Keeping Faith: The Memoirs of Jimmy Carter By Jimmy Carter

Keeping Faith: The Memoirs of Jimmy Carter
By Jimmy Carter
Copyright 1982

Jimmy Carter is a prodigious memoirist, writing several autobiographical accounts of his life. Keeping Faith is a memoir of his presidency and opens not at the beginning of his presidency, but on its final day.

Carter chooses an unusual format to recall his presidential years. Traditionally, presidents move in chronological order, starting at the beginning and moving through the issues and crises as they presented themselves. Instead, Carter takes one issue at a time and provides narrative and commentary on them.

I didn’t think this particular format worked. It made for dry reading. When you read the memoirs of former presidents like Nixon, Ford, and Clinton, you get to know those men through their thoughts, their expressed frustrations, and their expressed ideals. Carter’s approach has him saying, “I proposed this. Congress did this. I said that and he said this.” It is all very dry and the man who is Jimmy Carter remains an enigma.

Jimmy Carter had a brutal presidency and one not known for great achievements. The Camp David Accords stand as perhaps the one reach for greatness that Carter made and as perhaps one of the great diplomatic achievements of the twentieth century. Shamefully, Carter’s retelling of the events make it almost impossible to appreciate the accords for what they were.

Carter was known as a detail man. He micromanaged every facet of his administration. In telling the story of the Camp David Accords, Carter spares no detail, no matter how mundane. My eyes glazed over as I read blow by blow accounts of meetings between the parties. There were way too many details and not nearly enough analysis. Almost half of the book deals with Camp David and there was certainly much more going on in the four years of the Carter administration.

Carter does not reveal much about the relationships he had with his close advisors. He does discuss Bert Lance and that relationship in great detail because Lance’s scandal was a tremendous blow to the administration that placed a premium on honesty. But Carter’s chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, was a colorful character who was prone to saying and doing the wrong thing. Carter provides no insight into what it was like to work with Jordan. We scarcely get to know his closest advisors with the exception of Zbigniew Brzezinski who was National Security Advisor and Cyrus Vance who was his first secretary of state.

Carter also gives very short shrift to his domestic agenda and relations with Congress. To read Carter’s memoirs, one would believe that Carter had warm relations with Tip O’Neill and Robert Byrd. It was quite the contrary. Carter enjoyed four years of Democratic rule in both chambers of Congress, but could not get a domestic agenda passed. This was because he did not and would not understand how Congress worked. This was in an age when the prerogatives of the legislature meant more to its members than party loyalty. Carter never got that and, in writing his memoirs, it appears he still doesn’t understand why he met with so much resistance from his party.

Carter had to feel some angst over the state of the economy during the latter half of his presidency. It was certainly in shambles. Unemployment was double digits, interest rates were sky-high, and inflation was out of control. Add to it an energy shortage and you have the makings of an economic calamity. Carter does not comment on this at all. He does discuss his efforts at passing an energy program, but provides scant detail as to what this program was. Nor does he provide any analysis as to why it failed to pass. The economy, as bad as it was, is barely mentioned.

Where Carter is at his best in writing about his years in the White House is in describing the events that led up to the Iranian hostage crisis and measures he took to secure their release. The book opens with his very last minute efforts to push through the transfer of funds to Iran to secure their release. In later chapters, he describes the American relationship with Iran and the Shah and how it deteriorated. The conflict between diplomats, the military, and security officials that followed the fall of the Shah is fascinating and Carter tells it well.

Here, Carter does make the reader sympathize with him. He was clearly anguished by the plight of the hostages and spared no effort in trying to secure their safe release. He also clearly describes the abortive military effort to rescue the hostages and how it failed. This failure was unfairly laid at the feet of Carter by the American public and led to a rapid deterioration of his approval. Carter does not complain and in retrospect, it was quite unfair. I respect the man for having made the bold attempt at rescue.

What I was looking forward to the most was a narrative about the Crisis of Confidence speech – or the “Malaise Speech” as it is commonly known. Not before or since has a national presidential address been so poorly conceived and delivered and I was curious to see how Carter would defend it.

He chose not to defend it. In his telling, it was all a grand success. The reality was much different. When he cancelled his scheduled address to the nation on energy and retreated to Camp David, he created an air of crisis where none existed. That is not necessarily bad. A manufactured crisis can serve a president well. But when you start inviting poets and ministers to advise you as Carter did during his retreat, you appear to be a leader full of self-doubt. When you are the president, you can admit error. But you can never admit to a lack of self-confidence. That is how it appeared to the nation.

Then the speech itself was delivered. It resonated well as a call to action. Then, pundits and opponents began to parse it. Upon closer examination, Carter seemed to be blaming the American people for the state of woe in the country. He accepted no responsibility. He made no exclamation of meeting the challenges facing the nation. Ronald Reagan used its text to malign Carter as a man out of touch with his country. The crisis of confidence was not in themselves, Reagan said. The crisis of confidence was in the man in the White House.

Carter’s bitterness toward Reagan seeps into his memoir. While this is a natural human emotion, it is not statesmanlike and Carter comes off looking somewhat petty. Reagan was considerate to Carter as the outgoing president and Carter refuses to acknowledge this.

Carter does express a great deal of warmth for Gerald Ford and, on several occasions, talks about the support Ford lent him as president. He also seems to hold Richard Nixon in high regard, discussing his advice in foreign affairs and the long trip the two took together to the Begin funeral.

The Carter presidency is soon due an unbiased and thorough examination by scholars as passions fade about the man and his presidency. They will soon begin that dispassionate analysis that we are now getting of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. A president’s memoirs lend themselves to this process. But Carter’s offer scant information to historians that’s not already available. Historians look to memoirs for a man’s passions, prejudices, anguish, and pride. Carter leaves little for historians to work with in this dry tome.

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

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power
By Robert Caro
Copyright 2012

Robert Caro’s most excellent biography of Lyndon Johnson moves forward with volume four of what is expected to be a five volume series. In The Passage of Power, Caro examines Johnson’s vice presidential years and his advancement to the ultimate office following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Before he was elected vice president, Johnson aspired to be president. But he was hesitant to seek the office, perhaps fearing loss and humiliation. When he entered the race for delegates, he was too late and he miscalculated. He relied on senators who he thought could control their states’ delegations. Kennedy relied on governors who actually exercised more influence.

When they went to the convention in 1960, Johnson was way behind in declared delegates, but still in position to challenge Kennedy. But Kennedy’s money, stellar organization, and natural charm won out. Much to the consternation of brother Bobby Kennedy, JFK asked Johnson to be his running mate. The move was less about uniting the party and more about winning the south, especially delegate-rich Texas.

Johnson campaigned almost exclusively in the South. It was during the campaign that Kennedy’s team of Harvard-educated advisors started making fun of Johnson and his lack of education and sophistication. “Cornpone” was the nickname the assigned to him. The nickname would stick through the Kennedy administration.

It was Johnson’s knack for “finding” votes that secured Texas for Kennedy and along with “found” votes in Illinois, this secured the election for Kennedy and Johnson. If Johnson was hoping for some significant role in the Kennedy administration, he was to be disappointed.

Kennedy kept Johnson at arm’s length. According to Caro, this was to keep Johnson from consolidating power. Caro has noted through his biography Johnson’s ability to find power where others can’t or don’t. The astute Kennedy was aware of this ability. Many thought that Johnson may have been helpful in advancing legislation given his knack for advancing the legislative process. But Kennedy feared that Johnson would be able to control the Kennedy legislative agenda. Kennedy would not even accept advice from Johnson.

Caro details wonderfully the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy response to it. Kennedy’s advisors were split among hawks and those who wanted a more measured approach. Early on, Johnson was part of the debate and came down on the side of the hawks. But Bobby saw to it that Johnson was marginalized and eventually shut out of the debate.

Caro also details meticulously the relationship between Johnson and Bobby Kennedy. This was a relationship of mutual hatred. Johnson had made some negative remarks about Joe Kennedy during the campaign and Bobby – ever loyal to family – never forgot. As one Kennedy loyalist was to say, “When Bobby Kennedy hated you, you stayed hated.” Johnson made a few efforts at reconciliation, but Bobby wasn’t having it. Bobby openly demonstrated his contempt for Johnson in cabinet meetings and in remarks to associates.

As Johnson became more and more marginalized, he became sullen and withdrawn. Reporters who once sought him out for insight into beltway shenanigans no longer called. At cabinet meetings, he seldom offered opinions or advice. He was a miserable man, stripped of power and trappings.

