Rating: 
Summary: All too human
Review: A marvel this book is. LBJ in his outsize character comes through, its flaws and brilliance both. The folksy and earthy Texan and the finetuned DC-powermachine exist next to one another, integrated in this incomparable person. You live with him through his trial and triumph after the assasination of JFK and through his madddening insecurity that would destroy his preseidency in the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Special opportunity to hear history as it actually happened!
Review: Found this audio tape absolutely mesmerizing. To hear actual conversations related to hisorical events immediately following President Kennedy's assassnation was both fascinating and enlightening. Gave me an entirely new perspective of LBJ, his character and accomplishments. Also an excellent insight into what really goes on behind the scenes in our nation's capital. A strong reminder that what we read and hear via the news media is often 'less than accurate'. For me, this tape debunked many concepts I held related to LBJ and other political figures, especially Robert Kennedy. I was particularly surprised to hear the amount of respect and warm feelings that LBJ and Jackie Kennedy apparently held for each other. I reccomend this book and/or audio tape to anyone interested in better understanding the nature of our political system. A real eye opener for me. I will never accept the images that our news medial creates about our political leaders again.
Rating: 
Summary: More un-American Council on Foreogn Relations Propaganda
Review: I have general interest in the Presidency so I was interested in this book to see what the unedited / un-spun conversations in the Oval office are really like. I was not disappointed. We get the whole range of day to day items that are covered by LBJ, from arranging to get free haircuts for his family and inexpensive western clothing for his staff to setting up the Warren Commission and pushing his civil rights bills. The items that I found the most interesting were the conversations around the assassination of JFK and the Vietnam War. The calls with J. E. Hover in the days after the event are interesting to the point of gripping. You get true emotion from the conversations. What made the book really work was the great editing and very helpful lead comments and footnotes by the author. I was somewhat concerned that I would get lost in the less then precise conversations between familiar people, but the footnotes add all the clarity one would need to understand who is speaking and about what. I also found it very interesting to see LBJ working the phones; he does everything from out right [bottom] kissing to demanding. All of it is surrounded by his down home Texas language that seams to bring the office of the President a little closer to home. For the general political reader like myself there were a few slow spots in the book, talking about minor political scandals of the day was not interesting to me, but overall these are few and do not take away from the overall book. I would not suggest this to be your first book on LBJ or the politics around the Vietnam War, but if you are interested in the topics you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: The Editing and Footnotes Make it an Interesting Book
Review: I have general interest in the Presidency so I was interested in this book to see what the unedited / un-spun conversations in the Oval office are really like. I was not disappointed. We get the whole range of day to day items that are covered by LBJ, from arranging to get free haircuts for his family and inexpensive western clothing for his staff to setting up the Warren Commission and pushing his civil rights bills. The items that I found the most interesting were the conversations around the assassination of JFK and the Vietnam War. The calls with J. E. Hover in the days after the event are interesting to the point of gripping. You get true emotion from the conversations. What made the book really work was the great editing and very helpful lead comments and footnotes by the author. I was somewhat concerned that I would get lost in the less then precise conversations between familiar people, but the footnotes add all the clarity one would need to understand who is speaking and about what. I also found it very interesting to see LBJ working the phones; he does everything from out right [bottom] kissing to demanding. All of it is surrounded by his down home Texas language that seams to bring the office of the President a little closer to home. For the general political reader like myself there were a few slow spots in the book, talking about minor political scandals of the day was not interesting to me, but overall these are few and do not take away from the overall book. I would not suggest this to be your first book on LBJ or the politics around the Vietnam War, but if you are interested in the topics you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Book's a knockout; tape's even better.
Review: I imagine folks' response to this book/tape will be dependent on their age, how well they remember the days depicted. I remember them well, found both the book and the less
comprehensive tape to be excellent. This is
The Good Lyndon at his best - when the
'threat' of the impending 1964 election kept
him (relatively) honest. No taking it away from
the man, he was one awesome character, one
who *filled* the space he occupied.
Vietnam moments in these conversations - esp. those in the tape version, which gives the
feel of being a wiretapper on the president's
private line - are heart-rending. It all mightn't
have happened. Johnson foresaw the
consequnces of escalating the war, and yet
he proceeded. We'll have to await Beschloss's
*next* book/tape to understand why.
A great read and an even better listen. Pick up
the tape version for drive-time.
