Published in 1982, this is the first volume in Robert Caro's massive biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. Originally scheduled to run three volumes, the fourth has just been published and there is at least one more to follow. Caro has devoted the last forty years of his life to this project. He has done a staggering amount of research, which includes interviews with scores of the former president’s contemporaries, and the result is the most complete study of the life of LBJ that we are ever likely to get. This is from the "warts and all" school of biography, and it's not an especially pretty or inspiring picture. Those who still yearn to believe that the American government operates the way their seventh-grade civics book described will doubtless want to avert their eyes.Caro's Johnson is an immensely complex figure, a man with an extraordinary talent for politics who emerged from the womb desperate for power and attention. Caro describes at length Johnson's ancestry and his early hardscrabble life in the Texas Hill Country. This biography is also very much in the "life and times" tradition and we learn almost as much about Johnson's surroundings as we do about the man himself.Johnson's political abilities and his lust for power were first on full display at Southwest Texas State Teacher's College in San Marcos. There, Johnson organized a group of students, the White Stars, taking over the student government and demonstrating early on that he would do whatever it took to win. There Johnson also demonstrated a pattern that he would exhibit all of his life, toadying up to older men whose support could advance his own career. In this case, it was the college president; later it would be much more powerful men like Sam Rayburn and Franklin D. Roosevelt.After briefly teaching school, Johnson first made his way to Washington, D.C. as an aide for a congressman who was largely absent and inattentive. Johnson used the opportunity to essentially take over the office and begin building a base of power for himself. When FDR came to the presidency, Johnson landed a job as Texas State Director of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal program aimed at providing jobs for unemployed youth. As he had at every stage of his career, he threw himself into the job, exhausting himself and his employees, but bringing much-needed work for large numbers of Texas young people. In the process, he also created a program that would be imitated in several other states.This position gave Johnson further opportunities to network and to expand the base of power he was building both in Texas and in Washington. In particular, Johnson earned the friendship and the critical support of Herman and George Brown of the construction firm, Brown and Root, which would later become part of Haliburton. With Johnson’s support, the company would become a huge construction and engineering giant with projects around the world. And in return, the grateful Browns would become Johnson’s principal patrons.In 1937, Johnson ran in a special election for the congressional seat for the Tenth District in Texas when the incumbent died suddenly. The odds against him seemed impossibly high, given that Johnson was only twenty-eight, given that he had basically no name recognition in the district and given that a number of much more powerful and better-known candidates had announced for the position. But Johnson ran a brilliant and exhausting campaign, with a considerable amount of help from the Browns and won the race.Once in office, Johnson worked night and day to capitalize on federal programs to pour as much federal money into his district as he possibly could, dramatically improving the lives of the people there. But he sponsored no legislation at all of his own and worked very hard to obfuscate his views on the larger issues of the day. He was determined not to take a stand on any issue that might impede his rise to power in the future. Thus, to his constituents and to the President and his advisors, Johnson claimed to be a solid supporter of both FDR and his New Deal programs. But back in Texas, behind closed doors with the power brokers and others who hated the New Deal, Johnson insisted that he did too and that he was just exploiting the programs to bring as much money into the state as possible.In 1941, still only thirty-two, Johnson had a chance to run for a Senate seat, when one of the state’s Senators died. Again, it was an uphill campaign against huge odds and against much better-known candidates. But Johnson had the support of Brown and Root and others in their circle, and they poured huge amounts of money into Johnson’s campaign—more than had ever been spent in a Texas Senate campaign, and much of it raised and spent in violation of the law.As a result, Johnson basically had the election in the bag. But then, surprisingly, on election day he made a dumb rookie mistake. Johnson’s campaign had bought a large number of votes in the southern part of the state and instead of holding them back until late in the day, Johnson announced the results early. That allowed his principal opponent, who had bought a large number of votes in the eastern part of the state, to know what Johnson’s final total would be and to massage his own numbers so that, in the end, he defeated Johnson by a little over a thousand votes. It was a very hard lesson and Johnson would not make that same mistake when he ran for the Senate again in 1948.Following the election, the IRS began an investigation of the way in which Johnson’s campaign had been financed, focusing principally on the activities of executives at Brown and Root. The investigators believed that they had more than enough evidence to support criminal prosecution against a number of Johnson’s contributors, and it appeared that Johnson’s political career was about to take a massive and perhaps fatal hit. But Johnson pleaded with the White House to intervene and in the end, the investigation was shut down. Brown and Root paid a tiny fine for “irregularities,” and the case was closed. This volume ends in 1942, when Johnson took a temporary leave from the House of Representatives to join the Navy during World War II.This is a monumental study of politics and biography and is certain to stand for a very long time as a classic work of American History. Those who enjoy biography and political history will certainly want to read it.