Of course, all of that changed on November 22, 1963. Caro again shows his brilliant writing chops as he describes the drama and trauma of those events and the days that followed. The Johnsons accompanied the Kennedys to the hospital after the shooting. Johnson was squirreled away in a small conference room with just a couple aides when he found out that Kennedy had died and he was the new president.

Caro provides blow by blow, vivid descriptions of what went on aboard Air Force One immediately following the assassination. Johnson, now in full control, orchestrating his swearing in, insisting that it happen there and now to assure continuity of government. As they took off, Johnson pleaded with Kennedy men to stay on with the new administration to help that continuity. While he got no hard commitments, most eventually did stay on.

Back In DC, Johnson set up his temporary headquarters in the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House with just limited space. It should have been chaos, but the old Lyndon Johnson, who was always so firmly in control when crisis hit, managed his team and saw to it that the transition of power went smoothly. One cannot help but admire him for the job he did in those frightening days following the assassination.

Johnson prepared to address Congress. He knew John Kennedy was now a martyr for the causes he supported and Johnson was determined to see them through while putting his own stamp on the presidency. His address is perhaps one of the finest ever delivered by a president in the House chamber. His words were reassuring. His determination strong. His reverence of JFK immense. The nation and the world was much more confident after Johnson’s address.

Johnson and his team went right to work on advancing the two key pieces of the Kennedy legislative agenda. Those were cuts in corporate tax rates to spur economic growth and a civil rights bill with much more substance than any passed previously. Those old skills as a legislator were still there and Johnson went right to work on advising Congress how to get them dislodged from committee and on the floor of the Senate in the right order to assure a chance at passage.

His adversary early on was the venerable Sen. Harry Byrd of Virginia who was holding up the tax bill. A budget hawk, Byrd insisted on a federal budget of less than $100 billion. The proposed budget put forward by Kennedy was $104 billion. Johnson agreed to Byrd’s demands and Byrd responded by moving the tax bill forward.

In the House, the civil rights bill was held up in the Rules Committee. Speaker John McCormack was unable to force its release. Johnson organized a coalition of liberal Democrats and Midwestern Republicans to start a discharge petition that would overrule the Rules Committee chairman. Rather than face the humiliation of being overruled, the Rules Committee sent the bill to the full House.

The book ends as the fight for these two bills is about to commence in the full bodies of Congress. Johnson is enjoying remarkably high approval ratings. He is calm, confident, and happy. The Republicans are about to nominate the abrasive Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater as their standard bearer in 1964. Johnson is confident that he will secure the nomination, but the specter of Bobby Kennedy is still out there, perhaps waiting to steal it from him.

What is remarkable about this book is the transformation of Caro from a Johnson detractor into a Johnson admirer. Through the first three volumes of the series, Caro points out Johnson’s pettiness, arrogance, abusiveness, and overall hubris. That is absent in this volume. Here, Caro has nothing but praise for Johnson and his conduct.

While many dismiss a five volume work on the life of Lyndon Johnson as perhaps overkill – boring overkill, they are really missing out. While Caro chronicles the ups and downs of Johnson’s life and career, he also brings to life decades of American political history and drama. There is nothing dull about the story of this president whom history has yet to render its final verdict. He and Richard Nixon were the two most involved men in the postwar era of governance with their entire lives intertwined with that of the nation.

One point of historical contention that Caro addresses is the possible involvement of Lyndon Johnson in Kennedy’s assassination. Several historians are marginal ability have put forth this theory. With this biography establishing Caro as the foremost authority on the life of Lyndon Johnson, when he says he can find no evidence of such conspiracy, we can take it as accepted fact.

The Passage of Power is the result of meticulous research by one of the world’s most adept historians. It is the product of an historian who also has a flare for the dramatic in bringing the drama of world events to life. While one might criticize Caro for getting just a little too bogged down in legislative machinations, one cannot dismiss his narrative voice which resembles that of a gifted storyteller. The Passage of Power is one of the best presidential biographies you’ll ever read.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate By Robert Caro

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate
By Robert Caro
Copyright 2003

Historian Robert Caro continues his extensive and detailed chronicle of Lyndon Johnson’s life in his third volume, Master of the Senate. Caro examines 12 years of Lyndon Johnson’s life as he rose from a freshman senator whose legitimacy was in question to possibly the most powerful majority leader in history.

Caro opens his tome with a detailed history of the Senate; how its power ebbed and flowed in comparison to the executive branch and the lower chamber. Designed by the founders to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, it often rose to the occasion in the first 90 years of the republic. Soon after the Civil War, it was where good ideas went to die. Its power and influence waxed in the wake of World War I, but stood in the way of American foreign policy in the run up to World War II. By the time of Lyndon Johnson’s arrival in 1949, it was again a body of old men and little action.

The position of majority leader is relatively new in American politics. It is not a constitutional office like the Speaker of the House. It is purely political and its powers dictated by the rules of the senate. Caro documents the creation of this unofficial leadership position and how it ate alive its first holders.

With meticulous – sometimes too meticulous – detail, Caro describes the two seminal events in Lyndon Johnson’s senate career that put him in the national spotlight and set the stage for his unlikely rise to power in a legislative body where seniority is everything.

Leland Olds was a liberal’s liberal and head of the Federal Power Commission. An ardent New Dealer, Olds had frequently squared off with the oil and power companies who brokered Texas politics. Beholden to these interests, Johnson did their bidding in what many thought would be a routine confirmation hearing for another term for Olds.

Olds never saw the trap Johnson had laid for him as chairman of the subcommittee hearing his testimony. Johnson’s staff researched Olds’ youthful political affiliations and writings. Through this material, they were able to imply – without direct accusation – that Olds was a communist. When Olds tried to defend himself before the subcommittee, Johnson restricted his ability to testify and limited documents he could submit in his defense. With the New Dealer out at the Federal Energy Commission, the oil barons of the South were eager to finance Johnson’s political forays.

The other headlining event that defined Lyndon Johnson before the nation was the hearings before the Subcommittee on Preparedness. The committee was examining the U.S. military’s ability to wage war in Korea. Johnson and his allies on the committee ignored the rather limited scope of the United Nations’ police action and instead raised shrill alarm about how we were going into war without the full power of the nation’s military might behind us. With memories of World War II and a severe lack of preparedness, the public was alarmed. Johnson’s shrieks of alarm landed him on the front pages of several national news magazines and the New York Times.

As he did in the first two volumes of his Johnson biography, Path to Power and Means of Ascent, Caro diverges from this subject matter to present a thumbnail biography of important figures in Johnson’s rise to power. This volume documents the life of Richard Russell and looks extensively at his abortive run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1956. Lyndon Johnson avidly supported Russell’s presidential ambitions knowing full well that the country would never support such an ardent segregationist for president. Russell’s efforts fell short, but he never forgot Johnson’s support. It became Russell's goal to see Lyndon Johnson elected president.

From his college days, Johnson was able to be all things to all people. To liberals, he was one of them. The conservatives, he was in their camp. The northern liberals of the Democratic Party like Hubert Humphrey supported him. The Southern Caucus counted him as one of their own. One would think he would have to declare some sort of allegiance to run for Senate Majority Leader. Instead, he would broker the unlikeliest of compromise between the two warring factions, courting Humphrey and letting Russell reassure the Southerners. Johnson was elected Senate Majority leader in 1954 after Democrats reclaimed the majority.

One of the many good ideas that had routinely died in the Senate since post-Reconstruction was civil rights bills. Congress had not passed one since 1875 although many had been proposed by the executive branch and several had been passed by the House. Every time such legislation made its way to the Senate, the Southern Caucus killed it through filibuster. Then came the Brownwell Bill which eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Through several chapters, Caro describes the give and take and the brokering between northern liberals, southern conservatives, disinterested westerners, and Midwest Republicans. He gave everybody something they wanted. He cut from the bill the most onerous sections to appease Southerners. He delivered dams and other capital projects to Westerners. He promised liberals he and they would build upon this legally small, but politically monumental achievement. He showed Midwest Republicans how they might benefit with their growing black constituency. While the negotiations were tedious -- as was some of Caro’s narrative – Johnson managed to deliver on the first civil rights legislation in almost 90 years.

Caro promises an extensive examination of Johnson’s run for the presidency in 1960 in the next volume. However, he does chronicle some of what happened after Johnson’s ascendency to the vice presidency in 1961 and the man’s desperate move to hold onto power in the Senate.

