Protecting the Flank
THE PRESIDENCY
(See Cover)
For two weeks the great silver-and-blue jet had chased the sun. Then, carrying Lyndon Johnson on the last leg of his Asian odyssey, Air Force One changed course. Soaring over the slender, gilded spires of Bangkok's temples, it wheeled south for a brief stopover in Kuala Lumpur, was subsequently scheduled to head northeast for Seoul, the last Asian capital on the President's itinerary. Behind lay the summit conference in Manila and Johnson's his toric visit to South Viet Nam, the first trip ever made by a U.S. President to a foreign battlefield save for Franklin Roosevelt's call at Casablanca in 1943.
For Johnson, the 20-hour-a-day grind of sightseeing and ceremony, of conferences with Presidentstand Premiers, audiences with a semidivine king (Thailand's Bhumibol Adulyadej) and a politician-prince (Malaysia's Tunku Abdul Rahman) had been "the hardest work of my life." And other self-set labors awaited him back home. After one day's rest in the capital, the President was scheduled to hit the road again for a whirlwind windup to the 1966 election campaign.
In effect, Johnson has been on the campaign trail ever since he left Washington to start his 17-day, seven-nation swing through Asia. He went to Australia and New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand, Malaysia and Korea as a Western leader in quest of a solution to the war in Viet Nam. In Viet Nam itself, he went as Commander in Chief to thank his troops for serving "in the front line of a contest as far-reaching and as vital as any we have ever waged." But he also went to Asia as an American politician whose party is embroiled in a major campaign, knowing well that the voters' decisions next week will be examined as closely by Ho Chi Minh, looking for indications of U.S. irresolution about the war, as by G.O.P. Chairman Ray Bliss.
72% to 48%. When he left Washington, the President was thoroughly aware that his trip was something of a long-distance whistle-stop tour, an exercise in diplomacy that could help burnish his tarnished image. Johnson has manipulated most of the levers of presidential power with a skill matched by few of his predecessors, and in the process has achieved a legislative record second to none. But he has been unable to budge the lever that in the end controls all of the others: public opinion.
Ultimately, a President's greatest power is in inspiring people to follow his lead. Because he has signally failed to do this despite his landslide victory in 1964, Johnson's Great Society so far looks better in the record books than in the nation's neighborhoods and schoolrooms. Far from giving him the ultimate power that goes with their assent, most Americans have withheld it be cause they vaguely fear that he already has too much power.
While Johnson is accorded high marks for getting things done, he has not thereby endeared himself to his constituents. Each new public-opinion sampling brings evidence of an ever-widening "affection gap": last week the Minneapolis Tribune reported an eleven-month slippage from 72% to 48% in Minnesotans' approval of his performance. The credibility gap, fostered by the President's often devious ways, also keeps growing. An airline executive fresh from a visit to Lyndon's home state reported last week that "in Texas, they wouldn't believe Johnson if he told them that next month was November."
90% v. 90%. Johnson suffers, too, from a kind of generational gap that yawns wider every time Bobby Kennedy addresses a crowd. It is not simply a matter of age. As a kind of latter-day Andrew Jackson in an era that looks for a more patrician patina on its politicians, he strikes many as plain corny or simply crude. Last week, for example, while en route to Manila, the wife of an allied Prime Minister had just confided to her seat mate that she preferred bacon even to caviar when the President leaned over, speared one of her two rashers and devoured it. Then he ordered another portion --for himself.
Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak quote a White House aide as saying that "90% of what he does is right, and 90% of the way he does it is wrong." Johnson's pettiness and peevishness, his displays of deceit and conceit have been so frequently documented that what was once a nebulous attitude of indifference on the public's part has crystallized into active dislike.
As Johnson's problems with the economy, the war and civil rights have deepened, so has public mistrust of the man. "He is an egotistical, maniacal, triple-plated son of a bitch, that's what he is," growls a Coloradan in an irrational but not atypical reaction to the man. "Johnson said we could have both guns and butter," says a Los Angeles housewife. "But he didn't say how much the butter was going to cost." Yet on the issue that has inspired more nationwide and worldwide antagonism toward L.B.J. than any other--Viet Nam--a Congressional Quarterly survey shows 58.5% of the House and Senate behind the President. And the latest Harris poll reveals that overall public support of Johnson's prosecution of the war is running as high as 2 to 1.
