LBJ's Texas White House "Our Heart's Home"

CHAPTER 6 The President's Palace:
The Ranch Day-to-Day, 1963-69

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Lyndon B. Johnson was a perpetual motion machine; everything about his life reflected his desire to be ever in motion. Each morning he rose early with a long list of tasks to accomplish, and he kept his days full. He was also a micromanager of grand design, refusing to delegate even the smallest of decisions. He liked his life busy, and because of his penchant for controlling any situation into which he entered, he made the lives of others around him—including family and employees—equally full of activities and sometimes of misery. At the Texas ranch, this tendency was highlighted in the clearest relief, for there Johnson believed that his right and ability to direct the actions around him were without question. As a result, during his presidency life at the ranch took on a frenetic character, as the property became the stage for a typically Johnsonesque range of purposes. "Rest at the ranch is a misnomer to me," Lady Bird Johnson once wrote, and the pace of activity there supported her recollection.¹

In part, this freneticism was the result of the incredibly small space at the ranch. Despite the series of renovations and expansions that had begun in the 1950s, the house was little more than forty-five hundred square feet. The famous barbecues were outside, by the river; in case of bad weather they were relocated to an indoor facility, such as the high school gymnasium in Stonewall. The outbuildings and guest houses at the ranch removed some of the pressure for overnight guests, but often there was no space and few activities for many of the people who arrived at the ranch for official, ceremonial, and other functions. Nor could visitors move about freely, for barriers to access existed and Secret Service agents quickly reminded stray visitors and reporters to stay within established boundaries. The airplane hangar served as the location of numerous press conferences, and guests were often left in the front yard as other events in which they were not included took place. A constant flow of people who seemed to have nothing to do stood around on the grounds, watched carefully by Secret Service agents.

Although Lyndon Johnson, as the center of attention, was mostly oblivious to all of this, the conditions at the ranch exacerbated tension between the president and the press. Accustomed to the freedom of movement available in Washington, D.C., if not in the White House itself, and far from home and familiar surroundings, the mostly eastern press found aspects of Johnson's formidable personality even more overbearing during his stays in Texas. Although Johnson was far more likely to speak candidly and let down his guard at the ranch, he simultaneously used his dominance of the place as a way to compel the press to do things as he wanted. Sensing this contradiction and feeling constrained, the press resented Johnson, which was reflected in attitudes expressed in much of the reporting. The negative sentiments made Johnson defensive, which in turn made him less receptive to the entreaties of the press. A push and pull existed throughout the presidency that was reflected personally in press coverage of Johnson. His tactics made the press less likely to give Johnson the benefit of the doubt, which made him less likely to cooperate. As the Vietnam War accelerated and Johnson's famed "credibility gap" became an article of faith for the press, the situation worsened as both perspectives hardened. The result was an ongoing series of misunderstandings and an ultimate stalemate.

Much of this resulted from the dialectic created by Johnson's insistence on running the national government from his ranch. During his presidency, the geographic ranch became two different and overlapping psychic and actual places, each embodying distinctively different rhythms. When Johnson was gone, the day-to-day operations of the property were those of an ordinary ranch, with a significant number of additional personnel in the vicinity. Cowboys and other ranch workers were the most evident people on the place, and the mobile irrigation system and the animals became the center of attention. The Secret Service agents and military corpsmen permanently stationed there watched as Johnson's workers took care of ranch business. No one sought to move the cows away from the house, as Johnson insisted when present, and ongoing maintenance, repair, and other activities took place. When Johnson was present, the entire ranch operated as both a working property and a remote White House. The ranch became a fast-paced, crowded, busy place, full of dignitaries and the professional staff necessary to accommodate them. The Teletypes hummed, and the numerous phone lines were in constant use. Policy makers and reporters seemed to be everywhere, and official pronouncements came by the dozen. As cows grazed and irrigation pipe was installed, decisions that directed domestic programs and foreign policy were discussed. Military couriers handled coded messages as cowboys transported animals to new pastures. Generals and advisors landed at the airstrip while ranch help drove to town for supplies. In effect, two distinctly different places overlapped on the same terrain.

This dual personality made the ranch/Texas White House an unusual place. Part Hill Country intermittently profitable economic enterprise and part national political headquarters, it embodied divergent features within Lyndon B. Johnson's personality—both the feel of his youth and the demands of his position. Hardly a reluctant leader, Johnson reinforced his forcefulness by using the ranch as his headquarters. In this environment, he trusted his instincts more clearly than in the nation's capital. He knew and understood more than those who came from Washington, D.C.; at the ranch he could utilize his experience and expertise to articulate to
everyone and anyone who was really in charge. Along the Pedernales River, Lyndon Johnson truly controlled every facet of interaction and discourse, and he never failed to remind visitors, reporters, and friends of this reality.

