Talk:First inauguration of Lyndon B. Johnson

Move this article?
I'm not 100% certain of this, but if one reads United States presidential inauguration, it would appear that this article is misnamed. From that article, it would appear that while Lyndon Johnson was sworn in on 11/22/63, that his only inauguration took place on 1/20/65. Thoughts? Un sch  ool  01:34, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a moot point in constitutional law. One argument was that he was effectively sworn in when he took the oath of vice-President, and this covered both positions.  Gillon's book suggest that Johnston considered a swearing in to be important to show continuity of government to the American people.  Kransky (talk) 09:11, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

"Instead of the usual Bible, Johnson was sworn in upon a missal..." Accurate?
The source of this Bible vs. missal statement is a January 2009 article in the Los Angles Times. Perhaps a more accurate source on the issue is William Manchester's incredibly detailed book, Death of a President, published in 1967, much closer to the acutual event. Mr. Manchester had interviewed every witness on Air Force One and devotes almost all of page 324 to the Bible used. According to Manchester, the oath was about to be begin..."Then a voice from the semicircle of witnesses asked, 'What about a Bible?'...President Kennedy always caried his personal Bible under the lid of the table between the two beds in his private cabin, and (Sergeant Joe) Ayers (Air Force One's chief steward) went to fetch it." After the Bible was handed to Judge Sarah Hughes..."She regarded it dubiously. Kennedy, she remembered, had quoted the Bible a lot.  This must be his - after all, this was his plane - and that meant it (the Bible) was probably Catholic.  She hesitated and decided it would be all right." Mr. Manchester footnotes this last sentence with: "The myth of 'the Catholic Bible' endures in Protestant America. Although such editions do exist, neither the obsolete (Douay) version nor the current (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) rendition differs to any discernible extent from the one familiar to non-Catholics.  Ecclesiasical scholars could distinguish between them, but Sarah Hughes couldn't.  Neither, in the the opinion of Bishop Philip M. Hannan, could John Kennedy, and it is unlikely that the question had ever crossed the President's mind." Unfortunately, after the oath was administered, Judge Hughes did not hand the Bible back to anyone aboard Air Force One. From page 328 - "Tripping down the ramp steps (of Air Force One)... Sarah Hughes was hailed by a self-assured man - she remembers him as 'rather officious' - who pointed at the black binding in her hand asked, 'Do you want that?' She shook her head. 'How about this?' he inquired, fingering the 3 X 5 card with the text of the oath.  Neither belonged to her, and so she surrendered them, assuming that he was some sort of security man.  He wasn't." The Bible has been lost to history ever since and according to Manchester in all the anarchy of the day, it was the single article that the Kennedys brought to Dallas that did not leave with them.
 * If you have the book please go ahead and add the info w/ appropriate refs and page numbers. It's very likely that there may be differing accounts on what actually happened, and if that's the case the article should reflect that. Joshdboz (talk) 15:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Cultural references
Maybe we should mention how this event has been referenced in popular culture multible times. Out of my head, I remember the Simpsons episode "Lisa the Beauty Queen", with Marge even wearing Jackie Kennedy's clothes, and the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries, where President Roslynn is sworn in aboard her spaceship in a very similar fashion. -- Imladros (talk) 04:16, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Broken Links
The "More Photos of the taking of the oath" and "More material relating to succession" links in the External links section are broken, as well as the inauguration audio in the Inauguration aboard Air Force One subsection. Charlie950 04:09, 20 June 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlie950 (talk • contribs)

Area of onboard stateroom can't be 16 sq ft
The article states:
 * twenty-seven people squeezed into the sixteen-foot square stateroom of Air Force One.

I assume it is meant to be read as "sixteen square feet", and I found one source about it (but don't know whether it got its info from Wikipedia):
 * Because of changes in the plane's interior, the area is only as wide as an aisle now, but it wasn't big to begin with -- only 16 square feet that was packed by 27 onlookers ...

However, this is not only dubious, but impossible. You can't squeeze 27 people into 4 x 4 feet, and the image clearly shows the area is bigger. Maybe 16 square meter (roughly 16 x 16 ft) is more likely? I'll add a tag in the article. Hope somebody will help find more trustable info. Sasper (talk) 15:12, 3 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The area cannot possibly be 16 x 16 feet, as the Boeing 707 used at the time was only 12 feet 4 inches wide (per Wikipedia). Better to simply delete the measurements and say "stateroom". Quickfoot (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Sixteen-foot square is the old-fashioned way of saying a square, 16 feet on a side, aka 256 square feet. (Similar phrasing in Art.1, Sec.8, Clause 17 of US Constitution where the District of Columbia is described as "not exceeding ten miles square" (it was laid out 10 miles on a side, and originally 100 square miles).  From the 3D tour here:  dimensions of 12 x 21 seem reasonable. KevinCuddeback (talk) 16:48, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The 3-D tour suggests that there are only 7 windows in the 12 foot wide stateroom. If the window panel width were known, that'd be your length to go with the 12'4" width.KevinCuddeback (talk) 17:16, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

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