Are there any tapes of lbj not being gentle with the johnson treatment?
You bet there are!
My favorite is this phone call with Senator Richard Russell of Georgia. Senator Russell had been one of Lyndon Johnson's mentors in Congress. When Johnson arrived in Washington, he quickly recognized that Russell was a lonely bachelor and workaholic with no close friends or family, so he ingratiated himself with Russell, invited him to meals and holidays at the Johnson home so that Russell felt like he was part of the family. LBJ relentlessly sucked up to Russell and treated him as a father figure throughout Johnson's time in Congress, even after Johnson became Senate Majority Leader (LBJ did the same thing with powerful House Speaker Sam Rayburn).
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the relationship between LBJ and his longtime mentor quickly changed. In the days following the assassination, LBJ formed the Warren Commission to investigate the President's murder, and he was determined to have Russell be a part of the Commission, but Senator Russell hated Chief Justice Earl Warren, who LBJ put in charge of the Commission. Russell kept trying to beg off of serving on the Commission for various reasons -- not knowing that, while he was speaking on the phone to LBJ, Johnson had already officially released the names of the Commission's members to the press. (Which led to this great exchange: RUSSELL: "Mr. President, please..." LBJ: "No, it's already done. It's been announced." RUSSELL: (Shocked and stammering) "You mean you gave..." LBJ: "Yes, sir. I gave the announcement, it's already in the papers...")
So we have the audio of this remarkable phone call from November 29, 1963 between Senator Russell and LBJ. If you listen to the entire phone call, you hear LBJ go from 0 to 100 with the Johnson Treatment -- he begins with flattery and heartfelt appeals to Russell's patriotism before making it clear (in the segment of the phone call posted below) that he's not really asking Russell; he's telling him that he's going to be a part of the Commission, making it clear that the dynamic has changed and that President Johnson is the most powerful person in the world and not afraid to prove it. The crazy thing is that, at the time of this phone call, LBJ had only been President for exactly one week. He hadn't even moved into the White House yet! But this is where we get this quintessential Johnson Treatment moment:
"You are my man on that Commission and you are gonna do it. And don't tell me what you can do and what you can't because I can't arrest you and I'm not gonna put the FBI on you, but you're goddamn sure gonna serve, I'll tell you that!"
