Lyndon Johnson a 13-Minute Hero, Book Says

DALLAS â€”  Former President Lyndon B. Johnson bragged he was a World War II hero, but he actually observed only 13 minutes of combat, according to a book to be published next year.

An excerpt from the book “Means of Ascent� published in the New Yorker magazine declares the Silver Star that Johnson said he won for his heroism in World War II was merely a political gesture made by Gen. Douglas McArthur.

The book’s author, Robert A. Caro, writes that in the years after the war that Johnson “portrayed himself as a war-scarred veteran of many battles on many fronts.�

Actually, Caro says, Johnson saw combat in the South Pacific, only as an observer, “for a total of 13 minutes.�

“Not only did Johnson accept the Silver Star,� the New Yorker serialization says, “he arranged to accept it in public. Several times. Buying the decoration (in an Army-Navy store in Washington), he took it to Texas, where, in a number of public appearances, it was affixed to his lapel as if for the first time.�

Caro said “Johnson rapidly came to feel not only that he deserved it but that he deserved more: that the Silver Star was not a sufficiently high honor for such heroism as his.