I finished one of my summer reads today. It was a fall day on the calendar but the thermometer on the Madison isthmus read in the mid-80s. This book has resonated for the past weeks, but especially the past few days as this household–like much of the nation–is watching the fantastically packaged PBS series on the Vietnam War.
Robert Caro’s Means Of Ascent about the 1948 special Texas senatorial election where LBJ’s win by 87 votes–votes that were manufactured by his backers and created from a phone book–makes the news-reel footage of “Landslide Johnson” on PBS regarding Vietnam all the more biting and troubling. The story of Box 13 from Alice, Texas is not new by any means, But the full detailed and piece-by-piece unwinding of the drama over a large segment in Volume Two of Caro’s work on LBJ is not only masterly crafted, but also a gut-punch even to those who know the background prior to opening the pages. Caro submits an exhaustive amount of research in a polished manner where it seems that only intricate details are the ones fit to print. In other words, he respects the readers he writes for, and that is most uplifting.
I had never before read the testimonies given in court by the individuals who conspired with LBJ to steal the election. It was riveting. The Johnson family is not fond of Caro and that is due to the writer in grand detail providing historical evidence that coercion, lost ballot boxes, and corruption was practiced as a high art by Johnson. Had Johnson not won in 1948 he would not have been a national figure at the time of the Vietnam War.
Simply a must-read for any lover of American history and politics. And also for anyone who wishes to read a truly beautifully penned view of Coke Stevenson’s life. The biography on him alone is reason to open the cover.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 