25-03-2015, 10:26 PM
I recommend reading Ladybird Johnson's WHITE HOUSE DIARY. Assuming all of the entries were really written at the time they are dated, it shows that LBJ was having regrets about being President as early as 1965. He talked with her frequently about retiring after one term in office, even before Vietnam started going bad.
- 3/7/1965 "I am counting the months until March 1968, when, like Truman, it will be possible to say, I don't want this office, this responsibility, any longer, even if you want me.'...In talking about the Vietnam situation, Lyndon summed it up quite simply, I can't get out. I can't finish it with what I have got. So what the hell can I do?'" (White House Diary 248)
- 4/16/1965 "Lyndon keeps talking more and more about retiring." (White House Diary 260)
- 5/13/1967 "Many months ago I set March 1968 in my own mind as the time when Lyndon can make a statement that he will not be a candidate for reelection." (White House Diary)
- 7/30/1967 Polls showed a large drop in public approval for LBJ's handling of the war. Lady Bird: "Our own decision, our hope, our determination, is to leave when this term ends. But how to tell it to the world and when - in the fall, as John Connally suggested?" (White House Diary)
- 9/25/1967 LBJ and Lady Bird "talked and talked and talked about when and how to make a statement that Lyndon is not going to be a candidate again." (White House Diary)