Means of Ascent (104 page)

Senate investigation:
HP
, Jan. 4, 1949, said that when the committee was “Republican controlled,” “the rumor that Johnson would be denied his seat was widely circulated on Capitol Hill. When the Democrats won control, the rumor died immediately as to the election contest. No one in authority would speak for publication, but no one seemed to have any idea that Johnson may be unseated.” See
FWS-T
, Jan. 6, 1949. See also
DMN
, Jan. 14, Feb. 1, July 28,
1949.

SOURCES

Books and documents:

Baker,
The Good Times;
Dugger,
The Politician;
Evans and Novak,
Lyndon B. Johnson;
Miller,
Lyndon;
Steinberg,
Sam Johnson’s Boy
.

Luis Salas, “Box 13” (unpublished manuscript).

Stevenson v. Tyson, Johnson et al., C.A. 1640, United States District Court, Northern District, Texas, Transcript of Proceedings Had Before the Master W. R. Smith, Jr., Alice, Texas, Jim Wells County (referred to hereafter as Master’s Hearing, Alice, transcript).

Oral Histories:

William R. Smith.

Interviews:

Thomas G. Corcoran, Luis Salas, Harold Young.

NOTES

Smithwick letter:
Smithwick to Stevenson, Mar. 23, 1952, reprinted in
DMN
, May 24, 1952.
Told him not to bother:
Stevenson, quoted in Dugger, p. 340.
“Some guards”
;
“somewhere”
:
FWS-T
, May 26, 1952.
Cartoon:
“The Ghost Returns,”
DMN
, May 27, 1952.
“A continuation”
:
Johnson, quoted in
DMN
, May 26, 1952.
“Historical Markers”
:
Texas Monthly
, Jan., 1976.

“Exactly 87 votes”
:
Eliot Janeway, “Johnson of the ‘Watchdog Committee,’ ”
NYT Magazine
, June 17, 1951.
“A fabulous”
:
Leslie Carpenter, “The Whip from Texas,”
Collier’s
, Feb. 17, 1951.
“Johnson’s attorneys”
:
Paul F. Healy, “The Frantic Gentleman from Texas,”
Saturday Evening Post
, May 19, 1951.
“His power reaches”
:
Gordon Schendel, “Something Is Rotten in the State of Texas,”
Collier’s
, June 9, 1951.

“Likely to arise”
:
Bill Davidson, “Lyndon Johnson: Can a Southerner Be Elected President?,”
Look
, Aug. 18, 1959.
“Suspicious 87 votes”
:
“Sense and Sensitivity,”
Time
, Mar. 17, 1958.

“THE STORY OF 87 VOTES”
:
U.S. News & World Report
, Apr. 6, 1964. Many magazines ran major biographical articles on Johnson in 1964 to introduce the new President to the American people, and most recounted the story of the 1948 campaign. A two-part article in
Life
magazine,
“The Man Who Is the President,” examined it in detail, mentioned his ironic nickname, “Landslide Johnson,” under the headline “
AN
87-VOTE ‘LANDSLIDE’ PUT HIM IN SENATE
” (Wheeler and Lambert,
Life
, Aug. 14, 21, 1964).

“It seems”
:
Richard Rovere, Letter From Washington,
The New Yorker
, Sept. 23, 1967.
“After Lyndon Johnson”
:
Tom Wicker, “Hey, Hey, LBJ …,”
Esquire
, Dec. 1983.

Salas interview with Mangan:
It ran in newspapers across the country on July 31, 1977. Its complete version can be found in the
San Antonio Express-News:
James W. Mangan, “Vote Fraud Put LBJ into Office.” Among the scores of newspapers in which the Salas interview was displayed under banner front-page headlines were the
Boston Herald American
(“LBJ RACE CALLED ‘STOLEN’ ”)
, the
Chicago Tribune
(“ ‘I
STOLE ’48 ELECTION FOR LBJ’ ”)
, the
Rocky Mountain News
(“LBJ’S ELECTION TO SENATE ‘STOLEN’ ”)
, the
Sacramento Union
(“LBJ’S ELECTION FIXER TALKS
”), and the
Worcester Sunday Telegram
(“POLLING OFFICIAL: PHONY VOTES STOLE ’48 RUNOFF FOR LBJ
”).
“Suspicions have persisted”
:
Newsweek
, Aug. 8, 1977.

