Lyndon Johnson

I recently finished Robert Caro’s series “The Years of Lyndon Johnson”. It fundamentally changed my views on politics, and on leadership. Which seems only fitting, given the time it required — four volumes, thirty five hundred pages, and nearly six months of reading! It was well worth that time, as Caro’s work is different and more insightful than any other biography I’ve read. It’s investigative journalism, not “great man adulation”. LBJ and his circle built a robust mythology around his life; Caro pierces it repeatedly, revealing deeply loathsome actions and attributes of LBJ previously unpublished.

LBJ was complex. His personality had both admirable and repugnant attributes that ran to the core. He simultaneously caused some of the greatest achievements in US history (the Civil Rights Act, the Great Society) and some of our worst failures (the Vietnam War, widespread electoral fraud). I use the word “caused” intentionally; much of what LBJ achieved, for better or worse, would not have occurred had some other politician filled that office.

My feelings about LBJ are complex. I respect him and detest him. And even within specific facets of his life, respect and revulsion are intertwined, because his brilliance and his shortcomings were so intertwined. This post examines three such facets. First, his commitment to an unspoken, unwavering long-term personal plan. Second, his ability to understand and change organizations to suit his personal ends. And third, his keen and cruel use of staff to solve “unsolvable” problems.

The Practical Zealot

Unwavering adherence to an astoundingly ambitious, simple plan

LBJ’s plan for his life was stunning in its ambition and its simplicity: become a Congressman, then a Senator, and then President. With one slight deviation (three years as Vice President), he followed exactly this path. But this apparently linear progress obscures major, prolonged periods without progress, periods where all the possible next steps towards the “ultimate goal” of the Presidency were blocked. These were periods of deep despondency for LBJ, and these periods lasted years, one nearly a decade.

Between 1941 and 1948 Johnson languished in Congress. In 1941, he had already been in Congress four years, he had already run for Senate — and lost in the Democratic primary, meaning he was blocked from even running in a primary for Senate again until an incumbent Democratic Senator died or retired. And then between 1960 and 1963, as Vice President, LBJ found himself excluded from the Kennedy administration’s inner circle, while JFK solidified his chances for reelection in 1964 and RFK positioned himself to win the Democratic nomination in 1968. And by that point, LBJ would have been sidelined from real national influence for so long, he would likely have been permanently out of contention for the Presidency.

In both periods, LBJ despaired. With his path forward blocked, he lost interest in his current job, and grew detached from the day-to-day. He complained endlessly to family and friends. He grew bitter. But he didn’t quit. And in both periods, the end of the period was initiated by luck (or to be more precise, an event that was lucky for LBJ personally — even if it was unlucky for the nation). In 1948, it was the unexpected decision of incumbent Senator Pappy O’Daniel not to seek reelection; in 1963 it was the assassination of JFK.

But it was more than luck that enabled Johnson to capitalize on these lucky breaks. Johnson never let his frustration spill over into actions that would have set him back should a lucky break present itself. During the period of his congressional “stagnation”, he was offered a highly lucrative ownership stake in a Texas oil venture. Having grown up in poverty — and not yet achieved much wealth despite being a Congressman — this proposition was deeply attractive to LBJ. Moreover, as a Texas politician, connections to the oil industry would cause him no harm in running for statewide office, like Senator. But it might cause him harm when running for nationwide office, since large regions of the country were hostile to the oil industry. Looking ahead decades, to the third stage of his personal plan, LBJ turned down the offer. Similarly, In the Kennedy administration, despite deep antipathy between LBJ and JFK’s senior advisors, LBJ never breathed a word of this to the press. He knew that such leaks, while potentially personally advantageous in the short-term, would impair his ability to govern should he figure out a way to succeed JFK.

Second, in these long periods of frustration and torpor, when an opportunity finally arrived, Johnson reacted quickly, decisively, and energetically. It’s been written that LBJ was an incredibly hard worker, but this isn’t uniformly true; during the years when his ambitions were blocked, he worked relatively little. But when he saw an opportunity that luck had presented, he worked day and night, barely sleeping, and at great cost to his health.

