The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power

By Robert A Caro

     This is the fourth book in a five (six??) volume of Robert Caro's monumental boigraphy of Lyndon Johnson.  I cannot believe I read the first volume thirty years ago. Volume four covers the 1960 election through the first few months after the Kennedy assassination. Through the first three volumes, Caro has told the story of Johnson's youth, early years in Texas, the growth in the House, to the point that arguably as Senate majority leader, was as powerful, if not more than the president.

    In this volume Caro tells the story of Johnson's absolute lust for the Office of the President.  Johnson, in 1958 started his run to the 1960 election and absolutely botched his approach.  When he finally realized how bad he has underestimated the machine run by Joe Kennedy for his son,  he takes the apparent missstep of agreeing to accept the second spot on the Democratic ticket.  He believed that Kennedy could not win without Texas and that he was the only Vice President candidate that could deliver Texas.  He also believed Kennedy's promise that Johnson would be a valued advisor and voice in the administration.  After the election, Johnson awoke to the fact that the Kennedy people (esepecially Robert Kennedy) not only disliked him to a point of ridicule.  They insulted him in private and public to the point that the entire media was laughing at him.

     After Dallas and Lyndon Johnson's ascention to the Presidentcy, he tried to keep most of Kennedy's people around him, but of course most left   It is a great story about politics and the inability of working together for the common good, even within the same party. 
   
     In the early volumes, Caro was more objective, but as he gets to this volume, his respect for Johmson's political ability and liberalism, becomes much more obvious. This has been a monumental piece of work taking over 30 years just to get to this point.  It is fascinating, insightful, and entertaining.  It will be interesting to see if Robert Caro can finish the story in one more volume. I predict it will take two.

    This book is not an easy read, but it does keep moving.  If you are interested in how modern politics got to where we are today, this is a nice place to start.

Vegas Bill