The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Robert A. Caro (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 1, 2012 | ISBN-10: 0679405070 | ISBN-13: 978-0679405078 | Edition: First Edition

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE, THE AMERICAN HISTORY BOOK PRIZE

NAMED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Economist * Time * Newsweek * Foreign Policy * Business Week * The Week * The Christian Science Monitor *Newsday

By the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Power Broker.

Book Four of Robert A. Caro’s monumental The Years of Lyndon Johnson displays all the narrative energy and illuminating insight that led the Times of London to acclaim it as “one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age. A masterpiece.”
 
The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career—1958 to1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark.

By 1958, as Johnson began to maneuver for the presidency, he was known as one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But the 1960 nomination would go to the young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Caro gives us an unparalleled account of the machinations behind both the nomination and Kennedy’s decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, revealing the extent of Robert Kennedy’s efforts to force Johnson off the ticket. With the consummate skill of a master storyteller, he exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Kennedy’s younger brother, portraying one of America’s great political feuds. Yet Robert Kennedy’s overt contempt for Johnson was only part of the burden of humiliation and isolation he bore as Vice President. With a singular understanding of Johnson’s heart and mind, Caro describes what it was like for this mighty politician to find himself altogether powerless in a world in which power is the crucial commodity. 

For the first time, in Caro’s breathtakingly vivid narrative, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson’s eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks—grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery—he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy’s death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson’s finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam.

In its exploration of this pivotal period in Johnson’s life—and in the life of the nation—The Passage of Power is not only the story of how he surmounted unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the presidency but is, as well, a revelation of both the pragmatic potential in the presidency and what can be accomplished when the chief executive has the vision and determination to move beyond the pragmatic and initiate programs designed to transform a nation. It is an epic story told with a depth of detail possible only through the peerless research that forms the foundation of Robert Caro’s work, confirming Nicholas von Hoffman’s verdict that “Caro has changed the art of political biography.”

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2012: In the fourth volume of Caro’s ambitious, decades-long biographic exploration, Lyndon Johnson finally reaches the White House. At 600-plus pages, it’s a brick of a book, but it reads at times like a novel, and a thriller, and a Greek tragedy. Caro's version of JFK's assassination is especially chilling, and the characters—not just LBJ, but the Kennedys and the power brokers of Washington --are downright Shakespearean. --Neal Thompson

From Bookforum

Lyndon Johnson was a figure of immense gifts and horrendous flaws, and I doubt any writer will ever capture the arc of his triumphant and ultimately tragic life so well again. — Michael Kazin

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 736 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (May 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679405070
• ISBN-13: 978-0679405078
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 2.2 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (401 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( J ) > Johnson, Lyndon
  • #43 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Presidents & Heads of State
  • #89 in Books > History > Americas > United States > 20th Century

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

279 of 305 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Another superb entry in a masterful series May 1, 2012

By Mark Klobas VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Thirty years have passed sine the publication of The Path to Power, the first of what Robert Caro had envisioned would be a three-volume biography of America's 36th president. This, his fourth volume, ends in the first months of Johnson's presidency, and Caro's assertion that this is the penultimate volume is a little hard to swallow given the thoroughness he has covered his subject's life even before reaching his time in the White House (with a third of this book's 700+ pages chronicling just the first four months as president). Yet Caro has sacrificed brevity for a detailed portrait of irony in his depiction of a master of political power who suddenly found himself deprived of it.

Caro begins with Johnson at the height of his success in the Senate. Still only in his second term, he had taken the weak position of Senate Majority Leader and turned it into the second most powerful office in national politics, thanks largely to his enormous personal and legislative abilities. But Johnson had his eye on an even larger prize: the presidency itself, an office he had aspired to for decades and which in 1960 seemed to many to be his for the taking. Yet Johnson hesitated to commit himself to the race, fearing the humiliation of a defeat. This created an opening that John F. Kennedy eagerly exploited. With his brother Robert collecting commitments in the west - a region critical to Johnson's chances - Kennedy outmaneuvered the Texas senator and won the nomination, demonstrating just how completely Johnson had misjudged his opponent.

