Merle Miller - Lyndon: An Oral Biography - (Book Review)

An oral biography is derived from the author talking to sources if still alive and researching where necessary to present what the people in the person's said about him and his life.  No better oral subject than Lyndon Johnson.

He was---is---without doubt one of the most complex, fascinating, difficult, personages in American history.  There may have been other Presidents like Johnson in American history.  Andrew Jackson comes readily to mind, but he was a simple man by comparison.  I don't think we've ever seen the likes of Lyndon Johnson before, and I doubt we ever will again.  P. XIV

Harry McPherson: "Lyndon Johnson was a true sophisticate.  I know that's what most people think he wasn't, but they are wrong.  He was an enormously sophisticated man about life, about what causes people to what they do."  P. XV

He was like a combination of Boccaccio and Machiavelli and John Keats.  P. XV


 One of my favorite Johnson family stories is that his parents went THREE months before naming their first born. They went through long lists of names but nothing seemed to fit. Finally one morning mother Rebekah had had enough. She refused to fix father Sam Early, Jr.'s breakfast until they had a name. The father first suggested Clarence. No way, said the mother. Dayton? Better but still no she said. The father said he had a friend named Linden. How about that? The mother said, well, okay, but we will spell it L-y-n-d-o-n. Agreed, and that is how it happened. Of course, Rebekah's maiden name was Baines.

Like his father Sam Ealy, LBJ's mind was pragmatic, not philosophical.  P. 9

When Lyndon Johnson went off to college at San Marcos he hitchhiked.  I wonder how Trump showed up in Philadelphia at the U of Pennsylvania.  P. 27

"I don't believe in luck.  You look into it and there's always more to it than luck. " Lyndon Johnson P. 40

His patron Sam Rayburn.  P. 43

It seems that Sam Rayburn might have been the key supporter who got Lyndon the NYA job in Texas after he left Kleburg's office.  P. 53

Lyndon landed a job running newly elected Congressman Richard Kleberg's office.  After three years he went back to Texas to run Roosevelt's NYA.  After the local Congressman died, Lyndon was elected to Congress in April of 1937.  He arrived in DC in May of 1937.  Washington D.C., once a sleepy town, was the place to be with FDR in the White House.

LBJ was always a New Dealer.  He backed FDR's court-packing plan when running for Congress the first time.  When he got to Congress, he planned a birthday surprise for Sam Rayburn involving the President.  One of Johnson's friends said, "He always did everything himself.  He never trusted anybody else to do things for him."  P. 66

It is interesting that LBJ encouraged debate in his one year at Cotulla, liked to debate politics in the Little Congress, but downplayed debate on the Senate floor when became a leader of that body.

Cochrane: Johnson could get things done, and that's what Roosevelt liked about him.  FDR was not impressed with theory; he was impressed with action.  FDR & LBJ were down-to-earth politicians.  The biggest component of Johnson's political life at the start was Roosevelt.  "He's my boy," said FDR.  The President laid hands on him and that was it.  P. 78

Lyndon refused to contest his Senate loss to Pappy O'Daniel in 1941.  Staying in the House allowed him to lead the fight to renew the draft in August just before Pearl Harbor.

The birth of Linda Bird in 1944.  P. 103

"He was just like a daddy to me always."  Speaking of FDR of course,  P. 105

The Johnsons begin their road to riches with the KTBC radio and TV purchases and FCC approvals in Austin.  Whatever the truth is.  P. 110

Johnson voted for Taft-Hartley in 1947 and voted against all of Truman's civil rights bills.  P. 114

He runs for the Senate in 1948 as a conservative, proud to have voted for Taft-Hartley.  P. 118

Today's executive branch incompetence makes me yearn for competence like Lyndon Johnson competence.

Robert Caro notwithstanding, the details and controversy over Johnson's runoff election to the senate in 1948 will always be murky.  All that matters today is that LBJ was declared the winner.  P. 137

Bobby Baker was known as "Little Lyndon."  P. 142

Heart attack in 1955.  P. 182

LBJ recovered from his heart attack in the fall of 1955.  This was when it was believed a heart attack required a long rest and recuperation.  He and Lady Bird built a pool at the ranch.  While in the hospital he listened to the news with two radios going at the same time.  He played dominoes.  Wouldn't it be fun to play LBJ in dominoes?  He made a strong Democratic speech in Whitney, Texas that was well-received.  That speech made some Democrats believe that Lyndon might go all the way.  His fall visitors at the ranch included Adlai Stevenson, Estes Kefauver, and Sen. Robert Kerr of Oklahoma.  He returned to the Senate on January 3, 1956, showing moderation in his work habits at least at first.  P. 183-84

