Sublime

William Louis Dreyfus

Life was leisurely on Capitol Hill; the House Office Building—there was only one House Office Building then, the one now known as the Cannon Building; each Congressman’s office consisted of a single room—was a place of open doors; in the late afternoon, members and secretaries would drop in on each other, desk drawers would be opened, and bottles

Asked years later for an explanation of Rayburn’s procrastination, Bolling said it involved the hopes he and other liberals had for civil rights legislation and Rayburn’s hopes for a Democratic victory in November—and Johnson’s hopes for the presidency. Bolling—Rayburn’s young protégé and “point man” on civil rights—was getting a close-up view of