The Reverberating Issue

On a hurried political expedition into New York City last week, Texas' Senator Lyndon B. Johnson all but bumped into Massachusetts' Senator John F. Kennedy, who had slipped away from his seaside vacation retreat at Hyannisport, Mass, to do some New York politicking himself. Just as Kennedy headed into Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria, by long-shot coincidence the car bringing Johnson from the airport pulled up at the entrance. Johnson strode indoors so fast that he did not even see Kennedy, but Kennedy saw Johnson, and let out a startled semi-shout: "What's that guy doing here?"

That guy was belatedly running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Just when Jack Kennedy had settled back to polish his nomination-acceptance speech for delivery at Los Angeles, Lyndon Baines Johnson had saddled up and set off in an old-style pursuit of the rolling Kennedy bandwagon.

People's Choice. With only eight days to go before the start of the balloting, Lyndon Johnson galloped into the race later than any serious presidential hopeful on record. In setting off on his last-lap chase, he brought a surge of excitement into the race. More important, he raised an issue that will reverberate long after the convention is over and the last delegate has gone home. The issue: What is the business of a presidential nominating convention? By what criteria should it choose the nominee for the nation's highest and most powerful public office?

As Johnson saw it, the convention ought to be a serious conclave where the delegates meet "to consider who can best lead a party and the nation." Jack Kennedy, in his drive for the nomination, shaped his strategy to a newer concept: the idea that the business of the convention is to nomi nate the man who, eliciting the most popular support, winning the most primaries and drawing the most enthusiastic cheers, has shown himself to be the most politically glamorous candidate, the people's choice. Johnson, little known to the public, felt that he deserved the nomination because, more than any other Democratic hopeful, he had proved himself over the years in the arenas of government. Kennedy felt that he deserved it because he had won a batch of primaries.

Aura of High Places. The two approaches to the nomination were rooted in the history of U.S. politics: Johnson's in the theory of the Founding Fathers that a leader is chosen by his peers (the Electoral College picked the President; state legislatures chose U.S. Senators); Kennedy's in the populist theory of direct primaries (now augmented by the help of direct and almost instantaneous communications). The two approaches were also rooted in the radically different characters and careers of Kennedy and Johnson. They are sometimes thought to represent the liberal and conservative wings of their party, but allowing for the differences between Massachusetts and Texas, their voting records are similar. There the similarity ends (apart from the fact that both of them have money--Kennedy by birth, Johnson by marriage).

Still boyish-looking at 43, Jack Kennedy has the gemlike qualities--highly polished, but hard and rather cold--sometimes found in men of silver-spoon birth, Ivy League education and high ambition. Once he decided to be a politician, he set for himself the highest possible political goal, the presidency, and he marched toward it with machinelike efficiency. For him, the House and Senate were not so much arenas of action as steppingstones to his goal. In the Senate he was conspicuous not for achievements of legislation or leadership but for youth, good looks, wealth, and the aura he exuded of being bound for higher places still. When he decided to run for President in 1960, he marshaled his advantages--charm, articulateness, money, a sure political instinct, and the handsome Clan Kennedy (TIME, cover, July 11)--and set out, half a year ago, to take the nomination by storm. Publicly challenging his rivals to run against him in primaries, publicly insisting that no presidential hopeful who shunned primaries deserved to be considered for the nomination, Kennedy ran in seven, piled up majorities in all of them (only two of them, Wisconsin and West Virginia, were real contests). His showing proved that his Roman Catholicism was an asset rather than a liability, helped his hardboiled campaign to persuade Democratic politicians to climb aboard his bandwagon lest they get left behind.

Aura of Respect. Only eight years older than Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson seems to belong to a different generation and a different world. He still has an in eradicable touch of Texas backlands about him. When he is trying to persuade or cajole somebody, as he often is, he grabs an arm or shoulder in a bruising grip, and a hint of the carnival snake-oil seller shows in his voice. His fellow Senators joke about the lavish vanity of his tailoring and his baronial Senate office--but they respect him, too. Last June the non-partisan Congressional Quarterly polled Senators and Representatives on who they thought would be the Democratic Party's "strongest possible" presidential candidate; of the 220 members who replied, 54% named Lyndon Johnson, only 20% named Jack Kennedy (Adlai Stevenson came in third with 14%).

