Quest for Confidence

THE PRESIDENCY

Laughter and music from the cruise ship George Washington spilled across the Potomac. Over the tiered decks, 600 wounded U.S. servicemen glugged beer, munched on Texas barbecue, flirted with flotillas of pretty hostesses. Hopping about on a crutch, a one-legged soldier danced a manic Monkey with his partner, while another veteran in a striped bathrobe foxtrotted with a nurse. Between performances by the Bitter End Singers and a chorus from the University of Alabama, a bevy of scantily clad beauty queens mingled with the men. Then, 40 minutes before their brief revels ended, a black launch pulled alongside, and Lyndon Johnson bounded aboard.

The four-hour cruise, organized by Mrs. Robert McNamara, was intended to boost the morale of American fighting men wounded in Viet Nam. As he edged through the crowd, Johnson asked over and over: "Do y'all think I'm doing the right thing in Viet Nam?" He repeatedly extended "my personal thanks for all you have given to your country." Out of the President's earshot, a marine with a missing arm exclaimed: "You rotten fink!" But most of the servicemen seemed to share the sentiment of the handful who whispered huskily, "God bless you, sir." The President himself paled at the confrontation with scores of maimed young men. The cruise ship, so lighthearted an hour earlier, was somber and almost silent when it reached the dock.

Limned for Lyndon. Impelled by his own inner instincts, the President last week sought to generate cheer and confidence on a national level. Fretting over press reports that he was mistrusted by the man in the street, Johnson tried to make amends by setting up his first scheduled, nationally televised White House press conference in eleven months. Though the East Room was physically jammed for the big event, the press conference was almost void of import. Asked mostly insipid questions, nearly all of them limned for Lyndon in advance by Press Secretary Bill Moyers, the President disclosed no news and showed little inclination to throw new light on the urgent issues. "I would not want to go further."

Only when cast in the less studied role of Father of the Bride was Johnson refreshingly natural. That moment came when a newsman for Women's Wear Daily--which had been drummed out of Luci's August wedding for tracking down and publishing a sketch of a bridesmaid's dress in advance of the release date--asked indignantly how the President could square the ban with his avowed belief in freedom of information. Amid chuckles from the press, Johnson hunkered down and pleaded: "If I could have your permission to just step aside on any of the detailed wedding arrangements, I would like very much to do so. Thank you very much."

Shifting the Onus. Johnson's mood, always volatile, has been even more so of late. To some extent, this reflects the unpredictable and often ungovernable whims of the 89th Congress. Thus he glowingly told reporters last week that the deficit in the fiscal 1966 administrative budget, originally expected to exceed $5 billion, has been held to $2.3 billion. At the same time, Johnson was lamenting to anybody who would listen that Congress was giving short shrift to thrift--and raising the prospect of tax increases--by threatening to tack at least $5 billion onto his 1967 budget.

The President seemed completely in control of the situation when it came to greeting foreign visitors. He threw a stag luncheon at the White House for Bolivian President-elect Rene Barrientos, who praised the President for leading "the battle for Liberty, justice and progress," exchanged amenities in a White House ceremony with Prime Minister Forbes Burnham of Guyana. After greeting 3,000 foreign-exchange students on the South Lawn, Johnson departed, whereupon the students chanted, "We want the President, we want the President."

Hoping to cultivate similar enthusiasm among American voters, the President flew off at week's end to stethoscope the heartland. Speaking to an open-air crowd of 40,000 at Indianapolis, inspecting troops at Fort Campbell, Ky., addressing 25,000 people at Vincennes, Ind., his major emphasis was that the U.S. would persevere in Viet Nam. Johnson's confidence quotient clearly was up, and with reason. In his hip pocket was a brand-new Gallup poll reporting that since the U.S. started bombing North Vietnamese fuel depots last month, his popularity had jumped from 46% to 56%.

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