Sublime

But now he needed executive support no longer. In the fields which he had carved out for his own—transportation and recreation—the passage of his “amendments” to the authority enabling acts had given him resources of money and power independent of Governors and Mayors. Their approval was no longer required.

Ickes could describe him as a “kid Congressman.” “Kid,” in some terms, he may have been—a thirty-one-year-old Congressman from a remote and isolated political district. But after that telegram, he was, in terms of power, a kid Congressman no longer. Unknown though his name remained to the public in the state’s other twenty congressional districts,

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

Among the significant aspects of this network was its location. More and more of the jobs Johnson was obtaining now were in Texas—all across Texas. Kleberg’s secretary had parlayed Kleberg’s friendship with Myers, of the Federal Land Bank, into a friendship for himself with the head of the Land Bank’s Houston office. That office was to hire 294 app

MELINDA GATES Cochair, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Partnerships infused with a generous, altruistic, and benevolent spirit are not that common.

MARILLYN HEWSON Executive Chairman and Former Chairman, President, and CEO, Lockheed Martin

It’s not hard to appreciate the bureau’s plight. Everybody wanted standards—it’s not as if manufacturers took pride in making incompatible hoses. It’s just that each firm desperately wanted its way of doing things to be the standard way, and for good reason. Losing a standards war meant having to retool, which might require purchasing expensive new