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Lyndon Johnson and his Times #2
Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973
Flawed Giant --the monumental concluding volume to Robert Dallek's biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson--provides the most through, engrossing account ever published of Johnson's years in the national spotlight. Drawing on hours of newly released White House tapes and dozens of interviews with people close to the President, Dallek reveals LBJ as a visionary leader who worked his will on Congress like no chief executive before or since, and also displays the depth of his private anguish as he became increasingly ensnared in Vietnam. Writing in a clear, thoughtful, and evenhanded style, Dallek reveals both the greatness and the tangled complexities of one of the most extravagant characters ever to ascend to the White House.
784 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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About the author
Robert Dallek
55 books171 followersRobert A. Dallek is an American historian specializing in the presidents of the United States, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon.
In 2004 he retired as a history professor at Boston University after previously having taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Oxford University.
He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
In 2004 he retired as a history professor at Boston University after previously having taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Oxford University.
He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945, as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
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June 7, 2024
This history is a study in contrasts. In Lyndon Johnson we had a president with the most successful domestic agenda of any president in our history, including FDR who had enjoyed an even greater democratic majority in Congress. On the other hand we had a president at the helm who steered us into the most disastrous war in our history.
When Johnson announced his Great Society programs in 1964 he wanted legislation that addressed some of the social ills that plagued our country. The war he wished to fight was a war against poverty and ignorance. His domestic success was the combination of an unique set of circumstances. First of all here was a president with 30 years of experience dealing with Congress. He knew the rules of Congress and government and the legislative process better than anyone. He knew the personalities of many members of Congress and what motivated them. Second, his landslide election later that year gave him a mandate that he saw as a national commitment to that legislation. Third, John Kennedy’s assassination created a national mood for reform.
However, those dreams were derailed by the developments in Vietnam. The Vietnam War plays a major part in this biography. There is little to no mention of the fighting or battles in South Vietnam. It is a political history of the war. There are many descriptions of meetings with Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and various military chiefs. President John Kennedy, following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, did not put a lot of trust in the CIA or his military chiefs. Lyndon Johnson would have been wise to have learned that lesson.
The Johnson presidency was plagued by a Credibility Gap. As the war in Vietnam increased Johnson attempted to conceal the true costs of fighting the war because he was afraid of cuts to his Great Society programs. Additionally as time went on, and especially after the Tet Offensive in February of 1968, the statements by Johnson and the military about the war being won soon and there being a “light at the end of the tunnel” proved false. As the war went on it became more difficult for Johnson and the military to admit they were wrong about any successful conclusion to the war.
Johnson’s frustration with his failure to find a solution to the Vietnam mess was partially due to his inability to apply the “Johnson Treatment” to foreign leaders. He had a power of persuasion that utilized tactics such as badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages. He could threaten and bully. After a meeting with George Wallace to discuss the racial violence in Alabama, Wallace remarked: “Hell, if I’d stayed in there much longer, he’d have had me coming out for civil rights.” (Page 217) Regarding North Vietnam, or any other foreign problem, Johnson could not ask Ho Chi Minh to come to the White House and apply the “Johnson Treatment”.
The government in South Vietnam led by Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cat Ky were being protected by half-a-million American soldiers and receiving millions of dollars in aid. They saw no reason to work for a peaceful settlement.
Johnson and most everyone else in the government who had urged greater U.S. involvement felt a keen need to see it through. They had come too far to turn back. They could no longer be reasonably objective about the outcome of the fighting. They clutched at anything that hinted of success or seemed like a program for “holding the line”, “turning the tide”, or preventing South Vietnamese collapse. There was a quality of illusion to everything they now said and planned in Vietnam.
The author notes a parallel between FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. Despite being interrupted by war both of these programs implemented policies which still remain and are essential to our civilized society. However, a better analysis is the contrast between the two wars. Following the successful conclusion to World War II the United States was the most powerful and economically successful country in the world. This also lent a false sense of an “illusion of omnipotence.” Americans believed that it is was their “responsibility for other nations—to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them … in its own shining image.” (Page 370)
In Vietnam the limits of American power in a jungle war against a determined enemy became clear. What had worked in Europe during World War II and afterwards in resisting the spread of communism was not the solution for Asia.
The legacy of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency will be judged by the contrast between the dreams and accomplishments of his Great Society programs and by the price we paid for his policy in Vietnam.
When Johnson announced his Great Society programs in 1964 he wanted legislation that addressed some of the social ills that plagued our country. The war he wished to fight was a war against poverty and ignorance. His domestic success was the combination of an unique set of circumstances. First of all here was a president with 30 years of experience dealing with Congress. He knew the rules of Congress and government and the legislative process better than anyone. He knew the personalities of many members of Congress and what motivated them. Second, his landslide election later that year gave him a mandate that he saw as a national commitment to that legislation. Third, John Kennedy’s assassination created a national mood for reform.
However, those dreams were derailed by the developments in Vietnam. The Vietnam War plays a major part in this biography. There is little to no mention of the fighting or battles in South Vietnam. It is a political history of the war. There are many descriptions of meetings with Secretary of State Rusk, Secretary of Defense McNamara, and various military chiefs. President John Kennedy, following the Bay of Pigs fiasco, did not put a lot of trust in the CIA or his military chiefs. Lyndon Johnson would have been wise to have learned that lesson.
The Johnson presidency was plagued by a Credibility Gap. As the war in Vietnam increased Johnson attempted to conceal the true costs of fighting the war because he was afraid of cuts to his Great Society programs. Additionally as time went on, and especially after the Tet Offensive in February of 1968, the statements by Johnson and the military about the war being won soon and there being a “light at the end of the tunnel” proved false. As the war went on it became more difficult for Johnson and the military to admit they were wrong about any successful conclusion to the war.
Johnson’s frustration with his failure to find a solution to the Vietnam mess was partially due to his inability to apply the “Johnson Treatment” to foreign leaders. He had a power of persuasion that utilized tactics such as badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages. He could threaten and bully. After a meeting with George Wallace to discuss the racial violence in Alabama, Wallace remarked: “Hell, if I’d stayed in there much longer, he’d have had me coming out for civil rights.” (Page 217) Regarding North Vietnam, or any other foreign problem, Johnson could not ask Ho Chi Minh to come to the White House and apply the “Johnson Treatment”.
The government in South Vietnam led by Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cat Ky were being protected by half-a-million American soldiers and receiving millions of dollars in aid. They saw no reason to work for a peaceful settlement.
Johnson and most everyone else in the government who had urged greater U.S. involvement felt a keen need to see it through. They had come too far to turn back. They could no longer be reasonably objective about the outcome of the fighting. They clutched at anything that hinted of success or seemed like a program for “holding the line”, “turning the tide”, or preventing South Vietnamese collapse. There was a quality of illusion to everything they now said and planned in Vietnam.
The author notes a parallel between FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. Despite being interrupted by war both of these programs implemented policies which still remain and are essential to our civilized society. However, a better analysis is the contrast between the two wars. Following the successful conclusion to World War II the United States was the most powerful and economically successful country in the world. This also lent a false sense of an “illusion of omnipotence.” Americans believed that it is was their “responsibility for other nations—to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them … in its own shining image.” (Page 370)
In Vietnam the limits of American power in a jungle war against a determined enemy became clear. What had worked in Europe during World War II and afterwards in resisting the spread of communism was not the solution for Asia.
The legacy of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency will be judged by the contrast between the dreams and accomplishments of his Great Society programs and by the price we paid for his policy in Vietnam.
March 19, 2021
The second volume of Robert Dallek's biography of LBJ begins with Kennedy and Johnson's swearing-in ceremony and covers Johnson's vice presidency and presidency.
In the fifty-two years before he became Vice President, the ambitious Lyndon B. Johnson had already achieved a series of political triumphs. As secretary to a wealthy Texas congressman, he had taken over the duties of the office, making it responsive to depression-ridden farmers, businessmen, and Army veterans. In the mid-thirties, he became the youngest and best state director of FDR's National Youth Administration, and then at age twenty-eight beat several better known opponents for a south-central Texas congressional seat. After eleven years in the House, where he established himself as a highly effective congressman with powerful White House ties, he won, "by fair means and foul", a seat in U.S. Senate, where, according to Dallek, he became the most effective Majority Leader in American history, which made him a viable but unsuccessful candidate for President.
