1 CHAPTER 1: AMERICAN INDIAN SELF-DETERMINATION AND ...

constituted an important part of President Johnson's
expansive vision for America, the "Great Society." Johnson
saw the Great Society as a place where the nation's wealth
would serve "to enrich and elevate . . . national life, and
to advance the quality of . . . American civilization. . . .
The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all." 62
To assure "abundance for all," Johnson advocated a series of
federal initiatives designed to eradicate or at least
significantly reduce poverty. 63
62 U.S. President, Public Papers of the Presidents of the
United States (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1965), Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-1964, pt. I, 704.
63 Numerous books examine the Great Society and the War on
Poverty. Just a few of these include John A. Andrew III,
Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
1998); Irving Bernstein, Guns or Butter: The Presidency of
Lyndon Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996);
Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times,
1961-1973 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Gareth
Davies, From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation
of Great Society Liberalism (Lawrence: University PRess of
Kansas, 1996); Michael B. Katz, The Undeserving Poor: From
the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1989); Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A
History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Harper and
Row, 1984); James T. Patterson, America's Struggle Against
Poverty in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2000); Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon B. Johnson
and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents
(Boston: Bedford, 1995); Irwin Unger, The Best of
Intentions: The Triumphs and Failures of the Great Society
Under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon (New York: Doubleday,
1996). Lyndon Johnson offers his perspective in his memoirs,
The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency, 1963-1969
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971). None of these
books pays any significant attention to Native American
issues.
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