The Path to Power

by Robert A. Caro

  Nor was this the only money Lyndon Johnson received from Texas during his first week on the new job, for he had persuaded Sam Rayburn to make some telephone calls to Fort Worth and Dallas, and to stop talking in terms of hundreds. On October 14, Sid Richardson, through his nephew, Perry R. Bass, sent $5,000. On October 16, C. W. Murchison sent $5,000. And another $5,000 arrived from Charles Marsh’s partner, E. S. Fentress. By Saturday, October 19, Johnson was able to bring to the offices of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, to be distributed to Democratic candidates for Congress, a total of $45,000. One week after he had taken his job, he was able to write Rayburn aide Swagar Sherley: “We have sent them more money in the last three days than Congressmen have received from any committee in the last eight years.”

  ONE TALENT that Lyndon Johnson had already displayed in abundance was ingenuity in political tactics. Now he displayed it again. By saying in his letter to the candidates that Johnson was only “assisting” the Congressional Campaign Committee, Drewry had thought he was keeping Johnson subordinate to the committee. All these first checks from Texas, of course, were made out to the committee—Johnson had to turn them over to the committee for deposit in the committee’s bank account, and it was on this account that the checks for contributions to individual candidates were drawn. They were signed by the committee’s chairman, Drewry, and mailed out, with an accompanying letter by Drewry, from the committee’s office in the National Press Building, in the same manner as any other contributions, with no indication that the money that had made them possible had come from Texas, or that it had been raised by the efforts of Lyndon Johnson.

  For a man who had pulled political strings to get a dam legalized, authorized and enlarged, Johnson’s method of letting the candidates know that he, not the committee, deserved the credit for the contributions was relatively simple—but ingenious, nonetheless. He had had George Brown instruct each of the “Brown & Root” contributors, and apparently had had Rayburn instruct Richardson and Murchison, to send with their contributions a letter stating: “I am enclosing herewith my check for $5,000 payable to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I would like for this money to be expended in connection with the campaign of Democratic candidates for Congress as per the list attached, to the individual named in the amount specified.”

  Johnson had, of course, compiled the list, and had determined the amount each of the lucky candidates was to receive. Since the committee would hardly dare to disobey such specific instructions from the “donors,” it was Johnson rather than Drewry or Harding (or anyone else) who was determining who would get the Texas money, and how much. And, armed with this knowledge, he had no sooner left the committee headquarters, having handed in his checks, than he sent to each of the recipients the following telegram—which made it abundantly clear to each recipient who was really responsible for the check which he would be receiving from the Congressional Committee the next day: AS RESULT MY VISIT TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE FEW MINUTES AGO, YOU SHOULD RECEIVE AIRMAIL SPECIAL DELIVERY LETTER FROM THEM WHICH IS TO BE MAILED TONIGHT.

  OF THE ELEMENTS in Lyndon Johnson’s career, none had been more striking than his energy.

  Procuring checks wasn’t all he did that first week. Permission to “assist” the Congressional Campaign Committee had finally been given to him on October 14. Election Day was November 5. He had three weeks.

  Within three hours, he had rented an office, furnished it, and filled it with a staff: Herbert Henderson, John Connally, and Dorothy Nichols from his congressional office; only Walter Jenkins was left behind to keep that office open. (The furnishings of the room in the five-room suite that would be his private office revealed a distaste for the spartan: the furniture rental order read “1 large Exec, desk, 1 swivel desk chair, 2 arm chairs, 1 club chair, 1 divan …”) That same day he composed a questionnaire to be sent to congressional colleagues (“1938 votes received?” “Is your present opponent stronger than your 1938 opponent?” “Describe briefly type of campaign he is making and principal issues he is raising,” “Where can you or a representative be reached at all times in your district?”), and dictated, to be sent with the questionnaire, a letter announcing his entrance into the campaign.