Thus, Lyndon was a reluctant Vice President. He had hoped and planned for the presidency, and he despised the second spot. His whole life he had aspired to be the best, to outdo friend and foe; he needed to win higher standing, hold greater power, and earn more money than anyone else. As a VP, he related to the observation made by Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's VP, that the Vice President "is like a man in a cataleptic state. He cannot speak. He cannot move. He suffers no pain. And yet he is conscious of all that goes on around him." Kennedy aggravated Johnson's sense of being eclipsed and useless. Harvard-educated, young, handsome, charming, urbane, a northeastern aristocrat, JFK appeared to be everything his Vice President was not. "Every time I came into John Kennedy's presence, I felt like a goddamn raven hovering over his shoulder," LBJ recalled. He looked so sullen and depressed all the time even the President noticed, telling Florida Senator George Smathers he "cannot stand Johnson's damn long face."
After the shocking and cruel act in Dallas, Texas, however, LBJ changed. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman commented on seeing “a different Lyndon Johnson than from the past 3 years. Actually the frustration seemed gone, he seemed relaxed, the power, the confidence, the assurance of Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson seemed to be there." Although he was a man used to employing intimidation to get what he wanted and to bend people to his will, in the critical days after the assassination Johnson revealed a rare sensitivity and offered a sharp contrast with the fidgety, short-tempered, vain man we had sat in the Capitol Hill vice presidential office. In his first hours and days as president, he succeeded comforting a shocked and grieving nation and reassuring the American people that their government was still functioning. A shrewd political tactician, Johnson also realized that the emphasis on the theme of continuity would provide him with a powerful tool to built support for his own liberal agenda. He was not content merely to pass Kennedy’s agenda. He sought to create a program that would bear his personal brand, so in January 1964, in his first State of the Union address, he declared “unconditional war on poverty in America,” and followed up with a legislative proposal, which Congress passed in the summer of 1964. (It was another matter that Johnson had no clear idea how to overcome poverty and that his program failed.) Using the skills he had learned from years on the Hill, Lyndon also assumed personal control over the fight to pass Kennedy’s civil rights bill, and the bill he eventually pushed through Congress was stronger than the one Kennedy had initially submitted.
LBJ won his party’s nomination in 1964. After dangling the vice presidency in front of him for months, he finally selected Hubert Humphrey as his running mate. Campaigning as "the heir to the JFK legacy", Johnson crushed Arizona senator Barry Goldwater in the general election.
Kennedy’s tragic death, and Johnson’s skillful management of the transition of power helped set the stage for great legislative achievements. In the first six months of 1965, the administration submitted eighty-seven bills to Congress and saw eighty-four of them become law. Congress passed consumer protection acts and provided aid for mass transit, urban development, and slum clearance. Many observers hailed LBJ as the new FDR. The president also managed to quiet opponents of federal aid to education and convince Congress to pass his Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. On August 6, 1965, he signed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed African Americans access to the franchise. “They came in darkness and chains,” he said at the signing ceremony. “Today we strike away the last major shackles of those fierce and ancient bonds."
Within a few years, however, the bright early promise of the Johnson administration was overshadowed by the highly unpopular and costly Vietnam War, racial riots, and student protests. While at the start of his presidency the press published only flattering, uncritical reviews, by 1968 it had become difficult to find a positive story about him. According to the author, many of LBJ's less attractive qualities – his insecurity, his paranoia, his willingness to deceive – would grow over time and eventually eclipse the hopes of his administration.
LBJ’s fear that the nation would not accept him as the heir to the presidency convinced him that he needed someone close to the slain president, such as Robert Kennedy. As Lyndon proved himself willing to manipulate the dead President's brother, the animosity between Johnson and RFK, which had existed long before JFK's assassination, took on greater meaning and intensified into open warfare that eventually led to a "civil war" within the Democratic Party.
The President's tendency to wrench the facts to suit his purposes raised doubts about his integrity and undermined public trust in his administration. He told so many small lies that many people began to question everything he said. He also told some lies that were more serious. For instance, in April 1965, Johnson sent the marines to quell an insurrection in the Dominican Republic. When reporters suggested that he had overreacted to a situation that offered no threat to American security, the President responded by exaggerating the crisis: he told stories – all proven false – of fifteen hundred innocent people murdered and beheaded, and of the American ambassador being forced "to seek cover from stray bullets spraying the U.S. embassy." A sceptic commented, "When he [LBJ] scratches his head, rubs his chin or knits his brow, he’s telling the truth. When he begins to move his lips, he’s lying."
Johnson repeated the same mistake when he justified his decision to expand the Vietnam War. While confidently predicting victory in pubic, privately he feared defeat. Although he dramatically enlarged America’s involvement in Vietnam, when critisised, he claimed that he was simply following the policies of his predecessor. (In reality, JFK had been planning to withdraw the bulk of U.S personnel from Vietnam as soon as he got reelected. See JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.) The deathblow came on January 31, 1968, the day of the Vietnamese lunar new year, Tet, when the Vietcong invaded the U.S. embassy in Saigon and waged bloody battles in the capitals of most of South Vietnam’s provinces. After all his unfounded assurances of U.S victory in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive proved to be disastrous for LBJ's reputation. On February 27, television anchorman Walter Cronkite, echoing many Americans, declared that the United States was “mired in stalemate" in Vietnam; after this, Johnson lost public support almost completely.
In summary, JFK’s death made the Johnson presidency possible, but it also doomed it to failure. It made LBJ one of the most influential, but also one of the most tragic, of modern presidents. "Johnson, although a man of immense ego, felt threatened both by his unnatural accession and by the spoken and unspoken comparisons to Kennedy,” observed Hubert Humphrey. According to his Vice President, Johnson indeed was the “heir to the presidency,” but he also desperately wanted to be the heir to the affection of the Kennedy insiders and of the nation. When this was not readily happening, he tried more desperately to succeed, and "both his virtues and his flaws were larger than life."
FLAWED GIANT is a truly outstanding biography. Robert Dallek is objective in his assessment of the Johnson administration, but he is also sympathetic to LBJ, whom he considers a highly complex figure. This volume is compellingly written, meticulously detailed, and extensively researched. Recommendable.
In the fifty-two years before he became Vice President, the ambitious Lyndon B. Johnson had already achieved a series of political triumphs. As secretary to a wealthy Texas congressman, he had taken over the duties of the office, making it responsive to depression-ridden farmers, businessmen, and Army veterans. In the mid-thirties, he became the youngest and best state director of FDR's National Youth Administration, and then at age twenty-eight beat several better known opponents for a south-central Texas congressional seat. After eleven years in the House, where he established himself as a highly effective congressman with powerful White House ties, he won, "by fair means and foul", a seat in U.S. Senate, where, according to Dallek, he became the most effective Majority Leader in American history, which made him a viable but unsuccessful candidate for President.
Thus, Lyndon was a reluctant Vice President. He had hoped and planned for the presidency, and he despised the second spot. His whole life he had aspired to be the best, to outdo friend and foe; he needed to win higher standing, hold greater power, and earn more money than anyone else. As a VP, he related to the observation made by Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's VP, that the Vice President "is like a man in a cataleptic state. He cannot speak. He cannot move. He suffers no pain. And yet he is conscious of all that goes on around him." Kennedy aggravated Johnson's sense of being eclipsed and useless. Harvard-educated, young, handsome, charming, urbane, a northeastern aristocrat, JFK appeared to be everything his Vice President was not. "Every time I came into John Kennedy's presence, I felt like a goddamn raven hovering over his shoulder," LBJ recalled. He looked so sullen and depressed all the time even the President noticed, telling Florida Senator George Smathers he "cannot stand Johnson's damn long face."
After the shocking and cruel act in Dallas, Texas, however, LBJ changed. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman commented on seeing “a different Lyndon Johnson than from the past 3 years. Actually the frustration seemed gone, he seemed relaxed, the power, the confidence, the assurance of Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson seemed to be there." Although he was a man used to employing intimidation to get what he wanted and to bend people to his will, in the critical days after the assassination Johnson revealed a rare sensitivity and offered a sharp contrast with the fidgety, short-tempered, vain man we had sat in the Capitol Hill vice presidential office. In his first hours and days as president, he succeeded comforting a shocked and grieving nation and reassuring the American people that their government was still functioning. A shrewd political tactician, Johnson also realized that the emphasis on the theme of continuity would provide him with a powerful tool to built support for his own liberal agenda. He was not content merely to pass Kennedy’s agenda. He sought to create a program that would bear his personal brand, so in January 1964, in his first State of the Union address, he declared “unconditional war on poverty in America,” and followed up with a legislative proposal, which Congress passed in the summer of 1964. (It was another matter that Johnson had no clear idea how to overcome poverty and that his program failed.) Using the skills he had learned from years on the Hill, Lyndon also assumed personal control over the fight to pass Kennedy’s civil rights bill, and the bill he eventually pushed through Congress was stronger than the one Kennedy had initially submitted.
