It is part of the legend of Lyndon B. Johnson that on this day in 1965, the U.S. president reportedly grabbed Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson by the lapels and shouted: "Don't you come into my living room and piss on my rug."

Pearson, who eight years earlier had won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to resolve the Suez Crisis, was on another push for peace. He had been invited to Camp David after proposing a "Pause for Peace," a limited halt to U.S. air strikes against North Vietnam. Pearson told Johnson the ploy had worked for LBJ's predecessor, John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK had cooled that war of words long enough for U.S.S.R. leader Nikita Khrushchev to find a graceful exit after getting caught shipping Soviet missiles to the island nation.

Pearson hoped that giving Hanoi breathing room would allow the Communist North Vietnamese government to find a way to start peace talks without losing face.

But LBJ said no way.

Research by The Sun library