Great Society domestic program legislation by Johnson Despite his political prowess and previous service as
Senate Majority Leader, Johnson had largely been sidelined in the Kennedy administration. He took office determined to secure the passage of Kennedy's unfinished domestic agenda, which, for the most part, had remained bottled-up in various congressional committees. Many of the liberal initiatives favored by Kennedy and Johnson had been blocked for decades by a
conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats; on the night Johnson became president, he asked an aide, "do you realize that every issue that is on my desk tonight was on my desk when I came to Congress in 1937?" By early 1964, Johnson had begun to use the name "
Great Society" to describe his domestic program; the term was coined by
Richard Goodwin, and drawn from
Eric Goldman's observation that the title of
Walter Lippmann's book
The Good Society best captured the totality of president's agenda. Johnson's Great Society program encompassed movements of urban renewal, modern transportation, clean environment, anti-poverty, healthcare reform, crime control, and educational reform. To ensure the passage of his programs, Johnson placed an unprecedented emphasis on relations with Congress.
Taxation and budget Influenced by the
Keynesian school of economics by his chief economic advisor
Seymour E. Harris, Kennedy had proposed a tax cut designed to stimulate consumer demand and lower unemployment. Kennedy's bill was passed by the House, but faced opposition from
Harry Byrd, the chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee. Signed into law on February 26, 1964, the act cut individual income tax rates across the board by approximately 20 percent, cut the top marginal tax rate from 91 to 70 percent, and slightly reduced corporate tax rates. Passage of the long-stalled tax cut facilitated efforts to move ahead on civil rights legislation. Despite a period of strong economic growth, Between fiscal years 1966 and 1967, the budget deficit more than doubled to $8.6 billion, and it continued to grow in fiscal year 1968. To counter this growing budget deficit, Johnson reluctantly signed a second tax bill, the
Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968, which included a mix of tax increases and spending cuts, producing a budget surplus for fiscal year 1969.
Civil rights Johnson's success in passing major civil rights legislation was a stunning surprise.
Civil Rights Act of 1964 (left),
Whitney Young, and
James Farmer in 1964 Though a product of the South and a protege of segregationist Senator
Richard Russell Jr., Johnson had long been personally sympathetic to the
Civil Rights Movement. By the time he took office as president, he had come to favor passage of the first major civil rights bill since the
Reconstruction Era. Kennedy had submitted a major civil rights bill that would ban
segregation in public institutions, but it remained stalled in Congress when Johnson assumed the presidency. Johnson sought not only to win passage of the bill, but also to prevent Congress from stripping the most important provisions of the bill and passing another watered-down civil rights bill, as it had done in the 1950s. He opened his January 8, 1964,
State of the Union address with a public challenge to Congress, stating, "let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined." In order for Johnson's civil rights bill to reach the House floor for a vote, the president needed to find a way to circumvent Representative
Howard W. Smith, the chairman of the
House Rules Committee. Johnson and his allies convinced uncommitted Republicans and Democrats to support a
discharge petition, which would force the bill onto the House floor. Facing the possibility of being bypassed by a discharge petition, the House Rules Committee approved the civil rights bill and moved it to the floor of the full House. Possibly in an attempt to derail the bill, Smith added an amendment to the bill that would ban gender discrimination in employment. Despite the inclusion of the gender discrimination provision, the House passed the civil rights bill by a vote of 290–110 on February 10, 1964. 152 Democrats and 136 Republicans voted in favor of the bill, while the majority of the opposition came from 88 Democrats representing states that had seceded during the Civil War. Johnson convinced Senate Majority Leader
Mike Mansfield to put the House bill directly into consideration by the full Senate, bypassing the
Senate Judiciary Committee and its segregationist chairman
James Eastland. Since bottling up the civil rights bill in a committee was no longer an option, the anti-civil rights senators were left with the
filibuster as their only remaining tool. Overcoming the filibuster required the support of at least 20 Republicans, who were growing less supportive of the bill due to the fact that the party's leading presidential contender, Senator
