03-08-2012, 01:56 AM
​I posted a mini review at Amazon.
Caro gets a 'D', August 2, 2012
By Jim DiEugenio
[B]This review is from: The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Hardcover)[/B]
Robert Caro's 4th installment on this series was a real disappointment. Prior to this one, he was essentially on his own since no one had ever spent that much time or length on LBJ. But now he is in an era where there is much other work to compare his against; that is books on the other major characters of that time period like King, Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy. In putting together the whole kaleidoscope of that exciting era, Caro does not do well.
FIrst of all, he never even begins to explain why the early sixties was marked by so much hope and enthusiasm and excitement. If you don't do that, then you are not telling the whole story of what people like KIng and Kennedy meant to America. To use just one example, Caro does not even mention, let alone describe, the March on Washington or King's great "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963. How can anyone describe the time period, or JFK's presidency, or the passage of a civil rights bill without doing that? And Caro says he wants to describe all those things. You cannot begin to describe the pressure brought to bear on congressman and senators from northern states without describing that speech. For after that, there was a coordinating lobbying campaign by every ciivl rights group and every liberal political group, like the ACLU, to pressure those politicians to break a southern filibuster. Further, JFK was the first white politician to back King's demonstration, which he did at a press conference in July. He then called in his brother, the AG, and told him it had to come off perfectly, or their enemies would use it to destroy them. It did come off perfectly and was probably the high point of Democratic Party liberalism of the 50-60's. How and why Caro left it out, I will never understand.
Actually I do understand. Once you read the book, and check the sources Caro uses, you can see what he is up to. He wants to diminish those three men (he never even mentions Malcolm X) in order to make believe that only LBJ could have passed that bill. Not true. Kennedy had done the hard work in the House already. He got it through the Judiciary Committee. In November, Howard Smith of VIrginia was holding it up in Rules. What you needed was a discharge petition to get it out. Which was not that hard since the Democrats had a big majority and Birmingham and KIng's speech had fired them up. (Caro spends six lines on Birmingham.) So once the discharge petition was signed, the bill smashed through the House overwhelmingly. In the Senate, Kennedy understood a filibuster had to be broken. And he understood the key was Senate MInority leader Dirksen. Well, the filibuster was tried. But eventually Dirksen helped break it. The bill passed 71-29. I won't even discuss the tax cut bill. Since Caro does the same thing there: cuts out all the work JFK did and makes believe only LBJ could have passed it.
Caro is even worse on Vietnam. Today, with all the declassified documents we have, it is all but indisputable that Kennedy had planned on getting out since late 1961 when he sent John K. Galbraith to Saigon to file a report to oppose the Rostow-Taylor recommendation of insertion of combat troops. And he objected to each and every attempt, of which there were nine of them in 1961, to get him to commit to sending combat troops. Caro never mentions any of this. And he also never mentions how McNamara became JFK's point man on the withdrawal through Galbraith's report. Further he cuts out the key May1963 SecDef meeting in Hawaii where McNamara met with the entire in-country team and went through each category to coordinate the withdrawal of the first thousand troops with the rest out in 1965. Its all there in black and white declassified documents. Somehow Caro missed it.
He then says that JFK's withdrawal was "tentative" and keyed to the McNamara-Taylor Report in the fall of 1963. When in fact, that report was not even written by those two men! It was written by Victor Krulak in Washington and handed to them to deliver to JFK. McNamara then announced the withdrawal plan to the press as JFK signed NSAM 263 into law. Once JFK was killed, this was all reversed in three months. Because what Caro does not say is that Johnson knew that Kennedy was basing his withdrawal plan on the military's false rosy scenario of success which was not there. LBJ was getting the real, pessimistic reports through his military aide Howard Burris. So when he became president, he began to draw on those in order to change the policy and get Pentagon battle plans to his desk--something Kennedy never wanted. Within three months, NSAM 288 reversed NSAM 263, and a full spectrum of battle, including contingent tactical nuclear weapons, was part of the plan to attack North Vietnam. What Kennedy did not give the military in three years, LBJ did in three months. Somehow Caro could not bring himself to admit that about his subject. (This is almost all in "Virtual JFK" and "JFK and Vietnam". Neither of which is in Caro's bibliography. )
Most of the book is like this. Very unbalanced and selective in order to make LBJ somehow look good and presidential and to present JFK, RFK and King as personages who did little or nothing. The question then becomes, then why did the sixties start out so well, and by 1968, it was in ruins? Its the job of the historian to tell you why. You won't get much of an answer here.
For the rest of my 8000 word comments go to ctka.net.
