The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1: The Path to Power

by Robert Caro

Robert Caro has published 4 volumes of his biography of LBJ and plans a final fifth volume. He’s 83 years old now, so people are really hoping he finishes, and now that I’ve listened to the first volume I can understand why. It really surprises me that I would find a 40-hour audiobook about Lyndon Johnson interesting, but I loved it. It’s so painstakingly researched, it really sets a high bar for other histories and biographies. And much of the setting is the Texas hill country, which is interesting to me.

I would never have read this in print, but in a way I wish I had. I would like to have marked some passages and jotted notes so that I could do a more thorough write-up. The whole point of writing notes like this is to help me remember what I’ve read (the titles and the content), but it’s hard to remember 40 hours of audio in the kind of detail I’d like. So I’ll just say what impressed me most:

LBJ worked like no one I’ve ever known. When he decided to run for congress in his twenties, he drove all over Texas, going to towns that had never seen a congressional candidate before just to talk to maybe a dozen people if he was lucky. He stopped at every gas station on the way to the middle of nowhere, always putting a gallon or two in his tank to ingratiate himself to the owner, and then ordering a sandwich and talking with whoever was there in the station. He wrote letters, gave speeches, and oversaw every detail of his campaign to the Nth degree. I would not want to work for someone like that, but it’s inspiring to read about nonetheless.

I get the feeling Robert Caro works like that when researching. His mantra is “turn every page.” I want to read his new book, Working, sometime. Here’s a write-up from the New Yorker that tells the history of that (I also archived the audio version, in case the original link quits working).

Even going back to college in San Marcos, LBJ was fastidious about not taking a side on any political issues. He was a conservative with the right (or “reactionaries,” as this book often calls them) and a progressive with the left. Everyone thought LBJ agreed with him. When he first ran for Congress, he ran as “Roosevelt’s man in Texas,” and his platform was basically, “I am 100% behind the president.” This was a valuable strategy, because every other candidate, having their pesky convictions, would oppose the president on at least something, but Johnson’s campaign was simpler to run: if you want to support FDR, vote for LBJ. Later, when it was less politically expedient for him to support FDR, he quit doing so.

His character was terrible. There was his extended affair with Alice Glass, the way he sucked up to anyone with money who could help him (usually older men who would think of him as a son), the way he used that money to buy votes and positive media coverage, the machinations he went through to hide how much he was spending (triggering an IRS investigation that he barely slipped out of), and many other things. He exemplifies what’s written in Daniel 4:17: “the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people” (or the “basest of men,” as the KJV puts it).