Again, the dominance so central to Johnson's personality emerged as part of a tactical strategy. The ranch and his homeplace gave Johnson a feeling of security and control so powerful that he was willing regularly to move the national government to the ranch for months on end. This willingness to exercise prerogative let Johnson wield the control that was of great importance to a man of his combination of awesome power and vast personal insecurity. He could insist on a visit to the ranch and everyone must follow. The imperative enhanced Johnson's sense of power while simultaneously reflecting his insecurities. That he could and would exercise this privilege reflected his need to remind Americans, their government, and the press of his power. Conversely, as he reminded others of the scope of his power, he diminished its range, especially in the realm of Washington, D.C. Johnson seemed to believe that when he returned to the ranch, he recouped lost power and could then use it more effectively. But the manner of its acquisition and use was alienating.

The pattern of Johnson's presence at the ranch reflected its growing importance in national affairs and ultimately in the national cosmology. The Johnsons' initial post-assassination visit was delayed two weeks. Instead of arriving on December 10, 1963, as planned, the Johnsons did not reach the ranch until the day before Christmas. During 1964, the Johnsons rarely visited before November, the month in which the presidential election took place, when Johnson was elsewhere for only three days. After the election of 1964, a pattern began to emerge that typified the presidency. The Johnsons were usually in residence during July and August, particularly around the president's birthday, August 27. November and December were also favored months for living at the ranch. During the rest of the year, they were present for short times as frequently as possible, when they could get away from Washington, D.C., in the case of recuperating from illness, or when a formal event such as the signing of the Education Bill of 1965 took place.² This pattern reflected both the importance of the ranch to the Johnsons on a personal level and increasingly the iconographic meaning that had become attached to it.

Throughout Johnson's presidency, the ranch simultaneously served both public and private functions. Family lunches and official business became inextricably intertwined in the manner of the nineteenth century, when the lines separating public and private spheres were not as distinct as they later became. Friends and family members sat at the table with important visitors, creating a sometimes awkward and always amusing social interaction. This fusion of different aspects of life typified the regime at the Texas White House during the presidency, enhancing its unique role among presidential homesteads until that time. The Texas White House was the first presidential home to be far enough from Washington, D.C., to need all the technological attributes of the modern age in order for the president to be able to administer his responsibilities.

By 1964, the ranch had become considerably different from the haphazardly managed property Johnson acquired in the early 1950s. A succession of foremen had not met Johnson's expectations; some had not understood the need for technology, and others could not accept the constant second-guessing and the seemingly arbitrary decision making in which Johnson engaged. But the president eventually got the results he sought. Under Dale Malechek's guidance, the ranch had become, by 1964, a "nothing-wasted layout that almost glows with care and scientific management," one reporter wrote, and Johnson loved to show it to visitors. "That's what he was proud of, that's what he loved, that's what he came here for," remarked Kermit Hahne. The ranch and especially its cattle were "his life."³

At the ranch, Johnson utilized a method that anyone who ever worked with him would recognize. He expected "a dime's worth for every nickel he spends," Malechek recalled, even though the ranch was not an important source of profit for the Johnson empire. Detractors would often refer to the president as a gentleman rancher and a hobbyist, but Malechek, who arrived in 1960 and remained, refuted this idea. The president was interested in cattle as a business and paid little attention to show cattle and the ribbons they won. The first time the ranch made any profit, Johnson jumped up, said "look, the ranch is making money," and ordered his long-time assistant Mary Rather to take the check for three hundred dollars directly to the bank. Malechek observed that ranching was never a hobby for Johnson, since the ranch was an expensive undertaking and Johnson would never have spent a nickel on any hobby.⁴

After he purchased the property in 1951, Johnson sought to increase its operations and develop modern systems that would better support a ranching enterprise. The centerpiece of these activities was the dam, built in 1951, which provided water in abundance, the most crucial need of the ranch operation. When the river was high, the water backed up behind the dam for almost one mile. Irrigation began soon after the construction of the dam, and parts of the property—between the hangar and Oriole Bailey's house to the east of the family cemetery—were consistently irrigated throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. After the arrival of Dale Malechek, the area under irrigation greatly expanded. A manual system of seven-inch pipelines with sprinklers, described by Malechek as "exceedingly large and exceedingly heavy to carry around," was used to irrigate the ranch. The pipes were moved by hand, requiring a great deal of labor.⁵

Johnson's penchant for saving money extended to the irrigation operation. After Malechek's arrival, the ranch continued its established practice of buying used equipment. As neighbors and others bought new and sometimes larger equipment, Johnson was able to purchase their discarded gear. Four- and five-inch pipe was often available. Seven-inch pipe was used for the main water supply or "trunk" lines, while smaller four- and five-inch pipe became the core of the sprinkler system. This "made considerably more sense," Malechek recalled, "because it didn't kill a fellow as fast hauling that around as it did six-, seven-, and eight-inch" pipe.⁶ Johnson's desire to keep costs down meshed at least this once with the needs of his ranch staff.

