The Passage of Power
In Volume IV of “The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” biographer Robert A. Caro concentrates on the succession of political triumphs and defeats that accompanied LBJ to the Oval Office.
Russell, a Georgian, commanded respect. An incurable racist, he presided over Senate matters with authority and acumen. When he spoke, legislators listened.
Soon after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Russell lamented the fate of the late president’s legacy: enacting meaningful Civil Rights legislation. He worried, of course, that it would happen, not that the dead president’s ambition would go unrealized.
“We could have beaten Kennedy on civil rights,” Russell said, “but we can’t Lyndon.”
In The Passage of Power, his fourth installment of “The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” Robert A. Caro concentrates on the years 1958 through 1964, an era when Johnson endured a roller-coaster existence of political triumphs and defeats. The book begins with Johnson riding high as Senate Majority Leader before backing into an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1960, followed by his unexpected spot on the Kennedy ticket and a vice presidency marked by mockery and the mundane. A familiar taunt (“Whatever became of Lyndon Johnson?”) heard at Georgetown cocktail parties and all around the Beltway haunted Johnson.
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