Nation: THE LAST MESSAGE-AND ADIEU

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Nixon, of course, can revise the proposed budget. Though he and President Johnson conferred by telephone for 40 minutes shortly before Johnson gave his State of the Union speech, Nixon is only tentatively committed to extending the 10% income surtax for another year. Because Nixon is pledged to halt inflation, however, he will find it doubly difficult to end the surtax and thus erase the deflationary surplus Johnson hopes to create. Johnson asked an overall 13% increase in social security benefits; in the campaign, Nixon proposed to tie social security payments to a cost-of-living index so that benefits would rise and fall with consumer costs. Given his further campaign commitments to urban aid and new weapons systems, Nixon probably cannot reduce notably the total amount of spending that Johnson recommended.

Upturned Faces. As he concluded his State of the Union address, Johnson put in an unusual word with the Congress for his successor. "President-elect Nixon, in the days ahead, is going to need your understanding, just as I did, and he is entitled to have it," said the President. "And I hope every member will remember that the burdens he will bear as our President will be borne for all of us."

Lyndon Johnson paused and looked down at the upturned faces before him—the black-robed members of the Supreme Court, the glittering diplomatic corps, his Cabinet, the Senators and Representatives. "And now it's time to leave," he said.

The members of Congress tried to sing Auld Lang Syne, and the hand-clapping was warm. This was really goodbye to the great love of Lyndon Johnson's life, the U.S. Congress. His car hurried through the clear, cold night of Washington, back toward the White House. He rode with Lady Bird, and they swooped down Independence Avenue and around the white obelisk of the Washington Monument and then back to the South Portico. L.B.J. was a different and silent man, because this at last was his public finale and his personal adieu.