Transcript: Chapter 05

Narrator: When an exuberant Johnson entered the Senate, he was a powerless freshman joining a select club run by insiders very much his senior. He turned for help to a man who knew just how the club was run, Bobby Baker. Baker had come to the Senate as a teenaged page in the 1940's and knew, everyone said, where the bodies were buried.

Robert Baker, LBJ Senate Aide: And so he said, "Mr. Baker, I wanted to meet you." He said, "My spies tell me you're the smartest son of a bitch over there." And I said, "That's not true and the only reputation I have is that my word is my bond and I protect your privacy." He said, "Well, you're the kind of man I want to know." So he said, "I want you to know that the national Democratic Party is much more liberal than Texas." He advised me in no uncertain terms that he was committed to the oil interests in Texas.

Narrator: Johnson always knew where the power was. In Texas, he cozied up to the oil barons. In the Senate, he attached himself to the Southern conservatives and their influential leader, Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia.

Robert Baker: Senator Russell was a lonely bachelor. He read probably 10 books a week. He was a loner. Well, Lyndon Johnson, at this time, knew where the power was and had Senator Russell been a woman, he would have married him because -- or married her.

Narrator: Under Russell's patronage, Johnson was given the job of party whip. He transformed what had been a minor post into a seat of power. Two years later, he was elected Democratic leader. "Landslide Lyndon" was now one of the most powerful men in the United States Senate.

In his third year in the Senate, Johnson had bought himself a piece of land along the Pedernales River. The consummate Washington politician soon took on the trappings of the mythical Texas rancher. But he never stopped working. The LBJ Ranch was more than a place of relaxation. It became part of the stuff of power.

John Connally: He had no interests, really, except politics. That was his whole life. He was totally committed to it. He never read anything except politics. He didn't care about any sports. He didn't read any books. I don't know of one book he read in all the years I've known him.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: I think, for Lyndon Johnson's temperament, the Senate could not have been more perfectly suited. For one thing, it was a small number of people. You've only got a limited number, all of whom can be subject to her personality. He could get up every day and learn what their fears, their desires, their wishes, their wants were and he could then manipulate, dominate, persuade, cajole them. And what really made things work in the Senate was personal relationships and Johnson was just strictly the best at that.

Ronnie Dugger: And he was determined to recruit you or kill you and they used to call it "the Johnson treatment."

George Reedy: It was an incredible blend of badgering, cajolery, reminders of past favors, promises of future favors, predictions of gloom if something doesn't happen. When that man started to work on you, all of a sudden, you just felt that you were standing under a waterfall and the stuff was pouring on you.

Howard Schuman, U.S. Senate Aide: I've seen him. He used to get his -- he would sit in front of a senator -- face to face -- and then he would take his head and; he would get it underneath and go up like this and talk to him.

Ava Cox, LBJ's Cousin: Let me tell you, you're not from this part of the country, but if you can't eyeball a fell and you can't look him in the face and talk to him, you can't tell what he is going to do.

Peter Roberts, Newsreel Commentator: The 1954 midterm election will go down as one of the most peculiar on record.

Narrator: In 1954, with the Republicans in control of the White House, the Democrats gained control of the Senate, making Lyndon Johnson the youngest majority leader ever. He was 46 years old.

Robert Dallek: There was no more powerful majority leader in American history. He understood the way the Senate worked. He understood what senators needed and what they wanted. He had biographies on each of them so that he knew what their tastes and intentions and aims and desires and wishes and hopes were.

Howard Schuman: He knew the womanizers, he knew the drunks. He knew people who wanted what committee assignments. He knew what rooms they wanted. He knew if they wanted a trip to Europe and take their wife.

Robert Baker: If we had a vote coming up and there's someone that couldn't vote with us, but we could send him on a NATO trip, we would do that, so you know, whereby he would not have to vote against us, but he would be off and his wife would be happy and he'd be attending a conference. And those conferences are very important.

Howard Schuman: His subordinate, Bobby Baker, who was the floor man for him -- and people called "Little Lyndon" -- said one time, "I have 10 senators in the palm of my hand."

Robert Baker: It's a "good ole boy" network. Well, you know, if you've been -- if you've served in the Congress, either the House or the Senate, together for many years, you've done favors for each other and you say what you can do and can't do and what's possible.

Howard Schuman: And they controlled all the what I call "boodle," the things that were given to people.

Robert Baker: Every senator wants a private office in the Capitol because it was a little hideaway. They could get away from the press, they could get away from their wife. They could have private luncheons. They can go get drunk, you know. They can be a human being.

Howard Schuman: But when he ran the Senate, incredible what he would do. I saw him, at one time, hold up a roll call vote, which usually takes 15 to 20 minutes -- he held it up for more than an hour so they could extract Hubert Humphrey out of the air over the National Airport and they finally brought him in and voted it. And during this time, Johnson would be going like this to the clerk, telling him to slow down as he called the roll. And then, there were other times when he had the votes and he was winning by maybe one or two votes and he'd tell them to speed it up.

Harry McPherson, U.S. Senate Staff: In the Senate, he would pace the floor, pull out his inhaler, draw deep breaths into his nose, looking around the chamber, thinking all the time, nervous.

Eliot Janeway: He never sat in a chair. He'd stand up and jitter. He'd bounce up and down, rattling silver dollars in his pocket.

John Connally: He ate in a hurry. He wolfed his food. Most of the time, he had no manners. He'd eat off of the plate of -- either person on either side of him, if he ate something that he liked and they hadn't finished theirs, he'd reach over with his fork and eat off of their plate.

Robert Baker: He would eat his dessert, Lady Bird's, Lynda's and daughters of mine, too. I'm telling you, he was a big man, but he could handle two fifths of Cutty Sark every night and that's not good. And he smoked cigarettes like a crazy man till he had his heart attack.

Senator Lyndon Johnson: I'm going home to get a long rest and if the doctors give me the OK, I'll be back on the job in the Senate when the Senate reconvenes in January.

1st Reporter: In the meantime, no politics and onto the rocking chair?

Senator Lyndon Johnson: Well, I wouldn't say that you could take politics completely away from me, but we'll have it at a minimum.

Narrator: Johnson had very nearly died. For the rest of his life, the image of a sudden death hung over him.

George Reedy: One of Lyndon Johnson's real troubles was he was incapable of relaxation. Even when he tried to relax, it became terribly frenetic.

John Connally: He used to call me on Saturday mornings and say, "Let's go to the game. I've got some tickets. We'd sit there during the whole ballgame and talk politics. He didn't watch the football game, literally didn't watch it. He was watching the crowd, he was looking around, waving to this one, waving to that one.

Howard Schuman: Johnson had an immense ego. He had on his shirts and on his sleeves his initials, LBJ. His wife's name was Lady Bird, at least informally, so her name [sic] would be LBJ. His two children, his girls were both LBJ. His ranch was the LBJ Ranch. His dog was "Little Beagle Johnson."