Master of the Senate

Master of the Senate - by Robert Caro

The series of books by Robert Caro that detail the life of the 36th president Lyndon B. Johnson have become a bit of legend in the last 30 years.  Apparently, Caro set out to write a 2 volume set detailing the man’s life, yet apparently the words flowed a bit too easily, and as of this writing, he’s working on the fifth, and hopefully the last, installment.  Add to the fact that his research into his subject is so frighteningly intense, that it takes Robert Caro an average of ten years between these works.  This particular one, the third, came out back in 2002.  I didn’t think it was quite as good as the first two, but I would still give this one an A+.

When viewing these volumes, it’s quite easy to become intimidated by the shear volume of these books, and to immediately turn away towards lighter reading.  These volumes average about 800 pages (this one is over 1,000) and the pages are dense with information.  Fortunately, the writing is first class, and despite the time and effort in reading such burly volumes, the reader rarely gets bored.  The books are simply chocked full of wonderful information.

Caro’s first volume deals with LBJ’s birth through his election to the House of Representatives in 1942.  The second one leads up to his victory (although the election was blatantly stolen) to the Senate in 1950, and this one details his life a senator during the decade of the fifties until his vice-presidential nomination in 1960.  The description in the title “Master” is no misnomer.  The man was clearly a dominate force during his years as leader of the Senate and, as this book describes in detail, had just sort of personality that managed to radically shake up (for the better) the legislative branch of the U.S. government.

Throughout all of Caro’s volumes, he paints a very fair picture of the (then) future president.  He doesn’t regard him as a saint nor a god, yet he isn’t a hater of the man, and there’s no blatant vitriol towards the man.  LBJ comes across as someone with many strengths and many weaknesses just like everyone else, and with the extensive research, we see broad examples of both.  One thing Johnson was addicted to was a lust for immense power  (2 of the 4 volumes have the word “power” in the title), and being as smart as he was, he knew how to yield it to get what he wanted, and to get it quickly.

It’s obvious from early on in the first volume, that Johnson’s ultimate quest is no less than President of the United States.  Everything he does in his whole life is simply a stepping stone to reach that goal - including being the most powerful man in the Senate.  The fact that LBJ radically changed the way the Senate operated is detailed exhaustively.  Up until Johnson’s time, the U.S. Senate had been mainly a place for complacent “old bulls” to retain their status quo, and were never concerned much with helping the ordinary citizen, especially if it meant radically sacrificing their social status.  The U.S. Senate was basically a fraternity, and until the man (and yes, it was only men - only white men at that time remember) had seniority, he was expected to sit quietly and be submissive to the elder members.  Caro even spends the first 100 pages or so of this volume detailing a brief history of the Senate - back to the founding fathers, to illustrate this point.  Some readers have found that too much of a distraction, but it helps to clearly illustrate just how the environment had been for close to 200 years.

This isn’t to say LBJ was a saint who was a crusader for the common man.  No, he understood politics, and knew what was necessary to retain support from the rich boys and stay in office.  Sadly, just like now, retaining one’s title as “Senator” was still the main focus, and every bit of legislation was looked at as how it would effect the Senator before how it would affect the constituents back home.  Nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than the Civil Rights issues that were predominantly being talked about during the 1950s.  In fact, about half of this book is devoted the details surrounding Civil Rights, and this is the only area where Caro gets a bit bogged down in his details when he describes, in too meticulous detail, every single vote, every single action, and every single interaction between the key players during the persistent battles.

Although Lyndon Johnson is the President mostly noted for advancing Civll Rights once be became president, we have to really wonder just how committed he was to the cause.  Was he truly trying to stand up for those who were worse off due to the color of their skin?  Or was he just trying to move his own career as much and as far as possible?  After reading the third installment of the Caro books, you have to honestly believe that it really was a bit of both.  Sadly, the book goes into a lot of detail about how difficult such legislation would be to pass in the deep segregated South of only fifty years ago.  Even if Johnson really was passionate about the cause, there were too many old white men in office who worked diligently to keep the races segregated.

To sum up what the book illustrates in several hundred pages, Johnson realizes that if he’s ever going to be President, he needs to pass a Civil Rights bill in the Senate.  With all of the animosity and wheeling and dealing, he does manage to pass such a bill in 1957, yet it’s so watered down and inconsequential, that those who knew better (i.e. key members of the NAACP) realized that it was all fluff and no substance so they were actually repulsed by such an “equality” bill.  Then, of course, the deep south were also aggravated since many of their voters were appalled by the thought of such a simple gesture.  So all of this to say that LBJ had a lot of “politicking” to do, and as the book details, he did it quite well.

One of the best things about Caro’s writing (although there are a few who think exactly the opposite), is that before he introduces key people who would play a part in Lyndon Johnson’s life, he would devote entire chapters to the individuals.  He wants the reader to feel they really understand these individuals in as much detail as possible.  There are times when you forget you’re reading about Johnson since you become so immersed in page after page of these other individuals.  Yet Caro’s attention to detail never loses the reader, and you end up being glad that he goes off on these tangents even though they briefly take us away from the main character.  I confess I had never heard of people such as Leland Olds or Dick Russell before I read this book, and yet I feel incredibly enriched now that I do.  There are also other key players that I may have briefly heard of before, such as Hubert Humphrey or John Connally, that my appetite has now been sufficiently whetted to where I can’t wait to learn more about some of  these key figures of history.

Another consideration, which could be could considered either an asset or a liability, is that Caro makes an effort to have these different volumes “stand alone”.  In other words, you don’t necessarily need to read the volumes together nor in sequential order.  To accomplish this, he’ll sometimes repeat the same details from book to book.  So whereas he might devote 30-45 pages in the first volume detailing how LBJ brought electricity to the rural hill country of Texas in the 1930’s, he’ll repeat the same details here albeit limiting the page space to only 2 or 3.  Therefore, if you do read these books sequentially, it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling the author is being a bit repetitive.  Then, though, we must remember that, as stated before, these books were released about a decade apart, so perhaps a brief refresher is also in order for those who have been away from the story for a bit.

The fourth volume (which I’m currently reading as I write this) was released a full ten years after this one (released in 2012), and although devotees were hoping Robert Caro would finish up the story in the fourth release, the author doesn’t even come close.  The fourth volume concludes (I’m told) shortly after LBJ assumes the presidency.  The fifth volume (which he’s currently working on) will detail the mean years of the presidency including Viet Nam.  We can hope that that one will be the last.  Truth be told, though, these books are so engrossing, that I wouldn’t mind several more volumes.  Time, though, would seem to prevent that as the author, who started writing this in his forties, his now entering his seventh decade.