Sublime

Congress, one observer was to write, had given Carl Vinson “a blank check to operate as a one-man committee” on naval matters; on that committee, only one voice mattered: the chairman’s soft Georgia drawl. Lyndon Johnson’s voice, in other words, would not matter until he became chairman. Vinson’s arrogance was not unique. Most of the great Standing

The Senate, William S. White, the body’s most prominent chronicler, wrote in 1956, is “the South’s unending revenge upon the North for Gettysburg.”

For some of these funds—the money from Texas—he had, moreover, become the sole source. The telegrams candidates had received from Johnson announcing that funds were on the way had said they had been contributed by “my good Democratic friends in Texas.” By his friends. The recipients did not know who those friends were—and even were they to find out

Senator Nixon of California

never let the facts get in the way of a fair outcome.

The icing on this triumphal cake was Johnson’s success in achieving his objectives without awareness of what he had done from supporters who disapproved of those objectives. He himself, of course, had voted for the George Amendment, and he told his reactionary bankrollers that he intended to keep on doing so. On March 3, he wrote Ed Clark, the atto

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