By 1964, Johnson had invested a considerable amount of money developing the ranch into a sophisticated, modern operation, and as a result of his efforts he fancied himself a conservation farmer. Three pumps put twenty-one hundred cubic feet of river water per minute into the pipes that supplied water to the 100 irrigated acres on the ranch. Most of this land was in winter oats, alfalfa, Sudan grass, or coastal Bermuda grass, which Johnson had been among the first to introduce in the Hill Country. The Bermuda grass produced a greater tonnage of hay per acre than other grasses, and the extra feed it generated for Johnson's stock was welcome. About 180 acres were served by terraced pastures and by deep and full human-dug "stock tanks"—ponds to hold runoff and water pumped from wells for various uses, such as watering stock and irrigating crops. One hundred and ten of the unirrigated acres farther from the river were planted in Sudan grass and winter oats, crops that needed less water. These lands were also terraced, the soil treated with nitrogen by the planting of clover and legumes.⁷

The remaining 250 acres—either permanent pasture, replete with native bluestem grasses, or river bottom—comprised the grazing area of the ranch. In the Hill Country, about fifteen acres per cow were necessary. About two hundred Hereford cattle, an essential part of the breeding business Johnson began in 1955, were intermittently pastured on these lands and on other Johnson-owned or -leased properties. In general, the registered stock was kept at the main ranch, and the commercial herd, which sometimes reached one hundred head, was pastured at outlying rental properties. A Devon bull from Senator Wayne Morse's herd was part of the Johnson herd, as were a few Holstein milk cows that served as nurse cows for the Hereford calves. The cows were an aesthetic problem for Lady Bird Johnson, who did not like them in front of the main ranch house, and the Holsteins wore bells, which irritated Johnson whenever the cows approached the ranch house.⁸ The sounds of animals, so central to his routine during his recovery from the 1955 heart attack, became just another annoyance during his presidency.

The cattle operation required intensive management, for despite its mythic image, the Hill Country offered only mediocre grazing. The placement of the cattle for grazing depended on the distribution of rainfall, for the semiarid region was known for uneven rainfall even within a very few miles. Assuring sufficient water for stock required the digging of stock tanks and the placement of numerous water tanks. Crops had to be grown for feed, native-grass rangelands were fertilized, and a range of other activities was undertaken to assure the best available forage for the Johnson herd. Such intensive management was necessary to ensure the success of the cattle-raising enterprise.⁹

Johnson valued his cattle operation less for the money it generated than for its cultural and social importance. Johnson did not merely want to walk around in cowboy boots and call himself a rancher, Jewell Malechek remembered. He was immensely proud of the ranch and wanted to make it into a place where other ranchers came to get ideas. Johnson paid close attention to the science of the ranch; specialists from Texas A&M University—agronomists, ranch specialists, and "seed people," who Johnson invited to inspect his efforts and assess new ideas—were frequent visitors. The ranch became a "showplace," Dale Malechek noted; when Johnson "came home, he wanted to come to a working ranch" that reflected the best of the ranching profession.¹⁰

Commercial cows played an important role in the economy of the ranch. At times the operation included as many as six hundred commercial cows, compared to a much a smaller number of registered animals. "We were out for every dollar we could get out of that commercial calf," Dale Malechek recalled, and although greater long-term benefits could be derived from the registered cattle, the commercial cows formed the backbone of the operation most of the time. This Wt Johnson's interests as well; he was far more interested in raising cattle than in showing them and collecting ribbons.¹¹

Johnson's presidency made the daily working of the cattle operation at the old location more difficult. When Dale Malechek arrived in 1960, the cattle pens were located close to the main house, between what became Lawrence Klein's shop and the old barn. The pens were small and cramped, but sufficient for the twenty registered cows on the ranch at that time. "You sit there and look at it," Dale Malechek remembered, "and you say `how in the hell did you ever work anything in that area?' Well, that's where the area was." The influx of people at the ranch as a result of the presidency made working in proximity to the house a difficult task. "With all the multitude of people, there wasn't any way in hell you could operate," Malechek remembered. "There'd be six Secret Service guys from New York had never seen any work cattle before hanging on the pens, leaning over the fence, wanting to see what in the hell you were doing. You couldn't drive a cow through a gate, you couldn't drive a cow through a chute." People were consistently in the wrong place.¹²