In 1948, when O’Daniel announced he wouldn’t stand for reelection, LBK immediately threw himself into the senatorial race. This was a massive risk, as he had to give up his House seat to run for Senate. If he had lost, his political career would have been over. He pulled out all the stops to win, including using a helicopter (still a new, dangerous type of aircraft) to cover far more ground than any candidate had ever done in any state-wide race, ever. In 1963, when JFK was assassinated — LBJ faced an opportunity and risk of a different nature. This time, he didn’t have to win an election, since he was constitutionally guaranteed to become President. But, to translate his new executive powers into real change, he had to win the support of the public, Congress, JFK’s Cabinet, and foreign leaders. Again, he acted decisively. In week one of his Presidency, he signaled continuity to the world through orderly, dignified rituals surrounding JFK’s burial and his assumption of office. In week two, he managed to retain JFK’s cabinet — who generally detested LBJ. And by week four, he had unblocked key pieces of stalled legislation, that would ultimately enable the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society. It was one of the most productive starts to a new presidential administration in history.

The Mechanic and the Visionary

Achieving power and setting policy by knowing the rules better than the competition

Some politicians care little about the intricate, arcane rules that govern legislative bodies. They amass power by speaking out on issues, through the media, or directly to the public.

LBJ, on the other hand, had no interest in “speaking out” on issues early in his career. Instead, he focused on understanding the rules of the House, and then the Senate. He used his exceptionally deep understanding of the rules of legislation to amass personal power and make policy, first at the expense of idealists — and then in their favor.

When LBJ rose to power in the 1930s and 1940s, the divide between those who knew the rules of Congress — and those who did not — ran between Southern conservatives and Northern liberals [1]. “In skirmishes and pitched battles in any parliamentary body, of course, rules and precedents play an important role, and the degree to which the southerners had mastered them more fully than their opponents was repeatedly apparent [in the 1930s and 1940s]… when liberals tried to fight on the Senate floor, they were like children in the southerners’ hands.”

Early in his career, LBJ mastered precedents and rules, turning this tactical knowledge into strategic advantage for the Dixiecrats. In response, the Dixiecrats elevated him in the Senate, making him majority leader — and allowing him to expand the powers of the Majority Leader. But once he had that power, he used his knowledge of legislative arcana to promote a liberal agenda — perhaps because he believed in it, but also because it had become personally advantageous to fight the Dixiecrats by the late 1950’s.

LBJ was no idealist; he was a mechanic, with a mechanic’s eye for detail. But LBJ was also a visionary. He had the ability to see latent power in organizational structures that were little known, little used, and unattractive to others — and then to assume leadership of these organizations, and realize that latent power. He did this first in college, where he founded a student association that came to control the disbursement of campus jobs, making him the most powerful student leader. He did it in Washington, before he’d been elected to Congress, where he turned “The Little Congress”, a “Model-UN” type club composed of Congressional aides, into a forum that attracted significant media attention. And most significantly, he did it in the Senate, when he assumed the then-undesirable role of Majority Leader — and used it to overhaul the Senate’s most important, arcane processes, in the process making the Majority Leader position itself far more powerful.

This strength was also a shortcoming. His string of successes in reshaping offices and organizations to increase his power led him to believe that “power is where power goes” — in other words, that he could imbue any office with power. This confidence — or hubris — led him to accept the Vice Presidential nomination from JFK, relinquishing his position as Senate Majority Leader, despite his confidantes’ advice that the VP role would severely diminish his power. They were right; he was wrong. The result was the second prolonged period of powerlessness and frustration in LBJ’s career. Not all organizational structures can be remade by their holder.

The Worst, Best Boss

Using, and abusing, staff to solve “unsolvable” problems

LBJ used his staff to solve problems that others believed could not be solved. To LBJ, everyone was “staff” regardless of whether they were on his official payroll or not: aides, Congressmen, Senators, journalists — they were all individuals to be recruited, given orders, and disposed of when they no longer executed those orders effectively. LBJ used people as tools — for his own ends, never theirs. There was no team, no deep collaboration, there was only hierarchy, designed to serve the leader.

