1

Glory’s Prized Caress: Grand Strategy, Greatness, and the Political Life in the Career of Lyndon Johnson

Shaheer Khan

HMN 679HB Special Honors in the Department of Humanities The University of Texas at Austin

May 2021

______Devin Stauffer

______Erik Dempsey Dedication To the memories of Maqsood, Zareena, and Anwar: grandparents who passed away since I began college.

2 Acknowledgments

I never imagined myself writing this. It’s only possible due to the help of a tremendous support network. My supervisors Professor Devin Stauffer and Dr. Erik Dempsey provided steady, sure guidance. With penetrating insight, patience, and ample enthusiasm, they saw through a project. Mr. Mark Updegrove and Dr. Mark Atwood Lawrence held the Johnson Years class even amidst the backdrop of remote learning. Their decision to do so helped me gain access to perspectives on LBJ I might not have otherwise. Dr. Linda Mayhew runs the Humanities program. Its uniqueness is a testament to her dogged efforts to provide us all the resources she possibly can. Mr Larry Temple, Special Counsel to President Johnson 1967-69 was very generous with this time and very patient in answering my questions during our calls. Governor Ben Barnes, Texas Lieutenant Governor from 1969-1973 and Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from 1965-1969 provided terrific insights as well. He is the one who coined my favorite quote about Johnson as a “fast-moving Picasso.” Professor Larry Carver offered and provided line-by-line feedback of my prose as only an English professor can. Dr. Michael Hole originated the idea of interviewing acquaintances of LBJ and helped me get in touch with them. Professor H.W. Brands provided generous insight, especially on the chapter on Vietnam and in the conclusion. Dr. John P. Irish was my high school teacher. We spent two years studying history and philosophy, which I realized now prepared me for this. My great friend Zan read multiple drafts and provided tremendously helpful comments. The seeds of this was planted in our long, leisurely conversations back from when we first met in French class. Zoe was a wonderful presence at our weekly thesis meeting groups. She has a terrific eye for clearing up shoddy writing, not to mention one of the best writers I’ve come across. Chloe and I have a shared literary taste. Her sense for the rhythms of the prose I was striking for helped create the more poetic passages. As we joked, working with each other never felt like work. Sophia pushed me hard on defining my audience and provided moral support in the final weeks as we finalized our thesis. She is also exceedingly charming. My friends helped me lighten up and not take my thesis (or myself for that matter) too seriously. I’m better for it. And finally, my family. I wouldn't be who I am without you.

3 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………...…...6 Chapter 1: The Strategic Genius and the Seniority System ………...14 Chapter 2: The Limits of Genius in Vietnam……………….…………….43 Chapter 3: The Visionary, Eros, and Great Society………...... 70 Chapter 4: The Aspects of Statesmanship……………...... 85 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….112

4 Epigraph

AMBITION.1 BY WALTER WHITMAN.

One day, an obscure youth, a wanderer, That throbs beneath that brow? Known but to a few, lay musing with "And see thick countless ranks of men himself Fix upon thee their reverent gaze— About the changes of his future life. And listen to the plaudits loud In that youth's heart, there dwelt the To thee that thousands raise? coal Ambition, "Weak, childish soul! the very place Burning and glowing; and he asked That pride has made for folly's rest; himself, What thoughts, with vanity all rife, "Shall I, in time to come, be great and Fill up thy heaving breast! famed?" "At night, go view the solemn stars Now soon an answer wild and mystical Those wheeling worlds through Seemed to sound forth from out the time the same— depths of air; How puny seem the widest power, And to the gazer's eye appeared a shape The proudest mortal name! Like one as of a cloud—and thus it "Think too, that all, lowly and rich, spoke: Dull idiot mind and teeming sense, "O, many a panting, noble heart Alike must sleep the endless sleep, Cherishes in its deep recess A hundred seasons hence. The hope to win renown o'er earth "So frail one, never more repine, From Glory's prized caress. Though thou livest on obscure, "And some will win that envied goal, unknown; And have their deeds known far Though after death unsought may be and wide; Thy markless resting stone." And some—by far the most—will sink And as these accents dropped in the Down in oblivion's tide. youth's ears "But thou, who visions bright dost cull He felt him sick at heart; for many a From the imagination's store, month With dreams, such as the youthful His fancy had amused and charmed dream itself Of grandeur, love, and power, With lofty aspirations, visions fair "Fanciest that thou shalt build a name Of what he might be. And it pierced him And come to have the nations know sore What conscious might dwells in the To have his airy castles thus dashed brain down

5 Introduction

William Shakespeare proposed three distinct routes to greatness: “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” In actuality, however, the three are not so separate, and can indeed be found in the same individual.

One can be born with great gifts where through relentless hard work, they cultivate their talents to the fullest extent possible, and then, with the aid of destiny, arrive at a moment in history find themselves at a moment fitted to their ambitions and capacities.

This thesis analyzes one man’s quest for greatness: Lyndon Baines Johnson. It does not chronicle Johnson simply for the sake of his legacy, but rather, through reviewing Johnson’s deeds, illuminate the nature of greatness itself. At the heart of the study lie two interwoven questions: What are the possibilities of great political

6 leadership in modern times, and how can an analysis of the nature of political life on a more general level inform this pursuit for greatness?

I should make clear from the forefront my work is not an ordinary account. While

I include biographical elements, I do not attempt a cradle-to-grave biography. While I venture political analysis on the mechanisms of power, my scope ranges beyond the confines of political science. While sympathetic to the insights of philosophy, I do differ in methodology: I do not provide a close reading of text, although I do engage in what you may call a close reading of a life. I propose, instead, a novel synthetic framework as the only way to do fuller justice to a subject, someone who has escaped precise categorization by numerous biographers. Given this framework’s novelty, an explanation to the reader is warranted.

This explanation begins with a formula: This thesis is a synthesis of strategic studies and political philosophy that inquires into Lyndon Johnson’s career to illuminate the political way of life. To make this formula more comprehensible, an outline of the context to which this formulation responds to is in order.

Why Strategic Studies and Philosophy

This project lies at the intersection of strategic studies and political philosophy.

The usefulness of such a combination can be grasped by sketching what each of these fields are on their own.

Beginning with the field of strategic studies, the primary resource is the thought of the historian John Lewis Gaddis. In On Grand Strategy, Gaddis draws upon a wealth of thinkers and leaders to study the nature of political leadership at the highest levels.

While Gaddis is a historian by training, he resides at the intersection of strategy and

7 history. As such, Gaddis evidences an exceptional command of the pressures that high level decision-makers face: the extremely compressed time horizons, the necessity of making decisions with incomplete information, and high stakes that can cloud the judgment of even the best decision-makers. Through a rich catalogue of political environments, Gaddis’ thought provides a fertile foundation to grapple with the subject of political leadership.

As for the field of political philosophy, I will complement Gaddis’ the book complementing Gaddis’ On Grand Strategy is Robert Faulkner’s The Case for

Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics. There, Faulkner provides commentary on Aristotle, Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, and John Marshall as they relate to the very nature of great political ambition. In his close readings of these thinkers, Faulkner analyzes what we can learn about extraordinary ambition and its search for fulfillment in political life.

While differing in their central focus, Gaddis and Faulkner converge on the subject of political leadership. Gaddis excels at sophisticated analysis of high-level policymaking in complex strategic environments where the character of a leader plays a decisive role. Similarly reinforcing Gaddis’ perspective on character are Faulkner’s enlightening textual expositions on leadership. His close readings of the eminent thinkers of political theory provide a nuanced and profound exploration of the nature of political ambition. Because these two approaches possess symbiotic strengths, bringing them together is the central aim of this thesis. If these two fields are imagined to be on

8 opposite shores, then this thesis is the bridge between the practice of statecraft and the theory of soulcraft.1

Why LBJ?

While the prior discussion outlines the synthesis this project supplies, I have yet to address what relation Johnson has to effort: why, amongst the vast corpus of political leaders available for selection, was Lyndon Baines Johnson chosen?

The basis for this determination is his role as an effective vehicle with which to engage this synthesis. Johnson was a singular creature with extraordinary gifts and ambitions. Johnson’s legend has several aspects. He was a political animal whose life was consumed by politics, who “ate, slept, and dreamed politics.”2 If politics was his canvas and he was an artist, then he was a “Picasso” and when taking into account his preference for urgency, he was a “fast moving Picasso.”3 Critical to his success was his personal approach to politics that saw politics in understanding people. Contemporaries would remark, “He is the fastest learner of personality that I have ever encountered in my life.” “He was the best judge of character he had ever seen,” said another.4 Johnson’s mind and personality were on a scale apart. Yale Law School educated Supreme Court

Abe Fortas said Johnson “had one of the brightest, ablest minds I have ever encountered.”5 Even Johnson’s rival Robert Kennedy admitted, “He's the most formidable human being I've ever met."6

1 This phrase is was inspired by George Will’s Statecraft as Soulcraft. Will refers to how laws and institutions, the work of government, end up shaping the moral character of a people. To be clear, in my usage, it is meant to be independent of any ideological connotations Wills may associate with it. 2 H.W. Brands, Interviewed by author, Zoom. May 10, 2021. 3 Ben Barnes, Interviewed by Author, Zoom. May 3, 2021. 4 Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, (New York: Oxford University Press) Chapter 11, iBook. 5 Brands 6 H.W. Brands, The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 28.

9 Next from a strategic perspective, Johnson’s individual rise to power and his actions once in power are astonishing. He pursued power single mindedly, mining it at every possible step. He understood himself as possessing, or being possessed, by this instinct for power remarking, “I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me. I know where to look for it, and how to use it.”7 Indeed, where some may choose for their vocation something like commerce, carpentry, or painting, Johnson’s was the pursuit, accumulation, and exercise of power. His gift for power took him from his humble origins from the Hill Country to the hallowed halls of the White House. His career was an exhibition in the performance of supreme political virtuosity.

A superior political actor, Johnson also needed a stage commensurate with his talents. Johnson’s ambitions were clear. He yearned to be president from the time he was a boy. To the befuddlement of his companions, he could erupt with the sudden exclamation, “By god, I’ll be president someday.”8 It would take decades of striving before the opportunity would come, although not without tragedy. The assassination of

John F. Kennedy vaulted Johnson from a curiosity on the outskirts of Camelot into the most powerful man in the world. And with it, he suddenly had the chance to make his mark. He was president, finally.

But, he was not content with just being the president, for he strove to be the greatest president.9 Already a bustling dynamo, the chance at supreme power unearthed deeper and deeper levels of energy. In a whirlwind of activity that drew upon his

7 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), epigraph. 8 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), Chapter 29, Mr. Johnson Goes to Washington, iBook. 9 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), Chapter 4, “The Great Society,” Kindle edition.

10 singular legislative genius, he pushed through landmark civil rights legislation, sounded the clarion call for the Great Society, and declared a War on Poverty. Johnson envisioned these programs as forming the bedrock for a new majority coalition that would surpass the New Deal coalition in extent and strength. His smashing victory over

Barry Goldwater in 1964—the largest one in American history up to that point—-suggested he was well on his way. Emboldened by that mandate, he uncorked a flurry of bills ranging from the environment to immigration reform to funding for the arts and the humanities. Johnson looked like he would make good on this promise of creating a “Great Society.” At his very peak, in those heady days during 1964-65 where anything seemed possible only if he worked hard enough, he even saw fit to declare those years as the “most hopeful times since Christ was born in Bethlehem.”10

Yet, despite his lofty vision and his ceaseless toil, he eventually reached a limit he could not surmount. It would be the disaster in Vietnam and rising domestic forces that took the wind out of his sails. When he was unable to unite an increasingly divided nation in the wake of the morass in Vietnam, Johnson’s days in politics were numbered.

The type of politics he had mastered, risen to power on, and rallied a nation in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination—liberal, activist government that forges a broad consensus—had suddenly stopped working. Johnson found out too late that the requirements for success in his new political environment had shifted completely.

In assessing how this force of nature so dominated his strategic environment and then be so undone by it, Gaddis’ approach will prove beneficial. I’ll apply strategic

10 Kelly, Jim. “How One Presidency Jump-Started Another,” November 10, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/arts/in-landslide-jonathan-darman-links-johnson-and-reagan.ht ml.

11 studies to illuminate the nature of Johnson’s success, his failures, and what we may learn from them in the process.

Complementing the perspective of strategic studies is Faulkner’s. To see fully why

Johnson succeeded as brilliantly as he did when he was at his best—such as with passing monumental legislation on civil and voting rights—requires evaluating his strengths of character. And to understand when he was at his worst, such as with his secrecy over

Vietnam, requires assessing the weaknesses in his character. Given the centrality of ambition to Johnson’s makeup, this is where Faulkner’s insight on the subject comes into play.

Furthermore, studying Johnson in terms of political ambition is particularly insightful for he straddled the utter extremes of ambition. He could exhibit the most sleazy and repulsive behavior one moment and then suddenly veer into the most beautiful and heart-winning of ways the next. For instance, at his ranch, Johnson was as likely to describe in toe-curling detail the intricacies of the mating habits of his prize bulls as he was at the time of sunset on the neighboring Pedernales River to transform into “a poet describing the sunset and the relationship of the land to the people and his hopes and aspirations for people.”11 A man of such “big swings,” Johnson could reach the most triumphant of highs and the most turbulent of lows.12

Extending the scope from Johnson’s personality to his career reveals the same pattern. He could simultaneously engage in the most devious, cynical, and deceptive of calculations and then turn right around to make the most magnanimous, noble, and high minded of gestures. Here was the man who was willing to destroy low-level

11 Mark K. Updegrove, Indomitable Will : LBJ in the Presidency (New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012), 9. 12 Ibid, 11.

12 bureaucrats for political gain and yet, staked his presidency on civil rights. But he was also the same man who misled the American people in Vietnam, with the consequence of declining trust in government that has persisted to this day. And yet, at the same time, he valiantly decided not to run for re-election in 1968 in the hopes that doing so may lead to peace in Vietnam. Where ordinary mortals might have paradoxes, Johnson’s paradoxes have paradoxes.

For our purposes, it is this very oscillating nature that will be useful, for

Johnson’s tumultuous oscillations provide a window into the nature of ambition.

Broadly sketched, ambition has two sides: its competitive form where it is very much a struggle against one’s fellows yet also the motivating force that spurs an individual to reach for something greater than themselves—to make something of themselves—and shapes their ambitions so that it may, in Abraham Lincoln’s memorable phrase,

“redound to the interest of [their] fellow man.”13 This ricocheting in Johnson himself between the noble and the base—the high and the low—reflects the ambiguity of ambition itself. Let us now turn to see if Johnson’s ambition, while ever elusive, may be better understood.

13 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2005,), Chapter 3, The Lure of Politics, iBook.

13 Chapter 1

The Strategic Genius and the Seniority System

“I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me. I know where to look for

it, and how to use it.”14

-Lyndon Baines Johnson

The Johnson Treatment

This story begins when Lyndon Johnson decided it was time to change the

Senate’s seniority system. The seniority system was an integral part of the Senate. It dictated precious committee assignments strictly on the basis of time served in the

Senate. The more time one had spent, the greater the likelihood a senator could gain the most desirable and prestigious posts. Following a loss of power by his Democratic party

14 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), epigraph.

14 in the 1952 elections, Senator Johnson saw opportunity in misfortune. To increase his own power, he made an audacious bid to overturn this system. To do so, he shrewdly maneuvered amongst multiple stakeholders, convincing them of his loyalty regardless of conflicting interests. He skillfully persuaded them to make concessions they probably should not have made, all the while creating power for himself.

The weight of his achievement can be better understood when taken in the context of strategic theory. A perennial problem in politics is the matching of means to ends. The former is limited, the latter potentially infinite. As John Lewis Gaddis elaborates, means are bound by the iron law of scarcity—whether they be the finite resources of money, energy, or the most important scarce resource of them all, time.

Ends, however, are potentially infinite, only bound by the furthest reaches of the human imagination.

Between means and ends there’s a gap: Strategy, which in its simplest definition, supplies the necessary linkage.15 Lawrence Freedman, a historian of strategy, builds off of Gaddis’ understanding and helpfully defines strategy as “the art of creating power.”16

Strategy and power are the bridges between means and ends. They become the way humans advance their aspirations given their means. Strategists who unearth greater possibilities than originally thought— for instance by advancing ends thought to be out of reach by locating new means and getting more out of them than expected— demonstrate their superiority in this department, for doing so shows they have a superior ability to create power.

Johnson thought of himself in such terms, as someone who understood power, who “knew where to look for it, and how to use it.” Johnson’s self-assessment translates

15 John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy. (New York, Penguin Press, 2018), Chapter 1, Part X, iBook. 16 Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), Preface, iBook.

15 to reality, where in his overhaul of the Senate’s seniority system after the 1952 elections, he was an exemplary strategist. His genius for power was on full display as he mobilized means overlooked by others, for ends only he could see.

Johnson’s Context

No matter how talented, the particular circumstances of the political actor still influence what means are available as they seek to impress themselves upon their age.

Thus, grasping Johnson’s achievement requires coming to terms with the context within which he had to operate. To this end, it helps to consider Johnson’s strategic tendencies as being reflective of, though not wholly reducible to, the main economic and political currents of his time.

One current of the time was the unique position of the US economy in the aftermath of World War II. With major competitors such as Great Britain, Germany, and Japan rebuilding after the enormous devastation wrecked by the war, America found itself in the driver’s seat of the global marketplace. The country entered a period of postwar prosperity and economic growth that looked as if it would never subside.

As such, this was not an atmosphere receptive to drastic overhauls seeking to overturn the entire system. Disruptive proposals advocating radical change—such as arguments premised on overcoming fundamental class antagonisms—were not going to gain much traction. Rather, an inclination toward consensus making, one that didn’t rock the boat too much, harmonized with an age comfortable with restricting its political horizons to perpetuating the free-flowing bonanza.17

17 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), “Shifting Right: Cold War Liberalism” in Chapter 2, Kindle edition.

16 These economic developments had implications for the political sphere. Under the assumption that the economic pie would continue growing for the foreseeable future, appeals to set aside differences possessed persuasive power. There was no need to create needless hostility by engaging in fierce battles for redistribution when there was so much to go around. Moreover, not only were such debates overly contentious, but they also undermined national efforts against communism, which only added further impetus for unity.

Because cooperation was rewarded, alienating other political actors was not a good bet. Other circumstances might benefit from staking a clear position, polarizing opponents against oneself, and relishing no-holds-barred confrontation (Margaret

Thatcher and Donald Trump used variations of this approach). In this case, a different approach was more effective. Instead of adjudicating the parceling out of limited resources, the mere prospect of greater inclusion into the money-making ring and the effortless growth that followed promised to support political stability at home and engender greater strength abroad.18

Johnson’s political tactics reflected these larger trends in some ways. His political instincts were like the fashionable growth-centered economics premised on expanding the economic pie: He excelled at finding areas of reconciliation by expanding the pool of resources, not wading into the messy decisions of dividing them. Johnson’s personality reinforced this larger trend. Naturally comfortable with fostering harmony, he took pride in his capacity to facilitate reconciliation.

That this personal tendency came with political advantages didn’t hurt, especially for a man anxious to maintain his political survival and enhance his electoral viability.

18Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism “Shifting Right: Cold War Liberalism” in Chapter 2, Kindle edition.

17 While harboring a high-minded instinct for unity, Johnson was still a practical politician who desired influence. Magnanimous gestures leading to nowhere did not interest him.

Suspicious of noble idealism unaccompanied by tangible rewards, he made sure concrete results followed grand postures. His model of the statesman married self-advancement, an instinct for unification, and practical politics.

In this context, what I call Johnson’s instinct for the middle position emerges.

His political advancement shaped him to be a consummate balancer of conflicting positions. He adeptly learned to calculate the system’s incentives, picking up the essential skill of locating the exact point between two untenable positions that maximized their benefits and minimized their downsides. This skillset lent itself to working within mainstream institutions that encouraged creatively coloring within the lines, rather than sketching anew outside them.

Thus, his modus operandi was to first master the system he found himself in so he could then maximize what he could do within it. All the maneuvering was for a higher purpose. He sought to work on the inside for those on the outside, for whom he harbored dormant revolutionary instincts and grand plans. His eventual success in this regard is mighty indeed. No less a figure than Ralph Ellison was to give the “high honor” saying Johnson was “the greatest American President for the poor and for the

Negroes.”19 And one should add he was one of the greatest presidents for immigrants as well, passing as he did the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act that swept away racial quotas that restricted immigration to America to those of European descent.

Such immense and rapid change is not common. His time in power was a revolution, even if it did not take the more recognizable form of haranguing the mob to

19 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, LBJ and Civil Rights in Chapter 5, Kindle edition.

18 storm the Bastille. The revolution he was to lead just came in in a different guise. For he was meant to be, as has been aptly described elsewhere, the “revolutionary within the system.”20 At his best, Lyndon Johnson was the institutional politician par excellence, who, when his chance arose, had the capacity and aspiration to transcend to something greater.

Still, transcendence was far off. For now, Johnson focused on successfully rising as far as he could. He had already gone far, ascending the cursus honorum at a breakneck pace, arriving in Washington as a fresh faced twenty-three year old

Congressional aide for an absentee Congressman (effectively making him in charge); then becoming the twenty-five year old head of the Texas National Youth

Administration, making him the youngest director of a national New Deal Program; then to twenty-eight year old Congressman to become the “best Congressman a district ever had,” transforming his home district through electrifying it;21 and eventually

Senator at forty-one years old.22 He was closely aligned with three of the most powerful men in the entire country: House Speaker and fellow Texan, Sam Rayburn; the leader of the Southern Senators, Richard Brevard Russell; and then the greatest of them all,

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who despite their great differences in backgrounds, saw something of himself in Johnson. As reported by Roosevelt’s closer advisor Harry

Hopkins, Roosevelt said, “I’ve just met the most remarkable man. If I hadn’t gone to

Harvard, that’s just the type of uninhibited pro I’d love to be.”23 For the President of the

20 Mark K. Updegrove, Indomitable Will : LBJ in the Presidency (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012), 240. 21 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “Best Congressman a District Ever Had,” in Chapter 1, Kindle edition. 22 Although, he would have gotten there sooner had he not lost the 1941 special election. If he’d won in 1941, he would have entered the Senate at age 33. 23 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “The New Deal,” in Chapter 1, Kindle edition.

