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  • Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency by Mark K. Updegrove
  • Andrew J. Dunar
Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency. By Mark K. Updegrove. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. 384 pp. Hardbound, $27.00.

Mark K. Updegrove, the director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, since 2009, offers a portrayal of Johnson as seen by associates who worked with him during his presidency. The author includes members of Johnson’s family and officials in his administration but also people who observed him at close quarters, such as journalists, politicians of both parties, and civil rights activists. The author describes his approach as “a collection of impressions illuminating … who he was, what he did, and what it meant,” rather than a biography (7). Updegrove’s authorial hand rests lightly, providing introductions to sections and transitions, but he artfully steps aside to allow his witnesses to speak for themselves.

Oral histories provide a prominent source of such recollections, although there are other kinds of sources, such as a half dozen interviews of Johnson by Walter Cronkite, recorded telephone conversations with the president, memoirs by Johnson and his associates, and biographies, many of which include [End Page 391] observations by associates taken from oral histories or printed sources. So while there are multiple kinds of sources, oral history as a discipline has influenced the book beyond the inclusion of oral histories from the collection of the LBJ library. Throughout the book, Updegrove presents the observations of Johnson’s associates in brief paragraphs of half a page or less, only occasionally longer than a page, letting them speak for themselves in direct quotations.

The book gives equal weight to the highlights and disappointments of the Johnson presidency. Indeed, there is a sense of point-counterpoint not only in the sweep of the narrative but also within quotations describing Johnson, who emerges here in all his complexity. Those who criticize often balance their recollections with positive memories, and likewise those who praise also recall less-flattering incidents or characteristics. Perhaps no one blends the two sides of this complex man as well as Texas Governor John Connally, who described Johnson as “cruel and kind, generous and greedy, sensitive and insensitive, crafty and naïve, ruthless and thoughtful,” concluding that “it would take every adjective in the dictionary to describe him” (3). Less delicately, press secretary George Reedy, in perhaps the book’s most direct assessment, concluded that “As a human being, [Johnson] was a miserable person … a bully, sadist, lout, and egotist. His lapses from civilized conduct were deliberately and usually intended to subordinate someone else to his will…. He may have been a son of a bitch, but he was a colossal son of a bitch…. Nevertheless, he was capable of inspiring strong attachments even with people who knew him for what he was” (81).

And so it goes—Updegrove achieves balance by selecting narrators who knew both sides of the president. An underlying theme then is that Johnson was often his own worst enemy. Updegrove explores his relationship with the press, suggesting (through recollections of the working press) that in the early months of his presidency, when he reached the apex of his legislative achievements on domestic policy, reporters firmly supported him. Yet over time, his treatment of reporters undermined that support, and as the Vietnam War began to consume his presidency, the early reservoir of good will no longer existed.

Updegrove gives Johnson his say as well. His assessments (in oral histories) of the three rivals in the campaign for the Democratic nomination in 1968 suggest his penchant for reading politicians and finding their weaknesses. He called Senator Eugene McCarthy “the type of fellow who did damn little harm and damn little good” (264). On his vice president, Hubert Humphrey: “He’s a wonderful human being. But you can’t be all things to all people” (294). Robert Kennedy and Johnson detested one another, and when people (and pundits) were speculating whether Kennedy would enter the race, Johnson knew: “The runt’s going to run. I don’t care what he says now” (265).

As oral history came into its own during the last half...

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