Page 31 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE PROGRAM

president wrote, “I have told Tom that I would like for him to stay on if
he could do so without breaching your confidence and faith in him. I know
him well enough now to know that his sense of loyalty to you and his pro-
found appreciation for your help in his life are overriding. He is torn
between knowing that I need him and his desire to honor your confidence.
I wanted you to know this, and also to say that if you feel you can spare
Tom Johnson, his country and his President need him.” 4
In a letter to his loyal protégé, Anderson wrote, “We are all mighty
proud of you, Tommy, and especially your high regard for an obligation.
In this case, though, I don’t feel you can ignore the opportunity you have
been offered. There can be but one answer to an appeal such as the Pres-
ident made in his letter . . . you should have no hesitancy in staying on
there.” Johnson accepted LBJ’s offer and continued working directly for
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him in one capacity or another until January 22, 1973, when he phoned to
interrupt Walter Cronkite’s live CBS Evening News broadcast to announce
President Johnson’s death. Even today he remains a consultant to the John-
son family, serving as chair of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation.

ESPECIALLY YOU HARVARDS . . .
During her interviews for the White House Fellows program, Doris Kearns
Goodwin (WHF 67–68) informed the commissioners that although she
supported the Johnson administration’s efforts to promote civil rights, she
was absolutely opposed to the Vietnam War. She was selected for a Fel-
lowship anyway. She first met President Johnson at a special ceremony for
the newly appointed Fellows in a ballroom at the White House, where he
asked her to dance. After talking with the energetic, fascinating, and bril-
liant young woman—she was only twenty-four years old at the time—
Johnson picked her to be one of the White House Fellows assigned to the
Office of the President. However, there was something the president did
not know. A month before, Goodwin had cowritten an article for the New
Republic proposing that a new political party be developed from a part-
nership formed by minorities, women, and poor people. Without her
knowledge, the magazine editors titled the article “How to Remove LBJ in
1968.” The press had a field day when the article came out, and Goodwin

4 Lyndon B. Johnson, letter to Peyton Anderson, July 28, 1966.
5 Peyton Anderson, letter to W. Thomas Johnson, Jr., August 1, 1966.

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