The third volume in Robert Caro’s monumental “The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” “Master of the Senate” focuses in on Johnson’s storied tenure in the Senate from 1949 to 1960. Overall, Caro is less critical of Johnson than in previous volumes. He writes in awe of Johnson’s improbably fast and remarkably high ascent within the cloistered world of the Senate. He marvels at his adroit maneuvering within the arcane world of senatorial parliamentary procedure. Johnson was a political genius, Caro says, there is no other way to look at it.
The first one hundred pages focus on the history of the United States Senate, a bastion of conservative – indeed reactionary – power in the federal government, which by the mid-twentieth century was dominated by a clique of implacable southern Democrats led by the “Georgia Giant,” Richard Russell. The Senate that Johnson entered in 1949 was staid, genteel and a bulwark against progressive legislation, especially civil rights. “Lyndon Johnson transformed [that] Senate,” Caro writes, “pulled a nineteenth century – indeed, in many respects an eighteenth century – body into the twentieth century.” For all of his evident disdain for Johnson as a man, Caro marvels at his volcanic will and truly transformative political accomplishments.
“Master of the Senate” develops several major themes first introduced in “A Path to Power” and “Means of Ascent.” One is Johnson’s uncanny ability to cultivate strong personal relationships with powerful mentors. Through a mix of cajolery and obsequiousness Johnson had, time and again, successfully ingratiated himself with men of influence who would become his patrons. Beginning with the president of sleepy South West Texas State Teacher’s College and continuing on through to the legendary “Three Rs” (Rayburn, Roosevelt and Russell), Johnson’s career was, in many ways, made by the patronage he received from the men he worked so hard to woo. Upon entering the Senate in 1949, Johnson targeted the powerful senator from Georgia, Richard Russell, for sponsorship and feigned interest in baseball games and the Civil War to help establish that relationship. Just as Rayburn had made Johnson’s career in the House, Russell would do so in the Senate. Russell’s burning ambition, Caro says, was to see a southerner in the White House – and he believed Johnson could be that man.
Another major theme is Johnson’s knack for taking obscure or moribund roles and turning them into positions of vast political power. He did it with the White Stars in college, The Little Congress when he was a congressional aid, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when he was a young congressman. He would do it again with party leadership positions in the Senate, which Caro says carried little weight before Johnson fundamentally transformed them during his tenure in the 1950s. Like the House, the Senate was ruled by seniority. Unlike the House, there were no official leadership positions, such as the Speaker. “The [Senate] Majority Leader was only a first among equals – and, often, not even all that first,” Caro writes. The real power was in chairmanships of the Senate’s fifteen committees, especially Appropriations, Foreign Affairs and Finance. “The leadership was weak because the committee chairmen wanted it weak – and the chairmen had the power to keep it that way.” Thus, few senators aspired to either the Senate Majority Leadership position or Assistant Leader, known as the Whip. Indeed, the Senate Majority Leader in the early 1950s, Arizona’s Bob McFarland, was, according to Caro, “a figure of ridicule in the Senate, and in national publications as well,” and was beaten for re-election in 1952 by an up-and-coming Republican, Barry Goldwater.
In only his second year in the senate Johnson took over as Whip, thanks to the support of Russell. He turned that position on its head, according to Caro, leveraging his pre-existing relationship with Speaker Rayburn and his deep ties to Texas campaign financing circles to extend his reach. “Lyndon was the guy to see if you wanted to get a bill off the Calendar, Lyndon was the guy to see if you were having trouble getting it passed in the House, Lyndon was the guy to see for campaign funds.” No junior senator had amassed so much influence so fast or so efficiently. Johnson had little patience for waiting for influential committee chairmanships to come his way. He was carving a completely new path to senatorial power.
In 1952, Johnson was made Minority Leader and then, when the Democrats recaptured the Senate by a single vote in 1954, he was made the Majority Leader, still in his first term. “He was not only the youngest but the greatest Senate Leader in America’s history,” Caro says. He cobbled together powers never before possessed by the Leader, fundamentally changing the nature of the Senate in the process. Because of these changes, “He would be able to play a role greater than any previous Majority Leader in determining the schedule on which bills emerged from committee, the schedule on which they were placed on the Calendar, the schedule on which they were called off the Calendar and brought to the floor.” Furthermore, Caro continues, “Lyndon Johnson’s use of the unanimous consent agreement to drastically limit debate ran contrary to the principles on which the Senate had been founded, and to the customs which had, during the previous century and a half of its existence, been most fundamental in its functioning.” Johnson had, in a matter of months, turned the once sleepy Senate into a whirring legislative machine. He commanded everything from precious committee assignments to the allocation of even more precious office space. Crossing Lyndon Johnson would make one’s life in the Senate very uncomfortable. Why or how no one else had managed to do this before Caro doesn’t say.
Finally, Caro emphasizes Johnson’s political pragmatism. Possessing no deeply help political convictions, Johnson effortlessly tacked left or right depending on which way the political winds were blowing, always with an eye toward his future goal of the presidency. Caro is unabashed in his praise for Johnson’s historical record as a civil rights leader. “With the single exception of Lincoln,” he writes, “[Johnson] was the greatest champion with a white skin that [minorities] had in the history of the Republic.” It all started in 1957 when Johnson played a key role in the first civil rights legislation to pass Congress in 82 years. But it was not necessarily done for reasons of conviction or compassion, according to Caro. Rather, Johnson was desperate to win the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, and his southern supporters, Richard Russell foremost among them, were desperate to help. In order to do that, Caro says, “Johnson [had to] make himself more acceptable to the North, and the only way to do that was by passing civil rights legislation.” He had to erase the “smell of magnolias” from his image. Against all odds, he shepherded a watered down Civil Rights Act – one that focused exclusively on voter rights and included a much disputed amendment allowing jury trials – through the Senate without a southern filibuster. While limited in effectiveness, the Act was nevertheless more than just “half of a loaf,” Caro says, “it was hope.” The Senate’s virginity on civil rights legislation had been broken. Moreover, by passing it, Johnson had “obtained the political gain that his political ambitions demanded.” He emerged as a national, and not just a sectional, political leader.
At over one thousand pages in length, “Master of the Senate” is clearly not for everyone. None too surprisingly given its length, Caro often bogs down in extraneous details of Johnson’s senatorial tenure. For instance, the relatively obscure topic of leftwing Leland Olds’ 1949 re-nomination battle as head of the Federal Power Commission consumes fifty pages of text. It felt like a passing reference would have suited just fine. Other topics relate only tangentially to Johnson, such as the 1951 Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur, which were led ably by Richard Russell.
All told, “Master of the Senate” is another Caro masterwork.
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