Johnson doesn’t seem to have been very shy about his bodily functions. He would frequently demand that his people follow him into the bathroom and continue speaking to him as he used the toilet with the door open. Once, while he was speaking to his National Security Advisor, McGeorge Bundy in the bathroom, Bundy turned away to face the wall. Johnson yelled at him to come closer so he could continue speaking to him. Bundy walked towards the President while still facing the wall as Johnson called him closer, causing Bundy to almost accidentally fall into his lap.
Johnson also didn’t really care where he used the bathroom. When Johnson was at home on his ranch, he would often cruise around in his car while drinking beer, which obviously upset the Secret Service. When the President stopped to relieve himself on the side of the road, the Secret Service agents guarding him would rush to catch up. Once, while Johnson was in the middle of the process, a gust of wind caught the stream, blowing it onto a nearby Secret Service agent’s leg. When the agent told the president that he was urinating on his leg, Johnson replied, “I know, that’s my prerogative.”
Johnson seems to have turned this kind of behavior into an important part of the Johnson treatment. It was a way to establish a kind of macho dominance over the people he was speaking to. And, more importantly, it let him show off his penis. While standing at the urinal, he would sometimes swing around to continue the conversation he was having, his genitals hanging free. Once he even pointed it out to a lawmaker standing next to him and asked, “You ever seen anything this big?” Johnson then continued speaking about some upcoming legislation as he swung his penis around in his hand.
Johnson was famously proud of his penis, affectionately nicknaming it “Jumbo.” And he often found ways to work it into a conversation. After his term in office was over, a tape surfaced of Johnson speaking to a tailor where he brought up the fact that his pants didn’t leave enough room for his genitals. “The crotch, where the nuts hang, is too tight,” he complained. “It’s just like riding a wire fence. See if you can’t leave me an inch from where the zipper ends, round under my back to my bunghole, so I can let it out there if I need to.“
Of course, tight pants might explain why Johnson would often reach into his pocket while speaking to senators or congressmen and rustle around in there, casually adjusting himself. And it also gave him an opportunity to remind the people he was speaking to that he had a really big penis, which he often did. Basically, Johnson thought it was a good way to let them that he was more of a man than they were, so they should do what he said. In fact, Johson seems to have been pretty obsessed with his penis in general. And he once even used it to justify the Vietnam War.