Robert Caro on Power: Robert Moses, Lyndon Johnson and the Will to Build

Robert Caro, who has spent 50 years writing about Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, tells Dwarkesh Patel what he learned about power, ruthlessness and getting big things built. In this episode of the Dwarkesh Podcast, the author of The Power Broker and the multi-volume biography The Years of Lyndon Johnson explains how he gets people to say things they know they should not, whether America needs “a little Moses” again, how Moses hardened from young idealist into a builder who evicted tens of thousands, why Johnson’s persuasion only worked because of the power behind it, why he thinks Kennedy could not have passed Johnson’s laws, the 350,000 words cut from The Power Broker, why he gave his archive to the New-York Historical Society for far less money than he was offered, and the loneliness of the Texas Hill Country and of his own working life.

TLDW

Caro argues that every era says nothing big can be built, and every so often a political genius like Moses or Johnson proves otherwise through sheer will. He wants someone who can get things built today, but not someone as ruthless as Moses became, and the central story of The Power Broker is how power hardened a reformer into a man who listened to no one. On Johnson, he says persuasion was only the surface and the real force was what Johnson could give or deny you. He closes on the material that never made it into his books, the archive he left for future historians, and how loneliness shaped both Johnson’s family and his own decades at the desk.

Thoughts

The question Caro would ask Moses in an eighth interview, “Did you realize you were changing?”, is the whole of The Power Broker compressed into six words, and his own answer is unsettling: no. Moses never saw himself as different from the young civil service reformer who wanted city families to reach Jones Beach. He saw a consistent vision that was right, and every obstacle as something to remove. Caro’s example is brutal. When Bronx politician Henry Epstein pointed out that moving the Cross Bronx Expressway two blocks would evict a couple of hundred people instead of tens of thousands, Moses destroyed him by making his affair known. The lesson is not that power corrupts in some abstract way. It is that the methods a person learns from failing early (find the weakness, use it) become habits, and the person using them is the last one to notice. Moses also built an interlocking web of posts with staggered terms so no governor could easily fire him, which removed the outside check that might have told him.

“Behind his persuasion was the power” is the most useful sentence in the conversation for anyone who studies influence. The legend of Lyndon Johnson is the “treatment,” the arm around the shoulder and the face inches away. Caro says that was never the source. A senator facing Johnson knew he wanted a committee seat or a bill, and that Johnson could give or withhold it. Charm worked because leverage stood behind it. That reframes Caro’s Kennedy counterfactual too. He does not think Johnson as majority leader under a President Kennedy would have produced the same civil rights and anti-poverty laws, because Kennedy lacked the overriding desire to change America that Johnson carried back from teaching poor Mexican American children in Cotulla. Leverage without will produces deals. Will without leverage produces speeches. Johnson had both, and the 5 a.m. phone calls to senators (one of whom answered, “Oh, Lyndon, I was just lying here waiting for your call”) were the will in action.

Caro’s answer to the modern “we can’t build anything” debate is more interesting than either side’s slogans. Patel lays out the familiar argument that The Power Broker helped inspire environmental review, community boards and litigation, and that America has overcorrected. Caro refuses the premise that safeguards are new. In the 1920s people also said nothing could be built because property owners blocked every road, and then Moses built anyway, without even holding eminent domain. His view is that political genius is rare and arrives unpredictably: decades pass with no one, then someone gets big things done. He wants “a little Moses,” but not the ruthlessness. The Great Depression section adds a sober footnote. Part of Moses’s speed came from thousands of out-of-work architects and laborers he could hire cheaply and fire at will, the same cheap skilled labor that put carved stonework on rooftops nobody would ever see. Some of the old building capacity was will. Some of it was desperation that no one should want back.

The part about what never made it into the books should change how readers think of Caro’s legacy. He handed his editor Bob Gottlieb a Power Broker manuscript of about 1,050,000 words and had to cut 350,000 of them. He did 700 interviews for that book alone, and he says most of what he learned about the Senate is not in the Johnson volumes either. He names Sam Rayburn, who ran the House and passed much of Roosevelt’s program, as a major figure with no good biography, and says the material for one sits in his file cabinets. He turned down larger offers so the archive would go to the New-York Historical Society, where people can actually get to it, rather than to Texas. Since the people he interviewed in the 1960s through 1980s cannot be interviewed again, that decision may matter as much as any single book. His remark that digital archives make documents faster to find, but that “finding them is a small thing compared to reading them,” is the same ethic in one line.

