Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

by Robert A. Caro

  Russell Long had one of those seats, and he liked Armed Services, but Johnson knew that for a senator from Louisiana, rich in oilmen anxious for government tax breaks, Finance was a better committee. And there was an open Democratic spot there. Long had not bothered to apply for it, since he had so little seniority, but Johnson told him he could have it—if he gave up Armed Services. And Johnson may have pointed out to Long—at least Johnson aides believe he did—an extremely pragmatic consideration. Although Long was only thirty-four years old, on Armed Services there were three other young senators ahead of him, and even Chairman Russell was only fifty-five. On Finance, whose chairman, Byrd, was sixty-six, there was no other Democratic senator younger than forty-nine; Long would be the committee’s youngest member by a full fifteen years; given the reality of the human life span, he could expect to be chairman one day of the crucial tax-law-writing body. Long moved to Finance; the open seat thus created on Armed Services was filled by the senator best qualified to fill it.

  Some of the arguments with which Johnson sold were very pragmatic. If Foreign Relations would be one focal point of the Republican attack, the other was just as easy to predict—and was also vulnerable. Government Operations had always been regarded as a minor committee, but now its chairman was going to be Joe McCarthy. With a chairman’s authority—and staff—McCarthy was going to make life very difficult for the Democrats. Only one Democratic seat on Government Operations—John McClellan’s—was filled by a senator tough enough to stand up to the Wisconsin demagogue. Two seats were empty, but on a list of requested committee assignments on his desk in 231’s inner office Johnson had scrawled: “McCarran requests Govt. Operations.” Pat McCarran wanted one of the seats not to oppose McCarthy, but because, a rabid Communist witch-hunter himself, he wanted to be part of McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade. McCarran had a full twenty years of Senate seniority to back up his claim, and, as Alben Barkley had learned to his sorrow, it was unwise for a Democratic Leader to cross Judiciary’s coldly ruthless chairman.

  Back in Nevada, however, McCarran’s problems—political and legal, both—were growing more serious. After years of dominating the state’s Democratic politics, the Silver Fox had in 1952 backed one of his law partners for the party’s nomination for the other Senate seat—only to see him lose the primary, in a stunning upset, to a crusading young lawyer. Although the lawyer had himself been defeated in November by the Republican incumbent, George (Molly) Malone, the young upstart was hinting that in 1956 he was going to run against McCarran himself. And in that troubling lawsuit alleging ties between McCarran and shady Las Vegas casino interests, pre-trial depositions were not going well; the Senator had already been forced to admit that he had interceded with the Internal Revenue Service in a tax case involving a casino. The appointment of a “friendly” United States Attorney was more urgent than ever.

  But Truman’s resistance to signing the necessary appointment form was as strong as ever; in November, Johnson, keeping his promise to McCarran, had raised the issue with the President, but on January 1, 1953, the Washington Post reported that the Senator’s nominee “is not going to get” the appointment as long as Truman was in office. His replacement by the Republican Eisenhower on January 20 would, of course, make the appointment even less likely. In November, Johnson’s request to Truman had been on behalf of a single vote for Leader; when, going to the White House on January 13, Johnson again asked Truman to sign the appointment form, the stakes were high not just for him but for the Democratic Party. “All right,” the President finally said. “I’ll give this to you, Lyndon. But if that old so-and-so doesn’t produce, you bring it back to me.” Signing the form later that day, Truman had a White House courier deliver it not to McCarran as was customary, but directly to 231, and on it the President attached a note to Johnson marked “Personal and Confidential”: “As you know, I am doing this under protest. It is your ‘baby’ from now on.” Johnson carried the appointment form up to McCarran’s big office on the fourth floor, and when he returned to his own office, Johnson drew a line through “McCarran requests Govt. Operations.” A seat that under the seniority system would have gone to McCarran stayed vacant; two were still empty on Government Operations. Johnson managed to empty a third, which had been held by the mild-mannered Mike Monroney. What good was a Monroney against Joe McCarthy? Johnson moved Monroney into a vacancy on the more prestigious Commerce Committee. He wanted the three seats filled by senators who possessed certain qualifications: as Evans and Novak were to put it, “None of them wrapped in the orthodox liberal mantle, and none of whom would have to run for re-election for six years” (a qualification that would presumably encourage them to stand up to McCarthy). When he filled the seats with Symington, Scoop Jackson, and John F. Kennedy, he felt he had the kind of freshmen on the committee that he wanted, although Kennedy’s position on McCarthy would prove to be equivocal.

