Sublime

Despite the last-minute passage of the Social Security bill, liberal antipathy to Johnson was as strong as ever—stronger, in fact: 1956 had, after all, been the year of the natural gas fight and the exemption of highway workers from the David-Bacon Act, and new revelations about Johnson’s relationship with Brown & Root. Under a headline that wa

“No man was more influential in the Senate than Garner,” Joseph Alsop and Turner Catledge wrote in their detailed and invaluable book on the court fight, The 168 Days; “In the President’s first administration larger numbers of senators had seen the light on New Deal measures in [Garner’s] private office with the well-stocked liquor closet … than an

Two or three senators interested in a particular bill would come onto the floor, and, the bill disposed of, would leave, to be replaced by two or three others. Individual senators would wander in and out. Stars and spear carriers changed: the majority and minority leaders wandered in and out; the Senate reporters who recorded every word spoken on t

A number of younger senators had accumulated sufficient seniority to expect seats on major committees, seats for which they were well qualified—in some cases, extremely well qualified. But their committee assignments were not going to be made on the basis of seniority or of qualifications. Their assignments were going to be made on the basis of the

The FCC could be expected to be sensitive to any requests from Sam Rayburn’s boy. Furthermore, the Rayburn connection aside, the FCC, so short on allies in Congress, could be expected during this life and death struggle to be particularly sensitive to a congressman who was actively and energetically fighting in Congress on its behalf. And that was

In the last analysis, it seems certain that Kennedy, Stephen, Hill, and Kittson did offer Farley a substantial reward—maybe even hinting at a full partnership—in return for his cooperation and betrayal of his trust.

Until 1957, in the Senate, as in the House, his record —by that time a twenty-year record—against civil rights had been consistent. And although in that year he oversaw the passage of a civil rights bill, many liberals had felt the compromises Johnson had engineered to get the bill through had gutted it of its effectiveness—a feeling that proved co

Despite his passage of the 1957 and 1960 civil rights bills, “there has been a lingering reservation in the minds of many Negro leaders whether Mr. Johnson, a Texan with close friendships among Southern legislators, whole-heartedly subscribed to the far-reaching Kennedy program,” the New York Times said. His meetings with the five leaders, the Time

By the time all these initial maneuvers were over—by the end, certainly, of the first month of the Kennedy presidency—the misreading of John F. Kennedy by Lyndon Johnson was over, too. He had read him now, all the way through: The younger man was a lot smarter than Johnson had thought he was—and a lot tougher, too. He was always, without exception,