Bobby Baker

In a forthcoming review on Caro's new book -- the fourth volume of THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON -- I summarize some of what Caro has to say about Bobby Baker. The Baker anchor was an important aspect of the Johnson VP and early Presidential years, at least as Caro is reconstructing them, and some of Caro's other reviewers seem to have said nothing or far too little about it.

That review should appear in the next issue of The Federal Lawyer.

Meanwhile, I've discovered that I wrote something about Caro once before.

I'm the author of a book on the political history of the US Supreme Court, from the New Deal era to the George H.W. Bush presidency. In that context I mentioned Baker. It introduced my book's first invocation of the concept of executive privilege.

I'll just quote that passage here:

Early in 1964 the Senate opened a formal inquiry into allegations of influence peddling brought against Bobby Baker, Johnson's longtime friend and former aide. The Senate tried to subpoena Walter Jenkins, Johnson's 'special assistant'... [and] the Johnson administration claimed that Jenkins could not testify before a Senate committee on grounds of 'executive privilege,' a privilege alleged to derive from the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. Abe Fortas wrote the twenty-six page brief that espoused this theory."

In light of reading Caro's book, I would now re-work that statement in a couple of respects.

The Senate wasn't really "opening" its inquiry into the Baker web of influence in 1964. It had opened such an inquiry in 1963, while Johnson was still VP, and had suspended it on November 22, 1963, on learning of the assassination in Dallas.

The Senate later re-opened that inquiry.

I also shouldn't have referred to Baker as having been an "aide" for Johnson. Baker was a protege of Johnson's, and due to Johnson's influence as Majority Leader, Baker got a cushy job with indefinite duties known as Secretary to the Majority. Still, the word "aide" doesn't do it. The word "protege" would have been better.