The Passage of Power

by Robert A. Caro

  AND, OF COURSE, if the odds paid off, it might not require waiting eight years for them to do so.

  The possibility that fate might intervene was vivid in the mind of anyone who had been in Washington on April 12, 1945, and especially vivid to members of Sam Rayburn’s basement “Board of Education” in the Capitol, where Harry Truman had often sat having a late-afternoon drink—and where he had been having a drink when, that day, the summons had come from the White House that had been Franklin Roosevelt’s. Lyndon Johnson hadn’t been in that room when the summons came, but he arrived there a few minutes later. He had known Truman for years as a senator, and then Harry had been plucked from the Senate to be Vice President—and then, less than four months after he had been sworn in, he was President.

  The possibility had been kept vivid in Washington by what had happened during the presidency of Truman’s successor. Three times in twenty-six months, Dwight Eisenhower had been hospitalized with serious illnesses (in 1955, a heart attack; in 1956, an attack of ileitis, an abdominal obstruction that required surgery; in 1957, a stroke), and each time the capital seethed with rumors that the President might die—or that he had died and that Richard Nixon would become President, or, particularly in the case of the stroke, that Eisenhower might be disabled, and that Nixon would, while remaining Vice President, assume presidential duties and powers. If John Adams had once called the vice presidency “the most insignificant office,” he had also, on another occasion, made a statement that cast the position in a different light. “I am Vice President,” Adams had said. “In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.” All his life, Lyndon Johnson had aimed for a single goal. The path he had originally chosen, he now realized, might be closed to him by the magnolia taint. But there might be another path. As long as he had felt he had a good chance to win the presidential nomination—as he had felt, until the West Virginia primary—this alternative route had remained only a dim possibility, and consideration of it had stayed on a back burner; it was winning that nomination that he was focused on. But West Virginia had wakened him to reality. That primary had been held on May 10. Thereafter, even while he was continuing to try to obtain the presidential nomination by deadlocking the convention, he was careful not to close the door to that alternative route. While before the primary, he had been so definitive about never accepting the vice presidential nomination—angrily dismissing reporters’ questions on the subject—when, shortly after West Virginia, the question came up at a press conference, he was suddenly not so definitive. That’s a “very ‘iffy’ question,” he said, and then added: “When and if my country wants me to serve her, I will give it every consideration.”

  Private as well as public signals were soon being sent out. Ending a conversation with Ted Sorensen in June, Bobby Baker suddenly said, “Maybe the ticket will turn out to be Kennedy and Johnson.”

  “I think that would be wonderful, but I doubt very much that the second man on that ticket would agree to it,” Sorensen said.

  “Don’t be too sure,” Bobby Baker said, and walked away.

  And with men whose voices would carry weight in discussions about the vice presidency, Johnson made very sure indeed that the door was not closed, even if keeping it open required him, on one occasion, to do what he almost never did—disagree, to his face, with Sam Rayburn.

  The disagreement occurred in late June while he and Rayburn were meeting with Governor Lawrence and the powerful Democratic fundraiser and Kennedy supporter, contractor Matt McCloskey. To McCloskey’s suggestion that “It would make a great team if you would take the second spot,” Rayburn exploded, “We didn’t come down here to talk about the second spot, we came here to talk about the first spot,” but Johnson said, “Now, wait a minute, Sam, I don’t want these boys to go out of here and not know where I stand. First of all, I am a Democrat, and I am going to do anything my party wants me to do.” (So firm was that statement that Lawrence would mention it to Kennedy at the convention, saying that because of it, he, Lawrence, “guaranteed” that Johnson would take the job if it was offered.)

  Reiterating a week before he left for Los Angeles the phrase that had caught his fancy, Johnson responded to a reporter’s query about the vice presidency by saying, “Well, that is a very iffy question, and I wouldn’t want to have it even thought that I would refuse to serve my country in any capacity, from running the elevator to the top job, if I felt that my services were needed.” Even at the press conference at which he at last formally announced his presidential candidacy, he was sending the signal. When a reporter offered him, as the New York Times put it, “an opportunity to rule himself out as a possible nominee for Vice President,” he “passed [it] up,” saying, “I have been prepared throughout my adult life to serve my country in any capacity where my country thought my services were essential.”

