The Passage of Power

by Robert A. Caro

  Cook on Investigating Subcommittee: Caro, Master, pp. 312–13, and “Out of the Crowd” chapter. Going to Brough: “Telephone Conversation between Don Cook and Walter Jenkins,” Tuesday, July 5, 1960, 12:40 P.M. By the next day: “Arthur C. Perry—Telephone Call of Don Cook from New York,” July 6, 1960. Both from “Transcripts of Telephone Conversations—July 1960,” Box 1, Series 2, OFWJ, LBJL. Johnson took a role: Telephoning Dr. Gerald Labiner in Dallek, Unfinished, p. 261. Johnson decided: Connally interview. Connally, Edwards press conference: AA-S, BS, NYT, LAT, WES, WPT, July 5, 6, 1960. Seizing on the fact: Burns, John Kennedy (p. 159), explains that “While Kennedy’s adrenal insufficiency might well be diagnosed by some doctors as a mild case of Addison’s disease, it was not diagnosed as the classic type of Addison’s disease, which is due to tuberculosis.” Travell says this was “a true summary of the facts” (Travell, Office Hours, p. 328). “Does not now”: BS, NYT, WP, July 5, 1960. Sorensen went further: He said flatly that “He is not on cortisone.” Asked what other drug he might be using, Sorensen replied: “I don’t know that he is on anything—any more than you and I are on” (NYT, July 5, 1960). De Sapio … had: “Charlie Kress, 10:50 A.M., “Transcripts of Telephone Conversations—July 1960,” Box 1, Series 2, OFWJ, LBJL. “Johnson should disavow”: BS, NYT, LAT, WES, WPT, July 7, 1960. Evans and Novak, LBJ, p. 272.

  “Before the”: WES, July 6, 1960. Johnson’s announcement: NYT, WES, WP, July 6, 1960. Voice suddenly broke: “His voice quavered unexpectedly when he came to the point,” McGrory wrote (WES, July 6, 1960). “I had never”: Busby interview. Mooney wrote that “The senator … I thought seemed slightly ill at ease” (Mooney, LBJ, p.129).

  Last visit to White House: Mazo OH, Columbia University, quoted in Dallek, Unfinished, p. 261. Also see Evans and Novak, LBJ, p. 261. “He got mad”: Herring interview. “Top-level”: NYT, July 9, 1960. NAACP rally: LAT, NYT, WES, WP, July 11, 1960. All that weekend: BS, LAT, NYHT, NYP, NYT, WES, WP, July 9–11, 1960. Prendergast delivered: NYT, July 10, 1960. Docking and Loveless: NYT, July 10, 1960. MOVE TO KENNEDY: NYT, July 10, 1960. JOHNSON SEEMS: LAT, July 9, 1960.

  “The single major”; “Everything depends”: Joseph Alsop, “Matter of Fact,” WP, July 8, 1960. On the eve of the Convention, the NYT reported that “On one issue, Sen. Kennedy’s brother and Sen. Johnson’s campaign manager were in agreement. This was that the results of the Pennsylvania caucus on Monday would be significant” (NYT, July 7, 1960). “If we could have”: Connally interview. Johnson himself, in an interview with John Steele, said, “If Dave goes for me, I can make it; if he goes for Kennedy my chances are about washed up” (Steele to Johnson, July 8, 1960, SP). “Telephone Conversation between Bobby Baker and Walter Jenkins,” July 6, 1960, in which Baker says, “Will say again, Pennsylvania is the key to the situation”; Special Files–Assassination, Box 1). Chicago Mayor Dick Daley was to say flatly that “Without him [Lawrence], John Kennedy would not have carried the ’60 convention” (Donaghy, Keystone Democrat: David Lawrence Remembered, p. 136).

