"Whatever You Say, Honey"

In the first days of Christmas, Lyndon Johnson gave reporters: 60 souvenir ashtrays, 26 colorful relatives, four private chats, umpteen salty quotes, three guided tours, and an ensign now a jay gee.

The climax of it all came at a Christmas-day picture-taking session for two busloads of newsmen on the lawn in front of the white clapboard and stone L.B.J. ranch house in Johnson City, Texas. The President mustered more than a score of Baineses, Johnsons and other friends and kinfolk, lined them up and got them to look real pretty for the cameramen. He introduced a few: 'This is Aunt Jessie, Mrs. Jessie Hatcher, who did all my cooking, washing and sewing for me when I was in school in Houston. And I was in her dining room when I announced I was going to run for Congress in 1937." And "this is Uncle Huffman Baines. Uncle Huffman, how old are you?"

"I don't know," said Uncle Huffman.

"A very sensible answer," said L.B.J. "He's 79, and he looks 59, and he never had but one job in his life--engineer for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company." Johnson then introduced Lynda Bird's fiance: "Ensign Bernie Rosenbach."

"He's a jay gee now," said Lynda Bird, meaning a lieutenant (j.g.).

Knock on the Door. After the pictures, it was time to head for the dining room, where Cook Zephyr Wright waited with a holiday meal featuring turkey and corn-bread stuffing and sweet potato pie topped with marshmallows. But hold on there. "Come in and see our house," said the President to the reporters. "It'll just take a minute." Lady Bird looked pained. "Honey," she said in wifely tones, "I promise I'll give all these folks a wonderful tour when they come for the barbecue on Friday." Johnson hugged her, whispered something. "Whatever you say, honey," said Lady Bird, and the tour was on. There was a framed letter from one of Johnson's great-grandfathers to Sam Houston: "He was a Baptist preacher, and he was writing to renew a note at 8% interest and also to complain that his congregation was behind on pledges," and a picture of Missouri's Democratic Senator Stuart Symington. Lyndon quipped: "He's Lady Bird's boy friend."

Outside the Johnson bedroom door, the President struggled with the doorknob. "Mrs. Johnson's locked the bedroom on me," he said. When he knocked, the door was finally opened by a ruffled Lady Bird, who had obviously just finished tidying up. Outdoors again, the President pointed out his 400-acre spread, recalled what Sam Rayburn had said when he first came calling: "I thought it was a big ranch, and it's just a little old farm." He passed out ashtrays bearing his signature: "They only cost a few cents, so they come under the Paul Douglas rule."*

"From Her Admirer." Except for his foreign aid sparring with Congress, Johnson's week was filled with sentiment and ceremony even before he left for Texas. At the Lincoln Memorial, borrowing words and phraseology from the man whose white marble statue loomed above the proceedings, Johnson presided over a candle-lighting ceremony marking the end of the official period of mourning for President Kennedy. "Thirty days and a few hours ago, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, died a martyr's death . . . He had malice toward none; he had charity for all . . . So let us here on this Christmas night determine that John Kennedy did not live or die in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . ."

He attended a private 51st birthday party for Lady Bird, presented her with a picture of himself inscribed very much as he had inscribed an earlier picture during their courting days 29 years ago: "For Bird, still a girl of principles, ideals and refinement--from her admirer, Lyndon." He switched on 8,000 lights decorating a 71-ft. red spruce from West Virginia set up on the Ellipse behind the White House. He presided over a White House fruit cake and eggnog party for 200 Congressmen and their wives forced to stay in town for the foreign aid fight, afterward took four lady reporters on a personal look-see stroll through the White House. Johnson pointed out the swimming pool, fingered a bust of Franklin Roosevelt ("Look at that chin; that's what I love about him"), and recalled how Ike had spent more than two hours with him the day after the Kennedy assassination, using a yellow legal pad to jot notes that were partly incorporated into Johnson's speech to Congress.

Business with Pleasure. On the way to Texas, Johnson stopped off in Philadelphia for the funeral of U.S. Representative William Green, a longtime Pennsylvania Democratic boss. On the plane out of Philadelphia, Johnson joined reporters for a 15-minute chat, told them that he planned to cut $9 billion from the Defense Department's fiscal 1965 budget requests and about $6.5 billion from the requests by civilian agencies. His health was fine, he said, and he was holding his weight down to 205 Ibs. by taking daily swims in the White House pool. Four or five hours' sleep a night suited him just fine.

A business-with-pleasure routine was quickly established at the ranch. Amid the hospitality of Christmas Day, Johnson announced that he had ordered all Government agencies and departments to cut employment rolls in the fiscal year beginning next July, and that he himself would establish employment maximums that would be "ceilings, not goals." With careful impartiality, Johnson sent messages of concern to both parties in the Cyprus dispute. Next morning he helicoptered to a friend's ranch 25 miles away, bagged a buck.

The pace ran on into the weekend visit of German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. In advance, Johnson summoned Secretary of State Dean Rusk to the ranch for briefings on German reunification, Berlin, the Common Market and Erhard's attitude toward Russia. But just as much attention was lavished on planning distractions for the Erhard eye and ear: a private piano recital by Texas' own Van Cliburn, a sing-along with a trio of Texas folk singers called the Wanderers Three, and a performance by a local comedian named "Cactus" Pryor. And lying in wait for the Erhard palate were piles of pungent deer-meat sausage, snowy peaks of hominy grits, pits full of barbecued beef, and a rich chocolaty cake topped with coconut-pecan frosting made from a recipe brought to Texas by Germans who settled in nearby Fredericksburg in 1846.

*A backhanded reference to a suggestion by Illinois' Democratic Senator Paul Douglas that Government employees not accept gifts that cost more than $2.50.

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