LBJ and the Great Society
A larger-than-life President and a transformative moment in American history, revealed through little-known recordings from the White House.
S1 Ep 3 LBJ's War - The Carrot and the Stick
By the spring of 1965, pressure is building on President Johnson to make his case for the war to the American electorate. He resists, preferring to manage the conflict without public scrutiny, but finally agrees to go public, in a speech at Johns Hopkins University. The strategy behind the speech: a little something for everybody. A look at how that strategy works out, and what it reveals about LBJ's congenital bias for secrecy.
More episodes from LBJ and the Great Society
S2 Ep 7 - Post Script
So what do historians think, fifty years out, about LBJ’s Great Society and its long term impact on American life and politics? In early February, …
S2 Ep 6 - The Engineer
Five decades after Lyndon Johnson first unveiled his lofty vision of a Great Society, politicians and pundits are still arguing about what he …
S2 Ep 5 - Give Us the Ballot
By his own account the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was Lyndon Johnson’s greatest achievement – the jewel in the crown of the Great Society, and widely considered the most effective piece of …
S2 Ep 4 - Medicine Man
FDR, Harry Truman, and JFK all attempted to pass some form of universal health care — but no one had gotten even close. Johnson believed he might succeed where his predecessors had failed, …
S2 Ep 3 - The Bully Pulpit
“We will not win our war against poverty until the conscience of the entire Nation is aroused,” LBJ told an aide. But how to do that when most …
S2 Ep 2 - Mr. Poverty
"I didn't know a damn thing about poverty and didn't want the job," Sargent Shriver would later recall, of his conversation with the president, “and …
How you can listen to this podcast
You can listen to episodes right here on the website, or if you prefer, in a podcast app. Listening in an app makes it easier to keep track of what you’ve already heard, listen without using your data plan and many other conveniences.