Citadel (U.S. Senate)

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Citadel (sub-title: The Story of the U.S. Senate) is a study of the American Upper House by the journalist, William S. White. Written in 1956, the book anticipates the great changes afoot in post-war Washington[1]. Gunther in Inside USA[2] had put the problem of Southern intractability over civil rights reform in perspective, but White was the first to make public how skilled the Southern Senators were at utilising every procedural mechanism the chamber had to offer[3]. White identified a controlling elite within this tiny and naturally inward-looking body: he called the "The Club".

Those who belong to it express, consciously or consciously, the deepest instincts and prejudices of the Senate type, a man for whom the Institution is a career in itself, a life in itself and an end in itself.

As White was himself to point out in retirement, it was these Old Bull's[4] most trusted lieutenant, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who eventually neutralised their power[5].

Notes

  1. ^ Caro, R Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (2002 New York, Knopf) ISBN 0553712918
  2. ^ Gunther, J Inside USA (1947 London, Hamish Hamilton)
  3. ^ Esteemed Colleagues: Civility and Deliberation in the U.S. Senate Burdett, L (2000 Washington D.C Brookings Institution Press) ISBN 0815752946
  4. ^ Bull elephants: the alpha-males. Most commentators identify Richard Russell as the man even they deferred to.
  5. ^ LBJ Oral History Interview 5th March 1969