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Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America (.)

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Judgment Days is riveting history and journalism--a real page turner about two fascinating, larger-than-life characters that come to life as in no other book I've read about Lyndon Johnson or Martin Luther King, Jr. Best of all, you'll hate J. Edgar Hoover more than you ever did and like Johnson and King better than you ever did.

This is an extraordinary re-creation of a particularly important time in American history. For those of you who lived through that era, this book offers significant new information as well as provides a vital context for understanding the interaction of legislation and civil rights activities. Both President Johnson and Rev. King emerge as sympathetic and complex and conflicted--yes, real people. Hovering over the book is the evil and vicious J. Edgar Hoover--and at times the book reads like a thriller with a tangled web of relationships among the three actors. For those of you for whom this era is ancient history, there is much to learn here about federal civil rights legislation and the civil rights movement. It may lead you to read more about the 1960's, and Kotz provides an extensive bibliography of some of the best books on a broad range of subjects. In any event, this is a great read which will get you thinking and perhaps even motivate you to action to promote equal rights.

Though Kotz is writing about oft-covered material, this book comes across as a fresh and vital examination of the relationship of two of the most important figures of the previous century. He spends a lot of time going over well known facts but also highlights the personalities of these two men. The portraits that emerge are quite interesting. MLK comes across as a man committed to change and--despite minor flaws--as the hero he was.

More surprising is Kotz take on LBJ, who comes across as equally committed to change and righting wrongs. Kotz argues that LBJ always displayed a commitment to improving the lot of the poor. Though he does not explain LBJ's early votes against civil rights, he argues that his eventual support of major civil rights legislation had its roots in his desire to help the disadvantaged, like those he grew up with in the Hill Country of Texas.

While stressing that both men were brilliant leaders, Kotz does not shy away from their flaws--of which LBJ had many. Most interesting is his take that both hoped to accomplish significantly more in the realm of abolishing poverty when their efforts were cut short--LBJ's by the morass of Vietnam and MLK's by a bullet. Ultimately this was a great read and should serve to hold those readers over who are eagerly awaiting the years-away release of Robert Caro's next LBJ volume.

Johnson became so excoriated during the Vietnam period that history sometimes forgets his heroic moment, with Martin Luther King as his uneasy ally, of passing the greatest civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. Notz' excellent account brings out the suspense in Johnson's shrewd handling of the legislative arcana required to defeat the racist politicians entrenched in Washington (still there to this day). Moving rapidly in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, Johnson and King seem briefly in tune until their ways diverge in the deepening of the Vietnam fiasco. In the background is the insidious J. Edgar Hoover trying to sabotage King and manipulate Johnson. Even now these revolutionary gains seem like a near miracle, and we could obviously make the mistake of thinking racism has gone away or that the forces of racist reaction have been permanently defeated. Johnson in this portrait comes across as a flawed hero, seizing the moment, contradicting his own past, to wrench the stuck system toward its desperately delayed promises of equality.

Before reading this book my interest in the Civil Rights Era was probably at best a 4 on a scale of 1-10. After reading a few pages, I was instantly hooked. "Judgment Days" is easily one of the best-written books I've read in the last year (possibly only surpassed by "John Adams"). Nick Kotz does a wonderful job at making history read like a novel and despite the fact that someone completely unfamiliar with American history would still possess some basic knowledge of the subject matter: most Civil Rights legislation is passed, Vietnam is a quagmire, MLK is shot - I found myself unable to put this book down. Upon reading this book, I have a new-found respect for LBJ, view MLK in a different light, and my disdain for J. Edgar Hoover is even greater. This book should be a mandatory read for most US History and Civics classes. The struggle of the Civil Rights Era is only a generation removed for most of America's youth - yet is viewed as distant history. What MLK and others endured to ensure that the American Dream is possible for anyone provided that they want it, is eye opening (to say the least). The author does a great job of revealing how in the "land of the free" you were only truly free as long as your skin wasn't black. Nick Kotz deserves the Pulitzer for this book and it's also an excellent tie in to "The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate" by Robert A. Caro.

This is without a doubt one of the best historical books I've ever read. The author has a dramatic story, fronted by three fascinating and complex characters in LBJ, MLK and J. Edgar Hoover.

Good writing and an eye for interesting details push this book over the top. Nick Kotz does an outstanding job laying out the ambitions of both Johnson and King, and the challenges they faced in trying to find a middle ground that wouldn't cost them the support of either blacks or whites in achieving their aims.

Many legendary stories exist of Johnson's "treatment" imposed on politicians in an effort to get legislation passed. But King had to do equally hard work in forging a consensus between two diverging wings of the black leadership in the civil rights movement. Both men experience triumphs, but in the end come across as admirable but tragic figures, like something out of Shakespeare. Johnson decides not to seek a second term as president, faced with a divided nation over the war in Vietnam (which King openly criticized him on, to the president's feelings of betrayal and anger). King was killed just days after Johnson made his intentions known to the country. On a positive note, those two events, Kotz argues, helped bring about a third major piece of civil rights legislation that provided for open housing.

It's always a great compliment to a book when it compels you to want to read more on a subject. Having read this, I want to learn more about both Johnson and King and hear other perspectives on the civil rights movement and the 1960s, a decade I was born too late to experience. The book also forced me to think about the state of race issues in the country today. In an intelligent epilogue, Kotz analyzes how far the country has come, and how much farther we have to go, since the civil rights laws were passed.

One minor annoyance was Kotz's use of footnotes at the bottom of the pages. Some of the information contained in those seems almost trivial, but some of it is very relevant information that probably should have been in the text itself.

Nevertheless, that's a small point. I highly recommend this book. It's an engrossing story put on paper by a skilled storyteller.

