Biographer Robert A. Caro, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, came to Hopkins last Thursday night to discuss "Power and Politics," in an installment of the George Huntington Williams Memorial Lecture series.
The Lecture, created by an endowment in the memory of George Huntington Williams, is meant to be given by a public figure, addressing a broad range of topics.
Past speakers have included Secretary General of the U.N. Kurt Waldheim, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and former President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin.
Caro's Pulitzer Prizes were received in recognition of two biographies that he has written; The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, and Master of the Senate, part of a series called The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
The focus of Caro's speech Thursday night was the ways in which Johnson was able to use the sheer force of his personality to attain vast amounts of power in the senate. Johnson, the youngest man to become majority leader, was able to balance influence and fear, personality and power.
Caro's point was that Johnson was often ruthless in his tactics, and completely dominated the Senate in his time there. Caro described Johnson as animated, intimidating, and powerful, and said he forced through legislation that never would have passed had he not been there. In Caro's mind, during the six years that Johnson led the Senate, the Senate worked better than it had since the days of Webster, Clay and Calhoun.
Before Johnson, it had been said that the Senate could never be led, that no one would ever be able to have that much control or influence.
Yet Caro recounted countless stories that he had discovered of instances of Johnson using his personality to get a bill passed or to change someone's vote. He told when Johnson, after interrogating a fellow member of the Senate, went up to him afterwards to make sure that they were still friends.
Despite Caro's anecdote-packed speech, he started off by saying that he would rather write than speak and that speeches give the audience no reason to think that on its own. However he stressed the enormous effects of personality on politics, how our country would not have been the same if someone else had been leading the Senate instead of Johnson.
The biographer illustrated Johnson's political mastery and ability to know what was going on at all times, who he needed to get on his side, and how he was going to do that.
When asked in the question and answer period what he would ask Johnson now if he had ten minutes with him, Caro said he would ask Johnson about his relationship with his father.
