Customer Reviews

A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power

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It would be an understatement to say that author Haley does not like Lyndon Baines Johnson. And despite the fact that his book is an unrelenting tirade against all things Lyndon, it provides a useful service in reminding the reader of how Johnson trampled and double-crossed friend and foe alike in his single-minded lust for power.
I am fairly conservative politically, but I am open-minded enough to recognize and oppose corruption whether practiced by liberals or conservatives. In my lifetime, Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton have been shining examples of the worst impulses in American presidential politics in which greed and lust for either power or money ended up overshadowing any of their real achievements.
Haley shows that Johnson was a man of few real principles, neither liberal nor conservative, but rather a man who usually always wanted to know which way the wind was blowing before taking a stand on any important issue. Johnson was a man who used all his powers of persuasion and veiled threats to get what he wanted and woe unto anyone who stood in his way. He was a man who knew and used the old adage "It's not what you know, but who you know" to Machiavellian extremes. But he was also a man of sometimes great political courage who would rarely give an inch once he took a stand. He hated those who opposed him, nursed resentments, and wreaked revenge on those who crossed him in the least as most of his enemies and many of his friends learned to their sorrow. From the earliest days, he was involved with corrupt Texas politicians from the local to the state level and swam in the seas of corporate corruption with the likes of the infamous swindler Billy Sol Estes and others of his stripe.
Admittedly, the conservatism of the author is the conservatism of a bygone age and the reader will recognize that the book is meant to be a partisan attack on Johnson. Some of the attacks on Johnson are made solely for political reasons as Johnson was clever enough to outmaneuver Haley's ideological brothers and sisters. But Johnson surrounded himself with enough scummy characters and got involved in so many underhanded political AND business deals that he deserves the rough treatment given him in Haley's devastating diatribe.
No matter your political leanings, your eyes will be opened when you read A Texan Looks At Lyndon. The book is well-written and often riveting in its allegations and revelations, but it loses one star for occasional hysteria. If US or Texas politics interests you, then I highly recommend this.

Haley wrote this book (and published it himself) in 1964 basically as a campaign tract for Barry Goldwater. In the intervening years it has become a classic of its kind,a philippic, to use M.E. Bradford's term, tracing the illegitimate rise to power of Lyndon Baines Johnson. If you're politically naive, this book will grown hair on your chest. It's an unblinking, fearless portrait of Johnson's wheeling dealing and underhanded methods to achieve the power, prestige, and money he craved all his life. Haley names all the names and lays out facts and figures for the reader to make up his mind. And the reader winds up shaking his head in utter astonishment. The best part of the book is that detailing Johnson's eventual election to the U.S. Senate in a contest with former Gov. Coke Stevenson. The election was clearly Stevenson's, but through the machinations of George Parr, the notorious Duke of Duval County, the results were turned around in LBJ's favor. Investigators later found that among those voting in the primary were people who didn't live in the county anymore and people who weren't alive at all. But the results stood.(An interesting and amusing aside: when Haley ran for Texas governor in 1956, he approached Parr and said, "I'm Evetts Haley. I'm running for governor, and if I win, it will be my privilege to put you in jail." Parr's reply: "I believe you will." Parr, the Artful Dodger of Texas politics for years, eventually killed himself.)
At times the book grows tiresome, especially in the Bobby Baker and Billie Sol Estes scandals, where Haley turns a virtual torrent of names and numbers on the reader as to be sometimes confusing. But slog through those sections to get to the excellent chapter where LBJ wields an iron hand as Senate Majority Leader and maneuvers himself into the Vice Presidency. It is chilling.
Haley suffered considerable damage to his reputation as a result of this book, but he never backed down, and now time seems to be bearing out the truth of his claims, which have also been verified in such later works as the Robert Caro books. This is an indispensable lesson in this Presidential election year. Read it and weep.

This not-too-well organized or written condemnation of Lyndon Johnson represented the first documented gathering of serious charges about LBJ's ethics and practices. Dismissed as angry ranting by a fawning Texas public when first published, this little book outlines broadly the subject areas later explored in detail by Robert Caro in his superlative "The Years of Lyndon Johnson" series. This brief paperback does not read smoothly -- and it helps a great deal to have read Caro's books before reading it -- but you will see that at least one person was fully onto Lyndon Johnson's supernatural self-interest and pragmatic willingness to do whatever was necessary for advancing Lyndon Johnson. My grandparents worshipped Lyndon -- and showing this book to them, when it first came out, was like tossing holy water on a demon. They did not want to have ANYTHING to do with it. Lyndon had completely won their hearts and minds.

Growing up in Texas, I found this book to be alarmingly accurate. Living in Jim Wells County, I found this book to be no less than the absolute truth. I knew most of the people mentioned, or their children (who of course were not only grown, but certainly more than adults) Mr. J. Evetts Haley and his family were banished from Texas, his book banned and illegal to own. Some things were not spoken of in Texas, but Mr. Haley told it all. (or most all) It is a shame that no one else picked up where Mr. Haley left off. But there has never been a more honest, forthright, or honestly correct book written about any of our politicians. I found no discrepancies in names, dates, times or events in this book. I perhaps saw just a bit more evidence than he did, or perhaps, he chose not to mention all that he had seen, but after reading the book, I rather doubt that he hid anything that he knew. This book will be passed down to my children and hopefully to their children until the entire truth will be found.

I have little to add to the above reviews, except to endorse them.

But Haley accuses LBJ of using a hired man to kill a political enemy, one who was causing him trouble in the Billie Sol Ester scandal. The man, who is named by Haley, was questioned and released. The scary thing is that many years later, a previously unidentified fingerprint found on a box of books on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository was positively identified as being that of the man Haley names as LBJ's personal assassin.