  Although he was ostensibly assisting Drewry’s committee, the office he had taken was in another building, the eleven-story Munsey Building at 1329 E Street, Northwest, off Pennsylvania Avenue, away from Drewry’s eyes and supervision. He had done more that busy Monday. The letter and questionnaire were not sent to all his colleagues. Conferring over the telephone with Rayburn, McCormack—and with Paul Appleby, campaign manager for vice-presidential nominee Henry A. Wallace and a politician with a detailed knowledge of the political situation in Midwest congressional districts—he had selected from the 435 Democratic candidates for Congress several score who should be helped. His decision was based in part on which districts had had the closest results in 1938, but only in part. One of several lists hurriedly compiled by Henderson and Connally was titled: “The following men received a majority of more than 10,000 over their Republican opponents in 1938.” Democrats had considered these seats safe, but only because they had not done a thorough analysis; Johnson did one, analyzing not merely the vote totals and percentages but the type of district, and found that many of them were in danger—and these Congressmen were selected for assistance.

  By the end of the first week in his new assignment, he had further refined his lists. One refinement was caused by John L. Lewis. The coal miners’ chief was turning against Roosevelt; although speculation was rife about the effect of his defection on the presidential race, no one was thinking about its effect on congressional candidates. Johnson assigned his staff to draw up a list of “Districts Which Produce 1,000,000 Tons or More Coal,” and of the 1938 congressional results in those districts. Then, sitting down with a yellow legal pad, he went to work on the list himself. Fifteen districts in six states were involved; in 1938, Democrats had won all of them. Calculating the margin in each district, he added them up and divided by fifteen, and around this average he drew a circle in red, and drew a red arrow to it, for the average was only 8,268. Then he calculated the Democratic percentage of the vote in each district, carrying the long division out to several places, and the percentages confirmed the bad news: the fifteen districts could not be considered safely Democratic this year; their Democratic Congressmen needed help, too. Other lists were compiled—by him, personally; no aide was allowed to do this—compiled with the same painstaking thoroughness (“If you do absolutely everything …”). He also called a luncheon meeting in a private room at the nearby Hotel Washington. Present were Rayburn, McCormack, Appleby, Alvin Wirtz, and three White House aides, Lowell Mellett, Wayne Coy and Jim Rowe (James Forrestal was invited, but was unable to attend). At this meeting, the lists were further refined, so that when, that first week, the money from Texas having arrived, he began distributing it, the identity of the seventy-seven recipients had been determined by a rather intensive analysis: the type of analysis that for years had been routine for the Republican congressional committee but rare for the Democrats—and that had not been made at all in 1940.

  ON THE QUESTIONNAIRE Johnson had sent out, candidates had been asked to “List suggestions as to how, in your opinion, we can be most helpful.” Underneath had been left three blank lines, marked “1,” “2” and “3.” Many of the respondents, of course, asked for a visit to their district by the President, but that was not the reply most frequently made on the first line. The most typical reply was that of Representative Martin F. Smith of the State of Washington’s Third Congressional District: “Financially.” (Representative John F. Hunter of Ohio’s Ninth Congressional District was firmer. “1” was “financial assistance,” he wrote. “There is no two.”) Others wrote a line or two of elaboration. “The best service that you could possibly render me would be to arrange a campaign contribution of $200 or $300,” said Wendell Lund of Michigan’s Eleventh CD. “The thing this d
istrict needs most of all is money,” said George M. May of Pennsylvania’s Tenth. And some, as though the mails were not fast enough, made the same point over the phone. Says an inter-office memorandum: “Robert Secrest [of Ohio’s Fifteenth] called and talked with John Connally. Said the only help he needed was a little money. …”

  Candidates who had dealt with the Congressional Campaign Committee in the past had little hope that they would get what they asked for. Secrest wrote on his questionnaire, “Nothing will help except cash, and I know that is scarce.” Laurence F. Arnold of Illinois’ Twenty-third noted that he had received $200 from the committee in 1936, but nothing in 1938; he had asked for $200 this year, he noted, and had not received even the courtesy of a reply. Emmet O’Neal of Kentucky’s Third wrote, “I feel sure that there is nothing that can be done to help.” He needed money, he said, “but I know … money is not floating around, so this is not meant as an indirect solicitation.”

