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Clark Clifford
9th United States Secretary of Defense
In office February 29, 1968 – January 20, 1969
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Deputy	Paul H. Nitze
Preceded by	Robert McNamara
Succeeded by	Melvin R. Laird
Chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board
In office 1963–1968
President	John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	James Rhyne Killian
Succeeded by	Maxwell D. Taylor
2nd White House Counsel
In office 1946–1950
President	Harry S Truman
Preceded by	Samuel Irving Rosenman
Succeeded by	Charles S. Murphy
Personal details
Born	Clark McAdams Clifford (1906-12-25)December 25, 1906 Fort Scott, Kansas, United States
Died	October 10, 1998(1998-10-10) (aged 91) Bethesda, Maryland, United States
Resting place	Arlington National Cemetery
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Margery Kimball "Marny" Clifford (1931–1998, died 2000)
Alma mater	Washington University in St. Louis
Profession	Lawyer Political adviser
Military service
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1944–1946
Rank	Captain

Clark McAdams Clifford (December 25, 1906 – October 10, 1998) was an American lawyer who served United States Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, serving as United States Secretary of Defense for Johnson.

In his later years, Clifford became involved in several controversies. He was a key figure in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal, which led to a grand jury indictment. He also referred to President Ronald Reagan as an "amiable dunce" at a Washington dinner party.^[1]

Early life and career[link]

Clifford was born in Fort Scott, Kansas. He attended college and law school at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and built a solid reputation practicing law in St. Louis between 1928 and 1943.

He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946, reaching the rank of Captain and serving as assistant naval aide and then naval aide to President Truman, for whom he became a trusted personal adviser and friend.

Presidential advisor[link]

Clifford went to Washington, D.C., first to serve as Assistant to the President's Naval Advisor, after the naming of a personal friend from Missouri as the President's Naval Advisor. Following his discharge from the Navy, he remained at Truman's side as White House Counsel from 1946 to 1950, as Truman came rapidly to trust and rely upon Clifford.

Clifford was a key architect of Truman's campaign in 1948, when Truman pulled off a stunning upset victory over Republican nominee Thomas Dewey. Clifford encouraged Truman to embrace a left-wing populist image in hope of undermining the impact on the race of third-party Progressive candidate Henry A. Wallace, who had served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice-President from 1941 to 1945. Clifford also believed that a strong pro-civil rights stance, while sure to alienate traditional Southern Democrats, would not result in a serious challenge to the party's supremacy in that region. This prediction was foiled by Strom Thurmond's candidacy as a splinter States' Rights Democrat, but Clifford's strategy nonetheless helped win Truman election in his own right and establish the Democratic Party's position in the Civil Rights Movement.

In his role as presidential advisor, perhaps his most significant contribution was his successful advocacy, along with David Niles, of prompt 1948 recognition of the new state of Israel, over the strong objections of Secretary of State, General George Marshall.^[2][3][4]

After leaving the government in 1950, Clifford practiced law in Washington, D.C., but continued to advise Democratic Party leaders. One of his law clients was Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, and Clifford tried to assuage Truman's suspicion of Kennedy and his father, Joseph P. Kennedy.

In 1960, Clifford was a member of President-elect Kennedy's Committee on the Defense Establishment, headed by Stuart Symington. In May 1961, Kennedy appointed Clifford to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which he chaired beginning in April 1963 and ending in January 1968.^[5]

After Johnson became president in November 1963 following Kennedy's assassination, Clifford served frequently as an unofficial White House Counsel and sometimes undertook short-term official duties, including a trip with General Maxwell Taylor in 1967 to Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Secretary of Defense[link]

On January 19, 1968, Johnson announced his selection of Clifford to succeed Robert McNamara as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Clifford estimated that, in the year just prior to his appointment, he had spent about half of his time advising the President and the other half working for his law firm.^{[citation needed]}

Widely known and respected in Washington and knowledgeable on defense matters, Clifford was generally hailed as a worthy successor to McNamara. Many regarded the new secretary as more of a hawk on Vietnam than McNamara, and thought his selection might presage an escalation of the U.S. military effort there. Clifford attempted to allay such fears when, responding to a query about whether he was a hawk (favoring aggressive military action) or a dove (favoring a peaceful resolution to the Vietnam War), he remarked, "I am not conscious of falling under any of those ornithological divisions."

The new Secretary did not change the management system McNamara had installed at The Pentagon, and for the most part assigned internal administration to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul H. Nitze. Clifford made no effort to depart from McNamara's policies and programs on such matters as nuclear strategy, NATO, and military assistance, but he favored the Sentinel anti-ballistic missile system, to which McNamara had given only lukewarm backing. Clifford wanted to deploy the system, and supported congressional appropriations for it. One important effect of Sentinel construction, he thought, would be to encourage the Soviet Union to enter arms control talks with the U.S. Indeed, before Clifford left office, the Johnson administration made arrangements for negotiations that eventually led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972.