  Some of the arguments with which Johnson sold were idealistic, personal. To McClellan, who was already in fact not only twowheres but threewheres, since he was not only ranking minority member of Government Operations but a member of both Appropriations and Public Works, to McClellan who was so intimidating to most senators but whose farmer father had named John’s brothers after Democrats who had fought for farmers, Johnson said that McClellan had to help protect the New Deal programs that had helped the farmer, that McClellan had to keep the Democrats in the Senate strong—and that he, Johnson, had to find a good seat for Albert Gore, the newly elected senator from Tennessee, and that he wanted to put Gore on Public Works, since that appointment would strengthen his position in his state because of what a member of that committee could do to protect TVA. And Johnson said that McClellan’s Government Operations seat might well be the key Democratic post in the whole Senate, because the ranking member would be the Democratic point man against McCarthy—that job would be a full-time job in itself, Johnson said. Johnson didn’t actually suggest that McClellan resign from Public Works so that Gore could take his place; McClellan, after listening to Johnson, made the suggestion himself. There would be six Democratic freshmen senators in the new Congress; McClellan’s resignation had allowed Johnson to find desirable committee assignments for five of them. When he put the sixth, Price Daniel, on Interior, every freshman had a place on a major committee.

  It was not only freshmen he was helping, it was liberals—at least some liberals: neither Paul Douglas nor Estes Kefauver, both of whom had voted for Murray for Leader, received a committee assignment he requested. As he moved senators around the chessboard, more and more spaces opened—and he made the most of them. In previous years, the southerners had consigned Lehman to Interior as a punishment for his liberalism; now Johnson found a space for the New Yorker on the committee he wanted: Banking. Onto Interior moved a senator for whom Interior was not a punishment but a reward: Clements—Clements who had of course surrendered Public Works for Agriculture.

  And it was not only liberals. Somehow, as Lyndon Johnson shifted senators around, desirable spaces were found for southerners Olin Johnston and George Smathers; little bulls who were now, suddenly, well along the road to becoming Big Bulls.

  ANY MOVE HE WANTED to make would have to be approved by the party elders who dominated the Democratic Steering Committee, of course, so every move had to be sold to men to whom seniority had always been sacred. Any move, furthermore, had to be approved by the former—and, it was hoped, future—chairmen of the Standing Committees involved, and sometimes dealing with the chairmen was harder than dealing with the senators he was moving around. Hour after hour, behind the closed door of 231, Lyndon Johnson was on the telephone with Harry Byrd and Carl Hayden and Ed Johnson, as well as with the senator who, in the past, “you had to see” about committee assignments.

  Sometimes, through the office wall, Walter Jenkins or Mary Rather would hear Lyndon Johnson’s voice in a different tone, a tone he used when he was talking not to someone else but to himself. They knew what the “Chief” was
doing then. They had heard him doing it in the automobiles in which he had been driven around Texas during his campaigns. As his chauffeur on some of those trips puts it, “It was like he was having discussions with himself about what strategy had worked or hadn’t worked,” when he had tried to persuade someone, “and what strategy he should use the next time.” And not just discussions. Behind that closed office door, Lyndon Johnson would be playing out a conversation: what he would say; what the other senator would say in response; what he should then say—“He would be in there rehearsing, doing it over and over, trying to get it right,” Walter Jenkins recalls. And then, after a while, the left-hand button on Jenkins’ telephone would light up—the Chief would be making the call he had rehearsed. And sometimes the rehearsing wasn’t for a call, for a call wouldn’t be enough. Sometimes, when the rehearsing stopped, Jenkins and Rather would hear the door to Lyndon Johnson’s private office open and close. Bursting out of his room, he would run up the nearby stairs, or lope down the corridor with those long, fast strides until he got near the office for which he was heading. Then, abruptly, he would slow, perhaps even stop for a moment, gather himself together, get himself into a relaxed posture, and, easygoing, respectful, deferential, calm, polite, ask a Bill Darden or a Colonel Carlton if the Senator was in, and could he possibly spare a minute?