Caro gets a 'D', August 2, 2012
By Jim DiEugenio
[B]This review is from: The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Hardcover)[/B]
Robert Caro's 4th installment on this series was a real disappointment. Prior to this one, he was essentially on his own since no one had ever spent that much time or length on LBJ. But now he is in an era where there is much other work to compare his against; that is books on the other major characters of that time period like King, Robert Kennedy, and John Kennedy. In putting together the whole kaleidoscope of that exciting era, Caro does not do well.
FIrst of all, he never even begins to explain why the early sixties was marked by so much hope and enthusiasm and excitement. If you don't do that, then you are not telling the whole story of what people like KIng and Kennedy meant to America. To use just one example, Caro does not even mention, let alone describe, the March on Washington or King's great "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963. How can anyone describe the time period, or JFK's presidency, or the passage of a civil rights bill without doing that? And Caro says he wants to describe all those things. You cannot begin to describe the pressure brought to bear on congressman and senators from northern states without describing that speech. For after that, there was a coordinating lobbying campaign by every ciivl rights group and every liberal political group, like the ACLU, to pressure those politicians to break a southern filibuster. Further, JFK was the first white politician to back King's demonstration, which he did at a press conference in July. He then called in his brother, the AG, and told him it had to come off perfectly, or their enemies would use it to destroy them. It did come off perfectly and was probably the high point of Democratic Party liberalism of the 50-60's. How and why Caro left it out, I will never understand.
Actually I do understand. Once you read the book, and check the sources Caro uses, you can see what he is up to. He wants to diminish those three men (he never even mentions Malcolm X) in order to make believe that only LBJ could have passed that bill. Not true. Kennedy had done the hard work in the House already. He got it through the Judiciary Committee. In November, Howard Smith of VIrginia was holding it up in Rules. What you needed was a discharge petition to get it out. Which was not that hard since the Democrats had a big majority and Birmingham and KIng's speech had fired them up. (Caro spends six lines on Birmingham.) So once the discharge petition was signed, the bill smashed through the House overwhelmingly. In the Senate, Kennedy understood a filibuster had to be broken. And he understood the key was Senate MInority leader Dirksen. Well, the filibuster was tried. But eventually Dirksen helped break it. The bill passed 71-29. I won't even discuss the tax cut bill. Since Caro does the same thing there: cuts out all the work JFK did and makes believe only LBJ could have passed it.
Caro is even worse on Vietnam. Today, with all the declassified documents we have, it is all but indisputable that Kennedy had planned on getting out since late 1961 when he sent John K. Galbraith to Saigon to file a report to oppose the Rostow-Taylor recommendation of insertion of combat troops. And he objected to each and every attempt, of which there were nine of them in 1961, to get him to commit to sending combat troops. Caro never mentions any of this. And he also never mentions how McNamara became JFK's point man on the withdrawal through Galbraith's report. Further he cuts out the key May1963 SecDef meeting in Hawaii where McNamara met with the entire in-country team and went through each category to coordinate the withdrawal of the first thousand troops with the rest out in 1965. Its all there in black and white declassified documents. Somehow Caro missed it.
He then says that JFK's withdrawal was "tentative" and keyed to the McNamara-Taylor Report in the fall of 1963. When in fact, that report was not even written by those two men! It was written by Victor Krulak in Washington and handed to them to deliver to JFK. McNamara then announced the withdrawal plan to the press as JFK signed NSAM 263 into law. Once JFK was killed, this was all reversed in three months. Because what Caro does not say is that Johnson knew that Kennedy was basing his withdrawal plan on the military's false rosy scenario of success which was not there. LBJ was getting the real, pessimistic reports through his military aide Howard Burris. So when he became president, he began to draw on those in order to change the policy and get Pentagon battle plans to his desk--something Kennedy never wanted. Within three months, NSAM 288 reversed NSAM 263, and a full spectrum of battle, including contingent tactical nuclear weapons, was part of the plan to attack North Vietnam. What Kennedy did not give the military in three years, LBJ did in three months. Somehow Caro could not bring himself to admit that about his subject. (This is almost all in "Virtual JFK" and "JFK and Vietnam". Neither of which is in Caro's bibliography. )
Most of the book is like this. Very unbalanced and selective in order to make LBJ somehow look good and presidential and to present JFK, RFK and King as personages who did little or nothing. The question then becomes, then why did the sixties start out so well, and by 1968, it was in ruins? Its the job of the historian to tell you why. You won't get much of an answer here.
For the rest of my 8000 word comments go to ctka.net.