Larry Temple, Chairman of the LBJ Foundation and former White House Counsel to President Lyndon B. Johnson, recently discussed the impact of the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, the influence of LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson, and his hope for the future of PLS.
What led you to serving President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House?
In the 1960s, I worked for Texas Governor John Connally. I started out as his legal assistant and then later became his Chief of Staff. I found out later that he had talked to President Johnson and told him that he didn’t think he had the right staff. President Johnson told Governor Connally that it wasn’t easy to find someone he had described. And then the governor said “Well, I’ve got a guy working for me that ought to be working for you.” It evolved from there. In the end, I got to serving President Johnson under the auspices of Governor John Connally. He was my sponsor.
When Presidential Leadership Scholars visit the LBJ Library, they learn about influence and persuasion through the lens of President Johnson’s time in office. Tell us about a time when you experienced President Johnson using influence and persuasion to advance a cause.
I think there are three times that all fit together – it’s the adoption of all parts of the Civil Rights legislation. Lyndon Johnson had a talent for timing. When he got elected and became president right after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, he said we needed to pass the Civil Rights Act to honor our fallen president. It’s what our fallen president would have wanted. However, President Kennedy wasn’t going to push for it in 1963 or 1964. He’d planned to wait until after the 1964 election. But LBJ knew that the country was ready to do something empathetic after the assassination of President Kennedy. He used that to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed. He couldn’t get the Voting Rights provision in it because it was weighing the legislation down.
And so, he waited and waited.
Then, when Bloody Sunday occurred in 1965, and the American public saw the abuse and mistreatment that occurred because it had been on live television – the country was outraged. LBJ knew this was the opportunity to say that all those people wanted was a right to vote. So, we need to give them the right to vote. He used that incident to get the Voting Rights Act passed.
The last part of the Civil Rights legislation was the Fair Housing Act. There was still discrimination in the sale, rental, and finance of housing. And there were a lot of people that didn’t want that to change. The realtors didn’t want to make that change. The home builders didn’t want to make that change. A lot of people doing the financing didn’t want to make that change. So that stalled.
But then when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got assassinated, LBJ said that was the one thing he wanted passed the most. I’m not actually sure if that is what he wanted most, but LBJ used that opportunity, and the legislation passed within a week after.
So, persuasion and influence come in a lot of ways. Lyndon Johnson had this rare talent and ability to know when, where, and how to animate the public. He knew how to use the public as his avenue of persuasion is avenue of convincing people. And so, I think those three related examples are the ultimate examples of how he was able to get legislation passed.
Had the assassination of President Kennedy and Dr. King not happened, do you think LBJ would have been as successful? He was using pivotal moments to advance his goals. Do you think on his own he had the persuasion and influence needed to find another way to pass this legislation?
Yes, I think he would have found another way. I do not believe that this country has ever had anybody come to the presidency with more legislative knowledge, experience, and talent than Lyndon Johnson.
President Johnson got his talents and skill from being a minority leader then majority leader. So, when he came to the presidency, he understood Congress and he understood how to get things done in Congress.
And so, he would have found a way. He would have found the alternative avenue to do it, maybe with greater difficulty and maybe some of the provisions that did get passed might not have gotten passed in the alternative avenue, but he would have gotten it done.
What do you hope that the Presidential Leadership Scholars take away from their time here at the LBJ Library?
I hope they take away a broader understanding of Lyndon Johnson — who he was and what he did.
One of the great resources the library has is the telephone tapes. Anyone who comes to the library can actually get to know Lyndon Johnson, because you can be taken back into the past and be in the room where he’s talking to a neighbor, [Former Minority Leader Everett McKinley] Dirksen in the U.S. Senate, Jackie Kennedy, or someone named Joe Haggar [founder of Haggar Clothing].
I think, unfortunately, when he left office, he was thought of as the Vietnam president and all the problems and issues of Vietnam. But I think once the telephone tapes started being released in the 1990s, people got a better and more fuller understanding of who LBJ really was. And my hope is that they see that when they visit the LBJ Library.
We don’t shy away from Vietnam. Vietnam is there. That’s a part of his legacy. That’s a part of Lyndon Johnson, but it’s only a part. It’s not the fullness. And you get into all these domestic pieces of legislation he passed, more than any president ever, with the exception maybe of FDR. And FDR may be parallel, but I just hope the Scholars see the fullness of who Lyndon Johnson was.
He also was able to accomplish some of the most major legislation, major social changes, domestic policy changes, while still navigating the Vietnam War. Your focus was more domestic, but did you see how he did that?
