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Who really said it

He who controls the weather controls the world

Not Leonardo — a Cold War weather-control slogan Unknown North American saying · in print by 1950
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

Nothing resembling this sentence appears in Leonardo’s notebooks, and the reason is not archival luck: no practical means of controlling the weather existed until the first successful cloud seeding in 1946 — the idea only became operational, and geopolitical, then. The saying is mid-century North American. Versions of it circulate in North American newspapers from 1950 onwards, among a general, a weatherman and a correspondent to a US senator, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson made it famous on 27 May 1962. The Leonardo credit appears to trace to a 1968 press mention of a ‘motto’ — a claim nobody has ever sourced.

Last verified 21 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“He who controls the weather controls the world” A North American saying in print by 1950 and made famous by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1962. Not Leonardo da Vinci.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Leonardo da Vinci. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Reuse status is unconfirmed: the 1962 Johnson speech may or may not be a public-domain US-government work, and the 1950s newspaper wording’s copyright status is unresolved. Quote it as a short, credited citation and don’t reproduce whole articles.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Mid-century American Cold War atmosphere, the 1950s newsroom and weather-satellite era: cloud-seeding aircraft over open country, teletype and newsprint, radar screens and early satellite imagery, a muted period-appropriate palette. Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote “He who controls the weather controls the world”. Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Origin
North American saying — no single author
Earliest located
26 October 1950, Indianapolis News
Most famous delivery
Lyndon B. Johnson, 27 May 1962, San Marcos, Texas
Leonardo source
None — nothing like it in the notebooks

It lays the predicate and foundation for the development of a weather satellite that will permit man to determine the world's cloud layer and ultimately to control the weather; and he who controls the weather will control the world. Lyndon B. Johnson, San Marcos, Texas, 27 May 1962

Johnson’s sentence in full, with the clause everyone drops still attached. Read whole, it is a satellite-programme argument, not a prophecy about secret weather weapons — the quotable tail got separated from the mundane head and has been travelling alone ever since.

Barry Popik’s citation trail, 1950 onwards

How we traced it

  • The idea has a birthday. In November 1946 Vincent Schaefer seeded a cloud from an aeroplane over Massachusetts and made it snow, and within four years the American press had turned that into geopolitics. A man tells a US senator in the Indianapolis News of 26 October 1950 that ‘whoever controls the weather also controls the world’; General George C. Kenney says the nation that can control the weather can control the world in January 1951; a Vancouver weatherman says it in July 1951 the citation trail ↗.
  • The famous version is Lyndon Johnson’s, delivered as vice president at his own alma mater — Southwest Texas State College in San Marcos — on 27 May 1962, where he was collecting the school’s first honorary doctorate. He was talking about weather satellites, and the film of the address survives the 1962 film ↗.
  • For Leonardo there is no manuscript, no folio, no codex reference — only later assertions of a ‘motto,’ the earliest of which located so far is a 1968 newspaper mention. An unsourced claim about a motto is not a citation, and every modern repetition rests on the same nothing.

Speeches by sitting federal officials are often treated as US-government works and free of copyright, but that status has not been confirmed for this address, which Johnson delivered while accepting an honorary degree at his old college. The 1950s newspaper instances are separate works whose US status depends on renewal and is not resolved here. Treat the wording’s reuse status as unconfirmed, and quote it as a short, credited citation rather than reproducing whole articles. The archival film of the 1962 address is held by an archive with its own terms. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is a modern misattribution with an unusually clear alibi: no practical means of doing what the sentence assumes existed until 1946, four hundred and twenty-seven years after Leonardo died.

Not Leonardo da Vinci no manuscript, no folio

Leonardo’s notebooks are among the best-catalogued manuscripts in Europe, and nothing resembling this sentence is in them. Nobody offering the credit has ever produced a codex reference — which, for a man whose every surviving page is numbered, is the whole answer.

The means is younger than the man by four centuries decisive

No practical means of modifying weather existed until Vincent Schaefer seeded a cloud in 1946; the idea only became operational, and therefore geopolitical, then. A Renaissance engineer could dream of flight, because birds fly — but nothing in his world let anyone actually switch the rain on.

