LBJ Did Steal an Election

This is about LBJ cheating in the 1948 Democratic runoff for a US  Senate seat, cheating Coke Stevenson out of the Senate seat, and paving the way for 58,000 Americans to die in LBJ's bungled Vietnam war.

Edward Kosner, in his review of Working by Robert Caro, says Caro, "... follows a trail establishing that as a fledgling congressman LBJ became a power in 1940 by funneling campaign contributions worth $500,000 in today’s money from Texas oilmen to fellow Democrats. Chasing down the story of how Johnson stole his 1948 senatorial election, Mr. Caro finds an old Mexican immigrant named Luis Salas who grinningly admits that when he counted the ballots in his tiny district he boosted LBJ’s tally by hundreds of votes, then hands Mr. Caro his 94-page memoir about the episode. Later, Mr. Caro nails down that Johnson fixed student-council elections in college."

The book review was published in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday April 13, 2019, page C8 in the print edition.  Here is the link to the online edition (you have to be a subscriber):  https://www.wsj.com/articles/working-review-just-remember-turn-every-page-11555107427

I found it telling that LBJ was doing election fraud in college, fixing student-council elections. It was fascinating to read that Luis Salas wrote a 94 page memoir of the fraud.  It seems like a good idea to have a detailed record of important events, time plays havoc with memory. 

LBJs fraud involved a number of people.  The book review high lighted the part played by Mr. Salas. It you google, "LBJ stole election," then you will find a number of online articles:

THE MYSTERY OF BALLOT BOX 13 by Dan Balz, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1990/03/04/the-mystery-of-ballot-box-13/70206359-8543-48e3-9ce2-f3c4fdf6da3d/

How Johnson Won Election He'd Lost by MARTIN TOLCHIN, NEW YORK TIMES
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/11/us/how-johnson-won-election-he-d-lost.html

Wikipedia article Box 13 scandal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_13_scandal

Here is a YouTube video titled "LBJ Box 13":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjIBsVMIqhc

You will see that Lyndon Johnson had a large voter fraud organization.  He had probably practiced voter fraud in every election as a normal course of business.  That way he had a practiced organization able to pull off a big fraud.  He did not steal just 200 votes in Ballot Box 13.  He killed a lot of Americans with that theft.  A lot of Americans would be alive today if LBJ had not stolen that election and then made a mess out of Vietnam.

Cheaters make bad leaders.