Transcript: Chapter 07

Convention Delegate: Mr. Chairman, Wyoming's vote will make the majority for Senator Kennedy.

Narrator: Kennedy was nominated overwhelmingly on the first ballot. Now, all that was left was the vice presidency and no one was sure what Johnson would do if Kennedy offered it to him.

John Connally: He said, "Well, Jack Kennedy just called. He's coming down to see me." He said, "What do you think he wants?" And I said, "He's going to offer you the vice presidency." He said, "Oh no, he's not. Oh, no. He wouldn't do that." He said, "He's probably going to ask me to manage the campaign." I said, "No, he's going to ask you to be vice president." He said, "Well, what should I say to him?" I said, "Well, you don't have any choice. You have to say yes."

Robert Baker: And I said, "Mr. Leader, let me tell you -- John Kennedy knows that no Catholic has ever been elected president in the history of this country. He knows the only chance in hell that he has to be president of the United States is if you run as vice president." And I said, "The vice presidency is the worst job in the country. It's not worth a warm bucket of spit," as John Nance Garner said, "But you're one heartbeat away from the presidency."

Narrator: When Kennedy offered Johnson the vice presidency, no one was happy. The conservatives didn't want Johnson to run with the liberal Kennedy and the liberals wanted one of their own. Finally, the candidate's brother, Robert Kennedy, paid Johnson a visit.

Eliot Janeway: I was in the room, in Johnson's bedroom with Johnson and John Connally, the three of us alone on the morning of the nomination for the vice presidency at about 10:30, when Bobby Kennedy stormed in and started screaming at Johnson that if he knew what was good for him, he'd get off that ticket.

Robert Baker: Well, Johnson did not like Bobby Kennedy and it was mutual. They hated each other. So what happened was that Mr. Rayburn and John Connally went in to meet with Bobby Kennedy.

John Connally: And Bobby Kennedy said that all hell had broken loose on the convention floor and that Johnson was going to have to withdraw, just change his mind and not accept the vice presidency. And Mr. Rayburn looked at him and he said, "Aw," and uttered an expletive that I am not going to use.

Robert Baker: Old man Rayburn said, "Shit, sonny," and kicked him out.

John Connally: I said, "Your brother came down here and offered him the vice presidency and Mr. Johnson accepted it. Now, if he doesn't want him to have it, he's going to have to call and ask him to withdraw."

Senator Kennedy: [1960 Democratic Convention] And I am grateful, finally, that I can rely in the coming months on many others, on a distinguished running mate who brings unity and strength to our platform and our ticket, Lyndon Johnson.

S. Douglas Cater: And that was a real transformation, in which this young pup, Jack Kennedy, suddenly is it and he, Lyndon Johnson -- big ole clumsy Lyndon Johnson -- is playing second fiddle. And you got to believe it that those vice presidential years were agony for him.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: It was a terrible sense of having lost that center of dominance and suddenly, I think, he felt like a little kid looking in a glass door at the candy display inside and he couldn't quite reach it. It was devastating.

Robert Baker: Bobby never got over the fact that his brother overruled him and put Johnson on the ticket and that -- there was a mutual dislike second to none in the history of the world.

S. Douglas Cater: It wasn't the way the president treated him -- I think Jack Kennedy treated him with due respect -- but everybody around Kennedy kind of poked fun at him and made mockery of "Whatever happened to Lyndon Johnson?"

Robert Baker: And Kennedy, you know, named him the head of the Space Center, plus he sent him on every foreign trip in the history of the world to, you know, tried to give him something to do.

Narrator: Vice President Johnson made ceremonial visits to 26 countries, but he wasn't the kind of man who could get the feel for another culture. Wherever he went, he took his own oversized bed, a special nozzle for his shower, dozens of cases of Cutty Sark and thousands of personally inscribed ballpoint pens and cigarette lighters as gifts. But, at least abroad, he was center stage. At home, there were still the Kennedys -- urbane, charismatic, immensely popular.

Eliot Janeway: He was consumed with this passion of inferiority towards the Kennedys and they gave him a very hard time when he was vice president. They were going to dump him from their ticket. They made a buffoon of him, a laughingstock. When, as vice president of the United States, he visited Scandinavia, Bobby Kennedy sent an uncoded telegram to the embassies -- uncoded so that everyone could see it -- saying that, "The vice president in no way speaks for the government of the United States and is not to be received as if he were an emissary of the president."

Narrator: In 1963, a chagrined and frustrated vice president told an aide, "My future is behind me." And then, Dallas.

Mrs. Johnson: It all began so hopefully, but the feeling in Texas was not good for Kennedy and so, of course, we were uptight. And we were going along and I was heaving a sigh of relief, "Thank the Lord, everything's going to be all right," and then came that shot. The Secret Serviceman suddenly vaulted over Lyndon and pushed him to the floor. And here we were, racing down at breakneck speed, not knowing what had taken over our lives.

This man came in and told Lyndon that President Kennedy was dead.

I guess we were all silent for a while and then Lyndon said, "We must get to Air Force One." I don't know how long we sat, but quite a while. He said, "Does anybody on this plane know the Oath of Office?" Nobody did, word for word, precisely. He said, "You'll have to call the Attorney General and ask him." What an excruciating call. The Attorney General was Bobby Kennedy.

Woman: "I do solemnly swear" --

Vice President Johnson: I do solemnly swear --

Woman: -- "that I will faithfully execute" --

Vice President Johnson: -- that I will faithfully execute --

Woman: -- "the office of president of the United States" --

Vice President Johnson: -- the office of president of the United States.

Narrator: A beloved president was gone and in his place stood this big Texan with an unsavory past. The Kennedys distrusted him, the American people were suspicious, stunned and baffled. On November 22, 1963, Lyndon Johnson became the 36th president of the United States.