During his 5 1/2 years as Senate majority leader, facing a Republican President, Johnson proved himself to be one of U.S. history's ablest masters of the subtle, complex art of legislative leadership. And he exercised that leadership with statesmanlike responsibility. A Southerner, utterly dependent upon Southern support in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, he painstakingly steered through the Senate this year a civil rights bill guaranteeing the voting rights of Southern Negroes. Instead of trying to use the U-2 imbroglio and the summit collapse to embarrass the Administration in an election year, he spoke out for national unity.

With a Republican in the White House, Congress has been the main arena of Democratic deeds during the Eisenhower years. Every Democrat who orates at the convention about the party's national record--including ever-increasing congressional majorities--will be talking, in effect, about Lyndon Johnson's record. As leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate--minority leader in 1953-54, majority leader since--Lyndon Johnson has been the U.S.'s No. 1 Democrat. His only serious rival for that title would be House Speaker Sam Rayburn, the fellow Texan long programmed to place Johnson's name in nomination at Los Angeles. *

Shackles of Responsibility. Somewhat less direct than Kennedy, Johnson pursued the presidential nomination a lot less singlemindedly. As long ago as mid-1959, many of his closest friends and advisors started urging him to declare himself a candidate, travel around the country enlisting Democratic Governors and county chairmen to his side. Johnson repeatedly refused. If he started openly campaigning for the nomination, he explained again and again, he would have to neglect his duties as Majority Leader. During the past half-year, while Jack Kennedy was devoting most of his time to hot pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination, Majority Leader Johnson, confined to Washington by shackles of responsibility, had to restrict his active campaigning to weekend forays.

Johnson knew that, as a Southerner, he carried a heavy handicap in the race for the nomination, apart from the burden of responsibility that kept him in Washington. Less than two years ago, he predicted that no Southerner would be elected President in his lifetime. But the sum mit collapse in Paris, followed by the cancellation of President Eisenhower's visit to Japan, gave Johnson fresh hope that, as a seasoned, responsible Senate leader, a spokesman of moderation and national unity, he might be able to wrest the nomination away from "young Jack," as he calls Kennedy.

Personal Standard. The first sure sign of Candidate Johnson in action came last fortnight when he and Sam Rayburn got Congress to recess until August. To political connoisseurs the feat of recessing the U.S. Congress was as dazzling a maneuver as Jack Kennedy's primary victory in West Virginia--and typically in the Johnsonian idiom. Without saying a word, he served notice that his would be the dominant Democratic voice during the formative months of the campaign, that Senators, Congressmen--and even Governors --with pet legislative projects would still have to reckon with Johnson, Rayburn & Co. after the convention. The recess also gained for him a few extra days for his last-lap drive to catch up with the Kennedy bandwagon. On the fifth anniversary of his heart attack, Johnson worked through the night until 9:30 a.m., pushing through a bill empowering the President to cut Cuba's sugar quota. Then, with his majority leader duties done until after the convention, he caught one hour's sleep before getting on with his campaign.

At a press conference in the marble-walled auditorium of the new Senate Of fice Building, Johnson formally declared himself a candidate for the Democratic nomination. Setting a personal Democratic standard that would still be fluttering up to election time, Johnson said he would not "chew on" President Eisenhower, "just as I have not and I will not spend my time now trying to destroy any in my party or in other parties who might come to this high office. Mistakes have been made--and inexcusable ones. But my interest--and I believe the interest of most of my fellow Americans--is in curing those mistakes, in avoiding those mistakes, not in exploiting them for political partisan gains."

Johnson showed particular moderation toward Jack Kennedy, never mentioned him by name in his 2,000-word statement announcing his candidacy. Later on, replying to questions, Johnson undercut the charge, leveled by his backers, that Kennedy is a sick man, suffering from Addison's disease. "Senator Kennedy," said Johnson, "has established beyond the peradventure of a doubt by traveling in every state of this union that he doesn't have any health problem."

But Johnson's renowned political cunning showed forth, too. A greying 51, veteran of 23 years in Congress, he pointed up boyish-looking, 43-year-old Jack Kennedy's comparative youth and inexperience by warning that the "forces of evil," meaning international Communism, "will have no mercy for innocence, no gallantry toward inexperience." With another sly jab, Johnson hit at the Kennedy drive to corral convention delegates: "I would not presume to tell my fellow Democrats that I am the only man they should consider for this job or to demand that any delegate or delegation vote for me. I am not going to go elbowing through 179 million Americans--pushing aside other Senators and Governors and Congressmen --to shout, 'Look at me, and nobody else!' I only want my fellow Democrats and my fellow Americans to look long, to look hard, and to look wisely to find the right man."'