  “Solely”: Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss: David Lawrence, Pittsburgh’s Renaissance Mayor, p. 36. 1958 governorship race: Thomas McCloskey interview with Donaghy, June 28, 1974, p. 3, Michael P. Weber Papers, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. 1959 Sunday mass; “just can’t: Donaghy, Keystone Democrat, p. 130. “I figured”: Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 360. He was afraid: “Any chance I would have of getting a majority in both houses of the [Pennsylvania] General Assembly would go skimmering if Kennedy was the head of the ticket.” Donaghy interviews with David Lawrence, July 16, 1973, p. 5, Thomas McCloskey, June 28, 1974, p. 3, Weber Papers. “What he wanted”: Hemenway interview. “I could”: Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 360. “An almost youthful”: Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 360. “Though I don’t think”: Donaghy interview with Gerald Lawrence, Part I, July 16, 1973, p. 5, Weber Papers. “I was very”: Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 360.

  “Why would you want”: Donaghy, Keystone Democrat, p. 129. “We were all”: Rose Kennedy, quoted in Donaghy, Keystone Democrat, pp. 370–71. Also: “Joe Kennedy was furious about it. He used to say terrible things because Dave wouldn’t do it.” (Mathew McCloskey interview with Donaghy, Nov. 2, 1970, p. 3, Weber Papers.)

  His ally was; Hopkins had been discussing: Lewis to Kennedy, July 8, 1960, Personal Papers of Welly Hopkins, LBJL. Hopkins interview, OH. Mary to Johnson, July 7, 1960; Mary [Rather] to Johnson, undated, but from the context, that weekend, “Memoranda—DNC—LA, July 11–15, 1960,” LBJL.

  Daley inviting Lawrence: Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 363. “With the man he had championed”: Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 363. “You’ll have eighty-five percent”; “If the party wants me”: Hemenway interview. “Do what”: Thomas B. Morgan, “Madly for Adlai,” American Heritage, Aug.–Sept. 1984; Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 363; Garth, Hemenway interviews. “Governor, are you sure”: Wirtz, quoted in Morgan, “Madly,” and in Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 363. “Adlai could have said”: Morgan, “Madly”; Weber, Don’t Call Me Boss, p. 363. “There was some reason”: Hopkins interview, OH.

  Pennsylvania Caucus: NYT, WP, July 12, 1960. “I am not a naïve”: WP, July 12, 1960. 4 1/2: NYT, July 12, 1960. “I don’t see how”: Rowe OH II.

  Had sent a telegram; Johnson’s reply: “Telegrams from Sen. J. F. Kennedy to Sen. LBJ,” Box 3, “Special File on Lyndon B. Johnson’s Campaigns,” Kennedy to Johnson, Johnson to Kennedy, July 12, “July 12, 1960—Transcript of recorded remarks of Debate—Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Johnson, Democratic Convention, Biltmore Hotel,” July 12, 1960, Box 39, Statements of Lyndon Baines Johnson, LBJL. “I want”: Hoff interview. Connally, Reedy and Busby: Connally, Reedy, Busby interviews. “One major error”: Connally interview; Evans and Novak, LBJ, p. 273.

  “If it went well”: Reedy OH.

  Giving an interview: Seigenthaler interview. “A damned fool”: Seigenthaler OH I, JFKL. “I know, Daddy”; “You’ll see”: Jean Kennedy Smith interview; Seigenthaler OH.

  “Tremendous exhilaration”: Graham, “Notes on the 1960 Democratic Convention,” pp. 4–6.

  “I have never found it necessary”: NYDN, July 13, 1960. Trying to elevate: NYDN, NYHT, WP, July 13, 1960. Kennedy finally said: San Antonio Light, WP, July 13, 1960. Not more than a handful: San Antonio Light, July 13, 1960. “TV cameras bristled”: CSM, July 13, 1960.

  Kennedy’s leg shaking: Sidey interview. “Johnson had packed full”: San Antonio Light, July 13, 1960. McGrory wrote that there was “a handful” of Massachusetts delegates present (McGrory, WES, July 13, 1960). Description of the debate: CT, CSM, HP, LAT, NYD, NYHT, NYT, San Antonio Light, WES, WP. Scheslinger, Sidey, Wright interviews. “And when I take”: McGrory, WES, July 13, 1960.