When the Senate Democratic Caucus met in December 1960, Johnson convinced presumptive incoming majority leader Mike Mansfield to place his name into nomination to be chairman – an unprecedented move. The position was traditionally that of the majority leader. Democrats who had been foot soldiers and pawns in Johnson’s political machinations for nearly a decade balked. Some protested based on constitutional principles of separation of powers. Others balked simply because they were tired of Johnson pushing them around. Eventually, Johnson asked Mansfield to withdraw the nomination and Mansfield was elected.

Johnson spent the early days of his vice presidency in the Democratic cloak room. But those senators with whom he had been so intimate, who sought his advice and support, and whom he had harassed and cajoled, were now merely cordial. No longer were they clubby. Johnson was no longer a member of the club.

Caro certainly uses a lot of pages to cover just a few years of Lyndon Johnson’s career. But there is enough material on the history of the Senate and its workings and procedures to create a stand alone book.

This book should be required reading material for every U.S. Senator currently holding office and for those aspiring to the club of 100. They can look in the mirror and see themselves as those who are failing to uphold the once lofty reputation of that institution as the world’s greatest deliberating body. The Senate in the 1940s and 1950s before Johnson took over as majority leader was where great ideas went to die. ‘Tis so again today.

What makes Caro’s long tomes about this one man so interesting and engaging is his story telling ability. Some of that got lost in this book. While I understand what a monumental achievement it was to pass a civil rights act in 1957, my eyes sometimes glazed over during Caro’s microscopic examination of the legislative process. Yes, it does illustrate Johnson’s ability to wheel and deal, to cajole, to persuade. But chapter after chapter on the subject was a bit much.

Another element that got lost in this book was Caro’s ability to humanize this historical icon. The first two volumes told tales of Johnson’s personal life, of his relationships with friends, aides, and his wife. There was some of that in this book, but not nearly enough. There was too much focus on the legislative processes in the Senate.

Despite these minor weaknesses, Caro’s third volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson is still compelling reading and illustrate this man’s striking ability to obtain and wield power with effectiveness. I look forward to the fourth volume where Caro will examine Johnson’s activities in the least powerful constitutional office in the U.S. government: the office of vice president.

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent By Robert Caro

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent
By Robert Caro
Copyright 1990

In his second volume chronicling the life of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro explores Johnson's time in the wilderness after losing the special election for the Texas senate seat in 1941.

The period between 1942 and 1948 found Johnson at loose ends and without a power base. His most powerful ally, Franklin Roosevelt would soon die. Vice President Harry Truman had never been a fan of the Representative from Texas. After Johnson betrayed him in the 1940 presidential race, House Speaker Sam Rayburn ceased to be a power base. With little seniority, Johnson had nothing to work with.

Without a power base in the House, Johnson quickly grew bored with his position. Caro notes that Johnson had not introduced any meaningful legislation, nor did he speak on the House floor on any issue of particular importance during his tenure in the House. Instead of legislating, Johnson set out to make money.

Johnson acquired an Austin radio station with low wattage and low profits. Using his influence with the FCC, he was able to get the stationed repositioned on the AM dial and boost its power. It is part of the Johnson family history that it was Lady Bird’s business acumen that led the Johnson telecommunications interests to profitability. However, as Caro carefully documents, it was the hand of LBJ that drove the business.

Lyndon Johnson promised his constituents that, if war broke out, he’d leave his congressional seat and join the fighting. Conveniently, he was able to serve in the military while maintaining his seat in the House. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Naval Reserve in 1942 and Caro dissects Johnson’s scant military career, telling the true story that Johnson often embellished through his political career.

Johnson was recruited by Navy Secretary James Forrestal to inspect navy installations in the Southwest Pacific. Johnson and three other naval officers spent much of their time in Texas and California, staying at the finest hotels and dining at the finest restaurants on the military’s tab. Finally, Johnson and his entourage made their way to Australia and reported to Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Johnson was eager to get a taste of combat and eventually got it. The gods of fate smiled on Johnson that day because he was ordered out of his original seat by a Colonel who was also flying to observe the mission. He was forced to board another plane. The plane to which Johnson was originally assigned was shot down and all hands lost.

Johnson’s plane flew out over the Pacific to attack a Japanese base on New Guinea. Johnson’s plane came under attack and was forced to retreat from the mission. Those who flew with Johnson said he displayed unwavering courage as bullets hit the plane, looking out the windows with great excitement. When Johnson returned, MacArthur unceremoniously pulled a Silver Star out of his desk and presented it Johnson.

That Silver Star became a source of immense pride for Johnson. He soon returned to Washington when Roosevelt recalled active duty members of Congress. He wore that Silver Star on his suit lapel every day and would tell the tale over and over again in the cloak room, at dinner parties and in his district, with the tale growing taller with the telling. However, through interviews with those who flew with Johnson as well as documents from the Department of the Navy, Caro is able to document exactly what happened.

Much of the book is dedicated to examining the 1948 Texas Senate race between Johnson and Texas Governor Coke Stevenson. This election, and the circumstances under which Johnson won it were shrouded in mystery until Caro meticulously documents what transpired in Jim Wells County, specifically at precinct 13.

Caro opens this portion of the book with a thorough thumbnail biography of Coke Stevenson. Stevenson was a larger than life figure and the prototype of the mythical Texan. He was a cowboy from birth. He lived on a remote ranch that had no phone. From birth, the man was pure Texas.

Stevenson was known as a no nonsense politician, deeply conservative, and seldom willing to compromise. It would take a man like Lyndon Johnson to bring out the worst in Coke Stevenson, and Johnson managed to do it.

A loss in 1948 would have doomed Johnson’s career in politics. This time, he would do everything to win. Money was no object as the leadership of the Texas construction firm, Brown & Root were footing most of the bills.

Logistics had been a problem in the last campaign. A statewide campaign in Texas required enormous resources. While money could be raised, time was fixed and traveling across Texas to reach remote voters required a great deal of time. To overcome this, Johnson’s campaign leased a helicopter.

In 1948, most people had never seen a helicopter. Johnson’s whirlybird, dubbed the Johnson City Windmill, drew people from far and wide to see the aviation curiosity. Once drawn to the site, they would stay and listen to the candidate. The helicopter also let Johnson speak to the remote farmer or rancher by hovering over his home and shouting to him through a megaphone.

As before, Johnson pushed himself and his staff relentlessly with two advance teams leapfrogging each other to meet the helicopter. Johnson made slow and steady progress in his uphill climb to defeat Stevenson for the Democratic nomination, but was almost felled when he developed a kidney stone.

Caro documents Johnson’s illness with excruciating detail through interviews with those who traveled with Johnson. Johnson worked for two weeks in horrible agony, often doubling over in pain and vomiting right after leaving a public appearance. He lost weight and looked gaunt. Finally, unable to press on, he agreed to examination by a physician.

Johnson was told he needed surgery which would sideline him for several weeks. Instead, Johnson demanded that the stone be extracted by going in through the urethra. The surgeon was reluctant, but agreed. In what must have been an incredibly painful procedure, the surgeon extracted the stone, delving into the bladder two centimeters beyond what was recommended. Back on his feet the next day, Johnson resumed campaigning.

Johnson attacked Stevenson as a liberal and often misrepresented Stevenson’s positions on issues. Stevenson, behaving like a gentleman, refused to address Johnson’s accusations or even acknowledge Johnson. As his lead shrunk, Stevenson’s advisers begged him to challenge Johnson directly. That had never been the Stevenson way. Finally, in the waning days of the campaign, Stevenson went after Johnson, calling him a liar. Stevenson tried to explain his position on issues, but would never come out and say exactly how he would vote. Johnson goaded one of the most honorable men in political history into name calling and waffling.

When the primary election was held, the state Democratic central committee initially certified that Lyndon Johnson had won the election by just 87 votes. Stevenson immediately cried fraud and demanded an investigation – especially in the circumstances surrounding precinct 13 in Jim Wells County.

Caro documents through interviews with participants how John Connally was able to arrange with election officials in Jim Wells County to “find” an additional 200 votes for Lyndon Johnson in the county. The new voters mysteriously voted in alphabetical order and their handwriting was essentially the same. Stevenson demanded that the ballot box be opened and the actual ballots counted. Despite testimony from voters who said they had not voted election day, the party declined to do so and declared Johnson the winner.

Stevenson mounted a court challenge, but thanks to the able legal efforts of Abe Fortas, the challenge went nowhere. Johnson’s name appeared on the November ballot and he won election to the U.S. Senate.

The book ends with “Landslide Lyndon” arriving in Washington as the new senator from the Lone Star State.

This was the shortest and perhaps least interesting of Caro’s multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. But it was fun reading and exceptional scholarship.

