Page 29 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE PROGRAM

Before winning over thirty Emmy Awards for producing many of pub-
lic television’s groundbreaking series, Bill Moyers served as a top aide dur-
ing Lyndon Johnson’s unsuccessful bid for the 1960 Democratic presidential
nomination and then became the liaison between the vice presidential can-
didate and the nominee, Senator John F. Kennedy. Moyers was one of the
organizers of the Peace Corps during the Kennedy administration. Then,
after Johnson was sworn in as president after Kennedy’s assassination, Moy-
ers became a special assistant to Johnson and later served as his White
House press secretary. “LBJ had a record from the beginning of his pub-
lic life of bringing young men into his circle, granting them his confidence,
expecting high performance from them, and treating them as equals with
others around him,” Moyers said. “He had been the beneficiary of such
patronage and felt instinctively that he owed it to others. He also was
impressed that the White House Fellows program would be a program he
could launch—it wasn’t a hangover from the Kennedy agenda—and he
liked being associated with moderate Republicans like David Rockefeller
and John Gardner,” said Moyers.

AN OBLIGATION TO SUCCEED
Although twenty-four-year-old Tom Johnson was not kin to the first fam-
ily, he became a kind of surrogate son to President Johnson and was treated
like a brother by his daughters Lynda and Luci. Johnson (WHF 65–66),
who later became publisher of the LA Times and president of CNN, was
in the first class of White House Fellows in 1965, and he knows what a dif-
ference a caring mentor can make.
Johnson began working as a sports stringer at the Macon Telegraph in
Macon, Georgia, when he was in the ninth grade. The son of a disabled
jack-of-all-trades and a grocery store clerk, “Tommy” worked at the news-
paper throughout his high school years and caught the attention and cap-
tured the hearts of not only the crusty editors in the newsroom but also
Peyton Anderson, the kindly publisher in the front office. Impressed by his
dedication, ambition, and ability, Anderson offered to pay Johnson’s tuition
to the University of Georgia, but there was a catch: Johnson not only would
have to earn good grades, he would come back to Macon each weekend
throughout the school year and during his summer vacation to work at the
Telegraph. That sounded like a swell deal and a win-win situation to
Johnson, who considered the newspaper staff a second family and the

14