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Johnson’s post-war record was nearly identical with his pre-war record. He introduced one bill that would have an effect outside his own district in 1945: a minor measure, never effectively implemented, to give veterans priority in purchasing certain surplus goods after the needs of the federal government were provided for. He did not introduce a s
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson II
Once Johnson realized that he was not to be given a high position in the war, the change in his attitude toward it was dramatic. In O. J. Weber’s recollection, “He regarded it as an interference with his agenda.” He resented its demands on his staff, but, despite the strategic placement of Willard Deason in the Navy’s Bureau of Personnel, and Johns
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson II
Leland Olds’ renomination was defeated by a vote of 53 to 15. When the clerk announced those figures, a reporter wrote, “There was a moment of stunned silence [at] the overwhelming size of the vote.” In what the Washington Star said was “about as severe a political licking as any President ever got on a nominee,” Truman had been able to persuade on
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
The missions into Syria were also kept from almost everyone in the U.S. embassy in Damascus. “The chief of station, the ambassador will know they’re in there and maybe the chief of ops in the station, and that’s about it,” the special mission unit veteran said. The operatives had an emergency action plan if they were compromised. “Your best course
... See moreSean Naylor • Relentless Strike
In Jefferson’s time, such opposition to government per se—such fierce frontier individualism—might have made Stevenson a real democrat; in the more complicated mid-twentieth century, his reluctance to make use of the powers of his office allowed the continuation of the vacuum in Texas government in which special interest groups—the Texas oilmen, na
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson II
At the close of Russell’s 1938 speech against lynching legislation, Borah of Idaho walked over to him and congratulated him—and then took the floor himself to echo Russell’s argument that the bill was a violation of states’ rights. (Whereupon Russell rose in his turn to say, “The people of the South will ever revere the name of William E. Borah.”)
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
The lobbyists had thought the problem would be solved by O’Daniel’s election to the Senate, which would remove him to Washington and see him replaced in the Governor’s chair by Lieutenant Governor Coke Stevenson, a lifelong Wet and an ally of Beer, Inc., and its hard-liquor partner. Now O’Daniel appeared to have lost the election, but by only about
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I
Because campaign contributions were not a deductible business expense, Brown & Root distributed to company executives and lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars in deductible “bonuses” and “attorneys’ fees,” which Internal Revenue Service agents came to believe were then funneled, in both checks and cash, to the Johnson campaign—contributions
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
DURING THESE LAST THREE YEARS, Lyndon Johnson would again, as in his early years, have to placate Herman Brown and the Texas right-wingers (which he did by steering to passage, in behind-the-scenes maneuvers, the harshly anti-labor Landrum-Griffin Act) and the great Senate bulls (he paid off a lot of debts to Clinton Anderson by cooperating in Ande
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