Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream

441 Pages·2015·2.87 MB·English

by  Goodwin

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PRAISE FOR LYNDON JOHNSON AND THE
AMERICAN DREAM
“The most penetrating, fascinating political biography I have ever read.… No
other President has had a biographer who had such access to his private
thoughts.” —The New York Times
“Magnificent, brilliant, illuminating … A profound analysis of both the private
and public man.” —The Miami Herald
“Absorbing and sympathetic, warts and all.” —The Washington Post
“Kearns has made Lyndon Johnson so whole, so understandable that the impact
of the book is difficult to describe. It might have been called ‘The Tragedy of
Lyndon Johnson,’ for he comes to seem nothing so much as a figure out of
Greek tragedy.” —Houston Chronicle
“Johnson’s every word and deed is measured in an attempt to understand one of
the most powerful yet tragic of American Presidents.” —Chicago Tribune
“A fine and shrewd book … extraordinary … poignant … the best we have to
date.” —The Boston Globe
“An extraordinary portrait of a generous, devious, complex, and profoundly
manipulative man … Kearns became the custodian not only of LBJ’s political
lore but of his memories, hopes, and nightmares.… We have it all laid out for us
in this wrenchingly intimate analysis of a man whose virtues, like his faults,
were on a giant scale.” —Cosmopolitan
“A grand and fascinating portrait of a most complicated, haunted, and here
appealing man.” —The Village Voice
“Vivid … No other book is likely to offer a sharper, more intimate portrait of
Lyndon Johnson in full psychic undress.” —Newsweek
“Powerful, first rate, gratifying … [Goodwin] has proven herself worthy of
Lyndon Johnson’s trust; for by sharing his fears and dreams with us, she has
helped us to understand not just one man, but an era, and ultimately ourselves.”
—Newsday
Lyndon Johnson and the American
Dream
Doris Kearns Goodwin
To the memory of
my mother and father
and to
Richard and Bert Neustadt
CONTENTS
Foreword
Chapter 1 / GROWING UP
Chapter 2 / EDUCATION AND THE DREAM OF SUCCESS
Chapter 3 / THE MAKING OF A POLITICIAN
Chapter 4 / RISE TO POWER IN THE SENATE
Chapter 5 / THE SENATE LEADER
Chapter 6 / THE VICE-PRESIDENCY
Chapter 7 / THE TRANSITION YEAR
Chapter 8 / THE GREAT SOCIETY
Chapter 9 / VIETNAM
Chapter 10 / THINGS GO WRONG
Chapter 11 / UNDER SIEGE IN THE WHITE HOUSE
Chapter 12 / THE WITHDRAWAL
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Author’s Postscript
Notes
Index
About the Author
Foreword
It is more than eighteen years since Lyndon Johnson died, and yet my last
conversation with him, two days before his fatal heart attack, turns in my mind
as if that formidable, frustrating, fascinating character were still alive. When the
phone rang in my Cambridge apartment that raw January morning at 6 A.M., I
knew before I answered it that it was he. He would often call before dawn,
following a pattern set at the ranch when he would come into my room to wake
me up so we could talk before the day’s activities began. His voice on these
occasions was soft, so soft it was sometimes hard to understand but on this
morning the pain and sadness in his tone was so striking that I forced myself to
comprehend every word.
“Listen,” he began. “I’ve been reading Carl Sandburg’s biography on Lincoln
and no matter how great the book’s supposed to be, I can’t bring Lincoln to life.
And if that’s true for me, one President reading about another, then there’s no
chance the ordinary person in the future will ever remember me. No chance. I’d
have been better off looking for immortality through my wife and children and
their children in turn instead of seeking all that love and affection from the
American people. They’re just too fickle.”
I tried at first to cajole him from his morose mood by teasing him that from
this day forward I would promise to include a question on Lyndon Johnson on
every final exam I gave at Harvard so that at least for the length of my teaching
career, the students at Harvard would never forget him. But he cut my banter
short with an unusual abruptness. “You’re not listening. I’m telling you
something important. Get married. Have children. Spend time with them.”1*
I first met Lyndon Johnson in the spring of 1967 when I was nominated for
the White House Fellows program. I was twenty-four years old. The program
was designed to allow young people to work as special assistants to the President
and members of his cabinet. In a conference house in Virginia, a committee of
Cabinet members, government officials, and journalists interviewed the finalists.