Six perspectives on Johnson:
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the State, Robert A. Caro (HC, 1167 pages, 2002, $4) **SOLD**
LBJ's 12 years in the US Senate ran from 1949-1960. He became the youngest Majority Leader, and after only a single term! This is the story of how Johnson "mastered the Senate as no political leader before him has ever done."
Commander in Chief: How Truman, Johnson, and Bush Turned a Presidential Power into a Threat to America's Future, by Geoffrey Perret (HC, 2007, $2.50)
In Perret's view we should have learned from earlier wars to limit the powers of the commander in chief. What do you think?
Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Unmaking of a President, by Herbert Y. Schandler (SC, 1977, $2)
The Tet offensive in 1968 was the turning point of the Vietnam War, causing a reassessment of our goals in Vietnam. This reassessment brought about the end of LBJ's hope for a second term, and the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. This book examines the events that led up to the day when LBJ announced that he would not seek re-election.
Reaching For Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964- 1965, by Michael Beschloss (HC, 2001, $2.50)
Lyndon Johnson kept "Tapes" too? So Nixon wasn't the only one. I had forgotten that bit of Watergate. Beschloss presents LBJ as a "frightened, lonely, driven, suspicious man." Read how he dealt with Goldwater, Robert Kennedy, US Senators that opposed the war, right-wing fanatics, J. Edgar Hoover, George Wallace, and Martin Luther King.
LBJ: A Life, Irwin Unger, ( SC, 1999, 586 pages, $3)
This one volume biography "provides an intimate look at the private man- and the political animal." (Unger won the Pulitzer Prize in 1965.)
SOLD
Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1961- 1973, Robert Dallek (HC, 1998, 754 pages, $3.50)
Dallek portrays Johnson as a man "riddled with contradictions", of "towering intensity and anguished insecurity". As did Beschloss (see above), Dallek used the newly released tapes as reference, as well as interviews with Lady Bird and Johnson's press secretary, Bill Moyer.
Look for these books in the biography section.