  With some of the older senators—particularly Walter George and McClellan—Johnson played on their paternal feelings toward him, telling them that he wanted to be a good Leader, but it was sure a big job, he was worried about whether he would be able to handle it, he needed help, and part of the help he needed was to have Stu Symington on Armed Services. Most of all, he said, he needed to be able to give desirable seats to those damned northern crazies, so that they wouldn’t always be tearing at his flanks as they had torn at, and destroyed, ol’ Scott and ol’ Bob McFarland.

  Over the telephone and in the offices, he used his memo and his “twowheres” story. He appealed to his Democrats on grounds of party. Taft was moving, he would say; he had ascertained that that rumor was true. Taft was going to Foreign Relations. You know what that means, he would say. He’s going to bring up Yalta. “Bob Taft is loading up the committee. They’re going to try to tear down everything that Roosevelt and Truman did, everything the Democratic Party has stood for for twenty years.” We’ve got to put our best young fellows on there, he said. We’ve got to put Humphrey and Mansfield on. And Government Operations, he said. “McCarthy’s going to go wild there if we let him. All we’re gonna be hearing for the next two years is ‘The Party of Treason, The Party of Treason.’” McClellan and Humphrey and Clyde Hoey had been talking about leaving Government Operations; who wanted to be a minority member on a McCarthy committee? Well, he told McClellan and Humphrey and Hoey, you can’t leave Government Operations. We need you on there. We need real fighters on there; we need guys that McCarthy can’t intimidate. And, he said to those senators—and to the Big Bulls—wouldn’t you feel better with Stu and Scoop on that committee? McCarthy won’t be able to make Stu or Scoop back down.

  He appealed to them on grounds of policy. The Republicans had been aching for years to dismantle rural electrification, he told senators who had spent their lives fighting for the farmer. They all knew that. Now, with a Republican President and a Republican Congress, would be the Republicans’ chance to do it, to turn TVA over to private interests, to give the goddamned private utilities more of the power generated by the great dams of the West. Those proposals would have to move through either Public Works or Interior. Those committees must be shored up; vacancies on them should be filled with Democrats who not only believe in public power but who know how to fight for public power. We can’t think only of seniority now, he said; we can’t afford to. He appealed to them on pragmatic grounds. The major committees would still be solid, three or four deep, with southerners, he reminded them repeatedly. He appealed to them on whatever grounds would work—watching their eyes, watching their hands, listening to what they said, listening to what they didn’t say, “the greatest salesman one on one who ever lived”—trying to make a very big sale.

  And then, on January 12, the new Democratic Leader convened a meeting of the Democratic Steering Committee, and almost the first assignment he suggested was of Symington to Armed Services, and some of the committee members looked out of the corners of their eyes at Russell, and Russell gravely nodded in approval. “Now I’m going to hit you with cold water,” Lyndon Johnson said. “Mike Mansfield for Foreign Relations.” The pause then was long, for Walter George loved to hold the center of the stage, but when George finally spoke he said only one word, “Excellent.” Everyone nodded, and then Lyndon Johnson reeled off the rest of his lists, and everything went very fast. Of all the archaic rules and customs and precedents that had made the Senate of the United States an obstacle to progress, the seniority system had been the strongest. For decades men had been saying that no one would ever be able to change the seniority system. Lyndon Johnson had changed it in two weeks.

  WHEN, shortly after the Steering Committee had adjourned, George Reedy dropped on the long wooden table in the Senate Press Gallery copies of a press release announcing the new committee assignments, veteran journalists quickly grasped the significance of Johnson’s achievement. “I still remember how all of us in the Press Gallery that day felt it was a real change,” John Goldsmith of the UPI was to recall forty years later. “We said, ‘Gosh, a lot of good people are going to go on good committees right away.’ If that had ever happened before, none of us remembered it.”

