The Presidency: That's Quite a Platform

• Share

THE PRESIDENCY

The Republicans may, and probably will have a furious fight over their plat form. But there is no doubt about what the Democrats' will be: President Lyndon Johnson standing foursquare for all things for all men.

Unity. As commencement speaker at the University of Texas, he was, for one thing, the Great Moderator. Said he: "It is one of the great tasks of political leadership to make our people aware that they share a fundamental unity of interest, purpose and belief. On the ba sis of this unity, I intend to try and achieve a broad national consensus which can end obstruction and paralysis and liberate the energies of the nation for the work of the future."

Might. In New London, Conn., before the graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy, he was the tough-talking Commander in Chief. The U.S., he said, possesses a military power against which "the combined destructive power of every battle ever fought by man is like a firecracker thrown against the sun. We have now more than 1,000 fully armed ICBMs and Polaris missiles ready for retaliation. The Soviet Union has far fewer and none ready to be launched beneath the seas. We have more than 1,100 strategic bombers, many of which are equipped with air-to-surface and decoy missiles to help them reach almost any target. In the past three years we have raised the number of combat-ready divisions by 45%. They can be moved swiftly around the world by an airlift capacity which has increased 75%. We, and our NATO allies, now have 5,000,000 men under arms. In every area of national strength, America today is stronger than it has ever been before. It is stronger than the combined might of all the nations in the history of the world."

Peace. A few hours later, at a nuclear submarine keel-laying in nearby Groton. Conn., Johnson was the Great Peace Seeker, warning against the rash use of military might. In an obvious crack at his probable November opponent, Barry Goldwater, Johnson said: "Those who would answer every problem with nuclear weapons display not bravery but bravado, not wisdom but a wanton disregard for the survival of the world and the future of the race."

Friendship. Then too, there was the Friend of All Cultures. Two weeks ago Johnson entertained Ireland's President Eamon de Valera. Last week he became the first U.S. President to receive officially an Israeli chief of state, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, 68, whom Johnson entertained with a state dinner and Bach music by Violinist Mischa Elman, 73, and by the Parisian Swingle Singers, who perform their Bach with a modern beat. Said Johnson in an accolade to Eshkol: "We are very much alike. We are both farmers." Two months ago he had received an Arab potentate, Jordan's King Hussein. Now came a non-Arab Moslem, Iran's Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and his Empress Farah Diba, to whom Johnson gave cowboy suits for their three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter.

Prosperity. On the home front, he was the Architect of Prosperity. Boasted Johnson at a White House press conference: "Our record economic expansion, which entered its 40th month yesterday, is showing new vitality. The expansion will roll on through 1964 and we believe well into 1965."