  These signals were overlooked, largely because, before West Virginia, he had been saying for months—often, and in seemingly unequivocal terms—that he would never, under any conditions, accept the vice presidency, and because prominent figures in the Kennedy campaign—including the most prominent figure—had been saying for months that Johnson would never be offered the vice presidency. Ken O’Donnell, the campaign’s liaison with the country’s top union officials, was to write that “The labor people had warned me repeatedly that they did not want Johnson on the Kennedy ticket. I had promised them that there was no chance of such a choice.” These reassurances had continued right into the convention; when some liberal delegates, wavering up to the last minute between Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson, had said they were leaning to Stevenson because they feared there was a chance—no matter how slim—that Kennedy might select Johnson, O’Donnell gave them “the same assurance.” And this assurance came right from the top; O’Donnell says that he had made his promise “with [Jack] Kennedy’s knowledge.” O’Donnell had not the slightest reason to doubt that the promise would be honored. During the months prior to the convention, he had flown thousands of miles with Jack Kennedy, he was to recall, “and once in a while we’d discuss the vice presidency and he never mentioned Lyndon Johnson’s name.” Some black delegates and civil rights leaders had the same concern as the “labor people,” and to Joseph Rauh, Jack Kennedy made the same promise—not through intermediaries but in person. A month before the convention, when Rauh told Kennedy that it was important to him that “It not be Johnson,” Kennedy replied, “It will not be Johnson.” “Kennedy promised me it would be—and this is a direct quote—‘Humphrey or another midwestern liberal,’ ” Rauh says. And in the last days before the balloting that assurance was repeated to other liberals. The assurances were repeated also by the candidate’s brother. Robert Kennedy “pledged to a number of those working with him—including Rauh, who was trying to deliver the District of Columbia [delegation]—that Johnson would not be on the ticket,” the Washington Post was to report. After Humphrey removed himself from contention by refusing to endorse Kennedy, the candidates most often mentioned for the ticket’s vice presidential slot were Stuart Symington, Governor Orville L. Freeman of Minnesota and Senator Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson of Washington. “The one name never mentioned was Lyndon Johnson,” Arthur Schlesinger states. “Quite the contrary: the Kennedy people told everybody as categorically as possible that he was not in the picture.” This was the stance not only in public but behind closed doors. “There was never any talk in the office that Mr. Johnson was to be the running mate,” Evelyn Lincoln was to recount.

  But now, after Kennedy called, Johnson said to Rowe, “Power is where power goes,” and Rowe knew “He was really thinking about it.”

  HE HAD TWO HOURS before Kennedy came down to his suite at ten o’clock, two hours not to decide what he was going to do, because he knew what he was going to do—but to check to see if there was anything he had overlooked. This was no time for the second string, or for anyone who, like Reedy, was intelligent but sometimes flinched from looking harsh realities in the face, for the realities now were very
harsh, the choice very tough. Three men were called to the Johnson suite: “the man who knew where all the bodies were buried”; the man who had written the Truman memo; and the man who was the most pragmatic of all his aides—not his confidant, for Lyndon Johnson had no confidant, but the man who would “do anything for him,” and who was also “the only man who was tough enough to handle Bobby Kennedy.” And when Bobby Baker, Jim Rowe and John Connally had arrived, Johnson told them to lay out the reasons why he should or shouldn’t accept the vice presidency, should Kennedy offer it. He told Connally to start off, but the three men found themselves in agreement on all the key points, pro and con.

  “We were not trying to persuade him of the virtues and glories of the vice presidency,” Connally was to recall. “We were looking at it more from a negative point of view: where does your risk lie?” And he and Rowe both concluded that, in Connally’s words, “Your risk lies in declining to accept it.”