No. 7. Against this curious background of support for his policies and distaste for his personality, the President went to Asia. He had two broad objectives in mind. One was to show Hanoi that, where Viet Nam was concerned, it had to cope not only with "this Dictator Johnson with the long nose," as the President himself put it, but with half a dozen Asian nations as well. The other was to help cultivate the fragile shoots of regional cooperation that are beginning to poke through Asia's stony political soil, in which enmity has always flourished far more readily than amity.
"This is not an American show," the President told the National Security Council on the eve of his departure. In Manila he went out of his way to avoid the limelight--even though he was clearly the main attraction for the mobs. "We are not even No. 2," he kept reminding aides during the seven-nation meeting on Viet Nam. "We are No. 7." In public appearances, he squeezed no arms, slapped no backs. During a picture-taking session before the Philippine House of Representatives, he carefully stood a couple of steps below his Asian colleagues so as not to tower over them.
A 20% Man. "He's a 20% man on this trip," said an aide. "He's going to listen 80%, talk the rest." When the conference opened, he did even better than that: he went the first eight hours without saying an official word. Only at the end of the day did Johnson finally do some talking.
Sitting next to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos at a U-shaped table of gleaming rubbed mahogany in Mala-cafiang Palace, home of the islands' rulers--Spanish, American, and finally Filipino--for a century, Johnson noted that four principles dominated the talks. They were that "aggression must fail," that the allies must press pacification and development programs in South Viet Nam, that the budding spirit of cooperation among Asians must be nurtured, and that peace must be pursued. The important thing, he said, was not to mislead Hanoi as Hitler was misled before World War II. "I know that some people scoff at my use of Munich to illustrate this point," he said. "But you just can't laugh at the principle of it. We cannot let our indifference be their invitation."
The President spoke of the peace demonstrators who had dogged him on his visit Down Under. "In the last few days," he said, "I have seen banners that say, 'We want peace,' and I say, 'So do I.' But I would also like to say to those young people carrying those signs, 'You brought them to the wrong persons.
Take your banners to Hanoi, because there is where the decision for peace hangs in the balance.' "
A few hours later, more than a thousand demonstrators materialized on the lawn under his hotel window carrying placards that could not be answered this side of sanity: HEIL LYNDON, said one; JOHNSON is HITLER'S GRANDSON? asked another. Egged on by leaders of a Communist-front group called Kabataang Makabayan, the demonstration dissolved into a rock-throwing riot, and before it ended, 20 protesters had been carted off in patrol wagons and a dozen in ambulances.
In Sight of the Gallows. While Lyndon Johnson was holed up in his suite, work was already under way on the conference's final communique. From 8 in the evening until 3 the next morning, ambassador-level drafters worked over five versions. The foreign ministers spent three more hours polishing it. Finally the heads of state, finding the language too stiff, gave it yet another going-over. The original drafts are covered with scrawls from Lyndon Johnson's heavy, felt-tipped black pen and more compact scratchings from his allies' ballpoints.
The communique (see box), and in fact the whole conference, was a minor triumph for the U.S. policy of the middle way in Viet Nam. "We set out with modest objectives," said a member of the U.S. delegation, "and I think we achieved them." The principal achievement was to avert a schism between the hard-lining nations on Asia's mainland, South Korea, Thailand and Viet Nam ("The ones in sight of the gallows," as one U.S. aide puts it), and the safer, softer-lining insular nations, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.
By patient advance spadework in Asian capitals, U.S. diplomats managed to resolve the differences and preclude embarrassments. In Saigon, for example, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge urged Premier Nguyen Cao Ky to beware of impetuous remarks that might wreck the conference--such as repeating his proposal to invade North Viet Nam. "Lodge told Ky that ad libs were fine--so long as you'd worked on them day and night for six months before tossing them out," said one American.
A Pledge Unhedged. On the eve of the conference, Lyndon Johnson crowned the U.S. diplomatic effort with a 4 1/2-hour performance that showed the President at his best. Soon after his arrival, the President paid" a visit to South Korea's flinty, austere President Chung Hee Park. Blending flattery and cajolery for the next hour, he lauded Park for steering Korea from military to civilian government, hastened to assure him that the U.S. was not seeking peace out of weakness but out of a desire to attack "the underlying roots of the problem-human misery." Noting that he had entered public life to help people, he told Park: "The place to do it is in Asia. Here's where most of the people are." Johnson delivered the same message to other Asian leaders--Thailand's Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn, South Viet Nam's Premier Ky and President Nguyen Van Thieu, and Marcos. There was no need to lobby Australia's Harold Holt and New Zealand's Keith Holy-oake; they were already firmly in his corner.
