Nation: THE RENUNCIATION

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Some saw the move as a self-serving attempt to increase his stature in history. Others accepted at face value Johnson's statement that he wanted "to preserve the honor, integrity and dignity of the office of the presidency" and considered his action a grand, even noble gesture for the sake of the nation. "I doubt if any single speech in history has so abruptly turned feelings around on one man," said California Democratic Committeeman Eugene Wyman. "He really defused the hatred toward him."

Not entirely. In Boston, Harvard, M.I.T., and Boston University students marched across the Charles River, and one shouted: "It's V-J day—victory over Johnson!" Outside the White House, a group of youths unfurled a banner reading THANKS, L.B.J. In Kansas City, a photographer wrote: "Congratulations. It was the best thing you could possibly have given up for Lent." Of a record 20,000 letters and telegrams that poured into the White House, however, all but a few congratulated the President for a magnanimous action.

Completely Irrevocable. Many of Johnson's critics could not bring themselves to believe that he was sincere. He might have "something up his sleeve," said Pediatrician Benjamin Spock. "I hope he means it," said retired Lieut. General James Gavin. "I'm afraid he doesn't, and that he would accept a fair draft." Many sophisticated Europeans suspected that Johnson hoped to duplicate the feat of Egypt's Nasser, who "quit" after the disastrous war with Israel in 1967 but was restored to power by popular demand. "Is this a false exit," wondered Paris' Le Monde, designed "to stop the rapid decline of his popularity and make for himself a plebiscite of tears?"

There is always that possibility—particularly if his peace moves yield results. But after his speech, Johnson summoned reporters to the Cezanne-studded Yellow Room in the living quarters of the White House and told them that his decision was "completely irrevocable." A reporter suggested sympathetically that he was sacrificing himself for the sake of unity. "No," he snapped, "I am not sacrificing anything. I am just doing what I think is right, what I think is best calculated to permit me to render the maximum service possible to the country in the limited time that I have left."

The Wrong Convention. The next morning the President felt, as he told friends, like a man who had shed a sack of cement.*He flew out to Chicago to address the National Association of Broadcasters, quipped that one of his aides had told him: "It looks to me like you are going to the wrong convention in Chicago." In a notably restrained speech, he made an uncharacteristically modest confession: "I understand, far better than some of my severe and perhaps intolerant critics would admit, my own shortcomings as a communicator."

That night he went to bed early, for the first time in memory did not bother to wade through his thick stack of night reading, even overslept the next morning. Relaxed, almost jaunty, he told a group at the Department of Agriculture: "I am a Hereford breeder. I sell registered calves. I am going to have a lot of time to work on it pretty soon."