Man Of The Year: Lyndon B. Johnson, The Prudent Progressive

MAN OF THE YEAR

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There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood in 1964, led on to fame for Lyndon Baines Johnson.

From that November afternoon when he made it clear that the torch of continuity was safe in his hands to that November night nearly a year later when he won the biggest election triumph in history, it was his year-his to act in, his to mold, his to dominate.

And dominate it he did. By words and gestures, by pleas and orders. By speeches noble and plainly blunt. By exasperated outbursts and munificent tributes. By intuitive insights and the blueprints of planners.

But most of all by work. He worked in the White House and he worked at the ranch. On the Hill and astride the stump. In his limousine (with four separate communication setups) and aboard the jet (with $2,000,000 in electronic gear). By letter, wire, scrambler and hot line. In the bath and in the bedroom, at every meal and over every drink.

He astonished his partisans with his cyclonic energy ("The Whirlwind President"), and confounded the skeptics by surpassing almost all of his predecessors in first-year accomplishments.

In that brief span, he: > Brought to the office of the presidency a concept not favored by his immediate predecessors, who, except for Dwight Eisenhower, felt that a "strong" President had to fight with Congress. Always mindful of the presidency's great power, Johnson put into effect a new relationship with the other "coequal" branches of Government, thus achieving the truest partnership with Congress-in the checks-and-balances sense envisaged by the Constitution-in well over a century. His remarkable legislative record was crowned by the historic Civil Rights Act.

> Worked constantly to win business confidence for his Democratic Administration without losing labor's. The result was an unprecedented extension of the national prosperity, sustained by his personal intervention in bringing about a rail settlement that seems likely to set a pattern for years to come, and spurred by his success in getting an $11.5 billion tax cut through Congress.

> Pursued the elusive goal of world peace while keeping U.S. prestige high and U.S. power strong. He provided no panaceas for chronic ailments, but he met his major flare-up crisis-that of the Gulf of Tonkin-with just about the proper mixture of force and caution.

> Strove tirelessly to achieve a national consensus, adding two phrases-"Let us reason together" and "I want to be President of all the people"-to the American political lexicon. The consensus, of course, became his on Nov. 3, with the greatest electoral victory since 1936 and the largest percent (61%) of the popular vote ever.

Goldfish Bowl. All this was done while his country and the world watched in a "show me" spirit. Jack Kennedy had drained the world's capacity for unrestrained fascination with the U.S. presidency, and Lyndon Johnson was sure to harvest some initial resentments. But in that enormous goldfish bowl, he went relentlessly to work, determined to put his own stamp on the presidency, rarely trying to be anything but himself.

"Being himself" meant an enormous change in style, habits, thought and operation in the White House. It wasn't always comfortable for those in close