The possibility of the press focusing on the leadership fight would of course be increased if speculation arose about the attitude of the Democratic standard-bearer in the recent election, and in mid-November, Adlai Stevenson, speaking to several Democratic senators—not Johnson—from Chicago said he was planning a trip to Washington to discuss party policy in a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders.
Johnson did not want that. Who knew where a Stevenson visit to Washington might lead? It might revitalize the Senate liberals. It had to be headed off. Although Lady Bird Johnson was in the Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas, for a gynecological procedure, her husband did not leave Washington until the Stevenson visit was headed off—which was accomplished in a telephone conversation with Stevenson at 4:10 p.m. on November 20, with Mary Rather on an extension, without Stevenson’s knowledge, taking down every word.
“I was hoping to get a chance to see you some time and talk to you a little bit,” Stevenson said, and when Johnson said he would shortly be leaving for Texas, Stevenson asked if “you couldn’t stop off here on your way.” Or, he said, he would be in New Jersey on December 3 and in Washington on December 4. Perhaps they could meet there.
Johnson was very diplomatic. He gently let Stevenson know that the leaders had already met. He, Russell, Clements, and Kerr “all had a very fine discussion the other night,” he said. They were all “very much in agreement.” And, he said, one thing they had agreed on was that there should not be any public meeting “until after we get this Senate organization behind us, because some of the speculators might attempt to inject you into it and we know that would be an embarrassing thing…. They would be saying that you were injecting yourself into it.” “We kinda concluded that probably we would get that behind us on January 2.” After it was behind them, he said, we “would try to work out a meeting….”
When Stevenson responded that he had thought the matter of the leadership had been settled (“I was under the impression … that there wasn’t any question but what the Democrats would elect you”), a warning, still diplomatic but slightly firmer, was delivered. “There is not any [question],” Johnson said. But, he said, “there are some pretty strong feelings on the other side.” And “up until the time they actually make the decision, you know, you are taking a little chance in having conferences. The first thing the press says is that the Governor is telling the Senate what to do. Or that I was asking the Governor to get these boys in line.”
Stevenson seemed to take the point. “That is that,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is to get in any way entangled with the selection …” and Johnson then assured him, “You are the head of the Democratic Party. You must remain so. You are our leader. You are the most popular one we have had. You made a great campaign….” But, it turned out, Stevenson had not yet grasped Johnson’s feeling that there should be no meeting at all, not even on general party policy, before the leadership election. “I would like to talk to you off the record in Springfield rather than Washington,” he said. “They always know in Washington.” Johnson replied that “I’m afraid that if I go to Springfield they will [know] too. I am afraid the construction will be placed on it that I am seeking Governor Stevenson’s intervention. I think that would be bad. The denial would never catch up with the original stories. I think if we do it early in the year that would be better.” And when Stevenson persisted—“I don’t want to cause any commotion, but if I could talk to you a bit. And I think I would like to talk to Dick Russell”—the warning became firmer still. “I know he [Russell] feels very much that we should talk and he would be very glad to participate, I feel sure. I feel sure, too, that we oughtn’t to endanger a possible division in the Senate and get you involved.” Finally, after several other exchanges, Stevenson acceded. “Maybe it would be better if we didn’t try to have any further talks for the present,” he said.
THE NEUTRALIZATION OF STEVENSON quashed the liberals’ last hope of blocking Johnson. Even some of the senators who had met at Pearson’s home had not agreed to vote for Murray. The liberals were not giving up, however, as was revealed by their spokesman, Humphrey, when, on December 15, 1952, he appeared on a radio show, Reporters’ Roundup, and was asked if he was supporting Johnson for Leader. Humphrey said he was not, “although I do have a great respect for Lyndon Johnson as a person.” “For the good of the Democratic Party,” he said, “it would be better to have someone that wasn’t so clearly identified with a sectional group.” Pressed on the point, he said he believed that “if the Democratic Party … intends to be the great national liberal party … it must emphasize the broad national program on a liberal basis.”
