Robert Caro Papers to New York Historical Society

[+ WilliamM]

Amazing and very discouraging.

 

Caro is still writing about Medicare, still early in the Johnson Administration

 

Robert Caro’s Papers Headed to New-York Historical Society

After decades of dogged (and still unfinished) efforts to chronicle every detail about Lyndon B. Johnson, the master biographer’s vast paper trail has found a permanent home.

 

 

 

 

Robert Caro in his office in Manhattan this month.Credit...Landon Speers for The New York Times

By Jennifer Schuessler

• Jan. 8, 2020Updated 9:15 a.m. ET
  
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Robert Caro is famous for colossal biographies of colossal figures. “The Power Broker,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning life of Robert Moses, weighed in at nearly 1,300 pages. His as-yet-unfinished biography of Lyndon B. Johnson — he likes to call the volume-in-progress “the fifth of a projected three” — totals 3,444 pages and counting.

 

The books are already monumental. And now Mr. Caro is getting monumental treatment himself.

 

The New-York Historical Society has acquired Mr. Caro’s papers — some 200 linear feet of material that will be open to researchers in its library. And just as important to the 84-year-old Mr. Caro, it will create a permanent installation in its museum galleries dedicated to showing how he got the job done.

 

“It’s like a true weight has been lifted from my shoulders,” he said last week in his office off Central Park West, where he was surrounded by hulking filing cabinets, piles of heavily scribbled-on legal pads and — tantalizingly — a wooden box holding typed pages of the eagerly awaited final Johnson volume.

 

In discussing the plans for the permanent exhibition, he repeatedly stressed the permanent part.

“With most archives, there’s a big splash, then two or three months later, it’s time for the next,” Mr. Caro said. “But I wanted something that wouldn’t go away.”

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“I want people to be able to see how I gather my material and how I turn it into books, how I write,” he continued. “In my opinion, the quality of the prose is just as important in nonfiction as in fiction.”

The archive will be among the largest of a single individual in the historical society’s collection. It includes research notes, drafts, annotated news clippings, correspondence and other documents, from once-classified memos excavated at the LBJ Presidential Library to at least one artifact literally coaxed out of a secret trunk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“This is an archive that will illuminate the 20th century through two outsize figures, Lyndon Johnson and Robert Moses,” she said. “It’s also the record of an extraordinary writer and thinker. Bob Caro is a historian whose methodology is of equal importance to the actual materials in his archive.”

 

Mr. Caro has been talking a lot about those methods lately. Last spring, he published “Working,” an anecdote-rich collection of essays and interviews offered, he said, as a kind of promissory note on a proper memoir, which he has already started outlining.

 

And the final volume of the Johnson biography? Don’t worry, he’s working on it. In fact, he said, checking the sheet of paper in the Smith-Corona Electra 210 on his desk, he has typed 604 manuscript pages so far.

 

Asked where he was in the story, Mr. Caro paused, looking mildly stricken. But he allowed that he’s currently on a section relating to the creation of Medicare in 1965, with the debacle of Vietnam and Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election in 1968, to come. (Johnson died in 1973.)

 

“It’s going to be a very long book,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Caro’s office is a kind of museum of analog writing practices, including corkboards displaying the outline for his book.Credit...Landon Speers for The New York Times

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A file folder holding transcripts of interviews gives a long-ago piece of advice: “With Busby the key thing is simply to SHUT UP!”Credit...Landon Speers for The New York Times

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A page from one of Mr. Caro’s reporting notebooks, with parts that have been turned into typed transcripts crossed out. (He does not use a tape recorder.)Credit...Landon Speers for The New York Times

Mr. Caro — who will keep some of his materials in his office until he’s done with the biography — is protective of details of work in progress. But looking into his notebooks and file drawers (sample tab: “Johnson Personal: Ruthlessness”), he was expansive, offering anecdotes within anecdotes about the events and people he was trying to reconstruct, and about how he and his wife and longtime research partner, Ina Caro, found sources, secured interviews and tracked down documents. (Neither the historical society nor Mr. Caro would disclose financial details of the acquisition, though Mr. Caro said the price was “more generous than I expected.”)

