Johnson's health had always been uncertain, and by the time he retired from office, he was not a well man. He spent his remaining years at his beloved ranch in Texas, tending to his investments, preparing his memoirs, and overseeing development of his presidential library. The memoirs, called The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969, were completed in 1971.

The University of Texas in Austin now hosts the presidential library facility, which opened in mid-1971, as well as the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs, one of the premier public policy schools in the nation. Lyndon Johnson died on January 22, 1973, just one day before the Paris Peace Accords ending the Vietnam War were concluded and two days after what would have been the end to his second term had he run and been reelected in 1968.