Barry Goldwater, opposed the bill. Johnson and the conservative Dirksen reached a compromise in which Dirksen agreed to support the bill, but the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's enforcement powers were weakened. After months of debate, the Senate voted for closure in a 71–29 vote, narrowly clearing the 67-vote threshold then required to break filibusters. Though most of the opposition came from Southern Democrats, Senator Goldwater and five other Republicans also voted against ending the filibuster. Johnson signed the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2. "We believe that all men are created equal," Johnson said in an address to the country. "Yet many are denied equal treatment." The act outlawed
discrimination based on
race,
color, national origin, religion, or sex. Legend has it that, while signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Johnson told an aide, "We have lost the South for a generation," as he anticipated coming backlash from Southern whites against the Democratic Party. The Civil Rights Act was later upheld by the Supreme Court in cases such as
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States. Shortly after the 1964 elections, Johnson privately instructed Attorney General Katzenbach to draft "the goddamndest, toughest voting rights act that you can." He did not, however, publicly push for the legislation at that time; his advisers warned him of political costs for vigorously pursuing a
voting rights bill so soon after Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act, and Johnson was concerned that championing voting rights would endanger his other Great Society reforms by angering Southern Democrats in Congress. In response to the rapidly increasing political pressure upon him, Johnson decided to immediately send voting rights legislation to Congress, and to address the American people in a speech before a
Joint session of Congress. He began: Johnson and Dirksen established a strong bipartisan alliance in favor of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, precluding the possibility of a Senate filibuster defeating the bill. In August 1965, the House approved the bill by a vote of 333 to 85, and Senate passed the bill by a vote of 79 to 18. The landmark legislation, which Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965, outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of Southern blacks to vote for the first time. In accordance with the act, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia were subjected to the procedure of preclearance in 1965. The results were significant; between the years of 1968 and 1980, the number of Southern black elected state and federal officeholders nearly doubled.
Civil Rights Act of 1968 In April 1966, Johnson submitted a bill to Congress that barred house owners from refusing to enter into agreements on the basis of race; the bill immediately garnered opposition from many of the Northerners who had supported the last two major civil rights bills. Though a version of the bill passed the House, it failed to win Senate approval, marking Johnson's first major legislative defeat. The law gained new impetus after the April 4, 1968,
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the
civil unrest across the country following King's death. With newly urgent attention from the Johnson administration and Democratic
Speaker of the House John William McCormack, the bill passed Congress on April 10 and was quickly signed into law by Johnson. The
Fair Housing Act, a component of the bill, outlawed several forms of
housing discrimination and effectively allowed many African Americans to move to the suburbs. Johnson built on this initiative, and in his 1964 State of the Union Address stated, "this administration today, here and now, declares an unconditional
war on poverty in America. Our aim is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty but to cure it–and above all, to prevent it." As a result of Johnson's War on Poverty, as well as a strong economy, the nationwide poverty rate fell from 20 percent in 1964 to 12 percent in 1974. Some economists have claimed that the War on Poverty did not result in a substantial reduction in poverty rates. Other critics have further claimed that Johnson's programs made poor people too dependent on the government. Other scholars have disputed these criticisms. The effectiveness of the war on poverty was limited by American involvement in the Vietnam War, which consumed the country's economic resources. Johnson convinced Congress to approve the
Food Stamp Act of 1964, which made permanent the
food stamp pilot programs that had been initiated by President Kennedy. Among the official purposes of the act were strengthening the agricultural economy and providing improved levels of
nutrition among low-income households. Participation in the food stamp program increased from over 560,000 in 1965 to 15 million in 1974.
