Not all the rage was real. Sometimes, at the height of a tantrum—as Johnson stood screaming, flailing the air with his arms as epithets poured from his contorted mouth, seemingly out of control—an important telephone call would come in. Without a moment’s pause, he would pick up the telephone—and his voice would be soft and calm, and, if the caller was important, deferential. Then the call would be over, the phone would be replaced in its cradle and without a moment’s pause the rage would resume. Lyndon Johnson employed curses as he employed competition: for the control of men.
