Means of Ascent

by Robert A. Caro

Walker, A. W.

  Walker, Radioman-gunner Lillis

  “walking delegates”, 12.1; see also “missionaries” Wallace, George C., itr.1

  Wallace, Henry, 3.1, 12.1

  Wall Street Journal, The, 6.1

  War on Poverty, xii, itr.1

  War Production Board, 4.1, 4.2

  war veterans:

  1948 debate on benefits

  used in LBJ’s campaign, 11.1, 13.1

  Washington, D.C.:

  Civil Rights March of 1963, itr.1

  Stevenson’s trip and press conference, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3

  Washington, George

  Washington Post, itr.1, 6.1

  Washington Star, 6.1

  Watson, Edwin M. (Pa), 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 5.1

  Wayne, John

  Webb, Walter Prescott

  Webb County, Tex., 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 13.1

  1948 primary results in, 11.1, 13.1, 13.2, 16.1

  Weber, O. J., 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 6.1

  Weedin, Harfield, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4

  Weeks, Douglas O.

  Weisl, Edwin, 2.1, 3.1, 6.1

  “We Shall Overcome”, history of hymn, itr.1–xvi, itr.2–xix, itr.3, itr.4

  West, J. M., and sons, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4

  West, Wesley, 6.1, 12.1

  WFAA radio

  Wheeler, Keith

  whisper campaigns, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3

  White, Theodore H., on LBJ

  White, William S.

  White House:

  demonstrations at: civil rights, itr.1, itr.2–xix, itr.3; Vietnam War, itr.4

  of FDR, in 1941–42

  LBJ’s access to, 7.1, 7.2

  of Truman

  Wichita Falls, Tex., 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4

  Wicker, Tom, itr.1, itr.2, 16.1

  Wild, Claude C., 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 12.1

  Williams, Aubrey

  Williamsburg, the, 7.1

  Wilson, Woodrow

  Winchell, Walter, 3.1, 5.1

  wiretapping, suspected in 1948 campaign

  Wirtz, Alvin J., 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 4.1, 6.1, 6.2, 7.1, 8.1, 10.1, 12.1, 16.1

  in federal court hearings on 1948 election fraud, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3; in Supreme Court, 15.4

  and KTBC acquisition by LBJ, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6

  and KTBC advertisers, 6.1, 6.2

  LBJ’s adviser, 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 7.1

  and LBJ’s betrayal of Rayburn

  and LBJ’s 1941 Senate race

  and LBJ’s 1948 Senate race, 7.1, 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 12.5, 13.1; dealings with Parr, 9.1, 9.2, 13.2; Loyalist deal obtained, 14.1, 14.2; post-election

  vote dispute calls, 13.1, 16.1; and 333, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3

  as 1948 Democratic State Convention Subcommittee member, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3

  quoted, on blacks

  WOAI radio

  women’s vote, pursuit of, 12.1, 12.2

  Woods, Wilton, 12.1, 12.2

  Woodward, Warren, 7.1, 11.1, 12.1, 18.1

  as 1948 campaign aide to LBJ, 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 11.5, 11.6, 11.7, 11.8, 11.9, 11.10, 11.11, 12.1, 12.2, 13.1

  Wooldridge Park campaign rally (1948), 10.1, 10.2

  World War II, 2.1, 5.1, 5.2

  LBJ’s deception of voters about “active” service, 2.1, 2.2; continued in 1948 campaign, 11.1

  LBJ’s home front jobs, 2.1, 3.1; Navy-New Zealand liaison assignment, 2.2; shipyard training program inspection assignment, 2.3, 2.4

  LBJ’s observer duty on Southwest Pacific Survey team, 2.1, 3.1; exaggerated stories, 3.2, 11.1

  in the Pacific, see Pacific theater

  Worley, Eugene

  Wortham, Gus

  Wright, Fay, see Stevenson, Fay Wright

  WTAW radio, 6.1, 6.2

  Wurzbach, Harry,

  Yarborough, Ralph

  Young, Andrew

  Young, Harold H., 3.1, 12.1

  Young Democrats,

  Zapata County, Tex.

