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THE PRESIDENCY

The President of the U.S. looked rheumy and sounded irritable. He called a press conference on only 35 minutes' notice, after White House correspondents had complained that he was not keeping them informed, and then he made them wait 25 minutes before he showed up. He had admitted that he had not fully recovered from his recent illness and felt about "80% normal."

Earlier in the week, Johnson had seemed to be bouncing back. He more than rose to the occasion at a White House banquet honoring Vice President Hubert Humphrey (see following story], House Speaker John McCormack and Chief Justice Earl Warren. The guest list was impressive. All the Justices of the Supreme Court and most of the members of the Johnson Cabinet were there. The leaders of Congress were well represented. So was the newspaper-publishing industry--the Otis Chandlers of Los Angeles, the Palmer Hoyts of Denver, the Arthur Sulzbergers of New York. Top Washington Lawyers (and sometime Johnson advisers) Abe Fortas and Clark Clifford were present. So were Laurance Rockefeller and Harvard Law School Dean

Erwin Griswold and M.I.T.'s Economics Professor Paul Samuelson and onetime Baseball Star Jackie Robinson--and some 120 others.

Democratic Dishes. The President and Lady Bird were relaxed and gracious hosts. Standing in the reception line, they chatted and shook hands for half an hour. Dinner did not start until 9 p.m., not too long before such ceremonial White House functions ordinarily start to break up. The tables in the State Dining Room and the nearby Blue Room featured strictly Democratic chinaware: the Truman dishes in the dining room, the Wilson and Roosevelt dishes in the Blue Room. The menu honored the principal guests: the seafood was a la Golden Gate for California's Warren; the chicken was a la Bay State for Massachusetts' McCormack; for Humphrey there was wild rice from Minnesota.

Speeches and toasts were followed with readings by Actor Hume Cronyn and his wife Jessica Tandy, who recited from the works of such well-known authors as Sir Winston Churchill, Edmund Burke, T. S. Eliot, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lyndon Baines Johnson ("The Great Society asks not only how much, but how good . . ."). For the rest of the evening there was dancing. The President was not at his terpsichorean tops, but he did keep at it until 1 a.m.

Winds & Clouds. Later in the week the President went to a dinner of the B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League to receive the Legacy Award for his "distinguished contribution to the enrichment of our democratic heritage." Lyndon took that public opportunity to answer critics who complain that his preoccupation with preserving a U.S. consensus tends to preclude bold presidential action.

"Out of the years of fire and faith in this 20th century," he said, "our diverse peoples have forged together a consensus such as we have not known before --a consensus on our national purposes, our national policies and the principles to guide them both. Thoughtful men want to know--are we entering an era when consensus will become an end in itself? Will we substitute consensus for challenge? Will a devotion to agreement keep us from those tasks that are disagreeable? Tonight, for myself, I turn back to the ancient Scriptures for the answer: "He that observeth the wind shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."

The Burden. At this meeting the President reiterated his hopes for a trip this year to the Soviet Union. "I have reason to believe," he said, "that the Soviet leadership would welcome my visit to their country--as I would be very glad to do. I am hopeful that before the year is out this exchange of visits may occur." At his press conference next day, the President did not elaborate, but the word from the White House was that talks are going on at the ambassadorial level, both in Washington and Moscow. As of last week, it appeared that the Soviets were agreeable to a visit, perhaps this summer, but so far neither dates nor itinerary nor agenda have been worked out.

Characteristic of the generally introspective mood that gripped the President last week was the statement he made to 1,000 people--many of them public officials--who attended the annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast sponsored by the International Christian Leadership. He noted that some people are skeptical of public officials who pray. "I am sure," said Johnson, "such skepticism has been deserved by some. But I am more certain that only the unknowing and the unthinking would challenge today the motives that bring our public officials together for moments of prayer and meditation." To his listeners, he seemed to be pleading for understanding when he added: "In these times more than any other, the public life is a lonely life. The burden of every vote, every decision, every act --and even of every utterance--is too great to be shared and much too great to be borne alone."

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