By Katie Perkowski

Three old friends sat down to reminisce their time working with President Lyndon B. Johnson Monday afternoon in front of an almost packed crowd at the W. T. Young Library auditorium.

Bobby Baker, former chief legislative aide to Johnson; Bess Clements Abell, daughter of former Kentucky governor Earle Clements and former social secretary to Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson; and Tyler Abell, former White House chief of protocol, spoke at the 26th Edward F. Prichard series, titled “LBJ and Kentucky: An Inside Account.”

Baker is said to have been the first man Johnson saw when he woke up and the last man he saw before bed. Baker talked about what kind of person Johnson was and their interactions as friends.

“Johnson was probably the best storyteller that I have ever known,” Baker said. “He was terrible on television making a prepared speech, but in a group like this where you could talk to him, he was the most persuasive speaker that I have ever known.”

Had it not been for Vietnam, Baker believes Lyndon Johnson would have been as popular as Abraham Lincoln.

Baker said Johnson chose him for his aide after talking with him and hearing his qualifications.

“I said, ‘Senator, I know who’s word is good, I know all the staff members and I know all the drunks,’ ” Baker said. “He said, ‘You’re the man I want to know.’ ”

Baker then became the youngest officer to be nominated in the history of the Senate.

Clements Abell spoke of the negative impact the Vietnam War had on Johnson’s presidency.

Clements Abell said she would listen to Robert McNamara, former secretary of defense, talk about how the country needed to keep adding more troops, which is one of the most vivid things she remembers.

“That’s just what sticks in my mind and it makes me want to weep,” Clements Abell said.

Tyler Abell talked of Johnson’s particular attention to detail and how that attention contributed to former President John F. Kennedy winning the 1960 election.

“He had you do everything, you had to do it personally, you had to make sure that everything was just so, and you’d get asked about it,” Abell said.