The Thirty-First of March: An Intimate Portrait of Lyndon Johnson's Final Days in Office

Horace Busby provides and intimate and interesting view of President Lyndon Johnson in THE 31ST OF MARCH. Although Busby provides selected views of other incidents that were key moments in the Johnson presidency and of course the story of how he became involved with Johnson the focus is on LBJ's decision not to seek re-election and the process of announcing that decision to the world. Busby's view of LBJ is that of a much more fragile man than generally preceived of. It's a quick read. Busby's walks the reader through the family quarters of the White House and the inner workings of the presidency with facinating detail. One particulary interesting aspect of the story is how Johnson was treated at JFK's funeral. Most accounts are totally sympathetic to the Kennedy's but in reading Busby, you see that LBJ had a side too. The reader comes away with a very unique view LBJ. Though brief, the work is very powerful. It is the story of friendship, loyality and devotion. I wish that the son, who edited the work would have provided a brief description of the relationship between Busby and LBJ after the White House years. It would rounded out the story.

"The Thirty-first of March", by Horace Busby takes a heart-warming yet candid look at Lyndon B. Johnson, as few had known him. The book makes for fast, interesting, and enjoyable reading. Horace Busby was an assistant to Lyndon B. Johnson from 1948 to 1968; those twenty years gave Busby the opportunity to know Lyndon B. Johnson as both a politician and a human being. Busby writes of a thoughtful, engaging, and at times ill-tempered congressional representative, senator, majority leader, vice president, and president of the United States. Readers will find that "The Thirty-first of March" offers a rare look at the human side of Lyndon B. Johnson. Lyndon Johnson was the congressional representative for the Tenth District of Texas, described by Busby as the politician who swam against the political tides; who despised the Texas "sacred cow" (oil utilities), along with big business. Busby writes of Johnson's ability to balance his social insecurities with boundless energy and passion for the causes he so firmly believed in. According to Busby, Johnson's passions may have been a result of Johnson's close association with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Johnson is described as a politician who wished to continue the work that was left incomplete by Roosevelt's "New Dealers". Many know the Lyndon B. Johnson who was arrogant, quick-tempered, reclusive, and a veteran of the political arena - he may have even been a conniver at times. However, many are unaware of Johnson's compassion for ordinary people - the downtrodden. Horace Busby brings this to center stage by giving readers a clear view of what most mattered to Lyndon B. Johnson, who believed that "[p]eople are good . . . what the average folks want is very simple: peace, a roof over their heads, food on their tables, milk for their babies, a good job at good wages, a doctor when they need him, an education for their kids, a little something to live on when they're old, and a nice funeral when they die." Busby writes of his own good fortune in making the acquaintance of such influential and powerful people as Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and their families. The book is sprinkled with short stories of these enduring encounters, which make for interesting reading. It is, however, the relationship between Busby and Johnson that the memoir brings to the forefront, which will most interest readers. Busby recollects how passionate Johnson was on domestic issues such as housing, education, healthcare, and conservation. Busby also describes Johnson's anguish and distress after receiving the news of Martin Luther King's assassination; not just for the country, but for the King family and all American people - African Americans as well as whites.... "The Thirty-first of March" was not meant to encompass Johnson's political career, but readers will gain a new understanding and respect for the ideas, accomplishments, and sacrifices of the political phenomena that was Lyndon

Horace Busby was one of the more interesting witnesses in Robert Caro's biography of LBJ, and I was sorry to hear he had passed on a few years back, here in California. Busby knew where all the bodies were buried in his capacity as top speechwriter for Johnson, extremely close to the man for twenty years or more, and inventor of the catchphrase, "The Great Society." The book, while never less than elegantly written, is scattershot in its approach, and jumps back and forth in chronology like a human pinball machine, skimming the surfaces here and there, then coming down to dwell lovingly and cinematically on some unlikely venues, such as a trip with Johnson in November of 1963, to Brussels for a conference. LBJ in Brussels, of all places, it's unreal! Here Busby really goes to town, exploring the insecurities that fueled Johnson's drive to the top and which made him the most feared man in politics. And yet he had his charming side too, and Buzz was there for large chunks of it. There's a long, fleshed out memoir of arriving with Johnson at Hyannisport in 1960, not knowing whether or not Kennedy would want him as his candidate for Vice President. There's no denying that Johnson was the odd man out among the Kennedys; in one hilarious moment he can't understand JFK's accent, despite trying to read his lips. You won't get this kind of intimate, novelistic detail anywhere else. But often "Buzz" seems overdiscreet, drawing a veil over the very things that the reader wants to know more about. Buzz's son Scott, who introduces this posthumously published memoir, suggests that Buzz came to feel he had given all his "good Lyndon stories" to Caro in their many interviews, and that the book we now have represents perhaps the not-so-good stories which Caro didn't find interesting enough to include in any of the three volumes published so far. And sometimes Buzz's speechwriting strength betray him as a memoirist; his highly praised alliteration for example, grows inane when it is employed to open a paragraph with "The prolonged procrastination was highly provocative . . . " What else is memorable about this all too brief book? Well, I liked finding out more about Johnson's religious background as a "Digressive." I never even heard to term before, and now it seems utterly key to understanding the man. Buzz' dad, a strict preacher type, hesitated before giving his boy his blessing to work for LBJ, fearing that the latter's "Digressive" qualities would corrupt Buzz. Johnson's own father emerges as a salty old son of a gun, telling his son not to forget that "If a fella starts trying to climb a pole, he usually ends up showing his ass." It was a lesson Johnson was never to forget. In one touching chapter Busby, together with Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, travel to Gettysburg to represent the administration at the Eisenhower farm, as Ike and Mamie prepare to leave their home forever (they have deeded it to the National Park Service). Both Eise