The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 98, July 1994 - April, 1995 Page: 299
682 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Light at the End of the Tunnel
The scope of Dallek's achievement as a biographer becomes apparent
when one compares and contrasts his study with the strategies of John-
son's other leading biographers: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ronnie Dug-
ger, and Robert Caro.3 Each of these writers contributes to our
understanding of Johnson's personality and career, but they all turn to
different forms of determinism-psychological or cultural or (in Caro's
case) genetic-to explain Johnson's behavior. As a result, they create
one-dimensional portraits of this incredibly complex politician.
Almost all accounts of Lyndon Johnson's political career stress his
overpowering personality and include descriptions of the "Johnson
treatment." Johnson applied the treatment as he met with fellow Sena-
tors and tried to persuade them to follow his leadership through a com-
bination of argument, deal-making, flattery, intimidation, theatrical
posturing, and physical intrusiveness. In his conversations with Doris
Kearns Goodwin, Johnson claimed that writers misunderstood what he
was doing, but he reaffirmed the extreme personalism of his approach:
A lot of people have written a lot of nonsense about my private meetings with
Senators; that's because most of the writing is done by intellectuals, who can nev-
er imagine me, a graduate from poor little San Marcos, engaged in actual debate
with words and arguments, yet debating is what those sessions were all about.
But the Harvards, they picture it, instead, as a back-alley job with me holding
the guy by the collar, twisting his arm behind his back, dangling a carrot in front
of his nose, and holding a club over his head. It's a pretty amazing sight when
you think about it....
But you see they [the intellectuals] never take the time to think about what re-
ally goes on in those one-to-one sessions because they've never been involved in
persuading anyone to do anything. They're just like a pack of nuns who've con-
vinced themselves that sex is dirty and ugly and low-down and forced because
they can never have it. And because they can never have it, they see it all as rape
instead of seduction and they miss the elaborate preparation that goes on before
the act is finally done.4
Johnson was too defensive about the descriptions of his persuasive
powers, and his own words probably reinforce rather than dispel the im-
age of the crude Texan that he so disliked. Some analysts may have un-
derestimated the time and effort that Johnson devoted to studying both
the issues and his colleagues as he came to understand the Senators'
strengths and weaknesses, their fears and desires, and the requirements
" Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1991); Ronnie Dugger, The Politician. The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson. The Drive for Power,
from the Frontier to Master of the Senate (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1982); Robert Caro, The
Years of Lyndon Johnson. The Path to Power (New York: Knopf, 1982) ; Caro, The Years of Lyndon John-
son- Means of Ascent (New York: Knopf, 199o).
' Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 122.1994
299
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 98, July 1994 - April, 1995, periodical, 1995; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101216/m1/337/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.