  1948 first primary results

  1948 runoff results, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 16.1; fraud and fraudulent “corrections” of, 14.1, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 16.2; fraud probe by Master-in-Chancery, 15.6, 15.7, 15.8, 15.9

  Ziegler, Tony, n.

  PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

  Lyndon Baines Johnson Library: Ill.2, Ill.3, Ill.5, Ill.6, Ill.7, Ill.8, Ill.9, Ill.10, Ill.11, Ill.12, Ill.13, Ill.27, Ill.29, Ill.30, Ill.31, Ill.32, Ill.33, Ill.37, Ill.38, Ill.40, Ill.41, Ill.42

  U.S. Navy, National Archives, Washington: Ill.4

  Fort Worth Star-Telegram Photographic Collection, Special Collections

  Division/The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries: Ill.23, Ill.36

  AP/Wide World Photos: Ill.39, Ill.43

  Texas Ranger Hall of Fame: Ill.34

  Bonnie Carmack: Ill.25

  Modern Studios, Jefferson, TX, Billy Watson: Ill.26

  University Studios, Austin: Ill.17

  Ellison Co., Austin: Ill.18

  Boone Photo: Ill.19, Ill.20

  Photos courtesy Marguerite King Stevenson: Ill.14, Ill.15, Ill.16, Ill.21, Ill.22, Ill.24

  Photo courtesy Wilton Woods: Ill.1

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Lyndon Johnson posed by a Hollywood photographer (Photo Credit Ill.1)

  Lyndon Johnson posed by a Hollywood photographer (Photo Credit Ill.2)

  … and with John Connally, March, 1942 (Photo Credit Ill.3)

  Lieutenant Commander Johnson at Seven-Mile Strip (Photo Credit Ill.4)

  … and with a pilot (Photo Credit Ill.5)

  One of a crowd: Johnson at a 1945 Navy Department luncheon for members of the House Naval Affairs Committee. In the front row are Representatives Margaret Chase Smith, Patrick Drewry and Carl Vinson, Secretary James Forrestal, Colonel Maas and Under Secretary Ralph Bard (Photo Credit Ill.6)

  Lady Bird with Lucy Baines, August, 1947 (Photo Credit Ill.7)

  Johnson with Lady Bird and his mother during his 1946 re-election campaign (Photo Credit Ill.8)

  With John Connally and Fighting Joe Kilgore (Photo Credit Ill.9)

  George and Herman Brown (Photo Credit Ill.10)

  Johnson listening to Ed Clark’s speech at a 1945 homecoming luncheon for Admiral Chester Nimitz in Austin. At left: Governor Coke R. Stevenson. (Photo Credit Ill.11)

  With Alvin Wirtz (Photo Credit Ill.12)

  Lyndon Johnson and his staff at the House Office Building, Spring 1948: Glynn Stegall, Mary Rather, Warren G. Woodward, Walter Jenkins, Horace Busby, and Doris Seeliger (Photo Credit Ill.13)

  Coke Stevenson at 21 (Photo Credit Ill.14)

  Stevenson, center right, as a bookkeeper in the Junction State Bank (Photo Credit Ill.15)

  Stevenson at the ranch (Photo Credit Ill.16)

  Fay Wright Stevenson (Photo Credit Ill.17)

  Stevenson, as Speaker of the Texas House (right), watches Governor Miriam (“Ma”) Ferguson take the oath of office in 1933. On her right is her husband, former Governor Jim Ferguson. (Photo Credit Ill.18)

  Stevenson as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, 1933: above, at Speaker’s podium … (Photo Credit Ill.19)

  … with delegation of schoolchildren (Photo Credit Ill.20)

  Governor Stevenson … (Photo Credit Ill.21)

  … with the dying Fay, at his inauguration in August, 1941. (Photo Credit Ill.22)

  “Mr. Texas” (Photo Credit Ill.23)

  Coke and Marguerite (“Teeney”) King Stevenson in 1954. (Photo Credit Ill.24)

