Master of the Senate (102 page)

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T
HERE WERE DOZENS
of other moves to be made in order for his purposes to be accomplished. The moves were no longer governed by the objective, inflexible seniority rule, and he had promised that everyone could stay right where they were if they wanted to, that no one would be forced to give up a seat. So each move had to be sold individually to the senators concerned.

Some of the arguments with which Lyndon Johnson sold were pragmatic. The vacancy he was most anxious to create was on the Armed Services Committee. Each of the seven seats on the Democratic side of the committee table was already filled; he had to empty one of those seats, so that he could put Symington in it.

Russell Long had one of those seats, and he liked Armed Services, but Johnson knew that for a senator from Louisiana, rich in oilmen anxious for government tax breaks, Finance was a better committee. And there was an open Democratic spot there. Long had not bothered to apply for it, since he had so little seniority, but Johnson told him he could have it—if he gave up Armed Services. And Johnson may have pointed out to Long—at least Johnson aides believe he did—an extremely pragmatic consideration. Although Long was only thirty-four years old, on Armed Services there were three other young senators ahead of him, and even Chairman Russell was only fifty-five. On Finance, whose chairman, Byrd, was sixty-six, there was no other Democratic senator younger than forty-nine; Long would be the committee’s youngest member by a full fifteen years; given the reality of the human life span, he could expect to be chairman one day of the crucial tax-law-writing body. Long moved to Finance; the open seat thus created on Armed Services was filled by the senator best qualified to fill it.

Some of the arguments with which Johnson sold were
very
pragmatic. If Foreign Relations would be one focal point of the Republican attack, the other was just as easy to predict—and was also vulnerable. Government Operations had always been regarded as a minor committee, but now its chairman was going to be Joe McCarthy. With a chairman’s authority—and staff—McCarthy was going to make life very difficult for the Democrats. Only one Democratic seat on Government Operations—John McClellan’s—was filled by a senator tough enough to stand up to the Wisconsin demagogue. Two seats were empty, but on a list of requested committee assignments on his desk in 231’s inner office Johnson had scrawled: “McCarran requests Govt. Operations.” Pat McCarran wanted one of the seats not to oppose McCarthy, but because, a rabid Communist witch-hunter himself, he wanted to be part of McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade. McCarran had a full twenty years of Senate seniority to back up his claim, and, as Alben Barkley had learned to his sorrow, it was unwise for a Democratic Leader to cross Judiciary’s coldly ruthless chairman.

Back in Nevada, however, McCarran’s problems—political and legal, both—were growing more serious. After years of dominating the state’s Democratic politics, the Silver Fox had in 1952 backed one of his law partners for the party’s nomination for the other Senate seat—only to see him lose the primary, in a stunning upset, to a crusading young lawyer. Although the lawyer had himself been defeated in November by the Republican incumbent, George (Molly) Malone, the young upstart was hinting that in 1956 he was going to run against McCarran himself. And in that troubling lawsuit alleging ties between McCarran and shady Las Vegas casino interests, pre-trial depositions were not going well; the Senator had already been forced to admit that he had interceded with the Internal Revenue Service in a tax case involving a casino. The appointment of a “friendly” United States Attorney was more urgent than ever.

But Truman’s resistance to signing the necessary appointment form was as strong as ever; in November, Johnson, keeping his promise to McCarran, had raised the issue with the President, but on January 1, 1953, the
Washington Post
reported that the Senator’s nominee “is not going to get” the appointment as long as Truman was in office. His replacement by the Republican Eisenhower on January 20 would, of course, make the appointment even less likely. In November, Johnson’s request to Truman had been on behalf of a single vote for Leader; when, going to the White House on January 13, Johnson again asked Truman to sign the appointment form, the stakes were high not just for him but for the Democratic Party. “All right,” the President finally said. “I’ll give this to you, Lyndon. But if that old so-and-so doesn’t produce, you bring it back to me.” Signing the form later that day, Truman had a White House courier deliver it not to McCarran as was customary, but directly to 231, and on it the President attached a note to Johnson marked “Personal and Confidential”: “As you know, I am doing this under protest. It is your ‘baby’ from now on.” Johnson carried the appointment form up to McCarran’s big office on the fourth floor, and when he returned to his own office, Johnson drew a line through “McCarran requests Govt. Operations.” A seat that under the seniority system would have gone to McCarran stayed vacant; two were still empty on Government Operations. Johnson managed to empty a third, which had been held by the mild-mannered Mike Monroney. What good was a Monroney against Joe McCarthy? Johnson moved Monroney into a vacancy on the more prestigious Commerce Committee. He wanted the three seats filled by senators who possessed certain qualifications: as Evans and Novak were to put it, “None of them wrapped in the orthodox liberal mantle, and none of whom would have to run for re-election for six years” (a qualification that would presumably encourage them to stand up to McCarthy). When he filled the seats with Symington, Scoop Jackson, and John F. Kennedy, he felt he had the kind of freshmen on the committee that he wanted, although Kennedy’s position on McCarthy would prove to be equivocal.

