The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Master of the Senate by Robert A Caro

Exactly 27 score pages ago I began this book. It is a long one. It is not a Stephen King page turning long one either, more of a historical page turner. As I have read several different books along with this one I have been at it a couple of months. It is, however, well worth the effort.

The third in what will eventually be Robert A Caro's five volume on the life and times of Lyndon Baines Johnson this book examines the years of Johnson's time in the Senate, specifically 1948 to 1960.

Because Robert Caro does not just tell you about what happens, but also about why it happened and the history of events leading up to what happened the book begins with a full seventy pages of history of the United States Senate. Specifically it centers on how the specific nature of the Senate had allowed it to have a unique history. A history that in the first half of the nineteenth century meant that some of the greatest legislators in our history called the Senate home, including but not limited to Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. We see then in the twentieth century the Senate become the graveyard of all action. Why? Because of the filibuster and it's use by the Southern Senators that due to the Seniority System have all the power in the Senate.

Armed with this information we see how Johnson took the formerly, punch-less and powerless position of Majority Leader and transformed it into a position of ultimate power in Washington. Johnson possessed the art of legislation and deal-making few could ever match. Cajoling, convincing, threatening, whatever it took to get his opinion to be the way you voted was what LBJ would do.

At 1040 pages the book is certainly to long to talk about it in full. A couple of episodes briefly mentioned here might show in short what the great length of the book exhibits in detail. That is the warring nature of good and bad in Lyndon Johnson. It is said and shown that Johnson, from the time he helped the people in his home Hill Country of Texas gain access to electricity in the thirties, to his feelings on Civil Rights always vowed that if he was ever in a position to help the downtrodden that he would do so. It is also demonstrated that if that passion however ran up against his ambition that ambition always won.

Johnson would tell you that he had to put passion aside until he had enough power to make a difference and perhaps that is the case. Trying to walk that tightrope however often led to people on both sides of an issue not being totally happy with Johnson.

In this book we see Johnson use his ruthlessness, the bad Lyndon, to destroy a man named Leland Olds. The reason for this was that Olds in running a natural resources committee would not allow natural gas companies and refiners to make unlimited profits. Johnson highly indebted to Texas oil and gas manufacturers needed to do something for them. Their request was of course to remove Olds so a chairman more compliant to their wishes could be found. Reading this episode in Johnson's life, it took a couple of chapters, forced me to set the book down for a few days. One becomes so disgusted at his actions, his hypocrisy, and twisting of the facts to destroy this honest, credible, public servant that the need for a shower after reading it becomes manifest.

In the mid fifties Johnson had a heart attack, his family history of men having weak hearts was long and well noted, he did not expect to live, live he did however but the episode did change him a bit. His relationship with Ladybird, while still not conventionally loving, and certainly not monogamous, was one in which he respected and appreciated her more from that time on.

We see Johnson's ill fated run for the Democratic nomination in 1956, a time when the ultimate vote counter failed to count the votes correctly, or perhaps it should be said a time when he refused to count the votes that he could see.

The last quarter of the book tells the story of the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. It could, by itself, be a short book on the political genius of Lyndon Johnson. After 1956 Johnson knew that he could not seek or gain if he did seek national office without coming to some terms with the liberals in his own party. Those liberals after having seen him stand repeatedly with the Southern bloc of Senators as year after year Civil Rights Bills failed to get past the dreaded filibuster.

Johnson, with Richard Russell's blessing knew that he had to get " cleaned up" on Civil Rights in order to have a chance for the nomination, he had to lose the distrust he had built up over the years from the liberals. Still even with Russell's acquiescence to a Civil Rights Bill to help Johnson's cause the bill itself had so many roadblocks that it took a legislative miracle to pull it through. How Johnson did accomplish this is as good a lesson in the legislative process as you will ever see.

Along with the Johnson stories Caro continues his practice of offering illuminating profiles of some of the figures in history. The aforementioned Leland Olds, the gregarious, needing to please Hubert Humphrey, the Dean of the Senate, refined, cultured, but still racist Richard Russell and a young Frank Church newly elected to the Senate from Idaho in 1956. All of these profiles are wonderful.

As book four sits on my shelf waiting I have promised myself to finish the three or four other books I have going before I start another LBJ book but as anyone who follows literary notices knows there are not enough trees to provide paper for the magnitude of positive reviews given over and over for this series from Caro. What may prove to be the greatest biography series in modern times is still being produced.

Carve out six months of time before Book Five comes out in a couple of years and catch up this series of books. It is as good as it gets.