The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (original 2012; edition 2012)

It’s not often I wish I could give a book more than 5 stars. This is a superbly written, nuanced account of 5 crucial years in the life of Lyndon Johnson and, indeed, in the life of the United States, with some of that time better known as the Kennedy years. Caro gives us political biography as political thriller – there were times when, as with Mantel’s Wolf Hall, although I knew what was going to happen, it felt as though I didn’t. And Caro is so very, very good at psychological analysis – I was going to say we get a warts and all portrayal, but Caro actually goes beyond even that to show Lyndon Johnson in all his human complexity. It is difficult to believe that a book about this so over-told period in American history, with so much detailed information on political manoeuvring, a 600+ page book on such a short period, could be so engrossing, so absorbing that when you look up from it, you have to reorientate yourself. I lived through the LBJ years and brought away the memory of an apparently overbearing bully and the relentless chants ‘hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today’ during Vietnam – now I am aware of a supremely astute and crafty political operator – a very complex personality, someone who could actually deliver on the rhetoric, a poor boy who finally got his dream and endeavoured to create a country which was genuinely for the people, all the people. The overbearing bully is there, and none of Johnson’s flaws are glossed over, but Caro, buttressed by years of painstaking and exhaustive research, shows us the man who was prepared to take on what he was told were lost causes, because, as he said ‘Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?’ And that is what this book is all about, as Caro says in the final paragraph of his introduction: ‘...the story of Lyndon Johnson during the opening, transition, weeks of his presidency is a triumphant story, one in which it is possible to glimpse the full possibilities of presidential power – of that power exercised by a master in the use of power – in a way that is visible at only a few times in American history.’ The Kennedy men had the Harvard brains, but not the political nous. This is a book everyone should read, and it is uncomfortable reading because it makes us confront hows how ideals can almost certainly only be realised by a readiness to wheel and deal, a willingness perhaps to let principles slide, the necessity of working within moral grey areas - it should be gift-wrapped and presented to every new leader of men wherever they may be. ( )

It has been twelve years since the last volume was released, and thirty since the first. The next should hopefully come out in two or three years, says an article. Let's hope.

This book covers the era from 1959 to 1964, the slim few years between Johnson's acceptance of the Vice Presidency to the beginning of 1964, just over a month after the events of 11/22. Power passes from him and to him in nearly equal spans. The Senate Giveth and Kennedy Taketh Away.



Johnson was a man accustomed to, and obsessed with, power. Caro himself remarks - quite accurately - that his books are not as much a biographical study as they are a calculation and study of power and its historical effects. The author handles such a momentous idea with skill, eloquence, and precision.

Moving from the Top of the Legislative Branch to the Bottom of the Executive was a period of lethargy and suffering. As the administration and the nation revelled in the youthful energy of Camelot, LBJ had no part in it, not even cabinet meetings. He pleaded and grovelled at the Kennedy's feet for a greater position - first with expansion of the Vice President's power, then even for a major committee position. But all that was left was ceremony and pomp, and the possibility of being a heartbeat away from the President. Johnson accepted for the possibility of proximity to power, but had none himself.

His only release was in late 1963, as he started to, independently, take on the work of Civil Rights. Johnson's character is quite complex - he is a mixture of social justice demigod and political demagogue. He truly sympathized with the downtrodden, and kissed the asses of the high and mighty to get them liberty.

Then came November. Those events I will not recount, as Caro and others do so well, with the fear and detail of a prolonged traumatic flashback.

LBJ was calculated, cool, and rational in the hours after the Kennedy assassination. He had a mere two hours to get adjusted to the fact that he as president, compared to two months as elected ones do. He felt a sense of guilt, of usurpation. He was a Texan and the murder was in Dallas. There are those who felt, and still feel compelled to blame him, as the idea of a lone madman killing an iconic president and ending a sustained national euphoria is an idea so alien to the human mind, that it, too, must be the speartip of a greater momentum of history.



Somehow, he preserved the legitimacy of his office long enough, and struck a balance between proper mourning and using his predecessor's memory as a call to arms. With a speech that starts, "All I would give to not be standing here today," he concludes with forceful calls to Civil Rights, the Space Program, and building his Great Society. War did not yet figure. A masterstroke.

Of course, all does not go well. The South, under the banner of States' Rights, dug its heels and prepared to fight. Johnson also had a minor exodus of Kennedy officials, such as Sorenson, Schlesinger, and Robert Kennedy himself, who had a major feud with LBJ for years. He will play a part in the final volume, no doubt.

LBJ knew what to do with power again. He set up his own image, distinct from the urbane and youthful Kennedy. Case in point? Taking the West German Chancellor to a Texan barbecue and giving him a ten-gallon hat, and giving speeches on haybales and on horseback. And the policy moved forward. Many of Kennedy's officials - McNamara, Rusk, the NASA staff - all stayed to continue the Kennedy plans with vigor and determination.

The final act looms.





The whole series reads excellently. One might make a cliched comparison to Greek Tragedy or Gibbon. Anyone remotely interested in politics should read them all, or those who want big stories of history. ( )

I have only just started this, and have not read any of the previous volumes in the series. I am not a politics junkie, and have little knowledge of the period, but it is a GRIPPING read. As has been mentioned in other reviews, Caro's style is initially irritating, long sentences which interrupt themselves, whose interruptions are themselves repeatedly interrupted. One feels a great volume of facts straining against the dam of the narrative. This quickly falls away asthe narrative takes hold. For readers coming new to the story what is doubtless a recap for readers of the series is enough to anchor events and wet the appetite for the rest of the series. It is to be hoped that the book will reach a wider audience than those interested in American politics of the early 1960s, as this is not only a fascinating insight into politics - real, naked, politics played out at a personal as well as national level - but an extraordinary dram: a man so crippled by fear of repeating his father's humiliating failure that he cannot bring himself to stand for election to the office for which he has worked all his life, and thus brings about the defeat he so feared. A man who, recognizing his unelectability, coldly assesses the chances of becoming president not by election, but by fate, decides the odds are in his favour, takes the gamble and wins. A man who was hated by so many he had to work with when he accepted the offer to become Kennedy's running mate. The detail of John Kennedy's early years is also remarkable. At just coming up to the end of the first hundred pages, with another five hundred to go, I am already exhorting everyone I know to read it, and pinning them against walls while I recount various incidents from the book, so I thought I would add this review (to be updated when I reach the end) to encourage more non politics junkies to read it. Think less history, more Greek tragedy.

Terrific book, only mildly repetitive. Concentrates on LBJ's genius at molding Congress to his will. Pretty good on the Bobby Kennedy feud, which seems to have been mostly pique on the part of Bobby. ( )

"The Passage of Power" is Robert Caro's fourth of five planned volumes on the life and time of Lyndon Johnson. This one is like the others in that it is meticulously researched and well written. "Passage" covers the end times of Johnson's time as Majority Leader in the Senate to his time as Vice President under John Kennedy through his inheriting the Presidency upon the murder of Kennedy and then the transition the next few months after that.

There is to be sure a lot of history in the book but what really fascinated me was Johnson's personality. Caro's first three books detail Johnson's rise from a hard childhood in rural Texas to college and then on to his first elections and on to the Senate. Johnson had a talent for acquiring power and for a determining a person's weakest point. He was ruthless in using both things to get what he wanted. Upon his elevation to Majority Leader in the Senate he ran the place and didn't put up with nonsense from anybody.

This book describes how Johnson wanted the Presidency more than anything but had a huge fear of failure that kept him from pursuing the 1960 elections. He ended up accepting the VP candidacy despite the fierce opposition of John Kennedy's brother Robert. I had never paid Robert Kennedy much attention. He seemed to me to be another passionately liberal Kennedy who liked to play touch football but as Caro describes him Robert Kennedy was ruthless in his own way. He was very aggressive and was kind of his brother's attack dog for many things. It turns out that Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson hated each other.

The book goes on to describe how Johnson was dismayed to find out that the Vice President didn't have much of job and that JFK kept him on a short leash and did not include him on discussions of many issues of the day. As Caro describes it, deprived of his power Johnson became whiny and miserable.

Upon John Kennedy's death however Johnson immediately took over the reins of the government and moved quickly to try and keep as many of "Kennedy's men" to stay and put his own stamp on the administration. John Kennedy had been trying to push some major civil rights legislation but had been getting nowhere with it despite Johnson trying to offer advice. The basic problem was that the "Solid South" had been blocking Civil Rights legislation for decades and the way they did was by holding other important bills hostage. Johnson knew the game because he had been one of those actively blocking civil rights legislation for years. Johnson knew that although the northern Liberals such as Hubert Humphrey had the passion on their side, the Solid South knew the Senates rules and parliamentary procedure by heart. So legislation died a thousand deaths of delaying tactics and gutting amendments.

A fascinating part of the book is the description of Johnson's intricate knowledge of the Senate's rules and his relationships with the players in order to get bill after bill passed. I've read elsewhere speculation that if Kennedy had lived his legislation may not have passed.

Another fascinating side of Johnson was his complete corruption. This book and Caro's previous books detail Johnson's greed in acquiring wealth and the payoff's he took and lots and lots of shady dealings. For example upon becoming President he needed to have certain pesky reporters who were investigating his various shady dealings stopped. Newspaper companies are vulnerable because of their associated radio and television stations. Johnson called up the owners and threatened them with audits and other harassment if the reporters didn't quit. They quit.

So Johnson was a complex character. A man who stood with the "solid south" for years to deny civil rights to minorities and also the man who got them the right to vote and ended official segregation. A great leader but also a craven crook.

In 1964 he had negative ratings in the single digits. I was in grade school in Price, Utah when he ran against Barry Goldwater. We would link arms and march around the school yelling "LBJ for the USA" over and over during recess. Several years later we would see protesters on television linking arms and yelling "Hey, Hey, LBJ how many kids did you kill today." By the time I got to eighth grade, by then in the little burgh of Eagar, Arizona it was hard for me to imagine how the country could last five more years.

I can't wait for Caro's next book. I hope that he hurries because he is 77 years old and I don't need him running out of gas before he finishes.. The next book covers Johnson's downfall and the Vietnam War.

Anyway, for those that stuck with me, this is a great book. Five stars out of five. ( )