It was Lyndon Johnson, too, who was personally responsible for the most controversial item in the communique--Point 29--pledging an allied troop withdrawal six months after "the other side" withdrew its forces, infiltration was ended and the level of violence had subsided. The point was designed to allay fears in other capitals that the U.S. has no intention of pulling out of Southeast Asia. Even more, it was designed to answer those statesmen--most notably France's Charles de Gaulle and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko--who have urged the U.S. to offer a specific timetable for withdrawal of its forces from Viet Nam as a possible prelude to negotiations. When Gromyko talked with Johnson in Washington last month, he declared: "You've got to be more precise. You've got to spell it out more than Ambassador Goldberg did in the United Nations."
In the final session, Johnson persuaded the Koreans and the Vietnamese that Point 29 would not be misread as a hedge for a U.S. pullout at any price. "Nobody can accuse us of a soft attitude," said the President. "If anyone doubts the basis of our commitment, they will find that we have more troops in Viet Nam than there are words in the Webster's New Dictionary."*
Communist Kitty. Predictably, the Communist reaction to the conference was swift and negative. Hanoi and Peking dismissed it as a "big fraud" and an "insipid farce." Moscow said it masked U.S. plans to escalate, not end the war. Meeting in New Delhi, Yugoslavia, the United Arab Republic and India urged an immediate end to U.S. bombing of the North and withdrawal of all foreign--meaning U.S.--troops. Asked if that applied to the North Vietnamese as well as the Americans, U.A.R. President Gamal Abdel Nasser smiled blandly. "The North Vietnamese," he purred, "say they do not have any forces in South Viet Nam."
Nonetheless, an optimist could discern some signs of headway. Marcos noted cryptically that he had heard of a number of "initiatives for peace." U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Averell Harriman took off to brief leaders in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Italy, France, West Germany and Britain on the conference--and there was speculation that he would try to persuade one of the governments along the way, perhaps Djakarta, to act as a mediator in the Viet Nam war.
Moreover, a high-ranking U.S. official noted that Moscow and East Europe have recently "been listening with great attentiveness to everything we've had to say about bringing the war to an end." In Warsaw, a Polish official just back from the nine-nation Communist summit in Moscow said the bloc countries "are pretty tired" of the Viet Nam war, if only because of its mounting cost. In Moscow, he complained, the conferees were pressured into signing a pledge to raise nearly $1 billion in precious hard currencies so that Hanoi could purchase goods in such Western markets as Japan and West Germany.
Under the Canopy. In the long view, the conference is likely to have less impact on what happens in Viet Nam than in the whole of Asia. Johnson's constant refrain was Asia's growing sense of regional pride. "It's like what Baltimore got from winning the World Series," he said at one point. While that must have baffled any Asian leaders who heard it, they were clearly gratified by his pledge that the U.S. was committed to help the area not as a dominant power but as a partner within a new comity of nations.
Of course, the obstacles are enormous. The people of the area are bewilderingly diverse in their language, their history, their geography, their politics, and even their religion--they pay homage not only to Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, but also to Confucius, Lao-tzu and Zoroaster. Economically, as underdeveloped nations they compete bitterly for markets for their copra and sugar, rice and rubber. India, Pakistan and Burma have shown no interest in the hustle and bustle around them. Indonesia, still in the shakedown stage after its anti-Communist upheaval, is only warily beginning to participate. Cambodia stands aloof, although Premier Sihanouk, who likes to root for the winning team, has lately taken steps to bleach some of the pro-Peking coloration out of his government.
Still, tentative moves are beginning to be made, with the U.S. often acting as a catalytic agent to bring them together. In the drafting of the Manila Conference communique, said an Australian official, without resentment, "It was the U.S. all the way, from impregnation to gestation to delivery." Thanks largely to the protective canopy of U.S. power, the nations of the region enjoy the freedom to develop their own way. The value of that canopy was not lost on Asia's nations last week when Red China reported that it had launched a nuclear missile and may soon be capable of striking every nation on Asia's rim from Korea to Pakistan (see THE WORLD). As the Economist editorialized at week's end:
"Whatever the verdict history eventually passes on Mr. Johnson's policy in Viet Nam, he has shown that the United States is as willing to exert its influence in Asia as it is in Europe. The shift of America's weight to its Pacific flank is making itself felt."
