Former President Lyndon B. Johnson bragged he was a World War II hero, but he actually observed only 13 minutes of combat, according to a book to be published next year.
An excerpt from "Means of Ascent" published Monday in the New Yorker magazine claims the Silver Star that Johnson said he won for his heroism in World War II was awarded merely as a political gesture by Gen. Douglas MacArthur.The book, by Robert A. Caro, will be the second volume of his comprehensive biography of Johnson, covering the former president's "hopelessness and despair" from 1941 to 1948.
Caro writes that in the years after the war Johnson "portrayed himself as a war-scarred veteran of many battles on many fronts."
Actually, Caro says, Johnson saw combat in the South Pacific, only as an observer, "for a total of 13 minutes."
"Not only did Johnson accept the Silver Star," the New Yorker serialization says, "he arranged to accept it in public. Several times. Buying the decoration (in an Army-Navy store in Washington), he took it to Texas, where, in a number of public appearances, it was affixed to his lapel as if for the first time."