A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson

From Vietnam to the Great Society to the Civil Rights reforms, the Johnson presidency saw a barrage of controversial but important measures that generate almost as much dispute today as they did when they were enacted. This collection offers an overview of Lyndon B. Johnson′s life, presidency, and legacy, as well as a detailed look at the central arguments and scholarly debates from his term in office. The essays examine the traditional understandings of the president’s interaction with the major issues facing America, and the world, in the mid–1960s, while incorporating the dramatic new interpretations that have resulted from the recent release of around 8,000 phone conversations and meetings that Johnson secretly recorded as President. A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson brings together the emerging historiographical writing on the 36th President of the United States and is the definitive guide to the evolution and current status of Johnson scholarship.

Notes on Contributors viii Introduction 1 Mitchell B. Lerner Part I Pre–Presidential Years 5 1 The Changing South 7 Jeff Woods 2 LBJ in the House and Senate 23 Donald A. Ritchie 3 The Vice Presidency 38 Marc J. Selverstone Part II Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House 57 4 Lady Bird Johnson 59 Lisa M. Burns 5 Management and Vision 76 Sean J. Savage Part III Domestic Policy 91 6 The War on Poverty 93 Edward R. Schmitt 7 African–American Civil Rights 111 Kent B. Germany 8 Mexican Americans 132 Lorena Oropeza 9 Women’s Issues 149 Susan M. Hartmann 10 Health Care 163 Larry DeWitt and Edward D. Berkowitz 11 Environmental Policy 187 Martin V. Melosi 12 American Immigration Policy 210 Donna R. Gabaccia and Maddalena Marinari 13 LBJ and the Constitution 228 Robert David Johnson 14 The Urban Crisis 245 David Steigerwald 15 Education Reform 263 Lawrence J. McAndrews 16 Domestic Insurgencies 278 Doug Rossinow 17 LBJ and the Conservative Movement 295 Jeff Roche Part IV: Vietnam 319 18 Decisions for War 321 Andrew Preston 19 Fighting the Vietnam War 336 Robert D. Schulzinger 20 The War at Home 350 Mary Ann Wynkoop 21 The War from the Other Side 367 Pierre Asselin Part V Beyond Vietnam 385 22 Latin America 387 Alan McPherson 23 Europe 406 Thomas Alan Schwartz 24 LBJ and the Cold War 420 John Dumbrell 25 The Middle East 439 Peter L. Hahn 26 LBJ and the New Global Challenges 450 Mark Atwood Lawrence Part VI Final Reckonings 467 27 How Great was the Great Society? 469 Sidney M. Milkis 28 Lyndon B. Johnson and the World 487 Nicholas Evan Sarantakes 29 The Legacy of Lyndon B. Johnson 504 Andrew L. Johns Bibliography 521 Index 583

Mitchell B. Lerner is Associate Professor of History at the Ohio State University and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. He has held the Mary Ball Washington Distinguished Fulbright Chair at University College–Dublin, and been an officer of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He is also Director of Ohio State′s Institute for Korea Studies. He is the author of The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (2002), which won the John Lyman Book Award, and editor of Looking Back at LBJ (2005).