 

 

 

Mr. Caro’s current office, which he moved to last summer, is itself a kind of museum of a vanishing analog world, down to a closet holding some of his 11 stockpiled Smith Coronas, ready to be cannibalized for parts.

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A view into Mr. Caro’s files holding transcripts and notes from thousands of interviews. “All I can really think about as I go through the files is what I left out,” he said.Credit...Landon Speers for The New York Times

An elaborate typed outline of his book in progress is tacked to corkboards lining the walls. Mr. Caro — who writes his first drafts by hand on legal pads — pulled out a thick binder to show how he writes each sentence from the outline on a loose sheet of lined paper. Next, he lists interviews and documents that support the point, all indexed according to a complicated, idiosyncratic system.

But the real guts of the operation are in an adjacent room, in the files and cabinets holding his interview notes and other documents, including diaries and notes given to him over the years by Johnson associates and other journalists.

 

Mr. Caro popped open a cabinet filled with reporter’s notebooks and pulled a purple Scribbletex pad labeled “LBJ I”; inside were his first interviews, with Lady Bird Johnson and Sam Houston Johnson, the president’s brother.

He then pulled out “LBJ XXXII,” flipping through pages covered with neatly handwritten notes and, on one page, a list of cryptic numbers.

“I hate flying, so I always write out how many minutes are left,” he said, laughing.

 

One of his rules — Mr. Caro does not use a tape recorder — is to always type up his interview notes before going to bed, so as not to forget facial expressions or other details. “He can’t seem to sit still,” reads a note atop a transcript of one of his interviews with Moses.

 

 

 

On a folder holding his 22 formal interviews with Horace Busby, a longtime Johnson aide, Mr. Caro pointed out a long-ago scribbled reminder: “With Busby the key thing is to SHUT UP! He doesn’t want to hear one word from you. His eyes get bored the minute you open your mouth to say anything.”

As the interview drew to a close, Mr. Caro pulled out the photocopy of one of his most famous discoveries: an unpublished memoir by Luis Salas, a Texas election judge, explaining how he had helped Johnson eke out an 87-vote victory in his 1948 Senate race, by assigning him votes cast for his opponent.

In “Working,” Mr. Caro describes how in 1986, a decade into work on the Johnson biography, he finally tracked Mr. Salas down in a mobile home near Houston. Mr. Caro was seeking hard proof that the election had been stolen. In the middle of their interview, Mr. Salas suddenly fished the manuscript out of a trunk, saying, “I have written it all down.”

 

In his office, Mr. Caro read aloud a passage that might serve as a gloss on his own exhaustive, still-unfinished work.

“Maybe I pass away before I see my book published,” Mr. Salas wrote, “but someday it will come out because it is part of the history of the United States, and people have the right to know the exact truth.”

Edited January 8, 2020 by WilliamM

[+ Charlie]

The New York Historical Society is a treasure trove of information. I used to do a lot of research there.

[+ WilliamM]

At least,l Robert Caro can rest a bit. He is not going to finish the last volume on Lyndon Johnson. But, in many ways neither did Mr. Johnson.

[MscleLovr]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting @WilliamM

 

As an aside, I’ve read various good reviews of Cairo’s volumes on LBJ. But I wonder whether they truly are worth reading by a non-American? I’m a voracious reader and I buy books regularly, but I find I have so many books to read already...

[+ WilliamM]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting @WilliamM

 

As an aside, I’ve read various good reviews of Cairo’s volumes on LBJ. But I wonder whether they truly are worth reading by a non-American? I’m a voracious reader and I buy books regularly, but I find I have so many books to read already...

 

The first Johnson book is definitely worth reading because it presents both the positive and negative of a fascinating individual who was a great president on civil rights and the war on Poverty.

Edited January 9, 2020 by WilliamM

[+ g56whiz]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting @WilliamM

 

As an aside, I’ve read various good reviews of Cairo’s volumes on LBJ. But I wonder whether they truly are worth reading by a non-American? I’m a voracious reader and I buy books regularly, but I find I have so many books to read already...

LBJ was a larger than life personality with proportionate flaws. Having visited his birthplace and the nearby family ranch in the hill country of Texas, I find him fascinating.

