Item HT 3200 Shirt - White, Red Paint, L.B. Johnson Protest, 1966

Summary

This shirt was worn by an American security officers protecting US President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) during his visit to Melbourne in October, 1966. During a visit to the South Yarra home of Sir Dallas and Lady Mabel Brooks at 233 Domain Road, on 21 October, President Johnson's limousine was pelted with red and green paint bombs by anti war protestors.

Physical Description

White long sleeve men's shirt with six cream plastic buttons down front. There are open pockets on both sides, at chest height. There is a manufacturer's label sewn into the back, near the collar. Red paint has been splattered across the front of the shirt, mainly around the collar (indicating that a jacket was being worn over the top of it when the splattering occured.)

Significance

Shirt worn by an American security officers protecting US President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) during his visit to Melbourne in October, 1966. During a visit to the South Yarra home of Sir Dallas and Lady Mabel Brooks President Johnson's car, and his security officers were splashed with red and green paint by several protestors.

This shirt was one of a pair purchased at auction in 2006. The original owner was an attendant at Prince Henry's Hospital in Melbourne, where the security officers were taken after the incident. He provided them with clean shirts and took their paint splattered ones home, where he attempted to clean them. Failing to remove the paint, he kept them as souvenirs, along with a medal and two pens given to him in thanks by the security officers.

On hearing that the attendant had tried to remove the paint, Keith Dunstan wrote in his newspaper column `A Place in the Sun' (26/10/1966) "This is a terrible idea. Like Ned Kelly's masks, these should be preserved as objects of history."

One of the officers was Rufus Youngblood, who had been protecting Johnson since he became Vice President under President Kennedy in 1961. He was with Johnson during the motorcade through Dallas in November 1963, two cars behind the car in which Kennedy was assassinated.