Source of Wealth: TV and radio stations, real estate.
LBJ laid the Texas good ol' boy routine on pretty thick, but he was an extremely wealthy man--one who earned his fortune entirely while he was in public life. LBJ's father Sam was a prosperous farmer and businessman (and state legislator) who lost most of his fortune when the future president was 13. LBJ worked briefly as a school teacher, but entered politics at age 23. By the time he was president, he had a reported $14 million fortune. Part of the money was from Texas land deals says Robert Dallek, author of Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1908-1960. The key, however, was his wife's purchase in 1943 of KTBC, a radio and television station in Austin, Tex. The station--which for years was the only TV station in Austin--prospered and there was plenty of speculation that Senator Johnson pressured the Federal Communications Commission to keep KTBC the only game in town. "There was certainly a kind of insider trading going on," Dallek says, adding, "You can't pin anything down, of course."
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