Books: From Dawn to Dusk with L.BJ.

• Share

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON by Jim Bishop. 274 pages. Random House. $5.95.

Detail can be a useful device in reconstructing history, particularly when it is used to correct the astigmatism of adulation that most contemporary historians bring to bear on their subjects. George Washington's ivory false teeth; Gladstone's predilection for reforming London streetwalkers; Lenin's fondness for a Franco-Russian woman during his pre-Revolution exile in Paris: all these trivial addenda lend a sense of humanity to the men who made history and help relate them to the banality of history as it is lived. Yet Jim Bishop, chrome-plated chronicler of "days" in the lives of Christ and Kennedy, Lincoln and—now—Lyndon Baines Johnson, carries the device too far. For eleven days, Bishop tagged the President's heels—even into the flowered fields of the L.BJ. ranch—notebook at the ready for the drop of a detail.

L.B.J., he relates in page after fact-packed page, is "fond of soft, fattening foods—chipped beef, creamed chicken, beef stroganoff, lamb hash, stuffed peppers. He loves tapioca pudding. . . A homemade pie makes Mr. Johnson swallow with anticipation." When he is angry or irritated, "his mouth forms a huge 'O' and he sounds like a hog caller." He makes telephone calls while he dresses, so that he might be talking about the threat of thermonuclear war "with one leg thrust into the trousers." When he kisses Lady Bird, "he enfolds her in his arms and says goodnight as he says everything else, with authority."

And when Lyndon tucks himself in to sleep: "The extra pillows are cast aside, the great head sinks back, the arms are sometimes folded across the top of the sheet; after a few sighs, his mind wanders away from crises and commitments to the pleasant task of re-creating happy scenes at the ranch or on the lake; he remembers old friends . . . they all flow together in a slowly swirling series of thoughts which fade at the first soft snore."

Zzzzz.