LBJ won his party’s nomination in 1964. After dangling the vice presidency in front of him for months, he finally selected Hubert Humphrey as his running mate. Campaigning as "the heir to the JFK legacy", Johnson crushed Arizona senator Barry Goldwater in the general election.
Kennedy’s tragic death, and Johnson’s skillful management of the transition of power helped set the stage for great legislative achievements. In the first six months of 1965, the administration submitted eighty-seven bills to Congress and saw eighty-four of them become law. Congress passed consumer protection acts and provided aid for mass transit, urban development, and slum clearance. Many observers hailed LBJ as the new FDR. The president also managed to quiet opponents of federal aid to education and convince Congress to pass his Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. On August 6, 1965, he signed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed African Americans access to the franchise. “They came in darkness and chains,” he said at the signing ceremony. “Today we strike away the last major shackles of those fierce and ancient bonds."
Within a few years, however, the bright early promise of the Johnson administration was overshadowed by the highly unpopular and costly Vietnam War, racial riots, and student protests. While at the start of his presidency the press published only flattering, uncritical reviews, by 1968 it had become difficult to find a positive story about him. According to the author, many of LBJ's less attractive qualities – his insecurity, his paranoia, his willingness to deceive – would grow over time and eventually eclipse the hopes of his administration.
LBJ’s fear that the nation would not accept him as the heir to the presidency convinced him that he needed someone close to the slain president, such as Robert Kennedy. As Lyndon proved himself willing to manipulate the dead President's brother, the animosity between Johnson and RFK, which had existed long before JFK's assassination, took on greater meaning and intensified into open warfare that eventually led to a "civil war" within the Democratic Party.
The President's tendency to wrench the facts to suit his purposes raised doubts about his integrity and undermined public trust in his administration. He told so many small lies that many people began to question everything he said. He also told some lies that were more serious. For instance, in April 1965, Johnson sent the marines to quell an insurrection in the Dominican Republic. When reporters suggested that he had overreacted to a situation that offered no threat to American security, the President responded by exaggerating the crisis: he told stories – all proven false – of fifteen hundred innocent people murdered and beheaded, and of the American ambassador being forced "to seek cover from stray bullets spraying the U.S. embassy." A sceptic commented, "When he [LBJ] scratches his head, rubs his chin or knits his brow, he’s telling the truth. When he begins to move his lips, he’s lying."
Johnson repeated the same mistake when he justified his decision to expand the Vietnam War. While confidently predicting victory in pubic, privately he feared defeat. Although he dramatically enlarged America’s involvement in Vietnam, when critisised, he claimed that he was simply following the policies of his predecessor. (In reality, JFK had been planning to withdraw the bulk of U.S personnel from Vietnam as soon as he got reelected. See JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.) The deathblow came on January 31, 1968, the day of the Vietnamese lunar new year, Tet, when the Vietcong invaded the U.S. embassy in Saigon and waged bloody battles in the capitals of most of South Vietnam’s provinces. After all his unfounded assurances of U.S victory in Vietnam, the Tet Offensive proved to be disastrous for LBJ's reputation. On February 27, television anchorman Walter Cronkite, echoing many Americans, declared that the United States was “mired in stalemate" in Vietnam; after this, Johnson lost public support almost completely.
In summary, JFK’s death made the Johnson presidency possible, but it also doomed it to failure. It made LBJ one of the most influential, but also one of the most tragic, of modern presidents. "Johnson, although a man of immense ego, felt threatened both by his unnatural accession and by the spoken and unspoken comparisons to Kennedy,” observed Hubert Humphrey. According to his Vice President, Johnson indeed was the “heir to the presidency,” but he also desperately wanted to be the heir to the affection of the Kennedy insiders and of the nation. When this was not readily happening, he tried more desperately to succeed, and "both his virtues and his flaws were larger than life."
FLAWED GIANT is a truly outstanding biography. Robert Dallek is objective in his assessment of the Johnson administration, but he is also sympathetic to LBJ, whom he considers a highly complex figure. This volume is compellingly written, meticulously detailed, and extensively researched. Recommendable.
April 27, 2021
As many have stated Lyndon Johnson was a larger-than-life personality. He was six foot three (over 1.9 meters). When he spoke to you, he would crowd you – an in-your-face kind of guy (which is one reason he did not get along with the Kennedy’s).
Lyndon Johnson was a master of government - he knew probably everyone in the Senate and Congress – he would cajole, intimidate, wheel and deal (known as the Johnson treatment). And he would get things done – namely bills and legislation to pass. He was far better at this than the Kennedy’s.
He passed an enormous amount of what today would be considered human rights legislation. Much of it to improve the lives of the poor and dis-enfranchised. Within the U.S. Lyndon Johnson had a wonderful understanding of how government could help to find a solution to poverty and discrimination. He passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 – which has since been tampered with by right-wing racist forces in the United States. He also passed Medicare programs which improved health care in general and made it accessible to more. Plus, several environmental laws, consumer protection laws, more funds for schools and education. He also passed the Public Broadcasting Act which led to the founding of PBS TV. He changed discriminatory immigration laws which had favoured white Anglo-Saxon countries. This has altered the ethnic composition of the United States (Canada passed a similar law around this time). He tried to pass a Fair Housing Act but this has been largely unsuccessful.
Page 218 (my book) Lyndon Johnson’s Selma speech in 1965
“Rarely are we met with a challenge … to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. … There is no issue of States Rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.”
Lyndon Johnson showed how government could work for the people.
However, we all know his greatest failure – Vietnam.
Lyndon Johnson single-handedly escalated United States involvement in Vietnam from some 15,000 troops under JFK to over half-a-million troops by the time he left office in 1968. He upped the ante considerably in this travesty and made it an American war. He was warned repeatedly by some of his advisors that this would prove to be a worthless endeavour – a never-ending quagmire of brutality and corruption.
He gradually increased troop strength over 1965 and 1966 sending maybe twenty thousand over every two or three months. The American people were hardly conscious of this increase. They were supporting it as a quest to stop the spread of communism.
Page 247 1965
Johnson’s commitment represented a striking shift in judgement. His concern about having a stable regime in the South before attacking the North gave way to the hope that increased pressure on Hanoi could somehow bolster Saigon. Johnson had no evidence to support his altered assumption.
This interfered with his “Great Society” programs – siphoning funds away from them to Vietnam.
The author speculated as to why Lyndon Johnson allowed himself to get ensnared in this war at the cost of reducing his vision of the “Great Society”.
Johnson was always on the move working 18-hour days, badgering those around to provide answers. To his credit Johnson was deeply troubled by Vietnam. Hubert Humphrey (his Vice -President) said (page 185) that “Rest for Lyndon Johnson was controlled frenzy.”
Page 256-57 1966 Vietnam
Johnson and most everyone else in the government who had urged greater U.S. involvement felt a keen need to see it through. They had come to far to turn back. They could no longer be reasonably objective about the outcome of the fighting. They clutched at anything that hinted of success or seemed like a program for “holding the line”, “turning the tide”, or preventing South Vietnamese collapse. There was a quality of illusion to everything they now said and planned in Vietnam.
Like many of the era Johnson was a staunch anti-communist, but still skeptical of the domino theory of the spread of communism to Asia – and even more doubtful of the odious government of South Vietnam. He often said in 1964 that it should be “Asian boys who should fight this war, not American boys”.
But it became Johnson’s war. And Johnson did not like to lose. The war became a matter of his pride. As the opposition increased, he was starting to become somewhat deranged suspecting communist infiltration everywhere – in government, the media, the demonstrators…
This is a tragic biography – Lyndon Johnson will always be associated with the Vietnam War – a devastating injustice to the people of Vietnam. To this day whenever the U.S. embarks on a foreign mission the shadow of Vietnam is present.
Page 370
[Senator William Fullbright] warned America against seeing its power as “a sign of God’s favor conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations – to make them richer and happier and wiser; to remake them… in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence.”
Lyndon Johnson was a master of government - he knew probably everyone in the Senate and Congress – he would cajole, intimidate, wheel and deal (known as the Johnson treatment). And he would get things done – namely bills and legislation to pass. He was far better at this than the Kennedy’s.
