The 36th President of the United States of America, Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), was the first sitting President to visit Aotearoa New Zealand. Landing at Ōhakea Airbase on 19th October 1966, Prime Minister Keith Holyoake welcomed him and his wife, Claudia Johnson (known as Lady Bird) to Aotearoa. They then began a whirlwind tour through the southern portion of the North Island, first heading to Wellington. LBJ ignored his timetable and his security detail’s advice to greet well-wishers and shake hands with a few of the thousands that lined Cuba Street in support.
Travelling in a modified Lincoln Continental Limousine, Johnson met Wellington’s Mayor, Sir Francis Joseph Kitts, at a civic reception near The Dominion Building. Following a visit to the National War Memorial, LBJ and Lady Bird attended a state luncheon at Parliament.
| Figure 2 – LBJ’s entourage moves down Cuba Street to the Civic Reception. Reference: Negative, Motorcade for President Johnson moving down Cuba Street, Wellington. PB_0030_01_01_0018, Te Manawa. Courtesy of the Bush Family. All Rights Reserved. | Figure 3 – Lyndon Johnson, in the company of Wellinton Mayor Sir Francis Joseph Kitts, shakes hands with the crowd while a Secret Service agent looks on. Reference: Negative, President Johnson and Sir Francis Joseph Kitts Mayor of Wellington talking to crowds. PB_0030_01_01_0042, Te Manawa. Courtesy of the Bush Family. All Rights Reserved. |
Once the formalities were over in Wellington, the entourage headed north to visit Minister of Parliament Ormond Wilson’s sheep farm near Sanson the next day. At the farm, Johnson talked to farm hands and got a sense of life on a typical New Zealand farm.
Johnson and Lady Bird then took the short drive to Ōhakea Airbase to continue their global tour, leaving with the cheering crowd with the following parting words:
Your accomplishments are great. Yours is one nation to which less developed Asian nations and Pacific peoples look for inspiration and guidance. My nation is anxious to work with you in providing that help. Our task for the future, in New Zealand and the United States, yes, all over the world, is a difficult but inspiring one – and that is to allow people, and allow nations, to grow to their own vast limits in freedom.
Johnson’s main reason for the visit was to boost support for the war in Vietnam. American newspapers wrote that, ‘the anti-Vietnam campaigners have less strength in the country than they imagined’. President Johnson’s visit was during the early years of New Zealand’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and protests would grow larger and louder as time marched on.