My Amazon and Goodreads review of Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia Sweig (Rating 4) – Believability and Surprise. I have always been fascinated by LBJ. I was a college freshman when he became president following JFK’s assassination. LBJ’s Great Society, notably the Head Start program, was the impetus for my lifelong career in early childhood education. Like other youth opposed to the war in Vietnam, I turned against LBJ. Years passed before I was able to credit his compassionate and far-sighted social and economic agenda. Julia Sweig’s biography, Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, enriched my perspective. For example, like others, I assumed LBJ’s decision not to run for a second term in 1968 was forced by the backlash against his foreign policy, unaware that (spoiler alert) he and Lady Bird first discussed his exit back in 1964. Although he chose to run then, bowing out in 1968 had been in their plans for years. Likewise, I discovered that Lady Bird’s campaign for “beautification” (a term she despised) was inextricably linked to the Great Society’s broader recognition of the physical, emotional, intellectual, and creative toll of living in a blighted environment — her true concern. Readers of this detailed account will also learn about Lady Bird’s vital role managing her husband’s black moods and speaking on behalf of women’s empowerment, and feel the heartbreak of seeing their hard-won domestic legacy dismissed. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I value the ability to combine believability with surprise in a narrative. Sweig’s behind-the-scenes look at Lady Bird provides both. Her absorbing history remains relevant in the ongoing struggle to balance domestic needs and foreign policy.
