whoever heard of scott lucas and william nolan, senate majority leaders before lyndon johnson. you never heard of them because they did not do anything. robert byrd brought that extra dimension to it, the foreign policy knowledge. the second thing about him as leader was he really understood the importance of a relationship with the president of the united states. byrd was ambivalent about jimmy carter. there were some problems with him. carter was an outsider. he did not really like politics or the hill. senator byrd regarded his role as leader of the senate, but also a person who basically was an advisor to the president, helped the president, he improved his programs. the book shows senator byrd helping carter through virtually every issue from the panama canal treaties to the energy legislation where byrd worked tirelessly on it to get it done without a filibuster. he had the sense that the senate leader should have a special relationship with the president and that is the way the system was supposed to work. of course, the most important in for the senate leader is to make the senate work. byrd knew the senate rules better than any pers