[+ WilliamM]

LBJ was a larger than life personality with proportionate flaws. Having visited his birthplace and the nearby family ranch in the hill country of Texas, I find him fascinating.

 

In her own way, Lady Bird Johnson was fascinating too. She lived a long time, and knew everyone.

[+ Charlie]

LBJ was a larger than life personality with proportionate flaws. Having visited his birthplace and the nearby family ranch in the hill country of Texas, I find him fascinating.

I have visited both as well, but the LBJ library in Austin is also worth a visit.

[+ WilliamM]

I have visited both as well, but the LBJ library in Austin is also worth a visit.

 

Lyndon famously encouraged folks at University of Texas football games to use the rest rooms at his presidential library.

 

Encouraged on the pub;lic address system

[+ beethoven]

I agree with William M. that the first volume is the most interesting and the best. The chapter on how LBJ brought electricity to the Hill Country is one of the most moving descriptions of America in the 1930s that I have read. This chapter should be required reading in all high school history classes.

 

I have read all of Caro's volumes, and recommend them highly, but Volume One is special. That probably gives the best insight into the mind and motivations of this remarkable man -- love him or hate him.

 

No one in American history is perfect. George Washington owned slaves. Jefferson sexually abused his slaves. Even Lincoln, at one time, wanted to send all Negroes (the term then) back to Africa, and although he was vigorously opposed to slavery throughout his life, he didn't regard Negroes as his social equals.

 

LBJ gave us The Great Society, and all its social programs, but also got us into a terrible war. As we can see in Caro's magisterial biography, he could be petty and cruel and corrupt in his ascent to power, even as a young man in college. What he did to Leland Olds of the FPC was Mccarthyism at its worst.

[+ Pensant]

One of my favorite LBJ stories was when he was departing from a base in Vietnam and was heading towards a helicopter. The duty officer stated, “Mr. President, Sir, your helicopter is over there”, to which LBJ replied “Son, they’re all my helicopters”.

[+ g56whiz]

In her own way, Lady Bird Johnson was fascinating too. She lived a long time, and knew everyone.

And she keen LBJ warts libido and all.

[+ WilliamM]

I agree with William M. that the first volume is the most interesting and the best. The chapter on how LBJ brought electricity to the Hill Country is one of the most moving descriptions of America in the 1930s that I have read. This chapter should be required reading in all high school history classes.

 

I have read all of Caro's volumes, and recommend them highly, but Volume One is special. That probably gives the best insight into the mind and motivations of this remarkable man -- love him or hate him.

 

No one in American history is perfect. George Washington owned slaves. Jefferson sexually abused his slaves. Even Lincoln, at one time, wanted to send all Negroes (the term then) back to Africa, and although he was vigorously opposed to slavery throughout his life, he didn't regard Negroes as his social equals.

 

LBJ gave us The Great Society, and all its social programs, but also got us into a terrible war. As we can see in Caro's magisterial biography, he could be petty and cruel and corrupt in his ascent to power, even as a young man in college. What he did to Leland Olds of the FPC was Mccarthyism at its worst.

 

To be fair, Lyndon Johnson greatly exbanded a war he inherited from President John Kennedy. The direction of the war was set by Johnson in the Summer of 1965 when Johnson sent many more men to South East Asia.

 

But, Kennedy was still president in early 1963 when President Diem was assassinated, what might be called now a fatal regime change.

[+ Charlie]

To be fair, Lyndon Johnson greatly exbanded a war he inherited from President John Kennedy. The direction of the war was set by Johnson in the Summer of 1965 when Johnson sent many more men to South East Asia.

 

But, Kennedy was still president in early 1963 when President Diem was assassinated, what might be called now a fatal regime change.

And Kennedy continued a policy he inherited from Eisenhower. And Nixon lied about how he intended to handle the situation he inherited from Johnson. And Ford was left holding the bag.

[+ WilliamM]

And Kennedy continued a policy he inherited from Eisenhower. And Nixon lied about how he intended to handle the situation he inherited from Johnson. And Ford was left holding the bag.

 

He didn't inherited the policy from Eisenhower.

 

JFK was far more careless.

Edited January 10, 2020 by WilliamM