Johnson

There are as many styles of leadership as there are leaders. Johnson was much loved and greatly hated, not just liked and disliked but adored by some and despised by others. Some people remember him as kind, generous, compassionate, considerate, decent, and devoted to advancing the well-being of the least advantaged among us. Others describe him as cruel, dictatorial, grandiose, and even vicious. He had a compulsion to be the best, to outdo everybody, to …

…criticism. His usually sure political instincts were failing. It was almost unbearable to him, knowing how he had failed at the moment his triumph had almost been achieved. In the end, his greatest enemy was not his political or military adversaries, but his own arrogance. When he left office, peace talks were under way. He did not live to see them successful, because he died suddenly of a heart attack at his Texas ranch in 1973.