The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

7
Soften People’s Resistance by
Confirming Their Self-opinion
The Law of Defensiveness
ife is harsh and people competitive. We naturally must look after
our own interests. We also want to feel that we are independent,
doing our own bidding. That is why when others try to persuade or
change us, we become defensive and resistant. To give in challenges
our need to feel autonomous. That is why to get people to move from
their defensive positions you must always make it seem like what they
are doing is of their own free will. Creating a feeling of mutual
warmth helps soften people’s resistance and makes them want to help.
Never attack people for their beliefs or make them feel insecure about
their intelligence or goodness—that will only strengthen their
defensiveness and make your task impossible. Make them feel that by
doing what you want they are being noble and altruistic—the
ultimate lure. Learn to tame your own stubborn nature and free your
mind from its defensive and closed positions, unleashing your
creative powers.
The Influence Game
In December 1948, Senator Tom Connally of Texas received a visit
from the newly elected second senator of the state, Lyndon Baines
Johnson (1908–1973). Johnson had previously served as a Democratic
congressman in the House of Representatives for twelve years, and had
earned a reputation as a politician with high ambitions who was quite
impatient to realize them. He could be brash, opinionated, and even a
bit pushy.

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Connally knew all of this, but he was willing to judge Johnson for
himself. He studied the young man closely (Connally was thirty-one
years older). He had met him before and thought him rather astute.
But after exchanging a few pleasantries, Johnson revealed his true
motives: he was hoping to get a seat on one of the three most
prestigious committees in the Senate—Appropriations, Finance, or
Foreign Relations. Connally served on two of them as a senior
member. Johnson seemed to suggest that as a fellow Texan Connally
could help him get what he wanted. Connally felt that Johnson clearly
did not understand how the senatorial system worked, and he decided
to put him in his place right then and there.
Acting as if he were doing Johnson a great favor, he offered to help
him get a seat on the Agriculture Committee, knowing full well
Johnson would find this insulting—it was among the least coveted of
all committees. Thrusting the knife in deeper, Connally said that he
had followed Johnson’s senatorial campaign and had heard him
exclaim numerous times that he was a friend of the farmer. Here was
his chance to prove it. The Agriculture Committee would be a perfect
fit. Johnson could not hide his displeasure and squirmed
uncomfortably in his chair. “And then, Lyndon,” Connally concluded,
“after you’ve been in the Senate for a while, then you get on the
Foreign Relations or Finance Committee, and render a real public
service.” And by “for a while” Connally meant a good twelve to twenty
years, the usual time it took for any senator to amass enough influence.
It was called seniority and that was how the game was played. It had
taken Connally himself nearly twenty years to get his plum committee
positions.
Over the next few weeks, word quickly spread among senators that
Johnson was someone to keep an eye on, a potential hothead. And so it
was a pleasant surprise when many of them saw and met him for the
first time, after he was officially inaugurated. He was not at all what
they had expected. He was the picture of politeness, and very
deferential. He would often come to visit them in their offices. He
would announce himself to the secretary in the outer office, then
patiently wait there until called in, sometimes for an hour. He didn’t
seem bothered by this—he busied himself by reading or taking notes.
Once inside, he’d ask the senator about his wife and family or his
favorite sports team—he had clearly done his homework on the senator
in question. He could be quite self-deprecating. He’d often first

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introduce himself as “Landslide Lyndon,” everyone knowing he had
won his Senate seat by the slimmest of margins.
Mostly, however, he came to talk business and get advice. He’d ask
a question or two about some bill or bit of senatorial procedure and
would listen with a focus that was striking and charming, almost like a
child. His large brown eyes would stay fixed on the senator in question,
and with his chin resting on his hand, he would occasionally nod and
every now and then ask another question. The senators could tell he
was paying deep attention because invariably he would act on their
advice or repeat their very words to someone else, always crediting the
senator who had spoken them. He would leave with a gracious thank-
you for their time and for the invaluable education they had provided.
This was not the spirited hothead they had heard so much about, and
the contrast redounded to his credit.
The senators saw him most often on the Senate floor, and unlike
any other member of the institution, he attended every session and sat
almost the whole time at his desk. He took copious notes. He wanted to
learn everything about senatorial procedure—a dull affair, but one that
seemed to captivate him. He was far, however, from being a dullard.
When senators encountered him in the hallway or in the cloakroom, he
always had a good joke to tell or some amusing anecdote. He had spent
his early years in rural poverty, and although he was well educated, his
language had some of the color and biting humor of the Texan farmer
and migrant worker. The senators found him amusing. Even Tom
Connally had to admit that he had somehow misread him.
Older senators, referred to at the time as Old Bulls, particularly
came to appreciate Lyndon Johnson. Although they held positions of
great authority based on their seniority, they often felt insecure about
their age (some were in their eighties) and their physical and mental
capacities. But here was Johnson visiting their offices frequently,
intent on absorbing their wisdom.
One older Democratic senator in particular took to Johnson—
Richard Russell of Georgia. He was only eleven years older than
Johnson, but he had been serving in the Senate since 1933 and had
become one of its most powerful members. They had gotten to know
each other because Johnson had requested and received a seat on the
Armed Services Committee, on which Russell was second in seniority.
Russell crossed paths with Johnson in the cloakroom, in the corridors,

