The selection of federal judges constitutes one of the more significant legacies of any president; the choices of Lyndon Baines Johnson affected important social policies for decades. This book explores the process of making judicial appointments, examining how judges were selected during Johnson's administration and the president's own participation in the process. Appointment of Judges: The Johnson Presidency is the first in-depth study of the judicial selection process in the Johnson years and is one of the few books that has analyzed any individual president's process.

Based on sources in the archives of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and correspondence from senators, party officials, Justice Department officers, the American Bar Association, Supreme Court justices, and the candidates themselves, the book is an important exploration of a significant aspect of presidential power. The author shows that Johnson recognized the great impact for social and economic policy the judiciary could have in America and sought out judges who shared his vision of the Great Society. More than any previous president since William Howard Taft, Johnson took an active personal role in setting up the criteria for choosing judges and in many cases participated in decisions on individual nominees. The president utilized the resources of the White House, the Department of Justice, other agencies, and private individuals to identify judicial candidates who met criteria of compatible policy perspective, excellent legal qualifications, political or judicial experience, youth, and ethnic diversity. The book notes how the criteria and judicial selection process evolved over time and how it operated during the transitions between Kennedy and Johnson and between Johnson and Nixon.

During the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson and his administration substantially altered the structure of the American administrative state. Creating intergovernmental programs to forward the goal of the Great Society, they changed the contours of national-state-local relationships, and these changes largely have remained, despite the attempts of later administrations to reverse them. Intergovernmental Relations in the American Administrative State is the first comprehensive study of how and why these changes occurred.

Drawn from a wealth of primary material in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, the study probes the objectives of the president and other framers of new policies and programs, within the institutional and political context of the time. The authors give special attention to the inherent incongruities that arise when intergovernmental programs are used to address problems defined in national terms. In addition, they reveal how certain programs actually challenged the power of established national bureaucracies. They conclude with a thoughtful overview of the Johnson legacy in intergovernmental relations during subsequent administrations.

Macroeconomic policy involves government action intended to influence the overall operation of the economy and to deal with such important public problems as economic growth, inflation, unemployment, and recession. In this first comprehensive treatment of presidential management of such policy for any presidency, authors James E. Anderson and Jared E. Hazleton focus on four tasks: developing and maintaining an information and decision-making system; coordination of policies in different macroeconomic areas; building support or consent for presidential policies; and administrative leadership. Drawing extensively upon presidential documents and interviews with Johnson administration officials, the authors pay particular attention to fiscal, monetary, wage-price, and international economic (especially balance of payments) policies during Johnson’s terms.

The authors use the concept of the subpresidency, as defined by Redford and Blisset in Organizing the Executive Branch: The Johnson Presidency (University of Chicago Press, 1981), to show how Johnson managed the macro-economic institutions of the council of Economic Advisors, the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget), the Department of the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve Board in pursuit of his economic goals. What emerges is a vivid portrait of an activist president.

In evaluating management of macroeconomic policy in the Johnson administration, the authors focus on how presidential policies are developed and adopted rather than on the substance of the policies themselves. They conclude that the Johnson administration competently managed policy development during its presidential years.

This book is a volume in the Administrative History of the Johnson Presidency Series sponsored by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, the first two volumes of which were published by the University of Chicago Press. Managing Macroeconomic Policy: The Johnson Presidency was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

How do science and technology issues become important to a particular presidency? Which issues gain priority? How? Why? What is the role of the presidency in the adoption of national policies affecting science and technology? In their implementation? How does the presidency try to curtail certain programs? Eliminate others? Or rescue programs Congress might seek to terminate? How does implementation vary between a president's own program and one that is inherited?

Such are the questions raised in this book, one of the first to address the relationship between scientists, few of whom have political backgrounds, and presidents, few of whom are knowledgeable in matters of science and technology. Drawing on extensive research performed at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, and the National Archives in Washington, as well as on secondary sources and interviews, W. Henry Lambright describes, discusses, and analyzes this relationship and shows how one presidency set its agenda, adopted, implemented, and curtailed or eliminated science and technology programs.

Twenty-four case studies of specific decision processes occurring in the era of Lyndon Johnson anchor the book in the world of real events. Some programs adopted under Johnson are now all but forgotten, such as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, nuclear desalting, and electronic barrier. The effects of many more, initiated, maintained, or enlarged under LBJ, lasted far beyond his administration. These include environmental pollution control, Project Apollo, and the application of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Finally, there are those that were redirected, placed on hold, or terminated under Johnson, such as the supersonic transport, antiballistic missile, and Project Mohole.

In this important book, Lambright has provided a framework for analyzing how the presidency as an institution deals with such issues, and he has established a strong foundation on which all future students of presidential policy management can build.

Regulation in the White House is an examination of regulatory policy and its development in the Johnson administration and the first comprehensive study of any presidency and regulation. Based upon a thorough analysis of presidential papers in the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, the book investigates the working relationships linking the presidency, regulatory commissions, and executive agencies with regulatory responsibilities in both the economic and social spheres.

David Welborn finds that the president's business included regulation as a major component. Johnson's concerns in regulation were varied and complex. He and his aides worked assiduously and successfully to establish effective, cooperative relationships with regulators and to avoid the exercise of undue influence on particular regulatory determinations. In Welborn's view, Johnson traversed the treacherous ground of regulatory politics with adeptness and achieved his major purposes in regulation.

The relation of White House assistants to the president, their appropriate role in the governmental process, and the most effective means for organizing and managing the White House have been subjects of both public concern and academic dispute. White House Operations addresses these and related questions by providing the first thorough analysis of how the thirty-sixth president managed his staff. By grounding their study in original documents from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, the authors lift the veil of secrecy that clouds the inner workings of the White House. The result is an insightful elaboration of the complex, extensive, and diverse roles of White House aides—and av fascinating look at such key White House figures as McGeorge Bundy, Joseph Califano, Bill Moyers, George Reedy, Walt Rostow, Lawrence O’Brien, and Johnson himself.

This exploration of Johnson’s highly personalized White House operations provides far-reaching implications for the nature of effective presidential management. The comprehensive analysis of the range of work done under Johnson and the unique nature of White House assistance leads the authors to a strong and vigorous assertion for a positive role for the White House staff that clashes sharply with the thrust of many recommendations for reorganizing the presidency. Redford and McCulley convincingly demonstrate that management of the White House staff and other parts of the president’s advisory system will remain crucial for successful presidential performance.

The book is the fifth volume in a series designed to provide a comprehensive administrative history of the Johnson presidency. The book will be of interest to the informed general reader, presidential scholars, political scientists, U.S. historians, and students of public management and will be an important addition to academic library collections.