Waltzing Imelda. While America's influence was discreetly evident in Manila, the conference was conspicuously an Asian affair--as February's Honolulu meeting was not. The allies' Filipino hosts handled the summit meeting with extraordinary efficiency. The arrangements were Imelda Marcos' province, and she took charge of everything, from refurbishing the Manila Hotel with treasures wheedled from her rich friends, to well-planned outings with goodies for every guest.
On one distaff excursion, Imelda, a Miss Manila in 1954, who at 36 is one of the world's most fetching First Ladies, took the allied wives to a seaside archaeological site where 15th century artifacts had been partially exposed in advance so that the party could discover them, like so many Easter eggs. Lady Bird turned up several small vases. Imelda, wearing purple stretch pants and a printed purple top with all the brio that Emilio Pucci could have hoped for when he designed them, leaped into a trench and unearthed a burial vase.
Imelda's greatest triumph was a barrio fiesta, modeled after a village festival, that was held on the grounds of Malacanang the night the conference ended. Beneath gold lanterns that swung gently from broad acacia trees strolled 2,000 guests. All the visiting statesmen save General Park, unrelenting in a business suit, sported elaborately embroidered barong tagalog shirts worn outside the trousers; the ladies were supplied by Imelda with butterfly-sleeved balintawak and patadyong dresses.
In the gardens overlooking the Pasig River, Johnson sat with a bright pink bandanna around his neck and a wreath of white sampaguitas--the Philippines' national flower--on his head, sampling suckling pig, barbecued crab claws, pickled papaya and coconut punch laced with rum. When the band struck up Hello, Dolly!, the President loped out onto the marble floor with Imelda while guests scrambled atop chairs and tables for a better view. Alone, the couple danced through one chorus, Lyndon lumbering around in his Texas two-step, Imelda crooning the words to him. Still alone, they danced to a second chorus. When the band struck up the tune a third time and Lyndon seemed ready to wrangle Imelda around again, she shot an imploring glance at her husband, who immediately escorted Lady Bird onto the floor. Soon thereafter, he traded partners with Johnson.
Quick Change. Next day, the President went through his schedule at high velocity, laying wreaths at two military cemeteries, touring the rice institute at
Los Banos, choppering to Corregidor for a look at the enormous Malinta Tunnel where Douglas MacArthur holed up during the Japanese siege in 1942. Then, while Lady Bird set out for Manila in one helicopter, Lyndon boarded another for a secret trip that was to become the high point of his tour.
The previous evening, the President had met with Lodge, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, General William Westmoreland and Press Secretary Bill Moyers at Malacanang to discuss a side trip to Viet Nam. Westmoreland strongly recommended it as a morale booster for U.S. troops and the South Vietnamese as well. Johnson agreed, decided to schedule it the very next day, when he had a full program and nobody would suspect what was afoot. In the event of a security leak, the President said, the whole thing would be canceled--right up to the moment of landing.
Next morning, Moyers and other aides summoned some 45 reporters to a briefing in the U.S. embassy, literally impounded them when they arrived. Nobody was allowed out of the room--or in. Bussed to Sangley Point Naval Station across the bay from Manila, the newsmen took off in a chartered jet in the early afternoon. The President, 25 minutes behind them, changed into his brown ranch trousers and jacket aboard Air Force One (he omitted the cowboy boots and Stetson). Above the presidential plane, four Phantom jets flew cover; below, Navy ships were on alert in the South China Sea.
One for Texas. The site chosen, above six others originally under consideration, was Cam Ranh Bay, on the grounds that 1) it could be approached from the sea, eliminating possible sniper fire; 2) the nearest fighting was 50 miles away; and 3) the base is precisely what Lyndon Johnson has in mind when he says the facilities now abuilding in Viet Nam will some day be turned to the purposes of peace. One of the world's great natural harbors, it has been converted into a sprawling, 75-sq.-mi. complex whose port facilities already handle as much tonnage as Saigon.