Rating:
Summary: More un-American Council on Foreogn Relations Propaganda
Review: I ranked this book with one star only because zero stars is not an option. The Author, Michael Beschloss is a member of the super-evil Council on Foreign Relations (CFR,) a secret society founded by the Rockefellers for the sole benefit of the Rockefellers and their small cadre of super-rich treasonous lap dogs who control scads of other secret societies under the guise of tax-exempt foundations that collectively, persistently, even feverishly work toward that sacrosanct goal that despots and tyrants like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, the Rockefellers, John McCloy, Prescott Bush, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry have sought to enforce upon mankind for centuries; globalization under a New World Order absolutely controlled by the Rockefellers and their cohorts; a world order ruled by one world government under which the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and U.S. sovereignty would cease to exist! Like the Warren Report, this work covers only what the CFR wants Americans to believe on the subject. Americans are supposed to naively believe that nothing else of consequence can be found on those tapes by other researchers. This is utter whitewash. Don't waste a penny on this un-American trash. If you love America and cherish the freedoms guaranteed to you in the Bill of Rights, invest the money you would spend on this propaganda in whatever it takes to ensure that these monsters are stopped once and for all.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding work of history and commentary
Review: I was 3 when Lyndon Johnson came to power, so my only memories of him were of his decision not to run in 1968 and his historical villification for Vietnam. This book puts an incredibly human face on a very complex, manipulative man. It has a couple of slow spots and does not offer anything earth shattering about Johnson; yet, it does keep your attention from start to finish as you literally watch a President operating from day to day in unedited mode. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Voyeur's delight
Review: Interesting book for the voyeur in us all. LBJ was a fascinating man who showed with absolute clarity how a man with the best of intentions can yet so abysmally fail.
Rating:
Summary: An Unedited Piece of History
Review: Johnson's recorded conversations provide some important insight into this turbulent period in history. LBJ's selection of the Warren Commission to apparently chose individuals who would support the lone gunman theory so that the issue could be closed quickly and the crisis resolved. And he admits that he himself did not agree with some of the conclusions of the Commission's findings, like the idea that the same, single bullett that wounded Connally also killed Kennedy. I am looking forward to more volumes on the LBJ tapes. This book covers less than one year of the president's time in office. The escalation of the war in Vietnam and what LBJ has to say about it on tape will be interesting to find out. Author Michael Beschloss does a great job using footnotes to clarify exactly what is being talked about. This is a good read for those who like the "cut and dried" uncensored style of reading. You can't argue with actual spoken words!
Rating: 
Summary: The Angriest President?
Review: Lyndon Baines Johnson was a lot of things, but couth wasn't one of them. After starting his presidency by calling Rose Kennedy, the mother of his murdered predecessor, to offer sincere condolences, LBJ quickly set off putting his own stamp on the White House, driving to the point of rude, focused to the point of nasty. At times he could be charming and sympathetic, but what comes across most clearly from these collected transcripts of Johnson's conversations is just how sick in the head our nation's leader often was.
Reading through these transcripts, all recorded secretly by Johnson, mostly by phone, one is struck by how the man seems to take cold delight in belittling his staff, bullying legislators, and taking apart anyone who has the misfortune of wandering into his world when the mood is upon him. He's nice to his wife, and able to hear the occasional able counsel of those like Sen. Richard Russell whom he respects, but that's about it.
The period covered in this book is the first nine months of his five-plus years in office. Supposedly this was the best part of the Johnson Administration, before Vietnam sent everything else on a downward spiral. But the record here shows something different. His heart may be in the right place, especially with civil rights, but there's something odd right away. Despite his massive lead in the polls, Johnson obsesses over outpolling likely Republican opponents even within their own party, and whines about presumptive GOP nominee Barry Goldwater's rhetoric even as it makes Johnson's reelection surer by the day. Out of concern for protecting his Southern base, he dodges the parents of three missing civil rights workers later found murdered in Mississippi. Most especially, Johnson focuses considerable ire on one man, his own Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy, who he blames covertly for every perceived problem he faces.
Was Johnson this bad, or was Michael Benchloss trying to make a point with selective editing? I trust Benchloss's judgment, even if I don't always agree with it. He truncates one of Johnson's most memorable and hilarious phone conversations from this period, when he orders some slacks from the Haggar Company, and I have a feeling some Camelot sympathies color other parts Benchloss presents. But whatever the case, Johnson clearly had a problem with Bobby that extended beyond any rational place. I never cared much for Bobby Kennedy before, but I could only feel sorry for him here. Kennedy seems a dutiful assistant in Johnson's plans, but has his motives read again and again by his boss in the worst possible light.
It's a one-note situation that occurs again and again, making "Taking Charge" less scintillating than salacious. The title suggests a study in strong leadership, but what you get is a study in obsessive compulsion. Call it "Moby Bobby." At every turn, in the hours and hours of recorded conversation, Johnson continually brings up RFK in some negative context. The newspapers are giving Johnson grief, so Bobby must have something to do with it. Civil rights activists are agitating over the 1964 convention, must be Kennedy's shenanigans. He even puts the FBI on him. Captain Ahab wasn't this miserable.
I'd give this book more stars if I had more fun reading it. Benchloss provides helpful notes and brief lead-ins for most of the conversation, but he doesn't do anything to set up the narrative at the outset, except in presenting an interesting if off-center series of comments Johnson made about the mystery of the Kennedy assassination which makes clear LBJ's innocence in that matter. One thing the New York Times reviewer noted is that Benchloss should have provided introductory essays to each of the month-by-month sections. You kind of have to follow the footnotes if you are to have any sense on what is what, and while Benchloss's footnotes are fun and smart, they also are mandatory reading, something footnotes should never be.
This is a good book for what it is, but I have a feeling it could have been better with Benchloss taking more of an active hand. It's a clear contribution to American history and presidential politics, but its many insights are scattershot and the overall effect it leaves is more depressing than uplifting. Maybe with Johnson, that was the point.
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