The closing theme of loneliness links the subject and the biographer. Caro describes Johnson’s mother walking up a hill and seeing nothing but more hills, and an elderly woman giving directions that ran 22 miles down a dirt road past no house and no person. He argues America still does not understand the heroism of simply enduring that isolation, apart from any frontier danger. Then he admits his own version: phone off all morning, calls returned only at day’s end, friends who do not understand. It is a quiet reminder that a 50-year project about power was itself built on the opposite of Johnson’s method. Johnson worked the phones at 3 a.m. to gather people around him. Caro has spent decades shutting them out to think.

Key Takeaways

Caro gets reluctant sources to talk by doing the document work first, so he knows exactly what only they can explain, such as John Connally on why Johnson marked some funding requests “No, never.”
He rejects the idea that Moses-era New York had no safeguards. In the 1920s people also said nothing could be built, and Moses built roads to Long Island without eminent domain.
Caro thinks political genius for building appears rarely and unpredictably, and that America needs someone who can get things built, but not someone as ruthless as Moses became.
The early Moses was an idealist who fought for merit-based civil service and public beaches. The later Moses evicted tens of thousands for the Cross Bronx Expressway without relocation provisions.
Caro watched Moses lose power in real time: after one late interview, the secretary came in with no list of callers at all.
Moses held interlocking posts with staggered terms, so mayors and governors could not easily fire him, until Nelson Rockefeller accepted a threatened resignation.
The Great Depression gave Moses thousands of cheap, available architects and workers, and the same cheap skilled labor explains ornate stonework on buildings that no one can see from the street.
Johnson’s persuasion worked because senators knew he could grant or deny committee seats and bills. The power was behind the charm.
Caro admits he wishes Coke Stevenson had won the 1948 Texas Senate race, the election at the center of Means of Ascent.
He believes Kennedy, though charming and better at foreign policy, lacked Johnson’s driving desire to change America, so Johnson’s domestic laws would not simply have passed earlier.
Caro says he is still working out why Johnson kept escalating in Vietnam, the subject of his current volume.
Before writing, he forces each book down to one sentence or at most a paragraph, a lesson he learned the hard way after not doing it for The Power Broker.
The Power Broker manuscript was about 1,050,000 words, and roughly 350,000 had to be cut to fit one volume.
He gave his archive, including about 700 interviews for The Power Broker alone, to the New-York Historical Society for much less money than other offers so it would be easy to reach.

Chapters

0:00 How Caro Gets People to Talk

Patel asks whether Caro shares the relentlessness of his subjects. Caro hopes he lacks their ruthlessness but admits he cannot accept no from a source he needs, such as Johnson’s first secretary, who rode with him on his early campaigns. He gets people to talk by knowing the documents so well that he can ask questions only they can answer, like asking John Connally what Johnson meant by writing “No, never” on a request for money.

5:03 Does America Need a Little More Moses Today?

Patel cites the Second Avenue subway and California’s high-speed rail as signs that safeguards built partly in reaction to The Power Broker have gone too far. Caro answers that people said the same thing in the 1920s, before Moses built Jones Beach and the roads to reach it. He is not sure there is a stable middle point. Instead, he says, a rare political genius appears every so often and gets big things built, and he would like someone like that today without Moses’s disregard for the public.

12:42 Moses the Young Idealist

Caro says anyone who thinks he portrays Moses as wholly bad did not read the book. Hundreds of pages cover a young reformer devoted to merit-based civil service and to giving city people beaches. The later Moses pushed the Cross Bronx Expressway through despite warnings, evicting tens of thousands without relocation help, and the road opened as the world’s longest traffic jam. Caro describes the arc as power hardening him to any opposition.

