Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro

Author:Robert A. Caro
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Autobiography
ISBN: 9780394720951
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1982-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

IF HE HAD THE VOTES, debate—even the limited debate permitted under the unanimous consent agreement—could only hurt, could allow opponents to realize what he was up to, could give Knowland time to get a more accurate count, could give men whose minds he had changed with his relentless persuasion time to change their minds back, to think better of what they had agreed to. He wanted the question called, and called fast; although the unanimous consent agreement allowed a certain number of hours or minutes for debate, he wanted to be able to yield his time back, and have his opponents yield their time back.

“Don’t talk, we’ve got the votes. Don’t talk, we’ve got the votes,” Bobby Baker would whisper, standing at the corridor door to the cloakroom as the senators came through on the way to the Chamber—which, with a vote imminent, was beginning to fill up. Some senators didn’t get the idea and insisted on speaking. “I’d go up to him [Johnson] on the Senate floor and say Senator Lehman would like to have the floor as soon as possible,” Julius Edelstein recalls. “He’d say” (and as Edelstein shows Johnson’s response, his face twists into a snarl), “‘Well, he can have the goddamned floor!’” Rushing over to Edelstein, Gerry Siegel said: “I know Lehman has to talk for his constituents, but make it short. Make it short! Otherwise, it’ll make the Leader mad.”

As a supporter of a measure was rising to speak, Johnson would go over to the supporter’s desk and growl, “Make it short. I’ve got the votes for it.” The reminders would continue during the senator’s statement. Once, Richard Neuberger of Oregon was giving an impassioned statement at a moment Johnson considered propitious for a vote. Johnson whispered to him to stop, but Neuberger didn’t. Circling Neuberger’s desk—in John Steele’s words, “like a coon dog does a treed animal”—Johnson whispered to him “from in back and then to the right side to tell Neuberger to knock it off.” Olin Johnston’s southern drawl was so slow! “Olin,” Johnson whispered urgently, “get the lead out of your ass!” “Lyndon,” Johnston said calmly, “you know I always read slow.” Says a Senate staffer who was standing nearby, “Then Olin goes back to reading. I thought Lyndon was going to have a fit.” Looking on another occasion at a speech that Olin was insisting on reading, Johnson saw to his dismay that it covered quite a few pages. “Two minutes, that’s all I can give you,” he said. “You’ve got to hold it to two minutes.” Johnston kept refusing. “Olin,” Lyndon said, forcing a comradely smile to his face, “why don’t you speak for two minutes and tomorrow you can put your whole speech in the Congressional Record and you can mail it to all the folks in South Carolina, and they won’t know the difference.” “Well, I guess that’s all right, Lyndon,” Johnston said, and read only a small part of the text—“so quickly,” an observer said, “that he scarcely could be understood.

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