The Presidency: Saying, Doing, Being

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THE PRESIDENCY

"That's humiliating!" roared Lyndon Johnson when he read press reports that he had been publicly snubbed by a girl friend. To convince newsmen of their error, he asked her straight out before witnesses in his office: "Who do you love?" Courtenay Valenti, 2½, planted both feet firmly and bellowed on cue: "I love Prez!"

She had, the President swore good-humoredly, said the same thing—her standard reply—when he took her in his arms at a White House reception for wounded veterans of Viet Nam. He insisted that Courtenay had been misquoted by a reporter who wrote that she had gazed fondly over the presidential shoulder at Airman Patrick Nugent, Luci's fiancé, and declared instead: "I love Pat." Johnson gently suggested that the newsman should buy an earphone.

Message from the Cook. Despite such irritations, the President was in a light-hearted mood, darkened only briefly by his attendance at the funeral of Michigan's Senator Patrick McNamara in Detroit. After he had returned to the White House, some 500 heads turned, searching for some sign—any sign—of presidential wrath, when Senator William Fulbright made his way through the receiving line at a diplomatic reception. They searched in vain. Indeed, Johnson all but hugged his arch-critic, clasping his shoulders, squeezing elbow, patting arm. "I read Bill's speech on the arrogance of power, and I analyzed it," he said to Fulbright's wife. "You don't have to worry about the arrogance of power when you get notes like this from our cook Zephyr," he twitted her husband. Pulling a slip of paper from his pocket Johnson read aloud:

"Mr. President, you have been my boss for a number of years, and you always tell me you want to lose weight, and yet you never do very much to help yourself. Now I am going to be your boss for a change. Eat what I put in front of you and don't ask for any more and don't complain. Zephyr." Staring direly at Lady Bird, L.B.J. declared: "Now if arrogance of power is anywhere, it's in your kitchen."

Comfort from David. It was a singularly deft—even gracious—rejoinder to an implacable if honorably intentioned critic, an illustration of what some observers see as a healthy change in the unpredictable Johnsonian personality. The President has developed a kind of immunity to criticism; though he scarcely enjoys it, it rankles less than it used to and he has come to recognize adverse comment as a natural affliction of his office. Harry Truman, he notes, was a constant target of the critics, yet is now remembered for his wise decisions rather than for the deep freezers accepted by Military Aide Harry Vaughan.

"When you are President," Johnson reflected recently, "you have nothing more to gain personally and you look around and say, 'How am I doing my job?' because that's all that matters. As time passes, criticism becomes irrelevant. You can avoid it only by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing."