The fourth volume of Robert Caro’s majestic biography of Lyndon Johnson, The Passage of Power (Knopf, $35), finally arrived in May after a tenyear wait. Caro’s exhaustive research amply fills the 700-plus pages with enough juicy anecdotes to keep Washington politicos happy for years. Beginning with the 1960 presidential primaries and ending shortly after Kennedy’s assassination, this tightly focused volume allows Caro to dissect the Johnson-Kennedy rivalry in detail, adding Johnson’s bitter feud with Bobby to the mix. Today’s political technocrats, with their data- driven analytics, pale in comparison to the Boston Irishman and the Texas dirt farmer, and this fiveyear period in which the two moved from combat to arms-length collaboration gives an unparalleled view of each one’s political arsenal. When he’s imprisoned in the vice-presidency, Johnson’s misery is palpable, but when he moves into the Oval Office, he reveals his unmatched skills in persuading, cajoling, manipulating, and threatening—whatever it took to get his civil rights bill through Congress. And Caro is with him every step of the way.