Yet for Johnson a new opportunity presented itself when Kennedy offered him the vice presidential nomination during the convention.... For Kennedy, the choice was an obvious one, as Johnson's presence on the ticket offered Democrats a chance to reclaim the Southern states lost to Dwight Eisenhower in the two previous elections. Johnson's reasons for accepting are less clear, though Caro notes Johnson's realistic assessment of his odds as vice president of assuming the presidency in his own right, as well as his belief that "Power is where power goes," a statement that demonstrates his conviction that he would retain his control over the Senate even as vice president.

Johnson was soon disabused of this notion. Blocked from maintaining his position in the Senate's Democratic caucus and denied any real responsibilities by the Kennedys, Johnson seemed to wither from the absence of power. For all his failings it is hard not to sympathize with the man in these chapters, who works to ingratiate himself with the Kennedy family through expensive gifts and obsequious letters. Yet flattery and jewelry did little to improve his standing in the administration, while the growing scandal surrounding his protégé Bobby Baker was exposing the vice president to increased scrutiny of his business dealings. Though Caro doesn't press his case any further than the evidence allows, his description of the mounting investigations in the autumn of 1963 suggests that Johnson's position on the ticket the next year was in jeopardy as he left with the president for a campaign trip to Texas.

All of this changed in Dallas in a matter of minutes. Caro's chapters on Kennedy's assassination and Johnson's assumption of the presidency are among the best in the book, as they convey the sense of bewilderment, tragedy, and sadness which stained that day. Here we see Johnson's abilities employed to their fullest to reassure a shocked nation of the smooth transition of power. Within days of Kennedy's funeral the new president took charge of his predecessor's stalled legislative agenda, working to pass a tax cut bill and civil rights legislation that few expected would become law. Here Caro exploits the numerous telephone conversations the president secretly recorded to depict Johnson's use of political power, as he threatened, cajoled, and wooed senators and representatives in an effort to attain his goals. The book ends in March 1964, with Johnson fully settled into his office and with the challenge before him of election in his own right, a challenge that - if successful - would complete his journey from the Texas Hill Country to the highest office in the land.

As with his previous volumes Caro has provided a meticulous study of the life and career of one of the most fascinating men ever to occupy the presidency, a book that measures up to the high standard set by his earlier works. His errors are few and are easily forgiven in a narrative that engages the reader fully and manages to make the minutiae of legislative maneuvering into entertaining reading. Given Caro's track record, it may be too much to hope that the next volume - final or not - will be published more quickly than this one, but regardless of how long it takes, if it is anywhere near as good as this one it will be well worth the wait. Read more ›

121 of 139 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Every page is scintillating, moving, and documented - Caro once again breaks NEW GROUND - 5 STARS !!!!! May 1, 2012

By A Customer TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

For those of us who have read the previous volumes of Robert Caro's portrait of the life of Lyndon Johnson, we have all eagerly awaited this the latest installment. When the author first began writing what has become the definitive biography of the 36th President, he was basically vilified by scholars as getting it wrong. With each passing year, and volume, historians have come over to Caro's side of the story in troves. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power can either be read as part of the anthology or as a standalone story of Johnson's years during the Vice Presidency, and his ascension to the oval office upon the tragic death of John Kennedy.

Either way, you are in for a real treat. Many readers agree that writing doesn't get any better than this, and the proof is that Caro's writings have stood the test of time, and his reputation has simply gotten bigger. This is 605 pages (736 with footnotes) of detailed writing that any student of that period will cherish. The first half of the book, over 300 pages is dedicated to the last two Senate years, and the Vice Presidential years when LBJ lived the most down in the valley depressing type experience. He was ignored by the President, and castigated by young Robert Kennedy. Between the two of them Johnson's power had been castrated, and he was boxed into a small office. In a city where power was everything, Johnson now had none.

This is especially interesting in light of the heights from which he the former Senate Majority leader had fallen. Johnson as leader was considered the most powerful man in the Congress, with the White House held by the popular Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. Ike could get nothing done in the Democratic Congress without LBJ's help.... Now with a potential Democratic President coming into office, he Johnson would be virtually unimportant as the new President would grasp power from both Ike, and Johnson. LBJ therefore knew that the Vice Presidency was where he wanted to be, or so he thought at the time.

As the book so poignantly points out however, Johnson also knew that seven other men had become president by simply being Vice President, and that is why he wanted the job so badly. Absolutely competent, understanding power, and desperately ambitious, Johnson would relegate himself to the job that former Vice President John Nance Gardner had described as not worth a bucket of warm spit.