Clifford continued McNamara's highly publicized Cost Reduction Program, announcing that over $1.2 billion had been saved in fiscal year (FY) 1968 as a result of the effort. Faced with a congressionally mandated reduction of expenditures in FY 1969, Clifford suspended the planned activation of an infantry division and deactivated 50 small ships, 9 naval air squadrons, and 23 Nike-Hercules missile launch sites.

By the time Clifford became secretary, Defense Department work on the fiscal year 1969 budget was complete. It amounted in total obligational authority to $77.7 billion, almost $3 billion more than in FY 1968. The final FY 1970 budget, which Clifford and his staff worked on before they left office after the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency, amounted to $75.5 billion TOA.^{[clarification needed]}

Vietnam[link]

Clifford took office committed to rethinking Johnson's Vietnam policies, and Vietnam policy consumed most of his time. He had argued against escalation in 1965 in private counsel with the president, but then provided public support for the president's position once the decision was made. At his confirmation hearing, he told the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. Senate that the limited objective of the U.S. was to guarantee to the people of South Vietnam the right of self-determination. He opposed ending the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam at the time, but acknowledged that the situation could change.

In fact, on March 31, 1968, just a month after Clifford arrived at The Pentagon, Johnson, in an effort to get peace talks started, ordered the cessation of bombing north of the 20th parallel, an area comprising almost 80 percent of North Vietnam's land area and 90 percent of its population. In the same address, Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate for reelection in 1968, surprising everyone, Clifford included. Soon the North Vietnamese agreed to negotiations, which began in Paris in mid-May 1968. Later, on October 31, 1968, to encourage the success of these talks, the President, with Clifford's strong support, ordered an end to all bombing in North Vietnam.

Clifford, like McNamara, had to deal with frequent requests for additional troops from military commanders in Vietnam. When he became secretary, the authorized force in Vietnam was 525,000. Soon after moving into his Pentagon office, Clifford persuaded Johnson to deny General William Westmoreland's request for an additional 206,000 American troops in Vietnam.

At the end of March 1968, however, the president agreed to send 24,500 more troops on an emergency basis, raising authorized strength to 549,500, a figure never reached. Even as he oversaw a continued buildup, Clifford preferred to emphasize the points Johnson had made in his March 31, 1968 address: that the South Vietnamese army could take over a greater share of the fighting, that the administration would place an absolute limit on the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam, and that it would take steps, including the bombing restrictions, to reduce the combat level.

Eventually Clifford moved very close, with Johnson's tacit support, to the views McNamara held on Vietnam just before he left office—no further increases in U.S. troop levels, support for the bombing halt, and gradual disengagement from the conflict. By this time Clifford clearly disagreed with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who believed, according to The Washington Post, "that the war was being won by the allies" and that it "would be won if America had the will to win it." He later recalled how he turned against the war: "I found out that we couldn’t win the war with the limitations that we had, which I thought were correct limitations, and I thought all we were going to do was just waste the lives of our men and our treasure out in the jungles of North and South Vietnam."^[6]

After he left office, Clifford, in the July 1969 issue of Foreign Affairs, made his views very clear: "Nothing we might do could be so beneficial ... as to begin to withdraw our combat troops. Moreover ... we cannot realistically expect to achieve anything more through our military force, and the time has come to begin to disengage. That was my final conclusion as I left the Pentagon ..." Clifford received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Johnson on the President's last day in office, January 20, 1969.

Although the Johnson Administration ended under the cloud of the Vietnam War, Clifford concluded his short term as Secretary of Defense with his reputation actually enhanced. He got along well with the U.S. Congress, and this helped him to secure approval of at least some of his proposals. He settled into his duties quickly and efficiently, and capably managed the initial de-escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam; indeed, he apparently strongly influenced Johnson in favor of a de-escalation strategy. As he left office to return to his law practice in Washington, Clifford expressed the hope and expectation that international tensions would abate, citing the shift in the Vietnam confrontation from the battlefield to the conference table, and the evident willingness of the Soviet Union to discuss limitations on strategic nuclear weapons.

Special presidential emissary to India[link]

Clifford's legal practice and lobbying work made him wealthy, and he was considered one of Washington's "superlawyers" due to the reach of his influence and seemingly limitless connections. Clifford's office overlooked the White House, emphasizing his long experience in the capital. Clifford was renowned for his seemingly effortless charm, style, tact and discretion.

In 1980, President Carter appointed him as special presidential emissary to India.

Clifford made waves by threatening the newly established regime of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran with war for its intransigence in negotiating the release of the hostages seized from the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Bank of Credit and Commerce International[link]

In 1991, Clifford's memoirs Counsel to the President (co-authored with Richard Holbrooke, later U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations) were published just as his name was implicated in the unfolding Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal. The scandal focused on the criminal conduct of the international bank and its control of financial institutions nationwide. The bank was found by regulators in the U.S. and the United Kingdom to be involved in money laundering, bribery, support of terrorism, arms trafficking, the sale of nuclear technologies, the commission and facilitation of tax evasion, smuggling, illegal immigration, and the illicit purchases of banks and real estate. The bank was found to have at least $13 billion in unaccounted funds.^{[citation needed]}

