Customer Reviews

LBJ: Architect of American Ambition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First, let me say that this book is well written and never dull. It is also a fairly objective view of LBJ, very welcome after Caro's multi-volumes of character assassination. The frustrating part of the book, however, is a barrage of incorrect facts, leading to the question of whether anyone actually edited this book. Lister Hill is repeatedly identified as a senator form Florida (he represented Alabama), Huey Long is described, in a very famous episode, as helping Hattie Carraway get elected to the Governorship of Arkansas (she was running for and was elected to the Senate) and Douglas MacArthur is described as a "young brigadier general" at the time he routed the "bonus" army from Washington. He was actually the 52 year old chief of staff of the U.S. Army at this time, holding four star rank.

Informative and absorbing, "LBJ: Architect of American Ambition" is certainly one of the best bios I've read in a while. Woods' narration, though somewhat uneven at times, never loses focus on the long reach of Johnson's ambition, which is apparent from his boyhood to the halls of Congress, and throughout his controversial presidency. Not content with only explaining his forceful and often manipulative methods, Woods allows the reader to dive into LBJ's mind to explore the (largely) altruistic motivations behind his eccentric, almost schizophrenic behaviors.

Heralding over an era that he envisioned as a continuation of FDR's New Deal, LBJ's dreams came crashing under the events of the tumultuous 60s; that of Vietnam and urban riots. To paraphrase a comment once made by the father of a friend of mine, no political figure fit the mold of a Shakespearean Tragedy as LBJ did.

While I agree that the editing was most certainly shoddy and that Woods' standing as a historian gives him little room to allow such careless mistakes, I must respectfully contend that the book should not suffer anything more than a 2-star deduction as other reviewers have done. Save for situations in which an author is purposefully misleading or misconstruing the facts to push foward an agenda, such errors seem more benign in nature, and as such, context should be the focus. Should I use this book as a source for a future paper and/or project, I'll be sure to take note to double-check for accuracy; but as a more casual reader looking for a book to bring this character to life, I found that Woods' overall style accomplished that objective.

This book tells his story in a way that is sympathetic to his cause, but unflinching in revealing Johnson's flaws in more ways than one. With such a larger-than-life character as its subject, I can only hope a revised edition is not too far ahead in the future.

As one who believes Lyndon Baines Johnson was an effective, significant president. I looked forward to reading this book. Many of the books that have been written about President Johnson tend to focus on his shortcomings. I believe that while Vietnam is the "elephant in the room" that will forever be a part of his legacy (in a negative sense), it is important to remember that Johnson was a remarkable political leader. He led the United States Senate like no one did before him or anyone has since. Robert Caro's Master of the Senate covers Johnson's 12 years in the Senate and ranks along T. Harry Williams Huey Long as one of the finest books ever written about modern American politics. As president, Johnson provided the leadership that resulted in Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, federal funding of education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Randall Woods provides a sympathetic and highly readable biography of LBJ. However, his work is marred by a litany of sloppy factual errors that are to say the least, distracting. Early on, Woods refers to Jackie Kennedy's green blood stained dress. The dress was pink. He refers to Alabama Senator John Stennis. John Stennis represented Mississippi. Woods states that Frank Lausche reprented Indiana in the United States Senate. Lausche represented Ohio. The book locates the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy at the Embassy Hotel. In reality, the assassination took place at the Ambassador Hotel. Albert Jenner is listed as being a senator from Indiana, when in fact, the senator in question was named William. It is not uncommon to find one or two errors in a book from time to time. However...there were so many in LBJ:Architect of American Ambition, one has to seriously question whether or not this book was edited or proofread by anyone. So, while I would give the book a B+ for content and overall understanding and interpretation of the subject, the editing is among the worst I have ever seen in a political biography.

The author has unearthed a large amount of information, as you would expect from a professional historian and academic. And he wishes to share a lot of it with the reader. His style is flat, clear and in the tradition of some of the better Wikipedia entries. If you are fond of reading histories by David McCullough, think of this as the anti-McCullough. Long paragraphs full of detailed information, and a very long book. Minimal amount of interpretation, synthesis and story-telling. Tough-sledding if, like me, you had the impression from Caro's books that LBJ was an unsavory man whose lack of courage and honor kept him from ending the war when he knew he should. There is a tidal wave of information here, data overload. Not sure what the point is, though. A more thoughtful, interpretative, argumentative approach would have been far better. Do we really need to know everything he did on so many days?