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 in
San Marcos, Texas, November 1965 , a program established by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 The Johnson administration came up with plans for a "
Community Action Program" (CAP) that would establish an agency—known as a "
Community Action Agency" (CAA)—in each city and county to coordinate all federal and state programs designed to help the poor. "Through a new Community Action Program, we intend to strike at poverty at its source – in the streets of our cities and on the farms of our countryside among the very young and the impoverished old. This program asks men and women throughout the country to prepare long-range plans for the attack on poverty in their own local communities," Johnson told Congress on March 16, 1964. Each CAA was required to have "maximum feasible participation" from local residents of the communities being served. The CAAs in turn would supervise agencies providing
social services,
mental health services,
health services,
employment services, etc. In effect, the poor would design and operate
anti-poverty programs unique to their communities' needs. Congress passed the
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, establishing the
Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to run this program. Local
community activists wanted to control the agencies and fought against established
city and county politicians' intent on dominating the boards. Many political leaders publicly or privately expressed displeasure with the
power-sharing that CAAs brought to poor and minority neighborhoods. In Chicago, Mayor
Richard J. Daley demanded absolute control over the allocation of funds and accused OEO activists of fostering
class struggle. In some cities OEO workers led
voter registration drives or
rent strikes to pressure local leaders. Republicans charged that local CAAs were run by "poverty hustlers" more intent on lining their own pockets than on alleviating the conditions of the poor. In 1967, the Green Amendment gave local governments the option to take over the CAAs, which significantly discouraged tendencies toward radicalism within the Community Action Program. The net result was a halt to the
citizen participation reform movement. By the end of the Johnson presidency, more than 1,000 CAAs were in operation. The Economic Opportunity Act created the
Job Corps and
Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a domestic version of the
Peace Corps. Modeled after the
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Job Corps was a
residential education and job-training program that provided academic and
vocational skills to low-income at-risk young people. By 1967, there were 123 Job Corps centers, with an enrollment of 42,000. VISTA deployed volunteers on community projects across the nation to address issues such as
illiteracy, inadequate housing, and poor health. Congress also agreed to
Upward Bound, a program that trained low-income students in the skills they needed for college, and
Neighborhood Youth Corps, which helped unemployed 14- to 21-year-old youths from poor families gain work experience and earn income while completing high school. The act reflected Johnson's belief that the government could best help the impoverished by providing them with economic opportunities. While some programs worked smoothly, persistent administrative disruptions hampered others. The Job Corps, for example, housed urban black youth in rustic
dorms that appeared more like
barracks. There they often learned
factory skills that were already obsolete. Surveys in 1967 found that 28 percent of graduates were still unemployed six months after completing their training. The Neighborhood Youth Corps employed over 2 million young people but frequently paid them for work already completed or other low-paying,
make-work jobs. The media highlighted cases in which school officials found themselves flooded with equipment no one wanted or even knew how to use. The OEO also received criticism that its programs ignored the structural issues of low wages,
deindustrialization, and
racial discrimination in unions and employment, in favor of a focus on participation, culture, and
human capital. The OEO was abolished in 1981. Three years later, Congress passed the
Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, which promised funding for 1.7 million new low-income units and established
Ginnie Mae as federal mortgage guarantor lender in order to encourage mortgage loans to low-income buyers. Johnson took an additional step in the war on poverty with an urban renewal effort, the "Demonstration Cities Program". To qualify for the program, a city would need to demonstrate its readiness "to arrest blight and
decay in entire neighborhoods" and "make a substantial impact within the coming few years on the development of the entire city". Johnson requested an investment of $400 million per year totaling $2.4 billion. In late 1966, Congress passed a substantially reduced program costing $900 million, which Johnson later called the
Model Cities Program.
The New York Times wrote 22 years later that the program was largely a failure. Biographer Jeff Shesol wrote that Model Cities did not last long enough to be considered a breakthrough. Poor individuals who secured government jobs utilized their paychecks to escape deteriorating neighborhoods. In some cities the chief beneficiaries were urban
political machines. The program ended in 1974. While much of the housing legislation proved beneficial,
public housing often took the form of massive
high-rise buildings that afforded a poor environment to raise children and gave residents no incentive for upkeep. In addition, projects were frequently in areas that offered minimal employment and inadequate transportation. When communities began urban renewal projects,
real estate developers, investors, and moderate-income families often reaped the lion share's of the benefits. Some critics argued that the programs actually increased racial tensions.