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on the Senate floor; he seemed to be everywhere. And although
Johnson visited Russell in his office almost every day, Russell came to
enjoy his presence. Like Russell, Johnson was mostly all business, and
full of questions on arcane Senate procedures. He began to call Russell
“the Old Master,” and he would often say, “Well, that’s a lesson from
the Old Master. I’ll remember that.”
Russell was one of the few senators who had remained a bachelor.
He never admitted he was lonely, but he spent almost all of his time at
his Senate office, even on Sundays. As Johnson would often be in
Russell’s office discussing some matter until the evening, he would
sometimes invite Russell over for dinner at his house, telling him that
his wife, Lady Bird, was an excellent cook, particularly good with
southern dishes. The first few times Russell politely refused, but finally
he relented and he soon became a weekly regular at the Johnson
house. Lady Bird was charming and he quickly took to her.
Slowly the relationship between Russell and Johnson deepened.
Russell was a baseball fanatic, and to his delight, Johnson confessed a
weakness for the sport as well. Now they would go together to night
games of the Washington Senators. A day would not pass in which they
did not see each other, as the two of them would often be the only
senators in their offices working on the weekends. They seemed to
have so many interests in common, including the Civil War, and they
thought alike on so many issues dear to southern Democrats, such as
their opposition to a civil rights bill.
Soon Russell could be heard touting the junior senator as “a can-do
young man” with a capacity equal to his own for hard work. Johnson
was the only junior senator over his long career whom he referred to as
a “disciple.” But the friendship went deeper than that. After attending
a hunting party that Johnson had organized in Texas, Russell wrote to
him, “Ever since I reached home I have been wondering if I would
wake up and find that I had just been dreaming that I had made a trip
to Texas. Everything was so perfect that it is difficult to realize that it
could happen in real life.”
In 1950 the Korean War broke out and there was pressure on the
Armed Services Committee to form a subcommittee to investigate the
military’s preparedness for the war. Such a subcommittee had been
formed during World War II and chaired by Harry Truman, and it was
through that chairmanship that Truman had become famous and risen

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to power. The current chairman of the Armed Services Committee was
Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland. Tydings would naturally assume
the chairmanship of the subcommittee, since it would be a great
platform for publicity.
Johnson approached Tydings with a proposal: Tydings was facing a
reelection campaign that year, and Johnson offered to chair the
subcommittee only up to the time of the election, allowing Tydings to
focus on winning it. Then he would step aside and let Tydings have the
position. Tydings, protective of the powers he had accrued, declined
Johnson’s offer. But then Dick Russell met with him and said
something to cause Tydings to change his mind. Johnson was named
the chairman, a stunning coup for a senator who had been on the job
for only a year and a half, and he would hold on to the job for quite a
while, as Tydings lost his reelection bid.
As chairman Johnson was suddenly receiving national public
exposure, and journalists covering the Senate discovered that he was a
master at handling the press. He carefully guarded the findings of the
subcommittee, allowing no leaks to journalists. He surrounded its
work with tremendous mystery and drama, giving the impression that
the committee was uncovering some real dirt on the military. He doled
out information and reports to a select group of powerful journalists
who had written articles that he had approved of. The other journalists
had to fight for any news crumbs he deigned to offer.
The junior senator began to fascinate the press corps—he was tough
yet sympathetic to the journalists’ job. And most important, he knew
how to give them a good story. Soon some of them were writing about
him as a zealous patriot, a future political force to be reckoned with.
Now Russell could properly defend his elevation of Johnson—the
senator from Texas had done a great job and had finally gotten the
Senate some positive publicity.
In May and June of 1951, Johnson and Russell worked closely
together on the recall of General MacArthur from Korea. Now Russell
had a firsthand view of Johnson’s staff, and he was astounded at how
efficient it was, larger and better organized than his own. It made
Russell feel out of step with the times. But Johnson, as if sensing his
thoughts, began to help Russell build his own modern staff. He gave
him complete access to the legal and public relations teams he had
developed, showing Russell how helpful they could be. As Johnson

