Sublime

In laying the groundwork for a 1952 campaign, Jack could have chosen to emphasize domestic matters such as education, veterans’ housing, unemployment, union rights, rent control, health care and insurance, reduced government spending, and lower taxes—all of which he addressed repeatedly during his first two House terms. But he did not see these as

Johnson’s voting record—a record twenty years long, dating back to his arrival in the House of Representatives in 1937 and continuing up to that very day—was consistent with the accent and the word. During those twenty years, he had never supported civil rights legislation—any civil rights legislation.

“I want to run the Senate,” Lyndon Johnson told allies in private conversation. “I want to pass the bills that need to be passed. I want my party to do right. But all I ever hear from the liberals is Nigra, Nigra, Nigra.” He knew now that the only way to realize his great ambition was to fight—really fight, fight aggressively and effectively—for ci

Charles Marsh, as owner of the only district-wide organ of public opinion, was perhaps the individual in Johnson’s congressional district most important to his continuation in office. His love affair with Marsh’s lover was, in the words of a man familiar with the relationship, “taking one hell of a chance.” And, this man adds, “Knowing Lyndon, I co

“Their cause must be our cause, too,” Lyndon Johnson said. “Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.”

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

He was as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the creation of the republic in the eighteenth century. This is not hyperbole. It is fact—observable, discernible, undeniable fact.

To watch Lyndon Johnson deal with Congress during the transition—to watch him break the unbreakable conservative coalition—is to see a President fighting not merely with passion and determination but with something more: with a particular talent, a talent for winning the passage of legislation (in this case legislation that would write into the boo