Wednesday, April 11, 2018

MASTER OF THE SENATE




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Master of the Senate, The Years of Lyndon Johnson #3, Robert A Caro, Alfred Knopf, 2002, 1040 pp
 
 
This volume of Robert A Caro's biography of Lyndon B Johnson was the longest so far. I began reading it in mid-November, 2017, mostly at the rate of 10 pages a day. I renewed it at the library as many times as allowed and finished it in a blaze of power reading 120 pages in two days. It is dense and sometimes repetitive. I feel like I have done a semester of Ivy League college level political science with Robert Caro as the professor. I am not however going to write a term paper!
 
Yet it was so worth reading. I am a wiser person for it. The whole experience of the three volumes I have now read has given me an understanding of a subject I never thought I even wanted to learn: American politics. Caro grabbed my lazy fiction reading mind by the lobes and dragged me kicking and screaming into an awareness of how democracy plays out in the United States federal government. I have always thought it was a dirty game and I still do, but when my country supposedly elected Donald Trump as POTUS, I knew I needed more knowledge if I was not going to become an anxiety-ridden old woman. Thank you Mr Caro.

Master of the Senate covers Johnson's 12 years in the Senate. Caro opens the book with a full 100 pages on the history of the Senate, another chunk of knowledge I had never considered. Seriously, our education system would do well to figure out a way to teach kids about all this while making it interesting and comprehensible.

After LBJ literally stole the election to become senator from Texas, he went on to learn hard lessons himself about how that body operated. At first, his old tricks were not working for him in such a hidebound, staid institution. Though Caro does not see the man as particularly ethical or principled, he does portray him as a political genius. That being the kind of genius needed to be a chess champion, with an ability to see the game many moves ahead and to read your opponent. Similar skills are also helpful in certain games of gambling. Finally, a good dose of ruthless determination to win, an understanding of publicity and the press, and very little moral compunction are required.

LBJ had and did all that. In the process  he single handedly changed the way the Senate worked, from a lethargic men's club into a wheeling dealing den of influence and trade offs. The man wanted to be President of the United States. Since he was essentially a Southern Democrat, he had a big problem to solve in those days and you can read all about how he solved it in this book.

All along in the earlier volumes and through most of this one, Caro had painted an unflattering picture of his subject but curiously, near the end of Master of the Senate, he seems to be changing his tune. He seeks to explain how this fairly despicable character actually gained a reputation for being a champion of Civil Rights. I was not wholly convinced.

At the end of the book, LBJ is about to enter the 1960 Democratic convention for the second time as a presidential candidate. The fourth volume, The Passage of Power, will tell how he came out of that as Vice President to John F Kennedy, thereby losing nearly all of the power he had built up as Majority Leader of the Senate and then, by a simple twist of fate, became President after the assassination.

I am eager to read all that and to learn how he went on to create the Great Society. Perhaps I too will come to admire the man. But not yet. I have been inside the mastermind of this tragic figure off and on for almost a year. I am taking a break. I will be back!


(Master of the Senate is available in both hardcover and paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

10 comments:

  1. Congrats on finishing this 3rd tome. I like how you mention him as a "fairly despicable character." Does LBJ have traits or similarities to D.J.T., or is he a bit better?

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    1. As far as I can tell so far, LBJ was smarter. All of the presidents I have read about so far (Truman thru JFK) had deep and fatal flaws though each one thought he was doing right for the country. Caro makes it an issue of desire for power with LBJ. I can't really tell what Trump wants. I am not sure he knows himself and perhaps that is why he seems so dangerous to democracy and diplomacy and the world situation and the economy and just about anything else you could think of. As far as countries go, America is young. Our country and our form of government has survived bad presidents before. Ah Susan, that is a good question and I don't know the answer.

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  2. Wow, Robert A. Caro's books sound like a must read... Sadly, I may never read them as they sound like a lot to absorb and take on for the casual reader... I want the Cliff Notes, please!

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    1. Reading his books is a lot like being in school. I have never gotten this depth of understanding about American politics and history in books that are easier to read. But I also believe that all reading is good reading and we learn from whatever we read, so it is any reader's right to follow their interests. (My, aren't I wordy today?)

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  3. Was Caro unbiased? Because he seems to come across as deeply disliking LBJ, if I understood you correctly. Sometimes writing about a character you don't like tends to taint one's perception. I don't know anything about LBJ or have read Mr. Caro's books for that matter, but I'm just wondering...

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    1. His research is sound as far as I can tell. If anyone is biased it is me. I was against him while he was president because of the Vietnam War. I feel Caro gives a balanced picture of the man.

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  4. And another one (volume) bites the dust! Congratulations, intrepid reader.

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    1. Thank you Dorothy! Am I intrepid enough to go the distance with these books? I hope so.

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  5. Well done on reading this beasty history and I am glad to hear you learnt lots from it.

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    1. Thank you Jessica! I did feel proud of myself for getting it done.

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