The Path to Power (Part 1)

I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book like The Path to Power by Robert Caro. It’s equal parts Shakespearean tragedy, historical narrative, and House of Cards-esque political thriller.

I’ve long been a fan of Caro after reading his book, Working, and I’ve grown an appreciation for his “leave no stone unturned” or as Caro would say “turn every page” style of research which I’ve previously written about. But after reading the first of Caro’s expected five-volume LBJ trilogy, The Path to Power, my respect for him as a writer, storyteller, historian, and researcher has only grown.

At face value, in the ranks of American presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson doesn’t stand out as particularly interesting. He doesn’t have the reverence of a founding father like Washington, Jefferson, or Adams. He doesn’t have the same notoriety as a Clinton or Trump. He doesn’t have the same decency as the Bushs, Carter, or Reagan. Nor does he have the same public facing charisma of a JFK or Obama. But his biography is one of the most gripping things I’ve ever read and one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve had as a reader.

This isn’t just a book about LBJ. It’s a book about his family tree and genealogy going back three generations. It’s a history of the Texas hill country and the settlers who tried to tame it. It’s a study in 20th century American politics both at the national and state level. It’s a study of what it meant to be a farmer in the Texas hill country without electricity and the legislative and infrastructural obstacles that had to be overcome to give those poor farmers electricity. It’s a biography of Sam Rayburn, a fiercely loyal Speaker of the House who refused to answer to the special interests and lobbyists, commanding the House of Representatives with an iron fist. It’s the story of the immense newfound oil wealth in Texas and how that money flowed into Washington, unbeknownst to many, shaping national politics in a profound way. It’s the story of FDR and how his leadership carried the US not only through a Great Depression but through a World War and in doing so greatly expanded the power of the national government that we are familiar with today.

Caro has often said that his books aren’t necessarily about any one individual. They are studies in the accumulation and exercise of power in a democracy, through the medium of biography. And while we learn in school that the mandate to lead is awarded through the consent of the governed, LBJ accumulated huge power through less than democratic ideals making you, as the reader, question the structures of our political system and their effectiveness.

If you haven’t read this series, I highly recommend you do so. I’ve only read the first book and I’m hooked.

Here are some more of my thoughts and observations from The Path to Power.

Great Men Aren’t Crafted, They Are Born

I think this book supports the idea that the greatest men aren’t crafted, they are born (and when I say great here I don’t necessarily mean good, I moreso mean people who impart the most influence on the world).

LBJ’s desire to ascend to the highest office in American life existed within him since he was a young boy. And his behavior as a young congressional aide feverishly working to assist the constituents of the 14th district of Texas secure pensions, funding, and federal support is awe inspiring. The effort he exerts on the campaign trail to become congressman for the 10th district of Texas gives him appendicitis. The way Caro describes LBJ’s physical exhaustion yet endless energy when it comes to rallying the voters makes you realize: this man had no choice.

It was never a conscious decision for him - he had an innate, undeniable calling that made him traverse every mile of the 10th district which included “ten huge Texas counties, across an area larger than Delaware, larger than Connecticut, larger than Delaware and Connecticut combined” (Robert Caro, The Path to Power) and shake the hand of every potential voter, leaving absolutely no stone unturned. There is never any hesitation, never any second guessing, only an iron will and belly full of fire desperate to earn his office in Congress. And I don’t think this drive can be taught or invoked through conscious decision.

It’s fascinating that Robert Caro mirrors Lyndon Johnson in this sense. In Caro’s memoir, Working, he talks about the extreme measures he goes to to write his books and how it appears crazy even to him when he pauses to think about it. “Whatever it is that makes me do research the way I do, it’s not something I’m proud of and it’s not something for which I can take the credit - or the blame. It just seems to be a part of me. Looking back on my life I can see that it’s not really something I have had much choice about,” (Robert Caro, Working) These are the natures of Caro and Johnson and their natures are innate and immutable.

Dwarkesh Patel wrote an excellent piece on The Years of Lyndon Johnson series and one of the few areas I disagree with him, is this one. Dwarkesh writes “A man who has spent almost 50 years writing the biographies of a single person - who has spent those decades sifting through thousands of crates of documents in the LBJ library, or making former goons disclose how they helped Johnson steal elections, or moving to the Texas hill country, to experience for himself the poverty and loneliness of Johnson’s youth - who continues to push himself in this way past his 87th birthday when other men would have long retired, because his last volume, the one about the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, is still unfinished - is a man who understands Johnson’s aphorism, if you do everything, you will win.” The one part of this paragraph I disagree with is that Caro understands this part of Johnson because the word “understand” implies that this behavior is a matter of knowledge, of gained information.

