Excerpt from Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Then the unanimous consent agreement would be almost finalized---almost but not completely. Or, if the agreement was finalized, the times fixed in writing at which the roll would be called on the amendments and the final bill, he might have almost enough votes for passage---almost but not enough. And all too often in that divided and stubborn Senate, it seemed as if he would not be able, despite all his efforts, to get enough. And he had to have enough, had to win.

Striding up the aisle, Lyndon Johnson would push open the double doors to the Democratic cloakroom. Bobby Baker would hold out a tally sheet; Johnson would snatch it out of his hand. And Baker, who had been trying to make sure that all Johnson's votes would be on the floor when they needed to be, would also have lists of the senators whom he had been unable to locate, or who had other commitments and had said they couldn't be present, or who, for one reason or another, did not want to vote "with the leadership" on the upcoming bill. And he would have information for Johnson about disputes between two senators, or about the bill---amendments on which there was still no acceptable compromise.

"Get 'em on the line for me," Johnson would say, and Baker would give the numbers to the telephone clerks, and the first call would go through into Booth Ten, the telephone booth closest to the clerks' desks.

The matter to be discussed might be only one of attendance, and then Johnson might only say into the telephone: "Lister, we're gonna motion up the District bill tonight, and Ah want you to be standin' by. Ah'll need you over here. Ah'm not even gonna tell the Republicans until Ah bring it up. And Ah want you guys to be ready."

But the matter might be more delicate. Then the door to Booth Ten would close, and a senator or aide passing by would see Lyndon Johnson hunched over the phone inside. One hand would be holding a cigarette, from which he would take frequent deep drags. The other would be holding the receiver, and Johnson's mouth would be very close to it. As he spoke into it, he would sometimes rise to his feet, his tall body filling the booth, or he might remain seated and hunched over on the little seat, but, standing or sitting, if he was having difficulty persuading the senator on the other end of the line to his way of thinking, Lyndon Johnson's whole being would be poured into that persuasion. His head would be bowed low over the mouthpiece, and sometimes as he talked and he became more and more wound up in his effort, he would lower his head until it was beneath the receiver, and then it would cock to one side and come up under the receiver as if it was the senator's face.

Sometimes Johnson would want to make sure that nobody could hear what he was saying. "If you stepped out of Booth Ten you could see the whole cloakroom," one of the telephone clerks recalls, "and he would stand up, open the door [of the booth] and look around the corner to see if anyone could hear." Then Lyndon Johnson would duck back into Booth Ten to say the things he didn't want anyone else to hear.

What he said might have the desired result, and he would replace the receiver, step out of the booth, and snatch up the phone in the next booth, where the clerks had another senator waiting on the phone. Or it might not have the desired result. Then, as the conversation came to a close, Johnson, still inside the booth, door closed, might kick the booth as he hung up, or pound his fist into its wall. In the cloakroom, men would watch the booth shaking with the Leader's rage. Or, stepping out of the booth after hanging up the phone, his face the "thundercloud" that men feared, he would kick the outside of the booth, "viciously," as one Senate staffer puts it, or slam the door.

By this time, there would be lights, signals that senators were waiting for him on the line, over several booths. "He would go right down the row, getting his players lined up," the telephone clerk says.

Excerpted from Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro Copyright 2002 by Robert A. Caro. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.