Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2)

by Robert A. Caro

a “Great Society”—of government’s responsibility to do more than stand idly by without at least attempting to strike blows against ignorance and disease and want.

“The standing of the United States as the most powerful of the anti-colonial powers is an asset of incalculable value to the Free World.…

men paid attention to what he said and began to check his statements.” And when they did, they found that the President lied—lied about big matters and small, lied not only about policy but about personal matters;

The shredding of the delicate yet crucial fabric of credence and faith between the people of the United States and the man they had placed in the White House occurred during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

substance fades all but completely before the power of image.

morality in which any maneuver is justified by the end of victory—into

Howard E. Butt, of Corpus Christi, owner of the statewide H.E.B. chain of grocery stores.

While he called it “loyalty,” the capacity he prized most in his subordinates was actually the capacity for subservience.

He demanded ‘loyalty,’ and what he meant by loyalty was a kind of total submission.

If you worked for Lyndon Johnson, you sold your soul to him. You could see it happening to other people around you.

“I believe in free enterprise, and I don’t believe in the government doing anything that the people can do privately. Whenever it’s possible, government should get out of business.”

the ache changed into the sharp, gripping, radiating cramps in the back and side of “kidney colic,” a pain that comes and goes in waves so intense that medical textbooks describe it as “agonizing” and “unbearable”; “few bodily complaints … demand immediate relief so urgently,”

for kramer

but it was intensified in Johnson’s case by the well-known violence of his reaction to any news that was not good; no one wanted to be the one to give him such news, and as a result he did not receive much of it.

Reporters whose coverage of the campaign displeased him were transferred off the campaign—or fired.

Mary Rather and Woody and Buzz

You knew it was a damned lie [but] you just repeated it and repeated it and repeated it.

The magnification of the power of money in the new media politics made such persuasion relatively easy.

all they knew about it was what Lyndon Johnson told them.

crowds were only a part, often a misleading part, of a political story.

Tom Wicker, concluding in 1983 that “After Lyndon Johnson … trust in ‘the President’ was tarnished forever,”

“A conservative—he’s one who holds things together,” he told the reporter. “He shouldn’t fight all progressive movements, but he should be the balance wheel to hold the movement to where it won’t get out of hand.”