Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Robert Caro's continuing series of biographies on Lyndon Johnson will no doubt be read by hundreds of thousands -- or millions -- and thereby become the standard reference for students of his presidency. Yet many of these same readers may notice that -- as the narrative regarding the "Dallas events" illustrates -- the tone of his latest work has shifted significantly from the earlier volumes: Previously, the narrative of his books better reflected his critical thinking skills and included brutally candid assessments of Johnson and his motives. For example, in the Introduction (p. xix) to his first volume, The Path to Power, the story about Johnson's rise to power is unflinchingly told: [Johnson's hunger was] ". . .for power in its most naked form, for power not to improve the lives of others, but to manipulate and dominate them, to bend them to his will. . .this hunger was a constant throughout his life. . .a hunger so fierce and consuming that no consideration of morality or ethics, no cost to himself--or to anyone else--could stand before it." Those were strong, unequivocal words, but it seemed that they softened over time with each new volume. Now, we are treated to more flattering characterizations about Johnson, such as how he demonstrated ". . .coolness and decisiveness under pressure" and a dearth of new information about his "darker side." In his latest work, there are disturbing indications that Mr. Caro has backed off considerably from his earlier assertions and has chosen to hold back certain truths about Johnson's actions, a few of which have been identified below. Beyond those specific examples of what was included, many of the more troubling accounts of Johnson's behavior during this period have not been included in Caro's book; one example of this was the credible report of an attorney in a law firm which assisted him with his taxes and finances, who stated that Johnson called the head of the firm, "Waddy" Bullion at 1:00 PM on November 22, 1963 -- just as JFK was being pronounced dead -- and complained to him, saying "Oh I gotta get rid of my goddamn Halliburton stock." But stories like that did not conform to the paradigm shift that Mr. Caro has undertaken with this book. Certainly every author has to weigh the evidence of every assertion he or she makes -- particularly those which suggest criminal conduct that was never proven or disproven in court -- against the potential ramifications of complete disclosure. But when one chooses to ignore documented evidence, or even the generally accepted "conventional wisdom" of credible sources, in favor of dubious statements made by someone who has been proven to have been a chronic and compulsive liar, it would seem that the standards have changed -- the goal posts moved -- from Caro's earliest work to his last. It might even seem to some people that Caro has capitulated to the powerful forces still at work to bury old "secrets". Further evidence of this is that certain people, who were key to Johnson's rise in politics and ability to conduct criminal actions (the details of which are also not reported in this or previous books by Mr. Caro), such as Billie Sol Estes and Malcolm "Mac" Wallace are not listed in the Index of this book. Neither is his mistress of over twenty years, Madeleine Brown, or even Dr. Charles Crenshaw, whose statements about receiving a telephone call from Johnson as he and Dr. Shires tried to save Lee Oswald's life (one of many he made to try to control the events in the days following JFK's assassination). No wonder he could find no evidence of Johnson's involvement in JFK's assassination; his research stopped short of discovering the most troubling of these events. Probably the clearest of the examples of his giving Johnson an abundance of "the benefit of the doubt" in the newest book relates to how Johnson's Secret Service agent, Rufus Youngblood, supposedly reacted to the first shot(s) in Dealey Plaza, by jumping over the front seat-back and sitting on Johnson all the way to Parkland Hospital. That story came directly from Johnson -- known by everyone who knew him, and certainly known by Robert Caro, who previously documented it -- a pathological liar, a man, according to Robert Kennedy, who would lie about anything, even when he didn't have to lie; JFK also called him a "chronic liar [who] had been making all sorts of assurances to me for years and has lived up to none of them." Mr. Caro ignored the other man who shared the same seat of the same car, Ralph Yarborough (who Caro admitted interviewing five times, in the Acknowledgements to "Master of the Senate", a man considered by most to be far more credible than Johnson), who said repeatedly that Youngblood never even left the front seat; that he merely turned around and told all three (Johnson, Lady Bird and Yarborough) to "Get Down!" The fact that Johnson is missing in the famous Altgens photograph showing the presidential procession moments after one of the first shots is arguably the biggest proof of that lie; the other passengers in the same car (Lady Bird and Senator Yarborough) are shown clearly, they have not reacted to the shots at all, yet Johnson has apparently already removed himself as a potential target. That is the most compelling evidence of Johnson's foreknowledge of the assassination, and it is probably the very reason he came up with the lie and forced Youngblood to accede to it. In fact, Youngblood himself hedged on this canard, when he told the Warren Commission that he didn't think he was "in the rear seat before the second shot, but thought it probable because of President Johnson's statement to that effect." Unlike Johnson, who refused to be deposed or to testify to his own commission, agent Youngblood was sworn to tell the truth. He had also been awarded the highest medal available, and honored by the new president in a White House ceremony ten days after the assassination (This was one of techniques employed through his patented "Johnson Treatment," so elegantly described by Caro himself in earlier volumes, for ingratiating himself with his "target" in order to exercise control over him or her). On top of all of that, Mr. Caro then goes on to write how Johnson remained "calm" throughout this harrowing event. No mention was made of Johnson's dour and nervous mood all during the motorcade, or how he had hunched down at various times throughout, using the pretext of listening to a radio, as reported by William Manchester. Nor was any comment offered about author Steven M. Gillon's discovery that General McHugh, after searching the entire plane twice, finally discovered Johnson in the powder room of the aircraft, "crying 'they're going to kill us all. It's a plot. It's going to kill us all. Johnson was hysterical, sitting down on the john there alone."(Emphasis supplied). Another report stated that McHugh actually had to slap Johnson to get him to snap out of his meltdown. These extraordinary, troubling claims have been ignored by author Caro, as if they did not exist; yet they do, and they are not going away merely because they were not included in his book. There were other such examples, but in the interest of space and time, these suffice to make the point. The totality of these omissions appears to reveal a fundamental shift in Mr. Caro's perspective of Lyndon Johnson, which is to embellish his "positive" side, while keeping his "darker side" hidden, as it has been by so many of the earlier, and lesser, Johnson biographers; if that is so, it is a very troubling development for anyone interested in the discovery of historic truths in Mr. Caro's latest work, for it portends yet another veiled attempt to rewrite real history, to make it conform, paradoxically, to a lie that most Americans have already rejected. Because 75-80% (the percentage varies over the years, but not by much) of Americans believe that John F. Kennedy was not the victim of a "lone nut" but a widespread conspiracy that reached to the highest levels of government: right into his own cabinet and his top military and intelligence officials. And there are some of us who believe that it extended right into (or, "from") the vice president's office as well. Phillip F. Nelson Author, "LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination"