Work of one man; involving other: McCullough, Chapter 7. “They would”: McCullough, p. 263. Johnson discouraging participation: Busby, McGillicuddy, Reedy interviews. Kefauver’s proxy: Transcript of Johnson telephone conversation with Allen, March 30, 1951, “Notes and Transcripts of Johnson Conversations—1951,” Box 1; Kefauver to Johnson, Aug. 28, Box 345, JSP. Chapman’s drunkenness: Busby, Jenkins interviews. Receptivity: Goldsmith, p. 21. “An apparatus”: MacNeil interview. Would value: Anton interview. Get his quid: Anton, McGillicuddy interviews. “Work will take”: AP story, paper unidentified, Aug. 1.
Truman Committee’s openness: Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the Special Committee of the Senate to Investigate National Defense Program, 1941–1948, compiled by Harold E. Hufford, assisted by Toussaint L. Prince; General Services Administration; 1952, 8E-2, 5/15/5, Boxes 14, 27, NA; National Archives Preliminary Inventory No. 48: Records of the Special Committee, 1952; NA, Washington, D.C.; Gillette, McCulley interviews. (Truman was chairman from April 15, 1941, to June 19, 1944.) “Memorable Days”: McCullough, pp. 272 ff. The contrast between the Truman and Johnson committees came through in a memo from Cook to Johnson “Re: Work of the Truman Committee.” The memo covers the earlier committee’s work even after Truman, having become vice president, was no longer chairman. The memo says that “during the seven years of its existence, the Committee issued fifty-one reports (including two minority reports) and held 432 public hearings…. In the first year of its existence, the Committee issued only six reports. During the remainder of 1942, it issued eight more reports … On the other hand, the Committee held a large number of public hearings … Hearings were in progress during almost every month of the Committee’s existence during the first year, and the record indicates that this procedure continued practically throughout the Committee’s entire existence.” As for the Johnson Subcommittee, Cook was to write—in an article published in 1951—that “in practice, the subcommittee had not found it necessary to conduct elaborate hearings where witnesses are interrogated at great length” because the information it needed was available in documents or was given to the subcommittee’s staff “informally.” “Occasionally,” he wrote, “the explanations are made at a formal hearing before the subcommittee in executive session. Since it is a policy announced by Senator Johnson … to develop the substantial rather than to exploit the sensational, very rarely are the hearings public.” (Donald Cook to Johnson, July 11, 1951, Box 116, LBJA SF; Cook, “Investigations in Operation: Senate Preparedness Subcommittee,” University of Chicago Law Review, Spring 1951). See also unsigned, “General Survey of the Truman Committee (Requested by Senator Johnson, Aug. 2); “Excerpts from Truman Committee Reports”; “Memorandum to the Senator,” unsigned, undated, all Box 116, LBJA SF.
Few Johnson hearings: S. Res. 18, U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Legislative Calendar, 81st Cong., 1949–1950; 82nd Cong., 1952; “Senate Armed Services Committee Calendar,” CR, 82/2; 83/1 and 2. Bulk closed: Ibid., 82/2; 83/1 and 2; BeLieu; Busby, McGillicuddy, Reedy interviews. “On S. 1”; “to facilitate”; not even funded: Richard T. McCulley, Memo Concerning Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee on Armed Service and the Universal Military Service and Training Act of 1951 (82nd Congress, 1951–1952), Oct. 19, 2001, Finding Aid for the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Center for Legislative Archives, NA. Nineteen open hearings: Even this figure may be misleading. Nine of the nineteen were on alleged scandals in the construction of overseas bases, and they followed a series of articles by Homer Bigart in the NYHT. Johnson had no choice but to open these hearings to the press, Daniel McGillicuddy says. “After all the press had broken the story. We couldn’t keep them closed.” Staffers involved: Busby interview. “Unusual”: Darden OH. Stennis became a member of the Presidential Preparedness Subcommittee on March 13, 1951, after the hearing on S.1 had been concluded. “Skillfully guided”: Fite, p. 253. “The UMT thing”: Busby interview. Task forces; “Chairman Johnson”: Richard T. McCulley, Memo Concerning Task Forces of the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Oct. 4, 2001, Reference Reports, 7/1999, Center for Legislative Archives, NA, Busby, McCulley, Reedy interviews.
