LBJ's Stunning Announcement

I went to bed very early yesterday. It was before 10 pm and only after a few pages did I fall asleep with my lenses on. The lights of the room and kitchen were also on. And I slept and slept like an anxiety-free child to afternoon today.

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LBJ stuns the nation by announcing his decision not to seek the second term.

It was March 31, 1968. “The President met secretly after breakfast with a trusted former speech writer, Horace Busby… Johnson waved all that [about a bombing halt and offer of peace talks regarding Vietnam] aside to ask for Busby’s judgment about a more personal matter. If he closed that night’s speech with a second bombshell announcement, that he would not seek reelection, would he lose authority for the remaining ten months of his term? ‘Point Two,’ said the President. ‘Will this hurt of help in getting peace? Will Hanoi or Moscow or Peking – or Saigon, for that matter – think we are collapsing over here?’ Would American soldiers think Johnson reneged on his duty to protect them? Did he have a better chance to pass the tax increase as a candidate or noncandidate? … Busby hazarded a consistent reply that the dramatic surrender of power would enhance Johnson’s stature. Otherwise, for instance, he thought the peace initiative would be discounted as election year subterfuge… ‘Don’t let a soul know you’re over here, [Johnson] instructed. (p.747)

As the source, Taylor Branch cites Busby’s book “The Thirty-first of March: An Intimate Portrait of Lyndon Johnson's Final Days in Office.”

“Thirty-five minutes into the historic address… Johnson abruptly turned personal: ‘Finally, my fellow Americans, let me say this. Of those whom much is given, much is asked.’ He professed a philosophy he said sustained him since the ‘tragedy and trauma’ of the Kennedy assassination ‘fifty-two months and ten days ago… binding up our wounds, healing our history, moving forward in new unity to clear the American agenda and to keep the American commitment for all of our people.’ Now, faced with crippling divisions at home and abroad, Johnson declared his resolve not to ‘devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes’ in the election year. ‘Accordingly,’ he announced, ‘I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.’” (pp. 748-749)

The second and latest volume of Michael Beschloss’s trilogy on the Johnson presidency covers only until August 1965.