This is a strange book that includes a lot that is new and makes for compelling reading. But it is an unreliable book and for that reason cannot be recommended. It is replete with errors. I want to mention a few because I believe they are both symptomatic and sufficiently important to undermine the value of the book. For example, when discussing President Kennedy's assassination on page 3, Woods describes Mrs. Kennedy's "green suit still splattered with her husband's blood," while on page 418 he describes "her pink suit splattered with her husband's brains..." Trivial? Unnecessarily tasteless, certainly, but more than a trivial mistake. Surely even Woods has seen what is probably the most viewed amateur movie film in history...in color. In another example, Woods puts Hitler's death at April 7, 1945 "with the Red Army advancing on the outskirts of Berlin." Before Roosevelt's death? This isn't just a matter of memorizing dates. Sequence is essential to historical understanding. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, after Roosevelt's death, and with the Red army within meters of the bunker, not in the suburbs. Again, not a trivial mistake. There are more. On one page he informs us that John Stennis was the Senator from Mississippi and on another page from Alabama. How can anybody with a memory of the civil rights movement possibly forget the Senator from Mississippi? The errors extend to style, as well. Evidently pleased with himself, Woods describes DeGaulle over and over again as "le grande Charles," turning the French President into a grammatical hermaphrodite. Well, you get the point. There is more needed here than good editing. The book reads as if it was researched by uncommunicating groups of graduate students with too little knowledge of facts, stuck together by an inattentive author who has an insufficient sense of his period so necessary for context and understanding, and reviewed by an over-hasty editor who can't remember on page 4 what he read on page 3. For these reasons, this book is unreliable as history and one has to wonder what its value is. Perhaps just an entertaining read.

Few presidents generate as much debate today as Lyndon Baines Johnson. From relatively humble roots in Texas, he rose to the pinnacle of power in American politics. Brash and domineering to the point of obnoxiousness, he turned the position of Senate majority leader into the key office in that body through a mastery of wheeling and dealing that served him well as president and ensured the passage of a vast range of legislation that transformed the nation. Yet all of this is weighed against the controversial involvement in the Vietnam War, a topic that still triggers fervent discussion.

All of these elements are present in Randall Woods's new biography of LBJ. He chronicles Johnson's life from his Hill Country roots to his last ailment-plagued years on his iconic ranch. He begins with Johnson's parents, Sam Early and Rebekah Baines, both of whom played a critical role in shaping young Lyndon as he inherited his father's politics and his mother's idealism. From his early years, Woods goes on to chart Lyndon's rise in American politics, from his emergence as an ardent New Dealer in the 1930s through his famously narrow victory in the 1948 Democratic Senate primary to his role as Senate majority leader in the 1950s. Throughout it all he details Johnson's relationships with other political "fathers", most notably Sam Rayburn and Richard Russell - men from whom Johnson learned about the workings of Congress and who he courted and cultivated for their enormously influential support.

As impressive as Johnson's achievements were, however, he would be satisfied with nothing less than the highest office in the land. Here the author introduces us to the clash between Johnson and Robert Kennedy, a clash that would define much of the politics of the 1960s with its bitterness and political maneuvering. While the younger Kennedy would argue that his older brother named Johnson as his running mate as a publicity move, Woods makes it clear that Jack Kennedy offered the vice presidency to LBJ because he didn't think he could win the White House without the Texan on the ticket. Yet JFK's recognition of Johnson's political indispensability did not extend to a broader respect for the man, as Johnson found himself the subject of much contempt and derision from the Kennedys's "Irish mafia". Johnson was so miserable as vice-president, Woods argues, that he was preparing to tell Kennedy of his intention to not seek renomination as his running mate when an assassin's bullets suddenly propelled him into the presidency.

