The Compleat Johnson Man

The way the White House handled the Middle East conflict last week showed clearly what rank and importance Press Secretary George Christian has achieved. Day after day, at meetings that were both formal and informal, at breakfasts and lunches, George Christian was a fifth and full-time addition to the executive foursome that usually manages U.S. foreign affairs: Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara and Walt Rostow, the President's Special Assistant for national security affairs.

"George spends more time with me than any other press secretary I've had," says Johnson. "He is tough but reserved." Just as Whiz Kid Bill Moyers suited Johnson during early, more flamboyant days in the White House, Christian, 40, is now the compleat Johnson man. The President these days is cautious, ungarrulous. So is Christian.

Christian believes that the President suffered from overexposure during the Moyers days, and he points to various segments of Gallup polls that bear him out. Despite his familiarity with presidential thoughts and doings, Christian utters not one syllable more than the President wants him to. His main defensive weapon is simply to say that he is not going to talk about sensitive issues and then watch out for traps. Since he does not lose his temper, there are no pressroom incidents that get into the papers.

The result has been to pique White House correspondents, who always want more information than they get. They cannot help liking Christian, but they can and do cite such exchanges as those that took place last week:

Q. George, can you tell us anything at all about what the President and Ambassador Thompson discussed? Failing that, even how long they talked?

A. No. I don't have any more information on it for you other than the fact that they met.

Q. Has the President talked to Prime Minister Wilson today?

A. I don't have anything for you.

Q. To your knowledge, is Ambassador Thompson going back, and do you know when?

A. I do not know when.

Texas Trail. Texas-raised, Christian learned reserve as a Marine serving with U.S. occupation forces in Japan after World War II. He picked up his journalism later as a reporter for the old International News Service in Austin. In 1956, he joined the staff of Senator Price Daniel, was Daniel's press secretary from 1957 to 1962, when Daniel was Governor. He did the same until 1966 for Governor John Connally, then traveled that old Texas trail to the White House to become a presidential assistant (working with Rostow on foreign affairs) and an understudy to Bill Moyers. When Moyers became publisher of Long Island's Newsday, Christian moved up with assurance.

The assurance, plus a talent for organization, showed last week when news of the Middle East fighting arrived at the Christian home in McLean, Va., at 4:02 a.m. By mid-morning it produced TV shots of the President walking down a White House path to dispatch Secretaries Rusk and McNamara to Capitol Hill to deliver briefings on the situation. Reassurance followed reassurance, including the carefully timed release of a "Dear Mike" letter that the President wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield to fill him in on U.S. Mideast policy. And the climax was Christian's announcement of the solid news that last week the White House-Kremlin hot line was first used under crisis conditions. The result of such a performance is Johnson's increasing confidence in and reliance on Christian. "George," says the President, "is as solid as Abe Lincoln."

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