Money was never a factor in the Valley’s support of Stevenson—he treated the jefes with the same indifference and independence that he displayed toward other powerful political figures. (And, of course, as Ernest Boyett, his executive assistant, notes, “Why shouldn’t the Old Man have been” independent of the Valley bosses? To a candidate who carried Texas by hundreds of thousands of votes, the Valley was not a significant factor in the electoral equation.)
