Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight
Julia Sweig
Random House (March 2021)

One of the most talented and influential, yet underappreciated First Ladies

Prior to reading this book, I already knew that Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson (1912-2007) was one of the most talented and influential and yet underappreciated First Ladies in U.S. history. However, only after absorbing and digesting the abundance of information and insights that Julia Sweig provides did I fully appreciate how true that is.

Julia Sweig’s coverage extends from August 1960-January 1965 to January 1969-July 2007 and creates a context, a frame-of-reference for  Lady Bird Johnson’s 850 diary entries (more than 170,000 words) recorded during her White House years that in turn create a context, a frame-of-reference, within which  she shares her thoughts and feelings about events prior, during, and following her husband’s tenure as the president of the United States. Sweig carefully selected excerpts from those entries to insert within her narrative that can help her reader’s efforts when “disentangling Lady Bird Johnson’s life and legacy from that of her husband.”

I think the greatest value of the material in this book is provided in Mrs. Johnson’s eyewitness accounts, especially her own perspectives on major developments such as the assassination of JFK, the return soon afterward to Washington aboard Air Force One, President Johnson’s first one hundred days in office, his efforts to placate — if not gain full support from  — JFK’s former associates, his relationship with RFK, the success of domestic policies in juxtaposition with the failure of foreign policies, LBJ’s decision not to seek re-election in 1968, and his gradual deterioration after he retired to his ranch and tried to focus on the Johnson Library.

Julia Sweig observes in her Epilogue, “The duality of the Johnson partnership, he with the heavy hand, she with that light touch, makes all the more complex the work of disentangling Lady Bird Johnson’s life and legacy from that of her husband. In that fact she would no doubt take great pride. But just as she appreciated the complexity of other public figures, starting with her husband, Lady Bird Johnson well understood — indeed, hoped — that at a certain point in history the breadcrumbs she left us would allow us to see, assess, and appreciate her place in American history.”