But Johnson did not want any vote at the caucus at all. A vote was a fight, and a fight not only meant newspaper stories, in which he would be labeled the southern candidate, but also an increase in tensions that would later make unity harder to achieve. And of course it meant there would not be unanimity, the unanimity that was psychologically so important to him that “anything less than one hundred percent was a great blow.”
So he made more calls. What Lyndon Johnson said during these calls we don’t know. Was he appealing to these men on personal grounds—playing on their affection for him or on their admiration for his abilities? Was his approach more pragmatic: was he delicately or forthrightly reminding them—with the help of Jenkins’ files—of favors he had done them in the past, hinting—or speaking bluntly—about favors he could do for them in the future? We don’t know. We only know that some of the calls were to senators and senators-elect—men like Tom Hennings and Stu Symington and Scoop Jackson—who in the past would have been firmly in the liberal column, on Lyndon Johnson’s lists with the numbers on the right side of their name, but who had been recipients, during their election campaigns, of financial assistance from Lyndon Johnson. And we know that on Lyndon Johnson’s lists, there were fewer and fewer numbers on the right side.
BUT JOHNSON didn’t want any numbers there at all.
The key to the unanimous vote he wanted was the liberal who was organizing the liberal forces, and who was giving no indication of quitting just because the fight was hopeless. “Hubert can’t win,” Johnson told Bobby Baker, “but I don’t want him gumming up the works for me. If he fights to the bitter end, then I won’t have a cut dog’s chance to be an effective Leader. The Republicans will eat our lunch and the sack it came in.”
Johnson sent Baker to “promise” Humphrey what Baker was to call “candy”—the candy that, from his reading of Humphrey, Johnson knew would be sweetest to his taste. “I know that Senator Johnson will be looking to you as the spokesman for the Senate liberals, and for the national constituency you’re building,” Baker told him. And, knowing also Humphrey’s desire to be a member of the Senate “club,” he offered him that candy, too. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought you into the leadership circle,” Baker said. And when that somewhat vague offer didn’t produce the desired effect, Johnson made a more direct one himself. Telephoning Humphrey at home, he asked for his support and, Humphrey relates, “When I said I had already made a commitment and couldn’t support him, he said he was sorry, in part because he was considering me for the minority whip job.”
Charmed and awed though he may have been by Johnson, eager though he was for his friendship, Humphrey would not abandon his fellow liberals. Despite this “exhilarating” offer, he tried to bargain with Johnson, telling him that the only way for him to obtain liberal support was to offer liberals additional seats on the Democratic Policy and Steering Committees. And the next day, he and fellow liberals Hunt of Wyoming, Lehman of New York, and Paul Douglas came to Johnson’s office “prepared to trade our support.”
But Humphrey was trying to bargain with a Lyndon Johnson who now, for the first time in their relationship, held all the cards. He had little patience with them. After letting them talk—“briefly,” to use Humphrey’s word—he told them he wasn’t going to bargain with them. “He wasn’t in the mood to make c
oncessions.” In fact, he said, the talking was over. “I’ve got the votes in the caucus, and I’m not going to talk to you.” And then, “politely but curtly,” he “dismissed us.” And then, as soon as Humphrey had returned to his own office from “that awful meeting,” Johnson telephoned him and told him to come back alone—and when he returned, Humphrey found himself in the presence of a different Lyndon Johnson from any he had seen before, not “quiet and gentle” but, in Humphrey’s euphemistic phrase, “in a take-charge, no-nonsense mood,” a Johnson whose tone was “stern” as he showed Humphrey that he had not yet fully absorbed the political lessons he had given him, and that he had still more lessons to learn.