He passed an enormous amount of what today would be considered human rights legislation. Much of it to improve the lives of the poor and dis-enfranchised. Within the U.S. Lyndon Johnson had a wonderful understanding of how government could help to find a solution to poverty and discrimination. He passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 – which has since been tampered with by right-wing racist forces in the United States. He also passed Medicare programs which improved health care in general and made it accessible to more. Plus, several environmental laws, consumer protection laws, more funds for schools and education. He also passed the Public Broadcasting Act which led to the founding of PBS TV. He changed discriminatory immigration laws which had favoured white Anglo-Saxon countries. This has altered the ethnic composition of the United States (Canada passed a similar law around this time). He tried to pass a Fair Housing Act but this has been largely unsuccessful.
Page 218 (my book) Lyndon Johnson’s Selma speech in 1965
“Rarely are we met with a challenge … to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. … There is no issue of States Rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.”
Lyndon Johnson showed how government could work for the people.
However, we all know his greatest failure – Vietnam.
Lyndon Johnson single-handedly escalated United States involvement in Vietnam from some 15,000 troops under JFK to over half-a-million troops by the time he left office in 1968. He upped the ante considerably in this travesty and made it an American war. He was warned repeatedly by some of his advisors that this would prove to be a worthless endeavour – a never-ending quagmire of brutality and corruption.
He gradually increased troop strength over 1965 and 1966 sending maybe twenty thousand over every two or three months. The American people were hardly conscious of this increase. They were supporting it as a quest to stop the spread of communism.
Page 247 1965
Johnson’s commitment represented a striking shift in judgement. His concern about having a stable regime in the South before attacking the North gave way to the hope that increased pressure on Hanoi could somehow bolster Saigon. Johnson had no evidence to support his altered assumption.
This interfered with his “Great Society” programs – siphoning funds away from them to Vietnam.
The author speculated as to why Lyndon Johnson allowed himself to get ensnared in this war at the cost of reducing his vision of the “Great Society”.
Johnson was always on the move working 18-hour days, badgering those around to provide answers. To his credit Johnson was deeply troubled by Vietnam. Hubert Humphrey (his Vice -President) said (page 185) that “Rest for Lyndon Johnson was controlled frenzy.”
Page 256-57 1966 Vietnam
Johnson and most everyone else in the government who had urged greater U.S. involvement felt a keen need to see it through. They had come to far to turn back. They could no longer be reasonably objective about the outcome of the fighting. They clutched at anything that hinted of success or seemed like a program for “holding the line”, “turning the tide”, or preventing South Vietnamese collapse. There was a quality of illusion to everything they now said and planned in Vietnam.
Like many of the era Johnson was a staunch anti-communist, but still skeptical of the domino theory of the spread of communism to Asia – and even more doubtful of the odious government of South Vietnam. He often said in 1964 that it should be “Asian boys who should fight this war, not American boys”.
But it became Johnson’s war. And Johnson did not like to lose. The war became a matter of his pride. As the opposition increased, he was starting to become somewhat deranged suspecting communist infiltration everywhere – in government, the media, the demonstrators…
This is a tragic biography – Lyndon Johnson will always be associated with the Vietnam War – a devastating injustice to the people of Vietnam. To this day whenever the U.S. embarks on a foreign mission the shadow of Vietnam is present.
Page 370
[Senator William Fullbright] warned America against seeing its power as “a sign of God’s favor conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations – to make them richer and happier and wiser; to remake them… in its own shining image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence.”
July 9, 2021
This is the concluding volume of Robert Dallek's take on Lyndon Johnson, going from his time as Vice President, through his tumultuous presidency, and all-too-brief post-presidency. Dallek describes the VP years as ones of frustration for Johnson: largely left out of the loop by John F. Kennedy's arrogant aides and shunted aside by his worthy antagonist Bobby Kennedy. This despite cordial treatment by the President himself. But that was not nearly enough to satisfy Johnson, who was used to wielding great amounts of power as Senate Majority Leader for the previous six years.
Dallek does not spend a great deal of time on this period though, as Johnson's presidency takes up almost all of the book, and understandably so. I think it is safe to say that, of all the Presidents, very few have had a greater impact on everyday life for millions of people than Johnson did. That is for both good and for ill. Dallek strives to remain scrupulously fair in his evaluation of both Johnson the President and Johnson the human being. This is neither a whitewash of Vietnam nor a hatchet job. Dallek does succeed in being even-handed and objective about who Johnson was and what he accomplished, or failed to accomplish.
In sometimes painstaking detail, Dallek recounts Johnson's every decision on Vietnam from the moment he took office until he left. Meeting after meeting after meeting are discussed, showing how Johnson held to a steady line of escalation from 1964 into early 1968. He shows that Johnson is not single-handedly responsible for what transpired in Vietnam. He got horrible advice consistently from many, many people that should have known better. This is also the case for Dallek's review of the Great Society, and how Johnson the legislative master managed to take full advantage of a special time for a President: the honeymoon extended to him by Kennedy's assassination, large Democratic majorities in Congress, changing social views, a landslide election, and someone with intricate knowledge of how the legislative process works, along with most of the legislators then serving. Dallek makes a convincing argument that, while Johnson deserves enormous credit for all of the programs that he (along with many others working for and with him) established and bills that he signed, he quickly allowed Vietnam to swallow up most of the funding for these programs, resulting in some of them stumbling out of the gate and others never quite working out, mixed with some resounding successes (like the Voting Rights Act).
But the book ultimately falls short for me. While I do appreciate Dallek's successful attempt to paint an objective portrait of Johnson, he is the only one who seems to have any life to him. Everyone else in the book appears as a two-dimensional character, just there to move the story along. There is no effort to humanize key Administration figures such as Dean Rusk or Robert McNamara. Johnson's personal life, up until the final chapter which deals with his post-presidency, is almost completely missing from the book. Lady Bird, much like in the first book, is virtually absent. She rarely appears and when she does it is brief. She was a huge part of Johnson's life, so I am not sure why Dallek went this route with her. Similar treatment is accorded to the two Johnson daughters. There is not even a mention of Lynda Bird's marriage that took place at the White House? How can that be? Surely that was a huge day for Johnson. Yet you would not know it happened just from reading Dallek's book. Those kinds of events add color, life, interest to a biography. Without them, you get the endless meetings on Vietnam. Which is not to say those aren't important, because they are. However they are not the entire picture.
Another issue I had with Dallek is that his approach often sort of muddied which year he was describing. He works through Johnson's presidency in a topical way, first talking about the creation of the Great Society, about tensions escalating in Vietnam, and also about other political issues such as the Supreme Court. But it gets confusing at times because frequently it all occurs in the same chapter. In one chapter, he writes., in part, at length about the 1966 Congressional elections, taking the reader all the way through them. But the next chapter starts with Vietnam, and takes the reader back to the beginning of 1966. I did not care for having to shift back a year after I thought the storyline had progressed to the end of 1966, even though I was wondering where the Vietnam part was at.
Dallek's coverage of the 1968 election is good where it concerns Johnson's role in it, both in public and private. He writes about how Johnson largely favored Richard Nixon over his own Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, until he learned late in the campaign that Nixon (successfully) tried to sabotage the peace talks in convincing South Vietnam to not cooperate with Johnson's efforts at finding a settlement. But Dallek does a pedestrian job of discussing the violent Democratic Convention in Chicago that year. Again, the color is missing.
The final chapter, about Johnson's post-presidency, is adequate. Dallek writes about Johnson's adjustment to private life, his work on his Library, and his quickly declining health. He ends with a very good Afterword, explaining how historians are long going to struggle when they try to rank or rate Johnson in comparison with other Presidents, and that Johnson will probably be one of the most difficult ones to categorize. I absolutely agree. Think, for just a moment, how different our country would be without Medicare and Medicaid. Then think "That's Lyndon Johnson." Because he helped create that. But then go stand in front of the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall in D.C., and look at all the names etched into that wall. Then think "That's Lyndon Johnson." Because he helped create that, too.
Grade: B
Dallek does not spend a great deal of time on this period though, as Johnson's presidency takes up almost all of the book, and understandably so. I think it is safe to say that, of all the Presidents, very few have had a greater impact on everyday life for millions of people than Johnson did. That is for both good and for ill. Dallek strives to remain scrupulously fair in his evaluation of both Johnson the President and Johnson the human being. This is neither a whitewash of Vietnam nor a hatchet job. Dallek does succeed in being even-handed and objective about who Johnson was and what he accomplished, or failed to accomplish.
