W Marvin Watson

W. Marvin Watson, a World War II combat veteran who ran Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House with the protective instincts of a loyalist, the privileged power of a confidant and the efficiency of a drill sergeant, died on Sunday November 26 2017 at his home in The Woodlands, Tex., near Houston. He was 93. His death was confirmed by Tom Johnson, who served on the White House staff with Mr. Watson. President Johnson did not want to give any staff member the title of chief of staff, but he eventually made Mr. Watson his in all but name. For years he had turned down entreaties to work for Johnson, even after Johnson became president. Asked early on by Johnson to join his staff, Mr. Watson declined, saying he was happy living in a small Texas town as a steel company executive. Then, in mid-November 1964, shortly after he won the presidency, Johnson surprised Mr. Watson by showing up at a dinner being held in Mr. Watson’s honor. Weeks earlier, Johnson’s most trusted senior aide and longtime friend from Texas, Walter Jenkins, had resigned after being arrested on a morals charge, accused of engaging in homosexual behavior in a Washington Y.M.C.A. As Johnson’s most trusted confidant, Mr. Watson would ultimately replace Bill Moyers in that role when Mr. Moyers, the president’s press secretary, left in 1967 to be publisher of the Long Island newspaper Newsday. Watson fired or forced the resignation of staff members who he believed were more loyal to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Johnson’s archrival, than the president. The speechwriter Richard N. Goodwin, a longtime Kennedy family ally, was one of them. William Marvin Watson, a fourth-generation Texan, was born in the small East Texas town of Oakhurst on June 6, 1924. He won a music scholarship to Baylor University but joined the Marines in April of his sophomore year and fought in the Pacific in World War II. After returning to Baylor, he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in business administration. He failed at his first job, selling hearing aids, but was hired to manage the Chamber of Commerce in the East Texas town of Daingerfield. That led to a job with Lone Star Steel, where he became assistant to the president. He also became involved in Texas Democratic politics. His duties as a chief of staff ended in 1968, when Johnson named him postmaster general, then a cabinet-level position. He went to work for Occidental Petroleum as executive vice president, the first of several high-level corporate positions he held.