Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I finish a doorstopper like this—a book of enormous scope and ambition, a genuine tour de force—I usually feel that I should reflect this weightiness in my review. After all, I spent months on this thing, bringing it up in conversation after conversation, enjoying the feeling of gradual enlightenment as I made my way from the beginning to the end. And yet, I think Caro has made his point so well, so clearly, and so forcefully that there is very little left to be said on this subject.
Apart from Lyndon Johnson, this book must be one of the best books written about the United States Senate. Indeed, one gets a sense that this was precisely Robert Caro’s goal, since he begins with a kind of book within a book, going through the entire history of the institution. In this respect, Master of the Senate can be rather depressing, since the Senate has always been, if not quite a broken, a malfunctioning body. This is largely the fault of the founders, who had the high-minded idea of creating a legislative house composed of older, wiser statesmen who could modify the rash impulses of the electorate. Instead, they created an anti-democratic institution, unresponsive to the will of the people, and historically on the side of the already rich and powerful.
The book’s central theme explores a disturbing irony: it took a bastard of historical proportions to get this legislative body to become, however briefly and modestly, a force for good. For eighty years since Reconstruction, idealistic politicians had tried to get Civil Rights legislation passed through the Senate, and they had all failed. Pure hearts, noble ideals, and moving eloquence had not made a dent in the Senate’s ability to block the legislation. But Lyndon Johnson, who loved power above all, whose personal ambition outweighed every other goal, who stole his election to the Senate, who abused his inferiors, flattered his superiors, and manipulated his equals, who was even cruel to his loving and loyal wife—this man, whom Caro had spent two volumes portraying in the least flattering possible light, had what it took to get a Civil Rights bill through the Senate.
This book thus has a dispiriting message. Put bluntly: maybe we need these Type-A assholes after all. And Johnson is perhaps the perfect representation of this cultural stereotype, all the way down to his heart attack. If you had asked me before starting on this series about this sort of person—selfish, restless, ambitious, domineering—I would have said they all ought to be sent to therapy, for their and our mutual benefit. Indeed, I occasionally fantasized about what would happen if a relatively normal person (me, for example) became president—what would happen if our government were composed of ordinary folks rather than the most power-hungry or ideological among us. The utter foolishness of this thought is demonstrated by this book. If I were suddenly appointed, say, Senate Majority Leader, I would accomplish precisely nothing.
As a final thought, a very clever friend of mine put a question to me some months ago, which at the time I couldn’t answer: Why would a Texas Democrat push so hard for civil rights, when it inevitably meant losing the support of southern whites? This book goes a considerable way in making sense of Johnson’s decision. There were many factors, but the most important in 1957 was that Johnson needed to drop the stigma of being a southern racist if he was ever to have a chance at the presidency—and the presidency was always his ultimate goal. However, this does not explain why Johnson, once president, would continue the fight. The truth seems to be that, when his overwhelming urge for power was satisfied, and other qualities of his personality were allowed to come to the fore, he did genuinely care about helping the disadvantaged. If only every type-A were like that.
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