The Credibility Gap: How the Press Made and Unmade Lyndon Johnson Media, Civil Rights, and Vietnam in the Johnson Presidency

He was Washington's most powerful man, and he knew exactly how to use a newspaper. Lyndon Johnson courted reporters the way he courted senators: with charm, access and relentless attention. In 1964, the press rewarded him with one of the greatest landslides in American history. It cheered his civil rights fight, mocked his opponent as reckless, and turned a Texas politician into the leader the country trusted after Dallas. Then came Vietnam. The Credibility Gap traces how the same press that built Johnson up slowly turned against him. From the grief-stricken weeks after Kennedy's assassination to the night he stunned the nation by walking away from a second term, this book follows the story of a president and the headlines, editorials, and television screens that shaped his fate.