The Beatles

The Beatles

Lyndon B. Johnson turned down his daughter's request to invite The Beatles to the White House - because he felt the timing was all wrong following the assassination of his predecessor John F. Kennedy in 1962.
 
Luci Baines Johnson, then 16, was convinced the Fab Four were a good thing for a grieving America when Beatlemania first swept through the U.S., and she urged her father to book them for an official visit.
 
In new documentary Beatles Stories, she says, "All our country was just peppered with pain and it wasn't long after that that the Beatles were coming to America, and so it occurred to me that, being the daughter of the President of the United States, I might be able to have every adolescent's dream come true - the Beatles come to my house.
 
"I got extremely excited about it and went to my father and asked if we could have the Beatles come and I was dumbfounded by his response.

"He said that this was a time for our family, to be about getting to work. We couldn't be about, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah!'
 
"He didn't tell me not to play their records and he didn't tell me not to dance to them, but he sure as heck said they weren't coming to the White House."


Tagged in