LBJ OCCUPIES OVAL OFFICE & SETS STRATEGY IN MOTION
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) During the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend of 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson "set in motion a strategy...to channel the nation's grief over Kennedy's assassination to build a...lasting legacy." That is the view of Josh Zeitz writing in Politico Magazine.
Zeitz states that for the new president, "Thanksgiving 1963 was a personal and political inflection point." LBJ even went before Congress to pledge passage of the civil rights bill to "honor President Kennedy's memory."
Some of President Johnson's advisors cautioned that he shouldn't be spending political capital on hopeless causes. LBJ reportedly replied...
"Well, what the hell's the presidency for?"
JFK+50 Note
On November 26, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson physically occupied the Oval Office for the first time. Gone was the Resolute Desk and the famous rocking chair. Evelyn Lincoln had been moved out of her secretarial office, and LBJ aide Bill Moyers* had moved in. A large oil portrait of the new president hung on the wall.
*Billy Don Moyers was born in 1934 in Hugo, OK. He was educated at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary (1959) & served as White House press secretary (1965-1967). Afterwards, he was a TV news commentator.
SOURCE
"Thanksgiving, 1963: The long weekend defined LBJ's Presidency," by Josh Zeitz, November 26, 2015, Politico Magazine, www.politico.com/