In sometimes painstaking detail, Dallek recounts Johnson's every decision on Vietnam from the moment he took office until he left. Meeting after meeting after meeting are discussed, showing how Johnson held to a steady line of escalation from 1964 into early 1968. He shows that Johnson is not single-handedly responsible for what transpired in Vietnam. He got horrible advice consistently from many, many people that should have known better. This is also the case for Dallek's review of the Great Society, and how Johnson the legislative master managed to take full advantage of a special time for a President: the honeymoon extended to him by Kennedy's assassination, large Democratic majorities in Congress, changing social views, a landslide election, and someone with intricate knowledge of how the legislative process works, along with most of the legislators then serving. Dallek makes a convincing argument that, while Johnson deserves enormous credit for all of the programs that he (along with many others working for and with him) established and bills that he signed, he quickly allowed Vietnam to swallow up most of the funding for these programs, resulting in some of them stumbling out of the gate and others never quite working out, mixed with some resounding successes (like the Voting Rights Act).
But the book ultimately falls short for me. While I do appreciate Dallek's successful attempt to paint an objective portrait of Johnson, he is the only one who seems to have any life to him. Everyone else in the book appears as a two-dimensional character, just there to move the story along. There is no effort to humanize key Administration figures such as Dean Rusk or Robert McNamara. Johnson's personal life, up until the final chapter which deals with his post-presidency, is almost completely missing from the book. Lady Bird, much like in the first book, is virtually absent. She rarely appears and when she does it is brief. She was a huge part of Johnson's life, so I am not sure why Dallek went this route with her. Similar treatment is accorded to the two Johnson daughters. There is not even a mention of Lynda Bird's marriage that took place at the White House? How can that be? Surely that was a huge day for Johnson. Yet you would not know it happened just from reading Dallek's book. Those kinds of events add color, life, interest to a biography. Without them, you get the endless meetings on Vietnam. Which is not to say those aren't important, because they are. However they are not the entire picture.
Another issue I had with Dallek is that his approach often sort of muddied which year he was describing. He works through Johnson's presidency in a topical way, first talking about the creation of the Great Society, about tensions escalating in Vietnam, and also about other political issues such as the Supreme Court. But it gets confusing at times because frequently it all occurs in the same chapter. In one chapter, he writes., in part, at length about the 1966 Congressional elections, taking the reader all the way through them. But the next chapter starts with Vietnam, and takes the reader back to the beginning of 1966. I did not care for having to shift back a year after I thought the storyline had progressed to the end of 1966, even though I was wondering where the Vietnam part was at.
Dallek's coverage of the 1968 election is good where it concerns Johnson's role in it, both in public and private. He writes about how Johnson largely favored Richard Nixon over his own Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, until he learned late in the campaign that Nixon (successfully) tried to sabotage the peace talks in convincing South Vietnam to not cooperate with Johnson's efforts at finding a settlement. But Dallek does a pedestrian job of discussing the violent Democratic Convention in Chicago that year. Again, the color is missing.
The final chapter, about Johnson's post-presidency, is adequate. Dallek writes about Johnson's adjustment to private life, his work on his Library, and his quickly declining health. He ends with a very good Afterword, explaining how historians are long going to struggle when they try to rank or rate Johnson in comparison with other Presidents, and that Johnson will probably be one of the most difficult ones to categorize. I absolutely agree. Think, for just a moment, how different our country would be without Medicare and Medicaid. Then think "That's Lyndon Johnson." Because he helped create that. But then go stand in front of the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall in D.C., and look at all the names etched into that wall. Then think "That's Lyndon Johnson." Because he helped create that, too.
Grade: B
September 29, 2017
https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2017...
Published in 1998, “Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973” is the concluding volume in Robert Dallek’s two-volume series on LBJ. Dallek is a retired professor of history and the author of nearly two dozen books including a bestselling biography of JFK (which I enjoyed) and a more recent dual-biography of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
This final volume in Dallek’s series covers the last twelve years of Johnson’s life beginning with his unhappy service as Vice President. Following a brief discussion of JFK’s assassination, the balance of its 628 pages march rigidly (but not always chronologically) through LBJ’s five-year presidency and his four-year retirement in Texas up through his death.
Although Dallek used the first volume in this series to rehabilitate LBJ's image (which he believed was unfairly tarnished by previous biographers), this volume wastes no time worrying about third-party perspectives. But much like the previous volume, Dallek's assessment of his subject in "Flawed Giant" is impressively and almost ruthlessly well-balanced. While he takes time to point out the silver lining around most clouds, he rarely withholds blistering criticism of LBJ where it is warranted.
More than 80% of this biography is focused on Johnson’s presidency, and because Vietnam consumed so much of the Johnson administration’s time and energy it is not surprising that Vietnam pervades this book. Unfortunately, readers familiar with the war – but not its politics – will find little familiar ground here. And readers who know little about the decade-long morass will learn virtually nothing of the war itself…but will be fully exposed to the political challenges it created.
Johnson's "Great Society" receives significant attention, particularly in early chapters, but individual pieces of legislation are rarely examined or evaluated in an illuminating manner. Instead, discussions relating to LBJ's domestic agenda tend to be sterile and "matter-of-fact." Similarly, the review of his 1964 presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater (which I expected to be lively and engaging) was informative but extremely clinical.
Like the first volume in this series, "Flawed Giant" is far more a political biography than a personal one. I cannot recall his children being mentioned more than once, and Lady Bird appears only sporadically. Reference is made to LBJ's penchant for philandering but because it apparently had no impact on his political career (or, apparently, his marriage) the topic is never pursued for more than a sentence or two.
While much about this book is "fine," Dallek does an excellent job introducing LBJ's White House aides (his long-time deputies as well as JFK "hold-overs") and provides an interesting review of the 1968 presidential campaign which Johnson chose to sit out. The ambivalence LBJ demonstrated relating to a potential re-election bid and his difficulty selecting a "favorite" to support in his stead are quite well-described.
Finally, Dallek does an admirable job creating a comprehensive portrait of an extremely complex and contradictory personality who, it seems, is impossible to fully observe, evaluate, interpret and explain.
Overall, “Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973” (as well as its predecessor volume) proves far more satisfying as a record of Johnson's political career than as a narrative of his life. While it is a solid (if not excellent) historical document and reference, it is not a particularly lively, colorful or tantalizing biography.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
Published in 1998, “Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973” is the concluding volume in Robert Dallek’s two-volume series on LBJ. Dallek is a retired professor of history and the author of nearly two dozen books including a bestselling biography of JFK (which I enjoyed) and a more recent dual-biography of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
This final volume in Dallek’s series covers the last twelve years of Johnson’s life beginning with his unhappy service as Vice President. Following a brief discussion of JFK’s assassination, the balance of its 628 pages march rigidly (but not always chronologically) through LBJ’s five-year presidency and his four-year retirement in Texas up through his death.
Although Dallek used the first volume in this series to rehabilitate LBJ's image (which he believed was unfairly tarnished by previous biographers), this volume wastes no time worrying about third-party perspectives. But much like the previous volume, Dallek's assessment of his subject in "Flawed Giant" is impressively and almost ruthlessly well-balanced. While he takes time to point out the silver lining around most clouds, he rarely withholds blistering criticism of LBJ where it is warranted.
More than 80% of this biography is focused on Johnson’s presidency, and because Vietnam consumed so much of the Johnson administration’s time and energy it is not surprising that Vietnam pervades this book. Unfortunately, readers familiar with the war – but not its politics – will find little familiar ground here. And readers who know little about the decade-long morass will learn virtually nothing of the war itself…but will be fully exposed to the political challenges it created.
Johnson's "Great Society" receives significant attention, particularly in early chapters, but individual pieces of legislation are rarely examined or evaluated in an illuminating manner. Instead, discussions relating to LBJ's domestic agenda tend to be sterile and "matter-of-fact." Similarly, the review of his 1964 presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater (which I expected to be lively and engaging) was informative but extremely clinical.
Like the first volume in this series, "Flawed Giant" is far more a political biography than a personal one. I cannot recall his children being mentioned more than once, and Lady Bird appears only sporadically. Reference is made to LBJ's penchant for philandering but because it apparently had no impact on his political career (or, apparently, his marriage) the topic is never pursued for more than a sentence or two.
While much about this book is "fine," Dallek does an excellent job introducing LBJ's White House aides (his long-time deputies as well as JFK "hold-overs") and provides an interesting review of the 1968 presidential campaign which Johnson chose to sit out. The ambivalence LBJ demonstrated relating to a potential re-election bid and his difficulty selecting a "favorite" to support in his stead are quite well-described.
Finally, Dallek does an admirable job creating a comprehensive portrait of an extremely complex and contradictory personality who, it seems, is impossible to fully observe, evaluate, interpret and explain.
