Flawed Giant:
Lyndon Johnson and
His Times 1961-1973
By Robert Dallek
Oxford University Press, 628
Pages, $35
Since the foundation of the Republic, no President has
held sway over the United States as did Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964 and 1965.
Johnson, as he often reminded people, pushed into law more significant
legislation during that period than even fdr had in 1933-34. Confirmed in 1964
by the largest popular vote percentage ever recorded in a presidential election
up to that time, Johnson seemed on the way to becoming the most influential
President of the century.
But by 1967, Johnson's world was collapsing, and in
March 1968, terrified of losing the Democratic nomination to Robert Kennedy, he
announced he would not run for re-election. How could such a talented man fall
so far, so fast? Flawed Giant--Robert Dallek's giant biography of Lyndon Johnson
from his ascension to the Vice Presidency in 1961 until his death in
1973--provides some answers.
Besides synthesizing the large
volume of scholarship already published about Johnson, Dallek conducted vast
original research, including interviews with Lady Bird Johnson and Bill Moyers
and analysis of papers and White House tapes that have recently become available
to the public. Like Richard Nixon, Johnson made extensive secret tapes of Oval
Office conversations; about half of them have been released, and they provide
Dallek with major new information about the lbj presidency.
Most of Dallek's material from
1963-65 is already familiar, but as Johnson and America sink deeper and deeper
into Vietnam, Dallek's fresh research becomes engrossing.
As Dallek explains, Johnson
lacked a strategy for American success in Vietnam. He got into Vietnam because
he feared the imminent collapse of the South Vietnamese regime would provoke a
"who lost Vietnam?" backlash similar to the "who lost China?" charges that Harry
Truman faced. Not only would an anti-Communist backlash imperil Johnson's
domestic programs; Johnson could not bear to be seen as weak. He lacked a
realistic plan for how to end the conflict; as long as North Vietnam was
determined to conquer the South, and as long as Johnson was determined not to
risk war with China by invading the North, stalemate was assured.
Not only did Johnson lie to
the American people about the prospects for the war, he surrounded himself with
liars. Johnson wanted only positive information, and his anger at aides who
tried to tell him the truth about the military situation in Vietnam ensured he
would hear only that we were winning.
Johnson likewise deceived
himself about domestic opposition to the war, insisting that it was inspired and
carefully directed by Soviet agents. At Johnson's direction, J. Edgar Hoover's
fbi spied extensively on the anti-war movement and the bureau reported to
Johnson again and again that there was no substantial foreign or Communist
connection. But these reports did nothing to relieve the President's paranoia.
As the White House staff
recognized, by 1967 Johnson had become so mentally unbalanced as to call into
question his fitness to continue to serve in office. He was frequently
depressed, and often lapsed into frightening paranoid rants.
Dallek's revelations about the
1968 presidential campaign are particularly interesting. Right up until the
riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Johnson
had hopes of being drafted as his party's nominee, even though he had withdrawn
from the race half a year before. Afraid that Hubert Humphrey would not toe
Johnson's line in Vietnam, lbj (who would have preferred to be succeeded by
Nelson Rockefeller) bugged Humphrey's campaign and for most of 1968 made only
half-hearted efforts for the Vice President who had served him so loyally.
During the general election
race, Johnson discovered but did not disclose that Richard Nixon's campaign had
received a $500,000 contribution from the military junta running Greece. lbj
kept his knowledge of this crime secret until 1973, when the Nixon
administration attempted to blackmail Johnson into convincing Congress to shut
down the Watergate investigation. lbj let Nixon know that Johnson knew about the
bribe from the Greeks; the White House pressure abruptly ceased.
The Dallek book is
considerably more evenhanded than Robert Caro's volumes, which treat Johnson as
a monster. Dallek's orientation is that of a conventional liberal--praising
Johnson's domestic accomplishments and bemoaning the distraction of the Vietnam
War--yet the author's domestic policy evaluations are so brief that their liberal
slant provides no impediment to a conservative's enjoyment of the book.
Dallek is not afraid to show
Johnson's arrogance, megalomania, and insecurity, all of which kept Johnson
stuck in Vietnam long after a more rational man would have begun exploring
alternatives. But Dallek gives scant attention to Johnson's numerous
extra-marital affairs, or to his family life. Thus, while Flawed Giant
thoroughly documents Johnson the President, the book provides less insight into
lbj's character than does Jeff Shesol's Mutual Contempt, a study of the
relationship between Johnson and Robert Kennedy.
American historians will
continue to puzzle over how one man of humble origins could combine such
prodigious quantities of good and evil, insight and self-delusion. But the
American people must answer another question: Since fdr created the modern
imperial presidency, why do we so often elect Presidents like Johnson, talented
men with no regard for the truth; men with so much assurance of their own
righteousness and so much personal arrogance that they violate federal statutes
the way ordinary people violate speeding laws, ignore the Constitution, and lie
to the American people?
The presidencies of fdr, lbj, Nixon, and Clinton
collectively suggest that the office of President, as it currently exists,
attracts gluttonously ambitious men who pose dangers to constitutional
government. Perhaps the next time the American people vote, they should pay less
attention to the candidates' platitudes and instead insist that the next
President do what any President could easily do, but none has seriously
considered in the last six decades: Shrink the executive branch of the federal
government, and the presidency itself, back to constitutional dimensions.