From 1982 to 1991, Clifford served as chairman of First American Bankshares, which grew to become the largest bank in Washington, D.C. The bank was nominally owned by a group of Arab investors, but in order to assuage fears from the Federal Reserve, Clifford had assembled a board of distinguished American citizens to exercise day-to-day control. In 1991, Robert M. Morgenthau, the District Attorney for New York County (coterminous with the borough of Manhattan), disclosed that his office had found evidence that BCCI secretly owned First American. Morgenthau convened a grand jury to determine whether Clifford and his partner, Robert A. Altman, had deliberately misled federal regulators when the two men assured them that BCCI would have no outside control.^[7]

An audit by Price Waterhouse revealed that contrary to agreements between First American's nominal investors and the Federal Reserve, many of the investors had borrowed heavily from BCCI. Even more seriously, they had pledged their First American stock as collateral. When they missed interest payments, BCCI took control of the shares. It was later estimated that in this manner, BCCI had ended up with 60 percent or more of First American's stock. There had long been suspicions that First American's investors were actually nominees for BCCI. However, the audit was solid confirmation that BCCI secretly — and illegally — owned First American.^[7]

Clifford's predicament worsened when it was disclosed he had made about $6 million in profits from bank stock that he had bought with an unsecured loan from BCCI. The grand jury handed up indictments, and the U.S. Justice Department opened its own investigation. Clifford's assets in New York City, where he kept most of his investments, were frozen.^[1]

Clifford insisted that he had no knowledge of illegal activity at First American, and insisted that he himself had been deceived about the extent of BCCI's involvement.^[1] However, both Morgenthau and federal regulators argued that Clifford should have known.^{[citation needed]}

A "Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate," prepared by U.S. Senators John Kerry and Hank Brown, noted that a key strategy of "BCCI's successful secret acquisitions of U.S. banks in the face of regulatory suspicion was its aggressive use of a series of prominent Americans," Clifford among them.^[8] Clifford, who prided himself on decades of meticulously ethical conduct, summed his predicament up when he sadly told a reporter from The New York Times, "I have a choice of either seeming stupid or venal."^[1]

Indictments against Clifford were set aside because of his failing health.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

In 1931, he and Margery "Marny" Kimball were married. She died in 2000.

Death[link]

Not long after a final, frail appearance in the 1997 PBS television documentary Truman, Clifford died from natural causes in 1998 at age 91. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia.^[1]

Portrayal in popular culture[link]

• Tony Goldwyn portrayed Clifford in the HBO television film Truman (1995).
• Donald Sutherland portrayed Clifford in the HBO television film Path to War (2002).

Bibliography[link]

• John Acacia, Clark Clifford: The Wise Man of Washington (Lexington, KY, Univ. of Kentucky, 2009).

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Oral History Interviews with Clark M. Clifford, Truman Presidential Library
• Oral History Interviews with Clark Clifford, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
• Interview about the Berlin Blockade for the WGBH series, *War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
• Article arguing for deescalation of American involvement in Vietnam in Life magazine
• Booknotes interview with Clifford on Counsel to the President: A Memoir, July 28, 1991.

v t e Secretaries of Defense of the United States of America Forrestal Johnson Marshall Lovett Wilson McElroy T. Gates McNamara Clifford Laird Richardson Schlesinger Rumsfeld Brown Weinberger Carlucci Cheney Aspin Perry Cohen Rumsfeld Gates Panetta

v t e Cabinet of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969) Vice President None (1963–1965) Hubert Humphrey (1965–1969) Secretary of State Dean Rusk (1963–1969) Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon (1963–1965) Henry H. Fowler (1965–1968) Joseph W. Barr (1968–1969) Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1963–1968) Clark Clifford (1968–1969) Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (1963–1964) Nicholas Katzenbach (1965–1966) Ramsey Clark (1967–1969) Postmaster General John A. Gronouski (1963–1965) Lawrence O'Brien (1965–1968) W. Marvin Watson (1968–1969) Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall (1963–1969) Secretary of the Agriculture Orville Freeman (1963–1969) Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges (1963–1965) John T. Connor (1965–1967) Alexander Buel Trowbridge (1967–1968) C. R. Smith (1968–1969) Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz (1963–1969) Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Anthony J. Celebrezze (1963–1965) John William Gardner (1965–1968) Wilbur Joseph Cohen (1968–1969) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Robert Clifton Weaver (1966–1968) Robert Coldwell Wood (1969) Secretary of Transportation Alan Stephenson Boyd (1967–1969)

v t e White House Counsels Rosenman · Clifford · Murphy · Stephens · Shanley · Morgan · Kendall · Sorensen · Feldman · Serner · Temple · Ehrlichman · Dean · Garment · Casselman · Buchen · Lipshutz · Cutler · Fielding · Wallison · Culvahouse · Gray · Nussbaum · Cutler · Mikva · Quinn · Ruff · Nolan · Gonzales · Miers · Fielding · Craig · Bauer · Ruemmler

Clark
Family name
A scribe or clerk, the occupation from which the name derives
Meaning	Clerk, scribe, secretary
Region of origin	England
Language(s) of origin	Old English
Related names	Clarke, Clerk
Footnotes: Frequency Comparisons[1]

Clark is an English surname in the English language, ultimately derived from the Latin clericus meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educated or a old man with a moustache. Clark evolved from "clerk". First records of the name are found in 12th century England. The name has many variants.^[2]

Clark is the twenty-seventh most common surname in the United Kingdom.^[1]

According to the 1990 United States Census, Clark was the twenty-first most frequently encountered surname, accounting for 0.23% of the population.^[3]

Clark is also an occasional given name, as in the case of Clark Gable.