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worked with him on this, the bond between them grew even tighter.
One day Russell told a reporter, “That Lyndon Johnson could be
president, and would make a good one.” The reporter was
flabbergasted. It was so unlike Russell to ever pay such a compliment.
One spring day in 1951, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota
was waiting to catch the subway to the Capitol when Lyndon Johnson
suddenly approached him and suggested they ride together and talk.
Such words were like music to Humphrey; he almost couldn’t believe
Johnson was sincere in the offer. Humphrey had joined the Senate at
the same time as Johnson, and he had been considered the bigger star,
a charismatic liberal who could be president one day. Humphrey,
however, had a problem that had completely impeded his rise to the
top: he believed so stridently in liberal causes that he had alienated
almost everyone else. In his first speech to the Senate, Humphrey
criticized the institution for its slow pace of change and its cozy
atmosphere. Soon he was paid back in kind—relegated to the worst
committees. The bills he introduced went nowhere. When he would
walk into the Senate cloakroom, he would be shunned by almost
everyone. As this ostracism got worse, Humphrey felt increasingly
depressed and despondent. Sometimes driving home from work, he
would pull over and cry. His career had taken a very wrong turn.
In the subway car together, Johnson praised him effusively.
“Hubert,” he told him, “you have no idea what a wonderful experience
it is for me ride to the Senate chamber with you. There are so many
ways I envy you. You are articulate, you have such a broad range of
knowledge.” Feeling relieved to hear this, Humphrey was then
surprised by the vehemence of Johnson’s criticisms that followed. “But
goddammit, Hubert, you’re spending so much time making speeches
that there is no time left to get anything done.” Humphrey needed to
be more pragmatic, fit in better. When they finally parted, Johnson
invited Humphrey to stop by his office one day for drinks. Humphrey
soon became a regular visitor, and this southern senator, quite loathed
by northern liberals as the darling of the conservative Russell,
enthralled him.
First, Johnson was immensely entertaining. Everything he said was
accompanied by some folksy anecdote, often of a bawdy nature but
always teaching some wicked lesson. Sitting in his office, the drinks
being lavishly poured, he would instigate bouts of laughter that would
reverberate through the corridors. It was hard to resist a man who

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could put you in a good mood. He had incredible presence. As
Humphrey later wrote, “He’d come on just like a tidal wave sweeping
all over the place. He went through walls. He’d come through a door
and he’d take the whole room over.”
Second, he had such invaluable information to share. He taught
Humphrey all of the intricacies of Senate procedure and the knowledge
he had accrued about the psychological weaknesses of various senators
through close observation. He had become the greatest vote counter in
the history of the Senate, able to predict the results of almost any
Senate vote with astounding accuracy. He shared with Humphrey his
vote-counting method.
Finally, he taught Humphrey the power he could have by
compromising, by being more pragmatic and less idealistic. He would
share with him stories about FDR, Humphrey’s hero. When Johnson
was in the House of Representatives, he had become close friends with
the president. FDR, according to Johnson, was a consummate
politician who knew how to get things done by retreating tactically and
even compromising. The subtext here was that Johnson was really a
closet liberal who also idolized FDR and who wanted just as much as
Humphrey to pass a civil rights bill. They were both on the same side,
fighting for the same noble causes.
Working with Johnson, there was no limit to how high Humphrey
could rise within the Senate and beyond. As Johnson had correctly
guessed, Humphrey had presidential ambitions. Johnson himself
could never become president, or so he said to Humphrey, because the
nation was not ready for a president from the South. But he could help
Humphrey get there. Together they would make an unbeatable team.
What sealed the deal for Humphrey, however, was how Johnson
proceeded to make his life easier within the Senate. Johnson talked to
his fellow southern Democrats about Humphrey’s intelligence and
humor, how they had misread him as a man. Having softened them up
in this way, Johnson then reintroduced Humphrey to these senators,
who found him charming. Most important of all, he got Russell to
change his mind—and Russell could move mountains. Now that he was
sharing drinks with the more powerful senators, Humphrey’s
loneliness faded away. He felt compelled to return the favor and to get
many northern liberals to change their minds about Johnson, whose
influence was now beginning to spread like an invisible gas.