The sheer difficulty led to changes in the location of the working pens. Beginning in 1964, pens north of the main house were constructed, followed by the Show Barn in 1966. The new pens were set up to work as many as three hundred head, either commercial or registered breed. The Show Barn, with its larger pens and its distance from the other activities that routinely transpired on the ranch, was an important addition for the cattle operation. Malechek and the other cowboys were relieved finally to have working space away from the center of ranch activities.¹³

By 1964, the ranch operation had also expanded to include a number of leased properties in the vicinity to support Johnson's growing interest in breeding cattle. The most significant of these was the 2,600-acre Scharnhorst place, formally titled the Clear Creek and Granite Knob Ranch, which was used for pasture and deer hunting. About three hundred head of both sheep and goats, animals Johnson referred to as "mortgage-lifters," ran there. The Comanche Cattle Company, Johnson's partnership with A. W. Moursand, owned 4,500 acres in Llano County called the Haywood Ranch. This property was mostly undeveloped. Its primary economic use was pasture, and it also was one of many sites for water recreation. Johnson kept a motorboat there for late afternoon forays on the Llano River. The 2,200 leased acres at Three Springs Ranch were entirely undeveloped and kept in pasture for the herds.¹⁴

There was also a noncommercial dimension to the sheep raised at the LBJ Ranch. Among the mortgage-lifters—the sheep raised for their wool and for the lamb chops that, as Johnson discovered in a Washington, D.C. restaurant, cost as much as the whole sheep he sold in the Kansas City market—were specialty animals for use in the barbecues so central to ranch life. Foreman Malechek kept about one dozen Barbudal Sheep to provide lamb chops for the president's guests.¹⁵

The presidency forced Johnson to change some of the patterns of his ownership of his various enterprises. Although he continued to manage the details of his ranching operation, the decision making passed to other hands. The LBJ Company, which owned the ranch as well as the various media outlets and other businesses that the Johnsons held, was placed in a trust administered by Johnson's close friend A. W. Moursand. Although this designation was required by law and expected by custom, it hardly kept Johnson from making decisions about the operations of his pride and joy. Even during his presidency, Johnson was closely involved in business; in the limited time available during ranch trips, Malechek was expected to recount to the president everything that had occurred in his absence and show him any improvements or changes. Johnson's control extended to every facet of the ranch operation; he even required Dale Malechek to have money in hand before the cattle sold left the ranch. His protestations of minimal involvement to the contrary, Johnson remained involved in the day-to-day workings of the ranch throughout his presidency.¹⁶

But the demands of the office kept Johnson away from his land for much of the year, and in his absence it ran as a working ranch. Dale Malechek was in charge on a daily basis, but even from Washington, D.C., the president consistently looked over his shoulder. Malechek expected and often endured daily telephone calls from the president that lasted as long as three hours, conversations almost always devoted exclusively to the workings of the ranch. At the White House, Johnson received daily weather reports from the Hill Country by telephone or telex; during bad weather, he expected hourly updates. His obsession with the weather was so overwhelming that in press conferences, reporters would ask about conditions at the ranch. Johnson's overbearing manners when it came to the affairs of the ranch made him a difficult man for whom to work. "He was a son of a bitch to work for," Malechek remembered long after the president's death. "One son of a bitch. I'll guarantee you. He expected 110 percent 120 percent of the time."¹⁷

Always involved, even from a distance, Johnson, with his penchant for hands-on management, immensely complicated the life of his ranch staff. When Johnson was present, Malechek would have to tuck his plug of chewing tobacco deeper in his jaw and accommodate his employer's demands. The foreman "liked it a lot better when the President was in Washington," Liz Carpenter, who had become Lady Bird Johnson's executive aide, said. Then Malechek only had to endure the long phone calls instead of having the president look over his shoulder as he made every decision. The two had a complicated relationship that often elicited a comment by reporters who wrote of the ranch. The stoic Malechek steadfastly refused to criticize his employer to the press, reflecting Johnson's ambivalence toward the media and Malechek's respect for his employer. Johnson will "give you advice," Malechek once told reporters in a typical cryptic comment, "but he lets you make the decisions—and you better be right."¹⁸

Yet the pace was different during Johnson's frequent absences. Official personnel stationed there watched as the cowboys took care of the ranch, with some expressing interest. Others simply ignored such nonmilitary activities. The ranch was a busy place, and if the pace slowed at all during Johnson's absences, it was only evident in the level of stress apparent in Malechek. With Johnson gone, everyone could undertake their tasks without the prospect of being watched by a demanding employer who had no qualms about commenting in tough and often graphic language. During Johnson's absences, tension diminished.¹⁹