Lyndon Johnson was the apotheosis of politicians. He would lie, cheat, say or do anything in his single-minded pursuit of power, and was willing to lay at its altar not only his own health, time, and sanity, but that of others. When he was a teenager, he told an acquaintance that he was going be President of the United States. Every of his subsequent decisions was meant to further him on that path. This story is the triumph of the will -- and damn the consequences.In this first volume, Caro takes us through the hill country of Texas, where farmers languished in poverty due to the thin topsoil. Folks were, in other words, truly "dirt poor," and Johnson grew up in an environment inimical to national political ambitions. Books were few, these few usually Bibles; and college, which most could not afford, was the only feasible way out of isolated small town Texas. This was a world without electricity, and, in many respects, without hope.But Lyndon had an advantage in his upbringing: a father from whom to learn. Samuel Johnson was a renowned local and state politician, universally respected for his principled liberal stances. Lobbyists owned Austin, the state capital, plying legislators with "booze, beefsteak, and blondes," but Sam was one of the few who remained independent. He insisted he worked for "The People," and always stuck to his guns.Unfortunately, principles don't always get one far in life. Due to a series of bad events and decisions, which would take too long to describe here, Sam ended up broke and had to resign his political activities. He became a laughingstock of his hometown, and Lyndon, who had held him in such high esteem, now looked upon him as a fool and a failure.It's Caro's assertion that Johnson saw his father's downfall and became disillusioned with his parents' idealism. The land in which they lived was unforgiving; practicality was the byword of the hill country, yet Samuel had never trimmed his actions to suit circumstances. Where did it get him? Lyndon must have realized he would have to play smart to get ahead, not honest.Time pushes onward; we enter college. Johnson erected a campus political structure, enlisting the help of friends, and used it to place himself in a position of power. Most of his classmates despised him; he brown-nosed faculty and derided anyone without influence -- that is, his peers. He bullied more than one person. He left having honed his skills and having accumulated a number of sycophant allies, but of the majority he left behind he had earned the enmity.He bounced between jobs, at one point teaching highschool in a Mexican-majority border town, and eventually secured a position as Congressman Kleberg's secretary. In Washington, the few underlings he was given he drove like slaves, but he went no easier on himself: they basically did Kleberg's job for him. Eventually we come to his first Congressional race, which he won after absolutely tireless campaigning.While in Congress, he put considerable effort into currying favour with the White House; someone who knew him said he had always been a "professional son," possessing an extraordinary talent for winning the affections of older men, and FDR, though a tough nut to crack, eventually grew fond of him. He also established an important symbiotic relationship with the Texas construction company Brown & Root. When a Texas Senate seat opened up, Johnson jumped at the opportunity, aware his path to the presidency cut through the upper house.Roosevelt in his corner, money in his pockets, he fought a hard race against his main challenger, Pappy O'Daniel -- a hilarious character in his own right, whom the book does ample justice -- and on election night, near the finish, he took the lead in votes. But he grew overconfident, uncharacteristically so -- a man whose prevailing principle was that "if you do everything, you'll win," decided to rest on his laurels for one day. He told his precincts to report their boxes early. In corrupt Texas this was a fatal mistake.Pappy O'Daniel's cronies were able to report their ballot boxes last, and forged enough votes to put him over the edge. This was the first and only election Johnson would ever lose, and for a time, it shattered his spirits.The story picks up in part two, Means of Ascent.This is a wonderful examination of a fascinating man, and while a few chapters get bogged down in technical and legal details, losing sight of the personalities, these pages are easily skimmed; like all great stories this book is driven by pure uncut emotion, from Johnson's anxious ambition to Sam Rayburn's stoic loneliness. History is about people, not events.
What do You think about The Path To Power (1990)?