Thrust by circumstance into the office he long sought, Johnson was determined to make the most of the opportunity. Woods is generous in his interpretation of the programs that constituted the Great Society, seeing it as a reflection of Johnson's genuine concern for the disadvantaged and a product of a coherent political philosophy. This was especially true for civil rights, where Johnson knew his efforts would prove politically damaging in the traditionally Democratic South. But the president persisted because he knew it was the right thing to do, and his Congressional experience proved indispensable in getting the necessary legislation passed.

Yet in spite of his ambitious domestic agenda and his considerable success in transforming it into law, Johnson's presidency would be defined by his disastrous policies in Vietnam. Here Woods displays his strengths as a historian of American foreign policy, examining LBJ's reluctant commitment to intervention in the Vietnam War within the broader context of the Cold War. For all of his appreciation of the realities of the situation and despite his skepticism of the military's optimistic assertions, though, he was unable to stop events from spinning out of his control. Increasingly embattled by the growing opposition from Congress and the public towards the war, Johnson withdrew from the 1968 presidential race and retired from politics at the end of his term, living out his final years shunned and aware that his considerable achievements never met his even greater ambitions.

Thoroughly researched and convincingly argued, Woods has produced the best single volume biography of Johnson, one that presents a convincing interpretation of the man and his accomplishments. Throughout it he takes a favorable tone towards his subject, judging Johnson sympathetically yet not uncritically. Its greatest strengths are in his depiction of Johnson's relationships with the key people in his life (particularly his mother, Rayburn and Russell, and his wife Lady Bird) and his analysis of Johnson's broader foreign policy, which is often overshadowed by Vietnam in other accounts. Yet for all of its many strengths, the book is plagued with persistent factual errors, mistakes that could have been corrected with even a modest editing effort. Though a minor problem, it detracts from what is otherwise an excellent study of the life and times of a fascinating man and controversial president.

Almost all reviewers acknowledge that this book is well written but filled with factual errors. The real debate is over how important the errors are. I think they are very important for two reasons. First, the number of errors and kinds of errors suggest the author does not have a grasp of his subject. If this historian knew his period, he would not have made most of these mistakes in the first place, and if he did, he would have caught them himself in a less fatigued moment. Didn't he even read his own manuscript? Accuracy is the responsibility of the author, not the editor. These errors just would not have slipped by a competent historian, not in these numbers. Second, if the reader finds that what he or she knows about is wrong, how can the reader have confidence in what he or she doesn't know about? The short answer is one can't. There is no way of knowing if what this author says is right or wrong. For these reasons, the whole book is unreliable. Interesting as it is, and it is very interesting, one just can't have confidence in it. This is not trivial. This is not an editorial problem. This is fundamental. Too bad. The author is trying to make an important argument that needs making. In more reliable hands, this book would have been an enormous contribution to the literature, perhaps a masterpiece.

What can be said of Lyndon Johnson that has not already been said, over and over and over again? I have read, and actually have in my position, all of the major biographies of this complex man and have read and own a great majority of the minor, less known ones as well. While I certainly do not pretend to be an expert on LBJ; the man or the politician, I certainly feel I have gotten a non-historians grasp of his overall character, accomplishments and failures. I was also of course alive and well during a greater part of his career and indeed participated in many of the events during those times.

This is a very readable biography and I was most grateful that the author did not go on chapter after chapter addressing obscure relatives and past family member as so many of LBJ's biographers have. Yes, some were mention, but only to put the historical story in context. This work of course begins with Johnson's boyhood; a rather austere beginning, in Texas and follows his career through to the end. This work is not a critical hatchet job such as we find with Caro's work and others. As a matter of fact, Woods acts as an apologist in most cases; both for his personal life and his political life. He probably goes further in justifying the Presidents eccentric behaviors, political shenanigans, decisions, both good and bad and his overall character more than most, with the exception of his non-family or friend biographers. Wood is most certainly a LBJ fan and this comes through on almost ever page. He does address most of the bad traits of Johnson, but in many cases he does this in an almost off hand way. He also tends to justify some of the decisions this man made during the war, which, with hindsight, we know were simply bad decisions.