  But, to their astonishment, their hopes were answered. Four-term Congressman Martin F. Smith had returned home to find that there was a good chance he wouldn’t be reelected to a fifth. He had stayed in the capital until October 8, and he had stayed too long; stepping off the train after the three-day trip home, he was promptly informed by campaign aides that he was in serious danger of losing his seat. His only hope was to increase his planned advertising in his district’s forty-two newspapers, and to reserve radio time—and he didn’t have enough money to do either. He left for a week-long tour of the district with no money in sight. And then, when he checked in with his campaign headquarters in Hoquiam one evening, Johnson’s telegram was read to him. Naturally, he hoped that the Congressional Committee’s airmail special-delivery letter to which the telegram referred would contain funds. Arriving back in Hoquiam several days later, he found on his desk not one but two letters from the committee. Ripping them open, he found in each a check—one for $200, one for $500.

  Arriving, weary, at a hotel one evening, Representative Charles F. McLaughlin telephoned his headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, and was told that a telegram had been received from Lyndon Johnson; when he reached Omaha the next day, the airmail special-delivery letter to which it referred was already there—and it contained a check for $300.

  All across the United States, similar scenes were enacted. Slumping into a chair in a hotel room or lying on the bed—shoes still on, too tired to take them off after a long day of campaigning (and worrying about campaign funds)—a Congressman would telephone his headquarters, would be read Lyndon Johnson’s telegram, and would realize that funds were on the way.

  Others got the news in their campaign headquarters. Representative Edouard V. M. Izac arrived home in San Diego to find, as he wrote Johnson, his opponent’s face staring down at him from “hundreds” of billboards. He had no billboards, and, he found to his dismay, “no organization.”

  Thousands of copies of a hard-hitting pamphlet selling the “Roosevelt-Wallace-Izac” ticket had been printed in an attractive red-white-and-blue color scheme, but there was no money to mail them to voters, and, without an organization, no other way to distribute them; most canvassers who would distribute them door to door wanted to be paid for their work, and even volunteers required reimbursement for lunch money, carfare, gasoline and other expenses. And then the telegram arrived from his colleague from Texas, the telegram and then a check for $500. With it he could pay the necessary expense money to get the pamphlets distributed. And hardly had the workers fanned out from headquarters to, as he put it, “carry the Roosevelt-Wallace-Izac story from door to door” when another letter arrived—with another $500.

  Others got the news at home. Nan Wood Honeyman had been campaigning in Portland for months, but was making no headway—largely, she felt, because Sam Rayburn had not been able to deliver on the commitment she believed he had made to her at the Democratic Convention in July. Receiving Johnson’s questionnaire, she had responded with a telephone call on October 17, and John Connally’s “memo for LBJ” summarizing the call (Connally may have been taking shorthand notes on an extension) began:

  In your conversation of yesterday with Nan Wood Honeyman she pointed out the following things which would be helpful to her.

  1. Finances …

  Mrs. Honeyman had asked that contribution be sent to her at her house, and the next day there arrived at 1728 S.W. Prospect Drive the telegram (AS RESULT MY VISIT TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE … YOU SHOULD RECEIVE …). The first letter from the committee contained the pre-Johnson contribution: $150. She thought that was the airmail special-delivery letter to which Johnson had been referring. She was appreciative, but $150 wasn’t going to help much. Her opponent was on the way home, she wrote, and “has sent word to raise an extra $1,500 for him right away in spite of the fact that his literature covers the city, he has been on the radio from Washington once or twice a week for some time and his face and ‘One good term deserves another’ on huge billboards meets me at every turn.” Then, on October 19, the Johnson contribution—$500—arrived. RECEIVED 5 POINT PROGRAM TODAY, she wired back in jubilation.

  And they were very grateful. “The text of your thoughtful and kind telegram had been read to me over Long Distance telephone, so that on my return from a thorough tour of four counties of my district, I today found two Air Mail letters,” Martin Smith wrote Johnson. “I appreciate your personal efforts in my behalf.” McLaughlin said simply: “I am glad you are where you are.” When the first $500 arrived from Johnson, Izac had dashed off a letter: “Thanks a million.” And before that letter could even be dropped in the mail, he had to add: “P.S. Your airmail letter of the 19th [the letter which contained another $500] just arrived. Again many thanks.” “Dear Lyndon,” Nan Honeyman wrote, “I have been on the verge of calling you all day instead of writing because it is such fun to hear you. … The second contribution from the National Committee arrived on the heels of the first one and the raise of the ante was grand and I know my gratitude belongs to you.”