  Teeney Stevenson at the falls of the South Llano. (Photo Credit Ill.25)

  (Photo Credit Ill.26)

  Johnson and the Flying Windmill. Behind them, a Texas thunderstorm. (Photo Credit Ill.27)

  The Old and the New: Coke Stevenson, at a Lumbermen’s Meeting …

  … Johnson comes to town (Photo Credit Ill.29)

  The meeting and the greeting (Photo Credit Ill.30)

  The meeting and the greeting (Photo Credit Ill.31)

  The mee
ting and the greeting (Photo Credit Ill.32)

  George Parr’s machine and Ballot Box 13. Left to right: Deputy Sheriff Stokes Micenheimer, Hubert Sain, Givens Parr, Ed Lloyd and Barney Goldthorn. (Photo Credit Ill.33)

  Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Photo Credit Ill.34)

  Luis Salas, Parr’s feared enforcer. (Photo Credit Ill.35)

  Showdown Monday: Coke Stevenson surrounded by reporters after the Democratic Executive Committee meeting in Fort Worth (Photo Credit Ill.36)

  Lady Bird and Lyndon enter the Federal District Court in Fort Worth. The man behind Johnson is Alvin Wirtz. (Photo Credit Ill.37)

  George B. Parr, the Duke of Duval (Photo Credit Ill.38)

  Abe Fortas (Photo Credit Ill.39)

  Lyndon Johnson and Tom Clark outside the Truman campaign train in San Antonio (Photo Credit Ill.40)

  President Harry Truman greets Johnson on the campaign train. (Photo Credit Ill.41)

  The climax: the Alice courtroom—ballot boxes in foreground—minutes before the hearing was halted by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. Coke Stevenson is seated at center. (Photo Credit Ill.42)

  Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson, January 3, 1949. He and Senators J. Allen Frear, Paul H. Douglas and Robert S. Kerr pose with Senate President pro tempore Arthur Vandenberg (left). (Photo Credit Ill.43)

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  For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, twice won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year, and has also won virtually every other major literary honor, including the National Book Award, the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best “exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist.” In 2010, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama.

  To create his first book, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Caro spent seven years tracing and talking with hundreds of men and women who worked with, for, or against Robert Moses, including a score of his top aides. He examined mountains of files never opened to the public. Everywhere acclaimed as a modern classic, The Power Broker was chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century. It is, according to David Halberstam, “Surely the greatest book ever written about a city.” And The New York Times Book Review said: “In the future, the scholar who writes the history of American cities in the twentieth century will doubtless begin with this extraordinary effort.”

  To research The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Caro and his wife, Ina, moved from his native New York City to the Texas Hill Country and then to Washington, D.C., to live in the locales in which Johnson grew up and in which he built, while still young, his first political machine. He has spent years examining documents at the Johnson Library in Austin and interviewing men and women connected with Johnson’s life, many of whom had never before been interviewed. The first volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, The Path to Power, was cited by The Washington Post as “proof that we live in a great age of biography … [a book] of radiant excellence … Caro’s evocation of the Texas Hill Country, his elaboration of Johnson’s unsleeping ambition, his understanding of how politics actually work, are—let it be said flat out—at the summit of American historical writing.” Professor Henry F. Graff of Columbia University called the second volume, Means of Ascent, “brilliant. No review does justice to the drama of the story Caro is telling, which is nothing less than how present-day politics was born.” And the London Times hailed volume three, Master of the Senate, as “a masterpiece … Robert Caro has written one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age.”

  “Caro has a unique place among American political biographers,” according to The Boston Globe. “He has become, in many ways, the standard by which his fellows are measured.” And Nicholas von Hoffman wrote: “Caro has changed the art of political biography.”

  Caro graduated from Princeton University and later became a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He lives in New York City with his wife, Ina, an historian and writer.

  Also by Robert A. Caro

  The Years of Lyndon Johnson:

  The Path to Power

  (1982)

  Master of the Senate

  (2002)

  The Power Broker:

  Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

  (1974)