16. LBJ’s Good Ole Boy Persona
Lyndon Johnson liked to depict himself as a simple a Good Ole Boy. In many ways, he really was. A Good Ole Boy, that is: there was nothing simple about the smart-as-a-whip LBJ. One way the Good Ole Boy side came out was in his humor. Not subtle salon or New Yorker type quips and bon mots, but down to earth – and quite often earthy – jokes and pranks, the darker the better. One of his favorite nutty jests was to convince guests – whose numbers included important foreign dignitaries – that they were about to die.
LBJ pulled that off with his Amphicar – a West German vehicle that was the only civilian passenger amphibious automobile to ever be mass produced. About 4000 were made, and Johnson was the proud owner of a baby blue one. When LBJ visited his Texas ranch, he often invited people down to spend some time with him as his guests. While there, the host would often take them for a drive in his Amphicar – without telling them what it was. As seen below, he would then convince them that they were about to drown.