Description
Presentation copy of A President’s Country: A Guide to the Hill Country of Texas, inscribed by President Lyndon Johnson to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Walter Lippmann.
Twelvemo, 80pp. Maroon cloth, title stamped in brown. Stated “first edition 1964” on copyright page. Illustrated endpapers, appears unread. This work was edited by Jack Maguire with drawings by Mac Tatchell. In the publisher’s near fine dust jacket, faint wear to spine, bright illustrations.
Inscribed on the title page: “To Walter Lippmann / from his friend / Lyndon B. Johnson.” Provenance: The Malcolm Forbes Collection, Christie’s, Lot 1636-238, sold in 2006.
This copy is inscribed to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Walter Lippmann (1889-1974). Lippmann served as an informal presidential advisor to Lyndon Johnson, visiting him numerous times at the LBJ Ranch in Texas Hill Country. For his support in the days following the Kennedy assassination, Johnson awarded Lippmann the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), but as the Vietnam War escalated, Lippmann’s criticism of the administration intensified. Lippmann died in New York in 1974. As a journalist, he is remembered for developing the terms Cold War and Great Society, both of which serve to define the 20th Century.
