The first 6 or 7 chapters contain accounts of his subdued presence in Congress, failing to bring any legislation to the floor, but succeeding at plucking the strings of Sam Rayburn, and other crucial figures to get favors. He also campaigned on the fact that he would go fight in the trenches, then conveniently landed himself a naval commission as an observer. He observed one flight which nearly got shot down, and he milked that story for every cent (far more cents than he should've gotten – total stolen valor). He earned a silver star and status as a war hero (other actual combatants on the same bombing raid did not - and he would slang that thing in peoples' faces on the campaign trail

The fifth chapter profiles, Lady Bird to this point in time, was a meek and subservient girl who was easily picked upon for her insecurities. Johnson exploited this, also empowered her to run his office while he was away, ostensibly on the Pacific front, more likely gallivanting around the West Coast of the homeland dodging calls as a sitting Congressman. Next upon his return, he managed to propel ladybird through the FCC to establish the entertainment and media monopoly.

Within three years of her purchase of the KTBC the radio station it/she was doing 10 times in revenue what she had paid for it initially (a transaction which was basically compulsory due to FCC bureaucracy which prevented its sale to anyone and caused the former owners to hemorrhage money for over three years till Johnson pulled some strings permitting its sale to his wife after just 24 days).

Johnson would deny any sort of affiliation whether direct or indirect with any privately held assets of his spouse's. He would always say "all that is ladybird, I have nothing to do with it. I've never taken a penny nor cast to vote for it." Which is kind of hilarious because her money was legally his money. Within five years, Johnson himself as owner of half the income, not even owner of the assets pursuing that income was a millionaire let alone what it is that lady Bird was taking it herself

Caro describes Johnson's ambition for wealth as being second only to his ambition for political power, and it was something that he spoke about as pragmatically as he did his intention to hold higher office, so when all of a sudden his wife gets rich and he's like I have nothing to do with that. It's just patently transparent – and he micromanaged KTBC like he micromanaged Clayberg's office and his own campaign, wielded it to great effect in his senate race.

Part II profiles Coke Stevenson who was Mr. Texas. A teenage cowboy freighter who braved the badlands of hill country with more success than grown men in the same trade, he earned a name for himself. He wanted to be a banker though and –despite lacking any sort of formal education– taught himself by campfire light by reading obsessively over whatever he could get his hands on. He quit his freighting job to try to get a job at a bank where he was laughed away and offered a job as a janitor. He would later be the president of that bank and honorary president of the competing bank in the same city. He taught himself law and became a wickedly respected lawyer, became judge and was similarly praised for his impartiality. First man to ever serve two consecutive terms as speaker of the state legislature and truly loved government – but hated politics. The perfect statesman. He continued to teach himself everything he could, picking up architecture and engineering if only to improve his ranch which he poured all his free time into, refusing to get a phone installed. He was pulled out of his pleasant, early retirement (and lonely solitude after his wife passed) to run for senate in 1948. He was a shoe-in until LBJ announced on Jan 1 that year and mounted the most expensive campaign the world had ever seen. Coke maintained in insanely modest campaign and never stooped to even dignify the muckraking which LBJ slandered him with on primetime radio several times a day. He stood firm in his belief that the people of TX knew how he stood: the way he had always stood, that his reputation spoke for itself. And by God he won that election despite LBJ (who I'm convinced made a pact with the devil based on the ferocity with which he executed his campaign) helicoptering all over the state (expecting much fanfare and being outright rude and abusive when not met with sufficient approbation) and bent the entire strength of the media empire he had begun to amass via Ladybird's KTBC, revolutionizing campaign finance for the rest of time.

Vote-purchasing was an understood tactic, even for Coke, but Johnson went even further (his whole political career hinged on this senate race: he would not return to slow-moving Congress as a loser).

Insane judicial gambit unfolds after Johnson filed an injunction to leave his name on the ballot as the winner of the Democratic primary after Stevenson contested the validity of the election results given the clear evidence of fraud. His [Johnson's] play was to lose quickly in circuit court, so as to file an appeal to get it before the Supreme Court ASAP, risking everything since there was no guarantee that the Supreme Court would even entertain the circuit court appeal, but he couldn't let Stevenson file the appeal if he won in circuit court because that would take too long before the ballots needed to be finalized on October 4. The state court proceedings carried on as the judge there, having been invoked, was insistent on getting to the bottom of the alleged voting fraud and Johnson knew that if all votes were examined in all the counties Coke would surely win. Simultaneously on the other side of the country, the other half of his legal team secretly met with the Supreme Court Justice who gave them a favorable ruling over the intentionally weak ruling of the Circuit court – as soon as they got that in writing, his TX lawyers motioned to drop the case and halt further investigation since the Court of the Land had spoken.

Later the guy with Box 13 of Duval county, when confronted by Caro, offered his own entire fucking manuscript detailing how they dun it wanting his story to be known. So insane.

Caro (and his wife) being the first to unearth this story is a testament to his mastery of historic investigative journalism.

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