ICAYUNE, NEW ORLEANS, LA., SUNDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 15, 1970
Preface to White House Diary by Mrs. Johnson
SECTION ONE—PAGE THREE
one-seventh of the material.
But the full diary—many goldBy LADY BIRD JOHNSON lined against the drama of sun- My third reason for recordingfriends with this iltlle machine
en days that I loved living and
1 began talking my White set.
this White House diary was that and learned how to thread it writing about, and others that
House diary into a tape recor- Sometimes, I sat at the desk I like writing — fearful labor and change it, and
hold it in I'm afraid I made sound tedious
der at our home, The Elms, two and looked right down into the though I sometimes find it — I abeyance while I thought my and dull—will be in the Lyndon
Baines Johnson Library and will
next phrase.
or three days after November Rose Garden and across to Lyn- like words,
don's office.
tape recorder makes for a in the future be available for
22, 1963.
As time passed there began to far more
ar more verbose volume of scholars or historians to peruse,
A little of it was recorded in By all odds the best time to
fourth
dimly work
ge a our
reason, dimly
than a pencil in your for whatever little crumbs of inrecord was from 7 in the eve- emerge
hotel rooms
on
our
trips,
and
in
terest they may add to the stofelt, something like this -- I hand.
till 9 or 10 or whatever late felt
my bedroom at the LBJ Ranch, fling
hour Lyndon came home to din- wanted to share life in this And so I left the White House ry of our life and times.
but
the
great
bulk
of
it
was
ner.
The
day's
activities
were
house, in these times. It was too in January of 1969 with a suit- Editing was not easy. I have
done in a small room in the
gone great a thing to have alone.
case full of tapes, recorded over tried as much as passible to use
southwest corner of the second at an end, my staff had
home, and this was "my time." I soon evolved the system of five full years and the brief six full days but could not avoid
floor of the White House, which
a manila envelope for weeks or so of the year 1953, using sections from others.
became a combination dressing Why did I record it? I think having
each day with a mimeographed and the first 20 days of the year For the benefit of the reader I
for the following reasons:
room and office for me.
I loved that room. I put my I realized shortly after Noy- sheet in it on which my secre- 1969 . all in all a total, as well was told it was necessary to
wrote . the day's appoint- as I could estimate after it was Identify or give full names to
own furniture in it — my blue ember 22, that — amazed and
transcribed, of about 1,750,000 people or events already familvelvet sofa from The Elms (the timorously — I stood in a unique
iar to me, thus intruding on the
back of it is faded from the sun position, as wife of the Presi- Then I would collect, or ask words.
•
that streamed in the southwest dent of the United States. No- her to collect, two or three , During the last year and a casual and sometimes intimate
window), two comfortable body else would live through the newspaper headlines of the day "3, I. have re-read it all—and character of these recordings.
French armchairs flanking the next months in quite the way and stories that related to what sometimes smiled wryly at my This diary is throughout comfireplace, and a desk that has that I would and see the events Lyndon was doing, or I, or the Judgments and reactions of that pletely personal and subjective.
It is the way I saw and lived
followed me through all of my unroll from this vantage point. children, speech cards if I made limeI have tried to select from these events and knew these
three Washington homes and And this certain portion of time a speech, the schedule if I was ".
mass of material days that people. It is, if anything, the
now sits in the bay window in I wanted to preserve as it on a trip. Or, if there was a
my "forever" bedroom at the happened. I wanted to remem- White House entertainment, would carry the narrative and story of a family in a unique set
ber it, and I wanted my chil- guest lists and menu and pro- convey the changing mood and of circumstances at a signifiRanch.
cant
point in history.
The walls were covered in the dren and grandchildren to see it gram.
feel
and
color
of
the
times,
As 1 look back on those five
loveliest Chinese wallpaper I've through my eyes.
Then
when
I
would
record—
hopefully
significant
days,
but
years of turmoil and achieveever seen. In winter,
i
and it
I
might
often
rebe
the
The
next
second
day
or
reason
some
quiet
is
a
diffidays.
ment, of triumph • and pain. I
corded sitting on
the
sofa
lookcult
one
to
describe
—
it
has
two
or
three
days
later,
or
I
has
been
a
gargantuan
job! feel amazement that ' it haping at the fire burning merrily something to do with discipline. sometimes a week later—I Sometimes I have felt
like Wil- pened to me, and gratitude that
in the little corner fireplace. I wanted to see if I could keep would have the material at Liam Faulkner, who is
reported I had the opportunity to live
And in the summer I reversed up this arduous task. In a way, hand to put me back in the to have said to
his
when them, and strongest of all—out
one of the chairs and talked I made myself a dare. And mood and the spirit of that day. he wasslashing outeditor
some of his of all the trips that I made and
into my machine while I looked somehow if you make yourself The greatest help were the lit- favorite writing,
"You are kill-. all the people that I met—a
out over Andrew Jackson 's record what went on in the tie shorthand notes I had jotted ing my darlings!"
deep, roaring faith in and love
magnolias to the Washington days, it makes you more organ- down in my daily schedule book. The result is
actually
Monument -- my favorite view ized, it makes you remember Gradually I, the most unme- oler" of my diary—a a "sam- for this country.
hook of
LBJ Ranch
in all of Washington, often out-things better.
chanical of women, made some 800 pages—using about
August 15, 1970