  “Lyndon sure”: Wright interview.

  “Johnson felt”: Schlesinger interview. “Big Irish grin”: Wright interview. “Really, it didn’t come off”: Jacobsen, quoted in Miller, Lyndon, p. 249. “He got cured”: Hoff interview.

  Last round of infighting: WP, July 14, 1960. Connally won: DT-H, July 14, 1960. “Flamethrowers”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 44. “Chamberlain umbrella man”: Before the Washington State delegation, he said, “I wasn’t any Chamberlain umbrella man. I never thought Hitler was right.” CT, NYT, WP, July 14, 1960. NYT quotes Johnson as saying that he had been a “ ‘fighting liberal’ in the Roosevelt administration and a ‘working liberal’ in the Truman administration.” He then declared: “I was never any Chamberlain umbrella policy man. I never thought Hitler was right” (CT, NYT, WP, July 14, 1960). “I was not contributing”: NYT, July 14, 1960. “I haven’t had anything given to me”: Stated before Kentucky and West Virginia delegations, quoted in NYHT, July 14, 1960. There are slightly differing versions of his statements in newspaper reports the next day. In the NYT and WP, Jan. 15, 1960, he is quoted as saying, “I haven’t had anything given to me. Whatever I have and whatever I hope to get will be because of whatever energy and talents I have.” “Now thi
s young man”: HP, July 14, 1960.

  “As one accustomed”: Baker, Wheeling, p. 114.

  Rayburn’s speech: AA-S, DMN, DT-H, NYT, July 14, 1960. In the left-hand: Busby, Rowe interviews. Connally last-minute maneuver: “After the commencement of the nominations, he called John Connally … to suggest that, if possible, it might be a wise move to get the voting to go over to the next day, to try to get the convention to recess in order to gain some delay. This was not done.” Juanita Roberts memorandum dated July 13, 1960, Pre-Presidential Diary unsigned, July 13, 14, 1960; Office of the President Files (OPF) Files, Box 8 (Moyers folders). Also HP, July 14, 1960.

  “Very, very conservative”; “If it comes down”: Edward Kennedy interview. Rayburn crying: Life, July 28, 1972.

  For a western: How close the Johnson strategy came to being successful is shown by remarks such as the one JFK made to Philip Graham (Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp. 44, 45) on Wednesday. “He added that he might be twenty votes short on the first ballot and asked if there were any chance of getting Johnson votes out of the vice-presidential offer.”

  For Robert Kennedy’s perspective on Johnson’s feelings about the first ballot, see Guthman and Shulman, Robert Kennedy: In His Own Words, pp. 20, 21. “We were counting votes! We had to win on the first ballot. We only won by fifteen votes. North Dakota had the unit system—I think in North Dakota and South Dakota. We won it [North Dakota] by half a vote. California was falling apart.… You know, there were just about thirty-two balls up in the air.… There wasn’t any place that was stable.” Sorensen says, “If the convention ever went into the back rooms, we’d never get out of the back rooms.” “On the eve of the convention, John Steele of Time magazine told his editors in a confidential memorandum, “The 500 figure Lyndon calls a conservative estimate, and in fact it does not appear to be greatly out of line” (Steele to Johnston, July 8, 1960, SP).

  “I want”: Busby interview.