“I know”
:
Middleton, quoted in Miller, p. 137.
“I am without knowledge”
:
WP
, Aug. 6, 1977.
Jenkins, Rather, Herring press conference:
NYT, AA-S
, Aug. 2, 1977. Typical of the tone with which the documents were treated was the story in the
WP
under the headline, “
LBJ MEMO CONTRADICTS FRAUD CHARGES
,” which stated: “Discovery of the Johnson statement came today, as 16 reporters and a bevy of television news crews examined some 5,000 documents contained in eight boxes in the archives of the LBJ Library”
(WP
, Aug. 4, 1977). In the aftermath
of the Salas interview, other stories appeared detailing interviews with Parr before his death on the subject of the election, filled with inaccuracies (for example,
AA-S
, Aug. 30, 1977).

“Reader, I don’t know”
:
Luis Salas, “Box 13,” p. 6.
Salas’ description of his youth:
Ibid.
, pp. 1–24.
“My life changed”
;
“Wearing a gun”
;
“I never forget this man”
:
Ibid.
, pp. 32, 33, 44.
“Any vote”
 … [smile]:
Salas interview.
“Now is the year”
:
Salas, “Box 13,” p. 25.

“We put LB Johnson”:
Ibid.
, p. 68.
“Exactly the way”
:
Ibid.
, p. 6.
“How an Indian boy”
:
Ibid.
, p. 70.

“Many people”
:
Ibid.
, p. 50.
“A good reason”
;
“I lied under oath”
:
Ibid.
, unnumbered page following handwritten, p. 5.

“Go to the Lyndon Johnson Library”
:
Ibid.
, p. 65.

“May be I”
:
Ibid
., p. 1.
“Having trouble”
:
Ibid.
, unnumbered page following handwritten, p. 5.

“I gave George”
:
Ibid.
, p. 50.
“I looked at Coke Stevenson”
;
“Asking forgivings”
;
“I don’t blame him”
:
Ibid.
, p. 66.

Description of adding the
200
votes:
Ibid., pp. 57–58.
“I told Cliff”
:
Ibid.
, pp. 56, 64.

“Everyone is dead”
:
Salas interview.

Salas recognized Johnson:
Salas interview.
DuBose testified to 765:
DuBose, Master’s Hearing, Alice, transcript, pp. 30, 31.
Price testified to 765:
Price, Master’s Hearing, Alice, transcript, pp. 230–31.
“I told Cliff … 765”
:
Salas interview; Salas, “Box 13,” pp.
56, 64. Also, on an unnumbered page of his manuscript, Salas wrote: “I lied under oath, that Johnson had received 967 instead of 765 votes. After closing the election voting place, I went to the
Alice News
, and gave Cliff Dubose the amount of votes received by Johnson, and they were 765, later on our party changed the amounts to reach 967, enough for Johnson to defeat Stevenson.”

Holmgreen:
“I saw more votes stolen for Lyndon Johnson than Johnson won the election by,” he told the
San Antonio Express-News
(July 31, 1977), quoted in Kahl, p. 93. “A ballot would be pulled from the box marked for Stevenson, but would be called out for Johnson. I know because I watched and I saw it.” Poole: Quoted in Kahl, p. 118.
“If
they were not”
:
Salas interview. Also see Salas, “Box 13,” p. 64: “Charles Wesley Price was right, so there you are.”

Smith statement:
Smith OH.

Johnson in campus politics:
Caro,
Path to Power
, pp. 174–201.
Johnson and the
“Little Congress”
:
Caro, pp. 261–68.

Johnson telling the joke:
For example, Steinberg, p. 272, Baker, pp. 284–85. In 1953, when
Time
magazine ran its first cover story on Johnson, the joke was included in it
(Time
, June 22, 1953).

Johnson imitating Parr:
Hugh Sidey,
Time
, Aug. 15, 1977.

“From the start”
:
Steinberg, who began covering Capitol Hill for several publications, p. 276.
Johnson popularizing nickname:
In April, 1949, when the
House had passed by a 176–174 margin legislation he wanted favoring natural gas producers, Johnson, according to the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
, “rushed to the
phone and reported to his chief ally, Senator Bob Kerr of Oklahoma: ‘We won by two votes—“Landslide” Johnson rides again.’ ” It was even in the headlines:
“ ‘LANDSLIDE’ LYNDON JOHNSON WINS AGAIN—BY TWO VOTES”
(FWS-T
, Apr. 8, 1949). Evans and Novak wrote (p. 40) that when Seriate Majority Leader Scott Lucas introduced Johnson to the Democratic caucus on January 3, “he good-naturedly referred to Johnson as ‘Landslide Lyndon.’ To Johnson’s dismay, the term stuck.”