Overall, “Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961-1973” (as well as its predecessor volume) proves far more satisfying as a record of Johnson's political career than as a narrative of his life. While it is a solid (if not excellent) historical document and reference, it is not a particularly lively, colorful or tantalizing biography.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
December 28, 2019
[3.5 stars]
The legacy of Lyndon Johnson gets murkier in Flawed Giant, Dallek’s concluding second book of his biography of LBJ. It begins with Johnson in the shadow of John F. Kennedy, and quickly assuming command after tragedy in Dallas. Johnson’s domestic whirlwind draws comparison to the visionary efforts of FDR and Woodrow Wilson, with ambitions to cure the nation of its most serious ills and injustices.
But Vietnam takes over the volume, as it did Johnson’s presidency, with a detailed review of the battles in Washington and within Johnson himself. It feels extraordinarily redundant after two hundred pages, as the strategy resembles a wash sequence: NVN is faithless - SVN is useless in its own cause - US bombs the North - US sends more troops - negotiations attempted - rinse - repeat.
Johnson comes off as a Jekyll and Hyde of politics, fighting a heroic battle for civil rights and education, while being a bastard to the people closest to him, and unable to escape his ego in the face of a conflict thousands of miles away. As the costs of undeclared war buried his ambitious programs at home, Dallek demonstrates the toll it took on Johnson, and shaped his decision not to run for reelection in 1968, even as he struggled with the choice until the very last minute.
Johnson’s short post-presidency is presented swiftly, and a brief afterword recaps Johnson’s legacy at the time of publication and into today. Ultimately the reader is left with the image of a bull-headed man who propelled himself to history’s peak, and then was consumed by a story—and a war—that belonged to someone else. The life of LBJ—a man who craved the spotlight he believed he earned—is summarized by his attendance at the launch of Apollo XI: An mere observer of someone else’s vision, someone else’s success, on someone else’s watch.
The legacy of Lyndon Johnson gets murkier in Flawed Giant, Dallek’s concluding second book of his biography of LBJ. It begins with Johnson in the shadow of John F. Kennedy, and quickly assuming command after tragedy in Dallas. Johnson’s domestic whirlwind draws comparison to the visionary efforts of FDR and Woodrow Wilson, with ambitions to cure the nation of its most serious ills and injustices.
But Vietnam takes over the volume, as it did Johnson’s presidency, with a detailed review of the battles in Washington and within Johnson himself. It feels extraordinarily redundant after two hundred pages, as the strategy resembles a wash sequence: NVN is faithless - SVN is useless in its own cause - US bombs the North - US sends more troops - negotiations attempted - rinse - repeat.
Johnson comes off as a Jekyll and Hyde of politics, fighting a heroic battle for civil rights and education, while being a bastard to the people closest to him, and unable to escape his ego in the face of a conflict thousands of miles away. As the costs of undeclared war buried his ambitious programs at home, Dallek demonstrates the toll it took on Johnson, and shaped his decision not to run for reelection in 1968, even as he struggled with the choice until the very last minute.
Johnson’s short post-presidency is presented swiftly, and a brief afterword recaps Johnson’s legacy at the time of publication and into today. Ultimately the reader is left with the image of a bull-headed man who propelled himself to history’s peak, and then was consumed by a story—and a war—that belonged to someone else. The life of LBJ—a man who craved the spotlight he believed he earned—is summarized by his attendance at the launch of Apollo XI: An mere observer of someone else’s vision, someone else’s success, on someone else’s watch.
November 11, 2016
Robert Dallek's massive two-volume biography of President Lyndon Baines Johnson is a monumental accomplishment of research and insight. This volume, Flawed Giant, picks up with the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Johnson's ascension to the presidency. As in the first volume (Lone Star Rising), Dallek integrates mountains of detail into his narrative without ever overwhelming the reader. Johnson, a wonderfully real human being in Dallek's telling, reveals himself as a tragic, misunderstood, bold man of unlimited concern for the mistreated and underprivileged, yet one whose flaws, as the title suggests, were writ large. I grew up during LBJ's career and fought in what was called Lyndon Johnson's War, Vietnam. Reading this book at last clarified for me how we came to be enmired there and why it was so difficult to free ourselves from the conflict. For that illumination alone, I am deeply grateful for this book. But as a gateway for understanding one of our most misunderstood presidents, it is hard to think of a better job of shedding light. Highly recommended.
April 6, 2010
Pales, compared to Caro's work.
July 21, 2023
I finished Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961 - 1973 by Robert Dallek. I have but haven't yet read the first 3 volumes of Robert Caro, who I know is considered the standard and while that is probably true, Robert Dallek's 2 volume history of Lyndon Baines Johnson is outstanding and a 5 * read. The first volume deals with his childhood, his times as a young administrator of a youth program under F.D.R L., his time as a Congressional Aid, his time as a Congressman through his time in the Senate including his time as Majority leader through his time as Vice President under John Kennedy and his elevation to the Presidency after the assassination of Kennedy.
Volume 2 deals with his term as President his election to his own term as President and his domestic accomplishments including his passage of legislation dealing with The Great Society and Civil Rights legislation his foreign policy largely concerning the continuing escalation of the Vietnam War and his attempts to find a way to win and exit the war all unsuccessfully.
These 2 volumes are outstanding and I definitely recommend both.
Volume 2 deals with his term as President his election to his own term as President and his domestic accomplishments including his passage of legislation dealing with The Great Society and Civil Rights legislation his foreign policy largely concerning the continuing escalation of the Vietnam War and his attempts to find a way to win and exit the war all unsuccessfully.
These 2 volumes are outstanding and I definitely recommend both.
July 15, 2023
In Robert Dallek’s Flawed Giant Lyndon Johnson’s presidential years are peeled back in detail. From towering legislative successes in civil rights, anti poverty programs, the arts and humanities and myriad more fields of to the agonizing Vietnam morass LBJ’s tenure defined a decade of progress and turmoil. Maybe the most complex man ever to occupy the Oval Office, Johnson was shrewd, calculating, crude, coarse, high minded, petty, fun, paranoid and depressed. Perhaps the most successful chief executive in bending Congress to his will. A legislative President par excellence. His flaws made him a figure of Greek tragedy. His obsession with Robert F Kennedy, his spurning of Hubert Humphrey and his political dalliance with Nixon marred his judgement and clouded his reputation. Dallek is an incisive narrator but strangely gives short shrift to the assassinations of MLK and RFK which were pivotal moments in 1968 and short circuited American history
February 2, 2013
Fine, scholarly biography of the Ph.D.-thesis type. Dallek relies mainly on documentary sources (which he reviewed copiously). The result is somewhat detached.
You get little feel for the lengendary "Johnson treatment" that LBJ used to such great effect. There is, though, much quasi-psychological stuff. Johnson was poorly educated but intellectually brilliant. He was absolutely driven. He was Lincoln-like in his humor, his yarns, his frontier similes. But these gifts were often misdirected. He just had to be first, the best, at everything. He was frighteningly insecure, almost to the point of true paranoia. There are many stories of his abuse of subordinates.
Dallek is a New Deal/Great Society liberal, and this viewpoint pervades. He is mostly enthusiastic about the Great Society and civil rights achievements, but scathing about Johnson's handling of Vietnam. The most revealing part is the recital of how Johnson felt forced to back into the war, and to try to do it almost surreptitiously. Reassuringly, Dallek presents Johnson as simply misguided and ill-advised. There is none of that Oliver Stone crap about being a tool of the military-industrial complex.
Robert Caro's latest volume in his multi-volume opus, "The Master of The Senate", takes Johnson only up to 1960. Dallek's two volumes cover Johnson's whole life. Caro puts in ten years of research for every one that Dallek has put in, and Caro's doggedness is beyond herioc. Dallek is a solid, straightforward writer (unusual for an academic), but he has little of Caro's inspired literary style. Flesh, blood, and sinew pervade Caro's books. Dallek's sounds like a political science seminar.
Read it by all means, if you are interested in Johnson. But wait for Caro's next volume is you want the definitive treatment.
You get little feel for the lengendary "Johnson treatment" that LBJ used to such great effect. There is, though, much quasi-psychological stuff. Johnson was poorly educated but intellectually brilliant. He was absolutely driven. He was Lincoln-like in his humor, his yarns, his frontier similes. But these gifts were often misdirected. He just had to be first, the best, at everything. He was frighteningly insecure, almost to the point of true paranoia. There are many stories of his abuse of subordinates.
Dallek is a New Deal/Great Society liberal, and this viewpoint pervades. He is mostly enthusiastic about the Great Society and civil rights achievements, but scathing about Johnson's handling of Vietnam. The most revealing part is the recital of how Johnson felt forced to back into the war, and to try to do it almost surreptitiously. Reassuringly, Dallek presents Johnson as simply misguided and ill-advised. There is none of that Oliver Stone crap about being a tool of the military-industrial complex.
Robert Caro's latest volume in his multi-volume opus, "The Master of The Senate", takes Johnson only up to 1960. Dallek's two volumes cover Johnson's whole life. Caro puts in ten years of research for every one that Dallek has put in, and Caro's doggedness is beyond herioc. Dallek is a solid, straightforward writer (unusual for an academic), but he has little of Caro's inspired literary style. Flesh, blood, and sinew pervade Caro's books. Dallek's sounds like a political science seminar.
Read it by all means, if you are interested in Johnson. But wait for Caro's next volume is you want the definitive treatment.
February 25, 2014
What a book and what a President. This is the second part of a two-part LBJ bio that covers from LBJ being sworn in as Vice President to his death a few years after retiring.
Describing LBJ in a short book review is near impossible as he is so complex. He was incredibly egotistical, often had a very frail ego, and could be incredibly petty and horribly manipulative. But he was also very intelligent, incredibly driven, truly cared about helping the poor, and was incredibly effective and successful at almost everything he tried - until Vietnam anyway.
LBJ's accomplishments as President are truly staggering: Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, Food Stamps, landmark Environmental legislation, etc., etc. What he accomplished in the first four years of his Presidency is astounding.
And then legislative acts become overshadowed by Vietnam and more Vietnam and more Vietnam. Vietnam was obviously horrible for many reasons, one of which was clearly that as public opinion turned against the war LBJ became less and less effective. Oh the good that he could have done for the country had he simply withdrawn from the war shortly after Kennedy's death.
On another note, I was shocked to read that during the campaign of 1968 Nixon surreptitiously undermined Peace talks between the US and North Vietnam by encouraging South Vietnam to stay away from and protest the discussions. LBJ and Hoover didn't have proof of Nixon's involvement (only his key campaign staff) so they decided not to go public with the information. Nixon's knowledge of this was proven after the election. Maybe everyone else knew this already but I had never heard it before - that's just abysmal that a Presidential Candidate could strive to sink Peace discussions simply to help his political career. Booo Nixon!
Describing LBJ in a short book review is near impossible as he is so complex. He was incredibly egotistical, often had a very frail ego, and could be incredibly petty and horribly manipulative. But he was also very intelligent, incredibly driven, truly cared about helping the poor, and was incredibly effective and successful at almost everything he tried - until Vietnam anyway.
LBJ's accomplishments as President are truly staggering: Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, Food Stamps, landmark Environmental legislation, etc., etc. What he accomplished in the first four years of his Presidency is astounding.
And then legislative acts become overshadowed by Vietnam and more Vietnam and more Vietnam. Vietnam was obviously horrible for many reasons, one of which was clearly that as public opinion turned against the war LBJ became less and less effective. Oh the good that he could have done for the country had he simply withdrawn from the war shortly after Kennedy's death.
On another note, I was shocked to read that during the campaign of 1968 Nixon surreptitiously undermined Peace talks between the US and North Vietnam by encouraging South Vietnam to stay away from and protest the discussions. LBJ and Hoover didn't have proof of Nixon's involvement (only his key campaign staff) so they decided not to go public with the information. Nixon's knowledge of this was proven after the election. Maybe everyone else knew this already but I had never heard it before - that's just abysmal that a Presidential Candidate could strive to sink Peace discussions simply to help his political career. Booo Nixon!
April 7, 2008
Among the best of the multi-volume biographies of LB. (See my Review of Randall Woods, LBJ:Architect of American Ambition.) We see his political genius as he manipulated the Senate into one progressive measure after the other - whether they liked it or not - just because it was the right thing to do. I would love to have witnessed Richard Russel's getting the "treatment." Of course, this element of LBJ's political life has been described many, many times by a number of writers. Dallek has the great distinction of showing ever so patiently and methodically how it was that the US became entangled in a civil war in Vietnam - just as we are now entangled in a war in Iraq - and stayed that way for decades. Fatal flaws - for which old men never pay the price, but then again we fools let them escape without consequence.
Quite a timely read for those pondering the question of Iraq, and the more fundamental issue: Does the US gov. and the American people (the two are not identical) have no memory? Do we need to learn gneration after generation that imperialist wars of colonial occupation are a relict of the 19th century, that no amount of white man's arrogance and impenetrale stupidity will alter that fact? But then again the rest of us allow it to happen - again and again. So perhaps the answer is 'yes.'
Quite a timely read for those pondering the question of Iraq, and the more fundamental issue: Does the US gov. and the American people (the two are not identical) have no memory? Do we need to learn gneration after generation that imperialist wars of colonial occupation are a relict of the 19th century, that no amount of white man's arrogance and impenetrale stupidity will alter that fact? But then again the rest of us allow it to happen - again and again. So perhaps the answer is 'yes.'
December 19, 2015
Oh my god, LBJ, oh my absolute what the eff. This man is a towering figure of madness, contrasts, political success, downfall, achievement, frightening people, you name it! I'll have more to say about him, as he is definitely a president worth exploring, and these two volumes of biography have been fascinating.
June 24, 2019
The second and concluding volume of Robert Dallek's biography of Lyndon B. Johnson takes us through his Vice Presidential, Presidential and retirement years. In other words the 60s.
Skills that Johnson had in controlling the Senate did not translate well into leading the nation. He
could not schmooze an entire country as he could 99 other Senators. And as Vice President he was
more at sea than most have been in that office of little formal power.
He had one implacable enemy, the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother and closest confidante
to the president. Nothing that LBJ could do there.
It all turned itself on its head on November 22, 1963. In Johnson's home state of Texas John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Johnson became our 36 president. If there was one thing Johnson
knew it was power. He seized and assured the nation that the Kennedy legacy would be carried
out.
In the next few years it was. Civil rights and voting rights became a reality fought by the south for
almost a century. After his popular vote 61% of the vote and electoral landslide in the presidential
election against Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, the 89th Congress elected with him had massive Democratic majorities.
Johnson grew up poor in the Texas hill country and never forgot it. As was covered in the first
volume he pulled himself out of poverty and got rich and cut a few corners doing it. But he was
also genuinely committed as no other president before or since to eradicating poverty. His breath
of vision was astonishing. He was an FDR New Deal Democrat and he even admired Huey Long
and his Share the Wealth ideas.
During that 89th Congress we got Medicare and Medicaid, Food Stamps, Job Corps, aid to both the
cities and to rural areas. Some of that is still with us today. Some was gutted by future Republican
administrations.
Unfortunately there was a foreign policy issue that would not go away. An ever widening commitment to the South Vietnamese government. The Vietnam War went full blown as half a
million American troops went there. For reasons no one could quite understand.
Johnson was a Texan brought up on tales of the Alamo. It just was not in his makeup to withdraw
and Americans don't lose wars. Definitely not to poor countries like Vietnam. Wrapped in Cold
War politics it was not in him to gracefully pull out.
So everything lost support, his domestic agenda, his commitment to Vietnam and himself as protesters to the war just mushroomed on every college campus, reaching into the high school
level. The people that would have to fight said war said 'no way' as forcefully as they could. It
wasn't like World War II, no one could intelligently rationalize this conflict which was guerrilla in
nature and had no set battle lines you could follow.
In the end LBJ probably for reasons of health equal to the fact he had lost so much support in the
four years since the greatest presidential landslide victory ever decided not to run again. It was
back to the LBJ ranch for the last few years.
Another striking thing about Johnson is that he had zero interests other than politics. No hobbies
of any kind, even the LBJ ranch was an extension of his political person. Until he died in 1973
retirement must have been hell for him because he was at the center of great events since he came
to Congress in 1937.
Robert Dallek examines the whole Johnson and I think you will conclude but for Vietnam we could
have had one of the greatest transforming and reforming presidents in our history. Given his
dichotomy of character and achievements Johnson will be a difficult president to categorize for
historians.
Let alone us lay readers.
Skills that Johnson had in controlling the Senate did not translate well into leading the nation. He
could not schmooze an entire country as he could 99 other Senators. And as Vice President he was
more at sea than most have been in that office of little formal power.
He had one implacable enemy, the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother and closest confidante
to the president. Nothing that LBJ could do there.
It all turned itself on its head on November 22, 1963. In Johnson's home state of Texas John F. Kennedy was assassinated and Johnson became our 36 president. If there was one thing Johnson
knew it was power. He seized and assured the nation that the Kennedy legacy would be carried
out.
In the next few years it was. Civil rights and voting rights became a reality fought by the south for
almost a century. After his popular vote 61% of the vote and electoral landslide in the presidential
election against Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, the 89th Congress elected with him had massive Democratic majorities.
Johnson grew up poor in the Texas hill country and never forgot it. As was covered in the first
volume he pulled himself out of poverty and got rich and cut a few corners doing it. But he was
also genuinely committed as no other president before or since to eradicating poverty. His breath
of vision was astonishing. He was an FDR New Deal Democrat and he even admired Huey Long
and his Share the Wealth ideas.
During that 89th Congress we got Medicare and Medicaid, Food Stamps, Job Corps, aid to both the
cities and to rural areas. Some of that is still with us today. Some was gutted by future Republican
administrations.
Unfortunately there was a foreign policy issue that would not go away. An ever widening commitment to the South Vietnamese government. The Vietnam War went full blown as half a
million American troops went there. For reasons no one could quite understand.
Johnson was a Texan brought up on tales of the Alamo. It just was not in his makeup to withdraw
and Americans don't lose wars. Definitely not to poor countries like Vietnam. Wrapped in Cold
War politics it was not in him to gracefully pull out.
So everything lost support, his domestic agenda, his commitment to Vietnam and himself as protesters to the war just mushroomed on every college campus, reaching into the high school
level. The people that would have to fight said war said 'no way' as forcefully as they could. It
wasn't like World War II, no one could intelligently rationalize this conflict which was guerrilla in
nature and had no set battle lines you could follow.
In the end LBJ probably for reasons of health equal to the fact he had lost so much support in the
four years since the greatest presidential landslide victory ever decided not to run again. It was
back to the LBJ ranch for the last few years.
Another striking thing about Johnson is that he had zero interests other than politics. No hobbies
of any kind, even the LBJ ranch was an extension of his political person. Until he died in 1973
retirement must have been hell for him because he was at the center of great events since he came
to Congress in 1937.
Robert Dallek examines the whole Johnson and I think you will conclude but for Vietnam we could
have had one of the greatest transforming and reforming presidents in our history. Given his
dichotomy of character and achievements Johnson will be a difficult president to categorize for
historians.
Let alone us lay readers.
October 17, 2019
Flawed Giant-biografien om LBJ (som jeg fandt i New Yorker-boghandlen Strands lost and found-afdeling til en skaldet fem-dollar) understreger den enorme forskel, der er mellem Robert Dalleks og navnebroderen og historie-fællen Robert Caros skrivestil. Hvor Dallek er objektiv, detaljefokuseret og opremsende, går Caro meget mere i dybden med mennesket Lyndon Johnson, hans særheder, hans larger-than-life personlighed. Hvor Dallek fokuserer på det historisk korrekte, og kommer med forsigtige analyser i ny og næ, læser man Caro-biografierne om Robert Moses og LBJ som en åndeløst spændende page-turners, uden at gå på kompromis med historiske sandheder. Derfor er vi mange, der stadig venter - måske forgæves - på Robert Caros femte og sidste bind om den måske mest komplekse og mest undervurderede præsident i USAs historie.
November 8, 2019
Lyndon Johnson's presidency is a period of history I have always wanted to learn more about, his antipoverty crusade, the Great Society, and the Vietnam War. This book is a tome, 628 pages not counting the sources, notes, and index at the back. There was often more detail than I wanted and the content circular, so periods of time were repeated covering different issues, making the material long and a little confusing. That said, I am very glad I read Flawed Giant. I learned a lot about this period of American history that I hadn’t understood before reading it. It was interesting to see that the issues faced in that period are very similar to issues we face today such as racism, poverty, and war.
June 6, 2019
The book was a little long (627 pages) but overall it was a good book. It's a good book about LBJ if you already know about him but I second the other reviews that Robert Caro's books are the gold standard for LBJ books in terms of breadth and depth. All in all, while this is a biased comment, LBJ is one of our country's most underrated presidents and our country is a better place because of LBJ. Who among us can imagine a world where public segregation is still legal? Or your right to vote is prohibited on the basis of your skin color? Who can imagine a US where the federal government does not help fund elementary school and college education? How about a society without Head Start or Medicare and Medicaid? All in all, a good book to add to my LBJ collection.
August 10, 2022
This book, and the first volume of LBJ’s life were exhaustively long.
In addition to these two volumes the author published a single volume bio which would have probably been the preferred read.
That said, it was well written and even handed.
Johnson was a very complex man with as many good sides as bad.
His initiative to use government to solve great issues in society while admirable was naive. He did however accomplish many things take we take for granted today. He wouldn’t fit in todays world.
In addition to these two volumes the author published a single volume bio which would have probably been the preferred read.
That said, it was well written and even handed.
Johnson was a very complex man with as many good sides as bad.
His initiative to use government to solve great issues in society while admirable was naive. He did however accomplish many things take we take for granted today. He wouldn’t fit in todays world.
December 8, 2021
Robert Dallek's thorough examination of LBJ's life in the White House is a must read. Every time I read about this misunderstood giant, I regret that most Americans only equate him with Vietnam versus all he did for Civil Rights and the poor. Dallek's writing made me feel as though I was trying to decide what should be done about Vietnam. I also had no idea of Nixon's interference with negotiations. Now to read McNamara's account . . .
June 11, 2021
This book took me almost a year to read. It was my nighttime bedside book. I learned a ton about LBJ during his Presidency and learned a lot about the Vietnam war and his Great Society agenda. Well written bio of LBJ! I’m on to other books about LBJs earlier years in House and Senate.
May 4, 2022
Dallek's book is comprehensive and warts all enough to warrant merit. The book's worth, however, is overshadowed by Robert Caro's far more magnificent volume on the same subject.
June 29, 2022
Reasonably-sized alternative to Caro.
September 9, 2022
#100 of 120 books pledged to read during 2022
September 7, 2023
Robert Dallek has LBJ pegged . . . a must read for all those interested in the presidency and in 20th century America.
February 16, 2024
Monumental, fascinating insight about a tragic figure ...
March 17, 2024
A bit long in parts but very good overall. An insight as well into the post-presidential years when he grew his hair out like the hippies who hated him.
July 2, 2024
Man. This is a big book.
June 7, 2010
If you are at all interested in presidential biographys, LBJ's is fascinating. Wrought with tragedy and triumph during one of the most trying periods in American History. Having been elevated to the Presidency as a result of the Kennedy assasination, LBJ was immediatley tested as he had to help put the country's fear and grief behind them. This alone showed the strength of his leadership. However, this was only the beggining as he passed some of the most monumental legislation in American History including two civil rights bills in a time of great racial strife, medicare/medicade and numerous antipoverty measures. It was interesting to compare the process of passing medicare with the process of passing our recent health care bill. He also got the first African American Supreme court justice appointed to the court cementing his place as a civil rights President. This would probably be one of the all time great presidency's if not for Vietnam. LBJ did not get us into Vietnam, as that went back as far as Eisenhower and was then elevated by Kennedy. However, LBJ was the one that really raised the stakes and then refused to listen to any dissenting viewpoints. It's clear he agonized over Vietnam, and truly believed he was doing the right thing, but in the end he couldn't allow himself to accept his mistake and do what needed to be done to correct it. Back home there were race riots even after the civil rights legistlation, a powerful antiwar movement, the assasination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy all of which were tearing the country apart. As I said if you are looking for an interesting Presidential biography this is a great place to start.
November 1, 2011
This is the second book in a two-part biography of Lyndon Johnson covering the period of his life from his becoming VP until his death. It is easy to read and criticizes when due as well as complements this interesting man. His desire to help his fellow Americans is so well explained and shows the real humanity of the man. His failures in Vietnam kept him from achieving all he wanted, but as he said in his farewell State of the Union address, "A hundred years from now I hope that we had made the country more just for all and to guarantee the blessings of liberty for all our posterity. That is what I hope. But I believe that at least it will be said that we tried." He tried very hard to promote equality and justice for all Americans. If not for Vietnam, he would have tried to do even more.
Some of the laws he passed have helped us all. Some have helped a few and some are now considered failures. However, his heart was in the right place and he tried very hard to help us all.
Some of the laws he passed have helped us all. Some have helped a few and some are now considered failures. However, his heart was in the right place and he tried very hard to help us all.
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