19 United States to see himself in the junior Congressman suggests the enormous amount of talent Johnson possessed.

From the environment, from sheer political experience, from natural talent, and from his mentors, Johnson had learned the art of power. It was now time for him to put it to use.

At first glance, Lyndon Johnson’s circumstances did not seem favorable to an exhibition in the arts of power, for his Democratic Party was coming off a shellacking in the 1952 elections where they had lost the White House and both houses of Congress.

The party entering a down period, however, didn’t inhibit Johnson’s career. In fact, after the elections, a forty-four year old Johnson was elected the youngest party leader in the history of the Senate.24 Under the shadow of these developments, he engaged in an intricate set of maneuvers that created the power to eventually become the most powerful Senate Majority Leader ever. Informing these actions was an audacious goal, one made even more so given his southern roots: Johnson’s dream of becoming president, even when no southerner had been elected since Zachary Taylor in 1848. He wanted to become one of the most powerful men in Washington without closing off a route to becoming the most powerful man in the world.

But while acquiring the leadership of the party in the Senate came with a fancy title, it did not seem the most promising route to the White House. Senate majority leaders had sorry prospects for the presidency. As a matter of fact, none had done so.

Furthermore, there was the trend that party leaders were more likely to lose office because of the post than ride it to the Oval Office. Preoccupied in the post’s toilsome and

24 Caro, Master of the Senate, 485.

20 frustrating duties that detracted them from attending to their constituents, it was nt uncommon for Senate party leaders to be voted out of office. Gaining the party leadership in the Senate came with the very real possibility of losing one’s political career. This would simply not do for Johnson. For having lost a Senatorial election in

1941, one that had left him profoundly humiliated, he would not allow his political survival to be imperiled in such a fashion.

The task for Johnson was to transform a position that seemed a career stopper into a career launcher. He needed to transform it into a vehicle for his self-advancement. That it wasn’t already one was no matter. A genius of power, he’d make it so it was..

The Obstacles in His Way and the Intermediate Objectives in His Mind

This would not be easy, for the challenges in his way were formidable. To become

Senate Majority Leader, Johnson had to achieve several intermediate objectives. One of these was navigating the precarious balance between the North and the South. In regards to the latter, Johnson had essential ties to the Southern Democrats who had assisted his ascension in Washington. Whatever his plans entailed, he needed to win the

Senate’s Southern Democrats to his designs, or at the very least, not incur their resistance. 25

Even as he looked to not lose the South, he also needed to mind the national landscape as well. If he wished to maintain his presidential aspirations, ones that required a national appeal which was at odds with a posture of southern provincialism, he could not be too closely associated with his fellow Southerners. While maintaining

25 Caro, Master of the Senate, 489.

21 enough distance from his home region, he also needed to reach out to Northern liberals who, while not at the center of power in the Senate, could prove essential for aspiring presidents.

Here, Johnson’s presidential ambitions aligned with his vision for the party. In particular, he wanted the Democratic Party to be stronger by bridging the liberal and

Southern conservative wings. Smoothing over their divides would make the party more united and thus, more politically effective, something it needed to be if it wanted it to tackle the challenge of being in the minority. Of course, Johnson would benefit as well from a more unified party. If the Democratic Party under his leadership entered a period of burgeoning strength, Johnson would burnish his own credentials for leadership as well.

Johnson’s ambitions did not just stop at maneuvering for president or furthering party unity. He also had his eye on changing the concrete powers of his post. He was not content to be a figurehead leader, merely enjoying the elevation and prestige afforded by his position. No, he wanted to be an effective leader, one who had the power to get things done. For this, Johnson could not leave the power to choose committee assignments in the hands of the South. He wanted to take matters into his own hands by dispersing the seats personally. In such a way, Johnson could ensure that it would be under his direction that these coveted seats were allocated. It would mean that Senators would have to come to him in order to further their ambitions. As it would bring

Johnson these carrots, it would also bring sticks. For, by being in charge of dispensing committee seats, Johnson now had something tangible to threaten senators with; if they did not go along with him, he could strip them of their current power, deny them future

22 assignments, and mobilize those loyal to him to isolate the offending senator. Whatever it took, Johnson would make the senator regret ever crossing him.

These were the multiple objectives Johnson was looking to achieve. He sought to retain the allegiance of the South even while making overtures to Northern liberals. Not only did he have to walk that tightrope, but he also wanted to transform a dysfunctional office into just a functional one. Doing so would give him a greater share of the Senate’s power, power needed to fuel a national profile worthy of a serious presidential contender.

Linking Time and Scale

With those objectives in play, Johnson engaged in something like eight-dimensional chess. The immediate circumstance he leveraged particularly effectively was the Democratic defeat in the 1952 elections. The results announced a clear message to the party was simple: Either shape up or the party will end up condemned to purgatory. Johnson pounced on this worrying trend and showed how, if the party didn’t adapt, the worst was soon to come. In discussions with his colleagues, he painted a country undergoing political realignment as the Republican leaning suburbs popped up at break-neck pace. This trend was leaving its mark on the political scene. Just in 1952, the Republicans had taken the House, Senate, and White House.

With favorable demographic trends, a strong showing at the ballot box, and the party leadership in the hands of popular war hero Dwight Eisenhower, the possibility of a permanent Republican majority was an approaching threat. 26

In response to this, the Democratic party had two options. It could treat the interim as a temporary ejection from power that would give it time to lick its wounds,

26 Caro, Master of the Senate, 492-493.

23 reform itself, and reemerge renewed, making the loss not as bad as it might seem.

Indeed, it might just be a welcome time for recovery, made more welcome after the draining demands of assuming power from 1932-1952, a period of twenty years. The hiatus might just give them the time they needed to build the next great Democratic coalition.

The other option was to not change anything, letting a temporary setback settle into a permanent one. Particularly at stake were the fate of Democrat committee chairmen who, on account of being the minority, relinquished their committee chairmanships to the ranking Republican. The party had long dominated the Senate, having always been, save for two years, in the majority from 1932-1952. Over such a long time, senior Democratic senators had become quite comfortable chairing their committees. Hence, the prospect of departing their seats was painful enough; the possibility of never getting them back because they were stuck on minority party desert island was not appetizing at all. So, if they wanted to win back the seats they’d known so well, they needed to do something to reverse the effects of the political trends favoring the Republicans.

Johnson seized upon this anxiety of the chairmen. From the perspective of strategic studies, this was a smart move because he took advantage of the factor of scale.27 The consideration of scale comes with Johnson relying upon the increasing suburbanization of America—a major demographic trend—for its political consequences. By focusing on the transforming national landscape, Johnson was able to turn the chairmen outside of their narrow concerns. He saw he could kickstart the

Southern Democrat chairmen out of their complacency by presenting an interpretation

27 For more on time, space, and scale see Gaddis, On Grand Strategy. (New York, Penguin Press, 2018), Chapter 8, iBook.

24 of recent political events meant to serve his purposes. It allowed him to convince them that their fate was tied up to that of party reform.

From the standpoint of strategic studies, shifting scale in such a way works because it yields different trade-offs. The necessity of making much needed changes might seem pressing if the problem appears a small one. There’s little appetite for change if the rewards don’t seem worth it. But the cost-benefit equation can shift if the true scope of the problem is revealed to be bigger than it was originally thought.

Changes that might previously seem unnecessary could take on an urgency they didn’t possess before.

Interestingly, it seemed Johnson was borrowing a trick from his counterpart. As

Eisenhower liked to say, “Whenever I run into a problem I can't solve, I always make it bigger. I can never solve it by trying to make it smaller, but if I make it big enough, I can begin to see the outlines of a solution.” If one wants to solve a problem, try to make it bigger. By doing so, one is able to rope in other areas of concerns that might provide leverage and make it more tractable. In leveraging scale as he did, Johnson was able to gain that traction to start making inroads for his master plan to transform the seniority system.

Two Principles Provide the Breakthrough

Although Johnson had set up why it was necessary to change, he still needed to put forth how things would change. The change he advocated was not an easy one. He was aiming at shifting the very basis of power in the Senate by adjusting the seniority system, whereby the form of his proposals would prove decisive because there were

Southern committee chairmen who would stand to lose their prestige if the seniority

25 system was undercut, especially since the choice of committee seats where dictated by seniority (time served in the Senate) of which the chairman had plenty of.

But Johnson found a way to get around this. Building off his apocalyptic scenario of the Democrats being condemned to permanent minority status, Johnson made the case that the party’s overriding priority should be regaining power. The chairmen after all, could not chair their committees while in the minority. Although committee assignments are assigned by seniority alone, chairmanships go to most senior committee member of the majority party. They then faced the choice: either hold onto an old principle of the seniority system that, while benefiting them in theory, would be unlikely to yield any concrete results in practice.

Or, if they saw things Johnson’s way, they could swallow a small decrease in their privileges because doing so gave them the only chance of holding onto those privileges.

This appeal was a textbook application of the wily argument used to gain the acquiescence of the powers-that-be who, on account of being content with their prime positions, resist change: for things to remain the same, they needed to change. In this way, Johnson squared the circle of the reformer attempting to convince the existing status quo to go along with what would seem to be a challenge to them.

Having presented his proposal for change as the best opportunity to safeguard their interests, Johnson then made the argument to the Southerners that the best way to regain their chairmanships was to demonstrate a record of party excellence in the

Senate. There were no shortcuts here. Only displaying clear signs of expertise and total mastery of the issues would suffice. If done successfully, the voters would reward them for their hard work and return them to the majority. To get there, however, would

26 require the adoption of what I call, the “merit principle,” where the old seniority rule was eschewed in favor of greater emphasis on merit.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave Johnson an example to demonstrate the advantages of the merit principle and to justify its cost. The GOP Old

Guard, who advocated a policy of Cold War isolationism, eagerly awaited the transfer of power into Republican hands. They were looking forward to the chance to make their move against the activist, internationalist foreign policy envisioned by Democratic administration of Harry Truman and his Secretary of State George Marshall. Johnson pointed to that danger saying that the Democrats would have to tread sensibly now that they were in the minority if they wished to oppose the attempted rollback successfully.

Already in the minority and now facing a determined adversary, this was not the time to be divided selfishly amongst each other. They needed all the help they could, even if it meant a decrease in the privileges they were so familiar with. That was the price of bringing in top-notch expertise into the committee debates.

Against this context, Johnson applied the merit principle to push forward two new senators from the North who ordinarily would have been overlooked for prestigious committees under the old seniority system, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Mike

Mansfield of Montana. Johnson cited Humphrey’s strong interest in foreign affairs as well his comfort in holding his own in committee debates. For Mansfield, Johnson pointed to his credentials as a professor of foreign relations as well as his excellent reputation he had secured as a leading member of the House Foreign Affairs committee.

Johnson envisioned these two newcomers playing a critical role in the Democrats’ plans to hold off the Old Guard. Because of their unique skill sets, he believed Humphrey could “out-talk” the Republicans and Mansfield could “out-know” them. By boosting

27 such newcomer senators to prominent committees on the basis of merit, rather than seniority, the Democrats could prove more capable in the great debates of the Cold War and on that basis, allow them to regain the majority and with it, those precious chairmanships. Johnson’s argument was that the merit principle served the chairmen because it served the interests of the party. 28 In such a way, the merit principle sought to enhance the party’s effectiveness.

But Johnson also wanted to strengthen party unity. This he looked to do by appealing to the newcomers in the Senate and to the adoption of contradictory policy, one based on equality of distribution. He advocated a “one for each before two for any” formula: each senator has one good committee assignment before any senators start doubling up on the most desired posts, (such as Foreign Relations). This would prevent senators from stacking plum positions and it could help integrate the newcomers straightaway into Senate affairs. Still, this formula for equality did not mean losing

Johnson’s emphasis on merit, especially relevant with a freshman class that was so talented. He noted how the newcomers merited the positions as well, pointing to the full talent of Humphrey’s speaking ability (who rocketed to national prominence with his speech at the 1948 Democratic National Convention), Mansfield’s extensive knowledge

(from his background in academia), and Symington’s established prestige (a former cabinet officer who served as Secretary of the Air Force under Harry Truman). In advocating a formula that clearly benefited the newcomers while also bolstering their standing to be worthy of those positions on their own and not just as charity cases, what

Johnson gained in the process was the gratitude of these newcomer senators who could now play a larger role in Senate affairs than they might have expected. Flattered by such

28 Caro, Master of the Senate, 493-495.

28 attention, Johnson secured their grateful loyalty. As such, they were more likely to be amenable to his direction, especially when it came to Johnson’s designs for greater party unity. In this way, bringing along the newer members served Johnson’s purpose of creating a more unified party.

Johnson’s adept juggling of the merit principle with the formula of equal distribution was impressive. The merit principle, even while it undercut the seniority system the Southern chairmen had relied upon for so long, assuaged concerns regarding their chairmanships, premised as it was on the prediction that bolstering talented liberals was the best way to return the Democrats to majority status. At the same time, the formula of equal allocation of seats appealed to newcomers looking for significant responsibilities. In Johnson’s presentation, the adoption of these principles explicitly promised a more united party with the implicit aim of vaulting his career. For a more unified party was particularly beneficial for Johnson as that made his job as a leader that much easier. Having less inter party divisions gave the appearance of him being more in charge while also helping him more effectively direct the party. Furthermore, increased party unity also positioned Johnson as someone not excessively beholden to the South, thus maintaining his viability as a national candidate for a future presidential run.

Anchored by the master principles of merit on the one hand and equality on the other, he was championing two policies that were, strictly speaking, in opposition to each other. Sure, their common element was Johnson leveraging the apprehension of the chairmen to push forward the newcomers. But Johnson could have brought the newcomers forward by using either policy. If he was acting out of principle, he could only stake himself on one or the other, not both. But Johnson was acting

29 opportunistically, seeking to maximize his rewards of the situation, something made more clear when the target of his designs is recalled. From both directions, whether on account of merit or equal distribution, the seniority system was what was being eroded.

Either principle lessened the force of using seniority to mechanically determine committee assignments. This opened up the space for Johnson himself to personally wield greater influence in this department. These two principles shifted power away from the impersonal, routine application of the seniority rule into his own hands. Yes, the merit principle and the policy for equal distribution were divided in their logic. But they were united by the logic of increased power for Johnson.

In this manner, Johnson found the equilibrium point between all the forces at play. In doing so, the institutional politician located the pockets of power within an institution, deploying them for his own advancement.

Cleaning Up Loose Ends

But there was a problem. There were not enough seats to go around for these newcomers. Johnson did not want to open them up by stripping senators of them. Party leaders were in charge of seat allocations within their own party. They could only shift seats around for those of the same party. Stripping seats from existing Democrat senators to seat new ones would mean making enemies within his own party. This would not do, so Johnson rejected the path of unilaterally seizing seats. Instead he sought to open up new seats through an ingenious mechanism: He would allocate a seat to a requesting senator if they were willing to give up their currently held seats.

The dividends of this policy for Johnson were extraordinary. The best example was Humphrey gaining a seat on the prized Foreign Relations Committee by exchanging

30 his seats on the Agriculture and Labor committees—important seats for any senator from Minnesota where the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) wielded such influence. Humphrey would have a chance to play a larger role on the national stage as the great debates on the Cold War were ongoing, even as it meant he had meant he might have less influence on the domestic issues his constituents were primarily concerned with. Given the importance of the Farm and Labor committees career, it seemed, on paper at least, Humphrey had more leverage over Johnson. Yet, Johnson knew his man and he knew Humphrey had grander ambitions than being a dutiful bucket carrier for the DFL. As Johnson aide Bobby Baker was to explain, the Foreign

Relations tantalized Humphrey because it held out the prospect of being “a forum from which to bolster his national ambitions.”29 The Orator of the Dawn wanted to deploy his interest in foreign policy to make his mark on the national stage. Sensitive to the political pressures from Humphrey’s home state and the nature of his ambition,

Johnson eased Humphrey’s conscience by framing the proposed transaction as being of service to a higher cause than that even of his constituents. He told him:

You can fight for the farmers down here on this floor and you can fight for the laboring man, but we’ve got some serious foreign policy issues coming up [at this point, Johnson would begin listing the issues on his fingers], and they’re going to be major. This is one time where you’re going to serve your country and your party. You’re going to have to drop those two other committees.30

The Johnson Treatment worked its magic on Humphrey. He saw things from

Johnson’s perspective. Humphrey gave up Labor and Agriculture. Johnson walked out with an additional seat than he had walked in with.31

29 Caro, Master of the Senate, 499. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid.

31 Johnson repeated a similar maneuver, conditioning the request of Kentucky’s

Earle Clements for the now vacant Agriculture seat (the one Humphrey had just given up) for two more committee seats, one from Public Works and the other from Rules.32

From one seat in Foreign Relations, Johnson wound up with three seats: Labor, Public

Works, and Rules— with the Agriculture seat being an intermediate product that, while not present at the end of the transactions, was used up during so to enable the others.

By stringing and linking seat dispensations together, he was able expand his power with each move, a textbook example of creating power.

Along with that ability to expand his power, Johnson also brought on the charm and amiability needed to provide him the backing he needed. In the minority, Johnson required the aid of his Republican counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Robert Taft.

Johnson was able to strike up a cordial relationship with the opposition leader. In fact,

Taft was amazed at how, despite their different backgrounds, how easy it was to get along with Johnson as there was an “amount of harmony which [was] almost unprecedented.”33 Already, the conciliatory approach Johnson would employ with the

Republicans during the Eisenhower years was showing itself. Far from engaging in reflexive partisan obstructionism, Johnson calculated that it would fare better for the

Democrats to be seen as working along with the Republicans. With the instinctive ability to give people what they wanted—to make Democrats think he was a Democrat and

Republicans think he was a Republican— Johnson avoided the danger of his intricate plans being stopped by the opposition party.

The Ambiguity of Ambition- Benefits Redound to the Party and the Senate

32 Caro, Master of the Senate, 499. 33 Ibid, 498.

32 It was not without cause that journalists declared that the “seniority rule” had been replaced by the “Johnson rule.”34 Johnson’s impressive legislative ploy of introducing new senators right away into prominent positions played exactly as he wanted. The media fawned over him as the transformative leader pushed to integrate newcomers with talent and expertise straight into the fold rather than leaving them stranded for years on the outskirts of power. After the disappointment of the 1952 elections, Johnson’s emergence gave the Democratic party cause for optimism. He was a

“rising star,” somebody who was going places and worth keeping an eye on.35 Johnson, of course, basked in the admiration.

While the glittering media coverage gratified Johnson, what really interested him was power. And now he knew he had it, and he knew how to nudge the levers of power slightly but also when to yank them when needed. One such lever was bartering owed gratitude. By appearing to bend over backward to help those who least expected it,

Johnson generated goodwill. Senate newcomers and liberals, surprised at the preferential treatment conferred by him, were sure to remember what their Leader had done. But that carrot was backed by implied threats. Not going along with Johnson’s plans meant you were in the way. And Lyndon Johnson didn’t forget those in his way; he made sure they wouldn’t forget either. Power is a tough business. Johnson liked dangling the carrot but always made sure to bring the stick.

Ever eager to expand his reach, he took care not to alienate those he could not afford to. With diligent deference to the Southern committee chairmen, he won their acquiescence, even though his reforms eroded their very power. And in his friendliness

34 Caro, Master of the Senate, 504-505. 35 Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, (New York, Oxford University Press), Chapter 12, iBook.

33 to Taft, he avoided incurring the ire of the opposition party. Johnson knew how to sweet talk his way around those whom he could not steamroll. With his flanks secure and the reins firmly in his grasp, it could rightly be said Johnson was the mule driver who “knew what [made] the mules plow.”36

Making the mules plow requires knowledge of what they want. He told Doris

Kearns Goodwin how effectiveness in the Senate rested upon two facts, one particular and one general. The particular involved knowing all possible details about a senator—their specific tendencies and political circumstances, their deepest fears and anxieties, their fondest hopes and dreams. The general was a universal fact of political life, that politicians are fundamentally driven by a twin set of motives: the “desire for fame” and “the thirst for honor.”37 In appealing to the desires of the Southern committee chairmen to retain the prestige of their posts and to the ambitions of liberal newcomers who were eyeing a greater share of the spotlight, he precisely calibrated his appeals to the unique character of their ambitions. One example described earlier was how

Johnson convinced Humphrey to hazard a risky gamble in the hopes of national fame.

In numerous such examples, Johnson demonstrated the ability to figure out what his fellow Senators wanted and give it to them, all to his advantage. Advancing his own ambition required understanding the ambitions of others.

A consequence of this new arrangement of affairs was greater efficiency and effectiveness. With power residing in somebody who knew how to get things done, long, drawn out speeches that said much but did nothing, would, while not totally eliminated, played less of a role. To be sure, this overhaul was not without its critics, who cited how

36 Caro, Master of the Senate, 506. 37 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, (New York, Open Road Integrated Media), Chapter 4, iBook edition.

34 Johnson’s preference for backroom deals and behind-the-scenes maneuvering led to the deprioritization of the venerated tradition of Senatorial debate. As the upper house with the longest-term limits, the Senate was designed in a distinctive manner. Where the

House’s shorter terms increased its sensitivity and responsiveness to public opinion, the cushion of the Senate’s six-year terms could insulate it from popular pressures. Hence, the Senate witnessed the greatest American legislative orations—those of Henry Clay,

John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Robert Taft38, and Robert La Follette, who collectively comprise the “Famous Five” the Senate itself, in 1957, nominated as its most distinguished members. A great tradition was at risk of being lost.

In Johnson’s mind, however, these changes were worth it. They maximized the chances of attaining political success, which he measured by bills passed and elections won. This fit in with his self-conception as an arch-pragmatist, someone who abhorred the politics of principle.39 A more action-oriented Senate meant more bills could be made into law. A more unified Democratic party, one bursting with merit, allowed it to deploy top-grade expertise on issues where it had previously been lackluster. Especially important foreign policy where the freedom of man would be decided in the great struggle with the Soviet Union. If the Democrats excelled in comparison to the

Republicans, the dividends would be reaped at the ballot box. The Senate overhaul to boost the Senate’s legislative productivity and enhance his party’s electoral viability, reflected Johnson’s understanding of the aims of politics.

The Episode’s Insights for Strategic Theory

38 Not to be confused with the younger Robert Taft mentioned earlier. 39 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “Shifting Right: Cold War Liberalism,” in Chapter 2, Kindle edition.