Lyndon Johnson's absence also made life at the ranch quieter for Lady Bird Johnson. Demure and always shying away from the limelight, Lady Bird Johnson found the time at the ranch without her husband to be very pleasant, stolen moments from the whirl of the presidency. On the occasions when she found herself at the ranch without her husband, she could fashion a world of her own with only the minimal restrictions imposed by the Secret Service. She engaged in beautification, one of her major interests, during her time at the ranch, leading the local garden club and other civic organizations in arranging the planting of all kinds of flowers. In one instance, donated seed was planted along Ranch Road 1; in another, she arranged for bluebonnets to be planted along the landing strip. She also had English Park and eighty acres on the west side of the Dantz place seeded with wildflowers. It was an idyllic existence for the First lady, very different from life in Washington, D.C., or life on the ranch when the president was home. "Odd, the way I live insulated from the world here, when he is not here," she wrote in her diary. "I never turn on the TV, I do not have a newspaper. But with him the world returns, TV and the newspapers."²⁰

The impact of Lyndon Johnson's arrival at the ranch was comparable to the impact of the arrival of a Texas Blue Norther, one of the forceful storms of Texas lore that gather momentum and swoop in from the north at incredible speeds, changing the temperature by as much as seventy degrees in the space of a few hours. Like these storms, Johnson altered the very tenor of life at the ranch. The helicopter or plane with the president would touch down, and when Johnson stepped off, a forceful and demanding presence around whom everything revolved became the dominant force on the property. Johnson's ties to the land were extremely close. When he arrived, what he wanted to see was not the house but the land from which he sprang. "The first thing we do when we get home is to make a tour of the ranch," Johnson was fond of telling reporters. "Before we go to the house, we drive around."²¹

The emphasis on mobility was both characteristic of Johnson as well as a means of asserting his principle that "the best place to talk to a man is on your own ground." On his ranch, people followed his lead; when he hopped behind the wheel of one of his air-conditioned Lincoln Continentals, he set the tone, tenor, and pace of everything that followed. People piled in at his request, and Johnson performed what became a ritual as well as an integral part of every one of his visits to the ranch. He gave a tour of his property. After initial episodes when they were caught unaware, Secret Service agents became accustomed to Johnson's routine and were prepared to follow him. Journalists never quite became accustomed to it, often watching in a cluster as Johnson's vehicle disappeared over the horizon. Johnson may have carefully orchestrated these settings, allowing journalists to be present when he arrived but not affording them the opportunity to ride in what could be labeled pursuit vehicles.²²

As Johnson settled in, the ranch ceased to be exclusively a working ranch. Although Johnson attempted to maintain a public illusion that the ranch was simply a cattle ranch, the swirl of activity—from Secret Service to Signal Corps, from barbecue to high-level meeting—spoke of a different reality. The pace became more intense after his arrival, as the ranch's agricultural operations ceased to dominate daily life and a swirl of activity that included everyone and centered on the president began. Johnson relished the whirlwind pace and the control he could exert over it. He was in his element, and it showed. Lady Bird Johnson, the most astute observer of the president, noted that despite it all, "somehow, the ranch manages to be restful to Lyndon."²³

Official functions were another of the staples of ranch life. Cabinet members, couriers, staff personnel, and others flew in and departed regularly, some leaving on the same day they arrived. Despite the objections of the Air Force, which disapproved of the length of the air strip, the cattle's access to it, and its incline, the runway was in frequent use. Helicopters and a range of airplanes touched down with presidential advisors and others. Some celebrities arrived in their own private planes. The traffic amused the cowboys, who had little to do with the governmental activity, but others noticed and commented on the pace. "The airport stays busy, disgorging cabinet members with important difficult decisions, budget estimates, crises," Lady Bird Johnson observed. To her it was "like living in a revolving door."²⁴ The ranch functioned as the White House, with a constant stream of official and unofficial visitors and a decided ceremonial caste to the nature of activities there.

The weeks following Christmas 1963 set the tone for such circumstances. The first presidential state visit to occur during Johnson's presidency followed the Christmas holiday by a few days. Immediately after the departure of West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard on December 30, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by Gen. Maxwell Taylor and including Gen. Curtis LeMay of the Air Force and Gen. David Shoup of the Marines, arrived for high-level consultations. At the same time, Dr. Walter Heller, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Kermit Gordon, director of the Bureau of the Budget, were at the ranch, offering counsel on a range of matters. Heller, Gordon, and the president discussed economic policy while hunting deer from one of the Lincoln Continentals.²⁵

