The Path to Power

by Robert A. Caro

  Similarly, Lyndon Johnson gave a vivid and fascinating picture of his family and home life. Before they died, his sister Rebekah and his brother Sam Houston both told me that this picture was all but unrecognizable to them. But it is not necessary to accept their word. One can ask others who spent time in the Johnson home—not only daily visitors such as his parents’ friend Stella Gliddon and Lyndon’s cousin Ava, but three more disinterested witnesses: three women who worked or lived in that home as housekeepers. None of these three had ever been interviewed. Lyndon Johnson’s supposed relationship with his mother and father has served as the basis for extensive analysis. The true relationship is also fascinating, but it is not the one that has been analyzed.

  Because Lyndon Johnson’s contemporaries were alive, I could walk the same dusty streets that Lyndon Johnson walked as a boy, with the same people he had walked with. During his boyhood and teenage years in Johnson City, his playmates and schoolmates were his cousin Ava and Truman Fawcett and Milton Barnwell and Bob Edwards and Louise Casparis and Cynthia Crider and John Dollahite and Clayton Stribling. Many of these people—and a dozen more companions of Lyndon Johnson’s youth—are still there in Johnson City, and the rest live on nearby farms and ranches, or in Austin. Together, their stories, and the stories of their parents, who observed gangling young Lyndon through the eyes of adults, add up to a fascinating story—but one which has never been told.

  IN REVEALING Lyndon Johnson’s life after boyhood—his years as a congressional assistant, as the Texas State Director of the National Youth Administration and as a Congressman—interviews are only one basis of the portrait. A rich mine of materials exists in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. But although the information is there—in the Library’s collection of 34,000,000 documents which, encased in thousands of boxes, four stories high behind a glass wall, loom somewhat dauntingly over the researcher as he enters the building—this mine, too, has gone largely untapped. Because of this source, however, it is not necessary to speculate or generalize about how the young Congressman rose to national power and influence; one can trace precisely how he did it. In this tracing, too, the fact that when Johnson died, on January 22, 1973, his age was sixty-four, and that many of those who knew him were still alive, is significant. Upon first coming to Washington, he became part of a quite remarkable group of young men: Benjamin V. Cohen, Thomas G. Corcoran, Abe Fortas, James H. Rowe, Eliot Janeway and the lesser-known Arthur (Tex) Goldschmidt. These men—once the bright young New Dealers—gave me their time with varying degrees of generosity, but some of them were very generous indeed, and when the meaning of documents in the Library was not clear, they often made it clear. For these men watched Lyndon Johnson rise to power. Perceptive as they are, they understood what they were watching, and they can explain it.

  GEORGE RUFUS BROWN, of Brown & Root, Inc., had never previously talked at length to interviewers or historians, but finally agreed to talk with me, out of deep affection for his remarkable brother Herman—an affection which had led George to attempt in several ways, among them the building of the Herman Brown Memorial Library in Burnet, to perpetuate Herman’s name. After two years of refusing to respond to my letters and telephone calls, he decided that although Herman’s name might be engraved on buildings, in a few years no one would know who Herman Brown was unless he was portrayed in a book, and that he could not be portrayed because no one knew enough about him. I told him that I could not say that my portrait of his brother would be favorable, but that if he discussed Herman with me in depth, the portrait would at least be full. He told me stories which he said had never been told outside the Brown & Root circle, and told me still more at a subsequent interview, which also lasted an entire day. Taken together, these stories add very substantially indeed to knowledge of the relationship between Lyndon Johnson and Brown & Root, a relationship that has been until now largely a matter not only of speculation and gossip, but of incorrect speculation and gossip. Mr. Brown’s account has, moreover, been verified in every substantial detail by others; to cite one example, his account of the extraordinary story behind the construction of the Marshall Ford Dam, and of Lyndon Johnson’s role in it, was corroborated by Abe Fortas and Tommy Corcoran, who handled the Washington end of the matter, and by the Bureau of Reclamation official involved on the site, Howard P. Bunger.

  THE PERSONS who knew Lyndon Johnson most intimately during his years as a congressional secretary were the assistants who worked in the same room with him: Estelle Harbin, Luther E. (L. E.) Jones and Gene Latimer. (Jones and Latimer also lived in the same room with Johnson.) They had been interviewed before, but never in depth. For a while, Carroll Keach worked with him in the same office; later, Keach became his chauffeur. Still later, in 1939, Walter Jenkins became Johnson’s assistant. These persons gave generously of their time, although some of these interviews—particularly those with Latimer and Jenkins—were difficult for both sides, because of the emotional wounds which were reopened. I should mention here that John Connally, who became a secretary to Mr. Johnson in 1939, refused during the entire period of research on this book to respond to requests for an interview.