As he did in his first biography, Caro provides extensive biographical information on the subjects who were important in Lyndon Johnson’s life. In this case, his extensive biography of Coke Stevenson not only provided insight into Stevenson’s character and personality, it help cast the 1948 contest as a showdown between principle versus pragmatism. It also was illustrative of the development of Texas as a state at the start of the 20th century.

Caro put a great deal of effort into tracking down and interviewing those who were observers and participants in Lyndon Johnson’s quest for power, In doing so, he’s able to debunk the myth of Lady Bird being the mastermind behind the Johnson telecommunications fortune and, to tell the whole story behind the stolen 1948 Texas senate election.

AS he did in the first volume of what will be a five volume biography, Caro examines the minutia of Lyndon Johnson’s life and in doing so, reveals that Lyndon Johnson was one of the most Machiavellian men in the history of the Republic. The man had no scruples, no conscience, and no morals. He was a man driven by a need to be somebody. As Caro points out, his eyes were already on the presidency.

Caro asks, but does not answer the question, how different would the world be if the Texas Democrats just opened that little black box from precinct 13 and counted the votes?

There’s nothing negative to say about Robert Caro’s exhaustive examination of Lyndon Johnson’s years in the wilderness. He took the least interesting period in Johnson’s life and described it in painstaking detail, giving the reader much greater insight into the man who would shape American foreign and domestic policy long after his

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power By Robert A. Caro

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power
By Robert A. Caro
Copyright 1982

Robert Caro describes in great detail the rise of a poor farm boy from the desolate Hill Country of Texas to the halls of Congress and confidant of the nation’s most powerful president.

Lyndon Johnson’s ancestors, like many others moving west in the late 19th century, settled in the Texas Hill Country, west of Austin. The country looked ripe and rich. But its thin soil held doom for all who tried to farm it. The Johnsons, like most of their neighbors, went broke trying to farm the thin soil that barely hid a bedrock of limestone.

Caro introduces us to young Lyndon Johnson who was a dutiful loving son as a young boy and a reckless, rebellious teenager as a youth. As a boy, he frequently joined his father on sojourns in the state capital of Austin where Sam Johnson served as a legislator. An uncompromising populist, Sam Johnson soon lost his political power, his money, and his status in the community. That is when Lyndon turned rebellious.

It was when he went off to San Marcos Teachers College that Lyndon Johnson first demonstrated his ability to develop power bases seemingly out of thin air. He created a shadow organization to challenge the student organization that elected student councils and officers. He cultivated a father-son relationship with the implacable president of the college that earned him many special privileges. It was here that he also learned the art of political cheating, often stuffing the ballot boxes to get his candidates elected.

For all of the questions of character that have been raised over the years about Lyndon Johnson, he did have one virtue that made him special. He was a gifted teacher. Out of college, he took a job as a principal in a poor city south of San Antonio. There, he transformed the school and was beloved by his students and school administration. In another teaching gig, he served as a speech teacher and drove his students hard to achieve. They loved him for it.

But the path to power that young Lyndon Johnson craved so badly did not lay in teaching. It was in politics and Johnson got his break when he landed a job with Congressman Richard Kleberg of Texas. Johnson finally made it to Washington.

Caro meticulously documents and narrates how young legislative secretary Lyndon Johnson built a power base as formidable as that of any congressman. Kleberg was a congressman in title only. He did no work. Johnson did all his work, helping constituents and he made sure that those constituents knew it was Lyndon Johnson who took care of them.

He wined and dined bureaucrats so he could get prompt service. He endeared himself to powerful men like Sam Rayburn, to whom he became a “professional son” as he did to his old college president. He made important financial connections to the Texas construction firm of Brown & Root who would serve as a campaign cash cow for Johnson for decades.

He would not remain a legislative secretary long. Ambitious for power was Lyndon Johnson and he soon got an executive position, running a New Deal agency – the Texas Youth Administration. Here, he was able to get young people jobs they were so desperate for in the early days of the Great Depression. Again, he always made sure that every job and every favor bore his imprimatur. People of all walks of life in Texas were coming to know Lyndon Johnson.

Robert Caro deftly captures the fever pitch of political campaigns in his books and when Johnson ran for an open seat in the Texas 10th District in 1937. The odds were against Johnson who did not have the name recognition of other candidates since Johnson’s home was on the western edge of the district that also took in the state capital, Austin. But Brown & Root money combined with Johnson’s dogged, tireless trekking back and forth across the district on a schedule that nearly killed him carried the day. Johnson returned to Washington as a congressman.

But he was to learn an unhappy truth about being a freshman congressman. Nobody cares what you have to say and your ideas are ignored. It was not long before Johnson became restless and bored. But he’d soon find another path to power. In 1938, vice president John Nance Garner broke with the administration and launched his own bid for the presidency. Fellow Texan Sam Rayburn was bound to support him even though Rayburn had dedicated much of his political career to carrying the water for Franklin Roosevelt in the House.

The machinations of Garner, Rayburn, Roosevelt, and Johnson were highly complex and Caro explains them carefully and concisely. Johnson saw his path to power as supporting Roosevelt, going against his surrogate father Rayburn. When all was said in done in 1938, John Nance Garner’s long political career was in tatters, Sam Rayburn was on the outs with the administration. Johnson became Roosevelt’s go-to man in Texas and in the House.

This was not enough for Johnson. Still restless in the House where he was just one of 435, Johnson yearned to move up to the Senate. His chance came in 1941 in another special election. Johnson’s primary opponent was to be the state’s popular governor and professional radio host, Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel.

Again, the odds were stacked against Johnson. O’Daniel already had statewide name recognition and organization, Johnson was little known outside his district. Johnson, with Brown & Root money quickly built a statewide organization and received support from Roosevelt. As the campaign wore on, Johnson moved up in the polls and on election day, it seemed he would win. Unfortunately for Johnson, he’d not learned the art of stealing an election.

The early returns showed Johnson winning. The day after election day, his victory seemed a foregone conclusion. However, all of the Johnson votes were in. Not all of the O’Daniel votes had been counted because they’d not all been cast.

A group of businessmen in the beer and liquor industry wanted O’Daniel out of the state where he was making their business difficult. These men engineered votes from rural counties to be counted later as they came in. The men knew how many votes they needed because Johnson held none of his back. When all of the votes – real and false – had been counted, O’Daniel was victorious.

The defeat was a crushing blow to Johnson and his supporters. But the defeat was the least of Johnson’s problems in the wake of the unsuccessful 1941 campaign. The IRS took an interest in Brown & Root’s finances – especially contributions made to the Johnson campaign. The first volume of Caro’s expansive biography of Lyndon Johnson ends with Johnson using his influence with the president to shut down the investigation.

Caro’s account of Lyndon Johnson’s early life and career is as compelling as a novel. He captures the duality of Johnson who was a man without principle. He was all things to all people in his career. With conservatives, he was a conservative. With liberals, he was a liberal. He was Rayburn’s friend while working to ruin him. It might seem that Johnson was a complicated, complex man, but he was not and Caro presents him just as he was: A man with nothing but winning on his mind.

Caro makes it clear from Johnson’s childhood through his career that, if he could not be the center of attention, he wasn’t interested in participating in any activity. As a child, if he could not pitch, he’d take his ball and go home. As an adult, if he was not the center of attention at every conversation, he’d simply take a nap until the others were done talking.

Caro brings to life the relationships Johnson had with his mother, whom he loved and adored, and his father, against whom he rebelled and seemed to hate because his father had lost an election on principle and ruined his career.

Lady Bird, who was interviewed extensively for this volume, we find is a complex person. Smart and savvy, she was also demur, even by the standards of the times. Johnson treated her as a servant and belittled her in front of important company. She tried hard to learn the issues so she could participate in the conversations. But Johnson did his best to keep her silent and dutiful.

Johnson’s affair with Virginia socialite Alice Glass – who was also interviewed for this volume – is well documented and is quite interesting. While Johnson was sleeping with Glass and apparently in love with her, he was taking money and enjoying the editorial support of her publisher husband.

Caro takes the time to develop the characters in Johnson’s life just like a novelist. Interesting thumbnail biographies of people like Johnson’s father, Samuel Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Lady Bird Johnson, and Pappy O’Daniel appear as pauses in the narrative of Johnson’s life and make the reading experience a rich one.

Caro has since completed three more volumes of his exhaustive biography of one of this century’s most compelling political figures. Volume one is perhaps the least compelling of them. But it is still excellent and worth the time of wading through the 800 plus pages. When Caro is done, no president of the 20th century will have undergone such a thorough historical vetting.

Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography From Plains to Post Presidency By Peter C. Bourne

Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography From Plains to Post Presidency
By Peter C. Bourne
Copyright 1997

Jimmy Carter has been out of office for more than 30 years, yet there are few scholarly biographies of this president. That is remarkable considering he presided over one of the most bizarre periods of American history. Deindustrialization of the United States was just getting started, everything William Phillips and John Maynard Keynes taught us about the economy was proved wrong, The Soviets achieved military superiority to the United States, and OPEC learned they could bully us.

Bourne was a health advisor to Carter during his presidency and worked on Carter’s campaign for governor and was instrumental, along with Vernon Jordan, Bert Lance, and others in convincing the little known governor of Georgia to run for the presidency in 1976.

Bourne describes Carter’s childhood in great detail. He was the first American president born in a hospital. His father was a benign bigot – more a product of his time and place than a hard core bigot. His mother was a Florence Nightingale to the black community in Plains and Americus, Georgia. It was Earl Carter who built the family peanut and warehouse business for which Carter would become so famous.

In describing Carter’s military career, it becomes clear that Rosalynn was every bit ambitious – perhaps more ambitious – than her husband. She didn’t enjoy the life of a military wife, with Jimmy being gone for long stretches as one of the first nuclear engineers in military history. But she saw it as a ticket out of Plains which was too small to contain her unrelenting drive.

She was devastated when Jimmy left the Navy and returned to Plains to run the family business. Earl Carter was known for his business acumen and Jimmy inherited that trait. Rosalynn was also adept at business, managing the business’s books. It was during this time that Carter was bitten by the political bug.

Carter entered southern politics at a time of transition in the South. The hardline segregationists were losing their grip on power, yet still controlled a large portion of the vote in rural Georgia. Carter ran for the Georgia state senate as man who was all things to all people. In his heart, he was a reformer, but made concessions to the reality of southern politics in the 1960s.

Despite his big grin, Carter showed he could be tough. He battled the entrenched segregationists within the Georgia Democratic Party and corrupt county officials in his first run for office. He challenged the sheriff of Quitman County who controlled voting there and won his first political race in 1961. He successfully ran for reelection in 1964 and served on the education committee within the Georgia senate.

He decided not to run for reelection in 1966 and seek a higher office. He considered a run for the U.S. House seat which is what Rosalynn wanted. Instead, he opted for governor. He ended up losing that race to Lester Maddox, an old school segregationist. But with Maddox term limited in 1970, Carter came back and won the governership. Maddox was elected lieutenant governor and the two did not get along with Maddox working to thwart every reform measure Carter pursued.

Bourne doesn’t spend too much time discussing Carter’s years as governor. The narrative really takes off when Carter’s advisors start to contemplate a run for the presidency.

Carter was the most unlikely candidate of the modern era of presidents. He had zero name recognition nationally and was not even well known among his governors. But politics is about time and place, and Bourne accurately portrays that Jimmy Carter was a man of his times.

Bourne doesn’t overplay his role, but apparently had an axe to grind with Vernon Jordan, who got his start as a kingmaker under Carter. Bourne is unrelenting in his criticism of Jordan’s disorganization and unwillingness to return phone calls. Bourne makes it clear they won that campaign despite Jordan.

Presidential primaries were much different in 1976 than they are today, with the individual states holding primaries from early in the year through the summer. Today, it is a sprint to the nomination once the primaries start. Back then, it was a marathon and Carter was durable. He won primaries and lost primaries. With Kennedy out, liberals kept hoping that Hubert Humphrey would enter the race and the Carter camp feared this. But as time wore in, also-rans like George Wallace, Frank Church, Jerry Brown, and Morris Udall eventually fell by the wayside and Carter won the nomination.

Bourne points out that it was Carter’s tireless grassroots campaigning – standing at shopping centers and factory entrances that won him the nomination. Carter and his campaign were not media savvy and his mass media campaign was lackluster. But Carter’s ability to engage voters one on one was unsurpassed by any president before or since.

Carter emerged from the Democratic National Convention with running mate Walter Mondale with a 30 point lead over Gerald Ford and Bob Dole. Ford was suffering from backlash from the Nixon pardon and an ailing economy. The election should have been a cakewalk for Carter. But it was not.

Ford responded with a brilliant Rose Garden strategy. He knew that Carter’s greatest weakness was his inexperience and Ford needed to look presidential to best Carter, who was running as a reformer after Vietnam and Watergate had shaken America’s faith in its politicians. Ford executed his plan well and the lead narrowed. Carter had a disastrous interview with Playboy magazine where he admitted to having “lusted” in his heart. He would go on to perform poorly in the first of two debates with Ford where he admitted being in awe of the president and his office.

Ford, who was doing so well with his Rose Garden strategy then committed a major gaffe at the second blunder. In defending the Helsinki Accords which he’d help broker, he claimed that there was, “no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, nor will there ever be under a Ford administration.” Conservatives were aghast. Not particularly fond of Ford for besting their man, Ronald Reagan, in the primaries, they were now alienated. Bob Dole made things worse by describing all of the wars of the 20th century as “Democrat wars.”

The election was close, but Carter managed to defeat Ford. One of the great traditions of which Americans are most proud is the transition of power from a defeated president to the man who defeated him. Yet, Bourne neglects to discuss the transfer of power from Ford to Carter with any great detail. He does discuss in detail Carter’s process of selecting members of his cabinet and administration and the process is as ugly and disorganized as any in American history.

In the wake of the scorn and blame for Watergate heaped on Nixon chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, Carter elected not to have a chief of staff. He wanted multiple people within his administration to have direct access to him. This would prove a stupid maneuver. The people in charge of vetting potential advisors and cabinet members had no experience in Washington and were determined to appoint people who were not Washington insiders. They did not consult Democratic congressional leaders, alienating important men like House Speaker Tip O’Neill, senators Robert Byrd and Scoop Jackson, and the DNC. This was all part of the Carter strategy of portraying the man from Plains as an outsider who was going to change Washington.
Rather than tell a chronological story of the Carter presidency, Bourne compartmentalizes it into various aspects of presidential leadership.

He first describes the effort to bring peace to the Middle East where Israel and Egypt had been engaged in a long and brutal war. Bourne describes in detail (but without drama) the process of bringing Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to Washington to begin negotiations for peace. The divisions were ancient and bitter.

Sadat seemed to want peace more than Begin and immediately invested his hopes in Carter’s ability to wrangle the necessary concessions from Begin. Begin, facing pressure from conservatives in Israel who saw building settlements in disputed territories as their only buffer with hostile Arab nations, were tough negotiators. Begin finally relented enough for Sadat to be able. They reached an agreement in principle, but it would be two more years before the Camp David Accords were finally signed and Carter joined Begin and Sadat on the South Lawn for the three way handshake that would become the most famous image from the Carter presidency as the three celebrated.

In domestic policy, Bourne acknowledges the administration’s plan was a disaster from the start. Carter made myriad promises in many areas during the campaign and he seemed determined to bring them all to fruition in the first year. Proposals for energy legislation, tax legislation, education legislation, environmental legislation, and government reform legislation flew from the White House to Capitol Hill on an almost daily basis. Yet, in developing the legislation, nobody from the administration had consulted anyone on Capitol Hill.

It is this conduct that would make the Carter presidency a total disaster. The boys from Georgia Carter brought with him did not understand how to move legislation through Congress by working with their allies there. Carter himself was incredibly aloof and standoffish with congressional leaders. Much of what he proposed was opposed in principle by many of the old New Dealers that still populated Congress. Members of Congress will sometimes vote against their principles if offered other incentives, but Carter went out of his way to remove those incentives by vetoing bills that included important pork projects for Democratic members.

As the economy slowly faltered and the energy crisis became a real phenomenon, Carter was paralyzed. Part of the problem was the situation was unprecedented in American history. As unemployment rose, economists expected inflation to drop. This was how it had always been. Not under Carter. Unemployment reached double digits and so did inflation. The misery of the Carter economy left no one unhurt. Yet, with no goodwill in Congress, Carter could do nothing about it. He did appoint conservative monetarist Paul Volker to run the Federal Reserve. But it was too little, too late.

Bourne recounts Carter’s moment of personal crisis with dramatic flair. He describes Carter’s retreat to Camp David in great detail where Carter invited advisers, economists, common citizens, politicians, poets, business leaders, and labor leaders to offer him advice. The meeting was supposed to demonstrate Carter getting back in touch with Americans. What it did was reveal to the nation a man in over his head, grasping at any straw to save himself and the nation.

