Part 3 Chapter 20 Summary

Chapter 20 opens with LBJ talking to a reporter from Nation's Business, trying to convince him to narrow an article about the congressional whips to him alone. LBJ brags about how he already runs both houses of Congress, working around McFarland and through Rayburn. Time's Washington bureau chief also alerts his New York editors that this southerner wants the top job.

In 1952, however, another southerner made the run. Russell ran as much for his region as for himself. Democrats could re-nominate Truman or turn to Estes Kefauver who, as a senator from Tennessee, was considered a southerner by much of the country, though he was detested in the Deep South. His nomination could well result in another walkout, this one fatal, because Eisenhower was the likely Republican nominee. Eisenhower's immense popularity, even in the South, could return to the GOP control of...