There has only been one instance in modern US history when a president has not expressed interest in re-election. The same decision that Joe Biden has now made was last made by Lyndon Johnson before him. There was a fundamental difference between them: while the current head of the White House did not stop the pressure of his Democratic Party, on the contrary, the step of the then leader completely surprised the whole country.
Lyndon Johnson with his wife Lady Bird in an archive photo from January 1965, when the agenda of the White House was exceptionally not politics, but the US president and the first lady of the US met the invited children. The second picture shows Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden. Photo: SITA/AP (2)
The memory of Johnson’s refusal to run for a second term comes to life in connection with the same announcement by Biden. By the way, he also started his work in the White House first as a vice president. Biden held this position during the administration of Barack Obama from 2008 to 2016, Johnson held it alongside John Kennedy after his election as president in November 1960; he took power in January 1961. However, Kennedy was not the head of state for long: in November 1963, he was the victim of an assassination attempt. After the murder, Johnson automatically took over his constitutional powers until the next election.
The sitting president, who was a member of the Democratic Party, tried to stay in the White House. Before the elections in the fall of 1964, he was helped not only by the fact that the voters perceived him, so to speak, as the heir to the political legacy of the popular Kennedy. His Republican challenger Barry Goldwater made several strategic missteps. He was particularly hurt when, in the summer of 1964, as a member of the US Congress, he voted against the landmark civil rights bill. This legislation eliminated various forms of discrimination, for example outlawing racial segregation in schools. Therefore, Goldwater especially angered African-Americans, because of other actions even moderate Republicans stopped sympathizing with him.
After counting the votes, it became clear that Johnson recorded a triumph unprecedented in the history of presidential candidates of the Democratic Party: he was supported by more than 61 percent of the voters, while Goldwater won in only six of the total number of fifty American states. It meant that in the Electoral College, Johnson secured up to 486 votes, his opponent had only 52 of them.
The next election was scheduled for November 1968. The constitution prohibits serving two terms, but Johnson was not covered by that. He was elected only once, previously he was the head of the White House for just over a year after the Kennedy assassination. Johnson achieved several successes, for example, in the social field, but on the other hand, society increasingly polarized the participation of Americans in the Vietnam War, into which he dragged their country (he did it on the basis of the authorization granted to him by the US Congress in August 1964). Johnson began to hesitate whether to run again, while concerns about his health also crossed his mind.
He didn’t make the decision himself. No, the so-called dark forces about which conspirators like to spread nonsense were not in the background. He relied on the judgment of his wife, Claudia, whom the Americans called Lady Bird. “Johnson used to say that he first and foremost sought advice from her on his most important decisions. Lifetime also in the position of president,” Mark Updegrove, director of the Lyndon Johnson Library and the Lyndon Johnson Foundation, told Time magazine. It is understandable that he proceeded in this way when considering a possible second presidential candidacy.
The first lady of the USA and the leader of a major world power analyzed the pros and cons of him running for a second term. Julia Sweig, who wrote a biographical book about her, said that Lady Bird also asked Johnson: “Considering what a polarizing figure he has become in a divided nation, could Lyndon Johnson be the only one to unite the country?” She continued: “Suppose they elect someone else as president. What could Mr. X do that you couldn’t?” What did her husband answer her? “Unify the country and start making things better.” His political future was apparently decided…
On the day Johnson was about to address the Americans on television, Lady Bird spotted him in his pajamas sitting on the bed in the morning. His tears flowed. It was the first time she had seen him cry since his mother’s death. He voluntarily said goodbye to his function in his mind, and surely various thoughts were running through his head. The day he shocked the American people is March 31, 1968. The nation learned in the evening that he no longer intends to run for office. (He remained in office until January 1969.)
His health concerns played a big role in Johnson’s decision. He was afraid that he would not complete a possible second term – that he would die. In 1955, when he was 47 years old, he suffered a heart attack, which practically took him out of his normal life for six months. All that time he had to rest more or less. “He was aware of how treacherous his health could be. He didn’t want the nation to go through a crisis similar to Franklin Roosevelt’s health,” Updegrove noted to Time. (The former President Roosevelt was confined to a wheelchair after being paralyzed.) Johnson feared for his life all the more because his family had several cases of heart disease.
He did not live to a great age: he died at the age of 64 in January 1974. On the contrary, Lady Bird died only when she was 94 (in July 2007).
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