On the ground, an honor guard of 1,000 Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard men had been assembled; one Marine company had been flown down from Danang for the visit in jungle fatigues and camouflaged steel helmets. Forty U.S. flags fluttered along with unit flags for such fighting outfits as the 1st Air Cav, the 1st Marine and the 101st Airborne Brigade.
In a special Jeep fitted with a hand rail, Johnson and Westmoreland reviewed the troops, then proceeded to a flat-bed truck draped with blue-and-white bunting and fitted out as a speakers' stand. On the stand were Ky, Thieu and Lodge, who had arrived earlier. Before he began to speak, Johnson handed out three Distinguished Service Crosses, a Navy Cross (the nation's second highest decorations, after the Medal of Honor) and a Silver Star to five men.
"Thank You." Johnson, squinting at the rows of lean, weatherbeaten men who crowded around the makeshift stand, told them: "I came here today for one good reason: simply because I could not come to this part of the world and not come to see you." Added the President: "I give you my pledge: We shall never let you down, or your fighting comrades, or the 15 million people of South Viet Nam, or the hundreds of millions of Asians who are counting on us to show here--here in Viet Nam-that aggression doesn't pay, and that aggression can't succeed."
Sweating heavily, with both temperature and humidity in the 80s, Johnson peeled off his jacket, self-consciously patted his paunch, then sprang another surprise. He presented Westmoreland with a Distinguished Service Medal "for his courage, for his leadership, for his determination, and for his great ability as a soldier and as a patriot." Like the good soldier he is, the general betrayed no surprise, did not even turn his head when he heard the news. "American fighting men," concluded the President, "you have the respect, you have the support, you have the prayers of a grateful President and of a grateful nation."
Plunging into the olive-drab crowd, the President heard an Army corporal say "Thank you for coming." "Thank you," he replied, "for being here." He reached for outthrust hands. "How about one for Texas?" shouted one soldier. The President gave him a hearty handshake and a big grin. In the air-conditioned Quonsets of the base hospital, the President gave out two dozen Purple Hearts, signed "L.B.J." on casts and fatigue caps, shook hands with nurses in baggy fatigues.
"Keep Safe." At the enlisted men's chow hall, Johnson picked up a partitioned tray, protested, "I'm watching my waistline" as it was heaped. with baked ham, macaroni, cole slaw, salad, mashed potatoes and apple pie. For a moment he sat alone at a special long table laid out for him with a white tablecloth and yellow roses. Then Westmoreland shouted to his subordinates:
"He wants some men to eat with." A number of soldiers, many of them wearing helmets and toting M-16 rifles, were steered to the President's table. "Y'all come back safe and sound, y' hear?" he told the men as he left. At the Officers' Club, Westmoreland had assembled his combat commanders. There the President said: "General Westmoreland told me that you were the best Army ever. If this is the best Army, you are the best leaders. I thank you. I salute you. Come home with that coonskin on the wall."
By now, darkness was enveloping the bay, turning the mountains beyond it a deep purple and leaving only a golden-orange ribbon at the rim of the horizon. Just 2 hours and 24 minutes after he arrived, the President boarded his big Boeing 707. Scarcely six hours after leaving Manila, he was back--and only then was the news of his historic trip broken. In Saigon, newsmen got wind of it a couple of hours earlier, but the government pulled the plug on all press circuits for 21 hours to make sure that the President was safely back in the Philippines.
The round of 20-hour days was beginning to tell on the President; when he flew into the big U.S. airbase at Sattahip on the Gulf of Siam the next day, he was visibly exhausted. Helicoptering to Kittikachorn's summer residence at the sparkling seaside resort of Bang Saen, the President spent a day relaxing, then headed with Lady Bird into Bangkok for a new round of ceremonies.
Nowhere were the protocol problems thornier than in Thailand, but U.S. diplomats succeeded in persuading the Thais to relax a few of the rules. At Borombinam Mansion, a yellow stucco building where the Johnsons were put up inside the mile-square Grand Palace compound built by the founders of Thailand's Chakri dynasty two centuries ago, the U.S. was allowed to erect a giant antenna for the President's worldwide communications; normally, the Thais are reluctant to permit structures to soar higher than their ubiquitous Buddhist temples. When Johnson choppered into the Royal Plaza near Chitra-lada Palace for his audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej and the lovely Queen Sirikit, he was allowed to wear a business suit instead of the traditional cutaway.
