A Different Man

(See Cover) In Texas throughout Election Day, Lyndon Johnson, so overwhelmingly loquacious in past weeks, was understandably subdued. Now and then, as newsmen caught up with him, the President uttered only soft-toned commonplaces, totally noncommittal, often downright diffident. Only once was he caught off guard. Had he consulted with any of his political advisers? Replied he, in one of those remarks that somehow jar the image of the presidency: "The only political adviser I talked to I slept with."

"Hold Your Potatoes." On through the day, Lyndon and Lady Bird moved, almost ritualistically, as in a stately saraband. To the old Johnson homestead they went, to reminisce a while about Lyndon's boyhood and to sit in the porch swing. Later they visited at the ranch of A. W. (Judge) Moursund, Lyndon's old friend and trustee of his financial interests. The President sat slumped in a living-room chair for a while and watched the election returns on television. Then, by helicopter, he and his party flew to Austin's Driskill Hotel, waded into the bedlam of newsmen, TV cameras and well-wishers who attended Johnson's every movement. Solemn, scarcely smiling, he shook hands with several people, at length slipped into a suite, where again he checked the TV election roundup. But Lyndon couldn't sit still. Periodically during the evening, he emerged into full view of waiting TV cameras. Now it was to the gubernatorial mansion to visit with Governor John Connally, now to the election headquarters of Senator Ralph Yarborough, now back to the Driskill, now to the Munici- pal Auditorium. Each time, reporters caught him to cadge a fresh word, a hint of triumph, and each time the President managed to wear a properly somber expression. Yes, he felt well. No, he would have no statement till later. "I'll have a statement if you'll just hold your potatoes," he said.

" 'I Cannot Fail.' " To many who watched him, Lyndon Johnson's mien was a fascinating thing to see. The man who was President-by-accident had suddenly realized that he was now President-by-choice, an achievement gained by whatever forces were at work for him during the campaign, but gained, nevertheless, on his own. Thus, as he stepped before the TV cameras at the Municipal Auditorium at 1:40 a.m., he spoke as a man confident of his powers to lead.

"Tonight," he said in reserved tones, "we must face the world as one. Tonight our purpose must be to bind up our wounds, to heal our history, and to make this nation whole. This victory is a tribute to the program begun by our beloved President John F. Kennedy. It is a mandate for unity. It will be a Government that provides equal opportunity for all and special privileges for none. It is a command to build on those principles and to move forward toward peace and a better life for all our people. I promise the best that is in me for as long as I am permitted to serve. I ask all those who supported me and all those that opposed me to forget our differences, because there are many more things in America that unite us than divide us . . . We will be on our way to try to achieve peace in our time for our people and try to keep our people prosperous. I would like to leave you tonight with the words of Abraham Lincoln: 'Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended us, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.' "

Wide Swath. There was a time not too long ago when President John Kennedy, relaxing with friends in the oval office, would grin innocently and murmur, "Say, whatever became of Lyndon Johnson?" That crack always got a good laugh, for it was a succinct expression of the oblivion into which Johnson had fallen as Vice President.

Then came the oath of office on Nov. 22, 1963, and Johnson was a different man. Thoroughly schooled in the traditions of government, sobered by the climactic events of that day, Johnson managed the transition of office with such swiftness, determination and efficiency as to make the nation and the whole world marvel at the orderliness of the U.S. political system in crisis.

In the months that followed, he marshaled the energies and patriotism of disparate forces in the Government and gunned ahead with the policies of the New Frontier. He was, and to a great extent still is, an uncertain hand at mastering the intricacies of the U.S. role in foreign affairs. But he brought much of Jack Kennedy's domestic program to fruition with great skill. The tax cut, the civil rights bill and the federal pay raise--all were products of the resoluteness with which Johnson as sumed his unaccustomed leadership. That leadership paid him a dividend: the respect and confidence of a wide swath of the U.S. business community, which recognized in Johnson a strong strain of prudence in economic affairs. From these successes--from out of the shadow of Jack Kennedy--emerged still a different, a bolder man, whose aim it was to imprint the Johnson character on the one year remaining to him as President. At Ann Arbor, Mich., in May, Johnson established the theme on which he planned to build his quest. The new goal for America, he declared, was to be called "the Great Society." Said he: "For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life--and to advance the quality of American civilization."

Sure Touch. Precisely how the U.S. was to achieve this Utopia, Johnson never spelled out in detail. Nevertheless, it was with that pronouncement that he launched his campaign for election. It was a campaign that never succeeded in rising above the promise of a dream.

Emboldened by a burgeoning prosperity, and by the failure of Goldwater to make a reasonable and acceptable case for his own brand of conservatism, Johnson played the electorate like a mighty pipe organ. He drowned out concern over the Bobby Baker scandal and the war in Viet Nam with platitudes about peace, prosperity and prudence. While Goldwater ranted about TVA, social security, the Supreme Court and conventional nuclear weapons, Johnson issued the soothing assurances of a benign protector who promised to save the nation from the welter of international chaos with the sure touch of sober responsibility.

In Detroit, he roused his audience with a declamation about control of nuclear weapons. "Any man," cried Lyndon, "who shares control of such enormous power must remember that 'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.' " Hunger. As the campaign progressed, Johnson took to carrying around a sheaf of reports from pollsters; he pulled them out and leafed through them at the slightest provocation. His walks on the White House grounds, with reporters chasing in full tilt, took on the aspect of a circus performance. His wife scoured the countryside for votes, while Luci Baines did her part by frug-dancing up a storm wherever she went. More and more, Johnson journeyed back and forth across the U.S., drinking in huge draughts of adoration from the crowds, shaking thou- sands of proffered hands until his fingers bled. Each foray into the crowds satiated him only for the moment, as if such experience was a narcotic that required constant renewal.

And as he hungered and fed, Johnson found himself steeped deeper and deeper in sentimentality. He became the folksy Texan who brought the presidency to the street corners of the nation, who left the issues of moment behind and instead doled out intimations of humility and provincial innocence. "Yes," he drawled in Peoria one day, "all day I have seen your smiling faces. All day I have looked into your happy countenances. All day I have seen the family life, the mothers and the children of America here in the heartland of the great state of Illinois, and those voices sound powerful to me. They sound clear. They sound free. And when I return to the White House, and the policemen turn the keys on those locks on those big black gates, and I get to those few acres that are back of our house, it is going to be folks like you that sustain me in my labors and my thoughts." It was much the same Lyndon Johnson who late on election night returned through a driving rain to his ranch on the banks of the Pedernales. He invited everybody--well, almost everybody--to join him and Hubert Humphrey there the next day for a great barbecue, a fitting, folksy feast to celebrate a great popular victory.

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