Episode Details

Lyndon Johnson passed more transformative legislation than any president since FDR — the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start — and then destroyed his presidency and his legacy by escalating the Vietnam War until it consumed everything. No American president has ever combined such extraordinary domestic achievement with such catastrophic foreign policy failure in a single term.

This episode traces Johnson from his impoverished Texas Hill Country childhood through his mastery of the Senate, the assassination that made him president, the Great Society legislation, and the Vietnam escalation that drove him from office.

• Johnson's childhood poverty in the Texas Hill Country and the teaching experience that shaped his politics
• His mastery of the Senate and the arm-twisting legislative style that became legendary
• The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Great Society programs that transformed America
• The Vietnam escalation, the credibility gap, and the decision not to seek re-election