Several simply rewritings; drafting procedure: Busby, McGillicuddy, Reedy interviews. “If you get”: McGillicuddy interview. “He looked”; “fifteen”: McGillicuddy interview. “We just”; “Johnson wanted”: Busby interview. “He got every report unanimous. Sounds great. You’re talking statesman” (MacNeil interview).
Infused: MacNeil, Steele interviews; McNeil OH.
“PACKETING”: Levison to Beshoar, Aug. 31, 1951. “NOT FOR USE”: “Johnson—Acheson—McNaughton,” undated. “Trouble is”: McConaughy to Beshoar, undated. “Had a long”; “I think”: Beal to Elson, Sept. 16, all SP.
“He worked”: McNeil OH. “TEXAS WATCHDOG”: Time, Sept. 18. “Mild-mannered but determined”: The Nation, Oct. 21. “Prominence”: Leslie Carpenter, “The Whip from Texas,” Collier’s, Feb. 17, 1951.
“It was”; “when Tydings”: Busby interview. McCarthy defeating Tydings: Reeves, Joe McCarthy, Chapters 13, 14. Big money from Texas: Theodore H. White, “Texas: Land of Wealth and Fear,” The Reporter, May 25, 1954. Ten thousand dollars: Reeves, p. 337.
14. Out of the Crowd
All dates are 1951 unless otherwise noted.
“The whole”: McGillicuddy interview. “No”: BeLieu interview.
Complaints about Lackland: NYT, WP, WS, Jan. 27. Rumors were all they were: NYT, WP, Jan. 30; WS, Feb. 4. “We are all”: Finletter to Johnson, Feb. 6, Appendix 2, Investigation of the Preparedness Program: Fifth Report … Interim Report on Lackland Air Force Base, Feb. 26 (referred to hereafter as Fifth Report).
Johnson emerged: WP, Jan. 28. “To make”: Johnson quoted, NYT, WP, Feb. 1. “We’ve got”: Johnson, quoted by Busby, Tyler. “He points”: Johnson quoted in Tyler interview. Busby’s feelings; “Listen”: Busby interview.
“INVESTIGATORS SLEEP”: DMN, Feb. 1. “No undue”; no suicides; no pneumonia epidemic, etc.: Fifth Report, pp. 2–4. Johnson was informed: Busby interview. “Many parents”: FWS-T, Feb. 19. Johnson touch: Fifth Report, pp. 1–13.
McNeil’s prediction: NYWT, Feb. 19. “Sizzling”: For example, AA-S, Feb. 18. “It was”: FWS-T, Feb. 19. “GREED”; “MESS”; “HOARD”: WS, WT-H, WP, Feb. 19. “Completely”: FWS-T, Feb. 19.
“I want”: Johnson, quoted in FWS-T, Feb. 19. “All branches”: Investigation of the Preparedness Program … Ninth Report: Military Indoctrination Centers, April 16.
McGillicuddy at Breckenridge: McGillicuddy interview. “We hit”: McGillicuddy, Tyler interviews. Housing conditions at Breckenridge: Investigation of the Preparedness Program … Twenty-eighth Report … Interim Report on Substandard Housing and Rent Gouging of Military Personnel, July 19, and Thirtieth Report: Second Report on Substandard Housing and Gouging…, Sept. 24. “This will”: Reedy, quoted by McGillicuddy in interview. Reedy confirmed McGillicuddy’s account. “When you go”; Johnson’s rage: McGillicuddy interview.
“A thousand signs”: Smathers OH. “He had to win”: Emmette Redford interview. “Any kind”: Siegel OH.
“A real challenge”: Goldsmith, Colleagues, p. 21. Kefauver had, in fact, given Johnson his proxy to use in subcommittee meetings, Kefauver to Johnson, Aug. 28, Box 345, JSP. “Drinking makes you”; “Bobby, you tryin’” Baker, Wheeling and Dealing, pp. 75–77. His drinks weaker: Gonella interview. Drinking with Chapman: Busby interview.
