Victory for Lyndon

Even for Texas, the fight was savage. Governor Allan Shivers, unbeaten and still packing a wallop after two decades in politics, was the official champ. Senator Lyndon Johnson, fast and clever, and seconded by implacable old House Speaker Sam Rayburn, was the challenger. The prize: control of the Texas Democratic Party, including its 56-vote delegation to the national convention. Last week, at more than 5,000 precinct meetings in 254 counties, Lyndon Johnson gave Allan Shivers a merciless drubbing, then added a couple of sharp kicks to make certain he would not get up.

Sam Rayburn had been setting Shivers up for the kill ever since 1952, when Shivers bolted his party and led Texas into the Eisenhower column. Picking his instrument of revenge. Mistuh Sam threw his vast party influence behind his longtime protege, Johnson, and labored mightily to build Johnson's prestige. Rayburn's plans were almost wrecked when Johnson suffered a heart attack last year. But Allan Shivers was in trouble too: he was serving a third full term in a state that likes its governors to retire gracefully after two; his administration was rocked by land and insurance scandals (TIME, Aug. 8).

Last March Rayburn moved fast: he proposed that Texas go to the national convention with Johnson in the dual role of favorite-son candidate and delegation chairman. Governor Shivers, anxious for a truce, agreed to the favorite-son proposition—but he was bound and determined that, come what may, he would himself head the delegation. And he made it clear that he would feel free to throw Texas to the Republicans again if the Democrats nominated someone, e.g., Adlai Stevenson, who was not to his liking. Shivers turned down Rayburn's proposal, attacked Johnson personally—and the fight was on.

It centered on last week's precinct meetings, where victory would give control of the county and state conventions. Shivers campaigned wildly, nailing about on all sides. Johnson, he cried, was "vain, ambitious and vicious," and was "playing footsie" with left-wingers to boot. The issue was whether the Texas delegation would become one "of errand boys bound body and soul in advance to deliver the Texas votes whenever and where Mr. Sam decrees."

Brownell's Puppet? Lyndon Johnson, relaxed, affable, appearing to enjoy the brawl, moved tirelessly around the state on handshaking tours, cracking at Shivers as a "Little Lord Fauntleroy with no place to go." Learning that Republican Attorney General Herbert Brownell had gone secretly to Woodville for a conference with Shivers last month, Johnson cried: "Allan Shivers is nothing but a puppet in Brownell's hands." Blasting away even more lustily was angry Sam Rayburn, who described the Shivers campaign as "rat alley politics" and called Shivers himself a "frustrated, unhappy, desperate man who knows he's going down for the last time."

On the day of the precinct meetings, Lyndon Johnson showed up at his Johnson City caucus in khaki shirt and trousers, was promptly elected chairman. The first returns, from rural areas, gave Johnson a healthy lead. But the cities, touted as centers of overwhelming Shivers strength, were still to be heard from. The city results were stunning: Shivers barely held Dallas, while Fort Worth, Houston and El Paso went to Johnson. The rout was complete.