The Great Societizer (Page 3)

Despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of substance, the preparedness committee gave Johnson his first national attention. But the favor of the Old Bulls and a handful of headlines were not nearly enough to secure Johnson's ultimate prize, the presidency. Recognizing that the traditional path to power in the Senate, and ultimately to the White House, was still largely closed to a junior senator, Johnson decided to create his own path. Here was where Johnson's cunning as a political entrepreneur came into play. As Caro writes:

Lyndon Johnson's political genius was creative not merely in the lower, technical aspects of politics but on much higher levels. And if there was a single aspect of his creativity that had been, throughout his career, most impressive, it was his capacity to look at an institution that possessed only limited political power--an institution that no one else thought of having the potential for any more than limited political power--and to see in that institution the potential for such substantial political power; to transform that institution so that it possessed such power, and in the process of transforming it, to reap from that transformation substantial personal power for himself.

Johnson aide Bobby Baker put it more succinctly: "He knows what makes the mules plow."

The institution that Johnson chose was the party leadership of the Senate. Almost utterly lacking in formal power, party leadership was more often the graveyard of political careers than the launching pad. No Senate Democratic leader had possessed any influence to speak of since Joseph Robinson in the 1930s. The Democratic leaders immediately preceding Johnson, Scott Lucas of Illinois and Ernest McFarland of Arizona, had been disasters, utterly incapable of bridging the differences between the party's liberal Northern and conservative Southern wings. In fact, the demands of the job had contributed to the election defeats of both men, Lucas in 1950 and McFarland in 1952. Now, following the Republican sweep of 1952, the position of minority leader stood open. Since no else wanted the position, Johnson, with Russell's blessing, ascended to the post. Only four years into his first term, Lyndon Johnson was now at least the nominal leader of the Senate Democrats.

And Johnson soon converted nominal leadership in their power, explaining that they needed to put their best people forward to defend against the Republicans. But that would require handing out committee positions on the basis of ability, not seniority. Using a combination of persuasion and horse-trading, Johnson managed to make enough room to place every Democrat on at least one major committee. In doing so, he transformed the Senate, imbuing its committees, at least on the Democratic side, with fresh blood. More important for Johnson, his own power had been enhanced greatly. Dozens of members, liberals and conservatives, Northerners and Southerners, now owed their committee assignments to him, and that meant power.

Revamping the seniority system was but the first way Johnson became master of the Senate. While much has been written about the famous Johnson "treatment," LBJ's in-your-face style of persuasion, Caro demonstrates that these skills, effective though they were, were not the only ones at his disposal. Deploying a skilled staff, he soon knew more about what was happening in the Senate than any other member, making him the "go-to guy" for information. He managed to negotiate unanimous consent agreements to limit debate, so that minor bills of importance to individual senators could be passed with dispatch. Johnson was also a skilled parliamentarian, using his knowledge of Senate rules and procedures to outwit the majority Republicans. Finally, Johnson had an astute grasp of national politics, demonstrated most effectively in the battle over the Bricker Amendment. Advanced by Republican isolationists, the constitutional amendment would have severely restricted presidential power in foreign policy by requiring treaties to be approved by the state legislatures as well as the Senate. Johnson not only managed to defeat the amendment but to do so in a way that aligned the Democrats with the popular Eisenhower against Congressional Republicans.

No method was beneath Johnson. He was just as willing to destroy the careers of his Senate colleagues as he had been with Leland Olds. Perhaps more than any other senator, Kentucky's Earle Clements had been loyal to Johnson, "dog loyal," in Caro's words. But after a bill supported by Johnson failed to pass on a tie vote, Johnson forced Clements to switch his vote, although he knew it would destroy Clements's re-election hopes. In the case of Virgil Chapman, also of Kentucky, Johnson helped to destroy not only his career but his life. Even though Johnson knew Chapman was falling further and further into the depths of alcoholism, his response was not compassion but manipulation. He would bring Chapman to his office after the Senate recessed and ply him with drinks until the inebriated Kentuckian would agree to anything Johnson wanted. Chapman eventually died in a drunk driving accident.

Johnson's success as minority leader helped the Democrats regain control of the Senate after the 1954 elections. Now the majority leader, Johnson further extended his power. As a consequence, the Senate began to act with new efficiency and effectiveness. And even though Johnson never strayed too far from Russell and the other conservative senators upon whom he relied, he still managed to help Democratic liberals to achieve at least some of their legislative goals. By the mid-1950s, the changes wrought by Johnson had dispelled much of the criticism leveled against the Senate.

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