Education visits a
Head Start class, 1966 Johnson, whose own ticket out of poverty was a public education in Texas, fervently believed that education was a cure for ignorance and poverty. Education funding in the 1960s was especially tight due to the demographic challenges posed by the large
Baby Boomer generation, but Congress had repeatedly rejected increased federal financing for public schools. Buoyed by his landslide victory in the 1964 election, in early 1965 Johnson proposed the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which would double federal spending on education from $4 billion to $8 billion. The bill quickly passed both houses of Congress by wide margins. ESEA increased funding to all school districts, but directed more money going to districts that had large proportions of students from poor families. The bill offered funding to
parochial schools indirectly, but prevented school districts that practiced segregation from receiving federal funding. The federal share of education spending rose from 3 percent in 1958 to 10 percent in 1965, and continued to grow after 1965. The act also contributed to a major increase in the pace of desegregation, as the share of Southern African-American students attending integrated schools rose from two percent in 1964 to 32 percent in 1968. Johnson's second major education program was the
Higher Education Act of 1965, intended "to strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students in postsecondary and higher education." The legislation increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships, gave low-interest loans to students, and established a
Teacher Corps. College graduation rates boomed after the passage of the act, with the percentage of college graduates tripling from 1964 to 2013. Johnson also signed a third important education bill in 1965, establishing
Head Start, an
early education program designed to help prepare children from disadvantaged families for success in public schools. Having learned that some of the difficulties encountered by disadvantaged children stemmed from the lack of opportunities for normal
cognitive development during their early life, the program provided medical, dental, social service, nutritional, and psychological care for disadvantaged preschool children.
Medicare and Medicaid while seated next to former President
Harry S. Truman Since 1957, many Democrats had advocated for the government to cover the cost of hospital visits for seniors, but the
American Medical Association (AMA) and fiscal conservatives opposed a government role in
health insurance. By 1965, half of Americans over the age of 65 did not have health insurance. Johnson supported the passage of the King-Anderson Bill, which would establish a
Medicare program for elderly patients administered by the
Social Security Administration and financed by payroll taxes.
Wilbur Mills, chairman of the key
House Ways and Means Committee, had long opposed such reforms, but the election of 1964 had defeated many allies of the AMA and shown that the public supported some version of public medical care. Mills and Johnson administration official
Wilbur J. Cohen crafted a three-part healthcare bill consisting of
Medicare Part A,
Medicare Part B, and
Medicaid. Medicare Part A provided automatic hospital insurance for all recipients of Social Security. Under this section, seniors were entitled to ninety days of hospitalization per year, per illness, with a $40 deductible to cover the first sixty days and $10 per each subsequent day of in-patient care. Medicare Part B provided voluntary medical insurance to cover physician visits; for $3 each month, Americans over the age of sixty-five, whether eligible for Social Security or not, could buy coverage, which the government further subsidized. Finally, the bill established Medicaid insurance for indigent Americans of all ages, including dependent children; states would administer the program. The bill quickly won the approval of both houses of Congress, and Johnson signed the
Social Security Amendments of 1965 into law on July 30, 1965. Johnson gave the first two Medicare cards to former President
Harry S. Truman and his wife
Bess after signing the Medicare bill at the
Truman Library. Although some doctors attempted to prevent the implementation of Medicare by boycotting it, it eventually became a widely accepted program. In 1966, Medicare enrolled approximately 19 million elderly people.