1950s American weather-control talk in print by 1950

Newspapers carry versions from October 1950 onwards — a correspondent to a US senator, then General George C. Kenney in January 1951, then a Vancouver weatherman that July. No one of them coined it; it was in the air, so to speak the 1950–51 instances ↗.

Lyndon B. Johnson, 1962 — real, but not original popularised, not coined

He said it at a Texas graduation on 27 May 1962, about weather satellites, twelve years after the saying was already circulating. Clips of that sentence now carry most of the internet’s weather-conspiracy traffic, usually with the satellite clause cut off the front the address ↗.

Unresolved honest gap

The earliest link we can find is a 1968 press mention of someone liking ‘Leonardo’s motto’ in these words — itself unsourced. How the Renaissance name attached to a Cold War slogan is not established, and we are not going to invent a story for it.

A North American saying of the atomic age, in newspapers from 1950 and made famous by Lyndon Johnson in 1962. Leonardo has no connection to it, and could not have — there was no practical means of controlling the weather until 1946.

Context

Why it resonates

It turns the sky into a weapon, which is a genuinely frightening thought, and putting a Renaissance genius’s name on it makes the fear feel ancient and settled rather than like a thing a vice president said about satellites.

The uncomfortable part is that the underlying worry was not silly. Johnson later authorised Operation Popeye, seeding clouds over Southeast Asia to lengthen the monsoon and wash out supply routes — and the 1977 international convention banning environmental warfare exists because of it.

No one could actually control the weather until 1946. Leonardo died in 1519.

How a 1950s slogan became a Renaissance quotation

November 1946: Vincent Schaefer seeds a cloud over Massachusetts and produces snow. Weather control becomes thinkable.

26 October 1950: the Indianapolis News carries ‘whoever controls the weather also controls the world’ — the earliest instance located.

January and July 1951: a US Air Force general and a Vancouver weatherman say their own versions.

27 May 1962: Vice President Lyndon Johnson says it at Southwest Texas State College while collecting an honorary doctorate.

1968: a press mention of ‘Leonardo’s motto’ is the earliest da Vinci link located — and it cites nothing.

The question is still live: it is still being asked on history forums in 2026, usually by someone who already suspects a modern misattribution. They are right.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Knowledge

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

‘He who controls the weather will control the world’barrypopik.com

The quotation-research trail: 1950, 1951 and 1951 instances that all predate Johnson’s 1962 speech.
LBJ at Southwest Texas State University, 1962texasarchive.org

Archival film of the 27 May 1962 commencement address where the line became famous.
Leonardo da Vinci — quotations with sourcesen.wikiquote.org

Useful as a negative check: the sourced and disputed Leonardo lists, neither of which contains this one.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Leonardo

Leonardo da Vinci

1452–1519 · Florentine polymath, painter and engineer

Leonardo da Vinci studied weather closely — his notebooks are full of storm drawings, cloud studies and the deluge sequence, and he designed instruments to measure humidity and wind. That is precisely why the credit sticks: he looks like a man who would have said this. But observing weather and proposing to control it are separated by four centuries of technology, and he is one of the three or four most magnetic names in the misquotation business, alongside Einstein, Churchill and Mark Twain. If a line sounds visionary and nobody can name the page, that is the tell.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Anonymous North American saying; earliest located instance Indianapolis News, 26 October 1950. Popularised by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Southwest Texas State College, San Marcos, 27 May 1962. No Leonardo da Vinci source exists.

MLA (9th ed.)

“He who controls the weather controls the world.” Anonymous North American saying; variant wordings in print from 26 October 1950 (Indianapolis News); this exact wording first located 1968.

APA (7th ed.)

He who controls the weather controls the world. (1950/1968). Anonymous North American saying [variant wordings from 1950; this exact wording first located 1968].

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Did Leonardo really say ‘He who controls the weather controls the world’?” Last verified 21 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/he-who-controls-the-weather-controls-the-world/

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