Nonetheless, LBJ used his staff effectively.

When he spotted opportunities that required execution — not ingenuity — he made sure his staff executed better and faster than any other. Soon after arriving in Washington as a Congressional aide, “Johnson could hardly have avoided hearing about one former Congressman or another who had lost touch with his district — and who was a Congressman no longer. But although other congressional staffers heard the same stories, they didn’t answer every [constituent] letter…. For Johnson, doing everything one could do … meant answering every letter — and that was what he insisted his office must do. And not only must every letter be answered, he … insisted it must be answered the very day it arrived.”

When LBJ encountered problems that required true ingenuity, he didn’t relax until he’d recruited the best person for the problem. He would listen to advice — if he believed the advisor was the best — even if he didn’t like the advice. In the 1948 Senate primary, LBJ’s opponent sued him, claiming his allies had stuffed ballot boxes (true). The case was starting to rise through the federal courts, with both sides sure to appeal at both the district and appellate levels. Even if Johnson prevailed, it would go to the Supreme Court — and that would take months, months Johnson couldn’t afford. The general election was only a few weeks away, and if the case was still unresolved then, both Democratic candidates would be put on the ballot; they would split votes, and the Republican would win. Johnson had recruited a top-notch legal team, but none of their ideas laid out a clear path to winning — and winning fast enough that it mattered. So Johnson ignored his experts, and kept hiring new lawyers until he found one, Abe Fortas, who came up with an unconventional, brilliant plan that could — and did — achieve what LBJ wanted. [2]

LBJ could recognize talent, and he could recruit talent. He could charm and he could listen — when it served him. But once he’d recruited talent, and he felt secure that person was part of his staff, his behavior changed. His demands for loyalty and compliance grew, his tolerance for dissent disappeared. Cruelty replaced charm. And so the most talented individuals rarely stayed with him for long. (Abe Fortas refused to ever work full-time for Johnson). Those who remained on his “team” for long periods were primarily yes-men, able to stomach the humiliation he dealt them. And the more power he attained, the more he abused his staff. By the time he became President and his bad decisions resonated across the world, for decades — decisions like escalating the Vietnam War — there were few individuals left around him smart enough to know the truth and speak truth to power.

Caro writes “It is often said that power corrupts, but the truth is that power reveals”. In his early years, his first steps towards power revealed primarily his more loathsome attributes — his willingness to be all things to all people, his abuse of staff, his willingness to break the law. But something funny happened when he finally achieved the ultimate political power, that of the Presidency. Johnson used it for the benefit of others, specifically African Americans and those in poverty. And he used it effectively — passing legislation that “idealists” (as LBJ would call them) had advocated for decades, but had never been able to deliver. Power revealed — both effectiveness and altruism.

Perhaps LBJ knew from the beginning that when and if he won the ultimate political prize, he would use it for social good. Perhaps he figured “the ends justify the means, and the ends are good.” But the means shaped him, and changed him. They led him to surround himself with sycophants, to embrace secrecy, to tolerate — and even engineer — outright fraud. The escalation of the Vietnam War, and the death of thirty six thousand Americans, stems from the policy-making environment LBJ created, in which no one was smart enough — and courageous enough — to see the truth and speak up about it. And his need for secrecy and his lies, when exposed, fundamentally damaged the trust the American people have for the office of the Presidency, a shift that has never been reversed.

The man thought he controlled the means, but the means shaped the man.

Footnotes

[1] In the 1930s and 1940s, the key split in terms of social progressivism was within the Democratic party, which has a northern liberal wing and a southern conservative wing, not between Democrats and Republicans. Very different from today.

[2] Fortas recommended that LBJ appeal to the appellate judge most likely to rule against him — and to present a particularly weak case to that judge, so the ruling would be issued quickly — so he could then immediately appeal to the Supreme Court, and receive a non-appealable decision before Election Day. The strategy worked.