THE PRESIDENCY: L.B.J., Hoover and Domestic Spying

As the mists of a decade of White House conspiracy are rolled back, there is a better view of Lyndon Johnson. The new trails of CIA and FBI domestic spying, however uncertain as yet, lead back to his Oval Office and that towering figure of contradictions. Those ravaged patrons of Richard Nixon are quick to suggest that L.B.J. was as bad as or worse than the disgraced 37th President. But that has not yet been proved.

What seems more likely is that there was an unusual combination of people and events in the...