As the world awaits the next nasty utterance from
Donald Trump, one can only marvel at how history
itself has ended up in (language alert!) — a
“shithole.” Amid the chronic shock and horrified
reactions, people have become blind to the fact
that he is not (yet) the most disgusting U.S.
president in living memory. That title actually
belongs to a Texan Democrat, Lyndon B. Johnson,
a howling, flatulent tormentor of women whose
cussing and racism remain breathtaking today.
And if you’re offended by Trump’s level of
vulgarity, you really — really — don’t want to read
any further.
How Johnson got away with his behaviour for so
long was complicated, but distraction helped. The
very way he attained power — by succeeding the
slain John F. Kennedy — caused some critics
(notably writer Robert Sherrill and activist Barbara
Garson) to focus scornfully on that. The agony of
the Vietnam War likewise diverted attention.
But Johnson was also an intense networker, and he
succeeded in cultivating or otherwise entangling
several prominent journalists, including Walter
Lippman and Drew Pearson, as well as Washington
Post owner Katherine Graham. According to
biographers Ronald Steel and Oliver Pilat, plus
Graham’s own 1997 memoir, these personal ties
undermined a lot of objectivity in the press.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, right, and Lady Bird
Johnson watch as U.S. Vice-President Lyndon B.
Johnson is administered the oath of office as he
assumes the presidency following the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy in
Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963. AFP/Getty
Images)
Indeed, numerous Washington insiders — reporters,
officials, cronies — did not reveal their knowledge
of Johnson’s ugly side until 1980, when oral
biographer Merle Miller coaxed them. Later
biographers, including Robert A. Caro, Robert
Dallek, and Randall B. Woods, have added to the
revelations.
As well, it was not widely known for years that
Johnson had a recording system in the Oval Office.
This system, like the more infamous one of
Richard Nixon, captured many very regrettable
comments, but it would not be definitively
described until a 1999 book by historian William
Doyle. (Transcripts of the recordings were edited
and released through historian Michael R.
Beschloss beginning in the late 1990s.)
Finally, one reaction to Johnson’s coarse language
was a tendency to sanitize the public record.
British journalist Henry Brandon has recalled how
The Washington Post rendered “bullshit” as “bull.”
I would not say Johnson
was vulgar, he was
barnyard
So, exactly how repulsive was Johnson? He was
horrid enough that the way he said things was
almost as bad as what he said. Anyone who came
into contact with him was at risk of encountering a
spectacle of burping, farting, nose-picking and
crotch-scratching. Congressman Richard Bolling,
who witnessed some of this, told Merle Miller: “I
wouldn’t say Johnson was vulgar — he was
barnyard.” Worse, Johnson had no sense of
personal space and treated conversation as a
creepy hands-on affair. Miller learned from
Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee that, “You
really felt as if a St. Bernard had licked your face
for an hour, had pawed you all over.”
For women, the ordeal was even worse, and
Bradlee claimed that Johnson groped Katharine
Graham and was “bumping” up against the breasts
of Washington Post writer Meg Greenfield. (In her
memoir, Graham says nothing of this and is
suspiciously quiet about almost all of Johnson’s
peculiarities. She does admit he kissed her on the
cheek at least once.)
President Lyndon B. Johnson hands a pen to civil
rights leader Martin Luther King after signing the
historic Civil Rights Bill on July 2, 1964. AFP/
Getty Images
A truly unlucky few even got to see Johnson relieve
himself. Reporter Sam Schaffer toured Johnson’s
Texan ranch and was stunned when Johnson
urinated right in front of him, in the open. Arthur
Goldschmidt, a friend and United Nations official,
was in the Oval Office with Johnson when the latter
suddenly headed for the washroom, “took a crap,
then shaved and showered, all the while continuing
his conversation as though what he was doing was
the most normal thing in the world.”
As for what Johnson was actually saying during all
the above, he was known for folksy aphorisms that
were crude, sometimes racist, and often weird,
including “it was raining as hard as a cat pissing
on a flat rock,” “as straight as an Indian shits,” and
the importance of fighting an opponent “till he’s
shitty as a bear.” These became more disturbing
in his retirement years, when UPI reporter Bill Theis
was told by him that subsequent White House
economic policies were “the worst thing that’s
happened to this country since pantyhose ruined
finger-fucking.” (That quote apparently was passed
around as insider gossip until it got to Miller via
Richard Bolling.)
Lyndon B. Johnson reads the President’s Daily
Brief as his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, holds their
first grandchild in an undated photo taken by White
House staff. White House/AP
The pantyhose bit was part of a troubling pattern.
Biographer Woods learned that Johnson would tell
close friends that his own wife, the delightfully
named Lady Bird, was “the best piece of ass I ever
had” (but he still cheated on her). Recorded Oval
Office telephone conversations include a 1964
exchange with staffer Ralph Dungan concerning
female appointees to government positions.
Johnson kept asking Dungan about their looks.
Former staffer Yolanda Boozer told Miller that
Johnson would comment if female White House
employees gained any weight, provoking anxious
dieting.
Regardless of gender, Johnson’s treatment of
subordinates could be appalling. In one of her very
rare confirmations of Johnson’s behaviour,
Katherine Graham says she saw Johnson
apoplectically yelling at aide Jack Valenti over
some mistake. She describes the tirade as
“callous and inhuman.” A senior adviser, James H.
Rowe Jr., reportedly quit after witnessing a similar
incident. Johnson’s own vice-president, Hubert
Humphrey, informed Miller that Johnson’s need to
control people caused him to say of certain
individuals that, “I’ve got his pecker in my pocket.”
President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, talks with
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, sitting,
after McNamara had returned from a fact-finding
trip to Vietnam, at the White House on March 13,
