Drafting Lyndon Johnson: The President's Secret Role in the 1968 Democratic Convention

Abstract

This article argues that contrary to perceived wisdom, President Lyndon Johnson wanted to be drafted by the 1968 Democratic convention. Johnson and his aides covertly planned all aspects of the convention, from the amount of space allotted to each candidate to the speech that he would give at the convention on his birthday. Although Johnson withdrew from the race in March, he controlled the convention in order to allow himself the opportunity to run again. Ultimately, although his control of the contention enabled him to pass his platform, he was not drafted because neither the old party bosses nor the new forces emerging within the Democratic Party wanted Johnson as their nominee. Bolingbroke: Are you contented to resign the crown? Richard: Ay, no; no, ay: for I must nothing be. Therefore no, no, for I resign to thee. -Richard II 4.1.199-201 Accordingly, I shall not seek-and will not accept-the nomination of my party for another term as your president. When Lyndon Johnson spoke these words on March 31, 1968, he shocked both his friends and enemies by taking himself out of the bitter struggle for the Democratic nomination. Instead, he declared, he would rise above the petty partisan struggles engulfing the country: he would be a man above politics, disinterested in everything except the well-being of the nation. On April 1, the Washington Post editorialized that the president's personal sacrifice in the name of national unity ... entitles him to a very special place in the annals of American history (Califano 1991,270). Johnson could now work to solve the myriad and complex problems facing him without regard to his own political health. The entire nation, so overjoyed at the president's withdrawal statement, could relax. Johnson's career had ended. His decision-one that the whole world had head-was irrevocable. Or so they thought. While Johnson's withdrawal statement might have sounded unequivocal, it was not. Johnson orchestrated a secret plan to control the 1968 Democratic convention in order to keep his options open, including the possibility that the convention might draft him. From the White House, a nominally disinterested Johnson constructed an organization, opened up back channels of communication, manipulated other candidates, and ultimately tried to coordinate every detail of the convention. Johnson wanted to delay making a final decision about whether he would decide to be drafted until after the convention had begun. Despite his final decision not to attend the convention, he orchestrated a grand welcome there. Even though he had withdrawn from the race five months earlier, as the Democrats convened their convention in Chicago, Johnson wanted his party to draft him. Robert Dallek (1998) has recently argued that Johnson toyed with the idea of allowing himself to be drafted for the nomination after Robert Kennedy's death during the primary season. Because Dallek presents little evidence of how Johnson intended to be renominated, the Johnson of Dallek's book comes across as a person engaged merely in wishful thinking. Dallek chronicles Johnson's machinations about whether to reenter the political fray as half-hearted, lackluster, and without great thought. The truth, however, is far different. Johnson was able to respond to the ever-changing political atmosphere of 1968 because he kept his options open until the last possible second. His political apparatus let him reconsider the possibility of entering the presidential race until the Democratic convention itself. The depth of Johnson's plan and his continued ability to control events from behind the scenes show Johnson in a different light. Even in 1968, at the nadir of his presidency, Johnson remained the master politician. Even in defeat, he knew when to press his agenda, how to win battles over policy, and how to give himself the ability to reconsider his decision of March 31. Most startling of all, he did almost all of this work hidden from public view, with the pretense that he was above politics. …