C-SPAN Q & A: Robert Caro

The second hour of this discussion will air on Q&A Sunday May 20, 2012. Pulitzer prize winning author and historian Robert Caro discusses his newly released biography of Lyndon Johnson entitled The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. This is his fourth book in the Johnson biographical series and Caro promises a fifth and final book in the future. The period covered in the book is from 1958 until early 1964.

Caro tells us that Lyndon Johnson sought the Presidency, yet in 1960 the nomination went to a young Massachusetts Senator named John F. Kennedy. Caro discusses Vice President Johnson’s poor treatment at the hands of close Kennedy staff members and loyalists. He describes the poor relationship between Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy, the President’s younger brother who would ultimately be appointed as U.S. Attorney General. He tells about the period after the assassination of President Kennedy, when Lyndon Johnson took control of the United States government, and guided the country through what could have been a tumultuous transition of leadership.

He speaks about Johnson’s skill at moving several major pieces of legislation through the House and Senate after he became President. It is these early legislative victories, Caro suggests, which plant the seeds for Johnson’s coming “War on Poverty” program. [Broadcast Date: May 6, 2012]

Listen to The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro.

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