough in this country about equal rights.

we have talked for a hundred years or more. it is time now to write the next chapter and to write it in the books of law. i urge you again, as i did in 1957 and again in 1960, to enact a civil rights law so that we can move forward to eliminate from this nation every trace of discrimination and oppression that is based upon race or color.

there could be no greater source of strength to this nation, both at home and abroad. and second, no act of ours could more fittingly continue the work of president kennedy than the early passage of the tax bill or what you report all this long year. this is a bill designed to increase our national income and federal revenue and to provide insurance against recession. that bill is passed without delay. means more security for those

now working more jobs for those now without and more incentive for our economy. in short, this is no time for delay. it is a time for action. and we are rejoined by julian zelizer princeton history and public affairs professor here to talk about the early months of lbj as president. see professor zelizer. johnson brought up civil rights in that speech as well. did he further the kennedy agenda or did he change it, etc.? i think he furthers that. it wasn't clear when kennedy passed away the bill had been sent to the house. kennedy had only done that in that final year, and he had done it in large part because the

civil rights protest were creating so much attention and concern about how activists were being violently treated in the south that he finally sends the bill. but it's not clear it's going to get through the senate. i mean, many civil rights bills had died of death in the senate and not gotten anywhere. so he moves forward with the bill. he doesn't change it. i mean, in fact, his promises, he's not going to change anything. every comma will be exactly the same. and he is able to move it to completion, which even though it starts with kennedy, that is furthering the agenda in that he he actually completes it. and then in other areas, even though the seeds of policies like the war on poverty were in the kennedy years, he takes these on as his own. and in the war on poverty becomes a signature accomplishment. we associate really with johnson even though again, the debate over the bill had started back under kennedy in congress in

1963, the democrats had 65 senators to the republicans 33, and in the house, 258 democrat and 176 republican. pretty good majorities for the democrats. it was i mean, it's a little tricky. and that back then the parties are deeply divided. so that majority includes many southern democrats who were committee chairs, both in the senate and house and who didn't support civil rights, who didn't support measures for unions, who were against even medicare and health care initiatives. so you had a really divided party between someone like in the senate, richard russell, who was the head of the southern caucus. and then on the other hand, someone like senator hubert humphrey from minnesota, who was an ardent liberal. so, so part of the navigation within the democrat party for johnson is not just i have a big majority, but it's how do i work through this deep division in

republicans were divided between midwestern republicans like senate minority leader everett dirksen, who are pretty staunchly anti-government and and liberal northeasterners like a jacob javits, who were very progressive on issues like race and health care. so the republicans helped lbj out in the early months. they do. so that coalition, it's really the southern democrats and republicans work with him on the tax cut of 1964. again, the first thing he wants to do to get it out of the gate is finish that tax bill, because he says once he does that and he believes the cut on middle class americans will boost the economy, then he can be patient in dealing with civil rights, which he knows will take a long time and getting the tax cut combined with the budget, that's pretty conservative, pretty stringent. he works with dirksen and he works with southern democrats like harry byrd, who's the head of the finance committee.

and and he'll continue to work with them on the civil rights bill of 1964 with the republicans, as opposed to the southern democrats. november 29th, 1963, only one week after the assassination of jfk, president johnson signed executive. order 11130 establish a commission to investigate jfk assassination. commonly known as the warren commission. yes. tell us about that. i mean, this is incredibly important. again, we can talk about johnson's speeches and we talk about the legislation, but front and center on the minds of most americans was the kennedy assassination. and what happened? and there were all kinds of rumors and speculation. was it something having to do with the soviets? was it something having to do with organized crime? no one really knew. so he sets up this commission and he sets up the commission

with very established figures. this is important. he wants people who will be trusted, who are seen as the epitome of washington, people such as richard russell, who i mentioned, who is the senior democratrogeorgia, gerald rdwho's a house republican from michigan, who will be the leader of the republicans during the send half of the 1960s. and allen dulles, who had been former director of the cia and of course, warren himself. so the point of the comssion was not simply their findings, but that it had legitimacy. and the commission gets to work and it produces its report and the report in the end, concludes that it was lee harvey oswald was a lone assassin who committed this horrendous crime and an outlines how it was done and initially this warren commission receives great praise. it's seen as having produced

something definitive and solid and johnson gets a lot of praise early on, although that will quickly change as questions, rumors and more start to circulate about gaps in the report and the way the commission did its work. did those different opinions about what happened start pretty early? yeah, they start very early and there's a lot of anti johnson, you know, material that comes out even during the campaign and you start to see publications and again some of its local level conspiracy kind of arguments, some of its actual publication, and it doesn't take long for the initial, you know, high watermarks that it was given to turn into criticism and speculation. again, even though through this day the findings have still held and even though there's many people who challenge it, there still has not been an alternative account that has received the same kinof

