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Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Adele Edisen - 08-05-2012
The New York Times
May 7, 2012
This Story Isn't Over Yet
By JOE NOCERA
As a young man, Robert A. Caro was a newspaper reporter.
Caro is the painstaking, some would say obsessive (though he has always denied it) writer, whose first book, "The Power Broker, a 1,336-page biography of Robert Moses, took him seven years to complete after which he turned to his true life's work (perhaps even his true obsession), a multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson, the fourth volume of which, "The Passage of Power," has just been published to great acclaim, reviewed in The New York Times by none other than former President Bill Clinton and which has been 36 years in the making. So far.
Working for a newspaper meant meeting deadlines, deadlines that, yes, allowed the paper to come out the next day, but also meant, all too often, compromises. Caro couldn't repeat himself in a newspaper article; he couldn't say the same thing five, six, seven times, until he was sure absolutely sure that the reader got the point. He couldn't include all the many stray facts he had uncovered. Sometimes, words even had to be cut from a Robert A. Caro newspaper article cut ruthlessly, mercilessly, by editors who didn't understand the importance of those words, or the significance of those seemingly stray facts.
But once Caro turned to books, and, especially, once he began working on his L.B.J. biography in the mid-1970s, all the previous obstacles fell away. He would spend years nay, decades in the field, finding stray facts no one else had ever known existed. And then, when he started writing, he couldn't stop. Other, lesser authors had deadlines, but not Caro. He turned in each volume only when he was ready, and sometimes a decade passed between volumes so much time, in fact, that he began quoting his previous books in his newer books. Originally intended to be three volumes, written over maybe a half-dozen years, his L.B.J. biography eventually stretched to four, and then five. The fifth, which Caro has yet to write, is supposed to be the last one.
There was something unquestionably awe-inspiring about Caro's quest to create a biography as big as Johnson's life. The third volume, especially, entitled "Master of the Senate" Caro's 1,167-page account of Johnson's years as the Senate majority leader was immediately hailed as one of the greatest illuminations of power ever written.
But was there also something about Caro's pursuit of L.B.J. that was just a little bit Ahab-like?
"I can't imagine this being done or even attempted by anyone else," his publisher, Sonny Mehta, told Esquire magazine. "He's given over so much of his life to another guy." Mehta meant it as a compliment, but it did make you wonder: Was any biography worth nearly half the writer's life? To write his new book, which weighs in at a mere 712 pages, Caro spent 10 years recounting just six years, from 1958 to 1964, three in which very little happened, since, as John F. Kennedy's vice president, Johnson had little to do. Yet every time you had a thought like that, you hit a chapter that reminded you anew of Caro's literary powers. In "The Passage of Power," for instance, Caro retells the Kennedy assassination a story that has been written hundreds of times before. Yet Caro makes it feel completely fresh, spellbinding even.
There were other problems, however.
In the first two volumes, published in 1982 and 1990, Caro's Johnson is a man with a "hunger for power in its most naked form, for power not to improve the lives of others, but to manipulate and dominate them," as Caro wrote in "The Path to Power," the first volume. Johnson has almost no redeeming qualities in the first two books. Yet how could this same man, at the end of Volume 4, push through the landmark Civil Rights Act as president? How does Caro square this great achievement as well as all the other liberal achievements to come with his portrayal of the power-mad Johnson in the earlier volumes?
In truth, he never really does. If the Johnson of Volumes 1 and 2 is the "bad" L.B.J., then the Johnson of Volume 4 is the "good" one. It is almost as if Caro is writing about two different people as if, for all his reportorial skill, he can't countenance Johnson being both ruthless and compassionate in the same volume. He has to be one or the other.
So here we are and here he is, at the age of 76 four volumes later, and there is so much more yet to tell. Caro still has the Goldwater race to cover, and the legislative achievements that follow. And, of course, there is still Vietnam to write about. Nearly half a life later, in other words, Caro is finally getting to the heart of the matter.
One could imagine other writers managing to squeeze it all into the one final volume being contemplated. But Robert A. Caro? Not a chance.
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Albert Doyle - 11-05-2012
In my opinion you are seeing indirect admission of Johnson's involvement in this syrup job by Caro. There's some high intelligence involved in this sweetening of Johnson's image. What they are doing is approaching the 50th anniversary by first cleaning-up Johnson's involvement on the outside perimeter before going for the ballsy inner perimeter reaffirmation of the Warren Commission. Caro is calling Johnson a legislative genius on PBS in order not have to call him the complicit criminal accomplice he was. Once again the piece ends in a euphemism for the Assassination known as "the VietNam War".
Caro Steers Clear Of The Huge Lumps In The Carpet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ6q9efmXqI
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Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Adele Edisen - 12-05-2012
Albert Doyle Wrote:In my opinion you are seeing indirect admission of Johnson's involvement in this syrup job by Caro. There's some high intelligence involved in this sweetening of Johnson's image. What they are doing is approaching the 50th anniversary by first cleaning-up Johnson's involvement on the outside perimeter before going for the ballsy inner perimeter reaffirmation of the Warren Commission. Caro is calling Johnson a legislative genius on PBS in order not have to call him the complicit criminal accomplice he was. Once again the piece ends in a euphemism for the Assassination known as "the VietNam War".
Caro Steers Clear Of The Huge Lumps In The Carpet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ6q9efmXqI.
If you say so, Al, but there are other biographers of LBJ as well who would disagree with your viewpont on LBJ. And there are some of us old enough to remember him and FDR, and much more. And we read a lot.... and observed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=VJUiY9uTGjs&feature=endscreen
Adele
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Albert Doyle - 12-05-2012
I'm not sure that the Great Society makes Lyndon's gangster murders in Texas go away. Adele, aren't you kind of making my point for me? (Is this a case Texas myopia?) There's a lot of Texans who think George Bush was a great American president too.
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Adele Edisen - 13-05-2012
Albert Doyle Wrote:I'm not sure that the Great Society makes Lyndon's gangster murders in Texas go away. Adele, aren't you kind of making my point for me? (Is this a case Texas myopia?) There's a lot of Texans who think George Bush was a great American president too.
What gangster murders in Texas are you talking about? Where is the evidence? What is the evidence? The facts, not opinions or fantasies. Please don't repeat names of sleazy authors - I've read them, too.
Lyndon Johnson tried to keep John Kennedy from visiting Dallas because of possible embarrassing acts from the extreme right-wingers and militants there. The Democratic Party ticket of 1960 did not do well in Dallas. Henry B. Gonzalez, a highly respected Texas Congressman, also warned Kennedy and his staff to avoid Dallas, and there were others who did the same. These people knew what types of people lived in Dallas, and they had experienced their hatred. I have provided references to this information in many previous postings, and am getting tired of repeating the information over and over. If you don't want to know, then it's not my problem anymore, but yours.
Those who want to believe that Lyndon Johnson had something to do with the assassination of President Kennedy, as far as I am concerned, can go on and continue with their beliefs and enjoy themselves, but these beliefs cannot solve the crime of the murder of John Kennedy.
Lyndon Johnson is considered to be a transformative and progressive president by historians. I doubt that biographers, such as Caro and others, are conspiring, as you had said, "to sweeten" the story for any reason.
Adele
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Albert Doyle - 13-05-2012
Oooo. You must have very strong faith. 5 shot "suicides" with a rifle.
Why again did Lyndon want Jackie back in his car so badly the night before?
I suppose all the people who knew him and said bascially the same things were sleazy and Johnson was falsely accused?
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - LR Trotter - 13-05-2012
Albert Doyle Wrote:Oooo. You must have very strong faith. 5 shot "suicides" with a rifle.
Why again did Lyndon want Jackie back in his car so badly the night before?
I suppose all the people who knew him and said bascially the same things were sleazy and Johnson was falsely accused?
If a "suicide" was ruled in the death of a victim that was shot 5 times, with any gun, that ruling should not be accepted unless substantial "proof" is presented as well. And, I would think "substantial proof" is very unlikely to be found.
Did "Lyndon want Jackie back in his car" for a trip somewhere the night before, or did he "make a request" the night before regarding motorcade seating. I have to admit, I have no recall about "Lyndon wanting Jackie back in his car" in either scenario.
Of "all the people that knew him", certainly Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker, reportedly had "questionable reputations", and a book was written by, as I recall, a disbarred attorney, making strong accusations regarding LBJ and the JFK assassination.
And, I do not consider myself a fan of LBJ, but I do try to be careful as to what I believe, but an "expert witness" may or may not be an "expert of truth".
