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W. Marvin Watson, Johnson’s Unofficial Chief of Staff, Dies at 93

W. Marvin Watson in his office at the White House in August 1967. A fellow Texan, he called himself a proud “Johnson man” of longstanding.Credit...George Tames/The New York Times

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 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.

When he arrived at the White House in early 1965, Mr. Watson — a fellow Texan and proud “Johnson man” by his own description — had been a political ally of the president’s since Johnson’s successful run for the United States Senate in 1948. In 1964, Mr. Watson had smoothed the way for Johnson’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, nine months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

But 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. In his remarks, Johnson ladled out his famously effusive flattery. “Marvin is as wise as my father, as gentle as my mother, as loyal and dedicated and as close to my side as Lady Bird,” Johnson said, referring to the first lady.

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.

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Mr. Watson speaking during a dinner in honor of President Johnson in 1964.Credit...United Press International.

Courted by Johnson, Mr. Watson finally agreed to take the job Mr. Jenkins had vacated — with the nominal title of special assistant to the president — but only on certain conditions: that he would have unfettered access to Johnson, an adjacent office and the privilege of disagreeing with him frankly in meetings.

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.

Mr. Watson “now sits nearer the center of American political power than anyone except the president himself,” the reporter Roy Reed wrote in a profile of him in The New York Times in 1967, though he added, “He is practically unknown.”

Mr. Watson proved to be a tough, exacting gatekeeper. He 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.

Mr. Watson coordinated White House relations with the Democratic National Committee and Congress, personally handing checks to Democratic representatives and senators running for re-election ($2,000 for those with opponents, $1,000 for others) from funds that Johnson had raised.

He was also the administration’s liaison to the F.B.I. and the only person in the White House besides Johnson who read the agency’s reports on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s private life.

In his most controversial move, Mr. Watson ordered that White House telephone operators record the names, business affiliations and office phone numbers of all callers. He said the purpose was to gather information to make the phone system more efficient, but his critics said he was trying to find out if staff members were leaking information to reporters. The columnist Joseph Alsop denounced what he called a “curious espionage system to which members of the White House staff are subjected.”

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Mr. Watson with Johnson, crouching, as the president read news from a wire service ticker-tape machine.Credit...LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto

Mr. Watson’s attention to detail was so renowned that he was called the “master of the paper clip.” Even a new guardhouse had to pass his inspection, down to the smallest details. At one point he cut down the use of White House limousines from 83 trips a day to 70.

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, forming one of the nation’s first Johnson for President clubs. At the Atlantic City convention in 1964, he helped squelch a movement to nominate Senator Kennedy for president. Afterward he became chairman of the Texas State Democratic Party.

His duties as a chief of staff ended in 1968, when Johnson named him postmaster general, then a cabinet-level position. He replaced Lawrence F. O’Brien, who went on to manage Senator Kennedy’s presidential campaign and later became chairman of the Democratic National Committee and commissioner of the National Basketball Association. Mr. Watson was succeeded by James R. Jones, who was later elected to Congress from Oklahoma.

Mr. Watson helped pave the way for the Post Office, as it was then known, to become an independent agency. (It became the Postal Service in 1971.) He also strengthened regulations governing the mailing of guns.

Though he was no longer directly at Johnson’s side, he remained a confidant to the president. In an article in The New York Times in 1988, Mr. Jones wrote that on the night of March 29, 1968, a Friday, Johnson, whose popularity was sinking as the Vietnam War dragged on and who was facing challenges for the nomination within his own party, summoned Mr. Watson to the Oval Office study, along with Mr. Jones and George Christian, the president’s press secretary.

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Mr. Watson’s memoir was published in 2004.Credit...Thomas Dunne Books

“I’m thinking about announcing Sunday that I’m not running” for re-election, Mr. Jones quoted Johnson as telling them. “What do you think?”

Drinks were poured, and a two-hour discussion ensued.

“The three of us argued vigorously while he poked holes in each argument,” Mr. Jones wrote. “By evening’s end, we split 2-1 (George was against his running, Marvin and I said it was too late for him to step away from the battle). We left the meeting not knowing what he would do.”

Two days later Johnson announced he would not seek another term, stunning the nation.

After Johnson left office, there was a small groundswell for Mr. Watson to run for the Senate from Texas. (Wooden nickels bearing the slogan “T.N.W.” — Texas Needs Watson — were circulated.) Instead, he went to work for Occidental Petroleum as executive vice president, the first of several high-level corporate positions he held.

Mr. Watson, who was active in the Baptist Church and other religious groups, is survived by his wife, Marion; his daughter, Kim Rathmann; his sons, William III and Winston; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

In 2004 Mr. Watson published a memoir, “Chief of Staff: Lyndon Johnson and His Presidency,” written with Sherwin Markman, another former Johnson aide.

As a presidential assistant, Mr. Watson began his day at 6 a.m. and often ended it after midnight. He sometimes briefed the president while Johnson was still in his pajamas. His responsibilities knew no boundaries. He once chased down one of the president’s beagles, which had escaped the White House grounds.

One of his proudest accomplishments was persuading Johnson to ask Congress to make a Marine Corps general a full and equal member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also succeeded in getting Congress to add a second four-star general to the Marines’ leadership. Other services already had many more officers of that rank.

Mrs. Johnson asked Mr. Watson to deliver her husband’s eulogy at his funeral in 1973. It began, “He was ours, and we loved him beyond any telling of it.” It concluded, “The years will be lonely without him.”

Amisha Padnani contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: W. Marvin Watson, Who Managed Johnson’s White House, Dies at 93. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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