35 Zooming out to a high level strategic view, three important trends are revealed:

Balancing stakeholders, the contrarian’s edge, and the resemblance of politics to gambling.

Balancing Stakeholders

In the pursuit of furthering his aspirations for higher office, Johnson successfully appeased multiple stakeholders. Because these stakeholders had differing incentives,

Johnson couldn’t just give them each want they wanted, for giving one party more of one thing would lead to the other having less of it. No, he needed to cover over this fact.

He did this linking their concerns to larger causes, thus rationalizing the sacrifice he was asking them to make. In the Seniority system episode for instance, he bypassed the apparent limitations of a Southern Democrat vying for national influence by identifying the precise animating motive for each of the multiple stakeholders involved. To lay the ground for this, he presented an interpretation of recent political events, the 1952 elections, meant to serve his purposes, By framing his reforms through best interest of the multiple stakeholders he had to appease, he gained their acquiescence when necessary and their gratitude when possible. The impression conveyed was that of

Johnson dutifully desiring the party unity, even though the real beneficiary was

Johnson, which they couldn’t see it at the time. Margaret Thatcher would marvel at

Ronald Reagan’s masterful orchestration of an international conference: “He managed to get all he wanted from the summit, while allowing everyone to feel that they had got at least some of what they wanted.”40 So too could the same be said of Johnson’s actions with the seniority system.

40 Edmund Morris, Dutch, (New York; Modern Library, 1999), Chapter 30, iBook.

36 Furthermore, Johnson knew how to expand his means as he sought to appease whichever stakeholders he faced. He located novel sources of power to his benefit. In circumstances that would befuddle lesser talents, he had an instinct for where the hidden levers of power lay. In dealing with an individual, he could sense their hopes and dreams and knew how to tailor his persuasive efforts in light of these. In a tricky dilemma he’d faced, he would find a way to take what would appear a weakness, one that placed him on the backfoot, to find the way that would regain for him the initiative and place his opposition on the backfoot instead. His ability to expand his means— through bluffing, intimidating, brinkmanship, a greater tolerance for risk, feigning weakness, inducing overreach— allowed him to position himself to accomplish his ends in the competitive environment of politics where everybody has their own agenda but there’s only so much to go along, and conflict inevitable.

The Contrarian’s Edge

One such way to expand his means is what I call the “contrarian’s edge.” The ability to spot opportunities that others miss is one dwelling on for, in hindsight, it seems obvious that the missed opportunity had always been an opportunity all along.

But it is the ability to turn something that looks unappealing into something attractive that may be the key job of the leader. There will always be a scramble among the established paths for they appear more certain and hence, more crowded. But, one can sidestep the competitive scramble and even elevate oneself above the mad dash if they excel at finding sources of power that have gone misidentified, seizing them for oneself, and transforming them into new positions.

Of course, this path is not without its difficulties or the chances of failure.

Johnson liked to say “power is where power goes,” maintaining that the individual, and

37 not the office, was where power lay.41 As far as the seniority system episode is concerned, he was right on. But then one recalls his failed attempt as Kennedy’s Vice

President to morph into the unprecedented role of a co-President/Prime Minister. He embarked on a scheme to appropriate for himself greater power than any vice president had ever had before while simultaneously remaining effectively installed in his Senate post.42 Kennedy, not without guile himself, responded by letting the proposal disappear into the ether, never to be seen again.43 His plans dashed, Johnson spent the next three agonizing years as an impotent vice president sequestered as a curiosity in the mythical court of Camelot. As has been said of Winston Churchill, “When Winston’s right, he’s right” (Think Churchill’s prescient warnings on Nazi Germany in the 1930s). But “when he’s wrong, well, my God, he’s wrong” (one thinks of his hardline position on Indian independence for instance).44 So too for Johnson. When his power grabs worked, they really worked. When they failed, they really failed. Being a contrarian raises the ceiling as much as it lowers the floor.

The Politician as Gambler

In certain instances, politics, far from the orderly rational progression of a predetermined agenda, resembles something more like a high stakes gambling act. A recent example of the “gambling” nature of politics is seen in Boris Johnson’s

41 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 159. 42 Ibid, 164-166,169-171. 43 Ibid, 171. 44 Glueckstein, Fred. “‘Churchill: The Power of Words," June 8th - September 23rd.” International Churchill Society, March 22, 2013. https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-155/qchurchill-the-power-of-wordsq-j une-8th-september-23rd/#:~:text=Lord%20Birkenhead%20never%20spoke%20truer,wrong%2C%20wel l%2C%20my%20God.&text='%20Whatever%20his%20flaws%2C%20these%20were,worry%20about%20 action%2C%20only%20inaction.

38 machinations surrounding Brexit. His advisor, Dominic Cummings,45 proposed the swerve methodology, one that Johnson agreed to. They would alarm MPs into support by having “Boris drive the car as fast as possible towards his opponent and just as he was spotted, he would throw the steering wheel out the window.”46 There is no rational calculation here. Just greater verve, daring, and a greater tolerance for risk, where brinkmanship merges with bluffing.

A similar trait was manifest in the founder of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam

Muhammad Ali Jinnah. When he had to “deploy shifting tactics [as he] attempted to control followers more powerful than himself and to negotiate with rivals who were only more formidable but better organized than his own party,” he became a “player who kept his cards close to his chest; and a good player with a poor hand has to pretend to have different cards than those he is actually holding.”47

Johnson himself understood his own great moves in such terms. He’d describe how, in the seniority system overhaul, he decided to “shove in his whole stack” of political capital.48 It was, as he would say at the defining moments of career, “all or nothing.”49

A gambler’s adroitness in playing the odds is related to the art of power, for locating new sources of power often involves betting against the market. By expecting that change and flux rule politics, betting on the lower position now may mean being able to catch it on its way up. During his days as a bomb-lobbing journalist stationed in

45 Cummings’ blog suggests he is not unfamiliar with the tenets of strategic studies. He’s written a 6 part blog series on the art of politics. https://dominiccummings.com/an-index-of-blogs-articles-papers/ 46 Tim Gower, Boris Johnson: The Gambler (London: Penguin Random House UK, 2020), Chapter 26, iBook. 47 Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, (Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1994), 60. 48 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 490. 49 Ibid, 890.

39 Brussels attacking the EU when the project of European cosmopolitanism was at full strength, Boris Johnson explained his contrarian thinking:

Because it is a free market, there will always be someone to buck the conventional opinion, ready to buy when the market is low. If someone spots that gap and starts to offer another stock, there will be one of those tipping points. Suddenly, everyone will stop selling and start buying.50

The groupthink inducing confines of render the ordinary political mundane, bland, and predictable. Ever cognizant of the changing whims of the voters, a rush towards appearing business-like, sober, and in line with conventional opinion ensues.

But, being an outsider, or perhaps thinking like an outsider while remaining in appearance an insider, leaves one in a better position to detect a novel pattern in events that others may miss. Otto von Bismarck echoed this sentiment by penning two maxims that can appropriately describe his brilliant career, and moreover the career of any great political actor: “Political judgment is the ability to hear the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history” and “The statesman's task is to hear God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past.” To hear the approaching sound of history is the same as the foresight to peer into the unknown.51

Both benefit from the flexibility of vision that the outsider possesses.

Political activity takes place in a constantly shifting and changing arena where probabilities and signs are all one can go off of. To operate amidst all this uncertainty, the end goal is to achieve the “extraordinary instinct” for the pulse of history that biographer Edmund Morris sensed in Ronald Reagan. He described Reagan’s genius in the following way by drawing upon Reagan’s days as a lifeguard who when he jumped

50 Sonia Purnell, Just Boris: The Irresistible Rise of a Political Celebrity, (London: Aurum Press, 2011) Chapter 5, iBook. 51 Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 490.

40 into the water to save a swimmer in peril. He would “swim not towards the drowning person but downstream of him” because by the time Reagan got there his parabola of movement would curve to intersect” with the swimmers’. On the way back to the lifeguard chair, he didn’t swim directly toward shore but upriver, “knowing the parabola would bring [him] back to where [he] started. In all this flux, with no vision because

[his] spectacles were off, with no sense of stability but [he] sensed the relative position whence you came.”52

To borrow Robert Caro’s observation, “The time to catch a wave is at its crest.”53

Given the varieties of political life, the wave that ultimately crests is often never the one predicted to do so.54 The outsider is better positioned to recognize the wave that ultimately will.

For Johnson, overhauling the Senate, while holding out great potential, was not, without its risks. To make it happen, he had to stretch across a fragile system of interlocking maneuvers, where the slightest slippage meant the collapse of the entire edifice. In pursuit of this master design, he was contending with the difficulties that always attend transformative ambition: the potential backlash incurred by flouting tradition and the danger of offending the powers that be. But those risks were compensated by the possibility of acquiring unmatched power—power that could not be gained through the normal routes of advancement. In Johnson’s overhaul of the seniority system, we witnessed a tour de force exercise of power as he identified an end

52 Edmund Morris at the Pioneer Institute, “Tear Down this Wall: Edmund Morris,” YouTube video, 13:46, March 31, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnM_FZvvrpA&ab_channel=PioneerInstitute. 53 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 601. 54 Richard Nixon would say something similar, “In politics, the shortest distance between two points is rarely a straight line.”

41 nobody else saw: the possibility of a restructured Senate with himself perched on top.

The task would be tall for even the savviest of masters. But, as Caro notes, Johnson pulled it off for he was not just a master, but a level higher. He was a genius.55

55 Caro, Master of the Senate, 489.

42 Chapter 2

The Limits of Genius in Vietnam

“...he is happy who adapts his mode of proceeding to the qualities of the times; and

similarly, he is unhappy whose procedures are in disaccord with the times… This [the happiness of men with varying temperaments] arises from nothing other than from the

quality of the times that conform to or not in their procedure. ”

-Niccolò Machiavelli56

The master politician could be found reflecting on another one. On April 9, 1965, the 156th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Johnson paid a visit to a sculpture of the Great Emancipator. A photographer captures Johnson staring in contemplation at an enormous marble bust of the nation’s sixteenth president. Perhaps in Lincoln’s example, Johnson identified the benchmark he needed to reach, maybe even surpass, if he wished to enter the pantheon reserved for America’s greatest presidents. Though

56 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 99.

43 seemingly inconceivable, achieving this honor was not outside the realm of possibility.

As diplomat Averell Harriman speculated, Johnson might “have been the greatest

President ever.” But Harriman’s statement was qualified in a crucial way, preceded as it was by the most essential of clauses: “If not for Vietnam.” 57

As it turned out, Vietnam closed the door on any such comparisons to Lincoln. In fact, on April 7, just two days before he visited the bust of Lincoln, Johnson delivered a speech at Johns Hopkins University, where he outlined the administration’s case for escalating the war. And just one week before that, he had already given the go-ahead for the entry of American ground forces into Vietnam. In his public declarations and private deliberations, Johnson had committed the country to one of the most agonizing wars in its history.

These actions were part of a broader attempt to fulfill two cherished hopes for his presidency: to achieve signature domestic reforms with the same scope and impact as the New Deal, and to mold a unifying consensus in American public life. Vietnam shattered these dual ambitions. Johnson endeavored to make his mark in domestic affairs only to be defined for decades afterwards by Vietnam. Johnson’s dreams of consensus were dashed by the polarized social fabric of America, divided by the lightning rod issue of the war in Vietnam. The sum result: A presidency staked on domestic affairs preoccupied by a foreign war, the foreign war generating divisions akin to something like a domestic civil war even while the president so deeply hoped for unity.

Johnson’s role in Vietnam reveals how his particular strategic strengths, ones that had paid such dividends in the Senate, would end up leading him to such a tragedy

57 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), Chapter 6, Kindle edition.

44 in Vietnam. For Vietnam displays the flipside of those qualities: heavy handedness that avoided short-term reckonings but made future ones that much more severe; deception that while intended to evade backlash had amplified it instead. This stemmed from his great gift to uncannily spot doors that were previously closed (or appeared closed to others), thus allowing him to engineer openings others couldn't see. But this talent could also lead him astray, exposing him to trapdoors that those with lesser talents would not have been able to even approach, never mind plunging into. The story of Lyndon

Johnson is very much the story of his oscillation between his greatest feats and his greatest heartbreaks, between the times he made breakthroughs others could only dream of and the times he was visited by the suffering reserved for the worst nightmares.

Getting a handle on this intertwined duality of Johnson’s strategic ability requires considering the nature of his steely will— one that wanted to win no matter what.

Johnson’s Indomitable Will

In carrying out his purposes, Johnson’s enormous strength of will sought to master events in a forceful way that was uncanny. This was true even in comparison even with other politicians—who must possess such a will if they wish to sustain a life under the most strenuous of demands in the most public of spotlights for the highest stakes. Johnson’s will was different on an entire order of magnitude.

Robert Caro related an answer that Senator Henry “Scoop Jackson” had given when he had been asked to reflect on the difference between Lyndon Baines Johnson and John Fitzgerald Kennedy:

When Kennedy needed a vote from a senator, he would summon the senator to the White House, and “would explain precisely why the bill was so important, and why he needed the senator’s support.” But if the senator said that his

45 constituency just wouldn’t let him vote that way, “Kennedy would finally say ‘he was sorry they couldn’t agree, but he understood.’” In contrast, Lyndon Johnson wouldn’t understand. As Jackson explained, “He would charm you, or knock your block off, or bribe you, or threaten you, anything to get your vote. He would do anything he had to get your vote. And he’d get it. That was the difference. He’d get it.”58

What is revealed here is the strength of Johnson’s indomitable will. Having set his mind on something, he pursued it with all the resources at his disposal. Not content to stop at the decent reasonableness of other politicians like Jackson or Kennedy, his will to get his way tapped into two forces that tapped into something deeper, almost primal: a desire to domineer, and when that didn’t seem promising, to resort to stealth.

Each sought to grant him greater control over a situation, to give him greater power.

Hence, each expanded his means for his ends, to narrow the gap between them. But each came with its own set of strengths and limitations.

The legendary Johnson Treatment is one manifestation of Johnson’s capacity to overwhelm a situation. At root to his signature style of interpersonal interaction was how he brought to bear his entire force of personality. He deployed his imposed frame

(6 feet 4 inches with an ample girth to boot) for full effect as he manhandled the person opposite. While the emphasis naturally goes to the spectacle of the Johnsonian magic as an active manifestation in the arts of power, what was really powerful was how Johnson didn’t rest on his natural gifts. He relentlessly applied himself to make the most of his natural physicality to take it to the next level.

Part of his greatness was his insatiable curiosity that voraciously sought information from wherever he could. This trait was manifest on Johnson’s very first

58 Robert A. Caro, “The Presidency of LBJ” (talk, Cambridge, Massachusetts), JFK Library, https://www.jfklibrary.org/sites/default/files/2018-04/2005_11_20_Presidency_of_LBJ.pdf.

46 night in Washington. On his arrival as a twenty-three old congressional aide, Johnson quickly identified his lodging’s bathroom as the place where information was swapped.

To ensure he received as much information as possible—that he didn’t miss anything—he took four showers and brushed his teeth five times.59 This restless curiosity towards people is found in other leaders as well. Sidney Blumenthal, a man of action turned biographer of Abraham Lincoln, astutely notes how a young Lincoln exhibited a similar high level of curiosity:

...he gathered information from everyone he met, debating their ideas and considering their motives. He entered every legislative chamber and saloon, every political gathering and social party, every back room and courtroom as a potentially invaluable learning experience. He called them his “public opinion baths.” It was how he gained his bearings in the invisible and shifting currents of politics he would navigate.60 The process required much work. It rested on obtaining and assimilating a vast array of information beforehand. No doubt Johnson’s relentless driving of his staff contributed to satisfying his voracious hunger for any information he could get his hands on. Still, the best acquirer of information was Johnson himself. He would say that the way to understand another senator was to let them keep talking. And as they went on talking, you would heart their words but their real message was communicated elsewhere. You needed to look to how they met your eyes and how they gestured their hands. Only once you shifted your attention from what they said to how they said it, would you start determining what was important to them. The Johnson Treatment rested on this instinct to judge what was important to the person across from him and

59 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “From the Hill Country to Capitol Hill” in Chapter 1, Kindle edition. 60 Sidney Blumenthal, A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I 1809-1849, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016), Prologue, iBook.

47 then couch it in such a way as to appeal to the party opposite. What emerged was a fitted argument tailored bespoke for that senator.

When Johnson found something he believed in, the effect was scintillating: vibrant, intense, energetic, passionate, and spellbinding described in his terms. Caro

Johnson presents Johnson’s self-understanding how he would “fill” himself up on the arguments he needed and then once “full” he would “let it fly.” Johnson operative Ed

Clark explained,

He [Johnson] was an emotional man, and he could start talking about something and convince himself it was right, and get all worked up, all worked up and emotional, and work all day and all night, and sacrifice, and say, ‘Follow me for the cause!’—‘Let’s do this because it’s right!’

With that same intensity, he almost stuffed himself so full that the passion needed to burst through. He “could not contain the emotions” he felt, so much so in

Car’s description:

they blazed out of his eyes, made one of his arms grab his listener’s lapel to hold the man close while he tried to persuade him, made a forefinger jab into the man’s chest, made his face push into his auditor’s, forcing the other man’s head back, as if to physically insert the arguments into it—getting closer also to better ascertain if the arguments were working.

In trying to share what he believed and assessing whether the party opposite believed him, he closed the distance, almost trying to merge into each other. “I want to see ‘em, feel ’em, smell ’em.”

With the jugular located, Johnson moved in for the kill. Once Johnson had sized up his interlocutor, this didn’t take the shape of your typical polite back-and-forth.

Traffic in this conversational intersection flowed in one direction. Johnson would launch a torrential volley of impersonal facts accompanied by most personal comments,

48 the most blatant appeals to sheer political interest hitched to the most soaring calls for idealism.61 Against such a tour de force, the senator didn’t stand a chance.

As this examination of the Johnson Treatment suggests, he was not somebody who liked leaving things to chance; he sought to control the environment as much as he could. It has been said of Johnson that “he was a man who would not make waves until he was pretty sure he owned the ocean.”62 In politics, a business fundamentally based on understanding people, that meant trying to control people as much as he could.

This instinct pushed him to demand more out of himself in his efforts to arrange his environment, leading to the preparation, planning, application of all his energies to persuade those who seemed unreachable. In this way, he could create coalitions that seemed impossible, an essential aspect of his political genius. This allowed him to live up to his revision version of that adage penned by Otto von Bismarck: “politics is the art of the possible.” No, Johnson maintained, “politics isn’t the art of the possible; it’s the art of making possible what seems impossible.”63 At his best, Johnson could direct his destiny in a way that broadened the horizons for political action beyond what was conventionally feasible. He knew how to achieve the previously unimaginable.

But with Lyndon Johnson it is never so simple. This instinct to dominate had its cruder elements as well. Johnson loved power and especially loved lording it over those who had no choice but to obey him. This waded into the vulgar. For instance, when felt the urge to relieve himself in the middle of a meeting with an aide, he would go to the bathroom but keep the door open. One aide who was briefing the president was not

61 Mark K. Updegrove, Indomitable Will : LBJ in the Presidency (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012), 94. 62 Larry L. King, “Bringing Up Lyndon.” Texas Monthly, January 1, 1976. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/bringing-up-lyndon/. 63 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “Americanizing the War, 1963-65” in Chapter 6, Kindle edition. Chapter 2, “Becoming a National Figure,” Kindle edition.

49 quite comfortable with this arrangement. Understandably, he attempted to maintain his distance. This made it hard for Johnson to hear. To rectify the situation, Johnson asked the aide to come closer. Johnson, in his telling of the story, now becomes completely bamboozled by the response of the aide to what seemed to him a perfectly reasonable request, leading to what he called:

the most ludicrous scene I had ever witnessed... Instead of simply turning around and walking over to me, he kept his face away from me and walked backward, one rickety step at a time. For a moment there I thought he was going to run right into me. It certainly made me wonder how that man had made it so far in the world.64

Such episodes abound in Johnson’s life because there was no escaping the fact that when Johnson was a superior, he exercised power simply because he could. The genius so astutely applied in the strategic realm could also be used, for the sake of pure domination, though, as we will see in the next chapter, only used for this purpose. The genius at creating power, he could not resist the temptation to use it to satisfy his own ego, for having people attend to his every need and catering to his whims. This domineering aspect of his personality translated into a certain approach to politics. By turning to how Johnson sought to dominate Congress, his advisors, and the economy, we see the limits of such a character.

Dominating Congress

One episode that highlights Johnson’s relationship to Congress in the context of

Vietnam is the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. In the first week of August 1964, two engagements were reported between American and North Vietnamese ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. While the first engagement of August 2 has been improved, the second one

64 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, (New York: Open Road Integrated Media), Chapter 8, iBook edition.

50 on August 4 most likely, as later evidence suggested, most likely did not occur.65 Shortly after, the Johnson administration decided it must retaliate. With steely resolve, Johnson ordered missile strikes in response.

The decision boosted his political fortunes. In 1964, Johnson was up for election in his own right and as he liked to say, in the spirit of “never letting a crisis go to waste,” the moment was opportune, politically at least, for such action. A groundswell of public opinion rose behind him and Republican criticism became ineffective on the issue.

Looking to draft the tailwind, legislators briskly passed, on August 7, the Gulf of Tonkin

Resolution.66 The resolution authorized the president to do whatever was necessary in

Vietnam.67 Congress was overwhelmingly in favor of the measure. Only two senators voted against it. Nobody in the House voted in opposition; it passed unanimously.

Congress effectively gave Johnson a ringing endorsement to prosecute the war as he saw fit. On August 10, a few days after Congress voted, Johnson signed the resolution into law. He now had the room to pursue the war in a manner of his choosing. Events followed his script. Johnson’s savvy politicking and leveraging of the Gulf of Tonkin crisis had given him the room he needed as well as the implicit Congressional go-ahead to continue on whatever course he chose. The final result was Johnson’s handling of the incident let him co-opt Congress into his plans for Vietnam.

Johnson moved quickly. In just eight days, he had secured decisive support to run the war as he saw fit. One of Lyndon Johnson’s great strengths was his restless

65 Mark Atwood Lawrence, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, (Oxford, Oxford University Press), 86. 66 Ibid, 87. 67 “U.S. Department of State.” U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: the Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964. U.S. Department of State. Accessed April 12, 2021. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin#:~:text=On%20August%207%2C%20196 4%2C%20Congress,and%20security%20in%20southeast%20Asia.

