PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON - INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH MOUNT SIGNED CIRCA 1968 CO-SIGNED BY: FIRST LADY LADY BIRD JOHNSON - HFSID 273135

LYNDON B. JOHNSON and LADY BIRD JOHNSON
Matted color photo of the Presidential couple in the White House, inscribed affectionately to the senior foreign policy advisor who had left the administration when his opposition to the Vietnam War proved futile.
Photograph inscribed and signed: "For Ruth and George Ball - who have/shared much of These Wonderful Years with us -/Lady Bird and/Merry Christmas!/1968" by Lady Bird Johnson and signed "Lyndon B. Johnson". Color, 6½x9½, matted to 10¼x13½. The 36th U.S. President and his First Lady are pictured in the Yellow Room of the White House on November 11, 1968. The next month, they would celebrate their last Christmas in the White House. Johnson had not run for re-election in 1968, and Richard Nixon would take office as the 37th President on January 20, 1969. On November 17, 1934, 26-year-old Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), secretary to Congressman Richard M. Kleberg, married 21-year old Lady Bird (Claudia Alta) Taylor (born in 1912) in San Antonio, Texas. They had two children, Lynda Bird (born 1944) and Luci Baines (born 1947). They were married for 39 years and 66 days until Lyndon Johnson's death in 1973. LBJ served as U.S. Congressman (1937-1948) and U.S. Senator from Texas (1949-1961), JFK's Vice President (1961-1963) and 36th U.S. President (1963-1969). Lady Bird, who turned 93 on December 22, 2005, is the second oldest living former First Lady, exceeded only by Bess Truman, who died in 1982 at age 97. GEORGE W. BALL (1909-1994), who began his lifelong marriage to Ruth Murdoch Ball in 1932, was Under-Secretary of State in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations (1961-1966). His advice on Vietnam consistently ignored, Ball resigned from the administration in 1966, but he refrained from any public criticism of President Johnson. Only with the unauthorized publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 did Ball's consistent opposition to the war become widely known. A successful lawyer, Ball later wrote books on foreign policy and advised the Carter administration. From the very beginning he opposed US military involvement in Vietnam.  Photograph has faded (Mrs. Johnson was wearing a yellow dress). Minor surface creases, nail head-size impression at upper background. Mount is slightly soiled, touching Mrs. Johnson's signature and two words of writing. Frame is chipped. Backing paper on verso of framed display has been torn away. Photograph is adhered directly to matte.  Overall, fine condition. Framed, not in the Gallery of History style: 12x15. Not reviewed by us for conservation integrity. "As is" framing purchase.