The civil rights bill of 1957 was a start and LBJ deserves most to the credit, and that's the most you can say about it.  P. 211

To understand Lyndon Johnson I believe you would have had to be there.  Otherwise, he is impossible to understand completely.  P. 215

There was a hangover from the 1957 civil rights bill that there needed to be another one that bled into 1959 and 1960 that is seems serves as a backdrop for what happened in 1964.  P. 217

Lyndon never got organized to run effectively in 1960.  P. 240

"Do not reject this man who has made us proud to be Democrats."  Eugene McCarthy nominating Adlai Stevenson at the 1960 Democratic Convention.  P. 252

LBJ understood the uncertainty of things.  Take advantage of new opportunities rather than try to hang on to the old.  A train does not run down the same track twice.  If you want to get where you are going, you don't take the same train two days in a row.  Keep moving if you want to get somewhere. Keep looking.  Keep waiting.  Another train will come by.  Bill Moyers on Lyndon Johnson.  P. 254

The historical confusion of JFK offering the vice-presidency to LBJ will never be full understood.  P. 262

After the election it was between Fulbright and Rusk for Sec. of State and LBJ was very upset when Rusk was selected.  P. 275

During his unhappy time as VP Johnson was always loyal to his President.  P. 276

There is the old story of the woman who had two sons. One went to sea and the other became Vice-President. Neither was heard from again. Unfortunately for us, Pence is being heard from again.  P. 277


"We will serve all of the nation, not one section or one sector, or one group, but all Americans. These are the United States---a united people with a united purpose. Our united purpose does not depend on unanimity. We have differences; but now, as in the past, we can derive from these differences strength, not weakness, wisdom, not despair. But as a people and as a government, we can unite on a program, a program which is wise, just, enlightened, and constructive."
-President Lyndon B. Johnson addressing Congress after the death of President Kennedy, November, 1963  P. 339

LBJ knew instinctively what to do assuming the Presidency after the death of President Kennedy in November of 1963.  We need a President who knows instinctively what to do in succeeding Trump.  P. 342

We need a POTUS like Lyndon Johnson NOW.

Johnson vs. Kennedy

-Johnson certainly knew to get more done

-JFK had more style, but LBJ had more substance

-LBJ was more a part of the liberal instinct of the times

You liked Johnson some of the time and maybe you disliked some of the time maybe both on the same day
It was hard to like Lyndon all of the time

The Johnson marriage is interesting from the outside.  For sure Lyndon was lucky to have Bird.

Shortly after Lyndon became President, Bird remarked that she hoped there wouldn't be too many foreign problems so that Lyndon could build his domestic paradise.  How ironic.  P. 358

Voting is fundamental.  
Even after passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a gigantic achievement and we should never forget that it WAS a gigantic achievement, Lyndon Johnson wanted more. He asked AG Katzenbach to write the toughest voting rights act he could muster for passage in 1965 after he was reelected.
He would tell Hubert Humphrey, "Yes, yes, Hubert, I want all of those things---buses, restaurants, public accommodations, all of that---but the right to vote with no ifs, ands, or buts, THAT'S THE KEY. When blacks get that, they'll have every politician including southerners begging for their support."
It's a shame that we are still fighting the fight today after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and Republican state legislatures creatively enact various ways to suppress the vote because they fear they cannot win a fair fight.
I go to my polling place today and this is what I am thinking about. Voting is fundamental and we cannot forsake President Johnson's vision in passing the toughest voting rights measure ever.  P. 371

Except for the Deep South, response to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was positive.  P. 372

I cannot go thru the intricacies of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.  

The reader is led to believe that LBJ actually seriously considered not running in 1964.  Impossible to believe.

It seems that despite the gamesmanship Johnson was going to pick HHH as his running mate all along.

Barry Goldwater really was nuts.  He never apologized for voting against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It has always intrigued me to read about Johnson's war with Georgetown and intellectuals.  He had no reason to feel inferior to any of them.  His mother Rebekah tried to instill in him an appreciation of the finer things of life, and so I wonder if that upbringing had something to do with it.  He was a Texas who was never going to take violin lessons.

Given the temper of the times and the advisors around him, how could he have not escalated in Viet Nam?  And the idea that Kennedy would have pulled after winning reelection, seems equally absurd to me.

The President showed his gall bladder scar.  He is still remembered for that.  P. 442

Guns and butter.  Sounds so anachronistic.  P. 455