Читать книгу Texas Confidential - Michael Varhola - Страница 15

LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, THIRTY-sixth President of the United States, always seemed proud of his womanizing ways. He had sex, inside and outside the White House, with secretaries, aides, and just about any other woman who would agree.

LBJ was constantly on the lookout for women willing to help satisfy his seemingly insatiable sexual desires.

Lady Bird Johnson, wife of philandering President Lyndon Baines Johnson, was just one of the many women who shared his bed with him.

Johnson was quoted as saying he had “more women by accident than Kennedy did on purpose”—a formidable claim, especially as he certainly lacked JFK’s looks, charm, and sophistication—and enjoyed bragging about his sexual appetites and prowess in true “Texas fashion.”

Despite his promiscuity, LBJ had at least two long-lasting affairs (and a thirty-nine-year marriage, of course).

The first affair lasted nearly three decades, from 1938 until 1965, with a lady named Alice Glass. Alice was the mistress and later the wife of Texas millionaire Charles E. Marsh, publisher of the Austin American-Statesman, who also had newspaper interests across the nation. Lyndon and Alice first met in 1937 at Marsh’s Culpepper, Virginia, estate. Alice was twenty-three years younger than Marsh and found young Johnson quite irresistible.

At one time, Alice believed Lyndon would divorce his wife to marry her, but she realized the affect a divorce would have on Lyndon’s political career, and the couple settled for a long-term, adulterous affair, sometimes meeting at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., sometimes at Marsh’s estate. It is unlikely the affair could be kept secret from Lady Bird Johnson or Charles Marsh, but both seem to have resigned themselves to it.

Johnson had “more women by accident than Kennedy did on purpose.”

Ironically, the liaison ended around 1965 over political disagreement. Alice opposed the Vietnam War and apparently wanted no more to do with its then-commander-in-chief. She even burned Lyndon’s love letters in protest.

In 1948, twenty-three-year-old Madeleine Brown was an advertising buyer for radio in Texas. She met Johnson at a reception hosted by Austin radio station KTBC, which Johnson owned. According to Brown, shortly after another event she and LBJ hooked up at an Austin hotel for a sex session. Afterward, KTBC’s station manager acted as intermediary in setting up sexual encounters for the pair. Lyndon and Madeleine would meet at different hotels in Texas anytime Johnson was there on business or making a campaign visit.

In 1950, Madeleine told Johnson she was pregnant with his child. Steven Brown was born in 1951. However, on the birth certificate Brown listed her estranged husband as the father.

The affair ended in 1969 at the Shamrock Hotel in Houston in a dispute over Steven’s paternity. Steven was more than six feet tall and seemed to resemble Lyndon. Madeleine claimed she tried to persuade LBJ to acknowledge being Steven’s father for more than two hours, but he would not consider the notion because of Lady Bird and his two daughters.

Shortly after LBJ died in 1973, Texas lawyer Jerome T. Ragsdale contacted Brown to say plans had been made to continue to provide for her and Steven. Ragsdale had been providing financial support, including a house, to Madeleine since Steven’s birth.

In 1987, Steven Brown filed suit against Lady Bird Johnson and the LBJ estate for $10.5 million, claiming unjust denial of his inheritance and his name. The lawsuit never made it to trial, however, as it halted when Steven died of lymphatic cancer.

In 1997, Madeleine Brown published an account of her affair with LBJ titled Texas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The luxurious Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., was one of the love shacks where LBJ pursued a long-term affair with Alice Glass.