This book by Haley is an unflattering view of Lyndon Johnson.
Haley displays several facets of Johnson's life in a very negative manner.Haley tells of Johnson's first Senate victory by
a very narrow margin of 80 votes. He also tells of the manuevering to insure the narrow victory.He also tells of Johnson's relationship with George Parr.Haley also accuses Johnson of having a role of the Kennedy assassination.Haley also goes into detail about several near scandals that occured around Johnson during his days in Texas politics and his time in the
White House. Interesting book but I don't believe it will be used in class rooms to teach history.

While I was a pre flight student aviator in Pensacola, Fl trying to ultimately earn my Navy Wings of Gold I saw this small tome on the Navy Exchange bookshelves for sale. About a week later all copies were removed and none ever were for sale again in any branch of the military. The year, 1964.

I decided to investigate and my father, being a Navy Admiral, had access to information in high places. I was told that LBJ had demanded the book be pulled and not allowed to be either sold or kept in a military library. My father's opinion was it was truthful and too damaging to LBJ while he started his presidency.

Verification of this would be very interesting if someone is willing to do the research.

Hank Miller, Jr.

I don't have an interest in Johnson per se. I do have an interest in the Kennedy assassination, and I wanted some context on Johnson. So, I have read a number of books on this subject.

It's unlikely that you will ever read a more unflattering portrait of any important US political figure than that given by Haley in this book. Haley ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Texas in 1956, and obviously was politically well versed and knew all the players in Texas particularly. He also experienced one Johnson deal firsthand as a consultant, in what would eventually turn out to be Johnson's Machiavellian acquisition of TBC.

If you were to read any books about Johnson this is definitely a must read, because it is no holds barred, no punches pulled, no holding back any feelings, and never impartial, and yet covers all of the major events up to 1964.

You will read about the Box 13 scandal in 1948, when LBJ ran for the Senate against Governor Coke Stevenson. This box had 202 votes, 201 for Johnson. Dead people voted. Live people were prepared to testify they did not vote. There was an armed standoff by Johnson's people outside a bank to prevent investigators from checking votes. Evidence went up in smoke. Johnson won by 87 votes out of almost a million cast.

You will read about the acquisition of TBC radio in 1940. A willing seller at $150,000, through various highly sophisticated tactics ends up having to sell to Johnson for $15,000, making Johnson an almost instant millionaire. Johnson influence with the FCC and the revocation of the owner's broadcast permits made this possible.

You will read of Johnson's invisible tactics to punish and smear opponents, often using the government, while remaining insulated from direct involvement.

You will read of the scandals with business associates Mac Wallace, Bobby Baker, and Billie Sol Estes, and the untimely and suspicious deaths of numerous people, who threatened to expose them. Henry Krukilek, Sol Estes accountant died from carbon monoxide poisoning shortly before SE was indicted on 57 counts. Harold Orr died from carbon monoxide poisoning after being arrested with SE, and shortly before he was to commence a 10 year prison sentence. Was Orr about to talk? Howard Pratt whose company supplied SE with fertilizer also died in his car from CO poisoning.

How friend Mac Wallace convicted of the first degree murder got a 'suspended' sentence.

The death of Henry Marshall, an agriculture official on the trail of Sol Estes ended up being ruled a suicide, buried without autopsy. When later exhumed he was found to have died from five gunshot wounds, inflicted by a single shot bolt action rifle. A fatal shot throught the heart was fired earlier than a shot through the liver which did not bleed. An inquest could not decide if it was a suicide or not. Only in Texas.

The mystery of how he got on the ticket with Kennedy, grows thicker given the authors account of LBJ's dislike of Kennedy, and vicious rhetoric in a debate and rumormongering at the democratic convention. Hersh's Dark side of Camelot, posits that LBJ enlisted his good friend Hoover, and there was a threat of blackmail to coerce LBJ onto the ticket. Kennedy said: "I am already going to have enough problems with Nixon." Bobby Kennedy hated LBJ, and did not want him on the ticket. Other sources indicate that Joe Kennedy, in conjunction with the Texas oilmen got LBJ on the ticket.

How unreasonableness led to the unnecessary death of Lyndon's two pilots, and the subsequent manoeuvring to cover up ownership of the plane.

His Federally funded private airstrip.

Too many others to mention.

I will say the author uses very dramatic and extreme language. At times, particularly later in the book, this degenerates into almost incoherent ranting. Clearly, the author is anti civil rights, so even the the things that Johnson does which are arguably good get dismissed.

I can recommend two other books about Johnson, which I have recently read. Texas in the Morning by the woman who was LBJ's mistress for 21 years, and bore his only son. This is a rather interesting sometimes racy take by an intimate, who offers further insight into his associates and business dealings, including his 8F group association, and his true personality, and the assassinationTexas in the Morning: The Love Story of Madeleine Brown and President Lyndon Baines Johnson. I am currently reading The THE DARK SIDE OF LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON. by Joachim Joesten. If you cannot get them through Amazon, I managed to get this and those books through the Links system at my local library.

If you are a cast iron believer in the lone gunmman narrative, you should definitely avoid these books. Consider the Robert Caro epic series, the The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3: Master Of The Senate which won the Pulitzer Prize.

I hope you found this helpful.

A brief synopsis of the typical politician found in all levels of public office. The credo is the same today as yesterday.

This is an excellent history of LBJ leading up to the presidency, it is not sugarcoated and gives a great picture of Texas politics.