The Path to Power
Page 126
24. Balancing the Books
SOURCES
Interviews:
George R. Brown, Howard R Bunger, Edward A. Clark, Thomas G. Corcoran, D. B. Hardeman, Herman Jones, Frank C. Oltorf, Emmett Shelton, Harold Young.
NOTES
“Whole world”: Corcoran.
Johnson’s relationship with Herman Brown: George Brown, Clark, Oltorf. A hater: Herman’s dislike of Roosevelt, at a time when he was asking for contracts from the New Deal, was common knowledge in Austin. When he heard about Herman’s proposal to enlarge the Marshall Ford Dam, AA editor Charles Green said: “Don’t you think we’ve got enough dams already? Herman Brown and McKenzie [another contractor] spend all their time cussing Roosevelt. Why, if it wasn’t for Roosevelt where would we all be?” [Lee to Johnson, Nov. 30, 1937, “#3 Marshall Ford Dam,” Box 167, JHP]. Also Young, Hardeman. “Watch out”: Oltorf.
Housing Authority dispute: Harold Young interview; confirmed by Clark, Brown’s attorney on housing matters, and attorney Sim Gideon.
Lid was off: Bunger. Working closely: See, for example, Herman Brown to Johnson, Aug. 3, 1937, Jan. 15, 1938; Johnson to Herman Brown, Aug. 9, 1937, Jan. 7, 1938 (with enclosures), Jan. 30, March 10, 1938; White to Duke, Oct. 18, 1937; McKenzie to Johnson, Jan. 24, 1938; Johnson to George Brown, Dec. 2, 1937, Jan. 30, March 10, 1938; George Brown to Johnson, Nov. 29, 1937, Jan. 17, 1938—all from Boxes 12, 13, LBJA SN. “It is needless”: Johnson to Herman Brown, April 18, 1939, Box 13, LBJA SN. “Finally got together”: George Brown to Johnson, May 27, 1939, Box 12, LBJA SN. CONFIDENTIAL: Johnson to George Brown, Aug. 11, 1939, Box 12, LBJA SN. “You get”: George Brown. “Full weight”: Clark.
25. Longlea
SOURCES
The story of Lyndon Johnson’s relationship with Alice Glass and Charles Marsh was told to the author by Alice’s sister, Mary Louise Glass Young; by Alice’s best friend, Alice Hopkins; and by two of Alice’s confidants and friends, Frank C. Oltorf and Harold H. Young (who later married her sister). Additional details were furnished by Alice’s daughter, Diana Marsh, and by Welly Hopkins. Another source for information on the relationship asked not to be quoted by name. Alice and Welly Hopkins were kind enough, because Longlea has been closed to the public by its new owners, to take the author to it over a back road and to show him around the estate, pointing out where various scenes had occurred.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library: Section I, Plate 1, 2 (top), 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14 (top); Section II, 1, 2, (top), 3, 4, 6 (top), 7 (top), 8, 9, 10 (bottom), 14, 15; Section III, 1, 3, 5 (bottom), 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16
Campaign material from the LBJ Library, photographs by Zigy Kaluzny: II, 12–13; MI, 13 (center)
LBJ National Historic Park, Johnson City: Section I, 5
Barker Texas History Center: II, 6 (bottom); III, 5 (top)
Austin–Travis County Collection, Austin Public Library: II, 7 (bottom) C00472); III, 8 (C01657)
Texas State Library Archives: III, 12 (middle, bottom)
Southwest Texas State University: I, 12, 14 (bottom left)
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, photo by Maurice Constant: III, 4 (bottom)
Life magazine: III, 4 (top), Myron Davis (1942), © 1968 Time Inc.; III, 12 (top), Francis Miller, © 1941 Time Inc.
Washington Post: III, 6 (bottom)
Photo by Arnold Genthe, courtesy Mr. and Mrs. Welly Hopkins: III, 2 (bottom left)
Photos courtesy Mary Louise Young: III, 2 (top and bottom right)
Photo courtesy Senator Lloyd Bentsen: II, 5
Photo by Chalmers Marving, courtesy Frank Oltorf: II, 11
Photo by Hessler Studio, courtesy Dale Miller: II, 2 (bottom)
Photos courtesy Wilton Woods: I, 16
Robert A. Caro was graduated from Princeton University, was for six years an award-winning investigative reporter for Newsday, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
To create The Power Broker, Caro spent seven years tracing and talking with hundreds of men and women who worked with, for, or against Robert Moses, and examining mountains of files never before opened to the public. The Power Broker won both the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that “exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist.” It was chosen by Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest nonfiction books of the twentieth century.
To research The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Mr. 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 machines. 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 Johnson work, The Path to Power, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for the best nonfiction work of 1982. The second volume, Means of Ascent, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for 1990. In preparation for writing Master of the Senate, the third volume, Caro immersed himself in the world of the United States Senate, spending week after week in the gallery, in committee rooms, in the Senate Office Building, and interviewing hundreds of people, from pages and cloakroom clerks to senators and administrative aides. Master of the Senate won the 2002 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
Among the numerous other awards Mr. Caro has won are the H. L. Mencken Award, the Carr P. Collins Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
His website is www.robertcaro.com.
VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, MARCH 1990
Copyright © 1981, 1982 by Robert A. Caro, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.
Portions of this book have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Caro, Robert A.
The years of Lyndon Johnson.
Bibliography: v. 1, p.
Includes index.
Contents: v. 1. The path to power.
1. Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908–1973.
2. Presidents—United States—Bibliography.
3. United States—Politics and government—1945—
I. Title.
E847.C34 1984 973.923.092′4[B] 89-40608
eISBN: 978-0-307-42257-6
v3.0