The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #1)

by Robert A. Caro

Upon assuming the office, he announced that he was immediately placing all his business affairs in a “blind trust,” of whose activities, he said, he would not even be kept informed. But these attorneys say that the establishment of the trust was virtually simultaneous with the installation in the White House of private telephone lines to Texas lawyers associated with the administration of the trust—and they say that during the entire five years of his Presidency, Johnson personally directed his business affairs, down to the most minute details. Of this there was virtually no public awareness, and Lyndon Johnson left the Presidency, and lived out his life, and died, with the American people still ignorant not only of the dimensions of his greed but of its intensity.

his father located him only because Lyndon’s dog, “Bigham Young,”

In little more than a year, he, a young man with a long-standing interest in politics but absolutely no political experience, had manipulated a campus political structure—created a campus political structure—so that he, still one of the most disliked students on campus, exerted over it more influence than any other student.

“What are you doing helping a Republican?” A moment of tension ensued, but it evaporated when Johnson, putting his arm around Brown, said expansively: “He’s mah Republican.” Everyone burst out laughing, Brown recalls, with the Postmaster General, beaming at Johnson, laughing loudest of all.

Their distinguishing characteristic (in addition to energy and a striking capacity for hard work) was not intelligence; in decades to come, outsiders in Washington or New York who came in contact with these early “Johnson men” in business or politics, and who assumed from their rank and status a certain level of mental capacity, would be astonished by the reality. Nor was this characteristic dignity or pride; these qualities were, in fact, notably absent in most of these early Johnson men. Their distinguishing characteristic was a remarkable subservience and sycophancy; observers noted that they seemed to like calling him “Chief” and being called “son.”

“Lyndon started saying he was thinking of waiting to see what she [Mrs. Buchanan] does, and Daddy says, ‘Goddammit, Lyndon, you never learn anything about politics.’ Lyndon says, ‘What do you mean?’ And Daddy says, ‘She’s an old woman. She’s too old for a fight. If she knows she’s going to have a fight, she won’t run. Announce now—before she announces. If you do, she won’t run.’

They saw a man ashen with fatigue, slumped in his chair, his nervous fingers tearing at the flesh around his fingernails. Lighting a fresh cigarette, he bent over, head low as he took his first puff, inhaled deeply—“really sucking it in,” L. E. Jones says—and sat like that, head bowed, cigarette still in his mouth, for a long minute, as if to allow the soothing smoke to penetrate as deeply as possible into his body. But the Houston businessmen didn’t see that man. They only heard his voice. As he talked on the phone, the watchers before him saw a body hunched and tense, a face drawn and gaunt and haggard—but the voice issuing from that face was a voice confident, almost gay (“ ‘We’re almost over the hump’—that sort of thing,” Latimer says). And the checks it elicited were substantial.

He felt he was doing well among the isolated rural voters—who were not included in the polls, in part because the polls were conducted by telephone and many of these voters did not possess telephones, in part because past experience led pollsters to discount the preference of rural families since many of them did not vote;

In 1937 as in 1932, the Johnson City High School nearly missed basketball season—because the school could not afford a basketball; after several weeks of fund-raising,

But fairness—or social conscience—was not the operative criterion for the utilities; their criterion was rate of return on investment.

But after that telegram, he was, in terms of power, a kid Congressman no longer.

But Johnson’s second subtle tactic—one quieter (and even more effective) than the first—kept those gears from turning. The legislative session had already dragged on far longer than normal; and O’Daniel, sure it would not last much longer, announced that he would open a statewide speaking tour on June 2 in Waco. But working for Johnson behind the scenes in Austin were two men with a lot of legislators in their pockets: Alvin Wirtz, 1940 head of the Roosevelt campaign in Texas, and Roy Miller, 1940 head of the Stop Roosevelt campaign in Texas. The crucial appropriations bills remained unpassed, and every attempt to have the Legislature adjourn—or recess—was defeated.