Lyndon Johnson taught for a year out of college before going to Washington, DC, as a legislative aide in 1931. Four years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to head the National Youth Administration in Texas. The job confirmed Johnson's fa-ith in the positive potential of government, as well as increased his personal level of support in Texas. He won a seat in Congress in 1937, served briefly in World War II, and returned to Congress when Roosevelt recalled members of Congress from active duty.

During the 1940s Johnson and his wife, "Lady Bird," developed profitable business ventures. He ran successfully for the U.S. Senate in 1948 and then moved rapidly into the Senate hierarchy. He was Senate Democratic leader in 1953 and majority leader the following year. He ran against John F. Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960 and after losing was named as vice presidential running mate. Kennedy's assassination in 1963 moved Johnson to the White House, which he retained in the 1964 election.

In that term came Medicare, an extension of the War on Poverty, and the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Voting Rights Act. In early 1965, Johnson began a deepening of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, with troop strength up from 180,000 that year to 500,000 in 1968. He also intervened militarily in the Dominican Republic. Race riots during that same period and the breakdown of interracial civil rights movements resulted in Republican gains and a poor showing in the early 1968 primaries which led Johnson to choose not to run for re-election.