‘Johnson in the White House’: a review of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume Four: The Passageof Power by Robert Caro

Abstract

No other US president sows historical confusion amongst American liberals like Lyndon Baines Johnson. On one side of the balance sheet is his “Great Society” foray into fighting poverty through civil rights and infusions of welfare; on the other sits Vietnam. And then there is the unscrupulousness of this overpowering and incorrigibly crude figure, made all the more galling by political skills that vastly exceeded those of the adored John F. Kennedy. East Coast liberals disdained him as a schemer, and a southern one at that—certainly not one of them. Small wonder that the parlour game of ranking presidents throws up all kinds of results for LBJ. Show more