Haynes Johnson > Quotes

“Socially, politically, economically, militarily, culturally, racially, sexually, demographically, even mythologically, World War II was the crucible that forged modern America. It was the transforming event that reshaped all who lived through it, and continues to affect those born after it. Only the American Revolution that created the new nation and the Civil War that preserved the Union rank with it in importance.”
― Haynes Johnson

“In the days following the crash, an axiom as old as the Republic came into play once more. In good times Wall Street wanted Washington to leave it alone. In bad times it wanted Washington to act.”
― Haynes Johnson, Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years

“Joe McCarthy possessed something like a photographic memory—his mind was like a “sponge,” or a “blotter,” his college classmates said—that enabled him to spew forth answers “lightning quick” in cram sessions and on exams. From the beginning of his career, he demonstrated a kind of instinctive political genius that owed nothing to campaign consultants or image makers. He was not interested in ideas, except in appropriating the thoughts or opinions of others if they helped him exploit an issue like Communism. His law degree and native intelligence notwithstanding, he was ill educated, had no sense of history, and was incurious and carelessly ill-informed about the great public questions—again, like Communism—that he addressed with such assurance. He did not read books, with one fascinating exception: Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”
― Haynes Johnson, The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism