Horace ‘Buzz’ Busby Jr.; Speech Writer, Advisor to President Johnson

Horace “Buzz” Busby Jr., a speech writer, confidant and advisor to Lyndon B. Johnson before and during Johnson’s presidency who also wrote a widely read political newsletter, died Wednesday of respiratory failure at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. He was 76.

Considered LBJ’s best speech writer, Busby wrote many of Johnson’s orations on civil rights and other issues critical to LBJ’s Great Society. He wrote the text of Johnson’s nationally televised 1968 announcement that he would not seek reelection.

The Washington analyst also was the originator of the “electoral lock” theory postulating the Republicans’ automatic advantage in presidential elections. Using this theory, which focused on the electoral college rather than the popular vote, Busby predicted Ronald Reagan’s landslide over Jimmy Carter in 1980 when other pundits were forecasting a tight race.

A Fort Worth minister’s son, Busby gained a reputation as an outspoken liberal as editor of the campus newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin. He left the school before earning a diploma to work for the Austin bureau of the old International News Service.

He entered national politics in 1946 when Johnson, preparing for a 1948 Senate race, hired him as a speech writer. Johnson won the seat and put Busby on his staff. Within a few years, Busby left to become a Democratic Party consultant, beginning a pattern of angry splits and friendly reconciliations with the temperamental Johnson that would characterize their relationship over the next few decades.

Johnson always returned to Busby because he believed that, compared with his other advisors, Busby’s thoughts and feelings were most in sync with his own.

Thus Busby was one of the people Johnson turned to in 1967 when he was pondering the next year’s election. He asked Busby to accompany him on a flight to Australia just before Christmas that year. On the plane, he brought up the subject of the election.

“What do you think we should do about next year?” he asked Busby.

“Not run,” replied Busby, arguing that Johnson had accomplished “much of what he was uniquely qualified to accomplish,” such as the Civil Rights Act.

At Johnson’s request, Busby drafted an announcement that the president would use in his State of the Union address in January, but Johnson decided against revealing his plans then.

Busby did not hear from him again until March 30, when Johnson sent him the text of an address he would give the next day. In that speech, Johnson planned to say he was stopping the Vietnam bombing.

When Busby read the passages about halting the bombing, he suggested that Johnson follow it with his own bombshell: that he would not run for reelection. Johnson feared that such an announcement would weaken his power and encourage unauthorized bombing raids. But Busby disagreed, arguing that it would “add to his credibility as commander in chief.”

Busby went to the White House Treaty Room to draft the announcement, which was placed on the TelePrompTer at the end of the Vietnam speech. Just before Johnson entered the Oval Office to address the nation on March 31, 1968, he told Busby the odds were just 50-50 that he would use Busby’s ending.

But finally, he did. “I shall not seek and will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president . . . “ Johnson said.

Busby, who moved to California in 1997, is survived by a son, Scott of Los Angeles; two daughters, Betsy Busby of Encinitas and Leslie Busby of Italy; a sister; and a granddaughter.