Face-to-Face: Lyndon Johnson portrait
About the Project
As part of the National Portrait Gallery's education program "Face-to-Face," Rachael Penman, of the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, discusses images of Lyndon Johnson on view in the NPG's exhibition "Presidents in Waiting." In 1955, with only seven years of seniority, Johnson was elected Senate majority leader. Through his successful courting of the "old bulls" of the "southern caucus," particularly Richard Russell of Georgia, Johnson controlled the agenda of the Senate as no majority leader has before or since. Another element of his mastery was the "Johnson treatment," as displayed here with Senator Theodore Green of Rhode Island. Newspaper columnist Mary McGrory described it as "an incredible, potent mixture of persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages"; Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee recalled feeling that "a St. Bernard had licked your face for an hour, [and] had pawed you all over"; and Hubert Humphrey described it as a "tidal wave." Johnson's most notable victory as majority leader was the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first such legislation since Reconstruction. Rachel Brenman of the International Spy Museum discussed this photograph by George Tames, along with other images of Lyndon Johnson, at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The 1957 photograph is on view at the National Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition "Presidents in Waiting" on the museum's second floor. Recorded at NPG, May 21, 2009. Image info: Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Green / George Tames, 1957 / Gelatin silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Frances O. Tames / Copyright The New York Times/George Tames. Face-to-Face talk currently located on the National Portrait Gallery's iTunesU page. ["Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Green" by George Tames. NPG.94.182, NPG.94.183, & NPG.94.184]
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