These included Hannah Gray who served as president of the university, and prominent historian John Hope Franklin.
Johnson was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University during the 1957–58 academic year.
[1] Johnson's involvement in politics began in 1940 when, on his own, he made stump speeches for President Franklin Roosevelt.
Johnson then worked on an Illinois senatorial campaign and in the effort to draft Adlai Stevenson as a presidential candidate in 1952.
Whilst not credited he also befriended John F Kennedy and assisted him in the preparation of his pulitzer prize winning book "Profiles in Courage".