Most who are critical of this work fall into several categories. Fist we have those that have noted some errors in the text, i.e. factual errors. This is certainly true, I spotted a few myself and I am not the sharpest crayon in the box. Most of these errors though are of little moment as to the overall validity of the work as a whole. If someone is going to use a "popular" biography as the basis for their Doctorial Thesis, then they are in big time trouble. These errors, for the most part, fall into the category of "who cares" and only those who have a particular axe to grind or are extremely anal retentive will take much note. If a person is so well versed on this particular subject that they can spot these errors, I might suggest skipping over such work and jacking your reading level up a notch. Secondly, there are those that can only see as far as the disastrous war and the errors made by the Johnson Administration. This is a debate that has been going on since the beginning and I suspect will go on for years to come. There are many good works out there addressing this subject, both pro and con; read them if you were not actually there yourself. Thirdly, there are the blatant racists. Few can deny the fact that Johnson did more for race equality than any president in history up to that point. If this was for political expediency or not, is rather a moot point as the end results were the same. Fourthly, there are those who feel his liberalism as to public welfare was no more than an extension of the New Deal. This is probably true and it all boils down to if your leanings are to the left or the right.

What I liked about the book: If you take this work and read it with other works, you get a much better picture of the man and the politician. I enjoyed the political history presented in this work. I am not a LBJ fan, never was and never will be, but this did give me some food for thought. I did like the way that the author did stress that this president did more for the poor and for racial minorities than any previous president (and quite possibly those who followed) and that he simply does not get credit for this.

What I did not like about the book: I felt the author was a bit too easy on Johnson, in particular in his running of the war and his obvious cluelessness as to what was going on at the time. I felt the author was a bit to lenient as to the way LBJ treated his wife and immediate family. Hey, this was not a nice guy in many ways. I would have expected a historian and author of Woods' stature to be a bit more astute in checking his facts. While the errors in this book are minor, in my own opinion, they were never-the-less errors, and they marred the work as a whole. There are such a mass of facts that should have been addressed in more depth that I feel this should have been a work of two large volumes, at least, rather than just one large one. The author should have taken a hint from Caro and Dallek. This work is also very readable and well done.

Now in reading this review, the reader needs to keep in mind where I am coming from. I was a member of the military for over twenty years, most of it during this period and have very strong feelings about the war. Secondly, I was one of those people branded as a "Northern Agitator" in the late 50s and early 60s, i.e. a white boy just stirring up trouble where he did not belong. I felt and still feel very strongly about these issues. I admit that as to the war, and trust me folks, I was there, I had very mixed feelings but overall could not stand the name of LBJ. On the other hand, I admired his stance on civil rights issues tremendously. Now my personal feelings in the happening of those days years ago should not reflect on Woods's work, but the reader should know where I am coming from.

Overall, this is a good read, but for those interested, they should read the vast number of other biographies out there just to get all angles of this mans life in focus.

Don Blankenship

The Ozarks

LBJ was complex, and as discussed in the book, capable of great legislation while being both compassionate and crude. Regardless of what you think of the man's legacy, it provides good contra-perspective to Caro. Anyone who wishes to understand the legacy needs to read both bodies of work.

I agree with many other reviewers that this book is riddled with factual errors, and some are repeated; his publisher would have done well to employ a copy/fact checker. However, these errors are trivial and do not affect, compromise, or undermine the author's thesis (whether one agrees with this premise or not) that LBJ was generally an altruistic man underneath the complex crdude exterior.

This biography of Lyndon Johnson is much more balanced than the Robert Caro series of Lyndon Johnson biographies and is a very good read. The book has some fresh insights and seems especially good in describing and providing background on Johnson's relationship with Robert Kennedy. The book also offers an interesting view of the 1948 Senate election, showing that Coke Stevenson was busy stuffing ballot boxes too, not just Lyndon Johnson like Caro would have you believe. This Johnson book is slightly marred by annoying repeated apparent editing or checking errors which undermine confidence in the book: listing Clark Clifford as Truman's Secretary of Defense; listing John Stennis as from Alabama; listing Stewart Udall as a Senator instead of Congressman; indicating the population of Vietnam as 125 million instead of 15 million; and other such annoying small errors. A strength of the book is the description of Lyndon Johnson's relations with his wife and daughters. Overall, a highly recommended book.