17:57 Watching Moses Lose Power

Caro wrote the book from 1966 and 1967 onward as Moses was losing power. In his Triborough Bridge office he used to be handed lists of callers after each interview, until one day there were none. Moses, in his 80s and deaf and surrounded by loyal aides, never fully realized it. Rockefeller called his resignation bluff in 1962. Earlier officials could legally have fired him, but his popularity and interlocking posts made it practically impossible for decades. If Caro had an eighth interview, he would ask whether Moses realized he was changing.

27:53 Building During the Great Depression

Patel asks how much of Moses’s early speed came from the Depression. Caro says a great deal: thousands of unemployed architects lined up on Fifth Avenue, and workers could be pushed hard and fired at will because they had nowhere else to go. Asked why a poorer America built more beautiful buildings, Caro points to cheap skilled artisans, using carved stonework on a rooftop across from his apartment that only his neighbors can see.

32:51 The Threats and Promises of Lyndon Johnson

Drawing on Master of the Senate, Patel asks whether Johnson’s power came from persuasion or leverage. Caro says the power was behind the persuasion: every senator knew Johnson could give or deny the committee seat or bill he wanted. Patel calls Means of Ascent his favorite book, and Caro admits he wishes Coke Stevenson, “Mr. Texas,” had won the 1948 Senate race, because Stevenson never grasped what Johnson was willing to do to him.

36:08 Could Kennedy Have Passed Johnson’s Laws?

Caro says no. Kennedy was charming and a good president in foreign policy, but lacked the desire to change America that Johnson brought back from teaching poor children in Cotulla. That will produced the civil rights and anti-poverty laws, and Vietnam turned the presidency into tragedy. Caro declines to explain the escalation because he is still working it out. He attributes Johnson’s and Moses’s 16-hour days to will, not constitution.

41:00 Getting a Book Down to One Sentence

With years between starting a book and any public feedback, Caro says you never know you are on the right track. His device, learned after not using it on The Power Broker, is to think the whole book through before writing and reduce it to one sentence or at most a paragraph. Everything then has to hang together around that point. He also says digital archives help him find sources, such as oral histories of the Battle of Ia Drang, but would not have sped up his earlier volumes.

46:21 All the Material That Never Made It Into the Books

Caro gave editor Bob Gottlieb a manuscript of about 1,050,000 words, and they cut 350,000 to fit one volume, including what Gottlieb called some of the best material he ever read. Caro says he cannot stop himself writing what he thinks should be written. His file cabinets hold 700 interviews for The Power Broker alone and most of what he learned about the Senate. He wants someone to write the Sam Rayburn biography that does not yet exist, and he chose the New-York Historical Society over richer offers to keep the archive accessible.

52:59 Loneliness

Patel wonders whether an ordinary life could sustain a Caro biography, since the Hill Country story is fascinating on its own. Caro agrees there are not enough books on what settling that frontier was like, and says loneliness formed Johnson’s world, from his mother seeing nothing but hills to farms 22 miles down dirt roads. Asked about his own life, Caro describes turning off his phone each morning and not returning calls until evening, a habit some friends never understand.

Notable Quotes

“Every once in a while someone comes along who’s a genius, if that’s the right word, at getting big things built for the public. Decades may pass when there’s no one like that.”
Robert Caro, on whether anything big can be built today

“When people say to me everything was bad that he did, what I say is, ‘You didn’t read the book.’”
Robert Caro, on how Robert Moses is misremembered

“If I only had one question to ask him, I’d ask him, ‘Did you realize you were changing?’”
Robert Caro, on what he would ask Moses in an eighth interview

“Behind his persuasion was the power.”
Robert Caro, on the real source of Lyndon Johnson’s influence in the Senate

“You’ve got to get it down to one sentence.”
Robert Caro, on deciding what a book is about before writing it

“Certainly you could find the documents faster. But finding them is a small thing compared to reading them.”
Robert Caro, on whether the internet would have sped up his work

“I’m not sure that America understands the heroism of, forgetting Indians and raiders, just the loneliness of what life was like for these people.”
Robert Caro, on the settlers of the Texas Hill Country

Watch the full conversation here.