Sublime

Johnson accomplished this transformation not by the pronouncement or fiat or order that is the method of executive initiative, but out of the very nature and fabric of the legislative process itself. He was not only the youngest but the greatest Senate Leader in America’s history. His colleagues called him Leader.

No one knows how much Brown & Root gave to the 1941 Lyndon Johnson campaign for Senator, and no one will ever know, but the amount was in the neighborhood of $200,000. No one knows how much was spent in total in that campaign, and no one will ever know. But in an era in which the cost of a typical Texas political campaign ran in the tens of tho

The compassion, though genuine, had taken a back seat to calculation; the Texas journalist Ronnie Dugger, who covered Johnson for many years, was to write, in an incisive phrase, of his “real, though expendable, compassion.” In Johnson’s unending, silent calculations about the best way to further his career, it was the Alvin Wirtzes and the Herman

Johnson had certain characteristics that no leader of a Great Group is without. He loved excellence, and, as a result, he had an unerring eye for talent. And because he understood why talented people work, he was able to create an environment in which they thrived.

Lyndon Johnson, Stevenson felt, had used the law against him, not the law in its majesty but the law in its littleness; Johnson had relied on its letter to defy its spirit. Stevenson had first sought justice from the people who knew the truth best, the Jim Wells Democratic Committee itself—and that committee had been willing to give him what he sou

Out on the campaign trail, Mann realized that the shift was continuing—and accelerating. He knew—and Austin knew—that Johnson was going to win. THEN, HOWEVER, a twenty-ninth candidate, Governor O’Daniel, entered the race—and any resemblance to Johnson’s first, victorious, campaign ended on the spot.