Sublime

Alice Glass had been Lyndon Johnson’s mistress for more than three years, in a passionate love affair of which Marsh, patronizing and paternalistic toward the young Congressman, was unaware. (In 1939, the publisher had helped Johnson financially by selling him land in Austin at a giveaway price. In 1940, he offered Johnson an oil deal that would ha

After these lines were installed, Clark says, Johnson wanted his dealings about his business interests conducted over these direct phone lines. All during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, he, either himself or through a press secretary, would insist that he had divorced himself completely from his business interests. “As the American people know,” Geor

The little group of which Johnson was a part was an unusual group. Two of its members—Douglas and Fortas—would sit on the highest court in the country. Others—Corcoran and Rowe—would be part (as, indeed, Douglas and Fortas, too, would be part) for decades to come of the nation’s highest political councils. In the years immediately after Johnson cam

The birth and early years of the Johnson financial empire illuminate very clearly the subtle means by which favoritism and influence are exercised, and their effect on other individuals and on the body politic as a whole.

It came from Dallas—from anti-New Deal oilmen who didn’t care what Lyndon Johnson’s politics were so long as he protected their profits. In 1941, the specter of federal regulation by the hated Ickes was becoming more and more of a possibility, and they needed protection in Washington more than ever, and their trusted advisor, Alvin Wirtz, assured t

During the court fight over the contested election, Rauh recalls, “Corcoran called to get me on the defense team and said, ‘This wonderful congressman …’ In [Abe] Fortas’ office these people were talking about what a great man we were defending. I just sort of automatically assumed it.… But it soon became clear that Johnson was not the shining knig

If at the Greenbrier Johnson subordinated his desire for personal wealth to his desire to become President, he found, in 1942, a way to reconcile his two ambitions—and in years to come he found a dozen ways, and he entered the Oval Office perhaps the richest man ever to occupy it. Shortly after he assumed the Presidency, Life magazine, in the most

On the very day in 1931 on which he had been appointed to his new job, he had begun planning to leave it. To Ella So Relle’s congratulations on that day, he had replied that the post of congressional secretary was only “a stepping stone”—only the bottom rung on the political ladder he was so anxious to climb. Now, however, it was 1935—and he was st

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