Seen, Not Heard

Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea, the other was elected Vice President, and nothing was ever heard of either of them again.

--Thomas R. Marshall,

Vice President under Woodrow Wilson

Measured by the company he keeps and the gatherings he attends, Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson seems to be a busy and important man on the New Frontier. Last week he attended the President's weekly legislative breakfast and his press conference briefing, sat in on private presidential chats with congressional leaders, went to a foreign aid briefing, and drank toasts at a White House dinner in honor of Chief Justice Warren, House Speaker McCormack and the Vice President. In his two years as Vice President, he has traveled to Southeast Asia and Europe as a representative of the President and the nation. He sits in on more top-level meetings than anybody else in Washington except the President.

Sitting In. But although Johnson is often seen, he is not really heard. At least he is not heard from anywhere near as much as he was when Eisenhower was President, and he, L.B.J., was Senate Majority Leader. In those days, Johnson was the most powerful of all Democratic politicians, a towering figure who to a great extent decided what legislation succeeded or failed in the U.S. Senate.

"Power is where power goes," Johnson confidently told a friend before taking office as Vice President. He was wrong--power has slipped from his grasp. Like every Vice President, he is president of the Senate. He is also chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, the National Aeronautics and Space Council and the Peace Corps National Advisory Council. He sits in on meetings of the Cabinet and is a member of the National Security Council. But all of this together adds up to only a fraction of his old power and influence. He is free to speak up, but nobody, really, has to heed him anymore.

Standing By. In the Kennedy Administration, the vice-presidency has again become what it was throughout most of the nation's history: a ceremonial office in which a man stands by to take office in case the President dies. John Adams, first Vice President of the U.S., called it "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." Theodore Roosevelt considered it "a fifth wheel to the coach." Harry Truman said it was "useful as a cow's fifth teat," and John Nance Garner, Vice President under Franklin Roosevelt, told fellow Texan Johnson that the office was not worth a "pitcher of warm spit." In the days of Richard Nixon, it seemed that the vice-presidency was changing, toward greater scope and power. But Eisenhower delegated to Nixon special roles as Administration spokesman and party leader. Those roles were not inherent in the office of Vice President and left no permanent impress upon it. Politician Kennedy has delegated no such roles to Politician Johnson.

It is hard to imagine that Lyndon Johnson, who relished power when he had it, is willing to settle for such a ceremonial niche. Johnson's intimates say that he still cherishes hopes of getting the presidential nomination in 1968 (he will then be 60). In the meantime, Johnson has to do what Kennedy wants, for without Kennedy's blessing, Johnson can never fulfill his dream.

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