It was here that the woeful, “Malaise Speech” was conceived. It was pollster Pat Cadell’s idea. Cadell’s information revealed that Americans had lost faith in themselves and their country. He thought it important for Carter to acknowledge this and to encourage Americans to reach deep within themselves for sacrifice and determination to improve their lot.

The first to recognize this approach as a total disaster was vice president Walter Mondale. Mondale was a veteran politician who understood voters and understood politics. He recognized it for how it would be received: the president was blaming the American people for their own ills.

Carter delivered the ill-advised speech, speaking from fireside inside the White House in a cardigan sweater. He told Americans what he'd heard during his sojourn at Camp David and described America's Crisis of Confidence in itself.

Early polls seemed to prove Mondale wrong as Carter got an immediate bump in the polls. But as the speech was dissected by the media and by the opposition, the bump disappeared and Carter actually plumbed new depths in presidential approval, falling to just 22 percent – five points lower than Richard Nixon when he resigned. The nation’s economy was unraveling at an alarming rate. Gas shortages plagued the nation. Coal miners went on strike, crippling industry and the president stood helpless.

Bourne provides a bit of a history lesson in Iranian-American relations as he starts into his analysis of the Iranian hostage crisis. When the militants seized power and took the American embassy, Carter did not respond. Carter supported Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlav, but publicly chided him for his abysmal record on human rights. When the Shah fell, Carter refused to allow him sanctuary in the United States, forcing him to flee to Mexico. Just as he was paralyzed by the mess in the economy, he was paralyzed by the hostage crisis. The militants were demanding the return of the Shah, his wealth, an admission from the U.S. that it had meddled in Iranian politics and an apology, and a promise to stay out of Iranian domestic politics.

Carter finally decided to act and signed off on a rescue mission. This led to the resignation of Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance who had tired of the constant battles for power within the Carter White House which had no chief of staff, and therefore, no leader. Vance had battled NSA director, Zbigniew Brzezinski and de facto chief of staff, Vernon Jordan for access and power for years. This was a convenient time for him to exit.

The effort to rescue the hostages was a disaster. Helicopters failed to operate properly. Republicans had criticized the president for the lack of funding for spare parts for military equipment and this seemed to bear out their criticism. The rescue effort was further hampered by a horrible dust storm which made landing in the designated area nearly impossible. The disaster culminated in the collision of two of the helicopters, leading to the death and injury of several American military personnel.

As the hostage crisis wore on, the energy crisis wore on, and the economy remained in total shambles, Carter had no political capital with which to operate. Democrat Ted Kennedy, with whom Carter had never enjoyed a particularly warm relationship, decided to run for president in the Democratic primary.

Carter desperately wanted a second term, but was going to have to fight the liberal wing of his party to get it. The battle between Kennedy and Carter was vicious, but its outcome preordained. Kennedy still wore the stigma of Chappaquiddick and blew a high profile interview on CBS where he could not clearly state why he wanted to be president. Carter vanquished Kennedy in the primaries, but the two could not show a united front at the Democratic National Convention. The Democratic primary was split.

Meanwhile, the rift between conservative and moderate Republicans was repaired when Ronald Reagan chose George Bush to be his running mate at the 1980 Republican Convention. Just as Carter had done four years prior, Reagan/Bush emerged from the primary with a sizeable lead over the incumbent.

The race was between the incumbent who’d promised honesty and efficiency in government and a man who promised to restore American greatness. Carter, who was so involved in government that he approved daily White House tennis court schedules, was opposing a man who seemed to know or care little about how federal government worked, but was quick to label it the source of all American problems.

Just as Carter was the right man at the right time in 1976, promising honesty and efficiency in the wake of Watergate, Ronald Reagan was the right man at the right time who promised a weary and uncertain nation that he would lead it back to greatness by restoring its military might and reducing its government’s power to influence their lives. The race wasn’t even close. Carter conceded before the polls closes in California.

From this point, Bourne’s book lapses into nearly incoherent bitterness. In describing the transition meeting, he says Reagan took no notes during his briefing, but asked Carter if he could have his.

Bourne tries to convey how Carter wanted to spend his remaining years as a peacemaker and details his many trips to monitor elections in dangerous countries. What he does not detail is how small and petty Carter was in criticizing Reagan, Bush, and Bill Clinton from afar – a nearly unprecedented act for a former president. At one point, responding to a reporter's question about Carter's trip to Haiti, President Clinton was forced to remind the reporter that Jimmy Carter didn't set American foreign policy. He did. Bourne makes it appear as if Reagan actually wanted Carter to die in South America by withholding security for him. The notion is preposterous.

In reality, Reagan treated Jimmy Carter with as much respect and dignity as any president could a former president despite Carter’s constant sniping and criticizing. Reagan dispatched Carter to greet the hostages, rightly acknowledging Carter’s dedication in securing their release. Knowing how close Carter was to Anwar Sadat, Reagan sent him, along with Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon to attend Sadat’s funeral. In his memoirs, Reagan complimented Carter on his dedication to securing the release of the hostages and not once did Reagan ever criticize Carter’s conduct of those negotiations even though it would have certainly made valuable political fodder.

Bourne wraps up with describing how Carter dedicated himself to Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center. Both are laudable undertakings for the retired president and in his post-presidential years have been fulfilling for him and of benefit to the American people.

Bourne’s biography is simply not a well conceived book. On the positive side, Bourne does describe and analyze in great detail Carter’s unshakable Christian faith and how that faith shaped his personal and political conduct. When it comes to being a Christian, Jimmy Carter is the real deal. I doubt any other president has been so dedicated to his faith.

Most interesting (and unknown to me until I read Bourne’s book) was Carter’s devotion to the teachings of theologian Reinhold Niebhur. Carter embraced, in toto, Niebhur’s teachings. Niebhur preached religion and faith as something that should be incorporated into the actions of all politicians. Carter based many of his political and governmental decisions based on his Baptist faith.

What makes Bourne’s biography bad is what he ignores. The Bert Lance affair was devastating to Jimmy Carter. Not only was did it result in a tremendous loss of faith in Carter by the American people, it deprived him of the only wise political counsel he had within his administration. Also missing is any discussion of Hamilton Jordan who was a constant embarrassment to Carter and eventually found himself before a special prosecutor for allegedly using cocaine at New York’s notorious Studio 54.

Nor does Bourne acknowledge his own scandal. Bourne, a professional physician, wrote a fraudulent prescription to a member of the White House staff. Why he did this, he does not explain. He does not even mention it in the book which seriously undercuts his credibility.

What Bourne does do is take shots at people he apparently does not like. Chief among those is Vernon Jordan who is a now a major power broker in DC, and Ronald Reagan. At every opportunity, he points up Jordan’s ineptitude, arrogance, and ignorance. Yet it was Jordan, not Bourne, who emerged from the Carter presidency stronger and more influential than when he entered it. His criticisms of Reagan are too foolish to be discussed in any context. One can’t argue with results and Reagan’s results, while certainly not perfect, were better than Carter’s.

I went into Bourne’s biography knowing he was an admirer of Carter. I’ve read biographies of presidents written by admirers and found them analytical and informative. Bourne spends too much time trashing those he doesn’t like and making excuses for Carter’s missteps or simply blaming them on others.

I don’t like Jimmy Carter. I make no secret about that. I don’t like him as a person. I find him to be petty, bitter, angry, and hopelessly pious. I acknowledge that the man has made great contributions to American and global society for which he deserves to be lauded. But deep down, the man has an abrasive arrogance I don’t like.

I loathe him as a president. Not since James Buchanan has such a weak and inept man been at the helm of the nation at a time of such great crisis. So many things were going wrong in the second half of the 1970s and so much damage was done to our nation. While I’ll not compare Carter to Nero, what little effort he did make was too little and when he failed, he blamed the American people.

Bourne acknowledges none of these shortcomings. To blame them on others and memorialize them in a book does an injustice to history.

Colonel Roosevelt By Edmund Morris

Colonel Roosevelt
By Edmund Morris
Copyright 2011

Edmund Morris wraps up his delightfully insightful and well written three volume biography by chronicling and analyzing the final, unsatisfying years of Theodore Roosevelt’s life after leaving the presidency.

The story picks up with the retired president on safari in Africa. Morris provides a detailed (sometimes excruciating) account of Roosevelt’s exploits in killing lions, rhinos, and other big game in Africa – all in the name of science.

Roosevelt told journalists who were covering his exploits that he was completely divorcing himself of politics whilst on the African continent. But his arrival in Europe upon the completion of the safari saw him inundated with cries of anguish from progressive Republicans angered by the conduct of President William Howard Taft. Chief among those who wept at Teddy’s feet was his old friend, Gifford Pinchot, whom Taft had fired from his position as head of the forestry service.