support. julian zelizer are the phone calls from the johnson white house valuable as a public policy tool? there amazing material. i think the there's two parts to that question at the time they were very valuable, meaning one of the ways in which johnson famously worked the president say, was through personal relations and through lobbying and leaning into both opponents and adversaries. and some of that he did in person, famously called the treatment where he stood over people. he was a big, big person and got into your physical space until you said yes or no, depending on what he wanted. the other way he worked the phones and you can hear these calls. it's really the best material to share with students and audiences where you can hear him doing that same kind of lobbying and working different sides of an issue and trying to figure out vulnerable cities of different people in american politics through the phone

calls. and today, they remain enormous, certainly valuable material. we don't have anything comparable. i think, where you can get into the white house, they're even better. i think in many ways than the nixon tapes and really listen with great clarity there many of them are very easy to hear how the political process works. and you can hear how a president tries to get what they want and you can also hear how politicians policy makers, legislators and activists try to do the same to the president. so for me, this is always some of the best material. i certainly have to work with. after less than a month in office, lyndon johnson signed a major piece of legislation the first clean air act. what was that? yeah, that's very important. we forget the environmental movement doesn't start in the seventies. les. politically, it starts in the sixties. and part of this of his interest comes from the first lady. lady bird, who was very interested in the environment, often called beautification.

and and she was concerned with this. but there was a lot of congressional support as well for dealing with issues like polluted waters and polluted air, which mattered not simply to environmental activists, but also to legislators who wanted money in their districts and states for measures that would deal with these kinds of issues, both for the quality of life for their constituents, but also for the actual project. so this is considered one of the first landmark environmental bills where the federal government makes a commitment to the cleanliness of the atmosphere that surrounds us. professor zelizer, we mentioned hubert humphrey a few minutes ago, but and he eventually became vice president after the 64 election. but lbj did not have a vice president during this first year in office. teddy. it wasn't. and he runs the show on his own. i think he wasn't necessarily unhappy about that.

he certainly didn't like being vice president when he was vice president. he felt he had been relegated to nothing. and obviously the circumstances under which he takes over lead him to focus on immediate issues of the day. so until he announces in august of 1964 in atlantic city that the democratic convention, that hubert humphrey, in fact, will be his vice presidential running mate, and then he becomes the vice president in 65. he's acting in some ways on his own, but he also relies on that inner circle of advisers that i mentioned, including people like walter jenkins and bill moyers, who guide him both on strategy, on politics and on speeches so he doesn't, though, have a vice president during this period. what about the role of lady bird johnson? she's really interesting. i mean, she has some public role in the one that she's most

famous for is beautification, which some focus on her interest in getting rid of billboards, aids and cleaning up the roads. but she was even very interested in washington, for example, and in these kinds of issues. and it wasn't simply the environment or visual beauty, but she did connect that to issues that afflicted a city like the district of columbia, where these kinds of measures to make things cleaner, more safe and healthier would be good for the overall city and actually important issues like poverty. she was very important to him. i mean, if you listen to the tapes, some of the most remark of all the conversations are between president johnson and lady bird, where she almost is a stand in for an adviser and there's all these tense moments in the hundred days and beyond where he's trying to figure something out there for example, his adviser close to the 64 election, walter jenkins, gets

involved in a big scandal involving his his sexuality. and you can hear these phone calls where the two of them are debating exactly what to do in a way you'd really expect from a top adviser. and i think throughout his presidency, in these early days, she's very important, even if he doesn't always agree with her in providing guidance and she speaks to him in ways many other people would be terrified to speak. lyndon johnson and you can and you can hear that on the tapes. and finally, it's not all in the first hundred days, but she will modernize the office of the first lady and she'll bring in a press secretary and she'll make it much more of a formal structure. so she's a very interesting figure. and and i do think, you know, she's very different than jackie kennedy was. jackie kennedy was almost like a movie celebrity. but she does bring a kind of style and grace that many people did not see with president johnson. so i even think in that realm,

she becomes symbolically important to to his term. well, a little less than 50 days after taking the office of presidency, lyndon johnson delivered a state of the union address. this was on january eight, 1964. here's a portion. this budget and this year's legislative program are designed to help each and every american citizen fulfill his basic hopes, his hopes for a fair chance to make good, his hopes for fair play from the law, his hopes for a full time job on full time pay, his hopes for a decent home for his family and a decent community. his hopes for a good school for his children with good teachers, and his hopes for security when

faced with sickness, our unemployed and and this administration today here and now declares unconditional war on poverty in america. and i urge this congress and all americans to join with me in that effort. it will not be a short or easy struggle. no single weapon. our strategy. strategy will suffice. but we shall not rest until that war is won.

