The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power - Robert Caro

Robert Caro's fourth installment of his life's work documenting the years of Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power, details how LBJ, unable to overcome some of his most deeply-rooted demons, was unable to grab for the presidency when it might have been his. Eventually receiving second-billing on the Kennedy ticket, Johnson was seemingly ushered off the stage of history, relegated to a ceremonial bystander while "the best and the brightest" governed America. But, as of course we now know, this was not to be Lyndon Johnson's political obituary. With the crack of an assassins bullet that fateful morning in Dallas, the power Johnson had so long striven for, "by God, I'll be President someday," was suddenly thrust upon him. What Johnson did then, was, in Caro's detailed recounting, nothing short of unequaled in the history of the American republic. In a moment of supreme national agony, Johnson not only ably and with great command grasped the reins of power, but simultaneously assured the smooth transition of government, engineered the passage of monumental domestic legislation, and all but assured his re-election in a Presidential contest less than a year hence. While Johnson's three years as Vice-President may have been pure personal torture, his first seven weeks in office redound as perhaps his greatest personal triumph.

Caro has painstakingly researched the life and years of Lyndon Johnson to such an extent that we cannot help but wonder if another biography of the man and his times will ever be necessary. Throughout the four (soon-to-be five) works he has maintained a coherency of narrative allowing the reader (at least those willing to venture through 3,000-plus pages already published) to connect Johnson's strengths as a leader and man of vision, with the deeply rooted convictions bred in him from the his youth in the Texas Hill Country. What is more awe-inspiring, and perhaps more tenuous, is how Caro allows his audience to see, and to feel, LBJ's monumental insecurities, which, though he may have been able to overcome them in his first weeks as President, cannot help but loom as a grim specter over this volume. For if Lyndon B. Johnson's first days as President redound to his credit, and can be seen as a momentous capstone to a life dedicated to the pursuit of political power, then the reader cannot help but sense the extent to which the next (and final) volume, due out in two or three years, will fully detail how Johnson's weaknesses (as well as his strengths), of character, of upbringing, will conspire with events beyond his control to derail his long-held ambitions. In the end, Johnson's story cannot but be one of tragedy, pure and simple.

Tragedy requires that, for those with eyes to see, the writing is on the wall: it is only with an inevitable sense of impending doom that any tragedy is deserving of the title. We can begin to see here that the seeds for Johnson's destruction were sown in his earliest days. From The Path to Power up through this latest installment, Johnson's character has at once been his greatest strength, and his own worst enemy. What has been inescapable throughout has been LBJ's inability to moderate himself for any extended stretch of time; his seeming unwillingness to recognize that he can be his own worst enemy. When Caro describes Johnson's first weeks as President as so successful despite the man's shortcomings, the reader knows exactly what is meant. Now it is up to Caro, long after the death of this towering figure, to truly complete his story. In his research and writings Caro's work has become the definitive voice on the Years of Lyndon Johnson, and we can now begin to fully understand that those years cannot adequately be measured, our assessment of Johnson as man and as a political, as well as historical figure, not fully understood, until Caro has written his final line. For now, the last bit of Johnson's legacy still remains undisclosed and untold. Only Caro can achieve such an ending. It is the historian who will have the final word.
We wait with baited breath.