Taking Charge, Michael R. Beschloss
Taking Charge, Michael R. Beschloss
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Taking Charge
The Johnson White House Tapes 1963 1964

Author: Michael R. Beschloss

Narrator: Michael R. Beschloss

Abridged: 6 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/01/1997


Synopsis

Taking Charge brings you into the room with an American political legend, still hated and revered a quarter century after his death. We hear Lyndon Johnson as he schemes and blusters, rewards and punishes, and reveals a bedrock core of unshakable political beliefs.
The only President to record his private conversations from his first day in office, LBJ ordered these tapes locked in a vault until at least the year 2023. But now they have been unsealed, providing a close-up look at a President taking power such as we have never had before -- from John F. Kennedy's murder in November 1963 to Johnson's campaign for a landslide victory.
Taking Charge is filled with revelations about the full-blooded Texan behind the public image. You will hear LBJ:
* Revealing his self-doubts and personal anguish over the responsibilities of the presidency
* Receiving the frank criticism of his wife, Lady Bird Johnson
* Staking his presidency on a revolutionaly civil rights bill
* Scuttling Robert Kennedy's drive to be his Vice President
* Using the Tonkin Gulf attack to expand the American beachhead in Southeast Asia
* Unveiling his private, tortured early doubts that we could ever win a war in Vietnam
Taking Charge gives us an unprecedented look into a crucial presidency that continues to shape our lives today. In LBJ's own words, it is history "with the bark off."

About Michael R. Beschloss

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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brett on December 27, 2024

This was very insightful on LBJ and the times of his presidency. Each chapter chronicled a month from his assumption of Presidency (22 November 1963) through 29 August 1964. There were many subjects discussed in conversation: the JFK assassination & the Warren Commission, J. Edgar Hoover & the FBI,......more

Goodreads review by Ray on October 24, 2020

These secretly recorded tapes, along with the subsequent series for 1964-1965, really show how complicated the job of President of the US really is. LBJ was a master politician who took over after the assassination of John Kennedy. LBJ stumbled badly in expanding the war in Vietnam, but he also shep......more

Goodreads review by Tanya on October 07, 2020

This was so interesting to listen to as an audiobook. It contains passages from the actual tapes, so you can hear LBJ having conversations with people like Robert McNamara, Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover, and LBJ's wife, Lady Bird, among others. Anyway, I definitely recommend......more

Goodreads review by Scott on June 27, 2020

This is a great use of the audiobook format, with actual recordings from LBJ included. It is fascinating to hear people speak to each other exactly as they actually spoke.......more

Goodreads review by Robert A. on June 12, 2008

Want to be a fly on the wall as a U.S. President talks on the phone to Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Robert McNamara, J. Edgar Hoover and other giants of the 1960s? Get the audio book of The Johnson White House Tapes and you'll have a dozen CDs of priceless conversations from that era. Listenin......more