Lyndon Johnson didn’t have a lot of hobbies. He didn’t play golf or tennis. He had a swimming pool but didn’t swim. Sometimes he’d get in the pool and just sit there and talk.
But I’ve said that politics and government were both his avocation and vocation. He lived that fully.
His idea of relaxing and having fun would be to have a member of the U.S. Senate come have a drink with him and tell him all the rumors of everything that was going on. For him, hearing the rumors and the facts were just a part of the learning process. And so, as I say that his idea of relaxing was to have a drink and hear those stories.
How do you see President Johnson’s and Mrs. Lady Bird Johnson’s influence on the PLS Program?
I hope that Scholars learned a little bit about Mrs. Johnson. The reason I wanted to stay something about her [to Scholars] was that she was an extraordinary human being. I don’t think when the Presidential Leadership Scholars came here, they were thinking about Lady Bird Johnson. However, she was so impactful and so important.
She had an impact on my life – not just LBJ’s. I think that if the Scholars get to see the real Lyndon Johnson and hear about the real Lady Bird Johnson, then they’ll have learned something – that’ll be the impact the Johnsons had on the Presidential Leadership Scholars.
I hope that now that they’ve heard about Lady Bird Johnson, some of the Scholars will seek out one of the books that has been written about her. They’re really good. I think anybody who wants to learn about her will enjoy reading about her.
If you had one word to describe President Johnson and one to describe Mrs. Johnson, what would those two words be?
I’ve thought about that, and I do think that maybe the same word applies, and the one word would be compassionate.
I’ll tell you why. LBJ cared deeply about the underserved people in this country. At his core, LBJ believed that everybody in this country should have the opportunity to enjoy the benefits and the protections that are essential to our democracy. I think that was his motivation behind all the civil rights legislation. It was for everyone to get equal treatment.
That was the motivation behind getting Medicare and Medicaid, to be sure that people had adequate health care. That was the motivation behind the legislation on the environment — to be sure we all lived with clean air and clean water. That was the motivation on all the education legislation, to give all people an opportunity to have an education.
Even his creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities. He knew that the arts are important to this country. He wanted them to be available to everybody, not just the elite in New York, Washington, or Los Angeles, but the NEA and NEH spread all that throughout the country.
And so compassionate would be my word for him.
And I think you asked about Lady Bird Johnson – there are a lot of words I’d use to describe her, but I’d still pick compassionate. She genuinely cared about people. She particularly cared about the environment – that was her big issue. She did a lot of things that got to be known as beautification. And the word beautification got to be associated with her. She never liked that word. She said that it was too frilly, but it was environmental.
And so, when she wanted to do things, like when she started the Wildflower Center here in Austin, Texas, the wildflowers are not only used for the beauty, but to prevent erosion. They’re also on the sides of roads to serve an environmental purpose. It was her environmental purpose that triggered that.
So, I think compassionate is my pick for both of them – a left-hand glove and a right-hand glove.
We’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of PLS this year, and you’ve been involved in the program since the beginning. In your view, what has made the program successful over the past decade?
I’ll tell you what’s made it successful. There are four presidential libraries and foundations that are a part of this.
It was started by President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush. But then they invited the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library to be a part of it. After that, they invited the LBJ Foundation and Library to be a part of it.
And I’ve always repeatedly said thank you to President Clinton and President Bush. I bet I’ve said it 15 times. They always say, “you’ve said that before” and I just say it again.
But I think one of the things that’s made this successful is that while there are two Democrat presidents and two Republican presidents, this program has zero politics. It’s not political at all. People don’t get picked because they’re a Democrat, Republican, or independent, they get picked because they demonstrated some talent and some ability to take leadership.
And the idea is, what can we do to enhance that talent? What can we do to enhance those leadership skills and focus on the people that are a part of it? It’s practical and not political, and I think that has been the key to the success, and I don’t think it’ll ever be political.
I bet every time we get 60 new Scholars, I’m sure there are some of them that are very, very passionate about some facet of politics. That’s fine, but that’s not going to animate them in this program. What’s going to be the activation in this program is the learning they are being exposed to.
Building on that, what is your hope for the future of PLS for the next 10 years?
Well, I’ll repeat what I said a little bit earlier. My hope is it’ll be just the same 10 years from now. It is operating very well.
I think the people that put it all together and operate it, (and I’m not one of them, I’m happy to be on the LBJ Foundation board) do such a magnificent job.
My hope is it’ll be just as viable, just as wonderful 10 years from now, as it is today. If it is, I’ll be happy.
Now if somebody will be smart enough to expand it a little bit, and to find something to better it – hooray for that. But if it’s not expanded, extended, and it’s just the same in 10 years, I’d still be happy.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.