the richest nation on earth can afford to win it. we afford to lose it. $1,000 invested in salvaging and unemployable. you today can return. on $40,000 or more in his lifetime. poverty is a national problem requiring improved national organization and support. but this attack to be effective must also be organized at the state and local level and must be supported and directed by state and local efforts for the war against poverty will not be

won here in washington. it must be won in the field in every private home, in every public office, from the courthouse to the white house. the program i shall propose will emphasize this cooperative approach to help that one fifth of all american families with incomes too small to even meet their basic needs. our chief weapons in a more pinpointed attack will be better school and better health and better homes and better training and better job opportunities to help more americans, especially young americans, escape from

squalor and misery and unemployment grows for other citizens, help to carry them. and you're watching the american history tv series, the first 100 days and we are looking at lyndon johnson's early days in 1963 and 64. our guest is julian zelizer princeton university history and public affairs professor. professor zelizer, what was the public and congress's reaction to that war on poverty line that he used in that state of the union address? i think there's level of excitement. one of the interesting parts of that war on poverty address and the actual measure is he's winning support from some of those southern conservatives who oppose him on other issues because they want money to deal with the poverty that is in their districts, white poverty in particular. so there's a guy, phil landrum, who on other issues, you

wouldn't expect to support something like this, but he does and he frames it in a very dramatic way. he doesn't say he's pushing forward a policy to alleviate poverty or to tackle poverty. it is a war on poverty. so he sets it up in very dramatic fashion, and i think it excites a lot of people because you see this and, you see if you're watching this is a president who wants to do big things. this is not simply someone who's taking care of the office in between this horrendous assassination and whoever comes next, he's going to own what he's doing. and it's seen and this is how johnson sees it as his effort not only to continue with kennedy, but to both continue and expand what his true hero, franklin roosevelt, had started in the 1930s, and the excitement is the economy was doing very well in 1963 and 64. but here's a president who's going to deal with the problems we never deal with in this case

with the war on poverty. what he's saying is we are going to deal with the structural poverty that the country always faces. and he's making a promise in that address that this nation can do better than it does or too narrowly. it's not simply respond into crisis. it's achieving something bigger than we imagined. so there's a lot of enthusiasm initially and support for this program. would it be fair to say that lbj had a pretty good sense of history and wanted to hit the ground running, knowing that early action leads further progress? oh, absolutely. it's not simply moving quickly in early. but he had a very good sense of two things. one was the limits of time in american politics. he understood time him was the ultimate commodity. and at one moment he's speaking with his advisors years early on and i found how he had taken a

paper and essentially mapped out a schedule for them to see just how short this window would be to achieve legislation. and he's anticipating by the fall of 1966, should he win reelection, that that window is going to close because the midterms will not be good, because historically they wer not good for the pnt. and the second thing he understands and people don't always appreciate this, he understood the power of congress. and even though people boasted and then and today about his uncanny political skills, h understood thalegislative branch could really stifle a president if they wanted. and so because of that he moves quickly, he moves aggressively. he thinks about sequencing of legislation. so he says, i'm going to do the tax cut first, get the economy, then i'll deal with civil rights, which southerners will filibuster and will take time, because then i'll have time on my side. and he also tries to get as much

possible before that window is going to with the midterms. so i do think that comes from his long experience in washington, working th different presidents, working on the hill, both with republican and democratic presidents. and he has a very keen sense for how politics works, for the limits of presidential power, not just what it can do. well, it was february 26, 1964, about 100 days into his administra ation that he signed the revenue act of 1964. that was a tax cut bill, correct? it is. it's a tax cut bill different than tax cuts we've seen recently in that it really focused on middle class americans. and it grew out of this argument, the period from keynesian economics makes that the best way to stimulate the economy was to cut either public spending, which johnson was not very excited to do because that would require higher budget or

cut taxes because. if you cut taxes, workers have more money. they spend the money, and the economy grows. and so he decides that's really first thing he wants to do. and coupled with the tax cut is a budget that's much lower than most liberals wanted. and he does that because on the one hand, he wants to stimulate the economy. on the other hand, he wants to appease hay byrd, who is the head of the senate finance committee. so that he wins over and kind of calms any potential opposition for the southern democrats who he knew could be problematic. so that's one of the first things he does. the architect of the great society is to cut taxes. so was there some horse trading going on, political horse trading going on when it came to civil rights legislation, tax cuts, great society programs? absolutely. he understood this was how you get legislation done.

