LARRY O'BRIEN
(Lawrence Francis O'Brien Jr.)
Early in the year the President asked his most experienced political strategist what was likely to happen in the Presidential election that was upcoming later that year. The Vietnam War was tearing the country apart. He had lost the South because of the Civil Rights laws he has passed. For the rest of the country, the war hardliners wanted someone more aggressive than him, and the Doves wanted us out of Vietnam. Johnson, in a great political tragedy, even though he thought the war was unwinnable, could not bring himself to be the first American President to lose a war. He soon would decide to withdraw from the race but not pull out of Vietnam. See {637677} and {637678}.
Lawrence Francis O'Brien Jr. was an American politician and basketball commissioner. He was one of the United States Democratic Party's leading electoral strategists for more than two decades. He served as Postmaster General in the cabinet of President Lyndon Johnson and chair of the Democratic National Committee. He also served as commissioner of the National Basketball Association from 1975 to 1984. The NBA Championship Trophy is named after him.
