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THE PRESIDENCY

Re-emerging into public view after weeks of hard-working seclusion, Lyndon Johnson seemed at once confident and uncommonly circumspect. He appeared determined not to shroud his movements in the usual, much-criticized secrecy, and he obviously tried to keep his utterances restrained but natural.

The President even alluded wryly to the furor over his rejection of Artist Peter Kurd's official presidential portrait last month. "The presidency," mused Johnson, "is a hazardous-duty job, and I have learned recently that danger can lurk in unsuspected places. Portrait unveilings, for example."

That aside came at the White House showing of another presidential portrait--this one a new painting of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by New York Artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff.* On hand for the nostalgic, two-hour East Room ceremony, which commemorated the late President's 85th birthday, were three of F.D.R.'s children, Anna, Franklin Jr. and John, as well as such aging Roosevelt aides as former Attorney General Francis Biddle and F.D.R.'s personal secretary, Grace Tully. Carefully characterizing himself "not as a judge of painting, but as a judge of men," L.B.J. nonetheless could not resist noting that Shoumatoff's likeness of his political idol was "a portrait I like." Commissioned by the White House Historical Association, it will displace a painting of George Washington in the presidential office, and will hang there, Johnson said reverently, "as long as I am President."

Big Enough for All. Johnson's evocation of the New Deal seemed appropriate during a week in which he was busily urging action in vast areas of American life. In his message dealing mainly with air pollution, he called for a welter of other conservation and beautification measures as well. Next day he asked Congress to increase benefits to servicemen, veterans and Government employees in war zones by $250 million a year. At the same time, he was readying a major message on crime for a presentation this week.

Nor was the President's vision limited to the U.S. In yet another message, Johnson revealed that the U.S. was sending 2,000,000 tons of grain to drought-stricken India, asked Congress to approve an additional allocation of grain "not to exceed 3,000,000 tons" and with the proviso that "it is appropriately matched by other countries." Though that carefully limited proposal caused some consternation in New Delhi, the President made eloquently clear the U.S.'s commitment to a "continuing world campaign against hunger."

In obvious high spirits, Johnson made a surprise appearance one evening at a conference of 500 business executives, played host the next morning to a visiting delegation of Junior Chamber of Commerce officials. After attending the annual presidential prayer breakfast, at which he confessed that "none of us can ever be certain that we are right," Johnson found time for his first meeting with Georgia's Democratic Governor Lester Maddox, who as a segregationist restaurateur had picketed the White House in 1965. Allowed Maddox after his ten-minute private chat with L.B.J.: "The country is big enough for all of us."

Returning to the TV screen for his first formal press conference in more than a month, Johnson fielded repeated questions about Viet Nam negotiations, used the occasion primarily to press for the Administration's proposed consular treaty with the Soviet Union. Dismissing warnings by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and others that Soviet officials would use U.S. consulates for spying purposes, the President noted that the treaty, as envisioned, would add no more than 15 Soviet diplomats to the 452 already in the U.S. In fact, said the President, "Mr. Hoover has assured me that this small increment would raise no problems which the FBI cannot effectively and efficiently deal with."

Innocent Fib. Though devoid of any real news, the press conference was refreshingly low-keyed. There were only one or two bumps. Speaking hours after G.O.P. Minority Leaders Everett Dirksen and Gerald Ford assailed his budget as "shabby and phony," the President said he would deal with congressional Republicans "like I'm trying to do with our adversaries in other places in the world." That seemed like a rather unfortunate comparison, but, added Johnson, he only meant that he would try to "meet them halfway." Nor did the President help the old credibility problem when he insisted that the Democratic National Committee gave unprecedented campaign assistance to party candidates in last fall's off-year elections--an assertion flatly contradicted by the bitter complaints of his own party leaders.

More innocent was Johnson's fib, in reply to a lighthearted question about his relations with newsmen, that "I haven't given a lot of thought to you in the press." He added more convincingly: "If you can endure it in the press, I'll try to endure it in the presidency."

* Who previously painted three other portraits of F.D.R., including the one for which he was sitting when fatally stricken in Warm Springs, Ga., in April 1945.

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