AP News, February 15th, 2007
On Aug. 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson had a busy day juggling his civil rights initiative, a growing crisis in the Gulf of Tonkin and the discovery of the bodies of three missing civil rights workers in Mississippi.
He also got a call from the first lady with a gentle reminder about dinner and a quick "I love you."
Under a new Web-based archive project launched Thursday, audio and visual records of Johnson's day are just a mouse click away for anyone who wants to dig into the president's life and actions in office.
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum is leading a collaborative effort with the other 11 presidential libraries and the University of Texas to create http://www.presidentialtimeline.org, to put records from each library on the Web for easy access.
It features records related to significant events and issues faced by 12 presidents, from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton.
Materials include audio and video clips, photos and documents, including diaries, some of which have been available only to scholars.
"They hadn't ever been put together and conceptualized in a way that was user friendly," said Betty Sue Flowers, director of the LBJ library, who first thought of the project about three years ago.
The project is in its infancy and the Web site currently features about 700 documents. Archivists plan to continually update it and eventually include millions of records from each library.
Flowers also hopes to someday include documents covering earlier presidents from the Library of Congress.
"Each month, each year, it will become a deeper and richer exhibit," said project director Paul Resta.
The timeline also features classroom projects and lessons for teachers. Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein praised the project as "enormously helpful to students and teachers to use documents to understand American history."
In a project demonstration, the LBJ library focused on materials related to the Gulf of Tonkin incident off Vietnam. Two U.S. warships off Vietnam mistakenly reported that they had been fired upon, leading Congress to endorse Johnson's escalation of the conflict.
The Web site includes a description of the event, maps, photos and official presidential documents. It also features recorded telephone calls Johnson took from Defense Secretary Robert McNamara about the war and the FBI about the deaths of the civil rights workers.
The bodies of Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney were found earlier that day, buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi. The nation's shock over the murders helped spur passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
During his call with the FBI, Johnson expressed concern that officials would announce the discovery of the bodies before the families of the missing men could be notified.
Later that day, he took the call from Lady Bird Johnson about dinner.
Bringing all those elements together makes it easier to understand how the president had to juggle key issues of his presidency, Flowers said.
"This puts a little different experience on history," Flowers said. "I think it will be a wonderful resource."