Edge of Bitterness. He had waited until late to announce his candidacy, Johnson explained, because he had "a post of duty and of responsibility here in Washington as the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, selected unanimously by all of my Democratic colleagues. Because of that duty, a duty to all the people, I cannot be absent when there is public business at stake. Those who have engaged in active campaigns since January"--he unmistakably meant Jack Kennedy in particular--"have missed hundreds of votes. This I could not do ... Some one has to tend the store." Offstage, Johnson put it more bluntly: "Jack was out kissing babies while I was passing bills." His voice had an edge of bitterness in it, betraying his sense of grievance, his not-so-secret dislike for "young Jack," and his awareness that the dislike is mutual. (Kennedy had let it be known that, if elected President, he would try to knock Johnson off his majority leader perch.)

Razzle-Dazzle Predictions. With the virtually solid backing of the South and scattered support in the West, Johnson, at the time of his announcement last week, could count up some 500 first-ballot votes toward the 761 needed to win the nomination--but Jack Kennedy could count well beyond 600. Arithmetically, the gap seemed fairly narrow. Strategically, it was enormous.

All of Johnson's hopes of closing that gap and winning the nomination rested on a faith that characterized his whole approach to the belated race: much of the delegate support for Kennedy sprang not from any real belief in Kennedy as the best possible candidate, but from politicians' normal desire to get with the winner in time to earn rewards or at least avoid punishments. Once the convention saw that Kennedy was not going to run away with the nomination on the first or second ballot, his support would start melting away, and the convention would then turn to Lyndon Johnson as the best qualified candidate--so ran Johnson's hopes. * "I think you're rewarded for what you do, what you produce, and not for kissing babies," he said. "I'll believe this until I'm proven wrong."

As Johnson moved westward toward Los Angeles, he kept trying to fight Kennedy's phenomenal bandwagon propaganda. At his press conference at the Chicago airport, Johnson pounced on Bobby Kennedy's prediction that the outcome would be decided by noon Monday, five hours before the convention's official opening. "This will come as a great surprise to the delegates," rumbled Johnson. "Most of them thought they were going to Los Angeles to confer with their fellow Democrats to help select the next President." In San Francisco, his last stop before Los Angeles, Johnson noted derisively that Kennedy first-ballot delegate claims had backtracked in three weeks from 710 to 600 votes. "California, here I am," thundered Johnson in his speech to a disappointingly small welcoming crowd at the Los Angeles airport. "It doesn't matter how many razzle-dazzle predictions you get. The only thing that's important is who ought to lead this nation." From the faithful 300 welled cries of "You! You!"

Taking Charge. The Los Angeles that Johnson rolled into was shuddering proof that Operation Kennedy had again outrun the wildest guesses of the old pros. From the Kennedy command post on the Biltmore Hotel's eighth floor, the team headed by Jack's brother Bob (the "brash young man," as a New York Times editorial called him) took charge of arriving delegates, newsmen and even the political atmosphere. All week the nation's TV, radio and press were fed on rumors of impending Kennedy gains while the actual gains in delegates could still be counted on one hand.

The sharpest spur in the Kennedy camp's intense drive to put Jack over on the first ballot was the lurking fear that Lyndon Johnson was probably right in his prediction that if Jack failed to win on an early ballot his strength would start to wane. To help ensure a first-ballot victory, Jack Kennedy had offered Adlai Stevenson a chance to be Secretary of State in the Kennedy Administration. Kennedy was furious when Stevenson temporized.*

A Little Grey. Kennedy was reassured about everything when he read the bandwagon headlines at the family summer home in Hyannisport, Mass., between leisurely strolls along the beach and turns in the family motor cruiser. "Boy, this is for me," he boomed over the phone to a friend. "Let those other guys run around out there." By Friday night it was time for him, too, to head "out there." As he left home, the Irish maids of wealthy Hyannisport neighbors lined up across the street to give him a sendoff. From Hyannis, he and Wife Jackie flew to New York's Idlewild Airport, stayed at a nearby hotel overnight. Then, sternly refusing to kiss Jackie goodbye for the photographers, Jack boarded a jetliner called "Flagship West Virginia" and headed west across the U.S.

Said Kennedy of Lyndon Johnson to the 2,000 who flocked around at Los Angeles' International Airport: "A few days ago another candidate said that we needed a man with a little grey in his hair. We put that grey in his hair and we will continue to do so."

The Real Question. Lyndon Johnson, at this point, was actually feeling at home in the campaign for the first time. He was in his kind of situation--a situation of maneuver. And although the odds were staggeringly against him, he wheeled in relaxed fashion from meeting to luncheon to television show to cocktail party, preaching his doctrine of the right of the best man to win. "Everybody talks about who's going to be nominated" said he, "when the real question should be who ought to be nominated."

