The Presidency: Inauguration Week

THE PRESIDENCY

Lyndon Johnson was poised for the biggest day of his life, his first pomp-and-ceremonial inauguration. The event would be all the more stirring because of the jarring contrast with his first inauguration 14 months before in the cramped and sweltering cabin of Air Force One, with the coffin-encased body of John Kennedy only a few yards away.

As part of the preparations, Johnson issued a new family portrait, and cots were moved into a few historic White House corners to bed down other incoming relatives. But even while carpenters hammered together streetside reviewing stands for his big show, Johnson was busy laying the groundwork for postinaugural accomplishments. He sent four messages to Capitol Hill—dealing with education, immigration, foreign aid and financing disarmament negotiations. He signed his first bill of 1965, a special act authorizing him to delay his reports to Congress on the budget and the state of the economy until next week—slightly beyond the legal deadlines.

"Crisis an Hour." He publicly announced that the long-predicted resignations of four White House aides appointed by John Kennedy had at last occurred. P. Kenneth O'Donnell and David Powers, two of Kennedy's closest friends, quit, as did Dr. Janet Travell, J.F.K.'s first White House physician, and Myer Feldman, his counsel. Although Johnson did not acknowlege it last week, Larry O'Brien, Kennedy's trusted aide on Capitol Hill, was set to resign as soon as Johnson's legislative proposals are launched.

Through such domestic and White Housekeeping chores, Lyndon moved with profound confidence. But all week he was jostled frequently by the less familiar challenges of foreign affairs. His aides began to refer to the week as a "crisis an hour" era. But, in fact, the crises were mostly small-bore disturbances—such as civilian riots in Panama, a U.S. submarine sent to the China Sea to keep Indonesian President Sukarno in his place, and the ouster of two U.S. diplomats from Tanzania.

Limited Upsurge. As usual, the real and constant international crisis was in Southeast Asia. Even there, the President managed a form of the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't technique he has long applied in Washington.

Though he neither promised nor publicly promoted any outward escalation in the U.S.'s military involvement, Johnson did authorize at least a limited upsurge without quite seeming to do so. It was only after two U.S. jet fighters were shot down last week during an attack on a key Communist supply-route bridge in Laos (see THE WORLD) that the President's manipulations came clear. For two months before the attack, the White House itself has secretly sanctioned rigidly controlled missions over Communist territory. But last week's attack was the biggest ever—and it was launched by U.S. military commanders in Asia who had suddenly gotten White House clearance to use whatever firepower they deemed necessary to destroy the target.

It only obliquely involved the war in Viet Nam, but it had a measurable impact on South Vietnamese leaders, who saw it as encouraging proof that the U.S. was determined to stay—and fight —in Southeast Asia.