Democrats: Lyndonthink

While the thoughts of Red China's leader are available to American read ers in the little red booklet Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, they have no such access to the accumulated wisdom of Lyndon Johnson. To fill this obvious gap—and turn a profit in the process—Journalists Jack Shepherd, 30, and Christopher Wren, 31, set out to anthologize Quotations from Chairman L.B.J.

Carefully following the original Red format, the two Look senior editors—Democrats both—grouped Johnson's sayings under 30 categories such as "The Long March Toward the Great Society" and "Humble Origins of the People's Servant." Under the chapter head "Humility and Self-Criticism," there is a meaningful blank space. All told, Shepherd and Wren gathered about 300 quotations from Johnson—his folksiest and most fulsome. Simon & Schuster, which plans to publish the $2 booklet in March with a limp red plastic cover similar to Mao's, reports keen early bookstore interest. Some facets of Lyndonthink:

∙THE HAPPY MASSES. "A good Congress is measured by laws that mean something to people—that is, p-e-e-p-u-l —that is, p-e-e-p-1-e—that is, people. You know what I am talking about. I am talking about folks. I am talking about average fellows."—Newark, Oct. 7, 1966.

∙LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS FLOUR ISH. "Even in our own country we do not see everything alike. If we did, we would all want the same wife—and that would be a problem, wouldn't it?"-Washington, Feb. 11, 1964.

∙EDUCATION AND SELF-CULTIVATION. "And I think you can truly say in the years to come, that on this day of February—the twenty-ninth, is it? March the first? On this day, March first, Monday, is it?—on this day, March the first, I sat in the White House at 6:10 and along with my colleagues from all over the nation, I participated in the meeting and in the conference that gave America leadership in preparing the minds of her little ones."—Washington, March 1, 1965.

∙BENIGN DESPOTISM. "I have the ablest staff that ever served any President in my memory. There's not a playboy among them. They aren't sitting around drinking whisky at 11 o'clock at night. They aren't walking around with their zippers unbuttoned." —Washington, July 14, 1965.

∙STATESMANSHIP AND CRISIS DIPLO MACY. "Ambassador Goldberg, of course, is eager to come back because he's just naturally more at home in cowboy country."—L.B.J. ranch, Texas, Aug. 29, 1965.

∙WHITE MAN'S BURDEN. "Wouldn't it really be better for us, wouldn't it be better for the Soviet Union, wouldn't it be better for Great Britain, wouldn't it be better for all the people of the world who are looking to us for leadership if we carried Ohio by 400,000 instead of 300,000?"—Dayton, Oct. 16, 1964.

∙ULTIMATE REFLECTION. "I'm the only President you've got."—Washington, April 27, 1964.