It implies that this drive and work ethic is attainable by others if they can simply learn to understand it as well. But I don’t think that’s true. The inexhaustible drive on the campaign trail and willingness to turn every page is deep within the nature of Johnson and Caro. As Caro said of his nature “it was not something about which, really, I had any choice at all.” (Robert Caro, Working)

How Much of LBJ is Defined by the Man and How Much of LBJ is Defined by the Biographer?

I recently wrote a piece about Ulysses S. Grant and the rehabilitation of his public perception in the context of history, particularly his presidency, due to the work of Ron Chernow. But the relationship between Lyndon Johnson and Robert Caro is another fascinating case study in the influence that the subject and the biographer have upon one another.

It is commonly said that the LBJ series is the best American presidential biography that exists. And because it is such a magnificent work, it plays an important role in the legacy of LBJ as a figure. There have been tens of other biographies on the man that remain in print, yet this one series has a disproportionate impact on his legacy due to the enduring nature of Caro’s writing, thorough research, and depth of vision into Johnson’s character. Today, Caro’s series is the most popular vehicle through which we come to understand LBJ so it has the greatest influence on our perception of him.

Is LBJ a unique character? No doubt about it. Is he unique in the company of his fellow presidents? I think so. But how much of the greatness of The Years of Lyndon Johnson series is due to the greatness of the subject vs. the greatness of the storyteller? LBJ now has the greatest American presidential biography ever, but does he have the greatest story of all American presidents? I’m not as sure.

Robert Caro’s propensity for crafting historical narrative and his ability to make the most esoteric aspects of politics fascinating is what makes The Years of Lyndon Johnson so great. Some of the topics Caro chooses to right about in TPTP include: public works financing regulation, securities laws, electrification of the Texas hill country, life as a farmer before electricity, the rights of retail investors, the populist movement of the 1930s, and the national banking system. For most people, these are probably some of the most boring subjects you could imagine. But Caro brings them to life through vivid imagery of the people these laws affected.

Most biographers relay information. They tell you what happened in a manner that focuses on the facts. Caro is not satisfied with simply telling you what happened, he wants you to viscerally feel the impact of his subject’s actions on the world in which they lived and on the world in which we live today.

I wonder if in a perfect world where Caro was immortal and could write biographies of every American president, would LBJ’s still be the greatest?

LBJ’s Character is Remarkably Static

Almost every good story is marked by character development. The hero is a different person at the end of the story compared to who they were at the beginning after overcoming a series of painful trials and tribulations.

The funny thing about The Path to Power is that it is one of the greatest stories I’ve ever read yet it has remarkably little character development. LBJ is largely the same person at the beginning of the story as he is at the end.

This phenomenon is something that Caro has observed repeatedly throughout his years spent researching and writing about power. Caro rejects the idea that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and instead believes that power reveals the true character of the wielder as they must conceal their character when they are climbing the ladder of ambition until they reach the absolute power they crave. “Once you get enough power, once you’re there, where you wanted to be all along, then you can see what the protagonist wanted to do all along, because now he’s doing it.” (Robert Caro, Working).

When Lyndon Johnson is traversing the chambers of power in America, steadily making his way first as a congressional aid, then as a leader of the National Youth Association in Texas, then as a congressman, then as informal leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee he is remarkably apolitical.

Whenever he spends time with conservatives, they leave the conversation feeling that Johnson shares their beliefs. Yet when Johnson has conversations with liberals, they’re left thinking the same thing. Johnson is a political chameleon because he is not yet powerful enough to reveal his true intent - including the passage of legislation that is only a twinkle in his eye at this point in the series but, as readers, we know includes the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

On Johnson’s ability to politically blend in to any setting, George Brown of Brown & Root said “That was his leadership, that was his knack,” (Robert Caro, Means of Ascent). A critic of Johnson was equally disgusted by this same quality stating “There’s nothing wrong with being pragmatic. Hell a lot of us were pragmatic. But you have to believe in something. Lyndon Johnson believed in nothing, nothing but his own ambition.” (Robert Caro, The Path to Power).

For much of Johnson’s early life he seemed less interested in any given cause or message and more so interested in power, authority, and respect for those things alone. But when he achieves the greatest stockpile of political capital ever held by an American politician after winning the presidency by a record margin in 1964, he uses it for one of the most righteous causes of all time. He ceases to be a political chameleon when he reaches the oval office and transforms into a champion of civil rights.

The oval office does not corrupt Lyndon Johnson but reveals his true character.

