Editing Lyndon B. Johnson (section)

====Senate Majority Leader====

In [[1954 United States Senate election|1954]], Johnson was re-elected to the Senate and, with Democrats winning the majority in the Senate, he became [[majority leader]].<ref name="auto"/> President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] found Johnson more cooperative than the Senate Republican leader, [[William F. Knowland]] of California. Particularly on foreign policy, Johnson offered bipartisan support to the president.<ref>{{cite web |title=Lyndon B. Johnson Master of the Senate |url=https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/parties-leadership/johnson-b-lyndon.htm |website=United States Senate}}{{PD-notice}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Goldfield|first=David|date=2014|title=Border Men: Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, and Civil Rights|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23796842|journal=The Journal of Southern History|volume=80|issue=1|pages=7–38|jstor=23796842}}</ref>

Historians Caro and Dallek consider Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader ever.<ref>Dallek (1998), p. 6.</ref><ref name="CaroSite">{{cite web|url=https://www.robertcaro.org/master-of-the-senate|title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson III: Master of the Senate| website = Robert A Caro - author's site| access-date = August 27, 2024}}</ref> He was unusually proficient at gathering information.<ref>Shesol, Jeff. ''Mutual Contempt''. p. 12.</ref> One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every senator stood on issues, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to get his vote.<ref>{{harvp|Woods|2006|p=262}}</ref> [[Bobby Baker]] claimed that Johnson would occasionally send senators on [[NATO]] trips so they were absent and unable to cast dissenting votes.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/lbj_05.html#v230 |title=LBJ |work=American Experience |access-date=October 12, 2014 |archive-date=September 30, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930095709/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/lbj_05.html#v230 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Central to Johnson's control was "The Treatment",<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.afterimagegallery.com/nytjohnson.htm |title=The New York Times, The Johnson Treatment: Lyndon B. Johnson and Theodore F. Green |publisher=Afterimagegallery.com |access-date=October 6, 2008 |archive-date=October 5, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081005055014/http://www.afterimagegallery.com/nytjohnson.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> described by two journalists:

{{blockquote|The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself{{snd}}wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.

Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint, and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Rowland Evans |first1=Rowland |last1=Evans |author-link2=Robert Novak |first2=Robert |last2=Novak |title=Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power |url=https://archive.org/details/lyndonbjohnsonex00evan |url-access=registration |year=1966 |page=[https://archive.org/details/lyndonbjohnsonex00evan/page/104 104]|publisher=[New York] New American Library }}</ref>}}
In 1956, during the [[Suez Crisis]], Johnson tried to prevent the U.S. government from criticizing [[Israel]] for its invasion of the [[Sinai Peninsula]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Future Foretold: Lyndon Baines Johnson's Congressional Support for Israel |url=https://www.clementscenter.org/press/the-future-foretold-lyndon-baines-johnson-s-congressional-support-for-israel/ |website=University of Texas at Austin}}</ref> Along with much of the rest of the nation, Johnson was appalled by the threat of possible Soviet domination of [[space exploration]] implied by the launch of ''[[Sputnik 1]]'', the first artificial Earth [[satellite]], and used his influence to ensure passage of the [[National Aeronautics and Space Act|National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958]], which established [[NASA]].<ref name="auto1"/> Johnson helped establish the [[United States Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences|Senate Aeronautical and Space Committee]], and made himself its first chairman.<ref>{{cite web |title=Senate Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, 1949-1961 |url=https://discoverlbj.org/exhibits/show/loh/prepres/sen |website=LBJ Presidential Library}}</ref>

During his tenure as Majority Leader, Johnson did not sign the 1956 [[Southern Manifesto]],<ref>{{cite journal|last=Badger|first=Tony|title=Southerners Who Refused to Sign the Southern Manifesto|journal=[[The Historical Journal]]|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|volume=42|issue=2|year=1999|pages=517–534|doi=10.1017/S0018246X98008346|jstor=3020998|s2cid=145083004}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Senate – March 12, 1956|journal=[[Congressional Record]]|volume=102|issue=4|publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office|U.S. Government Printing Office]]|pages=4459–4461|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1956-pt4/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1956-pt4-3-1.pdf|access-date=April 12, 2023}}</ref> and shepherded the [[Civil Rights Act of 1957|Civil Rights Acts of 1957]] and [[Civil Rights Act of 1960|1960]] to passage {{mdashb}} the first civil rights bills to pass Congress since the [[Enforcement Acts]] and the [[Civil Rights Act of 1875]] during [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]].{{refn|name=1957 & 1960 civil rights bills|<ref>{{cite episode|title=LBJ (Parts 1–2)|title-link=LBJ (1991 film)|series=American Experience|series-link=American Experience|network=[[PBS]]|station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|date=September 30, 1991|season=4|number=1|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lbj/|access-date=November 14, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite episode|title=JFK (Part 1)|series=American Experience|series-link=American Experience|network=[[PBS]]|station=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|date=November 11, 2013|season=25|number=7|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/jfk/|access-date=September 24, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Senate – August 7, 1957|journal=[[Congressional Record]]|volume=103|issue=10|publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office|U.S. Government Printing Office]]|page=13900|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1957-pt10/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1957-pt10-9-1.pdf|access-date=February 18, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Senate – August 29, 1957|journal=[[Congressional Record]]|volume=103|issue=12|publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office|U.S. Government Printing Office]]|page=16478|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1957-pt12/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1957-pt12-6-1.pdf|access-date=February 18, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Senate – April 8, 1960|journal=[[Congressional Record]]|volume=106|issue=6|publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office|U.S. Government Printing Office]]|pages=7810–7811|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1960-pt6/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1960-pt6-8-1.pdf|access-date=February 18, 2022}}</ref>}} Johnson negotiated a middle course between Northern liberal senators and the Southern bloc of senators who had opposed such legislation by removing key enforcement provisions,<ref>{{cite web |title=Biography Lyndon B. Johnson |url=https://www.lbjlibrary.org/life-and-legacy/the-man-himself/biography#:~:text=May%2029%2F30%2C%201941.&text=At%20the%20request%20of%20President,in%20the%20US%20Naval%20Reserve. |website=LBJ Presidential Library}}{{PD-notice}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Lyndon B. Johnson Master of the Senate |url=https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/parties-leadership/johnson-b-lyndon.htm |website=United States Senate}}</ref> such as Title III, which authorized the attorney general to initiate civil action for preventive relief in a wide range of civil rights matters.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mayer |first1=Michael S. |title=The Eisenhower Years |date=2009 |page=359}}</ref> Being a Southerner was seen as an impossible barrier for a presidential candidate{{sfnp|Caro|2002|loc=Ch. 5. The Path Ahead}} and towards the end of his Senate career as well as not signing the Southern Manifesto, he distanced himself further from the Southern Caucus in 1959 by joining the Democrat's Western regional conference.<ref name=TimeWest>{{cite web |url=https://time.com/archive/6888376/national-affairs-go-west-lyndon/|title= National Affairs: Go West, Lyndon|last= |first= |date= February 23, 1959|website= [[Time Magazine]]|publisher= |access-date= August 29, 2024|quote=}}</ref>