In closed-door huddles with delegates, Johnson argued that the air would start hissing out of the Kennedy balloon after the second ballot. Kennedy, he insisted, would be a weak candidate--mistrusted by farmers (Kennedy declared himself opposed to high price supports back in 1955), widely mistrusted by Negroes, vulnerable to Republican charges of absenteeism (he had missed nearly 80% of the Senate roll-call votes since the session began in January). Johnson tried hard to argue down the Northern Democrats' two main objections to his own candidacy: i) he is too conservative to be acceptable to labor and eggheads, and 2) as a Southerner he would alienate the Negro vote.

Kennedy, in fact, had the backing of most A.F.L.-C.I.O. big guns (although they hesitated to say so publicly out of respect for what Johnson and Rayburn might do to such labor favorites as the minimum-wage law when Congress reconvenes). But Johnson could point to some surprising signs of Northern Negro support. New York's Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell, political chieftain of Harlem, is a Johnson defender. Philadelphia's No. 1 Negro newspaper, the Tribune, openly endorsed Johnson in an editorial last March: "Please don't think we are crazy, but this newspaper would like to see Lyndon B. Johnson nominated for President."

Wave & the Rock. Johnson's high hope was that the dark horses. Stuart Symington, Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson, with some 200 first-ballot votes among them, could be persuaded to hold on. His other hope was to try to keep state Governors heading up uncommitted or favorite-son delegations from giving way to Kennedy on the first ballot. Johnson had his network of support, mostly congressional friends. He had his handful of devoted admirers. At one point. Colorado's ex-Senator Ed Johnson, who had been kept off the delegation by a Kennedy coup, shuffled up to say: "I'm just Johnson all the way. I'm trying to do all I can even if it does seem like everything I do is wrong."

One key man in the play was California's hapless Governor Pat Brown, who finally, on convention eve, openly endorsed Jack Kennedy. But Johnson had long since conceded that the Kennedys had Pat Brown hog-tied. As it has in many another convention, the real make-or-break power focused on Pennsylvania's 81 votes, presided over by Governor David Leo Lawrence, a tough, old-line boss who could make his influence stick if he wanted to. Dave Lawrence's heart be longed to Adlai Stevenson. Early in the game his mind took him toward Symington because he thought that Jack Kennedy's Catholicism would be a drag on the state ticket in Pennsylvania--where Catholic Dave Lawrence himself had barely squeaked by in 1958. But even hard-rock Pennsylvania was irresistibly being engulfed by the Kennedy wave. Philadelphia's Bill Green, No. 2 boss in the delegation, let it be known that he was for Kennedy. One of Jack Kennedy's first acts on landing in Los Angeles was to dodge through the dim halls of the Biltmore to pay his respects to Lawrence.

While Lyndon Johnson was huddling with delegates at the Biltmore, Jack Kennedy came out of Lawrence's room with a wider-than-usual grin on his face. Whispered a Kennedy man with the same kind of grin: "We have it. That's the ball game."

Even so, Lyndon Johnson's brief campaign had left some lingering echoes behind--a message of responsibility and national unity, and some bracing advice to any Democratic candidate who might want the full support of L.B.J. "The next President," said Johnson, "is not going to be a talking President--or a traveling President. He is going to be, and should be, a working President.

"His job is to convince the world--both our enemies and our allies--that America is strong and freedom is strong. He can't wring his hands that America is second-rate--because America is not second-rate. He can't cry out about moral decay--because this generation is not a generation of decay."

* Mindful that any Southern politician is automatically suspected of race prejudice, Johnson tapped Hawaii's Congressman Daniel Ken Inouye, a Nisei, to make one of the seconding speeches.

* Judged against the pattern of both Democratic and Republican nominating conventions since 1928, Johnson's hope that the suspense would carry beyond the first ballot was pretty dim. In only four of the past 16 conventions did it take more than one ballot to nominate a presidential candidate (Roosevelt in 1932, four ballots; Willkie in 1940, six; Dewey in 1948, three; Stevenson in 1952, three).

* Adlai Stevenson came in for the hardest knock of the pre-convention brickbat-throwing when speechmaking New York Delegate (and former Democratic National Chairman) James A. Farley, in what was interpreted as a jab at Stevenson, hit at Democratic "appeasers" who wanted the U.S. to pursue a softer line in dealing with Russia.

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