LBJ vs. JFK

The relationship between LBJ and JFK is not covered in the first volume of Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson series as it only covers LBJ’s life from boyhood up to his lost Senate race in 1941. But having some cursory knowledge of American history during the 60s I can’t help but be fascinated by the two figures who loom so large over the forging of the country as we know it today.

LBJ served as the Vice President for JFK until JFK was tragically shot and killed in Dallas. One of the most fascinating things about the two figures is that they were near opposites in terms of the way they presented themselves and the ways in which they operated in the political arena of Washington.

JFK was handsome and outwardly charismatic, a very popular figure with the public, who came from an upper class background and was known for his displays of physical courage during WWII having dragged one his buddies through 3.5 miles of ocean after a disastrous naval encounter with the Japanese.

LBJ was a tall, gangly, and awkward figure who often struggled to give compelling speeches to large audiences and did not possess the same natural good looks of Kennedy. He was from a poor background, known for his cowardice in World War 2 and had a reputation as a physical coward from his days in college too.

But the greatest difference between the two was that though JFK was an inspirational figure to the nation, he was largely ineffective in passing legislation that lived up to the ideals he represented.

Johnson on the other hand had held basically every office in American politics from congressman to senator to vice president to president - he was a veteran of Washington and knew how to accumulate and exercise power. The difference between the two characters as political operatives was captured perfectly when Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington state said “Kennedy was so charming. If he needed a Senator’s vote he would have him down to the White House. He would explain how badly he needed the vote. But if the senator said that if he gave him his vote, it would ruin him in his state, it would ruin him with his constituency, Kennedy would understand. Lyndon Johnson wouldn’t understand. He would refuse to understand. He would threaten you, would cajole you, bribe you or charm you, he would do whatever he had to. But he would get the vote.” (Robert Caro, Working).

Kennedy was more inspirational to the public, but he was ineffective at passing legislation that lived up to the ideals he espoused. LBJ did not inspire adoration in the American imagination, but he was excellent at using the levers of power in Washington to pass legislation that lived up to Kennedy’s ideals.

Was JFK a better leader, having inspired a nation towards progress through widespread sentiment or was LBJ the better leader having effectuated progress through our nation’s laws, a feat no politician had the political chops to accomplish prior? This is one of the many fascinating questions of the saga of America in the 60s.

The Empathy of Robert Caro

Caro’s ability as a researcher has been endlessly discussed. This is the man who discovered hard evidence that LBJ did in fact steal the Texas Senate race of 1948. This is the man who discovered that the source of LBJ’s power as a junior Congressman was Texas oil money whose allocation he held sole discretion over. This is the man who discovered the affair between Johnson and the wife one of his largest financial backers, Charles Marsh, and the influence that affair had on Johnson’s political career. Even the name of the documentary that explores the relationship between Caro and his editor, Bob Gotlieb, is called Turn Every Page, a reference to Caro’s inexhaustible passion for combing through old papers.

But few admirers mention the man’s empathy as a strength in his biographical repertoire despite it being arguably his greatest one.

You can always get a feel for Caro’s empathy whenever you listen to a Caro interview. He always compliments the interviewer (“you ask great questions” he exclaims in his charming New York accent), he always tells stories with a hint of melancholy in his voice when appropriate, a clue that he is not the unbiased historian too many aspire to be but the empathetic storyteller who relates to the tribulations of man and finds sorrow in the plight of the oppressed, the forgotten, and the underdogs.

Caro’s empathy comes out clearly in his writing.

It’s one thing to say that Lyndon Johnson was a complicated man who simultaneously passed the most progressive civil rights bill yet waged one of the bloodiest and needless wars in our nation’s history. It’s an entirely different thing to say “Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans, but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold of their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.“ (Robert Caro, Means of Ascent) and “He (LBJ) heard it as he watched the television newscasts, night after night: ‘Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?’ He would never forget it. In his retirement, at his ranch, during the silence of the nights in the lonely Hill Country of Texas, it still rang in his mind. He would sit and talk at the ranch of ‘young people by the thousands… chanting… about how many kids I had killed that day.’ He would talk of them chanting ‘that horrible song,’” (Robert Caro, Means of Ascent).

It’s one thing to say that the lives of people, especially women, without electricity in the Texas hill country were hard. It’s an entirely different thing to say “Washing, ironing, cooking, canning, shearing, helping with the plowing and the picking and the sowing, and, every day, carrying the water and the wood, and because there was no electricity, having to do everything by hand by the same methods that had been employed by her mother and grandmother and great-great-great-grandmother before her… As many observers noted, the one almost universal characteristic of the women was that they were worn out before their time, that they were old beyond their years, old at forty, old at thirty-five, bent and stooped and tired,” (Robert Caro, The Path to Power).

