ABSTRACT
The Richard Nixon administration could do little to reverse the new social and economic directions delineated by the legislation passed in the prior eight years other than by liberal use of the constitutional veto power. In an ever-changing American society, the need to throw out or supersede from time to time what was done in the past in a legislative sense is continuous. With Lyndon Johnson’s encouragement, they drove hard to retrieve the New Frontier, the John F. Kennedy Grail, in the form of the Great Society. In dealing with the public, Johnson intensified his personal humbleness while vowing to carry out Kennedy’s wishes. A mutual stake in Johnson’s success as president served to hold together the conservative and liberal wings of the Democratic Party in the Senate. Most significant in winning Senate passage of the Great Society legislation was the conduct of the committee chairmen.