“As trustworthy”: McPherson, Political Education, p. 79. “Why, you”: Mooney, LBJ, p. 47. Tactics with Saltonstall: Reedy interview. Saltonstall once said of Johnson: “He knew how to go after people, so to speak. He never put the whips on men, to use that expression, in any sense of the word. He would say, ‘Help me’” (Saltonstall OH, quoted in Mooney, p. 54).
Helping Bridges on wool: Cook to Bridges, March 30, Box 353, JSP. Help against constituents: Report of Proceedings, Hearing Held Before Prepare
dness Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services—Executive Session, July 9, 1951. “Some investigator”: Bridges, ibid., pp. 33, 4. “Whenever”: Cook, ibid., p. 34. Rapport: Busby, Reedy interviews.
“Wake him up!”: Busby interview. Chapman’s death: WS, March 8.
Obtaining unanimity: BeLieu, Busby, McGillicuddy interviews. “Sometimes”: McGillicuddy interview. “He’d tell”: BeLieu interview.
Aides would hear: Busby, Jenkins interviews. “A detailed”: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson, p. 123. “Most chairmen”: BeLieu interview. “Especially remarkable”: “The Watchdog Committee and How It Watches,” Newsweek, Dec. 3.
“Chiselers”: NYT, Sept. 30. Biloxi: WP, Oct. 20. “Inexcusable”: NYHT, NYT, Nov. 11. Warm clothing: NYHT, Nov. 1.
“Congress has”: Alexander, Boston Herald, Nov. 22. Long articles: Leslie Carpenter, “The Whip from Texas,” Collier’s, Feb. 17; Eliot Janeway, “Johnson of the Watchdog Committee,” NYT Magazine, June 17; Paul Healy, “The Frantic Gentleman from Texas,” SEP, May 19.
Leaking to Newsweek; “not very substantive”: Reedy OH IV, p. 21; Reedy interview. “We didn’t”: Investigation of the Preparedness Program … Thirty-fifth Report: Interim Report on Defense Mobilization, p. 15. “This report”: FWS-T, Nov. 29; Newsweek, Dec. 3. Foster’s letter: NYHT, Nov. 28, 29; NYT, FWS-T, Nov. 29.
Waiting for the cover: Jenkins interview. “Walter says”: Rather to Johnson, Nov. 28. “TOO MUCH BUTTER”: Newsweek, Dec. 3. Getting Reedy out of town: Reedy OH IV, pp. 21–24. “Unfair”: Jenkins, quoted in NYHT, Nov. 29. “Doubletalk”: NYT, NYHT, Nov. 20. “Just didn’t know”; “people”: NYHT, Dec. 2. Also see NYT, Dec. 3, NYHT, Dec. 7. Friendly’s study: WP, May 12–17, 1952.
“Often criticized”: McConaughy to Beshoar, June 19, 1953. “Much ado”: Blair to Beshoar, June 13, 1953, both SP.
15. No Choice
Development of leadership: Primarily Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, Vol. II, pp. 167–268, and Vols. I and II, passim; Galloway, Legislative Process, pp. 542–90; Matthews, U.S. Senators, pp. 118–46; Floyd M. Riddick, Majority and Minority Leaders; Alsop and Kintner, “Sly and Able: The Real Leader of the Senate, Jimmy Byrnes,” SEP, July 20, 1940.
Interviews particularly with Richard A. Baker, Neil MacNeil, Floyd M. Riddick, Donald A. Ritchie and Howard E. Shuman.
“Were generally”: Byrd, The Senate, Vol. II, p. 187. “No one”: Wilson, Congressional Government, p. 147. “No single”: Walter J. Oleszek, “John Worth Kern: Portrait of a Floor Leader,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. 8. “Baronial”: Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. 1. Lacked; “Priority”: Riddick, Senate Procedure, p. 883.