"These old walls are bursting at the seams," Lady Bird Johnson half complained, and the constant stream of people at the ranch—business leaders, press representatives, friends, cabinet members—demonstrated her point. In a typical circumstance, during the first ten days of "rest" after the 1964 campaign and presidential election, six cabinet members arrived at the ranch to engage in high-level discussions. At the same time, Dr. Frank Stanton, head of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) visited, along with Donald Cook, head of American Electric Power Service, Thomas B. Watson, head of IBM, and Edwin S. Weisl, Sr., an old Johnson friend and political advisor. Johnson was considering the men for places in his cabinet. Within a few days, eleven Iowans—including the president of the national swine growers association, the president of the Iowa Farm Brokers' Association, and the farm editor of the Des Moines Register—came to the ranch at the behest of Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman. They were all there as friends of a man from Iowa, Richard Juhl, who wanted to give the Johnsons a Yorkshire boar. The President asked Lady Bird what he should do. She replied: "Well, the least you could do would be to ask [the group] to lunch." Eleven lunch guests on short notice inspired Lady Bird to remark, "I think everyone had fun and none of them had the feeling it was an unusual day at the LBJ Ranch."²⁶

A similar caravan accompanied the Johnsons to the ranch during Christmas 1964. Half the cabinet, including Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall; outgoing Secretary of Commerce Luther Hodges and his successor John T. Connor; Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz; and budget director Kermit Gordon, flew to the ranch with Johnson on December 20, 1964. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff arrived two days later, followed later in the same day by Secretary of the Treasury
C. Douglas Dillon; the head of the Federal Aeronautics Administration (FAA), Najeeb Halaby; and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) administrator, James Webb. On December 23, 1964, Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, Postmaster General John Grounoski, and David Bell of the Agency for International Development (AID) flew to the ranch. After Christmas, the parade of visitors continued: Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Anthony J. Celebrezze; R. Sargent Shriver; Veterans Administration head John Gleason; and Housing and Home Finance Agency administrator Robert C. Weaver arrived on December 28 and 29. By the end of the week, nearly the entire cabinet had been in conference at the Texas White House.²⁷

This mixing of relaxation and business on the president's home turf came to characterize the Johnson presidency. It Wt Johnson's personal style—his desire to be constantly busy, to have people around—as well as his idea of relaxation and fun. Talking politics in the setting of the Hill Country perfectly Wt the image Johnson held of himself. As the leader of the nation, he could dictate terms as well as be gracious on his home ground. A hard man to say no to in any circumstance, Johnson began negotiations with a decided advantage in his Lincoln Continental, in his front room, or in the informal setting under the oak tree by the house that the president favored.²⁸

The ranch also became the backdrop for official ceremonies. New officials were often sworn in during the president's stays in Central Texas. On a rainy November day in 1965, two officials took their oaths of office in a place unfamiliar to them. That morning, delays kept airplanes from landing at the ranch, and Lady Bird Johnson found herself with fifty reporters on the grounds, awaiting the arrival of buses from Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin that carried the delayed travelers. Instead of keeping reporters in their vehicles or providing coffee in the hangar, Lady Bird Johnson invited them into the house. When the official visitors arrived, they were greeted by a happy and comfortable press. An old Johnson friend, federal judge Homer Thornberry, administered the swearing in of John Grounoski, the former postmaster general and a descendant of Polish immigrants, as Johnson's new representative to Poland, in front of the fireplace in the living room at the ranch. They then "piled into cars," Lady Bird Johnson wrote, to travel to nearby Hye and see Lawrence O'Brien, of Irish ancestry, take the oath of office as postmaster general in front of the post office, a building with red, white, and green gingerbread trim that one reporter thought could double as a movie set.²⁹ This juxtaposition of urbanity and Euro-American ethnicity with the hills and people of Texas typified the Johnson administration.

The Johnsons also offered far more informal kinds of hospitality. A parade of guests, personal friends, and relatives all came to the ranch during the presidency, some staying for a few days, others just visiting for an afternoon. They experienced the range of Lyndon Johnson's moods and impulses, the gregarious hand shaking and talking and the whimsical changes in plans. Johnson "loved to show off his land," Liz Carpenter said; "he relaxed by driving across it," and his visitors were compelled to go along. "He always used those automobiles like cutting horses," George Reedy recalled. Johnson would "drive them right across the field." The president's guided tours of his property—the wild rides in his Lincoln Continental with which he entertained guests, carting along newspaper reporters, friends, relatives, and nearly everyone else who arrived at the LBJ Ranch—became legend. A child of rural America, accustomed to the distances of the West, Johnson had a deep appreciation and a primal need for the idea of freedom that American culture invested in mobility. Automobiles gave him the space he associated with the ranch, a way to control what went on around him by staying in constant motion. Away from the routine he found stultifying in Washington, D.C., away from the consistent and oppressive watchfulness of Secret Service agents, Johnson could seize what to a man of his energy was the key feature of existence: the right to roam. OV he would go at speeds of up to ninety miles an hour, off the road, through pastures, and up embankments, to show off his cattle and feel the wind and the power of the engine beneath the hood. He even owned an amphibian car that he loved to drive, ripping into the water and creating waves. Most guests were bored with it by the end of their second ride.³⁰