Some of the arguments with which Johnson sold were idealistic, personal.
To McClellan, who was already in fact not only twowheres but threewheres, since he was not only ranking minority member of Government Operations but a member of both Appropriations and Public Works, to McClellan who was so intimidating to most senators but whose farmer father had named John’s brothers after Democrats who had fought for farmers, Johnson said that McClellan had to help protect the New Deal programs that had helped the farmer, that McClellan had to keep the Democrats in the Senate strong—and that he, Johnson, had to find a good seat for Albert Gore, the newly elected senator from Tennessee, and that he wanted to put Gore on Public Works, since that appointment would strengthen his position in his state because of what a member of that committee could do to protect TVA. And Johnson said that McClellan’s Government Operations seat might well be the key Democratic post in the whole Senate, because the ranking member would be the Democratic point man against McCarthy—that job would be a full-time job in itself, Johnson said. Johnson didn’t actually suggest that McClellan resign from Public Works so that Gore could take his place; McClellan, after listening to Johnson, made the suggestion himself. There would be six Democratic freshmen senators in the new Congress; McClellan’s resignation had allowed Johnson to find desirable committee assignments for five of them. When he put the sixth, Price Daniel, on Interior, every freshman had a place on a major committee.

It was not only freshmen he was helping, it was liberals—at least some liberals: neither Paul Douglas nor Estes Kefauver, both of whom had voted for Murray for Leader, received a committee assignment he requested. As he moved senators around the chessboard, more and more spaces opened—and he made the most of them. In previous years, the southerners had consigned Lehman to Interior as a punishment for his liberalism; now Johnson found a space for the New Yorker on the committee he wanted: Banking. Onto Interior moved a senator for whom Interior was not a punishment but a reward: Clements—Clements who had of course surrendered Public Works for Agriculture.

And it was not only liberals. Somehow, as Lyndon Johnson shifted senators around, desirable spaces were found for southerners Olin Johnston and George Smathers; little bulls who were now, suddenly, well along the road to becoming Big Bulls.

A
NY MOVE HE WANTED
to make would have to be approved by the party elders who dominated the Democratic Steering Committee, of course, so every move had to be sold to men to whom seniority had always been sacred. Any move, furthermore, had to be approved by the former—and, it was hoped, future—chairmen of the Standing Committees involved, and sometimes dealing with the chairmen was harder than dealing with the senators he was moving around. Hour after hour, behind the closed door of 231, Lyndon Johnson was on the telephone with Harry Byrd and Carl Hayden and Ed Johnson, as well as with the senator who, in the past, “you had to see” about committee assignments.