Primarily: Oleszek, “John Worth Kern,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. 24. One study states: “Never before had the president’s party in the Senate intentionally elected a floor leader for the primary purpose of implementing an executive-initiated legislative program” (Margaret Munk, “Origin and Development of the Party Floor Leadership in the United States Senate,” Capitol Studies, Winter 1974).
“He roars”: Alsop and Catledge, “Joe Robinson: The New Deal’s Old Reliable,” SEP, Sept. 26, 1936. Ran it on behalf: Donald Bacon, “Joseph Taylor Robinson: The Good Soldier,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, pp. 74, 75. George Norris was to accuse Robinson of voting “contrary to his party’s policies” during the Coolidge Administration. During the Depression, Al Smith was to say, “He has given more aid to Herbert Hoover than any other Democrat.” “A socialistic dole”; “the most humiliating”; “I know”: Bacon, “Joseph Taylor Robinson,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, pp. 77–78. H. L. Mencken was to write that although Robinson “was still” the New Deal’s “spokesman on the floor of the Senate, and he roared and sweated for it every day, everyone knew that he was in the forefront of the opposition to it behind the arras, and the only question in doubt was whether he would ever summon up courage enough to denounce it in the open” (Mencken, “Hero or Hack,” The American Mercury, Dec. 1937).
“Congress doesn’t”: Will Rogers, quoted in Bacon, “Joseph Taylor Robinson,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. “not interested”; “his loyalty”: Bacon, “Joseph Taylor Robinson,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, pp. 86, “Joe’s Job”; Huey Long “drove”: Alsop and Catledge, “Joe Robinson: The New Deal’s Old Reliable,” sep, Sept. 26, 1936. “He Did”; of Which: Bacon, “Joseph Taylor Robinson,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals,” pp. 93, 83–84.
“Woe”; “no one”; “there remains”; “a large”: William S. White, “Rugged Days for the Majority Leader,” NYT Magazine, July 3, 1949.
Forced; “Dear Alben”; “public humiliation”: Ritchie, “Alben W. Barkley: The President’s Man,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, pp. 127–34. “Real leader”: Alsop and Kintner, “Sly and Able,” SEP, July 20, 1940. Life poll: “Washington Correspondents Name Ablest Congressmen,” Life, March 20, 1939. “Bumbling Barkley”: Ritchie, “Alben Barkley,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. 129. Barkley was to admit that that label stuck to him “like tar did to Br’er Rabbit.”
Salted; “as the unhappy”: Alsop and Kintner, “Sly and Able,” SEP, July 20, 1940.
McKellar incident: Ritchie, “Alben Barkley,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, pp. 142–43. “Now he”: Sen. Elbert Thomas of Utah, quoted in Ritchie, “Alben Barkley,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. 148. “I have nothing” Drury, Reedy interviews. A different version (“I didn’t have anything to threaten them with, and it wouldn’t have worked even if I had tried”) is given in Matthews, p. 126, quoting Truman, Congressional Government, p. 136.
“Taft is”: White, Wallace, quoted in “Old Guard Supreme,” New Republic, Jan. 13, 1947. Looked back; “Rearview”: White, The Taft Story, p. 58; Drury interview. “Boss”: Time, Jan. 1947, quoted in Robert Merry, “Robert A. Taft: A Study in the Accumulation of Legislative Power,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. 177. “No desire”: Merry, “Robert Taft,” in Baker and Davidson, eds., First Among Equals, p. 174.
“Barrymore”: Sidney Shallett, “The Senator Almost Got an Ulcer,” Collier’s, Jan. 14, 1950; Robert Albright, W P, Feb. 20, 1949. “Formidable”; “worn”; “hostile”: William S. White, “Rugged Days for the Majority Leader,” NYT Magazine, July 3, 1949. Russell approved: Evans and Novak, LBJ: Exercise, p. 40. Caught between: Krock, NYT, March 20, 1949. “Ever more”; “rumors”: “The Perennial Filibuster,” New Republic, April 18, “It now”; little poems: Shallett, “Senator Almost Got an Ulcer,” Collier’s, Jan. 14, Without even: Willard Shelton, “Battle in a Paper Bag,” The Nation, May 20, 1950. Displaced-persons bill; “snake”: “Everything but Liars,” Newsweek, March 20, 1950. “Out of control”: “Taft Holds the Key,” New Republic, May 22, 1950.