Environment into law, The 1962 publication of
Silent Spring by
Rachel Carson brought new attention to environmentalism and the danger that
pollution and
pesticide poisoning (i.e.,
DDT) posed to public health. Johnson retained Kennedy's staunchly pro-environment Secretary of the Interior,
Stewart Udall, and signed into law numerous bills designed to protect the environment. He signed into law the
Clean Air Act of 1963, which had been proposed by Kennedy. The Clean Air Act set
emission standards for stationary emitters of air pollutants and directed federal funding to
air quality research. In 1965, the act was amended by the
Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, which directed the federal government to establish and enforce national
standards for controlling the emission of pollutants from new motor vehicles and engines. In 1967, Johnson and Senator
Edmund Muskie led passage of the Air Quality Act of 1967, which increased federal subsidies for state and local pollution control programs. During his time as President, Johnson signed over 300
conservation measures into law, forming the legal basis of the modern environmental movement. In September 1964, he signed a law establishing the
Land and Water Conservation Fund, which aids the purchase of land used for federal and state parks. That same month, Johnson signed the
Wilderness Act, which established the
National Wilderness Preservation System; saving 9.1 million acres of
forestland from industrial development. The
Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, the first piece of comprehensive
endangered species legislation, authorizes the
Secretary of the Interior to list native species of fish and wildlife as endangered and to acquire endangered species habitat for inclusion in the
National Wildlife Refuge System. The
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 established the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The system includes more than 220
rivers, and covers more than 13,400 miles of rivers and streams. The
National Trails System Act of 1968 created a nationwide system of scenic and recreational
trails. The act called for control of
outdoor advertising, including removal of certain types of signs, along the nation's growing
Interstate Highway System and the existing
federal-aid primary highway system. It also required certain
junkyards along Interstate or primary highways to be removed or screened and encouraged scenic enhancement and roadside development. That same year, Muskie led passage of the
Water Quality Act of 1965, though conservatives stripped a provision of the act that would have given the federal government the authority to set clean water standards.
Immigration as U.S. Senators
Edward Kennedy and
Robert F. Kennedy, and others look on Johnson himself did not rank
immigration as a high priority, but congressional Democrats, led by
Emanuel Celler, passed the sweeping
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The act repealed the
National Origins Formula, which had restricted emigration from countries outside of Western Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The law did not greatly increase the number of immigrants who would be allowed into the country each year (approximately 300,000), but it did provide for a
family reunification provision that allowed for some immigrants to enter the country regardless of the overall number of immigrants. Largely because of the family reunification provision, the overall level of immigration increased far above what had been expected. Those who wrote the law expected that it would lead to more immigration from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, as well as relatively minor upticks in immigration from Asia and Africa. Contrary to these expectations, the main source of immigrants shifted away from Europe; by 1976, more than half of legal immigrants came from Mexico, the Philippines, Korea, Cuba, Taiwan, India, or the Dominican Republic. The percentage of foreign-born in the United States increased from 5 percent in 1965 to 14 percent in 2016. Johnson also signed the
Cuban Adjustment Act, which granted Cuban refugees an easier path to permanent residency and citizenship.
Transportation In July 1964, Johnson signed the
Urban Mass Transportation Act, which created the
Urban Mass Transportation Administration. Over a three-year period, the Act made available $375 million in federal grants to build or rebuild
commuter bus,
subway, and train facilities. During the mid-1960s, various
consumer protection activists and safety experts began making the case to Congress and the American people that more needed to be done to make
roads less dangerous and
vehicles more safe. This sentiment crystallized into conviction following the 1965 publication of
Unsafe at Any Speed by
Ralph Nader. Early in the following year, Congress held a series of highly publicized hearings regarding highway safety, and ultimately approved two bills—the
National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (NTMVSA) and the Highway Safety Act (HSA)—which the president signed into law on September 9, thus making the federal government responsible for setting and enforcing auto and road safety standards. The NTMVSA set federal motor vehicle safety standards, requiring safety features such as seat belts for every passenger, impact-absorbing steering wheels, rupture-resistant fuel tanks, and side-view mirrors. In March 1966, Johnson asked Congress to establish a Cabinet-level department that would coordinate and manage federal transportation programs, provide leadership in the resolution of transportation problems, and develop national transportation policies and programs. This new
