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Article: `Lady Bird,' by Jan Jarboe Russell; Scribner ($26).
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- October 13, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When author Jan Jarboe Russell sat face to face with Texas' most revered first lady, she asked how the widow of Lyndon Baines Johnson had endured her husband's well-known indiscretions.
It was a legitimate, if indelicate, question. Lady Bird had a quick, cold answer.
``When people ask me these sort of things,'' she said, ``I just say, `Look to your own lives. Look to yourself, everybody. Fix yourselves, and keep your problems to yourself.'''
That answer sets the tone for this biography. It gives notice very early on that the former Claudia Alta Taylor isn't about to spill any personal or political beans; that she has spent a lifetime protecting ...