Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade.

• Author: Swope, Kevin A.

The rift between Robert F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson was the central fault line running down the center of the Democratic party at the time of the party's greatest influence since the 1930s. In his new book, Jeff Shesol makes a strong argument that it is impossible to "fully comprehend either [man] without considering his relationship with the other" Although the various biographers of each man have of necessity discussed the Kennedy-Johnson rivalry, none has covered the matter as comprehensively or as well as Shesol does here.

The bad blood between the two can be traced back to Johnson's rather anemic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, only to crystallize during JFK's administration.

Despite the president's efforts to include him in important discussions, Johnson was a virtual nonentity in the Kennedy administration, an object of derision for the New Frontier loyalists. When Johnson became president in November 1963, Kennedy aides reacted with the same incredulity as Franklin Roosevelt's staff had 18 years earlier when a former haberdasher was called upon to fill the shoes of the man whom they would continue to call "the President" well after April 1945. But Roosevelt had not been assassinated, nor had he an obvious successor for New Dealers to rally around. Almost from the moment he assumed office, Lyndon Johnson's chief political worry was the threat of a Kennedy restoration. He was hardly alone. For most pundits, the question was not whether RFK would seek the presidency, but when.

Shesol is a bit mingy in acknowledging LBJ's virtues. For example, he notes that the Kennedy administration had already lined up the necessary votes in the House to pass his civil rights act by November 1963. While this may be true, everyone knew that the real battle would be in the Senate where, as Jesse Helms has so recently demonstrated, geriatric Southern conservatives are still masters of obstruction. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 remain President Johnson's greatest accomplishments.

Yet for the most part, it is difficult to fault Shesol's judgment as he relates instance after well-documented instance of Johnson's pettiness and insecurity regarding the Kennedys. It is a backhanded testament to LBJ's remarkable industry that he was able to launch the Great Society and fight the Vietnam War, given all the time he lavished on foiling RFK initiatives' What is one to make of a man who not only...