  4. The Back Stairs

  There are four principal written sources for this chapter: two memoranda: “Notes on the 1960 Democratic Convention,” dated July 19, 1960, written by Philip Graham and hereafter referred to as “Graham Memo” (“Reference File,” LBJL), and a “Private Memorandum,” dated Sept. 22, 1960, beginning “I have finally pieced together … the events leading up to the nomination of Lyndon B. Johnson …,” by Arthur Krock (Notebook 3, Box 1, Krock Papers, “Reference File,” LBJL); and two unusually detailed and thorough articles: Philip Potter: “How LBJ Got the Nomination,” The Reporter, June 18, 1964, and “Dear Jack Wire, Gained Second Spot for Johnson,” by Earl Mazo, NYHT, July 16, 1960. But since even these accounts so often conflict, the principal sources also include the author’s interviews with John Connally and James Rowe Jr., and with figures in the Johnson camp who, while not as central to Johnson’s decisions, were often present in his hotel suite: Horace Busby, Thomas Corcoran, Walter Jenkins, and George Reedy. And, because Sam Rayburn is such a central figure in the episode, the principal sources also include the author’s interviews with Rayburn’s aides D. B. Hardeman and John Holton.

  “Just a minute”: Kennedy himself wrote captions for a series of pictures by Jacques Lowe that were published in Look magazine (John F. Kennedy, “A Day I’ll Remember,” Look magazine, Sept. 13, 1960): When he called, “Lady Bird answered. She said he was asleep, but she’d wake him. I told Lyndon that I wanted to talk to him, and we agreed to meet in his room in two hours.” Johnson is quoted as having said, “The phone rang, and Lady Bird answered it.” Moyers says “I remember very distinctly on the morning after the nomination the phone ringing. I was up, and I walked into their bedroom to get them up. As I walked into the darkened bedroom, Mrs. Johnson answered it. She said ‘Just a minute,’ and she shook Mr. Johnson awake and said, ’Lyndon, it’s Senator Kennedy, and he wants to talk to you …” (Moyers, quoted in Miller, Lyndon, pp. 255–56.). A secretary who was employed by Johnson from early 1959 to shortly after the Democratic convention, Betty Cason Hickman, says it was she who took Kennedy’s call. She also said that she was present in the living room, taking notes, while Kennedy was conferring there with Johnson about the vice presidency. She also says that she composed the telegram Johnson had sent to Kennedy congratulating him on winning the nomination. “Bill Moyers and I, and of course Johnson had his input, too,” she says (Hickman OH, LBJL; Hickman interview). These recollections are not supported by the recollections of others, including Busby, Reedy and Rowe; everyone the author interviewed says that there was no one in the room but Kennedy and Johnson.

  “Jack Kennedy just called me”: Connally interview.

  “We had lost”; “Power is”: Rowe interview.

  “The most insignificant”: Schlesinger, The Cycles of American History, p 337.

  “A bucket”: Among the innumerable Texan politicians who corrected the author when he used the word “piss” was Congressman O. C. Fisher, a longtime Garner intimate. “I wouldn’t trade”: Schlesinger, Thousand Days, p. 47

  “Got irritated”: Hugh Sidey, “The Presidency,” Time, July 25, 1988.

  Rowe should have been more aware: Rowe interview. Johnson’s 1956 try: Caro, Master of the Senate, pp. 801–25.

  Proxmire’s challenge: Caro, Master, pp. 1015–19. “Although”: Evans and Novak, Lyndon B. Johnson, p. 290.

  Other considerations: Johnson’s thinking is from interviews with BeLieu, Busby, Clark, Connally, Corcoran, Goldschmidt, Oltorf, Rather, Reedy, Rowe, and Johnson’s brother, Sam Houston Johnson. Also with two of his secretaries. “To the point”: Mary Louise Young interview. Convinced he would die young: Caro, Means of Ascent, pp. 136–38. “Too long … too long”: Busby, Reedy interviews. “I don’t think anybody from the South”: MacNeil interview.

  He had reconnoitered it: Busby, Jenkins, Oltorf interviews.

  Sometime early: Busby, Jenkins, Oltorf interviews. As a Leader: McPherson says that he feels that if he continued as Leader, “he would have had to represent the views and objections of the southern committee chairmen to the liberals in the Administration; thus, he would have remained a southern, essentially conservative, figure. It was better to be Vice President …” McPherson also says that if Johnson continued as Leader, “his role would have been to put the Kennedy program through Congress. If he had succeeded, the credit would have been Kennedy’s. If he had failed, the fault would have been his” (McPherson, A Political Education, pp. 178–79).

