The Presidency: And Back to Texas

Rush, rush, rush — so, from prayer breakfast to personal politicking to crisis confrontation, went President John son's week.

In Washington, the President's pen chant for popping into unexpected places left Hal Holbrook, Broadway's vet eran and highly skilled impersonator of Mark Twain, sounding more like Chico Marx. Holbrook was performing for Lady Bird and Lynda Bird Johnson and a group of visiting college stu dents in the White House East Room when the President burst in, rushed up to the platform, grasped the actor's hand and said: "I always wanted to meet Mark Twain." Almost speech less, Holbrook forgot several subsequent lines, blew others, and later admitted: "I was really frightened." Among the Prestigious. Then came the annual presidential prayer breakfast, attended by some 1,000 men at the Mayflower Hotel. Evangelist Billy Gra ham preached, Revival Singer George Beverly Shea let out resoundingly with My Saviour God to Thee, and Johnson called for a privately financed, all-faiths "Center of Prayer" in Washington. He then went across the hall to a separate prayer breakfast for women, assured the ladies that prayer in the Johnson family has always been "aloud and proud." Flying to New York, Johnson landed at Kennedy Airport, boarded a Marine helicopter, was whisked away to the Wall Street heliport, got into a black limousine and drove to the Carlyle Ho tel — thereby getting the East Side's rush-hour traffic into a memorable jam.

That evening he appeared at the second annual awards dinner of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation for the men tally retarded. Following a droll mono logue by Jack Benny and the whispery voice of Nat King Cole, Johnson spoke softly and solemnly about his prede cessor. "We shall finish his fight," he said, "and we shall conquer mental retardation and mental illness and poverty and every other foe of the land that he loved, and every foe of the people he served."

Words About Water. Next day a noisy flap was on about the latest Cuban crisis (see THE HEMISPHERE), but amid countless phone calls to advisers in Washington, Johnson met with top New York Democrats to talk about the coming campaign, lunched with the New York Times editorial board, and when he emerged, gave his Secret Service escort fits by bustling hatless and coatless in the wind and rain across 43rd Street to shake hands with well-wishers behind police barricades. "What are you trying to do," demanded one concerned woman as Johnson approached, "scare everybody?" Johnson responded with a hearty "Hi, honey," and grasped her arm. Later he met with the New York President's Club—Democrats who have kicked in $1,000 a year or more to party coffers in a presidential campaign. Seeking support for his war on poverty, Johnson remarked dryly: "A nation that cannot take care of the many who are poor will not have the strength to take care of the few who are rich."