Probably the most famouse person named Clark is Clark Kent a.k.a. Superman

List of people with surname Clark[link]

People with the surname Clark include:

• Abraham Clark (1725–1794), American politician and Revolutionary War figure
• Alan Clark (1928–1999), British Conservative politician and author, son of Kenneth Clark
• Allen George Clark (1898–1962), British businessman
• Andy Clark (musician), British musician
• Anne Clark (born 1960), poet-songwriter
• Benjamin S. W. Clark (1829–1912), New York politician
• Billy J. Clark (1778–1866), New York physician and politician
• Bob Clark (Benjamin "Bob" Clark) (1941–2007), American director
• Brian Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Buddy Clark (1911–1949), American singer
• Carmel Clark (born 1965), New Zealand swimmer
• Catherine Clark (born 1976), Canadian television host
• Charles Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Chris Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Christian Clark (born 1979), Australian actor
• Claudine Clark, R&B singer and performer of the 1962 hit record "Party Lights"
• Colin Clark (disambiguation)
• Corrie Clark (born 1982), American breaststroke swimmer
• Dallas Clark, American football player
• Daniel Clark (Canadian politician and actor), Canadian actor
• Daniel Kinnear Clark (1822–1896), British railway mechanical engineer
• Darius Clark (1798–1871), New York physician and politician
• Dave Clark (musician) (born 1942), drummer of The Dave Clark Five
• David Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Davis Wasgatt Clark (1812–1871), American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church
• Dick Clark (disambiguation), several people
  • Dick Clark (1929–2012), entertainer and producer, host of Pyramid and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve
• Douglas Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Duncan Clark (1910–2007), an American public health specialist
• Duncan Clark (athlete) (1915–2003), Scottish hammer thrower
• Dwight Clark, American football player
• Ernest Clark (1912–1994), British actor
• Eugene Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Frank Clark (footballer), English football player
  • Frank M. Clark (1915–2003), American Congressman
• Gavin Brown Clark (1846–1930), MP for Caithness
• George Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Gerry Clark (1927–1999), New Zealand sailor and ornithologist
• Ginger Clark (1879–1943), American baseball pitcher
• Glenn Clark (born 1969), Canadian coach of Toronto Rock
• Helen Clark (born 1950), Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008
• Hilda Clark (1872–1932), American Coca-Cola advertising spokesperson
• Hilda Margery Clarke (born 1926), English painter and curator
• Horace Clark, 1830s New York politician
• Horace F. Clark (1815–1873), US Congressman from New York
• Hugh Massey Clark (1886–1956), New York philatelist
• Hulda Regehr Clark, alternative medicine practitioner
• Isabella Clark, wife of Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald
• Jack Clark (disambiguation), several people
• James Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Jeff Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Joe Clark (born 1939), former Prime Minister of Canada
• John Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Jonas Gilman Clark (1815–1900), American businessman and the founder of Clark University
• Joseph Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Joshua Clark, (born 1980), American writer
• Karen Clark (born 1945), American politician from Minnesota
• Katy Clark (born 1967), British politician and trade union official
• Kenneth Clark (psychologist) (1914–2005), African American psychologist who testified in Brown v. Board of Education
• Kenneth Clark (1902–1983), British art historian; creator of the series Civilisation
• Leslie J. Clark (1924–2003), British engineer and founder of Parvalux
• Louis Clark, musician and conductor with the Orchestra (former members of ELO and ELO Part II)
• Manning Clark (1915–1991), Australian historian
• Marcus R. Clark (born 1956), Louisiana Supreme Court justice
• Mark Wayne Clark (1896–1984), American Army General in WW2 (Italy) and the Korean War
• Nancy B. Clark, person of Marstons Mills, Massachusetts
• Ocky Clark (born 1960), American middle distance runner
• Orville Clark (1801–1862), New York politician
• Otey Clark (born 1915), American baseball pitcher
• Ramsey Clark (born 1927), U.S. Attorney General and activist
• Ranza Clark (born 1961), Canadian middle distance runner
• Roger Clark, British rally driver
• Ryan Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Samuel Clark (disambiguation), several people
  • Samuel Delbert Clark (1910–2003), Canadian sociologist
• Sherman Clark (1899–1980), American Olympic rower and Rear Admiral
• Simon Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Steve Clark (1960–1991), British guitarist for Def Leppard
• Stuart Clark (born 1975), Australian cricketer
• Theresa Maria Clark (c. 1890 – 1953), person of New York
• Thomas Clark (disambiguation), several people
• Tom Clark (journalist), Canadian television journalist
• Tom C. Clark (1899–1977), U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Supreme Court justice
• Tracy Clark, fictional character from The CW primetime drama 90210
• Wendel Clark (born 1966), retired Canadian ice hockey player
• Wesley K. Clark (born 1944), American Army General in the Vietnam War and Kosovo
• Wilfrid Le Gros Clark (1895–1971), British palaeanthropologist
• Will Clark (born 1964), American baseball player
• William Clark (disambiguation), several people

See also[link]

• The Clark Sisters, American gospel vocalists from Detroit
• Clark (taxonomic authority)
• Clarke
• Clerke (disambiguation)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Clark(e) Surname DNA Project

This page or section lists people with the surname Clark. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.