  Johnson had a lot to lose by not accepting, they agreed. If he didn’t accept, Kennedy would probably lose the election. “He’ll never beat Nixon in Texas unless you’re on the ticket,” Connally said. “Texas was discussed at considerable length.” Without Johnson on the ticket, in fact, Kennedy might not, against Nixon, a conservative and heir to Eisenhower, be able to win back the Solid South Eisenhower had broken so decisively. And if Kennedy lost the election, Johnson would be blamed for the loss by northern liberals who already, in Baker’s phrase, “hate your guts”—they already felt he was “not a fully committed Democrat,” Baker said; Johnson’s refusal to join the ticket would confirm them in that belief. And, the three men agreed, he would be blamed by Kennedy; “it could make Kennedy angry and bitter,” Baker recalls saying. Connally recalls telling Johnson that if Kennedy lost, “you’re going to be blamed—because they’ll try to ensure that you’ll be blamed. And [therefore] you’ll have a large segment of the party against you.” If Johnson ever wanted to try for the nomination again, that would make it even harder than it otherwise would be. And if he didn’t accept and Kennedy won, the situation might be even worse. As Baker recalls saying, “A strong Democratic President will send his own programs up from the White House,” would create a legislative agenda that the Majority Leader would have no choice but to follow. “He would have to carry that program unless he wanted to have an open break with the President,” Connally explains. Even if he carried it, moreover, an “angry and bitter” President could make life difficult for a Senate Leader; if he didn’t accept, and Kennedy won, Lyndon Johnson would still be Leader, but the leadership might not be nearly as desirable a job to have. And, Connally recalls, “I even expressed the thought that he might not be Majority Leader. The Kennedys play for keeps. I said, ‘You assume that you’re still going to be Majority Leader, but why do you assume that? The Kennedys play for keeps. Bobby plays for keeps. They might say: We won without him. What the hell do we need him for? We don’t need him.’ I told him, ‘I’d hate to see you try to hold on to it [the leadership] in the face of opposition from the President.’ ”

  By accepting, they felt, Johnson ran far less risk. In fact, Baker said, “I don’t think you have a thing in the world to lose by running with Kennedy.” Connally told Johnson that the arguments on that side—that Johnson had no choice but to accept—were overwhelming. For one thing, Kennedy might lose. There were few downsides to that. “Suppose you take it, and he’s defeated—you’ll still be Senator. And you’ll still be Majority Leader.” If Kennedy lost, “you can’t really be hurt.”

  And what if he took it, and Kennedy won? There were definitely downsides to that, as Connally pointed out: “You’re totally at his command. You almost can’t leave town without his permission. You’re going to have to listen more than you’ve ever done.” But, the three advisers said, there might be upsides, too, even if these could only be touched upon delicately, in oblique phrases. One had to do with Sam Rayburn. Even if Kennedy won, and Johnson was only his Vice President, “You’ll still have the Speaker,” is how Connally remembers putting it. He meant that as long as Johnson had Rayburn on his side, he would have power behind him. “No one thought he could be forced out as Speaker, or that the President could do much trying to go around him in the House,” he would remember years later. As long as a Vice President had Sam Rayburn behind him, the Vice President couldn’t be ignored. (Connally, tough though he was, was careful to look around before he said even “You’ll still have the Speaker”—to make sure that the Speaker hadn’t somehow entered the room. “We didn’t [want to] make that argument when the Speaker was there, because we would be presuming,” he explains.)

  And then there was another possible upside—one that was in the minds of all three advisers even though, pragmatic and tough though they were, they mentioned it only in another oblique phrase, in part because, perhaps, they were not able to think about it other than obliquely, for thinking about another man’s mortality often leads to thoughts of one’s own mortality, and these are thoughts difficult to confront directly.

  The phrase was “a heartbeat away.” “I felt—you’re a heartbeat away from the presidency,” John Connally says. Asked if he had actually used even that direct a phrase during the conference that morning, he says he can’t remember, but Bobby Baker, brasher—and younger—says that he used it; he recalls reminding “Mr. Leader” that as Vice President, he would be “one heartbeat away from the presidency.” Rowe couldn’t bring himself to say those words. He stayed mostly silent during the conference, and after Johnson had dismissed them, saying Kennedy would be arriving in a few minutes, and Rowe had returned to his own room, he telephoned Johnson, and said only, “On balance, I would take it. I want to see you President one day.” Asked by the author almost a quarter of a century later for his reasons, he listed many, in his careful, lawyerly manner. Then there was a pause, quite a long one.