Johnson also used the car rides as a form of political commentary, a way to present his views to people with influence. Noted journalist Stewart Alsop recalled one trip that illustrated the relationship among Johnson, his ranch, and politics. After banging around in one of the convertibles across rocky land and dirt track to reach a herd of cows, the president brought the car to an abrupt halt. He blew the car horn and shouted at the cows to get them to stand. Then he pointed to various cows, compared them to politicians, and discussed the profit he expected to realize from each animal. Alsop likened this behavior to that of Sir Winston Churchill at his country place, Chartwell, where he engaged in the same sort of practice. Churchill compared his prized goldfish to his political adversaries, commenting on their various shortcomings for reporters and visitors.³¹

The informal nature of some of these activities allowed different facets of American society to intersect at the ranch in a manner they never otherwise would. Not only could Cousin Oriole Bailey meet Washington, D.C., socialites, but policy makers from the east could meet the people of the rest of the country. During the post-Christmas 1963 visit of Walter Heller and Kermit Gordon, a group of Texas cattlemen also visited the ranch. In front of the fireplace in the living room, these two distinctly different segments of American society met and talked. The cattlemen weighed in on the question of the War on Poverty, the Kennedy program that Heller had championed and that he, Gordon, and Johnson were then discussing. This "handout," as the cattleman referred to it, was in their view a bad idea, particularly at the projected cost of one billion dollars per year. Nor did Heller's elegant slacks—"city-bought trousers" as they were called in rural Texas at the time—leave a positive impression. Heller recalled that Johnson and the cattlemen made fun of the economists, a ribbing Heller remembered taking in stride. The juxtaposition reflected one example of the importance of the role of the ranch as a meeting ground for different segments of American society.³²

Johnson's informal hospitality operated on a number of levels. It was relaxation for the president, although most would not recognize this type of activity as anything more than an extension of daily business. There was fun, as Johnson defined it, involved in his stays, and the entire experience included a message for any visitor. The theme of this message was often hierarchical; the relative meaning, significance, status, and worth of all involved figured into the equation. In Washington, D.C., even the president was defined by the world and the people around him. In the Hill Country, however, Johnson was master of all. His control of mobility and of every facet of experience reminded every one of his guests of that mastery.

Although the reports of Johnson's aides and political associates assumed that a hierarchical relationship existed, reporters often had difficulty with the way in which the president treated them and others during times at the ranch. To some it seemed as if he played a game with them, offering them insight as he shut the door, figuratively and literally, in their faces. The administration and its press staff seemed to have too much control of sources of information in Texas, members of the news media thought, and it hampered their ability to perform their job. Reporters in particular recognized that the Johnson they encountered in the Hill Country was a distorted version of the politician they knew in Washington, D.C. Visitors felt, in Alsop's words, "commanded . . . to admire" Johnson's world and by extension the man himself. Although Johnson's close associates were accustomed to the poses the president demanded, as the Johnson presidency became increasingly mired in Vietnam this "admiration by order" turned awkward for much of the press. As Johnson sensed his prestige waning, he instituted stronger measures designed to heighten his control of every facet of the ranch. In one instance, he ordered reporters relocated to San Antonio from Austin in an effort to limit their access to the political gossip that abounded in the state capital. For the most part, such measures backfired, as the force with which Johnson instituted his rules inspired a negative response from the press, whose members had become bored with the Hill Country. Even the skill of such consummate media diplomats as George Reedy and George Christian could not always smooth over the incessant and inherent conflict.³³

The souring relationships created a tension-fraught geography at the ranch house, a division of the house and grounds into public, private, and in-between spaces. Although the house was little more than forty-five hundred square feet, the property had been built in so many stages that there were de facto different areas within the house. The bedrooms and the guestrooms, places where the family could gather without worrying about intrusion, were off-limits to the press. No one was admitted to the private area except by special request, and few reporters were willing to make such a request. Other places, such as the office and the living room, could be visited when the president allowed. Reporters in effect awaited a summons to such places. Other places took on the character of waiting rooms, where reporters sat and hoped the president would come out and speak to them. It was aggravating and annoying for the press, one more piece of evidence that there was little for them to do even in the inner sanctum in Texas. "They [reporters] had to justify being here," George Christian remembered. "They had a very practical problem."³⁴

Again Johnson's penchant for hierarchy was revealed. Retreating from control of the ranch and the grounds, he turned the house into a figurative fortress, a castle to which people were admitted based on their importance to him. In most circumstances, this would not have been problematic; the White House and the nation's capital functioned in precisely this manner. But the situation in Texas was different. The Hill Country was a foreign place to many reporters, and they had little with which to distract themselves there. Some came to regard the trips to Texas as impositions—a sop to the vanity of a president for whom respect was plummeting—and even exiles. The sixty-five miles between Austin and the ranch seemed to serve as a no-man's-land between the press and the president, and the relationship frayed. Treatment and limitations that would have seemed ordinary in Washington, D.C., rankled in the Hill Country.