Lady Bird Johnson
First Lady of the United States
In office November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969
Preceded by	Jackie Kennedy
Succeeded by	Pat Nixon
Second Lady of the United States
In office January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
Preceded by	Pat Nixon
Succeeded by	Muriel Buck Humphrey
Personal details
Born	(1912-12-22)December 22, 1912 Karnack, Texas, U.S.
Died	July 11, 2007(2007-07-11) (aged 94) West Lake Hills, Texas, U.S.
Resting place	Johnson Family Cemetery Stonewall, Texas
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Lyndon B. Johnson
Children	Lynda and Luci
Alma mater	University of Texas
Occupation	First Lady of the United States, entrepreneur
Religion	Episcopalian
Signature

Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson (December 22, 1912 – July 11, 2007)^[1] was First Lady of the United States (1963-69) during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson.

Notably well educated for her time, she proved a capable manager and a shrewd investor. After marrying LBJ in 1934, when he was a political hopeful in Austin, Texas, she used a modest inheritance to bankroll his congressional campaign, and then ran his office while he was serving in the Navy. Next, she bought a radio station and then a TV station, which would soon make them millionaires. As First Lady, she broke new ground by liaising directly with Congress, employing her own press secretary, and making a solo electioneering tour.

Johnson was a lifelong advocate for beautifying the nation's cities and highways ("Where flowers bloom, so does hope") and the Highway Beautification Act was informally known as Lady Bird's Bill. She was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest US civilian honors.

Early life[link]

A portrait of Lady Bird Taylor at about age three

The Brick House, Lady Bird Johnson's birthplace and childhood home in Karnack, Texas.

Claudia Alta Taylor was born in Karnack, Texas, a town in Harrison County, near the state's border with Louisiana.^[2] Her birthplace was "The Brick House," an antebellum plantation mansion on the outskirts of town, which her father had purchased shortly before her birth.^[3] Nearly all of both her maternal and paternal forebears had arrived in the Virginia Colony during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Her father was a native of Alabama and primarily of English ancestry with small amounts of Welsh and Danish; her mother was also a native of Alabama and of English and Scottish descent.^{[citation needed]}

Though she was named for her mother's brother Claud,^[4] during her infancy, her nurse, Alice Tittle,^[5][6] commented, she was as "purty as a ladybird,"^[7][8] which is a brightly colored beetle.^[5] That nickname virtually replaced her actual first name for the rest of her life. Her father and siblings called her Lady,^[9] though her husband called her Bird, which is the name she used on her marriage license. During her teenage years, her schoolmates had called her Bird, though mockingly, since she reportedly was not fond of the name.^[9] Her father was Thomas Jefferson Taylor (August 29, 1874 – October 22, 1960), a sharecropper's son who became a wealthy businessman and the owner of 15,000 acres (6,070 ha) of cotton and two general stores. "My father was a very strong character, to put it mildly," his daughter once said. "He lived by his own rules. It was a whole feudal way of life, really."^[6]

Her mother was the former Minnie Lee Pattillo (1874–1918), an opera lover who felt out of place in Karnack and who was often in "poor emotional and physical health."^[4] When Lady Bird was five years old, Minnie, while pregnant, fell down a flight of stairs and died of complications after miscarrying.^[4] In a profile of Lady Bird Johnson, Time magazine described Lady Bird's mother as "a tall, eccentric woman from an old and aristocratic Alabama family, liked to wear long white dresses and heavy veils [... and who] scandalized people for miles around by entertaining Negroes in her home, and once even started to write a book about Negro religious practices, called Bio Baptism." Her unreconstructed husband, however, tended to see blacks as "hewers of wood and drawers of water," according to his younger son.^[9]

Lady Bird had two elder brothers, Thomas Jefferson Jr. (1901–1959) and Antonio, also known as Tony (1904–1986). She also had two stepmothers; the second, Ruth Scroggins, who married Thomas Taylor in 1937.^[10]

She was largely raised by her aunt Effie Pattillo, who moved to Karnack after her sister's death, although Lady Bird visited her Pattillo relatives in Autauga County, Alabama, every summer until she was a young woman. As she explained, "Until I was about 20, summertime always meant Alabama to me. With Aunt Effie we would board the train in Marshall and ride to the part of the world that meant watermelon cuttings, picnics at the creek, and a lot of company every Sunday."^[11] According to Lady Bird, her aunt Effie "opened my spirit to beauty, but she neglected to give me any insight into the practical matters a girl should know about, such as how to dress or choose one's friends or learning to dance."^[9]

