Sublime

In July, he took on a new role. There was one asset that only he among the Texas Congressmen possessed: Charles Marsh’s friendship. Texas newspapers were overwhelmingly anti-Roosevelt, but Marsh’s six Texas newspapers, including the influential paper in the state capital, were for him. The publisher of six pro-Roosevelt Texas dailies had very littl

The image was summarized in Healy’s lead paragraph, which said that “the junior United States Senator from Texas maintains the most rigidly one-track mind in Washington. Johnson is entirely preoccupied with the science of politics, which for him is an exact science and one which he has mastered superlatively. Politics is, naturally, Topic A for mos

Joan briefly dated Ian Fleming – ‘a ruthless man’21 – and was rumoured to have been Fleming’s model for Miss Moneypenny, James Bond’s secretary.

Baker knew little about Johnson, he was to recall. “He was just another incoming freshman to me.” But by the end of the talk, he knew a lot more. Johnson, he was to recall, “came directly to the point. ‘I want to know who’s the power over there, how you get things done, the best committees, the works.’ For two hours, he peppered me with keen questi

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

LYNDON JOHNSON HAD DETERMINED, down on his ranch during his heart attack summer of 1955, that the surest path to the presidency was to win the Democratic nomination for that job in 1956: then, even if Eisenhower decided to run again and that nomination therefore became worthless, he would, as the party’s last standard-bearer, be the front-runner to