Behind Closed Doors

As one of at least four Senate Democrats with serious presidential hopes. Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had seemed strangely subdued since the beginning of the 86th Congress, second session. He had neglected to deliver to the Democratic Party conference the personal "state of the union" speech that he usually managed to make just a day or so before President Eisenhower's official State of the Union message. He had, with apparent meekness, given in to the demands of a little group of Senate Democratic liberals that he convene party conferences at their beck and call. He had even held onto his temper when one of the liberals, Tennessee's Albert Gore, urged that the power of appointing members of Senate Democratic policymaking committees be taken out of Johnson's hands. In fact, for a few fleeting, fanciful days, the dissident liberals thought that at long last they might even have Texan Johnson on the skids.

But those who better knew and understood Lyndon Johnson figured that pretty soon someone--to wit, his liberal critics--was going to get clouted. Last week that happened.

Arising on the Senate floor to push his plans for diluting Johnson's powers, personable Albert Gore, 52, pointedly said that "the Senate Democratic Policy Committee should represent all the Democrats in the Senate, not merely one." At that point an equally personable Johnson follower, Florida's George Smathers, 46, testily said that the Senate floor was not the proper place to wash the Democratic Party's "dirty linen." Retorted Gore: "This is not dirty linen. It is simply faulty linen." The open forum of the chamber, said Gore, was a better place to discuss such things than the executive sessions of party conferences: "Behind closed doors, one can get steamrollered."

In that, the event proved Gore's point. At the Democratic caucus called by Johnson to consider the liberal protests, Johnson spent 20 minutes defending his Senate management. When he finished, New Mexico's veteran (since 1935) Senator Dennis Chavez stood up. "I'm a liberal," he said, "and I'm for Lyndon Johnson." West Virginia's Robert Byrd, a first-term Senator, followed. "If I've learned anything," he said, "it's that Senate youngsters are expected to keep quiet." But he nonetheless felt obliged to speak up for Johnson, who had traveled to West Virginia to campaign for him in 1958. "We liked the way he talked," said Byrd. "We liked the way he thinks. We like him. He's our kind of liberal."

So it went, with Senator after Senator speaking for Johnson. After 2 1/2 hours, the votes were taken on Albert Gore's proposals. The results: 51 to 12, in favor of Lyndon Johnson--still the overwhelmingly backed leader of Senate Democrats.

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