  LADY BIRD JOHNSON prepared carefully for our nine interviews, reading her diaries for the years involved, so that she could provide a month by month, detailed description of the Johnsons’ life. Some of these were lengthy interviews, particularly one in the living room of the Johnson Ranch that as I recall it lasted most of a day. These interviews were immensely valuable in providing a picture of Lyndon Johnson’s personal and social life, and of his associates, for Mrs. Johnson is an extremely acute observer, and has the gift of making her observations, no matter how quietly understated, quite clear. The interviews were less valuable in regard to her husband’s political life. In later years, Mrs. Johnson would become familiar with her husband’s work, indeed perhaps his most trusted confidante. This was not the case during the period covered by this first volume. (The change began in 1942—shortly after this volume’s conclusion—when Mrs. Johnson, with her husband away during the war, took over his congressional office, and proved, to her surprise as well as his, that she could run it with competence and skill.) During this earlier period, Mrs. Johnson was not familiar with much of the political maneuvering in which her husband was engaged, as she herself points out. Once, when I asked if she had been present at various political strategy sessions, she replied, “Well, I didn’t always want to be a part of everything, because I was never. … I elected to be out a lot. I wasn’t confident in that field. I didn’t want to be a party to absolutely everything.”

  Although from the first I made it clear to Mrs. Johnson that I would conduct my own independent research into anything I was told by anyone, for some time she very helpfully advised members of the semi-official “Johnson Circle” in Texas that she would have no objection if they talked with me. At a certain point, however—sometime after the interviews with Mrs. Johnson had been completed—that cooperation abruptly and totally ceased.

  ONE FURTHER NOTE of detailed explanation on a particular source may be of interest to some readers. When, in the Notes that follow, I refer to the “Werner File,” I refer to a collection of papers written by Elmer C. Werner, a Special Agent of the Internal Revenue Service, who in the years 1942, 1943 and 1944 was in effective day-by-day charge of the IRS investigation of Brown & Root, Inc.’s political financing, largely of Lyndon Johnson’s 1941 campaign for the United States Senate.

  These papers fall generally into three categories. The first is summaries of the investigation: a 14-page “Chronological History of the Investigation of the Case SI-19267-F and Related Companies” and a five-page report, “In re: Brown and Root, Inc. et al,” which Mr. Werner wrote for his superiors and which summarizes the conclusions reached by the team of IRS agents on the case. The second is his office desk calendar, for the year 1943, with brief notes jotted down by day to show his activities. The third is 94 pages of his handwritten, detailed, sometimes verb
atim transcriptions of the sworn testimony given by Brown & Root officials and others before IRS agents.

  The Werner File was given to the author by Mr. Werner’s daughter, Julia Gary.

  THE PAPERS dealing with the period covered in this volume are found in a number of collections at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. They are:

  House of Representatives Papers: The memoranda (both intra-office and with others), casework, speech drafts and texts, and other papers kept in the files of Johnson’s congressional office from 1937 through 1948, when he was Congressman from Texas. These papers also include records pertaining to his other activities during this period, records which were originally compiled by his staff in other offices, such as the records compiled in an office he temporarily rented in Washington’s Munsey Office Building when he was raising money for scores of Democratic Congressmen in 1940, and records kept in his Austin campaign headquarters during his first campaign for Congress in 1937 and his first campaign for Senate in 1941. These papers, of which there are 140 linear feet, contained in 349 boxes, are abbreviated in the notes as “JHP.”

  Lyndon Baines Johnson Archives: These files were created about 1958, and consist of material taken both from the House of Representatives Papers and from Johnson’s Senate Papers. It consists of material considered historically valuable or of correspondence with persons with whom he was closely associated, such as Sam Rayburn, Abe Fortas, James Rowe, George and Herman Brown, Edward Clark and Alvin Wirtz; or of correspondence with national figures of that era. These files, of which there are 34 linear feet in 61 boxes, are abbreviated as “LBJA” and are divided into four main categories:

  Selected Names (LBJA SN): Correspondence with close associates.

  Famous Names (LBJA FN): Correspondence with national figures.

  Congressional File (LBJA CF): Correspondence with fellow Congressmen and Senators.

  Subject File (LBJA SF): This contains a Biographic Information File, with material relating to Johnson’s year as a schoolteacher in Cotulla and Houston; to his work as a secretary to Congressman Richard M. Kleberg; to his activities with the Little Congress; and to his naval service during World War II.

  Pre-Presidential Confidential File: This contains material taken from other files because it dealt with potentially sensitive areas. It is abbreviated as PPCF.

  Family Correspondence (LBJ FC): Correspondence between the President and his mother and brother, Sam Houston Johnson.

  Personal Papers of Rebekah Baines Johnson (RBJ PP): This is material found in her garage after she died. It includes correspondence with her children (including Lyndon) and other members of her family, and material collected by her during her research into the genealogy of the Johnson family. It includes 27 boxes, as well as scrapbooks.

  Papers of the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRAP): 60 linear feet, contained in approximately 165 boxes (the material is currently being refiled), this material, invaluable in tracing the early political careers of both Lyndon Johnson and Alvin Wirtz, consists of the office files of the LCRA from 1935 through 1975, as well as material dealing with the authority’s two predecessor private companies, Emory Peck and Rockwood Development Company and Central Texas HydroElectric Company, which throws great light on Wirtz, and was associated with both of them.

  Personal Papers of Alvin Wirtz (AW PP): 25 boxes.

