Robert Caro's biography of LBJ: Four volumes and counting

Robert Caro wrote what is, to me, the best biography ever published. And he’s still writing it. His multi-volume history of Lyndon Johnson consumes four thick books and counting.

The entire project is “The Years of Lyndon Johnson” with the individual volumes titled “The Path to Power” (1982), “Means of Ascent,” (1990) “Master of the Senate,” (2002) and “The Passage of Power” (2012). The first volume, which I found the most compelling, begins with Johnson’s grandparents, who were pioneers in the Texas Hill Country in the mid-1800s as settlers discovered that what looked like lush, fertile land was only a couple of inches of topsoil that could not sustain agriculture. The book continues through the years when young Lyndon Johnson was determined to be somebody, to make his mark in a way that his poor father and grandfather had not. 

“The Passage of Power” ends in 1964. Lyndon Johnson is in the White House following the Kennedy Assassination, and he has coaxed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, perhaps the most significant legislation of the generation, into law.

Caro initially said he would write a conventional, one-volume biography, like his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on Robert Moses. But he kept finding more and more facts about Johnson, so he wrote a second volume and a third and a fourth. The fifth volume is not finished yet, and there is no guarantee that it will be the final one.

Reading these books taught me more about Lyndon Johnson than I ever wanted to know. He was conniving, egotistical, stubborn, cruel and abusive at times, and focused on being the Great Man he had wanted to be since childhood. He cheated on his faithful, adoring wife, destroyed the lives of young men who worked on his staff in Congress and succeeded in part by callously using people who trusted him.

He was also probably the most effective legislator in American history. He could be persuasive, even charming, and if that didn’t work, he could be threatening, vindictive and backstabbing to get his way. His success in getting passage of civil rights bills is extraordinary. You can love him or hate him for that and for his “Great Society” programs, but you have to admit he changed this country.

The minute detail in these books is astonishing. Caro describes long-ago events in great detail. He uncovers episodes that had never been made public, including a hard-to-believe years-long affair between Johnson and a glamorous, wealthy member of Washington’s social elite.

            Caro wrote a long article for The New Yorker (Jan. 28, 2019, edition) that explains how he got so deep into the life of LBJ. He began his research in 1976 and has worked continuously on his expanded biography since then.

            The New Yorker article makes a good textbook for young historians or news reporters learning how to research and interview. Caro digs deep into files stashed away in libraries and archives to find facts he was looking for or facts he’d never considered. No mention is too insignificant for him to not follow up. Any name he sees is followed up with an interview or several interviews of the same person, peeling away the lies and the cover-ups until he gets to the bottom of the matter. I recommend the article to anyone doing historical research.

            Although I tend to be a slow, plodding, easily distracted reader, I dove into each of Caro’s LBJ volumes  (which average close to 1,000 pages) with excitement and eagerness. I’m looking forward to the fifth installment, but Caro is 84 and admits that his ambitions for this biography might exceed his mortality. I’m counting on that final volume.

Hal Tarleton was managing editor, editor and opinion editor of The Wilson Daily Times. Contact him at haltarleton@myglnc.com.

This post originally appeared in The Wilson Times.