  Johnson was to say: Dugger, The Politician, p. 373; LAT, July 13, 1960. He also said, “No Texan will be nominated for President in my lifetime” (William V. Shannon, New York Post, July 17, 1960). Johnson made numerous other remarks in 1960 to the same effect. For example, on March 12, driving down to New Jersey for a wedding with several friends, in what Evans and Novak describe as a “pensive, introspective, and serious” mood, he said, “A fellow from my part of the country probably couldn’t be anything more than another John Garner” (Evans and Novak, LBJ, p. 275). Would still: Dugger, The Politician, pp. 373, 470.

  “Clare, I looked it up”: Clare Boothe Luce, quoted in Martin, A Hero for Our Time, p. 159. “Lyndon, why in the world?”: Among the people in Texas to whom Johnson made similar remarks was Robert M. Jackson, editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, who was to tell his reporter James M. Rowe that, encountering Johnson at the Corpus Christi airport when Johnson flew back to Texas from Los Angeles, he had asked him, “Lyndon, why in the world did you accept the nomination?,” and that Johnson had replied, “Well, six of them didn’t have to get elected.” Rowe to Caro, May 3, 1983 (in author’s possession). “Well, … six of them”: Kilgore interview. “You know, seven of them”: Clark interview.

  “Board of Education” scene: Caro, Means, pp. 121–22. “The most insignificant”: Adams, quoted in Feerick, From Failing Hands, p. 67. “I am”: Adams, quoted in McCullough, John Adams, p. 402. “Very ‘iffy’ ”: Wilmington News, May 27, 1960; NYT, July 4, 1960.

  “Maybe”: Evans and Novak, LBJ, p. 275. Meeting with Lawrence and
McCloskey: Donaghy, Keystone Democrat, pp. 139–140. “Guaranteed”: McCloskey interview with Donaghy, Nov. 2, 1970, Michael P. Weber Papers, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh; Donaghy, Keystone Democrat, p. 140. “Well, that is”: NYT, July 4, 1960. “An opportunity”: NYT, July 6, 1960.

  “The labor people”; “the same assurance”; “with [Jack] Kennedy’s knowledge”: O’Donnell, Powers, and McCarthy, “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye,” p. 189. O’Donnell made his promises: O’Donnell OH I. When Rauh told Kennedy: “Katharine Graham Interview Two with Joe Rauh,” July 21, 1989, pp. 39, 40 (in author’s possession); Rauh interview. Assurances repeated by Jack Kennedy to other liberals: He sent word to the Orville Freeman camp “that he was the midwestern liberal he wanted most for a running mate” (Solberg, Hubert Humphrey, p. 213). Kennedy went “so far as to designate Humphrey confidant Max Kampelman as a liaison to help plan a joint Kennedy-Humphrey staff session at Hyannisport after the Convention” (Eisele, Almost to the Presidency, p. 151). Clark Clifford, as Symington’s campaign manager, writes that on the afternoon of the balloting for President, he received from Jack Kennedy “an unequivocal offer” of the vice presidency to Symington, only to have Kennedy tell him the next day, that “I must renege on an offer made in good faith. During the night I have been persuaded that I cannot win without Lyndon on the ticket. I have offered the vice presidency to him—and he has accepted” (Clifford, Counsel to the President, pp. 317–19).

  “Pledged to a number”: WP, July 17, 1960. A typical response by labor and liberal leaders to the news of Johnson’s selection was that given by Reuben G. Soderstrom, head of the Illinois State AFL-CIO. “Labor worked day and night at Los Angeles to get Kennedy so we would be rid of Johnson. And what did they do? They made chumps out of us.” George Meany, Soderstrom said, had his “Irish up” over Johnson’s selection (NYT, July 28, 1960). “The one name”: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 207. “There was”: Lincoln, Kennedy and Johnson, pp. 92–93.