Poker News

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States, played politics like a game of poker. He was aggressive, cunning and always played to win.

Growing up in the vast Hill Country of south central Texas, Lyndon learned both games - politicsand poker - from his father, Sam Johnson, a five term state legislator. There were nine children in the family. At the dinner table “serious issues”, politics and government, were the conversation.

Sam Johnson, a relative remembered, “encouraged his children to engage in games that required them to think.” Dominoes, whist and poker were favorites. Two of his sons became teachers; one became President.

Born in 1908, Lyndon was proud of his roots. His family settled the Texas frontier, fought for its independence and helped write the constitution for the new Republic.

As a boy, Lyndon didn’t play with kids his age. His boyhood best friend recalled, “He wanted to run with” boys “who were five to ten years older. They let him play poker with them and …he more than held his own.”

Sam Johnson nurtured in his son an interest in politics. He often took young Lyndon to sessions of the state legislature where he was able to learn the politics at his father’s knee.

Determined to rise above the dirt-poor poverty of the Hill Country, after high school Johnson attended the only institution within 24,000 sq. miles, the Southwest Texas State Teacher’s College in San Marcos.

Lyndon supported himself in college by selling women’s silk stockings. He also played poker. On one occasion he got into an argument in a poker game that ended in a fight. Lyndon lost.

He tried teaching after college, but eventually quit to pursue his passion for politics. In 1937 Johnson successfully ran for Congress as a New Deal Democrat. He made a lot of important allies in Congress. Not surprisingly, poker proved an important path to the powerful.

Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, a fellow Texan, liked the young Congressman. Rayburn invited only a privileged few to join him at the “Board of Education,” a hideaway where he and friends would socialize, talk politics and play poker. Vice President Garner, Senator Russell of Georgia, Washington Senator Warren Magnuson, and Lyndon Johnson were frequent players.

During World War II, as a Navy Lt. Commander in the South Pacific, Johnson won a Silver Star. After the war, he returned to Texas and successfully ran for the Senate in 1948.

President Truman liked Senator Johnson. He felt they had a lot in common; not only didthey share political philosophies, but both were rural southerners from poor backgrounds. And, both were poker players.

According to Clark Clifford, Truman’s close friend, he liked to invite seven guests for a weekend on the Presidential yacht. Truman considered it just the right number for a weekend sitting around a table talking politics and playing poker. Always an elite group, it occasionally included Senator Johnson.

Lyndon married ‘Lady Bird’ in 1934. Nevertheless, he was a notorious womanizer throughout his years in the House and Senate. One biographer concluded, “Lyndon had what amounted to a harem.” Johnson collected conquests like poker chips and was proud of it. When John Kennedy’s womanizing was mentioned, Johnson pounded the table and declared he “had more women by accident than Kennedy had on purpose.”

During his years in the Senate, Johnson proved to be a skillful player, steadily raking in more power. In 1954 he was again re-elected and became Senate Majority Leader.

So prominent and powerful had the Texas poker player become that he was a strong candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1960. Instead, it went to John F. Kennedy. However, Kennedy asked Johnson to be his Vice Presidential running mate. The duo beat the Republican nominees Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge.

With President Kennedy’s assassination November 22, 1963, Vice President Johnson inherited the Oval Office. In the 1964 election, LBJ won the Presidency with the largest popular vote in history. He had reached the pinnacle of his popularity and power.

As President, Johnson continued to enjoy dominoes and poker. His brother tells us Lyndon liked “to play against people with a big reputation for brains.” It was difficult for a guest at the President’s Texas ranch to leave without a session at the domino table. French President DeGaulle, British Prime Minister Wilson and Henry Ford II were some of LBJ’s opponents. He beat the head of United Artists, Arthur Krim, out of $200 in an evening of dominoes.

Poker games at the White House were also common. Washington Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Warren “Maggie” Magnuson, Clark Clifford, and lobbyist Sam Volpentest were frequent participants.

Determined to leave as his legacy an end to poverty and ignorance in America, LBJ launched his Great Society Program in 1965. He might have been more successful had itnot been for the Vietnam War.

President Johnson hated the war and referred to it as his “bitch mistress”. But he believed the United States could not blink. Consequently, he continually escalated the war sacrificing tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. A poker player, he should have known better than to chase with a losing hand.

In 1968, President Johnson announced to the nation that he would not seek another term, citing the divisiveness in the country over the war. He returned home to Texas and died of a ‘broken’ heart in 1973.

Filed under: Poker News