No longer wanted
“Landslide”
nickname used:
Russell Baker, who arrived in Washington in 1954, would later write: “Duval County was a sensitive subject with Johnson.… If you wanted to stay on his good side, you didn’t call him ‘Landslide Lyndon’ or otherwise joke about that election” (Baker, pp. 284–85).
By
1964: Steinberg, p. 686.
Interview with Dugger:
Dugger, p. 341. The photograph is reproduced in this book, in photograph section III. It appeared in print:
WP
, Aug. 8, 1954.

SOURCES

Coke Stevenson’s later years were described to me by Ernest Boyett, Nada and Robert W. Murphey, Coke Stevenson, Jr., Marguerite King Stevenson and Jane Stevenson Murr. Unless otherwise noted, my description of those years comes from these interviews and from my visits to the Stevenson ranch.

Among the newspaper articles written by reporters after visits to the ex-Governor during his retirement, particularly helpful were Dawson Duncan,
DMN
, Aug. 8, 1951; Frank X. Tolbert,
DMN
, Aug. 16, 1959, July 7, 1960, and undated;
HP
, Jan 19, 1964;
HC
, Apr. 6, 1969, June 29, 1975.

Also, Wyatt and Shelton,
Coke R. Stevenson: A Texas Legend
.

NOTES

“After that”
:
Horace Busby interview.

“Fees … that I could write on a blackboard”
:
Stevenson, quoted in
DMN
, Aug. 5, 1951.
Asked him to run:
DMN
, Aug. 5, 1951;
HC
, Sept. 14, 1952.
“I would not want”
:
Stevenson, quoted in
DMN
, April 22, 1952.
Stacks of mail:
DMN
, Aug. 5, 1951;
HC
, Sept. 14, 1952.
A
“gifted speaker”
:
Marguerite Stevenson, quoted in Wyatt and Shelton, p. 167.

“Took a bride”
:
Junction Eagle
, quoted in Wyatt and Shelton, p. 100.

Telephone installed:
For example, Frank X. Tolbert, “After 40 Years, Ex-Governor Finally Puts in a Telephone,”
DMN
, undated clipping.

“At 71”
: Tolbert,
DMN
, Aug. 16, 1959.
Building the garage:
Wyatt and Shelton, p. 102.

“Well, of course”
:
San Angelo Standard-Times
, 1964.

“After spending”
:
DMN
, Aug. 16, 1959.
“You sense”
:
The reporter’s description of his day with Coke, Teeney and Jane, printed in
HC
, Apr. 6, 1969, is the basis for this scene.

NOTES

Swearing-in:
AA-S, DMN, El Paso Herald-Post, HC
, Jan. 4, 1949.
Winked; three rings:
AA-S
, Jan. 12, 1949 (by Margaret Mayer).

A Note on Sources:
Learning About Coke Stevenson

Great Western drilling on ranch:
Among the entries relating to this drilling in a journal kept by Marguerite Stevenson is one for May 10, 1977: “Great Western Drilling Company located … two drilling locations—one NW of horse trap fence in Telegraph Pasture & the other in Survey 13, NW of E. Mill. I watched them stake the first location.”

Oil leases on Stevenson ranch for over six decades:
The first lease was signed by the Sinclair Gulf Oil Co. on Nov. 21, 1919, recorded Jan. 26, 1920. The next lease was signed with Stevenson by the Lewis Gas Products Co. on Dec. 1, 1927 (Index to Deeds, Direct A to Z, Second Series from Jan. 1, 1920, to Dec. 31, 1937, Kimble County, Texas, p. 249). Other leases were taken by W. E. Sultenfuss
on Oct. 27, 1950, and the Ohio Oil Co. on
Aug. 8 and Sept. 20, 1954 (Index to Deeds, Third Series from Jan. 1, 1938, to Dec. 31, 1955, p. 249); F. R. Perkins on Nov. 9, 1959; Dave Elder, Oct. 1, 1968; Wayne Petroleum Co., June 1, 1972 (Oil & Gas Records A to Z Direct, Jan. 1957 [to date], Vol. 6, p. 657, Deed Records of Kimble County, Texas). (Wayne assigned lease to Great Western Petroleum Co., Sept. 16, 1974; Great Western assigned 35½% interest in lease to Davoil, Inc., Dec. 8,
1976.)
$4,483 check:
Mrs. Marguerite Stevenson interview.