Lyndon's Own Epic

THE PRESIDENCY

Julius Caesar, a literatus of distinction, wrote the history of his empire-building campaigns himself. President Lyndon Johnson, who prefers to use house writers, set the vast mechanism of the Federal Government to work chronicling his days in power. In a flurry of memoranda, agency aediles were told recently to put their top men to the task of recording the accomplishments Annorum Presidentis 1963-68. They were also instructed to send drafts to the White House for evaluation. When completed, presumably before January 20, the epic will be shipped to Austin, where posterity will be able to consult the instant history at the University of Texas' Lyndon Baines Johnson Library.

The President's annals, compiled on Government time, will put a little extra pressure on the federal budget; some federal agencies have hired outside historians at $50 a day. In proposing the project, however, the President has history on his side. Throughout time, kings, popes and potentates have decreed how they should be remembered. So why should Lyndon Johnson be denied? Vergil was financed by the Emperor Augustus while writing the Aeneid, and repaid his patron with lavish praise of Augustan virtues. Emperor Trajan was so taken by his triumphs, that to satisfy his pride he had 2,500 of his followers' names carved into a 137-ft.-high marble pillar in the Forum at Rome. Alas, the custom has largely fallen into desuetude since Suetonius, who as the Emperor Hadrian's private secretary had the opportunity--and encouragement--to sift imperial dossiers. Had the practice been followed, history might read quite differently:

> King George III, in all his majestic wisdom, had a sympathetic ear for the complaints of Colonists in benighted America. After a few piddling misunderstandings, he benevolently suggested in 1776 that they draw up a declaration of independence and make a go of it without the Mother Country, thus anticipating the end of colonialism even before establishment of the Empire. -- To foster naval technology, meteorological research and Anglo-Hispanic relations, Spain's King Philip II sent his Armada on a good-will visit to Britain. On its completion, all participating mariners agreed that the cruise had given them a wealth of experience.

> Attila the Hun, one of the true visionaries of his day, wrested Central Europe from the Caspian to the Loire from the clutches of Teutonic tribes. Historians record that his unstinting effort laid the groundwork for what is known today as the Common Market.

>Half a century before Lenin was born, omniscient Napoleon Bonaparte was concerned with Red revolutionism to the East. He turned his back on Britain, and valiantly drove his troops into a cruel Russian winter in a glorious effort to thwart the future threat of monolithic Communism.

In a similar vein might federal historians record that Lyndon Johnson headed back to his humble Texas dwelling in the happy knowledge that the world was at peace, his nation united and content.

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