and in some ways with not the tax cut, is it the time seen in many ways and our current language is progressive because it's not a tax cut for the rich, but the budget, which is much lower again than many of his allies wanted, is seen as a trade off. he will get harry byrd out of the way. he will get southern democrats on board with the overall budget. then he can move forward to the civil rights act, which he understood was going to many ways define his historical legacy, and then he could start work on programs arguing that he had been pretty fiscally conservative with the budget. he accepted and his focus on stimulating the economy. so, you know, that kind of trading, that kind of back and forth in terms of different bills is always the way he approaches these issues. well, one of julian zelizer. ten plus books is the fierce urgency of now.

lyndon johnson, congress and the battle for the great society. professors zelizer. when did he start using that term great society? 1964. he actually tests it in many speeches, which i learned at lower level speeches that the media wasn't paying attention to. but then it's in ann arbor, michigan, at the graduation for the university of michigan in may of 1964, where he really outlines this idea. it's credited to eric goldman and richard goodwin. richard goodwin being a speechwriter, one of his top speechwriters and goodwin actually a historian who who worked with the administration. but but the term is meant to capture idea that the country can do better than it did even in good times. and we could be a great society. not only have a strong economy, may and not only have a social

safety net, but start to help the people who year in and year out struggled. whether that included people who were living in poverty, whether it was black americans and it was a very ambitious concept. it was also like his new deal, his fair deal. you know, presidents have terms and he thought it was important to bring this all together in something that voters could understand in the speech goes incredibly well and that term becomes really the framework through which we understand and understood at the time. a lot of what he was trying to achieve. so we've talked about the warren commission, the clean air act and the tax cut bill. were there other executive orders or major legislation that passed in those early months that we should know about? i think in the first hundred days, those are the big ones. i mean, i always think of the big executive order as the warren commission.

frankly. there were there were a few others, but those are the major bills. he is working already on medicare. so medicare won't pass until of 1965, but it is important to remember that only a few months into his presidency and by the spring of 1964, he's trying different things to try to get this new program, health care for people 65 or older, through social security, through the congressional process. he's not having a lot of luck. wilbur mills, who's the chairman of the house ways and means committee from arkansas, is dead set against the legislation. a of senators were as well. but even though it's not something i would say it passes at this time, it is quite important in terms of something he's kind of just seen and he's working on the detail. so when the moment comes, which it does in 65, this bill is ready to go. julian zelizer we this is about

the fifth of the 100 days series that we've taped already. and this is the first time that we have spent a lot of time talking about the role of congress. well, that's what you get when you talk abo lyndon johnson. 's important. i mean, again, lyndon johnson really appreciated the power of congress because had been his home and there's a whole group of legislators who are very important in the first hundred days, in the throughout his presidency. but in this early period, there's all these figures that he gets. he can't run over them at all. the treatment only goes so far. so for civil rights, you can't understand the civil rights battles in this early period without understanding hubt humphrey, who is a liberal. he had been working with johnson in the fifties. he was the middle liaison some ways between the very democrats

who are entering into washington and who wanted civil rights and the leadership under lyndon johnson. and in these months he's the one trying to figure out how are they going to get this thing through the senate. he's rounding up votes in support. you have mike mansfield, who's the senate majority leader, who's quieted, really like to talk to the media, the most he usually says is yup or nope. but behind the scenes, he too, even though he's often overshadowed by lyndon johnson as majority leader, is also thinking hard about the rules. and how to get the different bills moving so that the southern democrats can't rely on their usual tricks that were often effective at obstructing measures such. civil rights. you have wilbur mills, who was the chairman of the house ways and means committee, enormously popular and no matter what johnson does in 64 to get medicare through congress.

mills stands in his way a very formidable roadblock because that committee has jurisdiction over security, which is what medicare will be part of. so these figures and everett dirksen, of course, the senate minority leader from illinois, a republican, will be very important once the civil rights bill reaches the senate and trying to break the southern debate will depend in large part on swain, a republican, dirksen. so all these figures i believe, are not just interesting seen, but they were really key to johnson's presidency and these years you don't get what's going on really unless you understand capitol hill. were there setbacks, mistakes made by the early johnson administration? oh, for sure. i mean, certainly i mean, there's many that people talk about when one big setback is his inability to get medicare