  They were to become more grateful. For Lyndon had only begun raising money.

  Some he obtained through personal acquaintance. Tom Corcoran, in New York raising money for Roosevelt, arranged for some cash contributions from garment-center unions, which he brought to Washington himself and gave to Johnson (as Corcoran was to relate). Another union with political money to spend was the United Mine Workers. John L. Lewis might be for Willkie, but did the UMW really want a Republican Congress? UMW chief counsel Welly Hopkins recalls that “He hadn’t been in place [with the Congressional Campaign Committee] more than twenty-four hours when he called me and said he wanted to see what the mine workers could do toward helping the campaign.” Hopkins presented Johnson’s case to the union’s secretary-treasurer, Tom Kennedy; Johnson went to see Kennedy, and, Hopkins says, “I think he went away satisfied as far as the responses that the mine workers made.” Money from New York came not only from Seventh Avenue but from Wall Street, $7,500 arriving from the investment banker brothers Paul and Cornelius Shields through the offices of the wealthy New Yorkers he had met through Ed Weisl. Some he obtained because of his ability to arouse paternal fondness in older, powerful, wealthy men. Charles Marsh did not even have to be asked; no sooner had he learned of Johnson’s assignment to save Congress for the Democrats than, busy though he was working on the Wallace campaign, he volunteered at once the two commodities with which he was so free: advice and money. Recalls Alice Glass’ sister, Mary Louise, Marsh’s private secretary: “Charles said to him, ‘Boy, you’ve got to get some money. You can’t do that on goodwill.’” Contacting four business associates in Texas, Marsh arranged that each would give him $1,000 per week until the campaign ended, and that he would add to their contributions $1,000 per week of his own, and forward each week a total of $5,000 to Johnson; “I had to keep track of who paid,” she says. (Allowing Marsh to know that other men were similarly helping his “protégé” might have dulled the edge of his enthusiasm for the task, so this information was not giv
en to him.) So fast did the money come in that Johnson was able to broaden his assistance. Martin Smith had been so thrilled to receive the Congressional Committee’s checks for $200 and $500. Before the week was out, he would receive a second $500 check. A filled-in questionnaire and letter requesting financial help arrived from Representative William H. Sutphin of New Jersey on October 17. Johnson dictated a reply saying, “I am going to make an especial effort to find some way to get you some financial assistance,” but before he had had a chance to sign and mail the letter, the influx of funds had enabled him to be more specific. On the bottom, he added a postscript: “Today I’m asking a Texas friend of mine to give me $500.00 for you. If he does I’ll take it to the Cong. Committee and ask them to rush it to you tonight.” Actually, Johnson had either the money or the assurance of it in hand when he wrote that, and the $500 was sent that night.

  He had so much money, in fact, that he was not only meeting requests for funds, but soliciting more requests—asking Congressmen to ask for money. On the bottom of Lyndon Johnson’s letter accompanying the $300 check for McLaughlin of Nebraska was a scrawled postscript: “If you badly need more funds, let me know and I’ll try some more.” To one Congressman who hadn’t asked for funds, James M. Barnes of Illinois, he wrote: “Do you have desperate need for money, Jim? If so, wire or write me air mail how much and I’ll try to get some and send through congressional committee for you.”

  JOHNSON WAS APPARENTLY anticipating a large contribution from the Democratic National Committee. He had asked its secretary, Paul Aiken, for $25,000, and seems to have felt he had received a commitment for at least a substantial portion of that amount, but when the check from New York arrived, it was for only $5,000, and after Johnson had taken that over to the National Press Building on October 21, he was out of funds. But although Sam Rayburn had not been easily convinced of the efficacy of Lyndon Johnson’s fund-raising methods, his doubts must have been ended by the success of his first telephone calls to Dallas. Now the Speaker was going to Dallas in person.