For the first 300 thoroughly documented pages we feel Lyndon Johnson's pain as Vice President. It is both intense and unrelenting. The author has interviewed scores of the President's contemporaries who poured themselves into the story in order that Caro could get it right. Thousands of documents were studied as Caro once again lives in Washington DC for weeks and months at a time trying to get inside the head of his subject, moving down the same corridors that Johnson himself walked. As in previous volumes, the reader can just sense that the author has penetrated to the heart and soul of this most interesting of Presidents, and one who still remains bigger than life.

More than 60 pages of the book are devoted to the day John Kennedy dies, and then LBJ's successful attempt to reframe the nation's collective pain and use it to galvanize the Congress in coming months to pass his predecessor's agenda, something the late President was not able to get done himself. Caro and Kennedy Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. go head to head in the narrative as Caro rips to shreds Schlesinger's previously accepted belief that JFK would have passed his own agenda had he lived.

The book also deals with the hotly debated topic of whether JFK expected LBJ to accept the Vice Presidency when the offer was made. The story of Bobby Kennedy attempting to talk his brother out of it, and even telling Johnson he should withdraw his name is covered in detail. Interviews were conducted, documents studied and tape recordings of Lyndon Johnson's discussion of the matter are all covered in detail. Once again, Caro has rewritten conventional wisdom.

Readers on both sides of the discussion as to who killed JFK will be sorely disappointed if they expect Caro to shed new light on this hotly contested topic which still remains red hot some 50 years after the assassination. The author is of the opinion that the Warren Commission got it right, and he spares no attempt in his praise of the commission and its conclusions.

CONCLUSION

This latest installment of Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson is once again a first rate biography of a President that had tremendous impact on our country, our history, and what we have become. It covers a short period in the President's life, his ascension to the Vice Presidency and his coming into the Presidency itself. Basically nothing of the wrenching Viet Nam experience is covered. That will probably be left to the next installment. In the meantime we have enough to chew on in this volume to keep any fan of Caro's going until years from now, the author may shed new light on the American experience in Viet Nam. This reader urges all readers of politics, history, and fascinating biography to pick up a copy of this book and read it cover to cover.

Richard Stoyeck Read more ›

68 of 80 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Caro seems to be coasting on this one. May 27, 2012

By Tom Strother

Format:Hardcover

I've now read all four volumes of Caro's LBJ biography, each one as soon as it came out. I recall even writing him a letter after the first one (who had e-mail in '83?) The Passage of Power was as readable as the three earlier ones, full of fascinating anecdotes and good comparisons of how LBJ understood and used power compared to the Kennedys. Caro is able to weave his tale over familiar ground in such a way as to make the reader see RFK as rude, spoiled, ruthless, possessing almost no redeeming qualities, then generate some appreciation for his apparent concern for those less fortunate. He is able to present LBJ alternately as a contempible figure and as a wholly sympathetic person. My major complaint about the book (and I would give it 3 1/2 stars if it were possible) is that Caro seems to rehash too much from his earlier volumes, often referring the reader to particular pages to read more detail of a particular incident. He quotes himself frequently. I sometimes wondered while reading if he was running out of steam, proceeding with this book out of a sense of obligation to his readers and to his subject.

84 of 101 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Biography at its Finest May 1, 2012

By las cosas

Format:Hardcover

Caro has famously written few books in a long career as a biographer, but surely his series on Lyndon Baines Johnson, of which this is volume four, will be remembered as one of the finest in United States biography. Caro has spoken to everyone he could find, read every piece of paper he could locate, but that factual basis is not what makes this such an important biography. It is the immense depth of insight he has brought to the subject, a depth that provides a study of power in all of its guises. It is this analysis, written in clear crisp language that sets this book, and the others in the series (and Power Broker as well) apart from most biographies.

If you have never read Robert Caro before, take a few minutes and read the introduction to this book on your computer. Certainly many people, especially those who have no personal memory of the years covered in this book, might wonder why a slice of only a few years in the life of a not especially beloved President is worth reading. The answer is first that few US politician were as complex and bigger-than-life than LBJ. And most importantly, LBJ was, from a young age, possessed by a need for power and with a startling ability to work hard and concentrate on what he wanted, became a master of how to obtain power, Power. In doing so LBJ pushed himself further and further in and up the United States political power structure, improbably ending as President after the assassination of Kennedy. The fact that a poor, ill-educated, physically unattractive politician with a heavy Southern accent could attain the presidency says much about both the US and about LBJ.