  “And that one heartbeat …,” Jim Rowe said.

  DURING THE CONFERENCE with the three men, Johnson was “quiet, sober, reflective—obviously analyzing all of it,” Connally was to recall. He didn’t say much. But what he did say gave them a clue as to what his thinking was. Near the end of the discussion, after he had been, in Baker’s word, “passive” for a long time, he said, perhaps thinking of the intense dislike of many Texans for the Kennedys, “Well, I’ll probably have some trouble with my Texas friends if I decide to run.” And when Connally had finished his argument that Johnson had no choice but to accept the vice presidency, Johnson said quietly, “Well, I don’t disagree with that.” And during the conference there was a call from Texas congressman Homer Thornberry, who was phoning to offer condolences for losing the presidential nomination. When Johnson told him that there might be a vice presidential offer, and Thornberry blurted out, “Oh, you can’t do that,” Johnson said, “Well, here’s my problem,” and listed all the reasons why he had no choice but to accept, listed them so persuasively that Thornberry changed his thinking, and, a few minutes later, telephoned back to tell him, “I was wrong”: that if the nomination was offered, he should accept. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t merely thinking about it. He wanted it.

  ONE GREAT OBSTACLE stood in his way. John Nance Garner had been Sam Rayburn’s friend, his mentor in many ways, and Rayburn had seen what happened after Cactus Jack—a mighty figure on Capitol Hill, with the power he wielded as Speaker of the House spilling over to the other side of the Capitol (“No man was more influential in the Senate than Garner,” one observer noted)—accepted the vice presidential nomination from Franklin Roosevelt in 1932; had seen how the President increasingly ignored his advice to end what that Texas conservative came to call, privately at first but only at first, “This New Deal spending orgy.” Garner came to regard Roosevelt as a power-hungry “dictator,” Roosevelt saw him as an ignorant reactionary, and after Garner split with him for good over Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court (it was he whom the Senate chose to deliver the news—“Cap’n, you are beat”—to the President), Garner’s expectations
of succeeding the President were over, as was his career. When Roosevelt sought a third term, he enlisted in a “Stop Roosevelt” movement, and on Roosevelt’s third inaugural day, in 1941, Garner was back in the little Texas town of Uvalde, where he was to live out the rest of a long life as a pecan farmer. “I saw Jack Garner agree to run twice with Roosevelt … and go back to Texas a bitter man for life,” Rayburn told a friend. Loving Lyndon Johnson as the son he never had, Mr. Sam was firmly opposed to him even considering the vice presidential nomination. The night before he left for Los Angeles, the Speaker told his friends Gene and Ann Worley, “The first thing I’m going to do when I get off that airplane tomorrow is to announce to the world that Lyndon Johnson ain’t interested in second spot on a ticket with Kennedy.” And after Wyoming’s votes had ended Lyndon’s dream, and Rayburn had cried, he had squared his shoulders and sat up—and then had picked up the telephone in the Texas delegation’s section and called Johnson, because, as one observer put it, “He had had a premonition.” “They are going to try to get you to go on the ticket,” he said. “You mustn’t do it. It would be a terrible thing to do. Turn it down.” “Power is where power goes.” Whatever the equation of power that Lyndon Johnson was using as the basis for his calculations, Sam Rayburn was a major factor in it. Lyndon Johnson couldn’t defy him. Whether he wanted the vice presidential nomination or not, he couldn’t take it if Rayburn didn’t want him to. So after his conference with Connally, Rowe and Baker had ended, he telephoned Earle Clements, with whom Rayburn was comfortable, and asked him to come to the suite, and when he arrived, told him about the vice presidential offer he expected—told him in such a way that, Clements was to say, it was “obvious he wants it.” And when Clements advised him to accept, Johnson said, “Then I wish you’d go down and convince Rayburn. He’s right down the hall.”