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In 1952 the Republicans swept into power with the election of
Dwight D. Eisenhower as president, taking in the process control of the
Senate and the House. One of the casualties in the election was Ernest
McFarland of Arizona, the former Democratic leader in the Senate.
Now that the leadership position was vacant, the scrambling for his
replacement began.
Johnson suggested that Russell himself take the position, but
Russell declined. He could have more power operating behind the
scenes. Instead he told Johnson he should be the next leader, and
Russell could make it happen. Johnson, acting surprised, said he
would consider it, but only if Russell would remain the Old Master and
advise Johnson every step of the way. He did not have to say another
word. Within weeks, Russell had essentially helped secure him the
position, and it was a remarkable coup. At the age of forty-four,
Johnson was by far the youngest leader in the history of either party.
Several weeks into his new position, Johnson came to Russell with a
most unusual request. Positions on key committees had been based for
decades on seniority. But what this meant was that committee
chairmen were often not up to the job. Men in their seventies and
eighties had ideas that were rooted in the past. They did not have the
stomach for a big fight. Now, with the Republicans in full control, they
were planning on rolling back some of FDR’s greatest achievements
with the New Deal and in foreign policy. It was going to be a rough two
years until midterm elections.
Johnson wanted the power as the leader of the Senate Democrats to
alter the committee landscape. He was not advocating anything
radical. He would shift here and there a few committees and
chairmanships, bringing in some fresh blood, such as the newly elected
Senator John Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey, whom he wanted to
get on the Foreign Relations Committee. These younger men would
give a fresh public face to the party and bring some energy in
combating the Republicans. Russell could see the wisdom in this, and
he gave Johnson his tacit approval, but he also warned him: “You’re
dealing with the most sensitive thing in the Senate. . . . [You’re] playing
with dynamite.”
Johnson approached other older senators. Some were easy to
convince, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who had a great fondness for
the new leader. Liberals came on board with these changes, thanks to

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the work of Humphrey, who now had tremendous power as the liaison
between Johnson and the northerners. Others were much more
recalcitrant. Johnson, however, would not give up the fight. With those
who continued to resist, he went into a higher gear. He became
relentless. He would spend hours in his office behind a closed door,
talking to himself, rehearsing his arguments and the
counterarguments of these stubborn senators until he was sure he had
found the perfect approach. To some he argued pure pragmatism—the
need to defeat the Republicans at all costs. With others he reached
back to the glory years of FDR. To southern senators he made it clear
that making the party more powerful and unified would make
Johnson’s job easier, and that as a fellow southerner he would be their
ultimate ally in further fights.
He served them endless drinks in his office, pulled out the full
arsenal of his wit and charm. He would telephone them at all hours. If
the senator continued resisting, he would call again later in the
evening. He never argued with vehemence or tried to force the issue.
He saw their side. He offered numerous quid pro quos. Eventually, as
one senator after another relented, he got the last holdouts to cave in.
Somehow Johnson was now someone to fear; if they did not give in
and remained one of the few holdouts, clearly he could make their lives
miserable over the next few years.
When it finally became public, the Republicans and the press were
astounded at what Lyndon Johnson had accomplished. In a matter of
weeks, since assuming the leadership position, he had gained
unprecedented powers. He, not the seniority system, controlled
committee appointments. He was now the undisputed “Master of the
Senate,” and the byword among his colleagues was “Let Lyndon do it.”
Drawn into his sphere of influence was the most unlikely cast of
characters—from Dick Russell to Hubert Humphrey. But the most
astonished person of all must have been Senator Tom Connally
himself. In four short years, Johnson had not only risen to the top but
had gained control of the Senate Democrats through a slow and steady
campaign of accumulating influence, far surpassing the power
Connally had accrued in over twenty years of service.
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