  Their articles, and the columns that followed during the next few days, reflected a sense almost of wonder over the fact that the brand-new Democratic Leader had, as Time put it, “dared to violate the traditions of seniority.” “A remarkable feat,” Doris Fleeson wrote. The Washington Post gave the feat a headline—“FRESHMAN DEMOCRATS RECEIVE MAJOR COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS”—and several journalists gave it a name, saying that the “seniority rule” had been replaced by the “Johnson Rule.” Johnson has “rather miraculously persuaded fellow Southerners with seniority to step aside in favor of liberals and newcomers,” the Alsops declared. Writing about the new appointments to Foreign Relations, journalists could barely contain themselves. “Extraordinary action … a break with tradition,” William White wrote in the New York Times about the assignment of “an out-and-out ‘freshman,’ Mr. Mansfield,” explaining that now when Taft began to make his charges about Yalta and the sellout of Eastern Europe, facing him across the committee table, serious and intent, ready to respond, knowledgeably and eloquently, would be Humphrey and Mansfield, “two of the most advanced internationalists in Congress. To make” such moves “possible, it was necessary in some cases for Southern members with greater priority” to give up their claims, White wrote. “One of the principal citadels stormed in this movement was the Finance Committee,” to whose aging Democrats had been added youthful, energetic Russell Long.

  Journalists explained to their readers how Johnson had dramatically strengthened his party as a whole by giving “to the liberal wing a degree of representation that it had not known in many years.” Barely two weeks before, Marquis Childs pointed out, congressional Democrats had been in disarray, the gap between northerners and southerners seemingly more unbridgeable than ever, not least because of the selection of the southerner Lyndon Johnson as Leader, a selection which, as Childs put it, “was greeted with solemn foreboding … by Northern Democrats,” who felt that they would be left more than ever “to shift for themselves.” Now, he wrote, “almost the exact opposite has happened,” because of Johnson’s “shrewd and skillful leadership.” For the first time in years, Senate Democrats showed signs of becoming a unified party.

  And liberals had particular reason to rejoice over that fact, Childs said.

  Realists for the Democrats knew they must build an alternative [to Eisenhower Republicanism]. They know … how hard is the job ahead with a party suffering from attrition and decay at
the end of a long tenure of office…. But the Democrats in the Senate feel that at least they have taken the first step.

  Time’s McConaughy told his editors in New York that “In barely two weeks Lyndon Johnson has emerged as a crack minority leader…. In fact, he may turn out to be the best Democratic leader in recent Senate history.”

  Lyndon Johnson’s ascension to the leadership had suddenly brought his narrow personal interests into conjunction with the larger—the largest—interests of the Democrats. His first major moves as Leader had done a lot for his party.

  AND HE had done a lot for himself.

  By giving the liberals desirable committee seats, he had not only made them feel more a part of the party, he had also made them less likely to attack its Leader. And the newcomers like Mansfield and Symington and Jackson who had been expecting to waste years on minor committees had instead been put at once on major committees—and they knew who had put them there. “Dear Lyndon,” wrote Jim Rowe, Mansfield’s longtime intimate. “Re: Foreign Relations Committee—I don’t know how you did it, but I know who did it. And so does Mike.” They would, within the limits of politics, be grateful. And if the coin of political gratitude is a currency subject to rapid devaluation, the political fear that is the coin’s obverse has more stability. Its value might even increase as the implications of what had been done sank in: men who knew who had given, would know also who could refuse to give. Barkley and Lucas and McFarland, like the Leaders before them, had had little to give, and therefore little to refuse. That was not the case with the new Leader. Lyndon Johnson had something to promise them now, and something to threaten them with. “We’ve got a real leader,” Bobby Baker told his friends. “He knows what makes the mule plow.”

  And Lyndon Johnson had obtained more subtle means of threat and reward as well. Every senator was aware of his long-standing friendship with the new member of Appropriations. With “Maggie’s” appointment, as Bobby Baker was to say, Johnson all at once had “more control over the purse strings. Dissidents might not so easily attack Johnson if they knew a word from him might determine whether their pet projects would be funded.” All at once senators no longer had merely to consider “What will they do to me in Appropriations?” They had to consider “What will he do to me in Appropriations?”