transportation department would bring together the Commerce Department's Office of Transportation, the Bureau of Public Roads, the
Federal Aviation Agency, the
Coast Guard, the Maritime Administration, the Civil Aeronautics Board, and the
Interstate Commerce Commission. The bill passed both houses of Congress after some negotiation over navigation projects and maritime interests, and Johnson signed the Department of Transportation Act into law on October 15, 1966. Altogether, 31 previously scattered agencies were brought under the Department of Transportation, in what was the biggest reorganization of the federal government since the
National Security Act of 1947. Johnson closely watched the public opinion polls, which after 1964 generally showed that the public was consistently 40–50 percent
hawkish (in favor of stronger military measures) and 10–25 percent dovish (in favor of negotiation and disengagement). Johnson quickly found himself pressed between hawks and doves; as his aides told him, "both hawks and doves [are frustrated with the war] ... and take it out on you." Many anti-war activists identified as members of the "
New Left," a broad political movement that distrusted both contemporary mainstream liberalism and
Marxism. Although other groups and individuals attacked the Vietnam War for various reasons, student activists emerged as the most vocal component of the anti-war movement. Membership of
Students for a Democratic Society, a major New Left student group opposed to Johnson's foreign policy, tripled during 1965. Despite campus protests, the war remained generally popular throughout 1965 and 1966. Following the January 1967 publication of a
photo-essay by
William F. Pepper depicting some of the injuries inflicted on Vietnamese children by the U.S. bombing campaign, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the war publicly for the first time. King and New Left activist
Benjamin Spock led an Anti-Vietnam War march on April 15, 1967, in which 400,000 people walked from New York City's
Central Park to the
headquarters of the United Nations. On June 23, 1967, while the president was addressing a Democratic fundraiser at
The Century Plaza Hotel in
Los Angeles, police forcibly dispersed about 10,000 peaceful Vietnam War demonstrators marching in front of the hotel. A Gallup poll in July 1967 showed that 52 percent of the country disapproved of Johnson's handling of the war, and Johnson rarely campaigned in public after the Century Plaza Hotel incident. Convinced that Communists had infiltrated the anti-war movement, Johnson authorized what became known as
Operation CHAOS, an illegal CIA domestic spying operation, but the CIA did not find evidence of Communist influence in the anti-war movement.
Urban riots burning during the
1965 Watts riot The nation experienced a series of "long hot summers" of
civil unrest during the Johnson years. Expectations of prosperity arising from the promise of the Great Society failed to materialize, and discontent and alienation grew accordingly, fed in part by a surge in African American political radicalism and calls for
Black power. They started with the
Harlem riots in 1964, and the
Watts district of Los Angeles in 1965. The momentum for the advancement of civil rights came to a sudden halt in with the riots in Watts. After 34 people were killed and $35 million (equivalent to $ million in ) in property was damaged, the public feared an expansion of the violence to other cities, and so the appetite for additional programs in Johnson's agenda was lost. In what is known as the "
Long hot summer of 1967," more than 150 riots erupted across the United States. The
Boston Globe called it "a revolution of black Americans against white Americans, a violent petition for the redress of long-standing grievances." The
Globe asserted that Great Society legislation had affected little fundamental improvement. The
Newark riots left 26 dead and 1,500 injured. At an August 2, 1967 cabinet meeting, Attorney General
Ramsey Clark warned that untrained and undisciplined local police forces and National Guardsmen might trigger a "
guerrilla war in the streets," as evidenced by the climate of
sniper fire in Newark and Detroit. Snipers created a dangerous situation for both law enforcement and civilians, with shooters often targeting from rooftops and other concealed locations. The riots confounded many civil rights activists of both races due to the recent passage of major civil rights legislation. Fears of a general "
race war" were in the air. They also caused a backlash among Northern whites, many of whom stopped supporting civil rights causes. Johnson responded by appointing an 11-member advisory commission, informally known as the
Kerner Commission, to explore the causes behind the recurring outbreaks of urban civil disorder. The commission's 1968 report suggested legislative measures to promote racial integration and alleviate poverty and concluded that the nation was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal." The president, fixated on the Vietnam War and keenly aware of budgetary constraints, barely acknowledged the report. A few days later, in a candid comment made to press secretary
George Christian concerning the endemic social unrest in the nation's cities, Johnson remarked, "What did you expect? I don't know why we're so surprised. When you put your foot on a man's neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what's he going to do? He's going to knock your block off." Congress, meanwhile, passed the
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which increased funding for law enforcement agencies and authorized
wiretapping in certain situations. Johnson considered vetoing the bill, but the apparent popularity of the bill convinced him to sign it.