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Adele Edisen - 14-05-2012
Albert Doyle Wrote:Oooo. You must have very strong faith. 5 shot "suicides" with a rifle.
Why again did Lyndon want Jackie back in his car so badly the night before?
I suppose all the people who knew him and said bascially the same things were sleazy and Johnson was falsely accused?
Al, I asked for evidence, and I have yet to see any that involves LBJ in the assassination of JFK. There is no evidence or proof in what you have written here. I really must question your purpose. What are your sources? It is important to evaluate your sources as to reliability. That's what good researchers do, and I'd like to see you be a good researcher.
If you would read some history and other books, written by people who were aides and associates of either one of the two men, you should know that LBJ and JFK liked and respected each other. Some authors you might try are Ted Sorenson (2 books, KENNEDY and CONSELLOR); O'Donnell and Powers, JOHNNY, WE HARDLY KNEW YE; Horace Busby, THE THIRTY-FIRST OF MARCH; and the works of LBJ and JFK biographers. John Kennedy insisted on keeping Lyndon Johnson as his running mate in 1964, in spite of his brother's antipathy to the idea. Bobby Kennedy began to dislike LBJ when LBJ refused to accept father Joseph Kennedy's money to pay for LBJ's bid for the presidency in 1956 with the stipulation that JFK be his vice-presidency running mate. Bobby thought that was an insult to his father and to the entire Kennedy family.
However, during the 1956 convention balloting for the vice-presidential nomination, Lyndon Johnson, as head of the Texas delegation, gave all the Texas delegate votes to John Kennedy. As it turned out, Estes Kefauver won the V-P nomination to run with Adlai Stevenson for president. Doesn't sound like LBJ disliked JFK, does it?. It's in Sorenson's book on Kennedy, and in Dallek's biogrphy on LBJ.
Do some research on your own, and learn to analyze data. Stop believing everything you read in suspicious sensationalistic publications.
I am really trying to be of some help to you and also to others here.
Adele
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Adele Edisen - 14-05-2012
LR Trotter Wrote:Albert Doyle Wrote:Oooo. You must have very strong faith. 5 shot "suicides" with a rifle.
Why again did Lyndon want Jackie back in his car so badly the night before?
I suppose all the people who knew him and said bascially the same things were sleazy and Johnson was falsely accused?
If a "suicide" was ruled in the death of a victim that was shot 5 times, with any gun, that ruling should not be accepted unless substantial "proof" is presented as well. And, I would think "substantial proof" is very unlikely to be found.
Did "Lyndon want Jackie back in his car" for a trip somewhere the night before, or did he "make a request" the night before regarding motorcade seating. I have to admit, I have no recall about "Lyndon wanting Jackie back in his car" in either scenario.
Of "all the people that knew him", certainly Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker, reportedly had "questionable reputations", and a book was written by, as I recall, a disbarred attorney, making strong accusations regarding LBJ and the JFK assassination.
And, I do not consider myself a fan of LBJ, but I do try to be careful as to what I believe, but an "expert witness" may or may not be an "expert of truth".
Thanks, LR. I've never heard or read anything about LBJ wanting Jackie in the back of his car the night before, or the next day, either. The night before was spent at a hotel in Fort Worth after both planes came from Houston and landed at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, about !!:15 pm. Their motorcade arrived at the Hotel Texas at 12:30 am. Everyone went to their rooms for the night, except Kennedy's Secret Service guards who went to an after-hours night club, The Cellar, and got "loaded," leaving the President to be guarded by a Dallas fireman.
Five "suicides" with a rifle? Not very well planned. I thought there was only one such 'suicide', but I haven't been keeping up with all of LBJ's 'crimes.' Oh yes, there was George DeMohrenschildt years later.???? You don't think LBJ did that one, too? (just joking here)
When characters like Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker and others make such wild accusations, maybe they should be more closely examined themselves? Hmmmmm? The CIA has a bad habit of naming others as suspects to keep attention away from themselves. A typical ruse. And then there are some who just want the publicity....
Thank you for your thoughtful input.
Adele
Book Review of Robert Caro's THE PASSAGE OF POWER - Seamus Coogan - 14-05-2012
Al mate can you remember all the arguments we had with Nelson at Lancer? Where has this LBJ involved/did it stuff come from?