LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Lyndon B. Johnson: Bombing
built 643 days ago
Johnson moved quickly into the Senate hierarchy. In 1953 he won the job of Senate Democratic leader. The next year he was easily reelected as senator and returned to Washington as majority leader, a post he held for the next six years despite a serious heart attack in 1955.
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Johnson had possibly saved American lives and had prevented the rise of a Communist government. He was able... to withdraw the American forces gracefully when the OAS troops moved in. Still, he had lost some credibility as he sought to justify the steps he had taken. Two days after the dispatch of troops, he explained his actions on the ground that "people trained outside the Dominican Republic are seeking to gain control." On 2 May he identified the cause of the trouble as a "band of Communist conspirators." In private conversation Johnson stated that "we took out 5,641 people from forty-six nations—without even a sprained ankle.. . . If I hadn't acted, Castro would have had them all." Some Americans were inclined to agree with Bosch's assessment: "This was a democratic revolution smashed by the leading democracy of the world." Johnson had acted on his conviction that "the last thing the American people wanted . . . was another Cuba on our doorstep."
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The Boyhood Home, visitor center, and Johnson Settlement are all open 8:45am to 5pm daily except Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year's Day. Admission is free. The Boyhood Home can be visited only by tours, offered every half-hour from 9 to 11:30am, and 1 to 4:30pm.
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After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, Johnson became the first member of Congress to volunteer for active duty in the armed forces (U.S. Navy), reporting for active duty on December 9, 1941.
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In the Senate, Johnson established himself as a leading member and a consummate politician. He was appointed to the Armed Services Committee and supported a strong military for the USA. On domestic issues, conscious of his home constituency, he adopted a largely conservative stance. In 1953 he was elected Minority Leader. The following year he was re-elected easily to the Senate and, with the Democrats taking control of the chamber, he became majority leader. He was an accommodator rather than an ideologue.
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Johnson was stamped by the models he took for himself from among the affluent cattlemen and oilmen he admired and envied. They tended to see the world through red-white-and-blue glasses and to regard physical power as the ultimate arbiter of disputes. Moreover, the Texas cowboy tradition of fiction and fact left its impress on Johnson. It reinforced his determination to plump for what was right and to be quick on the draw.
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