A Texan Looks at Lyndon; A Study in Illegitimate Power

Canyon, TX: Palo Duro Press, 1964. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Mass market paperback. Good. 17 cm. 256 pages. Wraps. Pages somewhat darkened. Cover somewhat worn and soiled. James Evetts Haley Sr. (July 5, 1901 - October 9, 1995), usually known as J. Evetts Haley, was a Texas-born political activist and historian who wrote multiple works on the American West, including an enduring biography of cattleman Charles Goodnight. Haley determined Goodnight to have been a man of greatness and claimed that Goodnight's detractors were less-than-successful persons envious of Goodnight's achievement and bearing. In 1943, he published George W. Littlefield, Texan, a biography of cattleman George W. Littlefield for whom the city of Littlefield in Lamb County is named. He followed with Charles Schreiner about the Hill Country rancher and landowner Charles Schreiner Sr. (1944), Jeff Milton, A Good Man with a Gun (1948), and Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier (1952), a reference to an early fortification in San Angelo. His political views were ultraconservative. Haley's self-published paperback A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power was released in 1964. The book has been described as portraying "Johnson as a vain and vicious man whose climb to the presidency was wrought with malevolence on every rung of the ladder." Haley stated that Johnson "accepted second place for money" and suggested that he was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Although 100,000 copies of the book were initially printed, sales increased dramatically prior to the 1964 presidential election. Bulk orders by the John Birch Society and supporters of Barry Goldwater pushed sales up so that A Texan Looks at Lyndon eventually became the most successful political book of all time. However, with the passage of time, and the ephemeral nature of such political works, relatively few copies are currently available to historians, researchers, and collectors.