The New First Lady

"Women have always played a big part in my life," Lyndon Johnson once said. For 29 years, the biggest part has been played by one woman--Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson, the new First Lady of the land.

"Lady Bird"* Johnson, 50, is one of the busiest women in the nation's busy capital. She rolls bandages for the Red Cross and pours milk for underprivileged children. She runs her own million-dollar businesses. She entertains everyone from American astronauts to illiterate Pakistani camel drivers--with heaping portions of hominy and homey Texas charm. The Washington newspapers love her: hardly a day goes by without her picture on the society pages. But to most of the U.S., Lady Bird Johnson is still just a funny name.

A Bond Every Month. Daughter of an Alabama storekeeper turned Texas rancher, Lady Bird was fresh out of the University of Texas when she met Lyndon Johnson in 1934. He was working as secretary to Congressman Richard Kleberg, a part-owner of the famed King Ranch. "I knew I'd met something remarkable," she says, "but I didn't know quite what." Johnson proposed on their first date--and ten weeks later they were married. "My aunt objected," she says. "But my daddy said some of the best deals are made in a hurry." Lyndon's salary was $260 a month, but the newlyweds made it do: they lived in a $42.50 Washington apartment, bought an $18.75 savings bond every month. In 1937, Lady Bird financed Lyndon's first congressional campaign with a $10,000 loan from her father.

Lady Bird manned campaign telephones, distributed buttons, operated as official greeter. When she thought Lyndon's campaign speeches were too long, she slipped him notes reading "That's enough." She gave advice freely, later noted: "I see some of my ideas put into practice. I'm not sure Lyndon remembers where he got them." When Johnson lost the presidential nomination to Kennedy in 1960, Lady Bird faced the press. "Lyndon would have made a noble President--a tough, can-do President," she said. "But as a mother and a wife and a woman who wakes up in the morning and wants to call her day her own, I have a sizable feeling of relief."

The relief was short-lived: Johnson was nominated for the vice-presidency. Fortified with a cram course in public speaking, Lady Bird set off on a whirlwind campaign tour, made scores of appearances, got a modest share of the credit when Texas went Democratic.

Muzak in Every Room. Back in Washington, Lady Bird set up headquarters in The Elms, a Norman mansion in Washington's Spring Valley section (previous owner: Capital Party Giver Perle Mesta). With Daughters Lynda Bird (now 19) and Lucy Baines (16) growing up, the Johnsons provided all comforts. Lady Bird piped Muzak into every room, built a heated $15,000 swimming pool in the backyard, stocked two freezers with enough prime Texas steaks for a regiment. Johnson traveled more than any other Vice President--to Asia, Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, around the world--and Lady Bird always went along.

As shrewd a businesswoman as she is a politician, Lady Bird has parlayed an inheritance of $67,000 and 2,900 acres of Alabama cotton and timber land into a radio-TV station in Austin, Texas, four cattle ranches and a bulging stock portfolio. Her estimated net worth is about $5,000,000, but she is thrifty enough to buy "seconds" in household linens. "She asks the price of everything," says a friend. "When the house needs repair work, she gets three estimates." Yet her most notable quality is her capacity for enjoyment. "I wouldn't trade this life for anything," she once said. For Lady Bird Johnson, this life may be much different from now on.

* A nickname that has stuck with her ever since she was two, when a Negro nursemaid said: "Lawd, she's as pretty as a little lady bird."

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