"This book. This book is something else. ‘Political biography’ is too pissant a term for this Ahab-like undertaking. I’d call it a biographie-fleuve, but I don’t think that’s a real word even in French. Let’s just call it a great big fucking book, in every sense of the various adjectives.People are going to be arguing about Robert Caro’s portrayal of Lyndon Johnson for decades to come, but even on the most generous interpretation of the facts, it seems pretty clear that the 36th POTUS was at once a crook, a liar, a shameless toady, a serial adulterer and a complete physical coward. Just for starters. He was also, and equally clearly, a political genius who did more to liberate and enfranchise his fellow citizens than any president since Lincoln. So there’s that too.Still, for all Johnson’s Shakespearean complexities, this wouldn’t be the great big fucking book it is if Robert Caro had stuck to his safe, biographical bailiwick. Almost more fascinating than its central figure are the rich little digressions and sidelights it contains. To use an unfashionable word, it’s an edifying book: it teaches you stuff you didn’t even know you wanted to know, stuff like the history of the Texas Hill Country, or the domestic chores of farmers' wives, or the rococo politics of dam-building under the New Deal, or the grotesque career of Pappy O’Daniel. And then there’s the plain old gossip, such as the astonishing fact that the young LBJ had a passionate and very illicit affair with one of the most beautiful women of the day, who, decades later, would end up burning all his love letters out of mortification over the Vietnam War. See? Who wouldn’t want to know that?"From a good reads review by user Buck. Couldn't agree more.
—Kevin
I almost didn't read this book because it's so long and it is just the first in a series of books about Lyndon Johnson. This covers his early life up through the very beginning of WWII. Fortunately, I gave it a start and then was all in.The book contains extraordinary amounts of detail, not just about Johnson, but about his environs as well. For example, we learn about the horrid life of a farm women without electricity -- details of hauling water and the amounts of water needed, of laundry and ironing days, of canning foods in the summer heat in a hot house by a hot stove... This kind of detail was fascinating, at least to me.Johnson always knew he wanted to be president and as a very young man he mapped out his path to achieve that goal. This book shows his devotion to that single focus wit every action he takes.Maybe just because of our current political climate, I found the story of Lee O'Daniel, a flour salesman and radio announcer who never had any political connections, not even voting, running for Texas governor. Politicians didn't take him seriously, the press thought he was a joke, and so they thought his candidacy would be short-lived. He won the election!
—Rosemary Ellis
Not being American myself, I have no particular interest in US presidential history, unless that history can be shoehorned into an entertaining biopic, preferably with a British actor in the lead role. (I wonder who they’ll get to play Obama when the time comes. Liam Neeson?)This book, though. This book is something else. ‘Political biography’ is too pissant a term for this Ahab-like undertaking. I’d call it a biographie-fleuve, but I don’t think that’s a real word even in French. Let’s just call it a great big fucking book, in every sense of the various adjectives.It’s somehow fitting that, in the same week that The Path to Power was keeping me up till 3 or 4 a.m. every night, I was also working my way through the first two seasons of Breaking Bad. Seen side by side like this, LBJ the wheeler-dealer and Walter White the meth dealer share a certain resemblance; they inhabit the same moral penumbra. Both men get caught up in a dangerous game that they turn out to be really, really good at, and both have, shall we say, an open-door policy vis-à-vis the dark side. Of course, LBJ never strangled anyone with a bike lock (as far as we know) but he still had enough blood on his hands to incarnadine the multitudinous seas, or at least turn them a ghastly pink.People are going to be arguing about Robert Caro’s portrayal of Lyndon Johnson for decades to come, but even on the most generous interpretation of the facts, it seems pretty clear that the 36th POTUS was at once a crook, a liar, a shameless toady, a serial adulterer and a complete physical coward. Just for starters. He was also, and equally clearly, a political genius who did more to liberate and enfranchise his fellow citizens than any president since Lincoln. So there’s that too.Still, for all Johnson’s Shakespearean complexities, this wouldn’t be the great big fucking book it is if Robert Caro had stuck to his safe, biographical bailiwick. Almost more fascinating than its central figure are the rich little digressions and sidelights it contains. To use an unfashionable word, it’s an edifying book: it teaches you stuff you didn’t even know you wanted to know, stuff like the history of the Texas Hill Country, or the domestic chores of farmers' wives, or the rococo politics of dam-building under the New Deal, or the grotesque career of Pappy O’Daniel. And then there’s the plain old gossip, such as the astonishing fact that the young LBJ had a passionate and very illicit affair with one of the most beautiful women of the day, who, decades later, would end up burning all his love letters out of mortification over the Vietnam War. See? Who wouldn’t want to know that?Bring on volume two! And season three! I'm starting to get a taste for all this skeevy ambivalence and moral murk.
—Buck