The limited space at the ranch and the ranch house also meant that events with no relationship to each other often overlapped in time and space. Personal events occurred simultaneously with official events, such as the announcement of appointments and nominations to positions in the government. In a typical instance on September 30, 1967, a private Johnson family photo session and the arrival of an airplane full of dignitaries intersected. For Lady Bird Johnson, this was a difficult situation that required patience, diplomacy, and tact. But on this day, she was distracted from her responsibilities. As the photographer prepared for the session, Lyndon Johnson asked Lady Bird to join him as he met an airplane from Washington bringing Attorney General Ramsey Clark, U.S. District Judge Harold "Barefoot" Sanders, Edwin Weisl, Jr., and Dean Erwin Griswold of Harvard Law School. The dignitaries were "settled in the front yard" with coffee, and the family rushed back inside to try to complete the pictures before Patrick Lyndon Nugent, then about one year old, became too hungry, tired, or sleepy. They were too late; the baby refused to cooperate, and the picture session became a hilarious shambles. Although numerous photos were taken, none look quite right. The baby became madder and madder; his mother, Luci Nugent, looked like "a graven image"; and Lady Bird laughed so hard the tears rolled down her face.³⁵

But family events were not all that had to be accomplished that day at the Texas White House. An hour after the attempts to take the pictures, Johnson shepherded the dignitaries waiting in the front yard to the hangar to introduce Griswold to the press as the next solicitor general of the United States. He replaced Thurgood Marshall, whom Johnson had earlier appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A press conference ensued, with Yuki, the Johnsons' beagle, roaming in front of the television cameras, sniffing at the legs of the people manning the equipment. After the affair, Griswold was treated to a Mexican dinner in the dining room, a delicacy for the southwesterners present. The spicy food made Lady Bird "flinch a bit" for "our friend from Harvard." Within an hour after the end of the meal, the dignitaries were on board their aircraft on the way back to Washington, D.C.³⁶

These kinds of events were particularly difficult on Liz Carpenter, George Reedy, and George Christian, the people who had primary responsibility for the media. Johnson was notorious for operating at his own pace; he and only he would determine when and where things happened, and all the coaxing and cajoling of his staff rarely changed that. Carpenter, Reedy, Christian, and their staffs were left to placate irate individuals; to explain the newly revised schedule; and to entertain and amuse disgruntled reporters, impatient dignitaries, and everyone else. They also had to cultivate leading journalists—Stewart Alsop, Tom Wicker, and others—who were sufficiently important to have individual personal contact with the president. The press attachés had to do everything in their power to assure that such visitors saw the Hill Country in the manner Johnson intended. On one occasion, Stewart Alsop was seated in a floating chair in the ranch's heated swimming pool with a scotch and soda in his hand after a full day of the "Johnson Treatment," the "incredibly potent blend of badgering, cajolery, promises of favors, [and] implied threats" that typified Johnson's efforts to sway an individual. According to George Reedy, Alsop wrote "one of the finest columns I have read about Lyndon Johnson out of that," which is testimony to the success of the staff.³⁷

This pace and the multiple events taxed everyone at the ranch—except Lyndon Johnson, who orchestrated them all. Lady Bird Johnson and the staff always seemed to have someone in another room, someone in the hangar, someone on the phone or in the dining room . . . waiting. Lyndon Johnson fluidly moved from place to place, oblivious to the concerns of the staff, who had to manage the guests, and the visitors who awaited him. From Johnson's point of view, he moved from important event to important event; he moved, as he almost always did, at his own pace, and everyone else, from visitors to press, had to adjust their pace to his. Johnson's whims and desires took on even greater importance in Texas. The limited size and space of the ranch, the small number of other officials present, and the lack of other sources of information, communication, and entertainment meant that anyone who came to the ranch was at his mercy.

Johnson relished this scenario but failed to recognize how it bred resentment, among the press in particular. In an idealistic moment in the history of the nation, as the electronic media established its importance and the print press enhanced its stature, the loyalty and deference Johnson required—particularly apparent because of the circumstances imposed by Johnson at the Texas White House—became particularly degrading from the perspective of the press. This resentment became an underlying theme during the five-year commute that the Johnson presidency became.