The Presidency: Brief Visit

THE PRESIDENCY

It was largely the party for Britain's Princess Margaret (see Social Notes) that brought President Johnson back to Washington last week. But he did not stay long, spent most of the time at his desk. Press Secretary Bill Moyers explained that until year's end the President would keep his public appointments "to the absolute minimum necessary," husbanding his energies for "deliberation, discussion, and a great deal of thinking and study."

One public appointment that Johnson was determined to keep, however, was a speech before more, than 200 delegates to a two-day White House Conference on Civil Rights. "In numberless ways this Administration is acting and not just talking," he declared, adding: "We must do more—we will do more."

An immediate goal, he said, is legislation to end "injustices to Negroes at the hands of all-white juries." For the jury is "the cornerstone of our system of justice. If its composition is a sham, its judgment is a shame. And when that happens, justice itself is a fraud, casting off the blindfold and tipping the scales one way for whites and another way for Negroes."

The President also presided over a half-hour Cabinet meeting, heard reports on Viet Nam and the economy's continued buoyancy, conferred with aides on the 1966 budget and State of the Union messages. But Texas was beckoning, and after only five days in the capital he was back at the ranch, there to stay, quite possibly, through Christmas.