Lady Bird was a shy and quiet girl who spent much of her youth alone outdoors. "People always look back at it now and assume it was lonely," she once said about her childhood. "To me it definitely was not. [...] I spent a lot of time just walking and fishing and swimming."^[12] She developed her lifelong love of the environment as a child growing up in the tall pines and bayous of East Texas and watching the wildflowers bloom each spring.^[13]

Education[link]

When it came time to enter high school,^[12] Lady Bird moved away from home to live with another family during weekdays in the town of Jefferson, Texas,^[14] since there was no high school in the Karnack area (her brothers had attended boarding schools in New York). Eventually she graduated third in her class at the age of 15 from Marshall Senior High School in nearby Marshall. Despite her young age, she drove herself to school in her own car, a distance of 15 miles (24 km) each way, because, she said, "it was an awful chore for my daddy to delegate some person from his business to take me in and out."^[12] During her senior year, when she realized that she had the highest grades in her class, she "purposely allowed her grades to slip" so that she would not have to give the valedictorian or salutatorian speech.^[5]

After graduating from high school in May 1928, Lady Bird entered the University of Alabama for the summer session, where she took her first journalism course, but being homesick for Texas, she did not return for the fall term at Alabama.^[15] Instead she and a high school friend enrolled at St. Mary's Episcopal College for Women,^[16] a strict Episcopal boarding junior college for women in Dallas, where she "converted to the Episcopal faith," although she waited five years to be confirmed.^[17]

After graduating from St. Mary's in May 1930, Lady Bird toyed with the idea of going back to Alabama, but another friend from Marshall was going to the University of Texas, so she chartered a plane to go down to Austin to check it out. Prophetically, as the plane landed she was awed by the sight of a field covered with bluebonnets and instantly fell in love with the city.^[18] Lady Bird received a Bachelor's of Arts degree with honors in 1933^[19] and a second bachelor's degree in journalism Cum Laude in 1934^[20] — a time when women were hard pressed to have a career of their own, let alone a college education. She was active on campus in different organizations such as Orange Jackets and believed in student leadership. Her goal was to become a reporter, but she also earned a teaching certificate.^[5] The summer after her second graduation, she and a girlfriend traveled to New York City and Washington, D.C., where they peered through the fence at the White House.^[5]

Marriage and family[link]

Her goal of a career in media was deferred when a friend in Austin introduced her to Lyndon Baines Johnson, a young up-and-coming political hopeful^[21] working as an aide to Congressman Richard Kleberg.^[5]

On their first date, which was breakfast the next morning at the Driskill Hotel and a long drive in the country, Johnson proposed. Lady Bird did not want to rush into marriage, but Lyndon Johnson was persistent and did not want to wait. Lady Bird accepted his proposal 10 weeks later.^[5] The couple married on November 17, 1934, at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in San Antonio, Texas.

After three miscarriages,^[5] the couple had two daughters: Lynda (born in 1944), whose husband Charles S. Robb is a former governor of Virginia and former U.S. Senator, and Luci, born in 1947,^[22] first married to Pat Nugent, then Ian Turpin. The couple and their two daughters all shared the initials LBJ. At the time of her death, Johnson had seven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.^[5]

Early politics[link]

When Lyndon decided to run for Congress from Austin's 10th district, Lady Bird provided the money to launch his campaign. She took $10,000 of her inheritance from her mother's estate to help start his political career.^[23] The couple settled in Washington, D.C. after Lyndon was elected to Congress.^[24] After he enlisted in the Navy at the outset of the Second World War, Lady Bird ran the congressional office.^[24]

Johnson sometimes served as a mediating force between her willful husband and those he had encountered. On one occasion, after Lyndon had clashed with a young Houston reporter, Dan Rather, Lady Bird followed Rather in her car and invited him to return and have some punch, explaining, "That's just the way Lyndon sometimes is."^[25]

Business career[link]

In January-February 1943, Ladybird Johnson spent $17,500 of her inheritance to purchase KTBC,^[3] an Austin radio station that was in debt. She bought the radio station from a three-man partnership which included a future U.S. Secretary of the Navy and a future U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Robert B. Anderson.

