"The Passage of Power" is the fourth volume in Robert Caro's masterful life of Lyndon Johnson. I believe it to be the best of the series, and Robert Caro must rank among the best, if not the best biographer of all time. The sheer magnitude of his research is mind boggling.
This volume covers the five years in Johnson's life leading up to and following the assassination of President John Kennedy. We see Johnson as the absolute master of the Senate, wheeling and dealing, a shrewd judge of his colleagues, a giant of a man in appetites and achievements. Then we see him almost emasculated as a powerless and depressed Vice-President to Kennedy, and finally we see him take the reigns of power, rise to expectations and beyond, and become one of the most fascinating and complex personalities to occupy the Presidency of the United States.
Just as Kennedy was a product of his eastern prep-school monied background, an achieving son of an ambitious father; Johnson, in contrast, was a product of his upbringing, the son of a Texan dirt-farmer; poor, proud, and single-minded ambitious, anxious not to repeat the mistakes of his father.
Early on, Johnson focused on the Presidency. He spent little time in the US House of Representatives. He knew the Senate would be his stepping stone and worked quickly and diligently to forge the relationships he needed to achieve his ambition. Johnson's facility for reading people, finding their weaknesses, and feeding their egos, came early and naturally. He was relentless in going after what he wanted and very few were able to refuse him a favor. No one before or since has been able to do this as well.
Johnson was crude, brilliant and insecure. In this passage Caro captures him exactly: "Ruthlessness, secretiveness, deceit--significant elements in every previous stage of Lyndon Johnson's life story. Not always, however, the only elements, not always the only character traits, contradictory though other traits might be. And sometimes these other elements--the anger at injustice, the sympathy, empathy, identification with the underdog that added up to compassion--had been expressed by this master of the political gesture, in gestures so deeply meaningful, so perfect in their symbolism, that they reached a level for which "mastery" is an inadequate term.
Roy Wilkins, the leader of the NAACP wrote, "Withe Johnson, you never quite knew if he was out to lift your heart or your wallet."
The story of the enmity and rivalry between Johnson and Bobby Kennedy would be fair game for a Shakespeare if we only had one. Caro's presentation is as close as we will get to understanding it.
We often speak of our current Congress with its polarization and deadlock as hopeless and frustrating. However, if one looks back on other Congresses, it can be seen that similar situations were not uncommon. Kennedy was having trouble getting any of his programs enacted in a congress much like ours today. Looking back, we can see his relationship with his Congress was much like Obama's today. After Kennedy's death, Johnson's former colleagues were under no illusions at to what was about to descend on them. In an all-out blitz, Johnson, through threats, wheedling, and alternately bullying and charming, was able to push through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, The Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and social programs like Head Start (which gave me a summer job when a college student).
It is impossible in a review to adequately reflect the richness of this book. Though long, it is a mesmerizing study of a powerful, yet flawed leader. I give it my highest recommendation as a window on a bygone era and a group of skillful politicians (Harry Byrd, Sam Rayburn, Tip O'Neill) the likes of whom we may never see again. To all interested in history or the gateway to a rich discussion in a book group, do not miss this read.
No comments:
Post a Comment