Thursday, November 2, 2000

Don’t expect Lady Bird to pick up the tab
By Bill Whitaker

While zigzagging polls suggest it’s way too close to call, many Texans are already pondering another Bush White House, including what kind of first lady Laura Bush might be.

One author and journalist who’s willing to make an educated guess says Laura Bush may well recall Lady Bird Johnson rather than Barbara Bush.

“I think she’ll find one thing, just as Mrs. Johnson did, and be entirely focused about it,” said Jan Jarboe Russell, author of Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson and speaker at the Nov. 9 Friends of the Abilene Public Library Book & Author Dinner at the Abilene Civic Center.

“She’ll probably try to devote herself to that one thing and do fewer of the ceremonial duties.”

If so, it’s a good bet, too, Laura Bush would devote herself to encouraging reading, judging from her record in Texas.

However Russell’s guess turns out, the 49-year-old San Antonio writer and Texas Monthly contributing editor certainly knows Lady Bird Johnson well enough to speak.

Every time Russell drives through the Hill Country come springtime, the wildflowers immediately evoke the kindly but shrewd woman whose biography she wrote. But it didn’t come easy, especially after Lady Bird declined to cooperate with her chronicler.

Russell would’ve been surprised 10 years earlier she even wanted to do a biography on the former first lady. She now characterizes Lady Bird as the real business brains of the family and a strong influence on President Lyndon Johnson, including his decision not to run for re-election in 1968.

“In 1993, Texas Monthly sent me to do a cover story on Mrs. Johnson and, frankly, I wasn’t very interested in her before then,” Russell admitted. “But I spent 10 hours with her in November 1993 and I was just stunned. Mrs. Johnson bore no resemblance to what I thought she’d be.

“She was not just a little old lady interested in wildflowers. She’d had a front-row seat on history and was anxious to talk about it. She was born in 1912, so all these major events — the Cold War, Vietnam, civil rights, the environmental movement — were things I could work into the book.”

Although Lady Bird indicated she’d help Russell with the biography, she warned that the offer would go no further.

“I’ll be glad to work with you on this,” she told the author, “but I can tell you right now I’m not going to read it.”

“But … why not?” Russell asked, baffled.

“I don’t read anything about Lyndon or me,” the former first lady said, “because we’ve already lived it.”

But Lady Bird obviously did peruse some pieces about her husband.

In fact, one reason Lady Bird later withdrew cooperation was because of an article Russell wrote about the first release of LBJ White House tapes: “She didn’t like the article’s tone because I wrote that he sounded like a Texas hick, and he did.”

Even so, Lady Bird did nothing otherwise to hinder the project.

“I would’ve expected once Mrs. Johnson stopped talking with me she would’ve asked her close friends to stop, but she didn’t,” Russell said. “Her friends continued to talk, she did nothing to sabotage the project, and I in turn went way out of my way to be as fair as possible.”

That doesn’t mean Russell didn’t come upon some surprises about the amiable, wildlife-loving first lady, particularly her penny-pinching ways. She may have spearheaded national beautification efforts, but she also loved the color of fiscal green.

“She’s extremely tight,” Russell said. “That’s an interesting phenomenon because she was born wealthy on both sides of her family. Her father was the richest man in Harrison County. But Johnson used to say Lady Bird had the first buffalo nickel she ever made still tucked in her bra.

“And I believe that’s true,” Russell said. “She flies coach and yet she’s one of the wealthiest women in Texas. And if you go to lunch with her, you’ll pay your half.”

Cost of the Friends of the Abilene Public Library dinner is $15 and reservations can be made by calling 698-3788.

Contact associate editor Bill Whitaker at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com. Check out Bill’s previous columns at www.brazosbill.com.