She served as President of the company, LBJ Holding Co., and her husband negotiated an agreement with the CBS radio network. Lady Bird decided to expand by buying a television station in 1952 despite Lyndon's objections, reminding him that she could do as she wished with her inheritance.^[5] The station, KTBC-TV/7 (then affiliated with CBS as well), would make the Johnsons millionaires as Austin's monopoly VHF franchise.^[26] Over the years, journalists have written about how Lyndon used his influence in the Senate to influence the Federal Communications Commission into granting the monopoly license, which was in Lady Bird's name.^[27][28]

Although LBJ Holding's two small banks failed and were closed in 1991 by the FDIC, the core Johnson radio properties survived and prospered. Emmis Communications bought KLBJ-AM, KLBJ-FM, KGSR, and three other stations from LBJ Holding for $105 million in 2003.^[29]

Eventually, Johnson's initial $41,000 investment turned into more than $150 million for the LBJ Holding Company.^[30] Johnson remained involved with the company until she was in her 80s.^[5] She was the first president's wife to become a millionaire in her own right.^[3]

Lady Bird Johnson in 1962

Second Lady of the United States[link]

John F. Kennedy chose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate for the 1960 election. At Kennedy's request, Lady Bird took an expanded role during the campaign, due to Jacqueline Kennedy's pregnancy. Over 71 days, she traveled 35,000 miles (56,000 km) through 11 states and appeared at 150 events.^[5] Kennedy and Johnson won the election that November, with Lady Bird helping the Democratic ticket carry seven Southern states.^[5]

As the Vice-President's wife, Lady Bird often served as a substitute for Jacqueline Kennedy at official events and functions.^[31] The Johnsons were accompanying Kennedy in Dallas when he was assassinated, and Lyndon was sworn in as President two hours later.

First Lady of the United States[link]

Official White House portrait of Lady Bird Johnson, painted in 1968 by Elizabeth Shoumatoff. The dress was designed by George Stavropoulos.^[32]

As First Lady, Johnson started a capital beautification project (Society for a More Beautiful National Capital) to improve physical conditions in Washington, D.C., both for residents and tourists by planting millions of flowers.^[30] Her beliefs regarding the importance of national beautification can best be summarized in her statement that "where flowers bloom, so does hope." She worked extensively with American Association of Nurserymen (AAN) executive Vice President Robert F. Lederer to protect wildflowers and the planting of them along highways. Her efforts inspired similar programs throughout the country. She became the first president's wife to advocate actively for legislation^[3] when she was instrumental in promoting the Highway Beautification Act, which was nicknamed "Lady Bird's Bill"^[5] and sought to beautify the nation's highway system by limiting billboards and by planting roadside areas. She was an advocate of the Head Start program.^[3]

Johnson created the modern structure of the First Lady's office; she was the first to have a press secretary and chief of staff of her own and an outside liaison with Congress.^[30] Her press secretary from 1963 to 1969 was Liz Carpenter, a fellow University of Texas alumna. Carpenter was the first professional newswoman to be press secretary to a First Lady, and she also served as Lady Bird's staff director. Johnson's tenure as First Lady marked the beginning of the hiring of employees in the East Wing to work specifically for the First Lady's projects.^[26]

Lady Bird Johnson in front of the South Lawn of the White House

During the 1964 election, Johnson traveled through eight Southern states in her own train to promote the Civil Rights Act,^[30] at one point giving 45 speeches over five days.^[26] It was the first solo whistlestop tour of a First Lady.^[25]

In 1970, Johnson published A White House Diary, her intimate, behind-the-scenes account of her husband's presidency spanning November 22, 1963, to January 20, 1969. Beginning with Kennedy's assassination, Mrs. Johnson recorded the momentous events of her times, including the Great Society's War on Poverty, the national civil rights and social protest movements, her own activism on behalf of the environment, and the Vietnam War. Johnson was acquainted with a long span of fellow First Ladies, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Laura Bush, and was protected by the United States Secret Service for 44 years, longer than anyone else in history.^[33]

Honors[link]

Lady Bird Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Gerald Ford on January 10, 1977. The citation for her medal read:

"One of America's great First Ladies, she claimed her own place in the hearts and history of the American people. In councils of power or in homes of the poor, she made government human with her unique compassion and her grace, warmth and wisdom. Her leadership transformed the American landscape and preserved its natural beauty as a national treasure."^[34]

Johnson then received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1988, becoming the first wife of a president to receive the honor.^[2] In a 1982 poll taken of historians ranking the most influential and important First Ladies, Johnson placed third behind Abigail Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt for her work as a conservation activist.^[5]

In addition to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, she was honored by the naming of the Lady Bird Johnson Park on Columbia Island in Washington, D.C., which was founded as a result of her efforts as First Lady to beautify the capital.^[5] She declined many overtures to name Austin's Town Lake in her honor after she had led a campaign to clean up the lake and add trails to its shoreline; following her death, Austin Mayor Will Wynn's office said it was a "foregone conclusion that Town Lake is going to be renamed" in honor of Johnson.^[34] The lake was renamed Lady Bird Lake on July 26, 2007.^[35]

(In 1963, during the Pageant Of Peace Christmas tree lighting ceremony, the President and First lady were to be introduced by a Girl Scout. President Kennedy had recently been assassinated and the girl introduced President and Mrs. Johnson as President and Mrs. Kennedy. She gasped in horror as soon as she did it and began crying. Mrs. Johnson leaped to her feet and put her arm around the girl's shoulder and comforted her, assuring her that it was alright and to please start over with the introduction. She did it right the second time and Mrs. Johnson sat down and the lighting ceremony continued. It was a revealing moment into the First Lady's character that endeared her to all who witnessed it.)