51 sense of urgency, that he would move as fast as possible when a situation was optimal because circumstances, while being favorable at the moment, could always reverse.68

But on occasion, that obsession with speedy execution can lead to rushing into a decision hastily with serious consequences to be felt later on in the process.

On the basis of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, Johnson later claimed congressional authorization for his subsequent escalations in Vietnam. Given the enormous margin which with it passed, it’s understandable why that dramatic gesture of approval carried such consequences, especially given the enormous weight Johnson placed on keeping the pulse of the house. With decades of legislative experience behind him, Johnson had developed a hyper-sensitive antenna tuned to the exact balance he needed to maintain in Congress to pass his agenda.. He studied Congress with great attention. The slightest disturbances in Congress didn’t escape his notice. This hyper attentiveness to Congress allowed him to pass great legislation as he was able to defy expectations of the legislative possibilities through his unmatched knowledge of

Congress. But that same close attention led to him being especially concerned with controlling the image he presented to Congress. For instance, suggestive of his understanding of Congress is this quote:

But what you don’t understand is that the President’s real trouble is with the Congress, not the bureaucracy. . . . If we went around beating our breasts and admitting difficulties in our programs, then the Congress would immediately slash all our funds for next year and then where would we be? Better to send in the reports as they are, even knowing the situation is more complicated than it appears, and then work from within to make things better and correct the problems.69

68 Larry Temple, Interviewed by author. Zoom. April 28, 2021. 69 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), “The Not-So-Great Society: Implementing LBJ’s Program” in Chapter 4, Kindle edition.

52 Johnson’s sensitivity to the eagerness for ambitious legislators to take on the president led to a desire to not include Congress into the process at his discretion. The same would happen in Vietnam. When this desire to keep the process under his control was coupled with Johnson leveraging his great feel for Congress to guide him in his efforts to keep Congress at bay, the recipe for a president boxing Congress out was there.

For someone so sensitive to them, when Congress had given him such latitude in pursuing the war, it had effectively muzzled itself. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution insulated the White House from Congressional pressures. For someone so sensitive to them, the counterfactual becomes how, if the legislation had not been passed so decisively, greater congressional pressure earlier on may have forced him to alter his calculations and potentially leading him to reevaluate course in Vietnam.

But the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution eroded that possibility. While expedient in the short term, it came with long term consequences. For those crucial years of 1964-1966 when the decisions to escalate were made, Congress became an ineffective check on presidential power. Pushback was not coming from Congress. Whatever was coming had to come from within the administration itself. But, as it turned out, Johnson’s personality made such pushback more difficult.

Johnson’s (Subtle) Domination of Advisors It has been said, “A president is only as good as the advice they receive.70 The sheer number of issues and their enormous complexity make it impossible for a president to comprehensively master every facet of every issue that comes across their desk. Sitting at the head of a large and complex organization, they cannot possibly know everything with the depth necessary to make sound decisions. To manage this situation,

70 Mark Updegrove, “Johnson Years” course, UT Austin, Fall 2020.

53 they turn to advisors. These advisors provide a fuller picture as well as alternative perspectives on the situations the president confronts. But advisors can have their own priorities too—whether it be their future job prospects, intra-administration squabbles, or differing ideological agendas. Accordingly, it is crucial for the president to manage and not let their advisors manage them. For not doing so can mean allowing these outside pressures to interfere in the performance of their duties. Having the right people around and knowing how to work with them in a way most beneficial for the president and the country becomes essential.

Some decision makers take a more hands off approach when it comes to how they conduct their meetings. Richard Nixon describes the relationship of Charles de Gaulle to his advisors:

De Gaulle never participated in bull sessions. In cabinet meetings he would listen closely to his ministers and courteously take notes on what they said. If he wanted to exchange views with a minister, he usually arranged for a private meeting. Johnson did things differently as his management techniques for his advisors were complex. Owing to his imposing personality as larger-than-life figure, Johnson could take a domineering and dismissive tone in meetings. But he was far too astute a politician and had been in Washington for too long to just leave it at that. In fact, he leveraged his personality to handle his advisors in a sophisticated manner. He used his intimidating disposition to test the attachment of his advisors to their views. Former

White House Special Counsel (1967-1969) Larry Temple recalls how Johnson could take the measure of the man and his position.71 By testing and prodding and challenging the advisor, often in a sharp way, Johnson could uncover the commitment of an advisor to

71 Mark K. Updegrove, Indomitable Will : LBJ in the Presidency (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012), 219.

54 their position. Were they bluffing? Were they advocating a position for the reasons stated or for ulterior ones? Did they believe down to their bones, with complete confidence, in what they were saying? Knowing the sheer volume and complexity of issues he faced daily, he supplemented his understanding by also assessing the person delivering the briefing as well. This involved him, for instance, engaging in a calculated ad hominem attack to feel out their conviction. Johnson would respond, “what did you ever get elected to? Hell, you haven’t been even constable and you’re trying to tell the

President of the United States what to do!” If the advisor lacked a belief in their opinion, they would back off. But if they had done their homework, if they knew the facts, they could still say, “Yes Mr. President that’s true but here’s that’s what I think and this is why.”72 In seeing if they could hold their position under the hectoring of the most powerful man in the world, he was sizing them up. Johnson’s Central Intelligence

Agency Director Richard Helms explains how, “I think he liked far less any individual for whom he didn't have any regard and who he didn't think could stand up for his side.”73

As Johnson evaluated his own efforts of persuasion in such terms, so too did he for those around him. For a president starved for time and with demanding issues dominating his plate, sometimes prudence dictated that, in the spirit of the gambling mentality introduced in chapter 1, one follows the old poker line:— “don’t play your hand, play the man.” Johnson could play policy. He knew it like the back of his hand.

Equally as important, if not more, was the man behind the policy. And Johnson knew how to play the man.

72 Larry Temple, Interviewed by author. Zoom. April 8, 2021. 73 H.W. Brands, The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 15.

55 In addition to his artful handling of his advisors, Johnson also had the virtue of keenly exploring all the sides of the issue. For instance, he devoted an entire afternoon to the systematic questioning of Under Secretary of State George Ball’s dissent. The notes relate that Johnson was aware of the force of Ball’s argument and while ultimately disagreed, understood the opposing point of view.74 Still, while Ball’s analysis was perceptive and penetrating, Johnson was not convinced. Ball’s argument was not strong enough to penetrate into the fog of the uncertain future to discern what the concrete reality of American extrication and liquidation in Vietnam would look like.75

This reason for Johnson’s rejection of Ball’s argument is that he searched for conviction. Johnson valued Ball for being “the only man I have ever really known in government who, on five minutes of instruction from the president, can take either side of a proposition.”76 The issue was that while Johnson respected Ball’s argument, he was not convinced by it. This was in part that Ball, as suggested by Don DeLilo in his book on him, understood his role as a presidential advisor through the lens of lawyer’s commitment to confidentiality.77 Even when a lawyer may disagree with a client, Ball understood the lawyer as being bound to not publicly expose the client. That eliminated for him the use of the threat of resignation to demonstrate the seriousness of his position. Johnson knew this and described it with characteristic color:

George, you're like the school teacher looking for a job with a small school district in Texas. When asked by the school board whether he believed that the world was flat or round, he replied, Oh, I can teach it either way. That's you. You can argue like hell with me against a position, but I know outside this room you're going to support me. You can teach it flat or round.78

74 Brands, Wages of Globalism, 237-241. 75 Updegrove, Indomitable Will, 192. 76 David L. DiLeo, Rethinking Containment: The Origins and Meaning of George Ball's Vietnam Dissent (The University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 125. 77 DiLeo, Rethinking Containment, foreward. 78 Brands, Wages of Globalism, 8.

56 The political pressures Johnson perceived himself to be under raised the threshold of the conviction necessary for Johnson to turn course. Ball, by temperament as a known devil’s advocate and with his understanding of a lawyer’s professional responsibility, did not have it. Still, even if Ball had not been able to convince Johnson to change course, Johnson’s openness to Ball’s position and his valuation of his capacity to argue both sides of the question, it was not because Johnson was closed off to alternate points of view that Vietnam policy was formulated as it was.

But if Johnson neither mindlessly bullied his advisors into taking a view he wanted nor prevented the open airing of views, he still could achieve the consequences of such behavior through different means. After all, Johnson still did set the frame within which he received advice.79 Advisors, faced with their own incentives and agendas are competing for the ear for the president. Proximity is power in Washington. For

Johnson, his instinct for consensus and the middle position, introduced in the previous chapter, led to a focus on unity. Johnson CIA director Richard Helms described the president’s attitude towards his cabinet:

It was very clear over the years that President Johnson did not like to make decisions when he had to decide between one or the other of his cabinet officers. He always liked a consensus, and he liked his cabinet officers to agree about these things.8034 If one did want to disagree with him, he took a special tact to do so. For instance,

Johnson aides took their departure from Lady Bird Johnson. The president didn’t respond well to confrontations announcing how wrong he was. Instead, the First Lady would listen to her husband's position and when she disagreed with it say, “Yes, that

79 Mark Lawrence, “Johnson Years” course, UT Austin, Fall 2020. 80 H.W. Brands, The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 27.

57 may be true Mr. President, but have you considered it this way.” The president’s style of communication tilted the field toward taking the middle position in the short term. It allowed him to avoid having to make the drastic change of course that withdrawal from

Vietnam would likely have required. It allowed him to continue things as they’d been running. The lack of big picture thinking resulted in the constant defaulting to what looked like the prudent middle position. But this ended up actually chaining the administration into an immoderate and unwise policy when evaluated on the whole.

Ad-hoc incrementalism morphed into a large-scale debacle.81 At the center was

Johnson’s own habits of thinking and decision-making influencing the advice he was receiving.

Dominating the Economy82

All the advice in the world could not save him if the economy started going downhill. Johnson had prioritized his Great Society agenda and had also refused to alter course in Vietnam. He was committed to furthering both “guns and butter.” That came with economic demands that called him to expand his means. Pursuing both came with economic demands that required him to expand his means. But means are, as Gaddis notes, always limited. Johnson found this out when reached a hard economic ceiling beyond which even the never before seen prosperity of 1960s America could not supply.

Through forceful action he was able to defy its consequences. That only made the aftershocks of doing so that much harsher.

81 For more on the evolution of mission creep in Vietnam, see Chapter 8 of John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (2005). 82 This section draws heavily from the section “Guns, Buttle, and Stagflation” in Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), Chapter 7, Kindle edition.

58 There were two economic problems facing Johnson: rising inflation and the provision of funds to meet the growing cost of the war in Vietnam. The economic doctrine of the times called for a tax hike. The New Economics that had become fashionable during the 1960s attractively suggested that economic activity could be encouraged with tax cuts and spending increases. For this reason, Kennedy had called for a tax cut during his administration. The flipside of this was that when the economy began to “overheat” where heightened demand led to a surge in prices and thus, higher inflation, economic activity had to be slowed down through disincentives such as tax cuts. Kennedy had the chance to float the desirable idea of lower taxes. Johnson was left with his advisors recommending he increase taxes as the economy started to speed up.

Johnson strikingly formulated the political difficulty of this position: “It is not too difficult to convince someone that he will be better off with more take-home pay. But try to convince him that he will be better off tomorrow by losing part of his income today.”83

For Johnson, circumstances rendered such a course unfavorable. He had only just recently dazzled Congress into passing a tax cut bill. Going back and reversing course would be embarrassing and could cost him critical political capital. Doing so would divert the advancement of the Great Society. A tax increase was out of the question as it was a politically untenable course in his eyes, one which he sought to delay for as long as he could. The money would not come from taxes, so he looked for the funds elsewhere.

Several options were on the table. He could make up the difference by adjusting his spending, either downscaling the Great Society or avoiding escalation in Vietnam.

83 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), “Guns, Butter, and Stagflation” in Chapter 7, Kindle edition.

59 That would free up the budget and time as well since these two priorities were taking more and more of his time.

The budget was not going anywhere. Yet lessening his aspirations for the Great

Society would mean relinquishing the purpose of his presidency. The Johnson administration’s adherence to Cold War doctrine and its geopolitical calculations were not conducive to altering course in Vietnam. He could not ignore Vietnam, at least within the framework he was approaching the problem. To withdraw from Vietnam would mean reneging from his word to assure South Vietnamese freedom as well as bearing the humiliating domestic attacks for having lost a war in Indochina. He did not want to make up the difference by downscaling the Great Society or by reducing

American involvement in Vietnam. His ends were fixed and not subject to revision.

Since he was not going to retrench his ends, he sought to expand his capacities.

Johnson wanted to pursue the Great Society, escalate in Vietnam, and secure a better fiscal situation. He wanted to have his cake—or more accurately, cakes—and eat them too.

Having decided to pursue all three objectives, Johnson looked to see how he could expand his power to secure the funds he needed to make that possible. He resorted to any means possible to make up the fiscal difference. Always preferring to be personally involved, he embarked on an intense journey to shore up his financial books.

That meant morphing into the salesman-in-chief as he tried to increase government income by selling federal properties.84 This also involved scavenging for items to sell in government stockpiles of metals.85 Johnson brought to bear his significant powers of

84 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “Guns, Butter, and Stagflation” in Chapter 7, Kindle edition. 85 Ibid.

60 persuasion on labor and industry leaders as he leaned on them to maintain prices and wages favorable for his purposes.86 In the words of Johnson aide Joseph Califano, “Six months after his decision to pursue the Great Society and the war without a tax increase, it almost seemed as if LBJ could hold down wages and prices by the force and presence of his personality.”87

Here, the instinct to impose his will merged with the larger agenda to escape the economic pressures coming to bear on him. By raising revenue and pushing industries into a position favorable to him, Johnson was able to avoid the immediate downside.

But the cost was that he might have to swallow it at a later date, only now, because the problems had time to take root, the ensuing downside would be higher. Eventually

Johnson was forced to admit “because of Vietnam we cannot do all that we should, or all that we would like to do.”88 As inflation rose and growth slowed, Johnson, in August

1967, resigned himself to the tax increase he so confidently rejected in 1965.89

As this reversal suggests, pressures emanating from the budget and the war in

Vietnam could not be escaped. Not only that, they strangled the Great Society, for it was the one that can bear the least under the pressure of necessity, even as it is the most noble. Hence, when push came to shove, it was most likely to fall by the wayside. Rather than delivering him the fruits of all three of his goals as he hoped, his actions to avoid the downscaling of the Great Society, led to a suboptimal outcome in each enterprise.

The financial situation ballooned out of control and the war in Vietnam crippled his

86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “Guns, Butter, and Stagflation” in Chapter 7, Kindle edition. 89 Ibid. This foreshadowed how it would occur in Vietnam. As Johnson came around to raising the taxes that he rejected calls for before had been asked before, so too would he attempt to seek peace in a war despite feeling he was in an unfavorable position after rejecting earlier calls for peace without being able to dictate the terms.

61 presidency. And those two in conjunction exhausted the economic resources and political capacities necessary to realize the Great Society’s full potential. This was because in trying to juggle all three, the danger of any one of them falling meant it would drag down the other. Johnson gambled that increasing his risk exposure would allow him to have all three. But it also meant if they crashed, the crash would be that much larger with the aftershocks not just limited to his duration in office but be felt for generations to come.

On the right, the economic situation and the unpopularity of the war in Vietnam

(that it was not being pursued vigorously enough) gave meaty punchy bags for conservative detractors who, like Ronald Reagan, premised their agendas on rolling back the Great Society for being unsound economically. From a rhetorical standpoint at least, it signaled the setting sun of big government liberalism that Johnson’s hero

Franklin D. Roosevelt had perfected. By the time he left politics, the great cause of activist government he had championed and taken to heart was no longer the great force it had been when he had entered politics. The greatest irony was that it would be from the left, his very party, that rejected his vision when in 1996, a Democrat president Bill

Clinton announced at a forum no less elevated than the State of the Union: “The era of big government is over.”

As his tango with the economy shows, Johnson tried to open doors others would not dare to pull off but with the risk of stumbling into a trapdoor others wouldn't have gotten close to. He gambled that he could avoid that fate. He counted on his indomitable will to get out of a tricky situation as he had done before. He bet he would find a way. It was just that he bet wrong. Having pushed aside Congress, his advisors, and the economy, Johnson found out, when it was too late, that he was in too deep.

62 Deception of the Media and the Public

There might have been, however, one final check that could have prevented that: the judgment of the American people, as filtered through the media. It would be

Johnson’s fateful decision to keep the nature of American involvement in Vietnam non transparent that would be the final domino that undermined his standing in the eyes of the public, and by extension, the credibility of the presidency..

Even while secrecy for Johnson went awry in Vietnam, it is worthwhile to step back and consider how that very secrecy had worked quite well in the Senate. Indeed,

Johnson’s preference for backroom maneuvering led to a boost in the Senate’s productivity. Of course, critics pointed to how such a set-up jeopardized the Senate’s traditional emphasis on debate. It resembled more a legislative factory churning out bills and brokering messy compromise rather than a grand stage upon which, in the tradition of the Athenian Pnyx or the Roman Senate, the great issues of government could be deliberated upon.

Because the performative nature of speechmaking incentivized sharp positions

Johnson found such serious debate mostly counterproductive to his goals. Speeches that cornered a legislator into a position by publicly announcing their commitment to principle made the job of a master negotiator like him that much harder. Since public announcements tied the hands of whoever he needed to convince, Johnson had fewer levers of power at his disposal with which to woo others. For this reason, he preferred softer, more amorphous positions that gave a wheeler-and-dealer like him more room to operate. When this parliamentary genius assumed the helm of the Senate, the center of

63 action shifted from the floor to the cloakroom. His achievements in the Senate show

Johnson made the less transparent setup work. More things got done more smoothly.

Still, even if one concedes the Senate could have benefitted by lessening the emphasis on debate to produce legislation, it’s still possible a different set of rules applied when it came to foreign policy.

When faced with uncertain circumstances, it is human nature to grasp for what they know best. For him this meant reaching for his time as Master of the Senate. Lady

Bird Johnson would recall his years in the Senate as “the happiest twelve years of our lives.”90 Faced with the agony of the Vietnam dilemma, Johnson tried to recreate the

Senate environment that had worked so well for him. Just like in Johnson’s Senate years, the same impulse to keep policy arguments and maneuvering were going to be kept in house would be present. As aide Joseph Califano explained, Johnson had a

“fixation with keeping options open on any new policy venture until he had every political stone turned and set in place was, in good part, why he was such an effective legislator. But the misleading body language played badly with the press corps and the public, who like to bear witness to the struggles and machinations of their presidents.”91

Johnson didn’t like exposing himself in such a manner.

A master tactician who was able to calculate and transact like no one else,

Johnson liked preserving the greatest amount of tactical flexibility possible in his hands.

Being cornered in a position was not how Lyndon Johnson did business. With the media, that would mean keeping a thousand balls in the air, asserting himself one way one day and then reversing the next. As Califano suggested, the media and the public did

90 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 1040. . 91 Quoted in Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “The Credibility Gap and the Home Front” in Chapter 6, Kindle edition.

64 not have the same patience for such maneuvering. Johnson, however, preferred the backroom negotiations, where his magnificent power for solving the persuasive equation with individuals and small groups could work its magic.

So, as Johnson had boxed out the seniority system’s incentives and amassed power to be used at his discretion, so too he had done the same in the boxing out of

Congress and the economy thus giving Johnson fuller reign to carry out the war as he saw fit. And now, Johnson was doing the same with the media and the public. The administration did not feel the need to publicly recognize the moment reactionary, retaliatory air strikes had escalated into an offensive bombing campaign. Nor did he wish to disrupt the domestic life of the country by signaling that it was in an all-out war.

No state of national emergency was proclaimed, no war-related tax increases were on the horizon, and the military was not supplemented by calling up its reserves. 92 All of this was in line with the order that Johnson wished the escalation to be presented “a low-keyed manner” so as to “avoid undue concern and excitement in the Congress and in domestic public opinion.”93 Johnson liked secrecy because of the control it afforded.

And so, he did not resort to a transparent and open process as the country waded deeper and deeper into the jungles of Vietnam.

There is the argument that Johnson was trying to salvage a situation that had been wrenched out of his own control. In trying to change the terms of the game—whether with Congress, the economy, or the media and public—he was trying to improve a bad situation into one that was less bad. Indeed, had Johnson not revealed the full scope of the war at an earlier date, he might have excited Congress, the public, and the media to push for a stronger war. The Joint Chiefs had prepared plans that

92 Ibid. “Americanizing the War, 1963-65” in Chapter 6, Kindle edition. 93 Ibid.

65 called for an even more intensive escalation that risked war with China.94 If Johnson didn’t give them something, there was the danger of the military challenging his policy in Vietnam by going over his head to the media and Congress.95 The public might have calculated that an advanced military power like America should have no problem taking on Vietnam with the military pushing for it as well. The military knew how to maneuver with the best of politicians. Thus, the paternalistic course Johnson took might have been justified to save the public from itself. Too much public exposure might mean Johnson risked losing control of the war effort. Rather than an exercise in secretive manipulation,

Johnson might have been engaged in a prudent act of discretion.

One key thing to remember is the difference in Johnson’s domestic breakthroughs and his foreign policy record was that he was a legislative genius but not a diplomatic virtuoso. The same instinctive feeling that, more often than not, had guided him as he made the most of his political capital domestically was absent in the international realm.96

History may not repeat itself, but it can rhyme. On his inauguration day,

Woodrow Wilson presciently foreshadowed how “It would be an irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs.” Wilson’s presidency began with hopes of liberating America with his New Freedom. It ended with him suffering a debilitating stroke as his fellow citizens rejected the Treaty of Versailles he envisioned creating a new international order. Likewise, the second half of Johnson's presidency was overtaken by the foreign events. And although he sought to unify the country in

94Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Memorandum to the Secretary of Defense (McNamara),” November 14,1964, 905, Doc 411, Foreign Relations of the United States. 95 H.W. Brands, Interviewed by author, Zoom. May 10, 2021. 96 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, Chapter 6, Kindle edition.

66 never before seen fashion, encouraged in his efforts by his decisive victory in the 1964 election, the country ended up being more divided than ever.

Foreign policy just did not give him the chance to work against the status quo and the existing state of affairs.97 And in Vietnam, changing the status quo was a very tall task. Johnson knew he was stuck in a corner but did not know how to get out. In trying to control the situation as he did, he raised the dangers of bringing anything less than a brilliant level of performance. While that might have been reasonable to expect in the realm of legislation, which was his forte, foreign policy was a different matter. Johnson could bring to the table only an average level of performance.98 It was just that it wouldn't be enough.

—————————

These two chapters have shown how Johnson’s created power. Chapter 1 showed

Johnson’s thrust for power could engineer previously unrealized opportunities as he had a genius for sensing where power lay in an environment and how he could make that power his power. After locating the power, he typically positioned himself at the middle position where the ground was largest for compromise and also unity. To ease his relations in fostering consensus with a great variety of interests, principles, and objectives he would mobilize strategic ambiguity to expand the amount of support he’d gain. He appeared all things to all people, inducing them to project onto him what they wanted to hear. In this way, he was able to muster support that would help him advance, even if it meant he was inconsistent.

97 H.W. Brands, The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 28. 98 For more on the relation of average to genius performance, see Henry Kissinger, “The White Revolutionary: Reflections on Bismarck.” Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.) 97, no. 3 (July 1, 1968), 893.

67 Only with that power would Johnson be able to follow his own version of the old political maxim, that politics is, as Bismarck put it, “the art of the politics.” tried and tested maxim for the ends of politics where that politics goes beyond the art of the possible. No, he maintained that “politics isn’t the art of the possible; it’s the art of making possible what seems impossible.” 99 In reforming the seniority system, Johnson had achieved just that.

But in pursuing what seems impossible, it could also expose him to heightened consequences, for things may not just appear impossible but actually be so.

In Vietnam, the creation of power misaligned his means with his ends. In fact, they likely exposed him to further downside. For as important as it is for the leader to create power, it is as important to attach that power to institutional forces that can prevent the pursuit of power from collapsing into its own logic. Not doing so means squandering the power that had been so skillfully husbanded.100 Where the party incentives and foreign policy climate had been able to have Johnson’s personal ambition redound to the interests of the institution in which he was serving, the Senate, the same could not be said for Johnson, Vietnam, and the presidency. In attempting to get around the Congress, his advisors, the economy, the media and public Johnson had edged his way around the guardrails that might have kept from going too far in Vietnam.

In straddling the extremes of domination and deception, an immoderate character reveals himself who, paradoxically, sought moderate ends. The idea was that by placing himself at those extremes he could expand the space for which a middle

99 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “Americanizing the War, 1963-65” in Chapter 6, Kindle edition. Chapter 2, “Becoming a National Figure,” Kindle edition. 100 Illustrating this point is the point made by international relations thinker Harvery Sicherman on Benjamin Disraeli: “power without purpose is no power at all.” https://nationalinterest.org/article/disraelis-secret-324?page=0%2C3

68 ground could emerge. In Vietnam specifically, the middle ground led to a humiliating settlement/withdrawal lest bear the costs of unimaginable escalation in Asia. But the course Johnson found had the downsides of both. Johnson found himself initiating a humiliating escalation, where the cost of American blood and treasure would come with the psychological baggage of fighting an ambiguous war that divided a country, eroded the institution of the presidency, and tarnished a legacy.

So, the question becomes: For someone so adept at expanding his means, for someone who had so thoroughly mastered the art of power, why was he not able to restrain his ends? What made his aims so beloved to him?

Chapter 3 will turn to describing those ends: the beautiful vision that Lyndon

Johnson dreamed for his Great Society.

69 Chapter 3:

The Visionary, Eros, and the Great Society

““I’m a dreamer, always have been. My mother taught me that unless you had a dream, your life wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans... Every American has a little bit of dream in him... It’s not enough to sit around and dream, and criticize things you don’t like. You’ve

got to do something about it, in the real world. That’s why we’re here.”

-Lyndon Baines Johnson

Johnson gaining determination from the Appalachian, one of the poorest regions in

the country at that time

70 Chapter 1 and chapter 2 dealt with certain aspects of Lyndon Johnson’s strategy.

They focused on how he did things. Chapter 3 and chapter 4 will now shift gears and consider why he did them. This chapter argues that Johnson’s ambition was in service of his natural legislative genius and in pursuit of “glory’s prized caress.” His legislative genius served as a handmaiden to draw out the beauty of the Great Society as he hoped to secure “glory’s prized caress.” Johnson’s mission in politics—in its domestic, aesthetic, and utilitarian manifestations—reflected his hopes to realize this vision.101

Understanding the role of eros in leadership is the first step to seeing these connections—between the why and the how, between the genius and the glory, between the aesthetic and the utilitarian.

A Leader’s Indomitable Will Spawning from Eros

Eros is the Greek word referring to the life force that resides in an individual. It energizes one’s desires. It often takes on the character of expansiveness.102 It yearns, reaches, and grasps for the objects of its desires, the pursuit of which unleashes prodigious energies. 103

For instance, one distinguishing mark for great leaders is an indomitability of will. With larger-than-life personalities, enormous talents, and prodigious energies, they have the capacity to enact their will as very few others are able to. We have already encountered Johnson’s indomitable will that ventured to even try to bend the economy

101 This insight on the relation of ambition and aesthetics was inspired by a lecture on Youtube delivered by Professor Eric Schliesser: Center for the Study of Economic Liberty, “Adam Smith on Statesmanship,” YouTube video, 1:14:05, February 4, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ7x1ECijgQ&ab_channel=CenterfortheStudyofEconomicLiberty 102 Laurence D. Cooper, Eros in Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche: The Politics of Infinity,(University Park, The Pennsylvania State University, 2008), 2-3 103 Ibid. 22.

71 for his purposes. The source of the toughness of such figures can often be traced back to a source that might be the least expected: eros.

It is not uncommon to see great figures in history refer to fame and fortune in relation to eros. Machiavelli would be one of the most prominent examples. To illustrate the nature of virtu, Machiavelli’s term for the ability necessary to achieve greatness, he exhorted aspiring politicos to approach political life with the attitude that “fortune is a woman.” In a similar vein, Winston Churchill, well-versed in all the ups and downs of a lifetime in politics, likewise feminized fortune when he said, “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.” Here is an example of

Charles de Gaulle as he described the man of character, his vision of the ideal leader:

The man of character finds attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he realizes himself.... He is a jealous lover and will share with no one the prizes or the pains that may be his as a result of trying to overcome obstacles.104

Note the reference of de Gaulle to being a jealous lover of difficulty. The harsh realities of political life are transposed by the passion of eros into something more. Far from the cold bloodedness that we expect in the pursuit of power, such figures of enormous ambition—for who can say that Machiavelli, Churchill, and de Gaulle were anything but extraordinarily ambitious on an uncommon scale— feel flowing within them a fiery passion. As Machiavelli, Churchill, and de Gaulle did, Johnson also understood his ambition in eros.

Johnson’s Legislative Virtuosity as a Springboard to Eros

One of the aspects of politics he was gifted in was the passing of legislation. When describing the nature of working with Congress, he explained how “A measure must be

104 Quoted in Daniel J. Mahoney, De Gaulle: Statesmanship, Grandeur, and Modern Democracy (New York, Taylor and Francis), 53.

72 sent to the Hill at exactly the right moment. Timing is essential. Momentum is not a mysterious mistress. It is a controllable fact of political life.”105 Here, Johnson understands the intangible sense of timing that a master politician needs. In being so precisely tuned to the rhythms of the body, Johnson found in his affinity for the legislative process what he believed was an element of control that others may not possess. As a master of momentum, he believed he had found the key that could unlock the puzzles of political life. Far from being conquered by the confusion of the times, he would be able to control them.

The confidence to shape events comes from such a belief in one’s capacity for effective action. Henry Kissinger would once declare that “Luck, in politics as in other activities, is but the residue of design.”106 This belief resides at the heart of those who wish to influence events. As important as the skill and knowledge of politics is, it is the strength of will, to assert that one can and will influence events that guides a life of action—that with the proper design, the proper timing, and the right phrase, events are manageable. Far from being overawed by their task, such leaders believe that with audacity, cleverness and foresight, they’ll be able to corral fate. Certainly, calculations can lead one astray, perhaps even more when attached to a strong will. But absent the will to impose the conclusion of one’s calculations, the most sophisticated deliberation is rendered mere speculation, never to test its propositions in reality.

To act requires a desire for action. In politics, that means wanting to be at the center of things. This positive orientation towards taking action is similar in spirit to

Winston Churchill, who said “I like things to happen and if they don’t happen, I like to

105 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 601. 106 Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22, (Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1957), 174.

73 make them happen.”107 This attitude was put most eloquently in words by Lincoln.

Biographer Joshua Wolf Shenk articulates the core motive of Lincoln’s entire life:

he had an "irrepressible desire" to accomplish something while he lived. He wanted to connect his name with the great events of his generation, and "so impress himself upon them as to link his name with something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man." This was no mere wish, Lincoln said, but what he "desired to live for."108

Legislation offered the promise for Johnson to make his mark as it was the arena in which he could influence events. With those means, he would pursue ends suffused with eros.

Johnson’s Vision of the Great Society Springs from Eros

With such legendary capacity in regards to his means, he needed a vision worthy of those means. He would find it in his vision for the Great Society

This vision was a long time in the making. The seeds were present in just about each decade of his life, even if they may not have been the center of his attention: from the heartbreaking condition he observed of those in his native Hill Country to the brutal prejudice he encountered when teaching those kids in Cotulla to the 1957 Program with a Heart in which he hinted, in a thirteen-point liberal agenda, the broad outlines of this program.109 His political vision was rooted in the fundamental emotional experiences he had encountered over his entire life. All these experiences and many more finally

107 Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, (London: Allen Lane, 2018), Chapter 14, iBook. 108Joshua Wolf Shenk, “Lincoln's Great Depression,” The Atlantic (Atlantic Media Company, October 1, 2005), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/10/lincolns-great-depression/304247/. 109 For more on the “Program with a Heart” Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, Chapter 2 .

74 crystallized into the vision for the country he delivered on May 22, 1964 at the graduation ceremony for the University of Michigan.110

The speech took place amidst the unprecedented prosperity the nation was enjoying. Far from resting on those laurels, however, Johnson proposed the challenge of his times as whether or not that “wealth would enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.” But Johnson detected troubling undercurrents that acted against this. With so many opportunities for material advancement, Americans were at risk of being thrown into lives solely devoted to the accumulation of goods, leaving it at danger of becoming a nation with prosperity but no purpose.

Johnson’s response to these problems of prosperity was the grand vision of a

“Great Society.” America’s soul needed ministering, and the Great Society with Johnson as its chief architect, would implement it. The success of the vision would be judged on whether it brought about an environment where Americans are “quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods,” where “the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”

Johnson was attempting to respond to a unique world historical moment.

America’s postwar prosperity was partly the result of its other economic competitors trying to recover from the cataclysmic disruption of World War II. Great Britain,

Germany, France, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan all suffered terrible losses within their borders. America, while expending sizable blood and treasure, had seen its industrial center relatively secure. On this basis of great economic prosperity, America

110 Lyndon Johnson, “The Great Society.” https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/may-22-1964-remarks-university-michiga n

75 enjoyed wealth, might, and power never before seen since the days of the Roman

Empire.

Johnson’s response to this moment tapped into a deep strand in the debate over the nature of America. The primary speechwriter for this speech, Richard Goodwin, placed this speech in a tradition stretching back to the origins of the country. Thomas

Jefferson believed the prosperity of America “would liberate citizens to pursue the arts and refinement of manners … that harmony and reflection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.”111 Poet Walt Whitman similarly argued that

Americans possessed a capacity for “materialistic development … democracy [was] only of use that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruits in the highest form of interaction between men and their beliefs.”112 By situating himself within this tradition,

Johnson found the intellectual resources to meet the moment history had appointed him. To rise to the occasion, he would draw upon the deep-seated American instinct to elevate its material success for lofty purposes. He was trying to provide an ennobling vision.

With those high aims of the Great Society, Johnson laid out his means. He vowed to put together the “best thought and broadest knowledge,” organizing “conferences and meetings” on each of the problem areas to find solutions. To meet the problems of

“soulless wealth” and “unbridled growth,” Johnson foresaw a dynamic government poised to lead the way to the glorious destiny promised by the Great Society

Johnson came through on his promises. Almost a month and a half later, he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law. Standing beside was Martin Luther King Jr.,

111 Richard N. Goodwin, Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties, (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 1988), Chapter 15, iBook. 112 Ibid.

76 who had finally found a president who was willing to take the risks necessary to advance the cause. A few months after that, the voters voiced their approval for the president’s past actions and future agenda in stunning fashion. In the 1964 election, Johnson was elected in own right in a landslide victory, defeating Republican challenger Barry

Goldwater, both by sheer number of votes but more impressively, in percentage as well.

For a president elevated in tragedy, entering office on shaky foundations only a year earlier, Johnson had been reelected in his own right in a smashing victory.

That was not enough. Johnson aimed to surpass even that spectacular year. He would reach the crescendo of statesmanship in 1965. The horrific events in Selma,

Alabama saw Johnson wield the full power of the presidency for a noble cause. After the police turned on non-violent demonstrators at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, he would introduce joint legislation, once again deploying his near-perfect sense of timing.

He declared in a primetime joint address to Congress, using the full might of the president’s bully pulpit to declare, in perhaps the greatest line of his presidency, “We shall overcome.” These words were listened to over the radio by Martin Luther King Jr.

Who would have thought Johnson of all people, white Southerner from Texas who had for many years in Congress voted against civil rights, would become King’s partner? But as Robert Caro notes, power doesn’t just corrupt it also reveals.113 At that moment, it was revealed to King and the nation as a whole that this was a president who understood the plight of his people and knew how to deliver for him. As suggested by the collaboration between him and Johnson, King’s dream of an America where black and whites could hold hands together and sing “Free at Last” was coming closer to reality. The nation was

113 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), xiv.

77 finally progressing towards the realization of equality the 14th Amendment had sought after nearly a century prior.

Johnson’s America had come far in the span of two years. The American people beheld a president in full command of his powers, adept at ruling and managing the affairs of the nation. And not only that, he exhibited enormous political courage by going out on a limb for civil rights, in being willing to stake his entire presidency on that cause. He wasn’t merely playing politics. He had ascended into the realm of moral achievement. In deploying his presidency for such elevated, moral purposes, he exhibited the same understanding of the office as did his mentor, the most adept modern president, Franklin D. Roosevelt who once said:

The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.114

The legislative genius had become a moral leader. In laying out his vision for the

Great Society, he had sought to be the “leader of thought” of his time. He was making his bid for presidential greatness.

This understanding of the presidency was further supported by the self-understanding he demonstrated in the “We Shall Overcome” speech where he declared:

This is the richest and most powerful country which ever occupied the globe. The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But I do not want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion.

114 John F. Kennedy, Remarks at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner, https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/des-moines-ia-19580322.

78 Johnson eschewed great power politics and dedicated himself to the concerns at home. In contrast, while Johnson’s predecessor John F. Kennedy voiced similar liberal aspirations, he believed his role was fundamentally in the realm of foreign affairs. He told Richard Nixon on a phone call, “It really is true that foreign affairs is the only important issue for a president to handle, isn’t it? I mean who gives a shit if the minimum wage is $1.15 or $1.25.”115 Rather than focusing on high-stakes geopolitics,

Johnson found his aspirations in the domestic arena, where his legislative capacity could be best put to use. Far from finding them the humdrum issues that were irksome political problems to discharge, Johnson located in them the great hope of the liberal, enlightened project. In that same speech, he pledged to be the president who:

educated young children to the wonders of their world...who helped to feed the hungry…who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election... who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth.

Rather than seeking imperial conquest abroad, he focused his ambitions on domestic considerations. The Great Society was the vehicle with which to do this. The

Great Society was how he wished his legacy to be defined:

I figured when my legislative program passed the Congress, that the Great Society had the chance to grow into a beautiful woman. And I figured her growth and development would be as natural and inevitable as any small child’s...And when she grew up, I figured she’d be so big and beautiful that the American people couldn’t help but fall in love with her, and once they did, they’d want to keep her around forever, making her a permanent part of American life, more permanent even than the New Deal.116

Here Johnson points to the Great Society as being a “beautiful woman.” The effectiveness of the vision rested upon if it could make a more beautiful America. It

115 Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), Chapter 3’s epigraph. 116 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), “Assessing the Great Society” in Chapter 4, Kindle edition.

79 would win the hearts of the American people, not just their votes or begrudging recognition. To showcase its beauty was his goal. He was like a midwife who would shepherd the Great Society’s beauty to fruition. His fondest hope was to act as a safeguard of the Great Society’s development. And to that end, he would bring about all of the wiles, skill, and tenacity he had.

The Great Society and Vietnam

He only had a few short years to implement that soaring vision. As eros had been

Johnson’s metaphor of choice in describing his ultimate aspirations, he was fearful of his beautiful women being overshadowed by the hellish war. He described the tradeoff he faced in pursuing a war in Vietnam at the expense of the Great Society: “That bitch of a war, killed the lady I really loved—the Great Society.”117 For Johnson, the ugliness of the situation in Vietnam hampered the beauty of the Great Society.

Getting out of Vietnam was something that weighed heavily on Johnson.

Escalation in Vietnam was not a decision he took lightly. He had his reservations as expressed when he told Senator Richard Brevard Russell that Vietnam was the “biggest damn mess” he had seen. He told Lady Bird Johnson “I can't get out, I can't finish it with what I have got. So what the hell do I do?”

Behind Johnson’s actions in Vietnam is the strong force of the Great Society.” For one thing, it led to deprioritization of domestic over foreign. Because Johnson’s energy to shift the status quo was focused on shifting the domestic agenda rather than foreign policy, he had the tendency to reduce Vietnam to its impact on his domestic agenda.

Because the dramatic domestic changes he was advocating for called upon enormous

117 Schulman, Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism, “Assessing the Great Society” in Chapter 4, Kindle.

80 energy and attention, Johnson tried to maintain the status quo in foreign affairs and take the path of least resistance, especially in Vietnam. The determination to change the status quo in domestic affairs, for the disadvantaged, minorities, immigrants, and poor led to the trade off of retaining the international status quo.

Changing course in Vietnam demanded initializing a total conceptual overhaul, one that challenged the prevailing Cold War orthodoxy. Hindsight suggests two factors that the Johnson administration could have better taken into account: the incorporation of the growing Sino-Soviet split that challenged the idea of a monolithic Communist bloc; and the awareness of the power of nationalism over ideology in the Third World.

The shift in thinking required a long, intensive process. It would have to be the highest priority item for an administration.

But that wouldn't happen when Johnson saw himself in a race against time to pass as many pieces of large scale legislation as he could. Knowing how small and ephemeral his political window was before institutional pressures would constrain him to merely prolonging things as they were running and had been running, Johnson engaged in a heroic effort to squeeze out the maximum amount of legislative potential he could.

Fate had other plans. It would be the irony of his administration that foreign events would pose the largest threat to this domestic agenda. And it would be further irony that for a president who sought to unify his countrymen, his actions exacerbated tensions within. In domestic politics, his instinct for the central position— to act as the reconciler between opposing positions—simply led to him pleasing nobody. The right thought he was going too fast; the left criticized him for not going fast enough. No amount of charm or bluster could make them see otherwise. Pinned in on both flanks,

81 the solid center that he had stood so surely on for so long gave way. Having lost control of the situation in Vietnam and then at home, Johnson discovered that his aspirations for founding a new majority coalition based on the beauty of the Great Society were not going to happen.

The Interplay of the Aesthetic and the Utilitarian

The aesthetic beauty of the Great Society was not the only consideration for

Johnson. It also mixed with the utilitarian. In his final message to the American people as president, he understood his task, in the replication of the motto of utilitarianism, as being of service “to the greatest number for the greatest good.” 118

The people would not find their happiness in Johnson’s vision. When the burgeoning conservative revolution, sparked by Barry Goldwater and then cresting with

Roanld Reagan, the Great Society would become a punching bag. Far from living up to the unifying program that could unite America’s affluence to its poor—its minorities finally possessing the same rights and opportunities as the white majority—it was viciously slaughtered as a pork barrelling for special interest groups. And as Johnson’s programs began affecting the material well-being of those who had been the bedrock of the New Deal coalition—the white ethnics of the urban North—the grounds for transformative aspiration began looking more unlikely. Inflation triggered by Vietnam eroded the value of retirement savings. Federally-subsidized public housing greatly expanded the supply of available houses, leading to property values skydiving. This alienated homeowners who had accustomed themselves to seeing a steady increase in their net worths.

118 Updegrove, Indomitable Will, 323.

82 Because of such unintended consequences, it is ironic that Johnson, the political animal, ended up being surpassed by a Hollywood actor who joined the Republican

Party mid-way in his life. It would not be Johnson—the Democrat who perhaps was the closest to FDR in his ideology, capacities, and ambitions—but Reagan, who founded the next great coalition of American history as he led the Reagan Revolution.

The results are clear to see. Reagan is an icon in the modern Republican party, essentially sacred. He even generates interparty admiration. In the 2008 primaries,

Barack Obama acknowledged Ronald Reagan’s legacy saying that, unlike Bill Clinton or

Richard Nixon, Reagan had been a “transformative president.”119 Johnson’s legacy, meanwhile, is tiptoed around, such as when Hillary Clinton discovered from the backlash she faced in the 2008 Democratic primaries. She argued it required King having a president like Johnson to get the job of passing Civil Rights done. The statement suggested she saw herself in the mold of Johnson. The media pounced on the implication that she might believe Johnson more instrumental than King. As she found, there is the public perception that elevating Johnson risks diminishing the role of King.

This episode suggests the larger issue Johnson’s legacy faced, for it is entangled in a dense web of twentieth century figures. Standing Johnson on his own ground is difficult. Preceded by the glamorous Kennedy, he compares unfavorably in image.

Followed by Nixon, he is implicated in the subsequent decline in presidential prestige and the growth of the imperial presidency. Coinciding with King, the icon of the sixties,

Johnson cannot match his moral purity and oratorical prowess. Overtaken by Reagan,

Johnson’s great liberal agenda is on the margins of politics. Imposing over him and all

119 “In Their Own Words: Obama on Reagan,” The New York Times (The New York Times, January 21, 2008), https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/us/politics/21seelye-text.html?emc=edit_cn_20210 501&nl=on-politics-with-lisa-lerer&te=1.

83 other modern presidents is looming shadow of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His New

Deal, not Johnson’s beloved Great Society, is the analogy of choice when liberals attempt to capture their aspirations for progressive change in America. On all sides and every direction, Johnson does not shine forth —despite all his efforts to do so, encapsulated most of all in his Great Society.

Johnson hoped his aesthetic aspirations would redound to the utilitarian happiness of the people. In pursuit of an aesthetic vision that could unleash his energies and talents, Johnson hoped that vision would align with the utilitarian happiness of the nation. When it didn’t, at least in his own lifetime, he played the part of the scorned lover. Having put everything on the line for his vision of beauty, he was left heartbroken to see himself rejected. Aghast at this reception, he could be found after his presidency on his ranch thundering, “How is it possible that all these people could be so ungrateful to me after I had given them so much?”120

120 Schulman, Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism, in Chapter 7, Kindle.

84 Chapter 4

The Aspects of Statesmanship

Once in an interview with Pat Buchanan in 1982, Richard Nixon listed who he believed to be the three greatest politicians of the 20th century. He said: “There’s no question in my mind that in this century, the three greatest politicians are Theodore

Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. None of the other presidents

[were] in their league.”121 Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt should be no surprise. The third name, however, was the wildcard: Lyndon Johnson. Rounding out the duo with Johnson yields a surprising trifecta, as other presidents—namely, Harry

Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan—place higher than

Johnson in popular and scholarly rankings. Why then, does Nixon understand Johnson to be one of the greatest presidents of the twentieth century, on par with the success of the Roosevelts?

One suggestion for why Nixon diagnosed a strain of greatness in Johnson was his legendary work ethic. Nixon once remarked that Lyndon Johnson was “the hardest working president in 140 years.”122 Nixon was not wrong. The desire for greatness led to

121 “Nixon with no expletives deleted,” CNN, Youtube, 1:32. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MacmN1EtIPQ&ab_channel=CNN 122David Stokes, “RN and LBJ-An Overlooked Relationship ",” Richard Nixon Foundation, December 15, 2020, https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2011/05/rn-and-lbj-an-overlooked-relationship/.

85 Johnson’s single minded obsession with politics. He once said, perhaps unironically,

“He only thought about politics 18 hours a day.“123 For the few hours he did not work, he would relax by, unsurprisingly, talking politics. His idea of a good time was decompressing after a long work day with a glass of scotch in conversation about the latest political gossip as he swapped salacious stories with one of the old Washington hands like Scoop Jackson or Everett Dirksen.124 Johnson relished his membership in the political fraternity. The passion for politics went further. Alexander the Great once said sleep was one of the two things that reminded him of his mortality. If true, Johnson received his reminders of mortality from elsewhere. For his obsession with politics was so great it kept him from sleeping, his daily afternoon naps becoming more like

“horizontal working sessions.”125 Politics gave Johnson his life’s work, his social life, and his recreation.

Such a restless mind is not uncommon in leaders who similarly aspire to greatness. Once asked to describe why he drank so heavily, the founder of Turkey

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk responded:

I’ve got to drink: my mind keeps on working hard and fast to the point of suffering. I have to slow it down and rest it at times…At night, my mind would get fixed on a problem, and, and, as I thought about it, I was unable to sleep. I would spend the whole night tossing and turning in my bed… When I don’t drink, I can’t sleep, and the distress stupefies me.126

123 Mark K. Updegrove, Indomitable Will : LBJ in the Presidency (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012), 78. 124 Larry Temple, Interviewed by author. Zoom. April 8, 2021. 125 Ibid, 85. 126 Andrew Mango, Ataturk, (London, John Murray Publishers, 1999), Chapter 2: The Making of an Ottoman Officer, iBook.

86 That obsession with greatness led Nixon’s comment on Johnson’s ferocious work ethic. And Johnson would have been delighted by Nixon’s categorization of him as one of the three greatest presidents of the twentieth century.

In the challenge of politics, Johnson found everything he needed, even as it wore him down. Despite its demands, he found it endlessly fascinating, giving him a great purpose to dedicate himself to. His White House Special Counsel Larry Temple said how

“politics was his vocation and avocation.”127 It was the only profession he was born to do.

Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 explored the means and ends of Johnson’s strategy. This chapter explores the means and ends of Johnson’s ambition.

Johnson’s Legislative Virtuosity

This stems from how Johnson felt at home in politics, especially in its legislative aspect. He brought to the political craft the greatest legislative virtuosity seen in the nation’s history. In the span of five years, his legislative accomplishments were enormous: healthcare, social security, education, civil rights, immigration, gun control, housing, and funding for the arts and humanities. Behind such enormous accomplishment lay an obsessive process. Johnson famously used a board that carried all the bills he was trying to shepherd through Congress, filled with flowcharts, arrows, and pathways.128 As president, Johnson micromanaged the passing of bills by keeping track on his desk which legislators were with him and which ones still needed to be won.

Johnson was even willing to submit to the drudgery of reading the Congressional Record before going to bed. His mastery of the issues suggested that doing so was beneficial. He

127 Larry Temple, Interviewed by author. Zoom. April 8, 2021. 128 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), “Chief Legislator” in Chapter 4, Kindle edition.

87 could argue any policy argument in any way possible with all the relevant facts at his disposal. Reporters were astonished at how it seemed Johnson never referred to his notes, how he knew every bill and every detail of the Senate by heart. Winston Churchill recalled how King George VI's “care and thoroughness with which he mastered the immense daily flow of State papers made a deep mark on my mind.”129 So too could the same be said of Johnson.

To attain this level of performance, his preparation was relentless. In the morning, he plowed through five newspapers. He would begin making phone calls the moment he woke up. He could be later found flipping through three TV channels on three different TV sets simultaneously. In the Oval Office, there was a Teletype machine which acted as a ticker that fed live news. When impatient, Johnson used to break into the machine so he could read the ticker as it was being fed through.130 Although Johnson was not much of a literary man, instead priding himself on his ability to get things done, he still read the equivalent of a book a night with the enormous amount of briefing materials he took with him to look over before bed. Through a variety of channels, he dedicated himself to remaining up-to-date and well-informed.

Johnson not only had a cornucopia of information but he knew how to communicate it well. He was in total command when in front of the media. Reporters remarked how never once in his chaotic high-octane days running the Senate did

Johnson ever let slip any more information than he intended.

129 Winston Churchill, For Valour: Eulogy for King George VI, https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-114/for-valour-king-george-vi-in-rem embrance-of-his-late-majesty/ 130 “Larry Temple,” The LBJ Library, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNCcXe0kD0I&ab_channel=TheLBJLibrary

88 In drawing upon the parliamentary art, he knew all the procedural tricks that a foxy tactician knows. His greatest maneuver, the most consequential one, was his activation of an esoteric mechanism, the discharge petition, to bypass Judge Howard

Smith’s committee that had been bottling up civil rights legislation. But more than just being a master tactician—able to spot the brilliant opening that allowed him to grip the levers of power and the ensuing machinations as he pulled on them—Johnson fundamentally understood politics as being about people.131 He understood the art of persuasion is the central aspect of the art of leadership. Dwight Eisenhower once defined leadership as “the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it, not because your position of power can compel him to do it, or your position of authority.”132 Johnson followed this adage in his dealings with his fellow politicians. His ability to understand the concerns of another involved genius levels of social attenuation. He could intuit the hopes, dreams, fears, and desires of his interlocutor. By mastering whatever particular circumstances, habits, and needs of the particular politician opposite to him and supplementing it with the two-fold maxim that politicians are driven by the “desire for fame” and the “thirst for honor,” Johnson could, usually, persuade just about any politician he set his mind to.133

This Johnson Treatment was really a reflection of Johnson’s mastery of the motives of political action. In using his enormous energy to gather and absorb all the relevant information and then his enormous powers of focus concentrating completely on the individual, there was no contest between Johnson and the opposite party.

131 Mark Updegrove, conversation, 2021. I think it was the one on Thursday 132 “Quotes,” Eisenhower Presidential Library, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/eisenhowers/quotes. 133 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, (New York, Open Road Integrated Media), Chapter 4, iBook edition.

89 Johnson aide Harry McPherson found it helpful to analogize the experience by reference to a day out at the baseball stadium:

Sometimes, after touching first base, [Johnson] goes to left field, climbs into the bleachers, sells hot dogs, runs back down on the field, and circles the baes and comes home. You think he’s never going to get to the point. But it all comes back with tremendous force and with great comprehensive power when he ends his argument, and it's damn near irresistible when he’s at his best.134

With total mastery of legislation in policy, people, and persuasion, Johnson’s enormous legislative talents innovated across so many different aspects of the legislative art. He took his craft to new heights. But, as stunning as his achievement was, Johnson also received the sheer sense of enjoyment he gained from the push and pull of politics.

Absent from him was the view of politics as drudgery, a necessary chore, or a business to be disdained. He didn’t resign himself to the nature of political life as being a sorry state of compromise and concession. He declared that “politics [went beyond] the art of the possible. It is the art of making possible what seems impossible.”135 In politics came the sense of boundless possibilities. Politics was the vehicle with which to enact his will through energetic, audacious, and effective action. William James once said that a good signpost for one’s life purpose can be found by noting “the particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.”

In the heat of battle during the legislative swirl, Johnson found his real self.

The Need to Lead

134 Updegrove, Indomitable Will, 109. 135 Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism, “Americanizing the War, 1963-65” in Chapter 6, Kindle edition. Chapter 2, “Becoming a National Figure,” Kindle edition.

90 When Johnson was elevated to the Minority Leadership of the Senate in 1952, there was the image reported of him of being “supremely in the saddle.”136 Johnson could be found with his legs sprawling out of his chair, the “picture of self-satisfaction.”137 With power came the sense of enlargement. This reveals another aspect of Johnson’s character once in power. He had a need to be in charge and to take center stage. If legislation gave him the sense of his real self, then power gave him a sense of an expanded self.

Such a feature is not uncommon in leaders with similarly towering ambitions.

For example, the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck uttered a telling statement in a letter where he contemplated the big questions of life. Finding himself bouncing around between jobs in his mid-twenties and licking his wounds from a love affair gone wrong, he remarked that his “ambition is directed more towards not having to obey than towards giving orders.”[emphasis added]138 In Bismarck’s understanding, the drive to climb the greasy pole is motored mostly by a desire to assume power, certainly—to command, to be in charge, and to lead. Yet understood as not being at the beck and call of others.

Lyndon Johnson exhibited such an impetus for leadership early on in his own life. In the humble fields of the Hill Country, those characteristic aspects of his character—the domineering personality, the need to command, and the need to stand out-—were already manifesting themselves. Even among his young playmates, Johnson looked to take charge, for it was understood that “Lyndon Johnson was a natural born

136 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 486-487. 137 Ibid. 138 Bismarck quoted in Henry Kissinger “The White Revolutionary: Reflections on Bismarck.” Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.) 97, no. 3 (July 1, 1968), 893.

91 leader.” But Johnson’s participation was conditioned only on if he could lead because “if he couldn’t lead then he didn’t care much about playing.”139 Johnson either joined as a leader or did not join at all. A characteristic episode involves the children of the Hill

Country organizing baseball games, where, as one of his playmates reminisced, Johnson

had a baseball, and the rest of us didn’t have one. We were all very poor. None had a ball but him. Well, Lyndon wanted to pitch. He wasn’t worth a darn as a pitcher, but if we didn’t let him pitch, he’d take his ball and go home. So, yeah, we’d let him pitch. 140

Johnson was the only one among his friends who had a baseball, so he never had to worry about not being included in the game. But that was not enough for him. He felt he just had to be the pitcher, so he could be center stage on every pitch. He had to be in charge, and when it came to baseball games, that meant getting to pitch. And when

Johnson couldn’t pitch? Well, then he wouldn’t play at all, even if it meant the other children wouldn’t get to play either.

This all-or-nothing pattern—to be either entirely in charge or not participate at all—would persist into Johnson’s adulthood. As an up-and-coming political figure at

Washington DC dinner parties, Johnson could hold court with the best of them, dazzling the audience with his enthralling stories from the Hill Country.

But the audience lost focus after some time, for while Johnson was enormously charming, he had not risen far enough just yet to command their attention all the time.

Seeing that he was no longer holding center stage and that the attendees had begun to focus elsewhere, meaning anywhere besides Lyndon Johnson, he would commit the cardinal sin of dinner party etiquette—and promptly fall asleep. To be clear, these were

139 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol 1: The Path to Power, (New York, Alfred K. Knopf, 1982), 71. 140 Ibid.

92 not merely excusable incidents of dozing off after a long day of work but protracted twenty, thirty-minute naps. In defiance of protocol, Johnson did not pay much heed to listening to the other guests as he preferred to talk. And if he couldn’t talk, well, then he’d sleep.141

What made these episodes even more remarkable was how instantly Johnson could awaken. Somehow, even while deep in hibernation, he could detect a lull in the conversation. Suddenly, when another conversation was dying down, Johnson would jolt wide awake and launch into another one of his stories as if he had not just been asleep for the past half-hour. As quick as he was to shut down when he did not have a chance to take the leading role, he was as quick to seize it back when he sensed his chance. 142

As Johnson’s childhood playmates had observed, so too did his fellow dinner goers. They found that Johnson simply “could not endure being only one of a group” and “could not stand, just could not stand not being the leader.” When he could not be center stage—whether as pitcher or as sparkling storyteller—he then “refused to be part of the cast at all.”143

It was the same for him in Congress. Arriving in Washington as a twenty-three-year old Congressional aide, Johnson built a brilliant career in DC. His political talent quickly became known throughout Washington, even catching the eye of

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who made Johnson his personal protégé. At age twenty-six,

Johnson was even named the director of the Texas branch of the National Youth

Administration—the youngest director of a national New Deal program. Two years later,

141 Caro, The Path to Power, 457-458. 142 Ibid. 143 Ibid.

93 he made his entry into electoral politics and won a Congressional seat from his home state of Texas. All the signs pointed to a glittering future. He was a New Dealer at a time when the New Deal was at its peak; as Roosevelt’s protege, he had the backing of the most powerful politician in the country; and to top it all off, he was a member of

Congress before he was thirty. As Theodore Roosevelt once described his own meteoric ascent to power, so too could the same words be applied to Johnson. He had, like TR,

“risen like a rocket.” No doubt, a brilliant career was in the offing.

But Johnson’s career stalled when he became a Congressman. What limited him was the House of Representatives' seniority system. It meant he would have to wait a long time before he could hold real power. Something on the order of thirty-five years might be what he would have to wait just to get his turn at a committee chairmanship.

As young as Johnson was when he got to Congress, he believed, on account of how the men of his family died young, he did not have that much time waiting around just for a measly committee chairmanship.

Without the power that came from being a committee chair, thus, Johnson did not have any power in the House. Without that committee chairmanship, it meant he was just “one of the crowd.” Painful reminders of his low status were everywhere: his tall, gangly figure tucked away awkwardly in the corner of Congressional portraits; or how, when he tried to convince somebody to do something, they would resist or even be repelled by the Johnson Treatment. Perhaps what stung him most was how important

Congressmen did not know who he was and felt they could brush him aside as a lightweight. In the House of Representatives, Johnson sensed that he simply did not have the power to lead men. 144

144 Caro, The Path to Power, 532-556.

94 As was in the Hill Country and Washington dinner parties, so too it was for

Johnson in Congress. When he could not lead, the same pattern would emerge, for this was the boy who “if he couldn’t lead then he didn’t care much about playing.” A man who lived, ate, and breathed politics was performing his political duties only as need be.

He never spoke on the House floor, except when he had to. He would show up in the chamber at the last minute, stay just long enough to cast a vote, and then bound out as soon as he could. And when he could not just leave the chamber, he could be found the

“picture of boredom, slumped in his chair with his eyes half closed.” Johnson was no longer sleeping at dinner parties; he was sleeping on the job too. 145

Politics was not enough if it did not come with the prospect of being in charge.

Hence, Johnson rejected the lucrative calls of joining lobbying firms. No doubt he possessed the political talent necessary for a successful and lucrative career in lobbying.

But he figured no politician could be elected with a “former lobbyist” as part of their record. Despite all the lucre that life on K-Street promised, he remained a lifelong public servant.

Such was Johnson’s attachment to leadership. The need to be in charge stemmed from a desire to not just be one of the crowd. When Johnson did not receive that star role, then he’d retreat, whether it was with his baseball, his attention at a dinner party, or disengaging himself from his congressional duties to the absolute minimum he could get away with. Only the lights of leadership could stir his full energies.

145 Caro, The Path to Power, 542.

95 The Art of Command

So what is it about leadership that made Johnson so attached to it? What did he seek in it? Woodrow Wilson described the natural leader having a near otherworldly quality to them. “When you come into the presence of a leader of men, you know you have come into the presence of fire; that it is best not incautiously to touch that man; that there is something that makes it dangerous to cross him.”146 There are overtones to

Max Weber who provided the definition of charismatic leadership:

[The] virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.147

In these understandings of leadership, the leader is distinguished by certain blessings of nature that marks them out. Among these is the natural gift for authority that resembles elemental forces. For instance, Theodore Roosevelt was described as having a “presence [that] charg[ed] the air about him,” akin to “electricity.” This quality of “vitalizing things,” was so difficult to capture that journalists would despair of “giving a conception of the constancy and force of the stream of corpuscular personality given off by the [Roosevelt]...It begins to play on the visitor’s mind, his bloody, to accelerate his blood-current, and set his nerves tingling and skin aglow.”148

Johnson was of the same mold as TR. On a primal level, he had the bearing of someone who should be in charge. His presence was described as akin to meeting in the jungle “a magnificence panther, silken, silent, ready to spring” one that made you “a bit

146 Woodrow Wilson quoted in Robert Caro’s Years of Lyndon Johnson Vol.3: Master of the Senate, Introduction, pg ix. 147 Max Weber, Politics as Vocation, https://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/jbell/weber.pdf. 148 Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, (New York: The Modern Library, 1979), iBook.

96 afraid, and at the same fascinated by the animal.”149 It has been said, “When one was in his presence, his kinetic energy, mental intensity, and aura of power were palpable; he was always the biggest man in the room.”150 His animal magnetism brought about a certain attraction to him that made him the center of every room. If the first step of the leader is to be the center of the gravity, Johnson knew how to command the attention of those around him.

And then there were the eyes that exuded authority. Johnson famously had sharp, penetrating eyes—eyes that had distinguished members of his family for generations. Judging just by his glance, people figured he ought to be in charge. His grandmother was described as being someone who “if you talked to her, you never had to wonder if the answer was yes or no. Those eyes told you. Those eyes talked. They spit fire.”151 Johnson’s eyes had been described as being “striking,” “piercing,” or even, when he was agitated, as being like “flamethrowers.” Eyes have been described as the window to the soul, in that they convey the essence of one’s nature; then Johnson’s core was one of a ruler. Those eyes indisputably conveyed his authority to those he was directing. One look at those eyes and people knew to defer to him.

With that commanding presence, there was the internalized understanding of his role as a leader. Through a characteristically colorful analogy, this one drawing upon his rancher background, Johnson captured the essence of what it means to be in charge:

“There is but one way to get the cattle out of the swamp. And that is for the man on the horse to take the lead.”152 Leadership is most needed when things go awry. At that

149 Updegrove, Indomitable,,9 150 Ibid., 3. 151 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), Chapter 1, iBook. 152 Quoted in Jonathan Darman, Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America, (New York: Random House, 2014), Prologue, Kindle edition.

97 moment, the leader is expected to step in. Johnson’s art of command consisted of knowing how to get the cattle out of the swamp. The gift of assuming command over others must be balanced by a correspondingly striking self-command. To inspire command in others, they must first be able to command themselves.

Superior Self-Command

One aspect of this self-command is a sense of supreme self-sufficiency. This calls forth a desire, as Charles de Gaulle says, to jealously guard one’s difficulties in the hopes of gaining the ability to tackle them. In a similar vein, the founder of Pakistan,

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, exhibited a prideful self sufficiency. As a boy, he was given the choice of taking two paths. On the one hand, he could “trust the wisdom of [his] elders and their superior knowledge; to accept their advice and to do exactly as they suggest.”

On the other hand, he could go on his “own way, and to learn by making mistakes; to learn by hard knocks and kicks in life.” Jinnah resolved to take the latter route. He chose it because it appealed to his sense of self-sufficiency and pride. He could not stand being dependent on another. And so it would happen, he “would make his decisions for himself.” 153

Such leaders take their own counsel and reserve the power of decision in their own hands. They do not look to shirk responsibility but welcome it. As Harry Truman would say, “the buck stops here.” A leader is willing to take on the burden of decision.

This willingness to take on the awesome responsibility does not come out of thin air. It is often the result of a long internal process of reflecting on the world. Charlie Hill, a colleague of John Lewis Gaddis who co-taught the course on Grand Strategy, observed

153 Fatima Jinnah, edited by Sharif al Mujahid, My Brother, (Karachi: Quaid-e-Azam Academy), 56.

98 many leaders during his time as a diplomat, including Henry Kissinger and Yitzhak

Rabin. He argued that the mentality of such leaders is the “product of a ‘deeply pondered, well thought-out product of a silent dialogue with oneself… this produces near-absolute and calm certainty that one has the correct approach on the fundamental questions of life and the great affairs of mankind.”154 Eleanor Roosevelt reflected how her husband Franklin’s polio was an “illness… [that]gave him strength and courage he had not had before. He had to think out the fundamentals of living.” Such internal deliberation creates a certainty about how one should live, about what is praiseworthy and blameworthy, of what is essential and what peripheral. The greatest leaders face the task of confronting the most uncertain of futures; their only guide is their internal compass. That compass guards against self-distrust. It was said of Winston Churchill that “He was shielded in his own mind from self-distrust.” In a similar vein, Rudyard

Kipling perhaps said it best, “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.”

Independence of spirit independently arrived at is indispensable for leadership.

But there’s a cost. For with this towering self-reliance comes an impenetrable distance from those around them. It was said of Ronald Reagan by the love of his life,

Nancy Reagan, that he was still fundamentally a loner. “Although he loves people, he often seems remote, and he doesn't let anybody get too close. There’s a wall around him.