“Debating” empty chair: MacNeil, Dirksen, p. 90. In “a serious”: Shallett, “Senator Almost Got an Ulcer,” Collier’s, Jan. 14, 1950. The most unhappy: Evans and Novak, p. 41.
One item: Reedy, U.S. Senate, pp. 41–42. Other than that: Reedy interview.
Johnson’s feelings; staff would hear: Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson, pp. 106–11; Busby, Jenkins, Rowe interviews. “Restlessness”: Johnson, quoted in Goodwin, p. 106. To wait: Rowe interview. “He told Russell”: Goodwin, p. 107.
“With him”: Darden interview. Russell felt: Fite, Russell, p. 266; Goldsmith, Colleagues, p. 23; Darden, Jordan interviews. “And there”: Darden interview. “You could”: Sparkman to Russell, Nov. 28, 1950; Russell to Sparkman, Dec. 1, 1950, VI A—Dictation Series, Personal Political Files, “Majority Leader,” Box 31, RBRL.
Solid on cloture: Robert Albright, “Gallery Glimpses,” W P, Dec. 3, 1950. “Perhaps yearning”: Evans and Novak, p. 43. “Amiable”: Mellett, WS, Jan. 2, 1951. Liberals behind O’Mahoney: Steinberg, Sam Johnson’s Boy, p. 317; WS, Dec. 12, 1950.
“John
son had”: Robert Byrd, “Addresses on the History,” CR, Feb. 1, 1988, p. S 354. “Once”; “eyebrows went”: MacNeil interview. “Simply”: Evans and Novak, p. 39. “Lyndon, you”: Stennis OH. “The world outside”: Evans and Novak, p. 39. Walking: Goldsmith, p. 24. Sparkman withdrawing: AA-S, Jan. 3, 1951.
16. The General and the Senator
“It is doubtful”: Rovere and Schlesinger, The General, p. 5.
“The homecoming”: Life, April 30, 1951. “The largest”: Nixon, quoted in Life, April 23, 1951. First seventy thousand: Manchester, American Caesar, p. 648. “A gesture”: Life, April 30, 1951.
“Most Americans”: Life, April 30, 1951. “Stepped down”; “we heard God”; sobbing”; “reincarnation”: Manchester, American Caesar, p. 661. “A senior”: White, Citadel, pp. 243–44. “The only”: Reedy OH IV, p. 7. “[T]he adoring”: Reedy, U.S. Senate, p. 58. “One of”: White, Citadel, p. 244. “The greatest”: Time, April 30, 1951.
“Almost runaway”: White, Citadel, p. 250. “What was bad”: Life, April 9. “Perhaps”: White, Citadel, pp. 241–42. “Popular”: Reedy, U.S. Senate, p. 14.
“Absolutely”; “Boy”: Reedy OH IV, p. 8.
“When the U.S.”: Hugh Sidey, “Playing the Middle Octaves,” Time, Dec. 15, 1986. “Rather amusing”: Reedy, U.S. Senate, pp. 13, 14;Reedy OH IV, p. 4.
“Deep sense”: Reedy, U.S. Senate, p. 15. “Russell believed”: Reedy OH IV, p. 5. “He believed”: Fite, Russell, p. 256.
“Anxious”: Time, May 14, 1951. “We are entering”: Time, May 21, 1951. “Whether closed”: Fite, p. 257. “I have been”: Time, May 14, 1951.
“Down from the Cross”: Richard Rovere, The New Yorker, April 21, 1951. “On the permanent”: Rovere and Schlesinger, p. 184. “For three”: Time, May 14, 1951. “No man”: Life, May 14, 1951. “I was operating”; “no policy”: Rovere and Schlesinger, pp. 187, 188. “It isn’t”: Manchester, American Caesar, p. 667. “I am not”; “quite a difference”: Time, May 14, 1951.
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