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There have been times when Presidents simply lost their bearings and talked publicly as they talked privately. In 1966, speaking to G.I.s at Camp Stanley in Korea, Lyndon Johnson became so worked up that he reverted to the Texas storyteller he always was. He told the world that his great-great-grandfather had died at the Alamo. Pure fiction. Knowing a flap was coming, Aide George Christian tried delicately to brace L.B.J. for the outcry. "I never said that," pouted Johnson. Politely as he could, Christian told Johnson that he had heard him say it. "I don't care what you heard," snorted Johnson. "I didn't say it. My great-great-grandfather did not die at the Alamo."
That was, sadly, a glimpse of Johnson rearranging the facts, the one trait that probably did more to force him into retirement than anything else. Too bad that Johnson could not have brought himself instantly to the good-natured confessional he offered years later: "What I was trying to say was that my ancestor was in a fight at the Alamo—that is, the Alamo Hotel in Eagle Pass, Texas." But that was just the way L.B.J. was.