Very few Americans have had the impact on public policy as has Joseph Califano. Though his parents only graduated high school, he went to Harvard Law and by age 30 was working at high levels of the John F. Kennedy Administration - and shortly after was the top domestic White House aide to Lyndon Johnson. In this conversation, he talks his meteoric rise through the Kennedy / Johnson years, seeing first-hand as the LBJ “Johnson Treatment” built the Great Society, the toll that Vietnam took on President Johnson, & his work as HEW Cabinet Secretary under President Carter to start a national anti-smoking campaign that’s had immeasurable benefits to public health in the US. This is a great conversation with a true American Dream success story and political dynamo.
IN THIS EPISODE…
Growing up as an Italian-American kid in the era of Franklin Roosevelt…
How a working class Brooklyn kid makes it to Harvard Law…
Why he left a lucrative private law firm to enter the Kennedy Administration…
He talks working in the early days of the Kennedy Administration with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara…
Memories from meetings with President Kennedy…
Early impressions working up and close and personal with President Johnson…
Why LBJ sequenced the 1964 Civil Rights Act ahead of other Great Society programs…
Secretary Califano goes in depth describing “The Johnson Treatment”…
Memories from the White House on the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated…
The “race against expectations” that informed much of LBJ’s time in office…
Secretary Califano talks the difficulty in passing Fair Housing legislation…
The role that Lady Bird Johnson played in helping making President Johnson more effective…
The connection between Secretary Califano’s son and safety caps on medicine bottles…
Reflecting on a political misfire as President Johnson missed an opportunity to appoint a new Supreme Court Chief Justice…
The toll that the Vietnam War took on President Johnson…
President Johnson’s courageous early foray for gun safety laws…
The last conversation he had with President Johnson after he left office…
His time in the Carter Cabinet as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare…
Why Democrats couldn’t secure universal healthcare during the Democratic trifecta of the late 1970s…
How he came to spearhead a national anti-smoking campaign…
AND the AMA, Carolyn Agger, Brooklyn Prep, McGeorge Bundy, George Christian, Sterling Cottrell, Thomas Dewey, Everett Dirksen, Dwight Eisenhower, Abe Fortas, Gerald Ford, William Fulbright, the Harvard Law Review, the Hirshhorn Museum, Holy Cross, IBM, the JAG Corps, Lady Bird Johnson, Robert Kennedy, leak central, Russell Long, Mike Mansfield, Harry Middleton, Bill Moyers, John McGillicuddy, Harry McPherson, Richard Nixon, Dick Ottinger, PS 182, Claiborne Pell, Jake Pickle, a revolving son of a bitch, the Subversive Activity Control Board, Al Smith, sugar in gas tanks, Jack Valenti, Cyrus Vance, Earl Warren, Watts riots…& more!