“How many votes [for Murray] do you think you have?” Johnson asked, and when Humphrey replied, “Well, I think we have anywhere from thirteen to seventeen,” Johnson “stared at me for a quiet moment and said, ‘First of all, you ought to be sure of your count. That’s too much of a spread. But you don’t have them anyway. Who do you think you have?’”
Humphrey handed him a list of names, and Lyndon Johnson looked at it. “He isn’t going to vote for him,” he said. “He isn’t, and he isn’t. These fellows are going to vote for me.”
“I can’t believe that,” Humphrey said, saying that the senators Johnson named had already promised him or Douglas that they would vote for Murray.
“Well, you’ll find out,” Lyndon Johnson said. And then he said, “As a matter of fact, Senator Hunt, who was just in here with you, is going to vote for me.”
AT ABOUT TEN O’CLOCK in the morning on Friday, January 2, 1953, the forty-seven Democrats in the Senate of the United States began filing into Room 201 of the Senate Office Building, on whose door a painter had, the previous day, changed the gold lettering from “Majority Conference” to “Minority Conference.” Ernest McFarland called the caucus to order and said that the first order of business would be to elect his replacement as Leader, and Richard Russell rose to nominate Lyndon Johnson of Texas.
Russell’s notes indicate the points he wished to make about Johnson. “Courage,” the notes say. “Character. Ability. Experience. Tolerance. LJ is Democrat. Record of party loyalty in Congress. In elections tried by fire. FDR. Supported party programs not slavishly but because believed. High degree of courage. Tempered with judgment. Against rash decisions. Patience and tolerance. No secret differences. No peer as conciliator. Complete confidence in his ability both to serve the party to which we adhere and the country and people we seek to serve.” Mary Rather, who heard about the speech from Johnson, was later to call it “very wonderful.” The seconding speeches were given by Chavez of New Mexico, speaking for the West, and Green of Rhode Island, speaking for the East.
After Murray was nominated, McFarland called for the vote. Humphrey was to recall that “Senator Murray had his own vote and mine, plus three or four others,” and those, despite the list in Humphrey’s pocket and the promises he had received, were all he had. (He did not have Hunt’s.) “You’ll find out,” Johnson had warned Humphrey—and now Humphrey had found out. “I’ll never forget it,” he was to say. “He was just as right as day. They voted for Johnson.” He quickly moved that Johnson’s election be made unanimous without a formal vote, and it was.
Humphrey was to explain later that he had made that motion because “Number One, I didn’t want to have Murray embarrassed … by getting only a handful of votes from his colleagues…. For an old gentleman who had been there all those years, that didn’t look good at all.” But that was only Number One. Humphrey had learned a lot about Lyndon Johnson (although, as would in later years become apparent, not nearly enough). He had seen that Johnson was not a man to forgive and forget, to let bygones be bygones, to tolerate opposition. He had seen in Johnson a determination to make opponents pay for their opposition, and pay dearly. And that last, “stern,” interview—in that new, “take-charge,” tone—had reinforced that insight; he had seen a side of Lyndon Johnson he had not seen previously, and an element of fear, of intimidation, had been added to their relationship, as is revealed by the rest of Humphrey’s explanation for wanting to dispense with a formal vote: “Number Two, I knew that Johnson would keep book. I mean, when that roll call came he’d watch to see who each one of them was.” Whatever the explanation for Humphrey’s motion, however, it gave Johnson not merely unity but unanimity.
After the caucus, Johnson summoned Humphrey to 231, and told him to come alone: “Don’t come down here with any committees.”
When Humphrey came—alone—Johnson asked him: “Now, what do you liberals really want?” Humphrey was to recall that “The dialogue was brief and to the point. ‘The first thing we want is some representation on the Policy Committee.’
“‘All right, you’ll have it. Who did you want?’
“‘Well, I think it ought to be Jim Murray.’
“‘I don’t think he’s the right man, because he’s older and he won’t be effective, but if that’s who you want, that’ll be done. What else do you want?’
