The Vantage Point; Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971. First Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Fair. Y. R. Okamoto (Jacket Photo). x, [2], 636 pages. DJ has some peeling. Monagramed bookplate signed in ink by both Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson on the half title page; such dual signatures are rare. Illustrations. Maps. Front endpaper illustrations. Rear endpaper map. Appendices. Index. Name of previous owner on back of the half- title page. DJ has some wear, soiling, and peeing of the glassine layer. Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 - January 22, 1973), often referred to by the initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Formerly the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson also served as a United States Representative and as the Majority Leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people who have served in all four federal elected positions. Johnson is ranked favorably by many historians because of his domestic policies and the passage of many major laws that affected civil rights, gun control, wilderness preservation, and Social Security, although he also drew substantial criticism for his escalation of the Vietnam War. Derived from a Kirkus review: Lyndon Johnson was an extraordinary man, but like many ambitious political leaders, his methods curdled his basic decency and to many he became a monster in his own time. This historic memoir is must reading for those wishing to understand the Johnson years. Tragedy shadowed his flawed presidency and it hovers over this dignified, self-serving "perspective". The contemporary struggle for legal and moral equality for blacks, the poor, the under-educated was joined as never before by a man who put away or outgrew his sectional heritage only to have the greatness of that achievement overshadowed by Vietnam. But Johnson puts the best face on it he can. It would be easy to ridicule this man who craved adulation and acceptance but most of all atonement for real and imagined guilts. Two scarred regions, the American South and Vietnam, dominate this personal history. Essentially however the meat of this is a shrewd, defensive, telling autobiography of a failed presidency.