Johnson retired on January 20, 1969, to his ranch in Johnson City, Texas. He did not return to politics. In 1971, he published his memoirs as a work entitled The Vantage Point. That same year, the University of Texas at Austin opened its Lyndon Baines Johnson memorial library in his honor; it has since become the most visited presidential library in the country. His health having been injured by many years of heavy smoking and stress, Johnson died on January 22, 1973, from a third heart attack when he was sixty-four years old. Johnson was found in his bed reaching for the phone.

In his will Johnson donated his ranch to the public under the stipulation that it remain an active ranch and not become a “sterile relic of the past.”Johnson was posthumously awarded the presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.