through. he will get it in 1965. but till the election, there's nothing inevitable about that happening. and he just can't figure out a way around mills. at one point, he tries a trick of sorts and gets this as an amendment and a big bill, and mills still figures out basically how to stop it. that's a big setback for civil rights activists, even though they are elated with the civil rights bill. the decision to leave voting rights out of thelation. and while in the long run it will happen and we'll have the voting rights act of 65 at the time, there's some frustration and many are worried that johnson's actually made the wrong decision rather than getting it all done. he's left the fundamental right, the right to vote for a later, a later te and obviously, this is not the 100 days, but in august of 1964, he will push the gulf of tonkin resolution through congress, which gives him huge authority

to use military force in southeast asian, even though that won't come until 1965 and 66. the process is set and the authority is there. and his decision to do that and the kinds of arguments he was making will ultimately up what many agree was a catastrophic failure for american foreign policy and for his own legacy. was the country rallying around its new president? and what about the media? yeah, i think early on it's pretty good coverage. i mean, there's questions, which is interesting to look back on right when he takes power. can even lyndon johnson get around this incredibly abstract zionist congress, where many people think at the time congress was much easier to deal with? the fact is this coalition and bipartisan coalition of southern democrats and republicans stopped everything it felt like from getting through. so there's concern in the early

media how effective he can be. there's concern about who he is. some liberals and civil rights leaders are still nervous that he's not really going to support civil rights, that in fact, he is one of the southern conservatives. just looking different but will act just the way they did but but early on i think he shows that's not who he is he shows his commitment to thinking big and to big legislation. and a lot of the media coverage very positive. his approval ratings will get very high. and, you know, going into the 64 election, he's seen as a very strong president. the legislation is happening. i mean, the tax cut, t cil rights act, the civil rightsct is is historic. so it's not just that he gets a bill. he gets the bill that we haven't really had since reconstruction. and so there's a lot of positive public media support for him and simply broader political support in washington. professor zelizer, was eric

kennedy over to the early months of the johnson administration? there was i mean, the argument often is that the death of kennedy, the tragedy of kennedy in some ways, explains some of the success of johnson. it's a positive hangover, meaning that the country was mourning and the country wanted to do what johnson asked for. let us continue. let us fulfill the things that kennedy wanted to honor, to honor the president and i think his death and his role in american life doesn't disappear. that's sad. nothing was. and i think if you take a bill like medicare, you can see even with kennedy's death, that didn't mean that a solid democrat is going to support a very expansive program that, you know, grows the reach of the federal government on health care. civil rights was not easy to do. and and it was also there's something johnson had to contend with. it was a virtue, meaning it did give him a source of strength

that the 64 convention he has pictures of himself plastered everywhere in atlantic city, but also fdr and kennedy, because that's good for him. but it's also hard to live up to kennedy, meaning even though johnson will pride himself on how much more he can do terms of legislation, he realizes just how loved kennedy was, how charismatic kennedy was. kennedy could make a speech on television that moved people to tears. that was much harder for johnson to do, and i think that weighed on him. and finally, you know, he never trusted the kennedy people, he didn't think they liked him. he thought they didn't think he was intellia and they had relegated him to a secondary role as vice president. i think that was always on his mind. he wanted to prove they were wrong. so i think the hangover, so to speak, had different kinds of impacts on him and on his presidency. so what is the impact of lyndon johnson's early days, the

impact, the legacy? well, the biggest one is civil rights. i mean, he puts into motion and moves toward completion during this period. i think one of the most consequential pieces of domestic legislation that we have had regard in race relations and even though it was limited, even though much more had to be done, this was a huge breakthrough. many, many decades after reconstruction. and the fact that he southern democrats, someone who had a very checkered at best record on civil rights, that not only does he commit it, he understands the times it changed. he understands the civil rights movement was on the right side of history. the fact he's getting that into motion again, it will finish after the 100 days. that's the most important part of this whole time. i believe. and then secondly, for all the flaws and limitations after this horrendous assassination, he is

able to stabilize the government and not just stabilize it in a sense that we're getting through the period, but to create the kind of energy and political motion that made americans feel like something was happening here, that this was going to be a big period, potentially not simply a transition period. i think that's an important part of these 100 days. and about how he takes over and owns the presidency rather than just accepting that he's the one who's going to hold the place until someone else steps in. and and for liberals and the combination of those two, combined with other initiatives like the war on poverty, i think, is important and it energizes liberalism. it creates broader ambitions for what a liberal democratic party can do. beyond what the 1930s and new deal had accomplished. and i think historically you see all of this underway in those first hundred days. julian zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at

princeton. we appreciate your spending an hour with us talking about the early days of lyndon johnson's. thanks for