Other issues exhibit at the
LBJ Presidential Library Cultural initiatives Johnson created a new role for the federal government in supporting the arts, humanities, and public broadcasting. To support humanists and artists, his administration set up the
National Endowment for the Humanities and the
National Endowment for the Arts. In 1967, Johnson signed the
Public Broadcasting Act to create
educational television programs. The government had set aside radio bands for educational non-profits in the 1950s, and the
Federal Communications Commission under President Kennedy had awarded the first federal grants to educational television stations, but Johnson sought to create a vibrant
public television that would promote local diversity as well as educational programs.
Space program (center right; with sunglasses) witness the liftoff of
Apollo 11. While Johnson was in office,
NASA conducted the
Gemini space program, developed the
Saturn V rocket, and prepared to make the first crewed
Apollo program flights. On January 27, 1967, the nation was stunned when the entire crew of
Apollo 1—
Gus Grissom,
Ed White, and
Roger Chaffee—died in a cabin fire during a spacecraft test on the launch pad, stopping the program in its tracks. Rather than appointing another Warren-style commission, Johnson accepted Administrator
James E. Webb's request that NASA be permitted to conduct its own investigation, holding itself accountable to Congress and the president. The agency convened the
Apollo 204 Accident Review Board to determine the cause of the fire, and both houses of Congress conducted their own
committee inquiries scrutinizing NASA's investigation. Through it all, the president's support for NASA never wavered. The program rebounded, and by the end of Johnson's term, two crewed missions,
Apollo 7 and
Apollo 8 (the first to
orbit the Moon), had been successfully completed. He congratulated the Apollo 8 crew, saying, "You've taken ... all of us, all over the world, into a new era." Six months after leaving office, Johnson attended the launch of
Apollo 11, the first
Moon landing mission.
Gun control on April 4, 1968 Following the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as
mass shootings such as the one
perpetrated by
Charles Whitman, Johnson pushed for a major
gun control law. Lady Bird Johnson's press secretary Liz Carpenter, in a memo to the president, worried that the country had been "brainwashed by high drama," and that Johnson "need[ed] some quick dramatic actions" that addressed "the issue of violence." On October 22, 1968, Lyndon Johnson signed the
Gun Control Act of 1968, one of the largest and farthest-reaching federal gun control laws in American history. The measure prohibited convicted felons, drug users, and the mentally ill from purchasing
handguns and raised record-keeping and licensing requirements. It also banned
mail order sales of
rifles and
shotguns. President Kennedy's assassin,
Lee Harvey Oswald, had purchased by mail order a
6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle through an ad in the magazine
American Rifleman. Johnson had sought to require the licensing of gun owners and the registration of all firearms, but could not convince Congress to pass a stronger bill.
Consumer protection In January 1964,
Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a
detailed report on
smoking and
lung cancer. The report "hit the country like a bombshell," Terry later said, becoming "front page news and a lead story on every radio and television station in the United States and many abroad." Terry's report prompted Congress to pass the
Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act in July 1965, requiring cigarette manufacturers to place a
warning label on the side of cigarette packs stating: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health." Johnson also signed the
Animal Welfare Act in 1966 to appease public outrage over the theft of pets for
animal research. The
Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requires that all "consumer
commodities" be
labeled to disclose net contents, identity of commodity, and name and place of business of the product's manufacturer, packer, or distributor. President Johnson proclaimed, "The government must do its share to ensure the shopper against deception, to remedy confusion, and to eliminate questionable practices." The
Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 gave the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) authority to regulate transporters, renderers, cold storage warehouses, and animal-food manufacturers. The
Truth-in-Lending Act of 1968, designed to promote the informed use of
consumer credit, requires disclosures about the terms and cost of loans to standardize how borrowing costs are calculated and disclosed. ==Foreign affairs==