Lady Bird Johnson dies in Texas at 94

Lady Bird Johnson, a quiet but powerful adviser to husband President Lyndon Johnson and an environmentalist who fought to preserve the country's natural beauty, died of respiratory failure on Wednesday at the age of 94, a family spokesman said.

The former first lady was one of the last major figures from the Great Society era of the 1960s, when she campaigned for her husband's civil rights, environmental and anti-poverty policies while promoting her own pet cause of beautifying America.

Family spokesman Neal Spelce said Mrs Johnson died at her Austin home following a recent hospital stay to treat a low-grade fever. She had been in declining health since a stroke in 2002 that left her unable to speak.

Mr Spelce said she was receiving last rites from a Roman Catholic priest when, surrounded by family and friends, she drew her last breath.

Following a private funeral tomorrow, Lady Bird will be buried on Sunday beside her husband at the family cemetery on the LBJ ranch in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin.

Lyndon Johnson died in 1973 of a heart attack, four years after leaving office.

Lady Bird was at Johnson's side as he came under fire for escalating the Vietnam War and fully supported his surprising decision not to seek re-election as president in 1968.

A PBS documentary said she had long feared the stress of the presidency would kill her husband and that she insisted his speech announcing his plans include the definitive phrase "I shall not seek and I will not accept" his party's nomination.

She was often the target of anti-war hecklers herself, but of her years in the White House, Lady Bird recalled, "A lot of it was desperately painful but on balance, I loved it."

Claudia Alta Taylor was born in Karnack, Texas, near the Louisiana border, on December 22, 1912. She was two years old when she was given her nickname by a maid who described her as "purty as a lady bird."

She graduated from the University of Texas, at Austin, in 1934 with bachelor of arts and bachelor of journalism degrees, and met Johnson, then a congressional aide, the same year.

On their first date, he asked her to marry him, and although she thought at first his proposal was a joke, they were married two months later in November 1934.