He lets me come closer than anyone else, but there are times when even I feel that barrier.”155 And this is for the politician who was often regarded by friend and foe alike

154 Molly Worthen, The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charlie Hill: (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 2005), 167. It is interesting to compare the politician’s self-confidence that allows them to take action with Socrates’ critique of the politician’s knowledge (in comparison to the poet and the craftsman) in the Apology. 155 H.W. Brands, Reagan: A Life, (New York: Doubleday, 2015), Chapter 13, iBook.

99 as the kindest and most gracious of men, the most amiable of people. One can imagine how greater the distance is for leaders with less sanguine temperaments.

Such leaders take direction only from themselves and no one else. Hence,

Nietzche would describe how “Life becomes harder and harder as it approaches the heights—the coldness increases, the responsibility increases.”156 Self-sufficiency that becomes the stuff of action ends up creating an impersonal distance with the rest of the world. It is lonely at the top. Such are the costs of supreme self-command.

To Command Events

A sign of superior leadership ability is the presence to impress themselves on events, aided by a superb sense of timing. The Greeks made the distinction between chronos and kairos. Chronos is the steady passage of time; kairos adds the dimension of the opportune moment. Echoing this distinction is a statement of Vladimir Lenin who once said, “There are some decades in which nothing happens and weeks where decades happen.” In a similar vein, Mary Todd Lincoln, in the movie Lincoln, would remind her husband that he had the gift of being able to walk on stony paths. As important as it is to know what steps to take on the stone path, it is equally as important to know when to take those steps. This is about picking the right moment to act. Events have their season and the politician reads the winds to glimpse where they are in the cycle.

Johnson demonstrated an astute understanding of how crisis creates opportunity. There’s the old political maxim: “Never let a crisis go to waste.” When sudden and unexpected events took place, he knew how to turn the altered political climate into legislative results. The assassination of John F. Kennedy provided him with

156 Quoted in Paul Franco. “Tocqueville and Nietzsche on the Problem of Human Greatness in Democracy.” The Review of Politics, vol. 76, no. 3, Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 465, doi:10.1017/S0034670514000321.

100 the necessary rallying cry to push through Kennedy’s agenda and lay the foundations for his own. He understood his task as having “to take the dead man’s program and turn it into a martyr’s cause.”157 Chapter 2 already outlined how Johnson had leveraged the

Gulf of Tonkin incident to pass the resolution. In spring 1965, he followed the events of

Selma with his ‘We Shall Overcome” speech, declaring the “hour of justice has come. ”

He signed the Voting Rights Act later that summer. The same pattern emerged when the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. created the political capital to pass the Fair

Housing Bill of 1968—public housing being one of the causes King had been advocating for. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy a month after King’s death opened up the opportunity to pass the Gun Control Act of 1968. As these deeds attest, he knew the lessons that another hard knuckled political insider would draw, Clinton and Obama insider Rahm Emmanuel who explained, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”158 The art of politics is very much the art of timing.

The Performance of Politics

Franklin D. Roosevelt once confided in Orson Welles, “We’re the two best actors in the world.”159 In the aftermath of their collaboration on the successful Fala speech,

Welles recalled how, “just like an actor,” Roosevelt called him afterwards and asked,

157 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), Chapter 3, “Let Us Continue” Kindle edition. 158 Rahm Emanuel, “Opinion | Let's Make Sure This Crisis Doesn't Go to Waste,” The Washington Post (WP Company, March 25, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/25/lets-make-sure-this-crisis-doesnt-go-waste/. 159Jonathan Keats, “Hollywood and the White House,” The Christian Science Monitor (The Christian Science Monitor, February 24, 2004), https://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0224/p15s02-bogn.html.

101 “How did I do? Was my timing right?” 160 Masters of a craft, recognize each other when the same art lies in the nature of their professions, even while they may outwardly appear to be in different lines of work. For the director of Citizen Kane to recognize the

Leader of the Free World as a fellow showman suggests the deep affinity show business and politics share. As much as politics involves the mastering of policy and the passing of bills, the politician is more than just a mere administrator. They often take on the skills that are usually thought to lie in the province of the performer, the actor, and the showman. The politician shares with those vocations the ability to captivate attention and seize the spotlight.

Consider Abraham Lincoln, who, before he emerged as the Great Emancipator, was a slasher politico—more likely to be found making sarcastic speeches ridiculing his opponents than mighty pronouncements fit for a statesman.161 But the eventual transformation built upon Lincoln’s natural performative instinct. As a boy, he would stay up all night memorizing the stories he heard from his father, a master raconteur himself. Young Lincoln would then go the next morning to tell his friends those same stories— while adding some embellishments of his own— for a good laugh.162 This trait would carry over into high office. Not unfamiliar to the arts of telling the humorous anecdote, President Ronald Reagan noted of his predecessor, "He liked a laugh,

President Lincoln. He was criticized for it once and he said, 'If I couldn't laugh, I couldn't stand this job for 15 minutes.'” 163

160“Legendary Film Director Orson Welles Acted As Franklin D. Roosevelt's Ghostwriter,” All That's Interesting (All That's Interesting, July 11, 2019), https://allthatsinteresting.com/fdr-ghostwriter-orson-welles. 161 Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University, 2008), Chapter 9, iBook. 162 Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership: In Turbulent Times, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018). Chapter One, iBook. 163 Dan Rather, “Ronald Reagan, Master Storyteller,” CBS News (CBS Interactive, 2004), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ronald-reagan-master-storyteller/.

102 Crucial to the performer’s art is the ability to have proper timing. The flair for the dramatic includes the ability to make an entrance. At age twenty-three, the first time state assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt entered the Albany State House with a flourish.

He “burst through the door” and instinctually deployed the “actor’s trick” of “pausing for an instant while all eyes were upon him” so that could “give his audience to absorb the full brilliancy of his Savile Row clothes and furnishing.”164 The thirst for the spotlight was so irresistible in Roosevelt that it was said of him that he wanted to be the “baby at every baptism, the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral.”165 Reagan speechwriter Kenneth Khachigian similarly described his boss’ flair for the dramatic:

“Ronald Reagan has a sense of theater that propels him to tell stories in their most theatrically imposing manner.”166

And along with the ability to enter the stage, comes knowing when to depart it.

Ronald Reagan would remark that in showbusiness, “you learn not to stay on the stage too long. You learn there’s a time you have to exit. I think you can read it. The audience tells you. The old stage rule is you always leave them wanting more.”167 And as the actor from show business who made it in politics, Reagan’s response to questions on this matter proves even more instructive. Once asked how an actor could be president,

Reagan responded, “I don’t know how you can do it unless you were an actor.”

In such a way, the art of masterful performance is tied to the art of effective political action. Johnson was a master of the performing arts. Aide george Reedy held

164 Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, iBook. 165 Ibid. 166 Larry Carver, “Rhetoric of Great Speeches in History” course, UT Austin, Spring 2021. 167 Bill Peterson, “Ronald Reagan - A Sense of Timing, Some Backscratching,” The Washington Post (WP Company, September 24, 1978), https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/09/24/ronald-reagan-a-sense-of-timing-some- backscratching/51fc2d68-ba59-4852-8dfb-5060e1333d78/.

103 Johnson could pursued a career on the stage by making “his living on the vaudeville stage.”“ Horace Busby suggested Johnson’s great versatility and range, who was

“marvelous at one-man theater.” 168

Johnson knew how to leverage this skillset for its political utility. Caro notes how

“the creation of an image is one of the political arts'' and Johnson, as a superior politician, had mastered this element.169 He was the first politician to use helicopters during campaigning, deploying them to dramatic effect in his 1948 Senate election. Caro reports how Johnson steadily developed an entire show centered on maximizing the helicopter’s impressive impact on the audience. This included dramatic entrances, bullhorns to bellow down from the hovering aircraft, and amusing tactics Johnson resorted to to gain the interest of his audience. For instance, he promised daredevil escapades by his helicopter—but ones that would only occur after the audience had listened to Johnson’s pitch for their votes.170 Like a showman, Johnson understood the demands of an audience for thrills, novelty, and the extraordinary.

This flair for the dramatic was used for great effect in one particular episode. A month after assuming the presidency, Johnson headed back to the LBJ Ranch for the

Christmas holidays in 1964. While there, Johnson orchestrated a stunt meant to bolster his image. His many years in politics had left the impression on the nation as the wheeling- dealing, ruthless, desperately ambitious politician. Coupled with the fact that

Johnson was succeeding the young, glamorous, elegant, stylish, international icon of a predecessor in John Kennedy, Johnson risked being assessed by a standard that he

168 Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, (New York: Oxford University Press) Chapter 11, iBook. 169 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 513. 170 Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent, Chapter 11, iBook.

104 could not match. If Johnson wanted to leave his own imprint on the office, he needed to correct their impression of him and have it replaced by a fresh, new image. Johnson decided it was time for a brand overhaul.

So, while treating reporters to Texas-sized barbecue, Johnson startled them by mounting a haystack in his windbreaker and, as it slowly dawned on the reporters, promptly holding a press conference. As journalists tumbled over each other with barbeque, beer, and pens flying everywhere, the President was solemnly declaring new changes in defense policy. Then came the showstopper. Johnson called out for a horse that was brought to him. He then mounted the horse and then departed the scene by cantering off into the distance. Johnson had quite literally become the cowboy riding off into sunset. He knew full well that the American public would have a very different picture of him the next morning. They awoke to newspaper clippings of their commander in chief riding his horse, looking commanding, imposing, and powerful.171

As strong as the hold of Kennedy’s elegant and glamorous Camelot has on the American memory, the American cowboy on the frontier exerts one as strong, if not stronger hold on the American imagination. Johnson instinctively knew how to tap into this.

The performance of politics is something that can be cheapened but it is the very lifeblood of politics. Hence why politics cannot be subordinated into a mere division of economic management. Politicians embody their civilizations and nation's highest ideals and are expected to display them with the flourish and panache appropriate to the loftiness of them. When the most dire events are confronted, those symbolic elements are often the only things humans have to rely upon when they stare out into the abyss of the unknown.

171 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 513-514.

105 Of Those of the “Family of the Lion” and the “Tribe of the Eagle”

Not only are those with grand ambition pushed to command simply so that they are not commanded and not only do they find themselves fully engaged in life when they can lead, they also scorn the typical jockeying for advancement that is the ordinary manifestation of political ambition to get there. Abraham Lincoln diagnoses this particular drive in his Lyceum Address. He observes “towering genius disdains the beaten path…it seeks regions hitherto unexplored….and it scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor.”172 Merely being satisfied with the recognition of a congressional seat, governorship, or even the presidency is not enough. Such ordinary trophies of political life do not satisfy those few who belong to what Lincoln memorably calls, “the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle.” As examples of such ambition,

Lincoln points to Alexander, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon—men of enormous, soaring ambition who sought nothing less than to win as many honors as could be won, achieve unprecedented success, and, they hoped, eternal fame. 173 From the rejection of ordinary ambition, those of “the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle” believe themselves to only be fit for grand roles. Coupling a rejection to not be under along with the rejection of ordinary ambition gives birth to a grand ambition that seeks command on an equally grand scale.

Bismarck provides an example of grand ambition, this time in relation to

Lincoln’s theme of a passionate thirst for distinction that is beyond the usual attainments of political life. Bismarck writes a candid acknowledgement of his desire for a towering reputation, speculating that “patriotism was probably the motive force of but

172 Abraham Lincon, Lyceum Address, “http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm.” 173 Ibid.

106 a few of the famous statesmen.” Instead, he believes that such statesmen were driven

“much more frequently [by] ambition, the desire to command, to be admired and to become famous.” As Lincoln had detected, there are such men like Bismarck who do not seek the typical fruits of political life. Instead, such men are attracted to politics, as

Lincoln notes, because they “naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion,” inspired by “others [who] have so done before them.”

But, as fervently as Bismarck feels the passion for fame, a towering pride precludes him from seeking that fame at any costs. As to why he finds such ambition appealing, Bismarck states he was “less allured however by the successes to be attained on the well-worn path through examinations, connections, or seniority and the good will of my superior.”174 What is striking in Bismarck is the sense that he fervently wishes for success and yet, is only willing to strive for it if he can obtain it on his terms. Comparing politics to the art of making music, he said “I want to make music as I consider proper or none at all.”175 Bismarck is only willing to take part in political life if he is in charge.

In Johnson, we see the same desire to stand out and yet there are limits to this, since if “he couldn’t pitch then he’d take his ball back home.” Similarly, Johnson would only partake in dinner parties if he was center stage and had no interest in the business of Congress if it did not involve him leading. Johnson would reject the paths to the governorship that might have given him political security or the oil money that might have given him financial security. The former meant forsaking a path to change history, for while governors are valued they are not remembered on the same scale as presidents. As to the latter, Johnson turned down lobbying offers because having the term “former lobbyist” on his record quashed any viability he might have if wished to go

174 Bismarck, quoted in Kissinger “Bismarck: The White Revolutionary,” 894. 175 ibid 893.

107 back into politics.176 Politics was the only arena he could fulfill his aspiration to be a member of “the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle.”

The Politician as Culture Shaper and Definer of Civilization

The future is intrinsically uncertain but nevertheless demands action be taken.

Hence, the ability to seize the footsteps of the horse of history and bend events to one’s direction, even amidst the turmoil of political life, is critical.

Recent discussion of political judgment has sought to locate in the powers of narrative an example of such virtuosity. By understanding what stories one wishes to make, one is primed to make the decisions affecting those central elements that great stories share with political life: an understanding of the past, present, and future. But the greatest leaders seek not just to locate events by drawing upon the common stock of stories—what Weber called the” bureaucratic” or “traditional” legitimations— they rely on their charisma to give credence to new stories. The foundation of a new order requires that authority be placed within one individual. It would be the Founders under the leadership of George Washington who announced the birth of a new age, what they called the “Novus Ordo Seclorum;” it would be Lincoln at Gettysburg who gave voice to a new America undergoing “a new birth of freedom”; and it would be Johnson attempting to inaugurate the next stage of American history that, after the expansion of Manifest

Destiny and the accumulation of the Industrial Revolution, would spread the built up wealth for noble and elevating purposes via the Great Society.

176 Johnson would square the circle of harboring an aspiration for riches on a government salary by using political influence to amass a fortune by building a broadcasting empire. That let him strike it rich all the while still training a seat in Congress and keeping his future political aspirations alive.

108 In such a way, leaders make their mark. They tilt the direction of a ship going one way into another direction. They chart a new path. In the words of Henry Kissinger said,

“there are those who adapt their purposes to reality and then there are those who adapt reality to their purpose.”177 The political leader aspires to be the latter.

Because politics is fundamentally a communal activity, the road to greatness involves elevating those around them to glimpse the beautiful and noble that is too much at risk of being lost in the tumble of life. Leaders attempt to make the heroic accessible for all, not just for themselves. Pericles is the supreme example when he calls for the Athenians to make their city the “School of Hellas.” Reagan exhibited the same desire for worthy enough to stand as a “Shining City on the Hill.” Johnson likewise found his “Great Society” the chance to elevate the horizons of America: to go from a nation where its citizens judging each other on the “quantity of their goods to the quality of their deeds,” so that they to avoid the temptation of becoming a nation of “soulless wealth.” Such were the promises that the Great Society extended. In this way, grand ambition can be linked to the uplifting of the community. A life of grand ambition is, in the final analysis, a life in pursuit of political greatness.

We began this chapter by considering Nixon. Now let us turn to one of his heroes,

Theodore Roosevelt. In 1900, TR stopped at Galena Illinois, the hometown of Ulysses S

Grant. There, he sorted the nation’s political figures into tiers of greatness. Among those in “second rank” were a “gallery of merely national heroes” that surely had their place:

Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson.

Though this quartet occupies a celebrated place in the American memory, he reserved a

177 Henry Kissinger, “The White Revolutionary: Reflections on Bismarck.” Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.) 97, no. 3 (July 1, 1968), 893.

109 higher echelon for those who achieved international recognition—the “three greatest men [who] have taken their place among the great men of all nations, the great men of all time.” High praise indeed for those three: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant.178

As with Johnson thrown surprisingly into the mix by Nixon, Roosevelt surprisingly throws in Ulysses S Grant, somebody who is often derided for leading a scandal-plagued administration and, while a great general, a timid and ineffective politician. But Roosevelt elevates Grant above Americans of much greater renown—Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew

Jackson—into the lofty heights of Washington and Lincoln, the two greatest world-historical figures America produced. As testament to Washington’s reputation,

Napoleon, no doubt a singular figure in the pages of history, felt unfavorably compared to Washington enough to complain that “they wanted me to be another Washington.”

And as for Lincoln, no less than Leo Tolstoy would remark that Lincoln was “Christ in miniature” equivalent to Buddha and Moses in his significance in world history.179

Meanwhile, Grant, until recently, could barely muster acknowledgement among presidential historians, never mind inviting comment from other great figures. While

Roosevelt was close enough to the Civil War to feel the great force of Grant’s achievement, current rankings of presidents rank him as a middling president. Even while his role in the Civil War means he is recognized in the popular realm, his presidency is easily looked over.

As with Ulysses S Grant, Lyndon Johnson is the forgotten hero. They are the forgotten giants of their respective times. Both men secured unique legacies. Grant was

178 Theodore Roosevelt, Grant, https://www.bartleby.com/58/13.html. 179 Leo Tolstoy, “On Lincoln,” https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tolstoy_on_Lincoln.

110 the Hero of Appomattox, the only general with the will to stomach the enormous losses the Union’s strategy of attrition required. Johnson was the only politician with the canny know-how and the political courage to finally advance the century-long delayed promise of equality regardless of one’s race. Yet, each struggles to secure a place in the popular memory for each man is under the shadow of an illustrious predecessor whose assassinations float them into the realm of myth—Lincoln for Grant and Kennedy for

Johnson. In comparison to such figures of such near demigod status, the very human

Grant and Johnson are bound to suffer in comparison.

Still, as the renaissance of Grant studies shows— a flurry of books on Grant have been published in the past decade by eminent historians180—the revitalization and renewed appreciation of a leader’s legacy is still possible. And as the recent outpouring of movies with Johnson at the center suggest,three in the past half-decade181, there may be a similar turn in fortunes in store for Johnson as well. Likely Johnson’s legacy will take on a different shape as memories of Vietnam fade away and the significance of

Johnson achievements become more apparent—the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights

Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and especially the foundational nature of the 1965

Immigration Act that that opened America’s doors to immigrants from around the world, leading to the diversity that has positioned America to try to make the world’s first multicultural mass democracy. Nixon’s claim for Johnson as one of the three greatest politicians of the 20th century might have seemed jarring then and even now.

But, in the next half-century, he may prove prophetic.

180 Included among these are HW Brands’ The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace, Ronald C. White’s American Ulysses, and Ron Chernow’s Grant. 181 Selma (2014), All the Way (2016), LBJ (2016)

111 Conclusion: Final Thoughts on Johnson, Modernity, and the Political Life

Clockwise from Left: Stump Speaking, County Politician, and Canvassing for A Vote; by George Caleb Bingham

Johnson the Courthouse Politician Lady Bird Johnson once characterized her husband as one of the “last courthouse politicians.”182 She is referring to how before the advent of television, the art of

182 Mark K. Updegrove, Indomitable Will : LBJ in the Presidency (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012), 5.

112 campaigning consisted of holding the attention of a crowd gathered at the center of a town on the courthouse steps. The politician would then personally woo them for their vote. The reader can refer to the 19th century paintings of George Caleb Bingham at the beginning of the chapter for a taste of just how close quarters such interaction was.

Johnson’s political education took place in this environment. Johnson used to tag along his father Sam Ealy Johnson as he made his rounds as state legislation, checkin in on the specific needs of his constituents. Through that experience Johnson absorbed through osmosis and internalized by observation the talent required for this specific type of politics. When interactions drew upon this type of politicking, he excelled, as seen with his great comfort in and the immense power of the Johnson Treatment, where he exhibited an overwhelming magnetism in one-on-one and small group interactions.

These were the closest to those old barnstorming sessions where he could see, touch, poke and prod at close quarters those he needed to persuade.

Johnson needed to look at his audience’s eyes, just as it was in the Johnson

Treatment and just as it was in the old-school type politicking. But on television, he couldn’t read his audience because when he looked out, he only saw harsh production lighting and a cavernous impersonal camera. There was not an audience to play off.

Self-conscious and fearful of leaving a bad impression, the larger-than-life man at home holding a group with his tall tales suddenly shrunk into this lifeless monotonous wooden figure. Johnson’s personalistic style, as historian H.W. Brands observed, faced the problem: “How could Johnson put himself in the places of millions of people at once, people he did not know and could not see?”183

183 H.W. Brands, The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 19.

113 Television, while allowing the politician to enter into a more intimate relation with the nation, simultaneously created conditions that were more artificial in that the audience exists, at the time of the performer, only in the performer’s minds. Along with the paradoxical mix of artificial closeness, television shifted the nature of interaction between the politician and the public. Where the small-town politician relied on engendering trust in a personal manner, the televisual age called for new qualities. As cultural historian Kenneth Walsh described, television placed a higher premium on youth, pose, and physical attractiveness, while at the same time “minimized[ing] the importance of extended persuasive and logical skill.” 184 Style began taking precedence over substance.

John Kennedy recognized this as being part of his rise to success. With characteristic detachment and a self-awareness uncommon for a politician, Kennedy believed the times were shifting so that someone like him could make a big impact, even if he did not possess the typical profile of a politician. Kennedy believed the forces of television had made it so that the “the old-type political personality is on his way out.

Television is only one manifestation.” He detected the country undergoing a paradigm shift were the hail-fellow-well-met gladhanding black slapper was out in favor of new qualities. Kennedy describes it in the following terms:

I think you have to be able to communicate a sense of conviction and intelligence and rather, some integrity. That’s what you have to be able to do. This hail-fellow is passé in many ways. Those three qualities are really it. Now, I think that some people can do that. I think I do that well. I mean, I’ve been really successful, politically. I think I can do that. But it isn’t anything to do with being able to go out and just love it.

184 Kenneth T. Walsh, Celebrity in Chief: A History of the Presidents and the Culture of Stardom (London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2017).