A majestic grove of coastal redwoods, named in her honor by President Nixon in 1969, is located just north of Orick, California. "Lady Bird Johnson Grove" is part of Redwood National Park. In April 2008, the "Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Cherry Blossom Grove" was dedicated in Marshfield, Missouri. The dedication took place during the city's annual cherry blossom festival. Johnson had been supportive of the rural community and their initiative to plant blossoming cherry trees.

In 1995, she received an Honor Award from the National Building Museum for her lifetime leadership in beautification and conservation campaigns.^[36]

Johnson was also named the honorary chairwoman of the Head Start program.^[34]

She held honorary degrees from many universities: Boston University, the University of Alabama, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, State University of New York, Southern Methodist University, Texas Woman's University, Middlebury College, Williams College, Southwestern University, Texas State University–San Marcos, Washington College and St. Edward's University.^[34]

Later life[link]

A portrait of Lady Bird Johnson in the Texas Hill Country

The former First Lady in 1987

After former President Johnson died of a heart attack in 1973,^[26] Lady Bird remained in the public eye, honoring her husband and other Presidents.

In the 1970s, she focused her attention on the Austin riverfront area through her involvement in the Town Lake Beautification Project. After her death in 2007, Town Lake was renamed Lady Bird Lake to honor her efforts.

From 1971 to 1978, Johnson served on the board of regents for the University of Texas System.^[37] She also served on the National Park Service Advisory Board and was the first woman to serve on National Geographic's Board of Trustees.^[26] President Nixon mentioned Johnson as a possible ambassador in a circulated memo, but nothing came of that proposal.^[26]

On December 22, 1982 (her 70th birthday), she and actress Helen Hayes founded the National Wildflower Research Center, a nonprofit organization devoted to preserving and reintroducing native plants in planned landscapes, located east of Austin, Texas. This earned her the nickname of "Johnny Appleseed" of Wildflowers. The Center opened a new facility southwest of Austin on La Crosse Avenue in 1994. It was officially renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in 1998 in honor of Johnson, who raised $10 million for the facility.^[30] On June 20, 2006, the University of Texas at Austin announced plans to incorporate the 279-acre (1.1 km²) Wildflower Center into the University.^[38]

For 20 years, Johnson spent her summers on the island of Martha's Vineyard renting the home of Charles Guggenheim for many of those years. She said she had greatly appreciated the island's natural beauty and flowers.^[39]

On October 13, 2006, Johnson made a rare public appearance at the renovation announcement of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. Sitting in a wheelchair and showing signs of recent health problems, Lady Bird seemed engaged and alert, and applauded along with those present at the ceremony.^{[citation needed]}

Final years[link]

Health problems and death[link]

In 1993, Johnson's health began to fail. In August 1993, she suffered a stroke and became legally blind due to macular degeneration. In 1999 she was hospitalized for a fainting spell and, in 2002, she suffered a second, more severe, stroke, which left her unable to speak coherently or walk without assistance. In 2005, she spent a few days in an Austin hospital for treatment of bronchitis. In February 2006, Lady Bird's daughter Lynda Johnson Robb told a gathering at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, that her mother was now totally blind and was "not in very good health."^[40]

In June 2007, Johnson spent six days in Seton Hospital in Austin after suffering from a low-grade fever.^[41] At 4:18 PM (CDT) on July 11, 2007, she died at home of natural causes,^[42] surrounded by members of her family and Catholic priest Father Robert Scott.^[43] At Johnson's funeral service her daughter Luci Baines Johnson remarked that one week before her death she made a public appearance and visited the Blanton Museum of Art. "It was a scene: mother was on IV, oxygen tube and a feeding tube. It looked like a mobile hospital. But she had a wonderful time," Luci said.^{[citation needed]}

Three weeks before Lady Bird's death, the rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, which had been her second home for over 50 years, had announced to his parishioners that she had given $300,000 to pay off the church's mortgage.^[44]

Funeral services[link]

Funeral service for Lady Bird Johnson

Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy Carter, Laura Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, (second row) Caroline Kennedy, Barbara Bush, Susan Ford Bales, (third row) Maria Shriver, and Patricia "Tricia" Nixon Cox attended, representing eight presidential families (excluding the Johnsons and counting George H.W. Bush's family and George W. Bush's family separately).

At 9:00 A.M. on July 15, a ceremonial cortège left the Texas State Capitol. The public was invited to line the route through downtown Austin on Congress Avenue and along the shores of Lady Bird Lake to pay their respects. The public part of the funeral procession ended in Johnson City. The family had a private burial at the Johnson family cemetery in Stonewall, where Johnson was buried next to her husband who had died 34 years earlier.^[45] Unlike previous funerals for first ladies, the pallbearers during the funeral services came from members of the armed forces.^[45][46]

She was the first former First Lady to die in the 21st century.

On June 7, 2008, the Texas State Democratic Party honored Johnson by renaming the state convention's Blue Star Breakfast as the 'Lady Bird Breakfast'.^[47] In January 2009, St. Edward's University in Austin completed a new residence hall for upperclassmen bearing the name of Lady Bird Johnson Hall, or "LBJ Hall" for short.^[48]

References[link]