Taft’s perceived primary offense was a lack of executive action in reigning in trusts. He preferred to let anti-trust cases be settled in court. Far from being idle on the domination of monopolies in the American economy, Taft was militant in attacking them with lawsuits. However, he neither proposed nor enacted any significant anti-trust legislation to the chagrin of progressives like Robert LaFollette who expected decisive action from the man that Roosevelt himself had sold as a true progressive.

Roosevelt was unwilling to attack the current occupant of the White House – adhering to a time honored American tradition. However, he was not above attacking the judiciary which he found entirely too conservative even though most had been appointed by Republican presidents.

When the 1910 elections went badly for the Republicans (sweeping in Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress) Roosevelt became increasingly anxious. Yet he continued to decline overtures to challenge Taft on the Republican ticket. But he always left the door a little ajar, in case he should change his mind.

The break with Taft came, ironically, when the administration filed an anti-trust suit against U.S. Steel which Teddy deemed to be one of the “good” trusts. He allowed his name to be entered into the fray for the 1912 Republican nomination. Unfortunately, Taft’s organization had already secured most of the delegates and Roosevelt did not get the nomination.

However, with the erratic Robert LaFollette breaking down on the campaign trail as the nominee of the nascent Progressive Party, Roosevelt stepped into the void. Rebranding themselves the Bull Moose Party, they hoped to capture progressive Republicans who favored governmental action to regulate commerce, protect workers, and preserve the environment as well as Democrats unhappy with the establishment wing of their party.

What the Progressives did was destroy the Taft candidacy and hand the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson – a Princeton college professor. Roosevelt had no illusions that he was going to win, but he’d hoped to steer the presidency and the country toward a more progressive course.

During the campaign, Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt. A drifter and poet named John Schrank shot Roosevelt in the chest as he was preparing to speak in Milwaukee. Schrank claimed the ghost of William McKinley told him to do it. The bullet hit Roosevelt’s steel glasses case and speech text he was carrying in his breast pocket before entering his chest. He completed the speech before going to a Milwaukee hospital where physicians determined the best course of action was to leave the bullet where it rested.

With what would be his last political campaign behind him, Roosevelt set off on one last great adventure before old age and infirmity would make such an undertaking impossible. He headed for South America where he joined son, Kermit in an expedition to map an uncharted tributary of the Amazon River. The trip was dangerous and cost two men their lives. Roosevelt was injured trying to rescue canoes from washing away. The wound in his leg became infected and he developed malaria.

The two month long ordeal nearly killed the formally indomitable bull moose and he seems to have lost his lust for adventure, although he was quite proud and proud of his son to have been part of such an arduous and historic undertaking.

In his final days, Roosevelt deployed his pen with new invective. As war developed and engrossed all of Europe, he became a staunch advocate for American preparedness and a vocal critic of Woodrow Wilson who was quite adamant about keeping America out of the war. Most of America was on Wilson’s side, despite the fact that Germans kept sinking ships and killing American passengers. He declined to enter the 1916 presidential contest, knowing his views were not popular. He did campaign vociferously for Republican nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, who surpassed the professor in the White House for dullness on the stump.

So enraptured was Teddy with war in Europe that when America finally got around to entering the war, he volunteered to recruit and lead a regiment in Europe. The administration politely declined. Morris doesn’t say so, but the idea of the 60 year old man ravaged by disease and physically out of shape must have struck even his most ardent supporters as sad.

The old man may not have made it to the battlefields of Europe, but his children did. Quentin was wounded in the leg and his youngest, Kermit, was shot down behind enemy lines and died in a plane crash. His body was interred in France where his plane was downed.

Roosevelt was horribly distraught over Kermit’s death. He’d campaigned hard for Republicans in the 1918 off year elections and helped lead the party resurgence. He was certainly popular enough to stand for the Republican nomination in 1920, but his health would not permit it. He threw his support behind his old friend and comrade in arms, General Leonard Wood. Wood went on to lose the nomination to dark horse, Warren Harding.

But Roosevelt was gone before all that happened. In November of 1918, he became ill with his recurrent fevers and lung ailments that kept him bedridden. He never lost his mental acuity and continued to write up until his death in January 1919 of a heart attack. He was just 60 years old.

Morris wraps up his three volumes of Roosevelt lore with a chronology of Roosevelt scholarship. Upon his death, he was adored by all. His was the first face sculpted into Mount Rushmore. He was feted in eulogy by friend and foe alike.

By the 1930s, when fifth cousin Franklin was president, his Square Deal served as a blueprint for the New Deal. He was still held in high regard for his revolutionary progressive policies.

In the 1960s, when anti-war fever raged in the country, Roosevelt’s place in history sagged. He was derided as a warmonger in popular culture and in scholarship. His “Big Stick” philosophy was derided by scholars of that era as imperialistic.

Modern scholarship (thanks in no small part to Morris himself) has seen Teddy’s image rise dramatically. The notion of a Republican able to balance effective government activism with a sense of how to make business work has appeal in these polarized times.

This third book was the weakest of the three books. A large part of this is because it takes in the most sedate and uneventful years of Roosevelt’s life. In his three volume biography of Richard Nixon, Stephen Ambrose took a similar approach – saving his third volume for Nixon’s post presidential years. However, Nixon’s final years were much more full of intrigue and statesmanship than were TR’s.

The tedious detail with which Morris details Roosevelt’s African safari is mind numbing. The account of the Brazilian expedition was compelling, but again incorporated too many details. Dedicating an entire chapter to Roosevelt’s lawsuit with the head of the New York Republican party was probably more coverage than the event deserved.

Despite a few shortcomings, I’ve enjoyed Morris’ three volumes more than I’ve enjoyed any other presidential biography. Morris is a fantastic scholar who must have dedicated countless hours to examining Roosevelt’s extensive writing and public speeches as well as those of his contemporaries to compose such a thorough and exhaustive chronology of one man’s life.

More importantly, Morris is a great story teller. Many scholars can do the research, analyze it, and report their findings. Just a few historians practice the craft of storytelling. Morris ranks with Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough. His three volume story about the life of Theodore Roosevelt is an American treasure.

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

Theodore Rex
By Edmund Morris
Copyright 2001

Edmund Morris got a bit detoured after publishing The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt in 1979, having agreed to serve as official historian of the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Having concluded this gig, he finally got to the second installment of his Theodore Roosevelt trilogy, Theodore Rex. The second book chronicles the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt – a presidency with a fanciful mix of progressivism and old fashioned Stalwart Republicanism.

The book recaps just a little of Theodore Roosevelt’s time between the federal agents finding him at his remote camp ground and his trip to Buffalo. Roosevelt spent little time mourning William McKinley. He wasn’t fond of the man. He was, outraged, however, at McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz – a self professed anarchist. Roosevelt wanted justice – swift and harsh – for Czolgosz. Roosevelt despised anarchists.

Roosevelt first tried to maintain a stable transition of power by declaring that McKinley’s cabinet would be staying on. Slowly, many would be phased out, but credit Roosevelt for having the wisdom to restrain himself and make a slow, gradual transition from the McKinley presidency to his own.

Morris covers Roosevelt’s complex race relations conduct in great detail. Roosevelt had worked hard to cultivate the South. They were never going to vote Republican in Dixie, but southern Republican delegates were important at the convention and Roosevelt entered the presidency with the 1904 Republican nomination on his mind. That is why it is mystifying that one of his first acts as president was to invite a black man to dine at the White House. Booker T. Washington -- America's most prominent black leader at the turn of the last century, had dinner with Roosevelt and discussed race relations, black voting rights, and lynching with the president.

The entire nation was stunned and the South infuriated. This was a time when lynchings were a monthly occurrence in the South and prejudices ran high. Whatever support Roosevelt enjoyed in the South evaporated while northern progressives hailed the move.

Roosevelt was not so progressive in his thinking a few years later when he went to war with Ohio Senator, Joseph Foraker over the Brownsville Affair and 167 black soldiers who were dishonorably discharged for rioting in the Texas town.

After an altercation between a black soldier from nearby Fort Brown and a Brownsville businessman, the city banned all black soldiers from its municipality. On August 13, 1906, a bartender and police office were shot in the town. Residents claimed there had been a riot and that they had evidence – a shell casing – that clearly demonstrated that the murderer or murderers had been soldiers from Fort Brown.