“I listed our other requests [formerly demands]” for liberal representation on a number of committees, Humphrey was to recall, and Johnson agreed to them. And then Johnson said, “Since you had enough sense not to drive it to a vote down there and made it unanimous, I am perfectly willing to deal with you.” But, the new Leader said, “I don’t want you bringing in a lot of these other fellows. When you’ve got something that your people want, you come see me. I’ll talk to you. I don’t want to talk to these other fellows. Now you go back and tell your liberal friends that you’re the one to talk to me and that if they’ll talk through you as their leader we can get some things done.”
What Johnson was offering Humphrey now was power—the first power Humphrey had had in the Senate. Those “other fellows” would be told that if they wanted something from their party’s Leader (and of course they would all, at one time or another, want something from the Leader), they would have to ask Humphrey to approach him on their behalf.
Humphrey understood the offer, and its significance for him. “I would be the bridge from Johnson to my liberal colleagues.” He would hold the power only at Johnson’s pleasure. “I had become his conduit and their spokesman not by their election, but by his appointment.” As long as he and Johnson got along—but only as long as he and Johnson got along—he would keep that power.
And he accepted the offer. He was to say in his autobiography that he accepted it in the interests of getting things done. “I knew clearly by then that I had no chance of influencing legislation in any major way without the help of the … Leader. With his influence, I might get the necessary votes for legislation I was interested in.” But, as time would make clear, he had accepted it also in his own interest. For whatever reason, the offer was accepted, and in accepting it, Humphrey was in effect pledging his allegiance to Lyndon Johnson.
The significance of this pledge for Johnson’s prospects as Leader can hardly be exaggerated. He had needed to unify his party, which meant bringing the liberals to his side. Now he had succeeded in bringing the liberals’ leader to his side, in binding him there quite firmly.
IN JANUARY, 1953, Lyndon Johnson was forty-four years old, and he was therefore not only the youngest senator in history to be elected either Majority or Minority Leader, but the youngest by quite a margin. Neither party had ever before elected a Leader who was in his forties; the average age of the seven previous Democratic Leaders at the time of their election was fifty-eight; the average age of the six Republicans who had been elected before 1953 was sixty-two.* In addition, Johnson had been elected Leader while still in his first term; in an institution in which seniority was considered so vital, only once previously had a first-term senator been elected Leader, and that was the first Leader, John Worth Kern (who had been elected at the age of sixty-three). When he had been young, Lyndon Johnson had come along his path so fast, and then, for seven years, he had stopped. Now he was coming fast again.
On the day they had been
sworn in, several members of the Class of ’48 had seemed far more likely than he to advance within the Senate. But Douglas and Humphrey had chosen the public route, becoming spokesmen for liberal causes, using the Senate floor as a national forum, as a pulpit for ringing speeches. Kefauver had chosen as his arena not the Senate floor but the television screen.
Lyndon Johnson had, in his defense preparedness work, sought national recognition as avidly as they, as avidly as any senator, but by a very different route: a route to publicity that was, up to the final moment of the press release or the leak about the press release, remarkably unpublic—the preparation, behind tightly closed doors, of subcommittee reports. And publicity had not in fact been a major factor in his advancement within the Senate. If the Douglases and Humphreys had chosen the outside route, he had chosen the inside route: the Senate route. And the key to his advancement had fit the pattern of his entire life: as he had done at San Marcos and in the House of Representatives, he had identified the one man who had the power that could best help him, had courted that man, had won his support, and through that support, had been given the opportunity to attain the position he sought. But if that was how he had been given the opportunity in the Senate, he had made the most of the opportunity, by following not the pattern of his previous life—the pushing, the grabbing—but rather the pattern of the Senate. The work that had been most significant in his Senate advancement had been quiet chats behind closed office doors; he had concentrated not on the podium but on the cloakroom and the Marble Room. It was in these private precincts of the Senate that he spent most of his time and energy.
Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson Page 78