P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

CAN THIS NEW MAN LEAD?

It was a rotten job, but somebody had to do it. Oh, it paid well, and carried a certain notoriety, but there was nothing to do! He had no power, no authority, no sphere of influence. For Lyndon Baines Johnson, being Vice President of the United States under the glamorous John F. Kennedy was pretty close to torture. After years where he held the all-important post of Senate Majority Leader — making deals, appointing judges, giving out jobs, driving legislation through the prestigious upper chamber of Congress — he now opened factories and toasted beauty queens and sharpened pencils.

President Kennedy, knowing that being #2 was, in his own words, “a miserable job,” did his best to give his running mate meaningful assignments, but it didn’t really work very well. No wonder Vice President John Nance Garner — ever heard of him? Probably not — who served for two terms under Franklin D. Roosevelt, called the job “a pitcher of warm spit.” Here’s a trivia tidbit as we think about November of 1963: there was even a vice president named Dallas: George Mifflin Dallas, who served under James Polk. You never heard of him either, did you?

Critics who look back now on the abbreviated days of the Kennedy-Johnson administration concede that LBJ did his best to be loyal. He played his part. He was deferential to his boss, a man almost a decade younger than he was. He supported Kennedy’s programs. He was good at “hunkering down,” as he called it, playing second fiddle. But with Kennedy riding high at nearly a 60% approval rating in November of 1963, it looked like Vice President Johnson was going to be Vice President Johnson for a long five more years. That was IF Kennedy kept him on; there were always rumblings that he could be replaced.

But then on Friday afternoon, Malcolm Kilduff, Assistant Press Secretary for Kennedy, stepped up to a microphone in joined classrooms 101-102 at Parkland Memorial Hospital, and at 1:33 p.m. said to reporters: “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately one o’clock Central Standard Time today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound in the brain.”

And with that announcement, Lyndon Baines Johnson was suddenly the President of the United States. Just a few minutes before the press announcement, this same Malcolm Kilduff approached Mr. Johnson to clear the public statement. Here’s how William Manchester describes the moment in his book, The Death of a President:

“An agent guided Kilduff through the white jungle of Minor Medicine [there at Parkland Hospital]. At the end of the last right turn Kilduff saw the broad back of Kennedy’s constitutional successor. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Mr. President.’ It was the first time that anyone had so addressed Johnson. He turned and, according to Kilduff’s later recollection, ‘looked at me like I was Donald Duck.’”

All at once he had that title: “Mr. President.” As long as it takes to read that painful sentence on page 229 of this book: “There was a sudden, sharp, shattering sound,” America got a new president. Manchester writes later in the book:

“In the moment it takes to drive over a crack of gray Texas asphalt his life [LBJ’s] and the country’s history had been transformed.”

Elsewhere he points to the dreaded irony of how it happened:

“A Texas murder had put a Texan in power.”

“It was without doubt,” he considered later, “the most painful assumption of power in American history.” And suddenly, under a blanket of horror, a frail human man was thrust into huge, incomprehensible responsibilities, and with not a moment to think about it. He didn’t run for the office; no one voted him in. But suddenly the Oval Office was his. He didn’t ride in backup jet #86970; now the main airplane was his. Major General Chester V. Clifton, military aide to the President, had to explain to Johnson, as they flew back to Washington, that the man with the “football,” the briefcase with nuclear launch codes, was aboard the plane. Now all of that was Johnson’s responsibility. The Red Phone hotline to the Kremlin was now his. He would live, as soon as graciously possible, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

There was an awkward little moment on board that plane even before they left Love Field. Jackie Kennedy, distraught, her pink dress stained with blood, her heart broken, wanted to be by herself for just a few minutes before takeoff. So she went up to the private bedroom that was hers and Jack Kennedy’s. As she opened the door, she saw LBJ reclining on the presidential bed, already dictating memos to his secretary, Marie Fehner. He hadn’t meant any disrespect; he wasn’t trying to rush into power, but power was hanging in the balance. Things needed to move forward. He was President; John F. Kennedy was a corpse in a coffin in the tail of the plane. But it was still an awkward, horrible reminder of what had happened. Without a word, LBJ got up and yielded the room, giving Jackie those few moments of quiet.
Manchester, the author of this book, tries to imagine the new President’s feelings, and shares a quote from Harry Truman, who picked up the pieces after FDR passed away.

