A Very Human President
by Jack Valenti
(Click for Amazon book review)
Click here for 20 full quotes from Lyndon Johnson in the book A Very Human President, by Jack Valenti.
OR click on an issue category below for a subset. |
| OnTheIssues.org excerpts: (click on issues for details)
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Civil Rights
Take civil rights to the country as a moral crusade.
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Education
Practiced as ecumenist; detached from any dogma.
Stung by intellectuals, but sincere respect for universities.
Elementary & Secondary Education Act: aid to educate masses.
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Foreign Policy
Goal: 1/2% of GNP for foreign assistance.
As much personal contact as possible with foreign leaders.
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Government Reform
Staff rule: Don't touch money; let finance dept. handle it.
Staff rule: Fired for meeting about contract with contractor.
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Homeland Security
Distaste for wiretapping as V.P. and as President.
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Principles & Values
Persuasion over lunch with press, bankers, or black leaders.
To persuade Congress, persuade their constituencies.
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Technology
1968: created national public broadcasting system.
Obsessive need for information; fanatic about facts.
LBJ's FBI never wiretapped MLK.
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War & Peace
1965: Vietnam bombing pause to encourage peace talks.
Convince the Viet Cong we cannot be defeated by power.
Balance Vietnam fighting without USA versus risking WWIII.
1968: no run for re-election so Vietnam peace might work.
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Welfare & Poverty
Rent supplements cost less than public housing.
Great Society required business community's support.
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The above quotations are from A Very Human President
by Jack Valenti.
Biographies of past presidents:
- President George W. Bush
- The Faith of George W. Bush, by Stephen Mansfield
- Decision Points, by George W. Bush
- President Bill Clinton
- Back to Work, by Pres. Bill Clinton
- The Agenda, by Bob Woodward
- State of the Uion, "Report Card" on Bill Clinton
- President George H. W. Bush
- All the Best, My Life in Letters, by George Bush Sr.
- The Family, (the Bushes) by Kitty Kelley
- President Ronald Reagan
- Dutch, a Memoir of Ronald Reagan, by Edmund Morris
- President Jimmy Carter
- An Hour Before Daylight, by Jimmy Carter
- Jimmy Who?: biography of Jimmy Carter
- President Gerald Ford
- Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate,by Bob Woodward
- President Richard Nixon
- The Real War, by Richard Nixon
- Seize the Moment, by Richard Nixon
- Nixon's Ten Commandments of Statecraft, by James Humes
- The Watergate Transcripts, by The Washington Post
- President Lyndon Johnson
- The Lyndon Johnson Story, by Booth Mooney
- Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson, by Eric F. Goldman
- A Very Human President (LBJ biography), by Jack Valenti
- Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, by Michael Beschloss
- President John F. Kennedy
- Profiles In Courage, by John F. Kennedy
- Kennedy, the Classic Biography, by Ted Sorensen
- A Question of Character, A life of JFK, by Thomas Reeves
- A Nation of Immigrants, by John F. Kennedy
- William & Mary Environmental Law Review, by Cameron Lynch
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