  White House Central File (WHCF): The only files in this category used to a substantial extent in this volume were the Subject Files labeled “President (Personal)” (WHCF PP). They contain material about the President or his family, mainly articles written after he became President about episodes in his early life.

  White House Famous Names File (WHFN): This includes correspondence with former Presidents and their families, including Johnson correspondence when he was a Congressman with Franklin D. Roosevelt.

  Record Group 48, Secretary of the Interior, Central Classified Files (RG 48): Microfilm from the National Archives containing documents relating to Lyndon Johnson found in the files of the Department of the Interior.

  Documents Concerning Lyndon B. Johnson from the Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, John M. Carmody, Harry L. Hopkins, and Aubrey Williams (FDR-LBJ MF): This microfilm reel was compiled at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park and consists of correspondence to and from Johnson found in various PPF and OF files at the Roosevelt Library. Whenever possible, the author has included the file number, by which the original documents can be located at the Roosevelt Library.

  Johnson House Scrapbooks (JHS): 21 scrapbooks of newspaper clippings compiled by members of his staff between 1935 and 1941.

  Each document from the LBJ Library is cited in the Notes by collection in the Library, by box number within that collection, and by the folder title within that box. If no folder title is included in the citation, the folder is either the name of the correspondent in the letter or, in the case of files kept alphabetically, the appropriate letter (a letter from Corcoran, for example, in the folder labeled C).

  Selected Bibliography

  A bibliography for this book would be another book in itself, and an exercise in pedantry to boot. The following list includes only those books specifically cited in the Notes, and I include it for one purpose alone: so that I can use abbreviations in the Notes.

  ADAMS, FRANK C: Texas Democracy: A Centennial History of Politics and Personalities of the Democratic Party, 1836–1936. Springfield, 111.: Democratic Historic Association; 1937.

  ALBERTSON, DEAN: Roosevelt’s Farmer: Claude R. Wickard in the New Deal. New York: Columbia University Press; 1961.

  ALEXANDER, HERBERT E.: Money in Politics. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press; 1972.

  ALLEN, FREDERICK LEWIS: Only Yesterday. New York: Harper; 1931.

  ALLEN, ROBERT SHARON, ED.: Our Sovereign State. New York: Vanguard Press; 1949.

  ALSOP, JOSEPH, AND TURNER CATLEDGE: The 168 Days. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday; 1937.

  ANDERSON, JACK, AND JAMES BOYD: Confessions of a Muckraker. New York: Random House; 1979.

  ANGEVINE, ERMA, ED.: People—Their Power: The Rural Electric Fact Book. Washington, D.C.: National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; 1980.

  BAKER, BOBBY, WITH LARRY L. KING: Wheeling and Dealing. New York: Norton; 1978.

  BAKER, GLADYS L., WAYNE D. RASMUSSEN, VIVIAN WISER, JANE M. PORTER: Century of Service: The First Hundred Years of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, GPO; 1967.

  BAKER, LEONARD: The Johnson Eclipse: A President’s Vice Presidency. New York: Macmillan; 1966.

  BANKS, JIMMY: Money, Marbles, and Chalk: The Wondrous World of Texas Politics. Austin: Texas Pub. Co.; 1972.

  BEARSS, EDWIN C: Historic Resource Study … Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Site, Blanco and Gillespie Counties, Texas. Denver: U.S. Dept. of Interior, National Park Service; 1971.

  BELL, JACK: The Johnson Treatment: How Lyndon B. Johnson Took Over the Presidency and Made It His Own. New York: Harper; 1965.

  BELLUSH, BERNARD: Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of New York. New York: Columbia University Press; 1955.

  BENDINER, ROBERT: White House Fever. New York: Harcourt, Brace; 1960.

  BILLINGTON, RAY ALLEN: Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier. New York: Macmillan; 1949.

  BLAIR, JOHN M.: The Control of Oil. New York: Pantheon; 1976.

  BROWN, D. CLAYTON: Electricity for Rural America: The Fight for REA. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood; 1980.

  BROWN, GEORGE ROTHWELL: The Speaker of the House: The Romantic Story of John N. Garner. New York: Brewer, Warren, and Putnam; 1932.

  BURNER, DAVID: Herbert Hoover: The Public Life. New York: Knopf; 1978.

  BURNS, JAMES MACGREGOR: Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox. New York: Harcourt Brace, and World; 1962.

  CHILDS, MARQUIS: The Farmer Takes a Hand: The Electric Power Revolution in Rural America. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday; 1952.

  COCKE,
WILLIAM A.: The Bailey Controversy in Texas. San Antonio: The Cocke Co.; 1908.

  CORMIER, FRANK: LBJ, The Way He Was. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday; 1977.

  CRAWFORD, ANN FEARS, AND JACK KEEVER: John P. Connolly: Portrait in Power. Austin: Jenkins; 1973.

  CROLY, HERBERT D.: Marcus Alonzo Hanna. New York: Macmillan; 1912.

  DANIELS, JONATHAN: The End of Innocence. Philadelphia: Lippincott; 1954.

  ——— Frontier on the Potomac. New York: Macmillan; 1946.