Sometimes, through the office wall, Walter Jenkins or Mary Rather would hear Lyndon Johnson’s voice in a different tone, a tone he used when he was talking not to someone else but to himself. They knew what the “Chief” was doing then. They had heard him doing it in the automobiles in which he had been driven around Texas during his campaigns. As his chauffeur on some of those trips puts it, “It was like he was having discussions with himself about what strategy had worked or hadn’t worked,” when he had tried to persuade someone, “and what strategy he should use the next time.” And not just discussions. Behind that closed office door, Lyndon Johnson would be playing out a conversation: what he would say; what the other senator would say in response; what
he
should then say—“He would be in there rehearsing, doing it over and over, trying to get it right,” Walter Jenkins recalls. And then, after a while, the left-hand button on Jenkins’ telephone would light up—the Chief would be making the call he had rehearsed. And sometimes the rehearsing wasn’t for a call, for a call wouldn’t be enough. Sometimes, when the rehearsing stopped, Jenkins and Rather would hear the door to Lyndon Johnson’s private office open and close. Bursting out of his room, he would run up the nearby stairs, or lope down the corridor with those long, fast strides until he got near the office for which he was heading. Then, abruptly, he would slow, perhaps even stop for a moment, gather himself together, get himself into a relaxed posture, and, easygoing, respectful, deferential, calm, polite, ask a Bill Darden or a Colonel Carlton if the Senator was in, and could he possibly spare a minute?

With some of the older senators—particularly Walter George and McClellan—Johnson played on their paternal feelings toward him, telling them that he wanted to be a good Leader, but it was sure a big job, he was worried about whether he would be able to handle it, he needed help, and part of the help he needed was to have Stu Symington on Armed Services. Most of all, he said, he needed to be able to give desirable seats to those damned northern crazies, so that they wouldn’t always be tearing at his flanks as they had torn at, and destroyed, ol’ Scott and ol’ Bob McFarland.

Over the telephone and in the offices, he used his memo and his “twowheres” story. He appealed to his Democrats on grounds of party. Taft was moving, he would say; he had ascertained that that rumor was true. Taft was going to Foreign Relations. You know what that means, he would say. He’s going to bring up Yalta. “Bob Taft is loading up the committee. They’re going to try to tear down everything that Roosevelt and Truman did, everything the Democratic Party has stood for for twenty years.” We’ve got to put our best young fellows on there, he said. We’ve got to put Humphrey and Mansfield on. And Government Operations, he said. “McCarthy’s going to go wild there if we let him. All we’re gonna be hearing for the next two years is ‘The Party of Treason, The Party of Treason.’” McClellan and Humphrey and Clyde Hoey had been talking about leaving Government Operations; who wanted to be a minority member on a McCarthy committee? Well, he told McClellan and Humphrey and Hoey, you
can’t
leave Government Operations. We need you on there. We
need real fighters on there; we need guys that McCarthy can’t intimidate. And, he said to those senators—and to the Big Bulls—wouldn’t you feel better with Stu and Scoop on that committee? McCarthy won’t be able to make Stu or Scoop back down.

He appealed to them on grounds of policy. The Republicans had been aching for years to dismantle rural electrification, he told senators who had spent their lives fighting for the farmer. They all knew that. Now, with a Republican President and a Republican Congress, would be the Republicans’ chance to do it, to turn TVA over to private interests, to give the goddamned private utilities more of the power generated by the great dams of the West. Those proposals would have to move through either Public Works or Interior. Those committees must be shored up; vacancies on them should be filled with Democrats who not only believe in public power but who know how to
fight
for public power. We can’t think only of seniority now, he said; we can’t afford to. He appealed to them on pragmatic grounds. The major committees would still be solid, three or four deep, with southerners, he reminded them repeatedly. He appealed to them on whatever grounds would work—watching their eyes, watching their hands, listening to what they said, listening to what they didn’t say, “the greatest salesman one on one who ever lived”—trying to make a very big sale.

And then, on January 12, the new Democratic Leader convened a meeting of the Democratic Steering Committee, and almost the first assignment he suggested was of Symington to Armed Services, and some of the committee members looked out of the corners of their eyes at Russell, and Russell gravely nodded in approval. “Now I’m going to hit you with cold water,” Lyndon Johnson said. “Mike Mansfield for Foreign Relations.” The pause then was long, for Walter George loved to hold the center of the stage, but when George finally spoke he said only one word, “Excellent.” Everyone nodded, and then Lyndon Johnson reeled off the rest of his lists, and everything went very fast. Of all the archaic rules and customs and precedents that had made the Senate of the United States an obstacle to progress, the seniority system had been the strongest. For decades men had been saying that no one would ever be able to change the seniority system. Lyndon Johnson had changed it in two weeks.