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Reaching for Glory

Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965

About The Book

Transcribing, editing, and explaining the most powerful moments from hundreds of hours of newly released LBJ tapes, Michael Beschloss has added another lasting treasure to the American historical record. Reaching for Glory exposes the inner workings of the Johnson presidency from the summer of 1964 through the summer of 1965.
From behind the scenes, you will hear Johnson pulling the strings of his presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater and pursuing his feud with the new senator Robert Kennedy. He agonizes over Martin Luther King, Jr., and the bloody march on Selma, Alabama, and twists arms on Capitol Hill to pass voting rights, Medicare, and more basic laws than any American president before or since. Above all, you will hear him sending young Americans off to Vietnam while privately insisting that the war can never be won.
Winding Johnson's voice and exclusive excerpts from Lady Bird Johnson's private diaries into a gripping narrative, Michael Beschloss provides context and historical insights, showing how profoundly LBJ changed the presidency and the country. Reaching for Glory allows us to live at Lyndon Johnson's side, day by day, through the dramatic, triumphant, and catastrophic year of a turbulent presidency that continues to affect us all.

About The Author

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Michael Beschloss has been called "the nation's leading Presidential historian" by Newsweek. He has written nine books on American Presidents and is NBC News Presidential Historian, as well as contributor to PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife.

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Raves and Reviews

George Stephanopoulos The New York Times Book Review An incomparable portrait of a president at work, and the workings of a president's mind.

Michiko Kakutani The New York Times A compelling picture of the day-to-day workings of Johnson's presidency...Reaching for Glory shows him in a full Shakespearean panoply of moods.

Philip Zelikow Foreign Affairs Johnson is caught in all of his public poses and most of his private ones. Beschloss is...knowledgeable [and] assured.

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