The motorcade that followed was un like anything that Lyndon Johnson had ever seen in 28 years of politicking. As the King and the President drove past in a long yellow Mercedes, with Sirikit and Lady Bird following in a yellow Daimler, schoolchildren daintily waved flags and cried softly, "Cha yo [hurrah]." Not once did Lyndon yield to the temptation to stop the show and press some flesh. In contrast to the placard-waving scenes from Melbourne to Manila, there were no demonstrations. "Such an act," said General Praphas Charusathien, the Interior Minister, "is against the law."
Falling Rain. That night, the President played an unwontedly modest supporting role in an updated King and I spectacle. The show belonged wholly to Thailand's royal couple. Bhumibol broke tradition by delivering a long political toast to the President, warning against any compromise in Viet Nam that might compromise his kingdom's independence and security. "To us, peace can have only one meaning," he said. "It must be peace with honor and freedom." Replied Johnson: "America keeps its commitments." Sirikit, seated next to Bhumibol in front of a motherof-pearl throne with a nine-tiered canopy (symbolizing her husband's place as the ninth King in the Chakri line), glowed in a champagne-colored gown, despite a lingering cold and a heavy dose of antibiotics. After an all-French dinner, from consomme to patisserie, the Royal Navy Orchestra played Bach,
Brahms, Bizet and Bhumibol--two compositions by the Massachusetts-born King entitled Falling Rain and Magic Beams.
Though Johnson had been briefed on the myriad restrictions surrounding the King, he kept forgetting himself. Several times he strode ahead of Bhumibol while courtiers paled and sucked in their breath. At Chulalongkorn University, where Johnson, wearing a translucent academic gown trimmed with orange and yellow, received a silver-framed honorary Doctor of Political Science degree, the President crossed his legs with one foot pointed at the King; Thai officials felt faint, for the foot is considered the lowliest part of the body.
His Kind of Place. Nonetheless, a figure of Johnson's rank is forgiven such lapses, and he was, after all, pratanatipodi, the President (literally, "chairman of the greatest"). He was treated accordingly. At his quarters, overlooking the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, servants brought the President his meals on their knees, performed wais (a bow with the hands pressed together) before him. Cracked a U.S. aide: "This is Johnson's kind of place."
When the President's turn came to play host to the King, he summoned Jazz Saxophonist Stan Getz from the U.S. to the affair, held in a borrowed royal banquet hall, as a special gesture of appreciation for the elaborate, if subdued welcome that he had received. Though Bhumibol has played his saxophone and clarinet in swinging sessions with other U.S. jazz groups, on this occasion he sat back and enjoyed the show.
In Kuala Lumpur, the reception was likely to be notably less restrained. On the eve of Johnson's arrival, a handful of University of Malaya students demonstrated against the Viet Nam war despite the government's attempts to avert such protests by arresting some 60 left-wing opposition leaders. Still, with two dozen welcoming committees at work on his 24-hour visit, it was likely to be a memorable one. No demonstrations were expected in Seoul, however, and Park anticipated crowds of 2,000,000 to greet the President--double the number that happily mobbed Dwight Eisenhower in 1960.
Johnson Blitz. Though surfeited with the sights and sounds of a kaleidoscopic journey that covered 31,000 miles--and, it seemed, as many handshakes--the President was ready to take off again. Having promised to stump all 50 states, Johnson plans to zip through 15 of them in four days to make good his word. He will dash from New England to the Midwest and the Northwest the first day, campaign along the West Coast the second, stop off in Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona on the third day, and make several calls in Texas and Tennessee before returning to the White House on election eve.
Lyndon Johnson obviously hopes that his mission to Asia will have served the dual purpose of covering an international flank for his country and a political one for his party. The G.O.P. is frankly concerned that the last-minute "Johnson blitz," as Richard Nixon labeled it last week, may have a major effect on the outcome of the elections. As if anticipating criticism that his Asia tour was planned solely for political advantage back home, Johnson admitted to Premier Ky in Manila: "People may say it's just propaganda, but let's hope it's more than that. We're putting our word before the world." The U.S. citizen, no matter how he might vote on Nov. 8, could only share the President's hope that the long-term results of the Asian venture would prove more important than politics and more enduring than propaganda.
* Not yet. The U.S. has 336,000 troops there; Webster's has 450,000 words.
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