Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes 1963 1964 [abridged]

  • Author: Michael R. Beschloss
  • Narrator: Michael R. Beschloss
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Duration: 6:12:43
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Synopsis

Taking Charge brings you into the room with an American political legend, still hated and revered a quarter century after his death. We hear Lyndon Johnson as he schemes and blusters, rewards and punishes, and reveals a bedrock core of unshakable political beliefs.
The only President to record his private conversations from his first day in office, LBJ ordered these tapes locked in a vault until at least the year 2023. But now they have been unsealed, providing a close-up look at a President taking power such as we have never had before -- from John F. Kennedy's murder in November 1963 to Johnson's campaign for a landslide victory.
Taking Charge is filled with revelations about the full-blooded Texan behind the public image. You will hear LBJ:
* Revealing his self-doubts and personal anguish over the responsibilities of the presidency
* Receiving the frank criticism of his wife, Lady Bird Johnson
* Staking his presidency on a revolutionaly civil rights bill
* Scuttling Robert Kennedy's drive to be his Vice President
* Using the Tonkin Gulf attack to expand the American beachhead in Southeast Asia
* Unveiling his private, tortured early doubts that we could ever win a war in Vietnam
Taking Charge gives us an unprecedented look into a crucial presidency that continues to shape our lives today. In LBJ's own words, it is history "with the bark off."

Chapters

  • cd1of5 Taking Charge

    Duration: 01h15min
  • cd2of5 Taking Charge

    Duration: 01h15min
  • cd3of5 Taking Charge

    Duration: 01h14min
  • cd4of5 Taking Charge

    Duration: 01h14min
  • cd5of5 Taking Charge

    Duration: 01h13min