James D. Johnson - Later Years

Later Years

The Johnsons resided in Conway until their deaths, three years apart. Virginia was Jim Johnson's legal secretary for his entire law career. She died of cancer in 2007, and Johnson himself was stricken with the same disease. Ironically, their old intraparty rival, Faubus, also spent his last years in Conway.

In the 1980s, Jim and Virginia Johnson supported the reelection of Governor Frank D. White, only Arkansas' second Republican governor since Reconstruction. White, however, was unseated after one two-year term by Bill Clinton, with whom Johnson had a long-standing enmity. While he had been a student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Clinton was a campaign aide for Johnson's 1966 runoff opponent, Judge Frank Holt. Twelve years later, Clinton would win the governorship. In reference to Johnson's overtly racist views and dirty campaign tactics Clinton once told Johnson, "You make me ashamed to be from Arkansas."

During the Whitewater scandal, Johnson made accusations against Clinton based on a continuing opposition research campaign conducted by Republican political consultants, Floyd Brown and David Bossie. A client of Johnson's, David Hale, a former municipal court judge, was the special prosecutor's chief witness attempting to link Clinton to the Whitewater scandal. Hale's testimony was deemed to have been of no import, as he had agreed to testify under plea bargaining to secure a better deal on his own indictment for fraud.