Fabulous book. Extremely well written and researched. A very new perspective on LBJ's early Presidency. It really dovetails with Caro's Master of the Senate. We see LBJ using all his legislative tricks to break a fillibuster and get the 1964 Civil Rights Law passed. Really incredible. A must read.

Sub-Title: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That Changed America

There seems to be a time when things happen. One of those times was forty years has passed since the 1965 Voting Rights Act was made into law. This was a time when two men rose to change the world.

Lyndon Johnson was a southern politician put on John Kennedy's ticket to help bring the south to the democrats. Then suddenly he was president, with the experience and skills that a lifetime in the Senate tought him about getting bills through Congress.

No less important was the input from Dr. King who had to combine the power of many disparate civil rights groups to speak with one voice.

Finally it almost seems that a third name, that of J. Edgar Hoover should be in the title. Hoover was a notorious racist and actively worked to break the two men apart. The amazing thing is that this quiet revolution came about with so little violence.

It's only when the books like this come out that you really get a feeling of what happened. The writings of the time are by people with an axe to grind.

A few more pieces to the civil rights movement,very well written. there was new stuff here along with insight and some behind the story things I really liked. You should enjoy this one.

"Judgment Days" is truly a five-star book. It is a page turner. It is extremely well-documented and reads very easily. Nick Kotz, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, relies on many other books, oral histories, newspaper articles, interviews he conducted, etc.

As another reviewer stated: Judgment Days is riveting history and journalism--a real page turner about two fascinating, larger-than-life characters that come to life as in no other book I've read about Lyndon Johnson or Martin Luther King, Jr. In the background is the insidious J. Edgar Hoover trying to sabotage King and manipulate Johnson."

LBJ receives transcripts of FBI wiretaps of Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) that were approved by the attorney general at the time, which was Robert Kennedy. I believe Nicholas Katzenbach was Deputy Attorney General and he also either approved or supported the wiretaps. J Edgar Hoover (Hoover) was trying to show that MLK's advisors were communists. There was no proof other than that one of the advisors had been a member or affiliated with the communist party six or so years prior to the civil rights movement.

The book discusses LBJ's positives and flaws--namely his mastery of the Senate, his devotion to civil rights, his unrelenting drive, his oversized ego, his paranoia, his total demand for loyalty, his eavesdropping on MLK, his crudeness, his own fear of Hoover possibly due to his unfaithfulness to Lady Bird Johnson, and his mistreatment of subordinates.

Interestingly, no one, other than LBJ during his dark moods, seems to buy Hoover's assertions that MLK's movement was instigated by Communists. And even more interesting, no one seems to care that MLK had extramarital affairs. No reporter would report on MLK's extramarital affairs.

Nick Kotz recommends you read both of Robert Dallek's two books on LBJ in which you will find out that LBJ was not comfortable with foreign affairs because he could not manipulate foreign leaders like members of US Congress.

This book also discusses the terrible relationship between LBJ and Robert F Kennedy (RFK). Johnson was crude and rude. RFK was rude and disrespectful. He was a spoiled scion of a wealthy man. RFK did not have the people skills that his brother, JFK, had. It is amazing that LBJ asked RFK to stay on as attorney general. I believe this was a mistake. But LBJ undercut RFK by having Hoover report directly to LBJ and not go through Hoover, his supervisor.

This is what you will learn from the book and others that supplement it:

LBJ was a doer. Also, he hated to lose. That is one of the main reasons, along with advice from most of his advisors, he sent troops to Vietnam. He probably opposed civil rights when he was a Senator and Congressman because he wanted to be re-elected. As I said, LBJ did not like to lose. But LBJ thought that the poor should be uplifted, particularly Afro Americans and Mexican Americans. LBJ was crude, a master manipulator, but his heart was in the right place. It is well known that LBJ was a master legislator. THIS BOOK SHOWS EXACTLY HOW LBJ OPERATED TO GET LEGISLATION PASSED.

After JFK's assassination, LBJ's rose to the opportunity of being the US President. He worked his legislative skills. Judgment Days shows that LBJ's METHODS INCLUDE MORE THAN JUST GETTING IN SOMEONE'S FACE.

A note about JFK, not necessarily obtained from "Judgment Days"---

JFK in my estimation was a weak President. JFK thought he could not get Congress to pass meaningful civil rights legislation. And he was probably right unless he had decided to empower LBJ. Like all US presidents, JFK did not want to share the limelight with his vice-president so LBJ did very little as vice-president. But JFK was very respectful of LBJ. LBJ was correct, along with others, that JFK was not ready to be President. JFK was strong on rhetoric, spoke very well, used the press to his advantage, was graceful before the camera, and was very good looking. The country loved him. I loved JFK when I was a kid growing up in the 1960s. But JFK did not pass much meaningful legislation.

JFK was terrible in foreign relations (not discussed in this book). JFK waited too long during the Cuban Missile Crisis before confronting Nikita Khrushchev. By the time JFK gave Khrushchev an ultimatum to get the nuclear missiles out of Cuba, the missiles were already mated with the warheads. If Khrushchev had been crazy like many Americans thought he was, then cities on the American East Coast would have been bombed with nuclear weapons. And since JFK wanted to overthrow Castro he should not have tried surreptitiously as he did in the failed Bay of Pigs affair. Also, JFK increased US presence in South Vietnam by sending over about 15,000 advisors (Green Berets). JFK also overthrew the Diem Government in South Vietnam and then installed another puppet government, which the US also overthrew. If you read "Intervention: How America became involved in Vietnam", by George McT Kahin, a deceased professor from Cornell University, you will conclude that both South Vietnam and North Vietnam wanted the same thing--reunification. Understandably the South Vietnamese Army lacked determination to fight the communists, even though the US was against and afraid of communism.