Master of the Senate
Review 8: Love That Lyndon

Near the end of "Master of the Senate," Caro clearly is getting a bit winded. The writing is still tight. The dramatic arc that we've sailed along from page one to page 910 is still gleaming and muscular. But when the book digs into Johnson's umpteenth national political controversy, it's clear the author is impatiently straining to arrive at the tome's civil rights money shot, which he telegraphed with great dramatic clarity in the book's introduction.

Caro still tenaciously goes after Johnson's feet of clay, however, and he hits them hard. At the 1956 Democratic convention, Johnson went in with a plan: He would represent Texas as its "favorite son" candidate. He would deliberately avoid courting the Southern bloc of states in order to avoid looking like a Southern candidate. And through a series of back-room lobby sessions, he would walk away with the nomination.

With some difficulty, he did indeed manage to avoid getting Southern states to pledge their support. He attempted to lobby other states in the backrooms, forgetting that at conventions, it was urban powerbrokers — influential mayors and union leaders — who held the cards. And as a result, he wound up losing the nomination, disastrously, supported only by his home state... and the notoriously non-progressive Mississippi.

The wizard of the Senate, the powerbroker who astounded the nation with his feats of legislative magic, was shorn of his enchanted aura. The curtain had been whipped aside, revealing a befuddled Southerner, unable to advance his own candidacy, and unable to effectively back Adlai Stevenson, the eventual winner.

What happened?

A convention is not the Senate. Backroom dealing and one-on-one contact is important, but not the only factor. Mass appeal, national issues and knowing the right players helped. And it was the governors, union chiefs and urban party bosses who called the shots at the 1956 convention — not senators. Most of the men who could make Johnson king were unimpressed with his Senate credentials — and not fooled for a minute into thinking he had nationwide appeal.

The guy wouldn't support civil rights. And this was becoming an increasingly desperate issue.

But more importantly, Johnson thought he would win, and started playing the situation by what he hoped the facts were — the trademark mistake of a political amateur, made by a sage. Caro clearly conveys a vivid sense of the sheer, pure poignant desire Johnson had for winning the nomination, a hope fueled by generous media attention and throngs of conventiongoers wearing "Love That Lyndon!" buttons and pumping up the would-be candidate's hopes. His allies and advisors watched him crap away his hopes at being a meaningful player at the convention by clinging to the hope the nomination would be his.

The convention portion of "Master of the Senate" was relatively absorbing because you finally get the chance to see Lyndon Johnson really blow it, politically — it's like watching a $60,000 Porsche get wrapped around a walnut tree. But the next segment is about more Senatorial manuevering — while critically important, and done with Caro's typical meticulous detail, it definitely bogs down. As readers, you've come a long way by this point, and more detailed Senate antics that set the stage for setting the stage for setting the stage, no matter how critical, are going to wear a bit.

But you've got to give Caro some credit: the payoff will be worth it.

After the convention, cooling his heels in the Senate, Johnson came to the realization that if he is ever to wipe the Southern stain from his name and attain real national prominence, he has to pass some sort of civil rights bill. 1957 was going to be the year.

What's interesting is that the Southern bloc realized this, too, and were willing to accommodate Johnson — but only to a point. They were willing not to destroy a bill that granted blacks voting rights — it's not the same as voting for the it, but it was good enough. But in order to control the look of the bill and feel secure about its final form, the Southerners needed allies. And their GOP allies were gone, having deserted the South to seize the standard of civil rights under the guidance of the wily Senator Richard Nixon.

Johnson needed to find the Southerners a new bloc of allies to stop them from having to filibuster a full-out civil rights bill and kill the whole thing. Only by making the South feel in control — and able to water a bill down — could a filibuster be avoided.

And he was sure that once he was able to get one civil rights bill through, more would be a cinch. "Once you break the virginity," he told his advisers, "it'll be easier next time.

Johnson psychologically prepared himself for the battle ahead. He began telling friends his old stories about his days teaching Mexican children in Texas. And to set the mood for the fight ahead, he told the classic Johnson yarn about "How Civil Rights Came to Johnson City."

When Johnson was a child, a road was being built through the town. Caro tells the story of Johnson spinning the a folksy yarn about it:

"At the time," Lyndon Johnson said, "niggers weren't allowed to stay in Johnson City" after sundown, but the road was coming "nearer and nearer" and obviously the foreman of the road gang was planning to have the gang sleep in town.

"The town bully found" the foreman in the barbershop and said, "Get them niggers out of town," Johnson said. And then he said, the foreman "Got off the chair, took the towel off his neck, put it aside, and they wrestled up and down Main Street." And finally, Johnson said, the foreman "got on top" and took the bully's head in both hands and started banging it against the pavement asking, with each bang, "Can I keep my niggers? Can I keep my niggers? Can I keep my niggers" — until finally the bully agreed that he could.

"And that's how civil rights came to Johnson City," Lyndon Johnson concluded.

And that's how he was going to bring them to the South, as well. Only the South didn't yet know it.

The answer to the South's "bloc of allies" problem lay in a deep gorge in the Snake River, known as Hells Canyon, which straddled Idaho and Oregon.

Western liberal senators — about 12 of them — had been trying to get a federal dam (as opposed to smaller, more expensive, privately-held dams) into the roaring waters of Hells Canyon for years, but had never had the votes to pass the bill. And while they supported civil rights, the question was largely academic to them — the total black population in nine western states in 1956 was 79,000. This was fewer blacks than in some counties in Georgia.

Likewise, while Southerners were academically opposed to a federal dam project, it was ultimately not a critical issue for their constituents, most of whom had never heard of the project to begin with.

Going from senator to senator, from office to office, phone line to phone line, Johnson brought the two groups — which really had no business with one another, whatsoever — into a secret but binding deal. The Southerners would back the federal dam. The Western liberals would help the Southerners water down the civil rights bill until it was strong enough to help Lyndon Johnson become president, but weak enough to avoid provoking a voters' revolt in the South.

The finesse worked. But the results don't become clear for another chapter or two.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)

— Juliette Crane (cran0066 at hotmail dot com)