Caro has captured that time in US culture and politics, and his subject, LBJ, with astute observations, particularly about power.... He also reminds us that the assassination of Kennedy soon became a mythical event, both in the public imagination and in the recollections of those close to Kennedy. As biographer he must rip back the myths to uncover, and understand, the facts. He does an admirable job in simultaneously explaining the myth and uncovering the more complex and unattractive facets that constitute the facts.

At its core, this is a book about power. About people who weal that power, and how ugly that often is. Few people understand power as thoroughly as LBJ and Robert Caro, and Caro reminds us in this book that you can not be addicted to power as LBJ was without evidencing some truly ugly undersides to that power grab. Past volumes of the biography have shown the reader the monstrously sinister sides of LBJ, where a fixation on succeeding makes him utterly blind and immoral to the means employed. That made LBJ, for large swathes of the previous biographies, a fascinating but deeply unattractive figure.

In the present book LBJ makes a Faustian deal to relinquish his post as Senate speaker for the supposedly higher position of Vice President. But as even the reader knows, that is a largely ceremonial position, made worse by the Kennedy gang who despised him. We finally feel sorry for LBJ, after thousands of pages of Caro's biography. And then, in an instant, everything changes and improbably, LBJ obtains what he always, always wanted...he is President of the United States. And now he must find his footing, overcome an endless number of problems (his sleazy financial dealings, staff left over from Kennedy that hate him, need to battle his old buddies to enact legislation, oh the list is long). Caro describes these with such flair, brilliantly describing the forces lining up to thwart him, that when LBJ finds his footing and begins to exercise his monumental ingenuity, mental agility and simply overwhelming drive, it is as though LBJ is in the room with the reader, so well has Caro described him. And yet even as he so well fulfills that presidential destiny that he has set for himself, familiar chinks in the armor appear and we are reminded that this is a story without a fairy tale ending. But that is another volume.

For much of the book Johnson is seen as diminished, frustrated, an object of sympathy, and more often, ridicule. He underestimates Kennedy, is humiliated at the 1960 Democratic Convention, and then spends three utterly miserable years as a neutered Vice President. It is a particularly unfortunate Vice Presidency because of the unflattering comparison with the "the Harvards" as he call the young, educated, sophisticated and oh so full of themselves Kennedy advisers and aids. A favorite term for the Johnsons among this group was Uncle Cornpone and his Little Pork Chop. One of the few errands he was allowed to run while Vice President was ceremonial visits to other countries, but always on a short leash, and his lack of protocol and down-home manner appalled the Eastern establishment that filled the State Department. For those of us who have read the other volumes of Caro's biography, we are as frustrated as Johnson. We know how magnificent he is as a politician, and it is darned hard to read the first two-thirds of this book and see the man so severely reined in.

In an instant, with the death of Kennedy, everything changes, and Johnson must, without any preparation at all, perform a thousand tasks virtually simultaneously. And here Johnson, and Caro, absolutely soar. We immediately see the Johnson so fully described in the previous volumes reemerge. All of the Kennedy entourage are shocked at the transformation. Long time Caro readers aren't.

One aspect of power that has particularly interested Caro throughout his career is the details of political power. The skills required to pass legislation, enact a budget, win an election. Political junkies love that stuff, the endless details that accumulate to victory or defeat. But for the rest of the world, the whole thing seems mysterious, boring and somewhat sleazy. Nope. It is fascinating, but Caro is one of the only authors who can really explain the art of politics, and Robert Moses, and particularly Johnson, were masters of that art. Kennedy may have had good political instincts, a brilliant brain trust, and substantial charisma, but he had zero success in passing important legislation. It took Johnson and his masterly knowledge of congress to gets anything passed. And dealing with foreign leaders? Not any different than dealing with East Texas farmers when you needed their vote. The answer is the human connection, and that is a universal. Seeing the old Johnson, the Johnson he had known during his years as Senate leader, aid Reedy "was very proud; others were finally seeing what the Senate cloakroom had seen." Read more ›