“‘I don’t know if any of you fellows ever had a load of hay or a bull fall on him,’ Truman told reporters on April 14th, 1945, ‘but last night the whole weight of the moon and stars fell on me.’”

But think about this transition from the point of view of other people. Secret Service agent Emory Roberts saw Kennedy get hit; he knew it was a fatal wound. Even while the President’s heart was still beating, he knew he had to switch his loyalty. In his pocket was a commission book telling him to protect the President. That was Johnson now. When they arrived at the hospital, he told agent Bill McIntyre very simply: “They got him. You and Bennett take over Johnson as soon as we stop.” In code over the radio, he gave similar instructions: “Have Dagger cover Volunteer.” “Volunteer” was the new, 36th President, Lyndon Johnson.

But think for a moment about Kennedy’s cabinet. Ironically, a number of them were on another plane on their way toward Japan. News of the assassination of their President reached them by radio, and they turned around, heading toward Hickam Field at Honolulu, where they would refuel and then return to Washington. Dean Rusk was on board; C. Douglas Dillon of Treasury; Hodges of Commerce; Udall, Secretary of the Interior. And these grown men wept together; they prayed. They retreated to their seats, huddling down with their tears. But even as their plane carried them into the disaster of November 22, they began to think of the future. One of them started a kind of memo, or planning sheet. And he wrote in big letters across the front: “WHAT KIND PRES?” What kind of leader would Johnson make? The men sat together in their grief, brainstorming, wondering. One of them threw up his hands: he couldn’t even make an educated guess. These men had no clue where LBJ would try to take the nation. Kennedy had been a genius at foreign affairs; he knew world leaders, knew the intricacies of international banking. In fact, he had designed a scheme to protect America from currency speculators taking advantage of a national disaster like an assassination. It worked brilliantly on November 22, 1963. But would Johnson be able to match him? These men had no idea. All weekend long, as millions of Americans watched their TVs, they really did not know. Where will this unproven, untested leader, this pencil-sharpening Texan, take us?

You know, friend, in the midst of this world’s last, tumultuous moments, some of us are standing in church pulpits or here on the radio inviting you to give allegiance to a new leader, the founder of the Christian faith. “Join this administration,” we say. “Follow the King we’re following. Come with us into a bright new future.” And you have a right to ask, with yellow pad in your hand, “Well, hang on. What kind of Leader is He? Is He capable?”

Coming up as we are on the Christmas season, I can’t help but think of that Handel’s Messiah verse in Isaiah describing the challenge faced by this Leader named Jesus Christ. Is He up to it? Can He pick up the reins of power? Notice chapter nine, verse six:

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” Now here’s the great challenge and promise: “And the government shall be upon His shoulder.” And then the prophet adds these words of confidence: “And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

And I think of those Cabinet officers in that jet, hurtling into an unknown future. They were terrified, not for themselves or their jobs, their paychecks, but for the nation. Could this man live up to the dreams of the country? Could he build a Great Society, provide civil rights protection for all, lift up the downtrodden, bind up the wounds? They didn’t know this man, and so they were afraid.

Friend, let me remind you as we close that Jesus has proven His mettle. He’s new, and yet also the Ancient of Days. The Bible describes victories already won, and victories yet to come. Jesus Christ, before the Incarnation, already ruled. He’s a proven quantity! We have the Cross to prove His love; we have Creation to prove His power; we have changed lives to prove His influence. We have the Bible to prove His agenda; we have John 3:16 to prove His mission.

And out of tragedy, out of the agony of death and assassinations and this wretched alien experiment called sin, He promises to make all things new. This new Leader, already tested, invites us into His peace. The very next verse in Isaiah:

“Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.”

Friend, He can carry the government on His shoulder. And you and me there as well.