Brett C's Reviews > Master of the Senate

This was another addition to Robert Caro's award-winning series on Lyndon Baines Johnson. This third volume covered his time as US Senator to Vice President, spanning twelve years of monumentous leadership from 1948 to 1960. LBJ's climb through calculated moves led to his Majority Leader in the Senate.

But although during the final three years of his Senate career, Lyndon Johnson's power over the Senate was as great as ever, the legislative achievements of this last stage of his Senate career were in many ways no more than a reprise of his early years in the Senate. pg 1020

Eventually he was chosen as the Vice President nomination by the Democratic Party and was elected alongside JFK. But Caro wrote how LBJ was put into a position that was not meant for him: transitioning from a legislative leader to the executive branch of government.

During his early weeks as Vice President, when he was presiding over the Senate while a Senator was delivering a lengthy speech, he would walk over to one of the few senators on the floor and begin to chat. The senators he approached were always courteous to him, but often they had to break off the conversation. They had other things to do. When he had had power, they had been anxious to talk to him, eager for a few minutes of his time. They weren't anxious now. After a while, he stopped coming...

...for eight years he had been the center of attention. When he came in now, several senators were there, sitting in the armchairs. He said hello to them. They said hello to him. He stood there for several minutes, apparently waiting for someone to stand up or talk to him, or to invite him to sit down. No one did... pg 1040

Overall this was a great read. Caro again wrote a detailed yet not boring narrative like the previous volumes. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in LBJ and American politics of the 20th century.