114 Conviction, intelligence and integrity are the three important qualities. Johnson didn’t lack intelligence. No less than the Yale-educated Supreme Court Justice Abe

Fortas would marvel at Johnson’s intelligence. But politics is more than just an exercise of the mind. In fact, it was said by the Harvard educated Supreme Court Justice Oliver

Wendall Holmes that although Franklin Roosevelt had “a second class intellect” he possessed a first class temperament.”185 Part of such a winning personality is the very projection of “conviction and integrity” Johnson struggled to convey, one that Kennedy and Roosevelt mastered.

Johnson was not unaware of his weakness when the camera turned to him.

Speechwriter Harry McPhreson describes a gut wrenching scene where he noted

Johnson for having “the most devastating capacity for self-analysis I have ever seen.” He and Johnson were looking over some photos when Johnson said, ‘‘Have you ever seen a phonier smile in your life?” McPhreson shared this assessment. In response, Johnson added, “‘That’s the way I always look when I don’t want to. When I don’t feel sincere, I try all the harder to look sincere and it looks all the worse every time.”186

Faced with a problem, Johnson’s instinct was to put more effort, even when it came to projecting his image. But television didn’t reward that as happened when Nixon showed up with his over-rehearsed, encyclopedic responses in the 1960 presidential debates. The viewers were more impressed by how Kennedy impressed with his “charm and relaxed demeanor… he defeated him not on the substance but by looking like a man ready to take command.” 187

185 Geoffrey C. Ward, A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt 1905-1928, (New York: Vintage Books, 2014 edition), iBook. 186 Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, (New York: Oxford University Press) Chapter 11, iBook. 187 Kenneth T. Walsh, Celebrity in Chief: A History of the Presidents and the Culture of Stardom (New York: Routledge, 2016), 109.

115 Twenty years later, Ronald Reagan would decisively best Jimmy Carter in the

1980 presidential election. He landed the famous debate line, “There you go again.” And then four years again, he would deliver another zinger, this time decisively laying down concerns over his age by saying, “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.” The modern presidential debate was a far cry from the structure of academic debate but more like the snappy, bitty banter with clipped sound bits that permeates late night television. With such mastery of the televisual media,

Reagan’s presidency was a triumph in projection. As historian Jeremi Suri observed,

Reagan “restored a heroic sheen to the presidency.188” Biographer H.W. Brands described it simply, “Reagan knew how to be popular.”189

But Reagan’s success was beyond just coming across well on screen. Part of

Reagan’s success was an ability to focus. Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson related his colleague’s Clark Judge’s description of Reagan’s key to success:

he concentrated his attention on the few tasks he alone could perform. He set overall administration policy, made two or three critical decisions a day, and gave speeches in which he explained his goals to the American people. He left everything else to the staff. That gave him plenty of time to exercise, get his sleep, and enjoy himself, activities that in turn enabled him to remain fresh and composed in performing his duties as President.190

Where Johnson immersed himself in the details, always preferring to keep his hands directly on the levers of power, he was interested in the practical politics of DC.

As a corporate spokesperson for GE, Reagan’s job was to sell corporate policy, not make

188 Jeremi Suri, The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office (New York: Basic Books, 2017), Chapter 8: Leading Actor, iBook. 189 H.W. Brands, Reagan: A Life, (New York: Doubleday, 2015), Chapter 114, iBook. 190 Peter Robinson, How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2003),146.

116 it. Johnson, meanwhile, was occupied in DC trying to corral a rowdy group of egoistical and vain politicians who all had their eyes on the main prize. He had his hands full trying to keep things running.

Furthermore, Reagan knew how to let go. He’d risen in Hollywood where his career was put in the hands of the soundmen, makeup designers, directors, lighting crew, and countless other collaborators. His role was the star but he was part of a solar system. So, he preferred to delegate, choosing to rest over grinding out the extra page on the briefing book. He famously once replied he didn’t have a chance to look at a briefing paper because the movie The Sound of Music was on the night before. 191

Johnson didn’t help matters with the relentless schedule he kept. The obsessive focus on politics meant delegation wasn’t something he was particularly keen on. He liked being in control and liked feeling in charge, even when it came to the small stuff.

The presidency by then had become a larger office, stretching across it were so many functions. Johnson’s obsession with keeping control and understanding his role as being a Washington dealmaker saw him give less time to crafting a broader narrative that linked the Great Society and Vietnam in a cohesive whole. Johnson was never able to link his great initiatives into a grand compelling vision.192 He had his program but where his story. At some point, plunging into the details of micromanaging legislation or the war effort yielded diminishing returns. Those efforts would have been better served thinking about the big picture on Vietnam or at the very least, trying to convey his vision for the country—one that linked the domestic and foreign—in a more compelling way.

191Adrian Wooldridge, “The Great Delegator,” The New York Times (The New York Times, January 29, 2006), https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/books/review/the-great-delegator.html. 192 Suri, The Impossible Presidency, Chapter 7: Frustrated Frontiersmen, iBook.

117 In contrast, Reagan’s genius was his simplicity. He promised expanding liberty at home by unleashing free enterprise and defending freedom abroad by standing up to the

Soviets. Reagan’s strength shines forth as aptly profiled by John Lewis Gaddis: “Reagan did this [astonishing performance] by drawing upon a few simple habits: a focus on outcomes rather than on details; a willingness to choose among priorities rather than to be pulled apart by them.”193

The two most iconic postwar presidents enjoy their high regard in popular culture because of their performances on the screen: John F. Kennedy inaugurated the modern televisual presidency, and Reagan, the actor who had spent decades in show business, perfected it. The power of television was so strong that a politician like

Johnson suffered in comparison—even while possessing strengths that neither Kennedy nor Reagan possessed, especially when it came to nuts-and-bolts of government.

Historian H.W. Brands observed Kennedy had the first televisual presidency and

Johnson was the last pretelevisual president.194 The designation of a “courthouse politician” captures Johnson’s strengths and weaknesses. The age of television was not kind to politicians of his variety.

The shift from the courthouse politician to the box office politician— who was evaluated more like a matinee idol— mirrored a larger shift in American culture as well, what historian Steven Watts called the second transition of America’s cultural life.195 The first consisted of the shift from the Founders’ values of classical republican virtue to the era of the ambitious striving of the self-made men where virtue took the nature of the

193 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment:A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 Revised Edition),376. 194 H.W. Brands, Interviewed by author, Zoom. May 10, 2021. 195 Steven Watts, The Republic Reborn: War Und the Making of Liberal America, 1790-1820 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995) and Steven Watts, JFK and the Masculine Mystique(New York: Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2016).

118 entrepreneurial spirit. As part of this shift, America shifted the virtuous republic to the entrepreneurial democracy. The genteel Founder aristocrats—Washington, Madison and

Jeferson—were examples of the former; the life of their contemporaries, Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton—ambitious mobile strivers who bounced around the Atlantic— foreshadowed the latter. The 19th century rises of Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, and US

Grant exemplified the era of self-made men.

The third shift, the one that affected Johnson, was the shift from this cult of the self-made man to a “leisure culture” that wished to enjoy the fruits of postwar prosperity as much as possible. Accordingly, they responded to politicians who connected to bringing the elements of mainstream entertainment into the world of politics.196

Kennedy, with his father making a fortune in the Golden Era of Hollywood, and Reagan, the movie star turned politician, were perfectly attuned to this new culture that responded to politicians. Kennedy entered politics at twenty-eight and became president at forty-three. Reagan’s first job in politics was the Governor of California, a state whose

GDP and size make it akin to a nation of its own. Both used their command of the new mediums of communication to rocket through the ladder.

Johnson was the courthouse politician of the 19th century trying to adapt to the twentieth century. On this distinctive challenge in Johnson’s character, Charles de

Gaulle remarked:

Johnson, he's a cowboy, and that's saying everything. If he had been born in Europe, he wouldn't have stayed but gone to Africa to hunt water buffaloes or to America to search for gold. But born in the land of the ranch and the Colt, he shot his way up to sheriff. He's a legionnaire, a regular army non-com who earns his stripes, one after the other. He makes me think of … An efficient man without any style. I rather like Johnson....Roosevelt and Kennedy were masks over the real

196 For more on this, refer to Watts, JFK and the Masculine Mystique.

119 face of America. Johnson is the very portrait of America. He reveals the country to us as it is, rough and raw. If he didn't exist, we'd have to invent him.

The emphasis on “earning one’s stripes” partly explains Johnson’s disdain for

Robert Kennedy. Telling an aide, he said “That upstart’s come too far and too fast. He skipped the grades where you learn the rules of life. He never liked me and that’s nothing compared to what I think of him.”197

Like something from a Horatio Alger novel, Johnson was the man who pulled himself by his bootstraps. He was a truly self-made man. In stark contrast, RFK was to

Johnson’s eyes, the kid brother who got placed on the fast track because his father was

Joe Kennedy and his brother Jack happened to be president. RFK had risen on the coattails of his brother and pushed in by his father, each of whose own rises had been propelled by mastering the techniques of show business and then extending them into politics. The father who had made a fortune in the glitzy world of Hollywood. The brother became president by perfecting the techniques of glamor creation and in the process, ended up seducing a nation. John Kennedy created the mould that all presidents now must play when it comes to “looking” presidential. Because he was the first to do so, the Kennedy name and the mention of Camelot, contains an irresistible allure in the American imagination. The Kennedys had vaulted over Johnson. They skipped paying the dues he had spent years paying.

This led to the insecurity that Johnosn exhibited, no matter how much power he accumulated or how great his victories were. Harry McPherson, Johnson special assistant and founding director of the LBJ Presidential Library tellingly described

Johnson as follows:

197 Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents, 2nd ed. (Boston: Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007), Chapter 3, Kindle edition.

120 It never seemed to satisfy him that he was smarter, and tougher, and harder working, and had more power than anybody else. That never seemed to give him the sense that Harry Truman had of being established within himself. Johnson, to use one of his favorite expressions, was always 'an hour late and a dollar short.198 Johnson was never able to gain the serene confidence that a patrician like

Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill exhibited on account of a distinguished lineage and birth at the apex of the social pyramid. While Roosevelt or Churchill were not insensitive to the demands of modern technologies, it was Kennedy who most spectacularly blended the patrician background with the modern techniques of

Hollywood. In this way, he was able to avoid the image of a desperately ambitious striver that characterized the second stage of America’s cultural development— the one where Johnson and Nixon got typecast as. In contrast to Kennedy’s savvy on television,

Johnson’s insecurity led to an apparent self-consciousness that made his gestures on television come across as affected rather than casual or natural. In a certain sense, the very restlessness that made him so formidable in finding political solutions hurt him in his self-presentation on television. Bill Moyers, a longtime Johnson aide recalled:

Johnson had an uncanny ability to see himself as if he were an actor and a spectator at the same time. And he had this double-layer -- bifocal vision in a sense. He could be acting and yet, while he was performing, he was existentially involved in the moment -- he always was outside the process looking at himself. It was a flaw at times, and I think it helped bring him down.199

Johnson embodied the American Dream because he lived the self-made rags-to-riches story. He was propelled to the top by the characteristic striving of the ambitious 19th century man. But the 20th century called for a different set of skills. The

198 Merle Miller, “Lyndon Johnson: One-of-a-Kind Enigma,” The Washington Post (WP Company, September 21, 1980). https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/09/21/lyndon-johnson-one-of-a-kind-enigma/ 4b79c5e8-c21d-4009-ab8e-2ef9279c2632/. 199 Merle Miller, “Lyndon Johnson: One-of-a-Kind Enigma,” The Washington Post (WP Company, September 21, 1980).

121 ending of Johnson’s career is a man left behind by his times—one who was shooting at where the target used to be, not where it was headed.

Johnson as Institutional Politician

While the courthouse politicians have receded, Johnsons’ career sheds light on the nature of something intrinsic to liberal democracy, the institutional politician. The system of electoral politicians creates a class of professional politicians. Johnson was one of them. In many ways he was something of the prototypical democratic politician.

We imagine a glad handing, energetic canny shrewd operator who craves the approbation of the public with large appetites and even larger ambitions— Johnson fits the bill.

Johnson as a democratic politician operating in the electoral system took on the marks of what may be called the institutional politician. This was a result of his background. He had enormous staying power, arriving in DC at age 23 and holding a political position or office for just about every year after. In those long years of politics, he’d learned the tricks and internalized the mindset that characterizes the institutional politician.

Praise conferred on others is revealing of what oneself values. Johnson’s highest praise was to call someone a “can-do person”— someone who knew how to get things done. But he was more than the pragmatic politician. For all his pragmatism, it was in the service of idealism. This was the Johnsonian art of politics. It was guided by an instinct—the shrewd accumulation of power, carefully husbanded, and then, when the moment was ripe, boldly deployed. “He was a man who would not make waves until he

122 was pretty sure he owned the ocean.”200 But when he decided to make a wave it was a big one—whether it be the seniority system overhaul in 52, the Civil Rights Bill of 57, the

Great Society speech, the Civil Rights Act of 64, declaring “We Shall Overcome “in 65, and the Voting Rights Act that same year. No president did more for those on the margins of American society: the minority, the poor, and the immigrant. On their behalf he took great risks—the visionary who courageously deployed political capital for noble causes, most of all Civil Rights, the War on Poverty, and the Great Society. When

Lyndon Johnson stepped up to the plate, he was somebody who was not just content with “singles” or “doubles;” when Lyndon Johnson stepped up to the plate, he

“swing[ing] for the fences.”201

But not every swing need to be a home run. Singles and doubles were worth it, and sometimes, just showing up to the plate was enough. In deciding whether to go big or go home, Johnson faced the tension between deciding his responsibility to remain a viable candidate and his convictions to buck the trends when necessary. The German sociologist Max Weber said there was “the ethic of responsibility” and the “ethic of conviction.” Where the ethic of responsibility is outcome oriented, the ethic of conviction is process oriented. The former focuses on the responsibility one has to the interests of the voters, even if it comes at the expense of conscience. The ethic of responsibility tends toward expedience because the politicians' very viability depends on their popularity.

In spite of the compromises political life entails, the politician has to have the ability to mold the consensus in their direction. On the eve of creation of Pakistan, its

200 Larry L. King, “Bringing Up Lyndon.” Texas Monthly, January 1, 1976. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/bringing-up-lyndon/. 201 Ben Barnes, Interviewed by Author, Zoom. May 3, 2021.

123 future founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah was in conversation with some old political friends. They’d all gotten their starts around the same time as young men in Bombay politics. All of them had done well but Jinnah was the exceptional one. Curious to see the secret behind his rise to world-historical status, they asked him what the difference between him and them was. Jinnah replied, “You see boys, you ask the voters what they think and then make up your mind. I make up my mind and bring the voters over to my side.”

The ability to shape the debate, to not just engage in mere rhetoric which is persuasion accomplished within a set frame, that is the great art of politics. The great politicians are able to step out of that frame and engage in “heresthetic.” This term is described by political science scholars to describe Reagan’s achievement in his ability to transform the country. He was able to take what had been seen as the extremism of

Barry Goldwater (something Johnson himself had seized on) which he turned into the mainstream of American politics.202 Reagan’s mastery of heresthetics shifted the center of gravity of American politics from the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution. Along the way, he won election by a great margin and then, more impressively, reelection with a greater margin. His performance dazzled skeptics from within his own party, such as

Henry Kissinger203, as well those on the opposite side, such as Barack Obama.204

In navigating this tension between acting as a channel for the voter’s desires and shaping is a fundamental aspect of the politician’s art. In a more literary fashion, F.

Scott Fitzgerald said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two

202 Kiron K. Skinner, The Strategy of Campaigning: Lessons from Ronald Reagan and Boris Yeltsin (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007). 203 Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, 376. 204 In Their Own Words: Obama on Reagan,” The New York Times (The New York Times, January 21, 2008),

124 opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”205 A life in politics is a life exercised in contradictions.

One of the great contradictions in politics is between the head and the heart. Max

Weber described how this takes place in the politician, responsible for moving people to action, which on account of their emotions being more fundamental than reason, must stir the heart but owing to the complexities of political lives, themselves be guided by reason. Only if this tension is navigated or that at the very least, will not cause the politician to fold, shall they partake in political life:

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth—that man would have not attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well... Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say, “In spite of all” has the calling for politics.206

Winston Churchill remarked, “The only way a man can remain consistent during changing circumstances is to change with them while reserving the same dominating purpose.”207 The ability to shift with the tides was echoed by Franklin Roosevelt who shared how“ it’s the worst thing in the world to look over your shoulder and see nobody there when you’re trying to lead.” For the politician to lead and to retain their standing, they must be able to change with the times, even as they hope to not lose themselves in it. The flexibility for the demands of the state resembles Machiavelli’s recognition that

205 John Lewis Gaddis, On Grand Strategy. (New York, Penguin Press, 2018), Chapter 1, Part VI, iBook. 206Max Weber, Politics as Vocation, “http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/class%20readings/weber/politicsasavocation.pdf.” 207 “Inspirational Role of Sir Winston Churchill: The Power of Words,” International Churchill Society, November 1, 2012, https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/churchill-bulletin/bulletin-053-nov-2012/inspirational-role-of -sir-winston-churchill-the-power-of-words/.

125 the modern secular state, in cleaving the transcendental from the earthly, the statesman chooses to serve the state rather than save the soul.

But the harshest realism ends up becoming a crude caricature of actual human motivations that, no matter how realistic the actions appear, the irresistible impulse towards some semblance of human nobility will manifest itself. Johnson, while he could be astonishingly vulgar, crude, and cruel, had his beautiful moments of nobility. The purely political animal was never just an animal. Politics, no matter how harsh the decision will be, beckons forth this aspect of the human spirit. The role of the human spirit takes on a particular character in our modern age.

Johnson and Modernity

The rational liberal state provides the structures within which the plurality of liberal life can be reconciled so that the engine of economic progress can be advanced.

The diversity of talents and perspectives brought forth provides its dynamism but the danger of that centrifugal force is that it ends up outstripping the centripetal economic attraction that can help bind them together regardless of those differences. Liberalism relies on diversity to feed its growth. But it needs that economy to provide concrete economic interests that can allow reconciliation, or at least, incentivize obstructionist attempts against burdensome aggregations of power, whether in the form of a dictatorial tyranny or a tyranny by majority.

Lyndon Johnson’s vision took place within this institutional context. In showcasing g vision, Johnson attempted to set the sights of America onto a great and noble plane. Efforts to direct towards “grandeur” may capture the energy of a moment but are unlikely to continue onwards. Johnson’s reach for the Great Society was the

126 liberal counterpart to Right’s vision of honor-driven societies, as seen in the projects of

De Gaulle and Churchill’s rightist honor driven visions. Johnson sought to spread unseen prosperity to those left out on an epic scale. Yet, he was aware of the limits of his political capital. He only had a tight window in which to push this change through.

Johnson knew that time was not on his side. The individualistic and materialistic modern order would not be able to sustain the energy necessary to enact the Great

Society. All Johnson could hope for was to ram through enough change before the inevitable blowback.

The blowback was a strong one indeed. Johnson faced a white backlash from the right that, after the left’s increasing disillusionment with Johnson’s liberal gradualism and incrementalism, left him stranded at the center. Johnson’s dilemma can be viewed in a broader, modern context as well. The irony of Johnson’s presidency is this: His vision of statesmanship sought to advance the limited, bourgeois ends of modernity through the highest excellences of politics. Yet, in reserving for himself the decision to dominate and deceive when the situation called for, he ended up overstepping the bounds of his duty as a constitutional officer. He reached for greatness—the Great

Society—when the times called for retrenchment. The problem of modernity is the public-spirited statesman comes clear. Outside of a crisis, their primary job, as has been observed of Charles de Gaulle, becomes the “demanding if necessary” but also, “not glorious” task of increasing the GDP.208

The modern liberal democratic state exists in an uneasy relationship with those of whom Lincoln called as being from “the tribe of the eagle” and the “family of the lion.”

It needs their extraordinary capacities when it faces a moment of maximum peril where

208 Daniel J. Mahoney, De Gaulle:Statesmanship, Grandeur, and Modern Democracy (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2017), xviii-xiv.

127 the community faces an existential threat, where only the belief one is playing a grand role on the stage of history is enough to summon the confidence and resolve amidst the greatest challenges humanity faces. But the fulfillment of their passion for glory and rule conflicts with the impetus to remain within the framework absent that crisis. For those on the outside who may simply believe such figures need to suck it up and get with the program, it is worthwhile turning a sympathetic eye to the peculiar nature of their spirit, if only to understand their role in modernity better.

The essayist Algis Valiunas noted observation Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that democratic histories do not take account of great figures dominating events, but rather show vast events dominating the masses.209 In an age that prefers to view reality as being deterministic and imposed by impersonal forces—whether it be the dictates of the market, the inertia of bureaucracy, or straitjacket of ideology—the space for individual initiative seems to be lessening one’s ability to enact change. But the natural leader means someone able to confront these challenges and provide order to the confusion of a flurry of events, contingency, and circumstance. The unrelenting pressure to shape events meant a certain ability to attract attention and bring about the events of the past into alignment with one’s present. With the growing complexity, growing interconnectedness, the acceleration of technology that seems to lessen time control, the ability to impose some order may seem to be coming to a close. Can great leadership ever be able to rise up to the challenge?

209 Algis Valiunas, Churchill's Military Histories: A Rhetorical Study (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

128 To this age, the example of Lyndon Johnson reminds of the power of leadership.

The commanding presence, the ability to direct, to provide a way to create a center that people may gather around, Johnson consistently found ways to influence his environment with the ability to command the stage. In doing so, the horizon of possibilities are lifted to where the will of the community can actually have a shaping effect rather than becoming the plaything of fate. Life becomes more interesting; and the future of man seems to be more open than it was before. By providing that anchor,

Johnson explored the possibility of what greatness may look like when manifested in leadership.

In an era where governmental approval sits in the single digits, the possibility of political greatness seems diminished. This provides plenty of powder for the skeptics to have their field days. However, the destiny of a nation is not shaped by the negative prognostications of its punditry class, but rather by its citizens who can—with genius and personality, imagination and daring, and most of all, courage—resolve the challenges of their time. It is the task of statesmanship to locate these attributes in oneself so as to elicit them from others. Lyndon Johnson’s life was lived in accordance with this creed. He pursued greatness to make his nation great and thus, he exemplifies his chosen way of life: the life he chose to live, the only life he could have lived, the life he was meant to live. He lived, for better and for worse, the most grand life of them all.

He lived the political way of life.

129