It’s one thing to say that Lyndon Johnson possessed an impatient ambition that drove him to accomplish things in Washington faster than others. It’s an entirely different thing to say “Sometimes, the woman who worked with him, coming to work in the morning, would see the gangling figure running awkwardly, arms flapping, past the long row of columns on his way to the House Office Building beyond the Capitol. At first, because it was winter and she knew that he owned only a thin topcoat and that his only suits were lightweight tropicals suitable for Houston, she thought he was running because he was cold… But in Spring, the weather turned warm. And still, whenever she saw Lyndon Johnson coming up Capitol Hill he would be running.” (Robert Caro, The Path to Power)

While all of the above statements convey the same information, the latter statements make you truly understand and empathize with the information. And that is Caro’s finest skill as a writer.

The Guy vs the Boy

Jeremy Giffon has this idea of the Boy vs the Guy. The basic premise is that in every organization whether that be a business, non-profit, sports franchise, or governmental body the head person always has two archetypal lieutenants: the Guy and the Boy.

The Guy is the person who is close in age to the leader and basically the second in command. They are highly competent, highly compensated, and good at what they do but the leader would never consider them as a successor to lead the organization because they are too close in age and their exists a degree of competitive threat in their relationship.

The Boy on the other hand is the young talent. He has more promise and potential than competence but the leader of the organization sees qualities of their younger selves in the Boy and therefore accepts their help in exchange for backing and support in the Boy’s future endeavors. This often takes the form of a chief of staff position at modern tech companies. Despite their lack of experience and financial standing compared to the Guy, the Boy has the potential to become a leader while the Guy is condemned to being #2 for life.

LBJ was remarkably good at cultivating these “Boy” relationships with senior men his entire life. He did this with the president of his college who he needed support from. He did this with rich media and oil tycoons like Charles Marsh and Sid Richardson who he needed money from. He did this with the two most powerful men in Washington: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Sam Rayburn who he needed access to and power from.

And because these men took a vested interest in LBJ as a professional son of sorts he was allowed to assume far more power than his junior ranking as a young congressman would have allowed in a Congress then predicated on seniority instead of merit.

Johnson’s ability to assume the Boy role for the most powerful men of his day played an enormous role in his career trajectory as a politician.

How Would Lyndon Johnson Have Felt About These Books?

Many of the Johnson men detested Caro and his books about LBJ.

Afterall, The Path to Power, depicts Johnson as a power-hungry, apathetic, asshole.

Johnson forces an aide to take notes from him while he defecates as he knows it embarrasses and infuriates him. When the desks of his aides are cluttered, he views them as sloppy and unorganized. When their desks are empty he views them as lazy. Johnson coerces his college friends to sleep with female students to advance his campaign ambitions for what is essentially a student counsel position. Johnson backstabs his greatest ally in congress, Sam Rayburn, when he spots an opportunity to turn FDR against Rayburn making Johnson FDR’s greatest ally in Texas instead of Rayburn. Johnson carries on a decades long affair with the wife of his greatest financial supporter.

Understandably, these depictions of LBJ are not well received by the Johnson loyalists. But Caro also depicts the greatness of LBJ as a political genius.

Caro explains in vivid detail how this man, as a junior congressman, turns the tide of the 1940 election - an election in which democrats expected to lose their majority in the house and at best hoped to remain flat in terms of seats held. Instead they end up gaining eight seats, extending their majority in the house through the herculean efforts of Johnson as a member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Today, most Johnson people have decided to cooperate with Caro because they recognize the integrity and devotion to subject and craft with which Caro has approached his work. They also admit that whether they like it or not, this will be the defining biography of Johnson and his career. While The Path to Power is not the most flattering depiction of LBJ as a person, I think as the series continues, Caro will begin to give LBJ more acclaim, especially for the way he runs the Senate, a notoriously dysfunctional body of government for most of our nation’s history, even now.

The image of Johnson in The Years of Lyndon Johnson is not that of a good man, but it is that of a great man. A man with charisma and a rarely before seen level of political genius, a great success in the things he aimed to accomplish, and one who was never deterred from his goals. “If Lyndon Johnson was not a reader of books, he was a reader of men - a reader with a rare ability to see into their souls.” (Robert Caro, The Path to Power). Somehow I think Johnson would be flattered by that description, at list a little bit.

Johnson once said “I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me, I know where to look for it and how to use it.” If that was Johnson’s understanding of himself then these books depict a crystal clear image of his self perception.