The evidence was thin and none of the more than 100 soldiers questioned would offer testimony. Based on that, the Army dishonorably discharged the soldiers. Blacks and civil rights activists were outraged. Southern whites and bigots in the North were satisfied. Presidential aspirant Foraker saw a wedge issue and sought to exploit it.

Morris correctly leads the reader to believe that Foraker’s motives were not entirely noble. Foraker had two aspirations. First and foremost, he wanted to be the political equal if not superior of Ohio power broker, Mark Hanna who had traction with the White House. Secondly, “Fire Alarm Joe” needed an issue to catapult him to national prominence for a possible presidential run.

The two battled in the press and Foraker tried to press the Senate for committee hearings to look into the matter. But this was the time when the South was developing its dominance of the U.S. Senate and Foraker’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Despite being on the side of the angels, the issue petered out as did Joseph Foraker’s political career. Meanwhile, Roosevelt stood by his decision while providing scant justification.

It is also worth noting that Roosevelt frequently scolded the South for lynching black men. Lynchings during the Roosevelt administration occurred approximately once per month. While he gave the issue lip service, he never enacted any federal legislation nor did he employ the powers of the justice department to stop it.

On the issue of trust busting, Morris’ examination of Roosevelt’s record leads the reader into a much more gray area. Roosevelt has a popular reputation as being a great trust buster. However, Morris’ examination of Roosevelt’s record reveals that it was mixed. Roosevelt was perfectly willing to abide monopolies and make deals with them when it suited his political needs.

Acting on his own, he brokered a settlement between striking coal miners and mine owners in the anthracite coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania. This was one of the early and defining moments for Roosevelt as a leader. The strike threatened the nation’s economic health and the welfare of citizens who relied on that coal to power industry and to heat homes. The bargain he struck won him fans in organized labor and the respect of big business.

He and his attorney general, Philander Knox, took on a huge railroad trust when they took the Northern Securities Company to court under the Sherman anti-trust act. They succeeded in breaking up the railroad monopoly that would dominate and fix rates for the entire American Northwest. But he was unwilling to take on powerbrokers such as J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller and their monopolistic activities continued unabated. The government had come to so heavily rely on Morgan that alienating him would have had dire economic impact. It was Morgan who first came to define the phrase, “Too big to fail.”

When Roosevelt came into office, the fight over the canal through Central America was already being waged in Central America and in the halls of U.S. government. The fight was not over whether or not to build it, but where to build it. Some favored Colombia and others favored Nicaragua. When the Colombian route won out, the Colombians started making unreasonable demands. Roosevelt, who seldom let the interests of others thwart his plans, did all he could – including sending warships into the region – to foster a rebellion in the Panamanian region of Colombia. The revolt was essentially bloodless and the new government let the Americans have their land for a canal.

From the time he entered office, Theodore Roosevelt was eyeing reelection. He was certainly popular nationally, but had rivals within the Republican Party. Chief among those was McKinley’s old friend and mentor, Marcus Hanna. When Roosevelt would take one of his occasional forays into trust busting, it was Hanna that businessmen turned to to dissuade the president, mistakenly believing that Hanna had some influence as he’d had with McKinley.

Roosevelt and Hanna – certainly the two most powerful men of their time – did not trust each other. Roosevelt had felt that Hanna held too much sway over McKinley and was determined to not let the Ohio industrialist and senior senator influence policy in his White House. Hanna regarded Roosevelt as somewhat impulsive an immature; prone to act without thinking through the consequences. The two maintained a tense but functional relationship.

Based on what Morris tells us about Hanna, the reader can conclude that Hanna knew he was not physically or mentally up to the job of the presidency. He was chronically pained by gout and a weak heart. Nor did he seem to have a passion for the job. He never overtly or covertly sought the Republican nomination. He seems to have been content to let others throw his name around to curtail the young upstart’s developing progressivism. Hanna would die in 1904 before Roosevelt left office.

The 1904 Republican convention nominated Roosevelt by acclamation and chose Charles Fairbanks of Indiana as his running mate. What is interesting is how little thought went into the selection of Fairbanks, given that the selection of Roosevelt as McKinley’s running mate had turned out to be an important decision four years prior.

Sen. Fairbanks had a lackluster record in the senate as far as high profile issues. He was a yeoman senator, capable of wading into important, but unexciting issues. To Roosevelt, who did not like to share a stage, Fairbanks was the perfect running mate. Roosevelt was grooming several in his cabinet to be his possible successors including Knox, Elihu Root, and William Howard Taft who had emerged as a great leader under terrible conditions in the Philippines during the native uprising and was now serving as Secretary of War. The easygoing Fairbanks would not rival those men. Fairbanks was scarcely seen or heard during the second Roosevelt administration.

The Democrats nominated New York appeals court judge Alton Parker as their candidate who tried to run against the notion of an imperial presidency – a term not yet invented, but a concept embraced by Democrats. The deliberative Parker was no match for the decisive Roosevelt and Roosevelt easily crushed him in the 1904 election.

With a clear mandate and his own ego to drive him, Roosevelt was less deliberative than ever and more prone to taking progressive measures. He enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Morris points out that Roosevelt had a close professional relationship with journalist Upton Sinclair and it was his popular book The Jungle, that drove Roosevelt to clean up meat packing plants in the country.

Roosevelt the conservationist was in full swing as well, setting aside thousands of acres across the country and placing them under the protection of the Department of the Interior to be preserved. This angered oil men, mine owners, railroads, and timber harvesters who relied on cheap or free access to federal lands for their businesses.

As Roosevelt’s second term neared it s end, there was talk of a third term. But Roosevelt would not hear of it. He was a young man in his early fifties and certainly did not appear tired of the job. He seemed to revel in it. But he was not willing to set a precedent for a president serving three terms. He’d come to regret that decision.

He settled on grooming William Howard Taft to be his successor. This remains unexplained in Morris’ examination of Roosevelt because the two men could not have been more different in politics and personality. Roosevelt was gregarious, forceful, energetic. He loved to hunt and play tennis. Taft was affable, needed affection and acceptance, and preferred golf to tennis and lived a sedate lifestyle. Roosevelt secured the 1908 nomination for Taft and quickly realized that Taft was not going to campaign hard for the job. He sent a constant barrage of suggestions to the Taft campaign on how to be more aggressive. Fortunately for the Republicans, the Democrats had recycled William Jennings Bryan whom the nation had twice rejected before. Taft won easily in his own easy going manner.

Morris eludes to Helen Taft’s passion to become First Lady as the driving force behind the campaign to elect Taft. Taft had informed Roosevelt that he wanted nothing more than to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court – a lifetime appointment at the head of the judicial branch of government. Teddy was determined to see him as chief executive and so was his wife.

Roosevelt left office in 1909 apparently satisfied with what he’d accomplished and with his own conduct of affairs. He planned to do some big game hunting in Africa and domestically and to pick up his writing career, serving as a commentator on American politics. That is where Morris ends his second volume.

Theodore Rex won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and deservedly so. Seldom is any historical figure and his conduct so closely scrutinized as Roosevelt was by Morris. No detail of Roosevelt’s presidency is left unexamined and thoroughly discussed.

But the second installment in Morris’ three part biography of Roosevelt is not as well written as the first. While sound on a scholarly level, it lacks that narrative energy of the first. Morris relies heavily on Latin for adjectives. As someone not well schooled in Latin, the words meant nothing to me and mean little to those outside the legal and medical professions. While similes are seldom deployed well in scholarly writing, certainly Morris could have found English alternatives for his adjectives.

The one element of the Roosevelt presidency that was not closely examined was Roosevelt’s deployment of his “press secretary” George Cortelyou. This is remarkable since Morris was extensive in his analysis of Roosevelt’s manipulation of the media while serving as New York police commissioner in the first volume. While historian Margaret Leach correctly points out in her biography of McKinley, In the Days of McKinley, that it was McKinley who first employed the use of presidential aides to respond directly to the press, it is clear that Roosevelt was much more deft in his use of Cortelyou.

Also missing from Morris’ study of Roosevelt is the role Edith Roosevelt played. Morris provides ample narrative of Roosevelt’s interaction with his children and his children’s friends who tarried about the Executive Mansion on a daily basis. He also chronicles the restless life and ribald exploits of daughter Alice. But Edith is all but absent from Morris’ book.

It is true that women did not have the influence they have today, but certainly Edith must have had some affect on Roosevelt’s conduct of the office. Edith was no mouse and certainly asserted herself. We get nothing on that subject from Morris.

These are minor criticisms of an otherwise stellar biography of a larger than life historical figure.

Morris will take us through the tumultuous, unhappy final years of Teddy’s life in the third installment entitled, Colonel Roosevelt.