Texans -- A man of good character -- "He must be a real leader" -- Lyndon Johnson betrays Richard M. Kleberg and George Parr works his magic -- Senator Lyndon Johnson -- Mac Wallace goes to Washington under the auspices of Lyndon Johnson -- The killing of John Douglas Kinser -- Texas justice -- Two Faustian bargains :little Lyndon and Billie Sol -- Enter the Office of Naval Intelligence -- Some Faustian bargains come due : the falls of Billie Sol Estes and Bobby Baker -- Mac Wallace in California -- President Lyndon Johnson, Part I -- President Lyndon Johnson and the USS Liberty : Lyndon Johnson as President, Part II -- Downward spirals -- Billie Sol Estes creates an urban legend -- The fingerprint -- Epilogue -- Appendix: Evaluation and comparison of fingerprints

"Perhaps no president has a more ambiguous reputation than LBJ. A brilliant tactician, he maneuvered colleagues and turned bills into law better than anyone. But he was trailed by a legacy of underhanded dealings, from his 'stolen' Senate election in 1948 to kickbacks he artfully concealed from deals engineered with Texas wheeler-dealer Billie Sol Estes and defense contractors like his longtime supporter Brown & Root. On the verge of investigation, Johnson was reprieved when he became president upon JFK's assassination. Among the remaining mysteries has been LBJ's relationship to Mac Wallace who, in 1951, shot a Texas man having an affair with LBJ's loose-cannon sister Josefa, also Wallace's lover. When arrested, Wallace coolly said 'I work for Johnson ... I need to get back to Washington.' Charged with murder, he was overnight defended by LBJ's powerful lawyer John Cofer, and though convicted, amazingly received a suspended sentence. He then got high-security clearance from LBJ friend and defense contractor D.H. Byrd, which the Office of Naval Intelligence tried to revoke for 11 years without success. Using crucial Life magazine and Naval Intelligence files and the unredacted FBI files on Mac Wallace, never before utilized by others, investigative writer Joan Mellen skillfully connects these two disparate Texas lives and lends stark credence to the dark side of Lyndon Johnson that has largely gone unsubstantiated"--