The pattern of pragmatism, cynicism and ruthlessness that pervaded Lyndon Johnson’s entire early political career was marked by a lack of any discernible limits. Pragmatism shaded into the morality of the ballot box, a morality in which any maneuver is justified by the end of victory—into a morality that is amorality. In the 1948 campaign, this

ABRAHAM LINCOLN struck off the chains of black Americans, but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life. He was to call the passage of the

That campaign raises, in fact, one of the greatest issues invoked by the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson: the relationship between means and ends.

Johnson had been scheduled to vote in Johnson City on Election Day and then go to his Austin headquarters, but instead he spent the day—his third that week—in San Antonio. He was “riding the polls” on the West Side—on that West Side where “they’d just stuff the ballots in there,” on that West Side where, after polls closed, some poll watchers were

Lyndon Johnson was in a combat zone now, but he was in it only as an observer, not as a combatant. Yet recall by the President was imminent; he was never going to be “in the trenches” or “on a battleship”; this trip as an observer was to be his only direct participation in the war. And if he was never going to be a combatant, if the closest he

In the County Courthouse, one of the committee members, B. M. Brownlee, was unfolding the tally sheets and reading off the totals. The totals for the first twelve precincts were the same as those that had been reported on Election Night. Then Brownlee unfolded the tally sheet for Salas’ Precinct 13. This total was not the same. The figure for

Although they were ostensibly buying airtime, what they were really buying was political influence. They were buying—and Lyndon Johnson was selling. Lyndon Johnson was always to maintain that his “wife’s” radio interests were totally divorced from politics, and that, indeed, he, the politician in the family, had absolutely nothing to do either with

On January 18 the West brothers agreed to sell their option to her for $17,500 “subject to the approval of the FCC.” On January 23, 1943, Mrs. Johnson filed an application (filled out by Wirtz), asking the FCC’s consent to a transfer of control of KTBC from the old owners to her. On February 16, the Secretary of the FCC wrote, “The consent of the

The 1948 campaign would, therefore, be a dramatic contrast—on the one hand, a lone campaigner traveling from town to town by auto, speaking on Courthouse lawns to small audiences; on the other hand, a candidate whose words would be brought several times each day into homes throughout Texas.