How Much Do We Want to Know?

By Hugh Sidey

The nation has been informed of the papillomas on Hubert Humphrey's bladder, the chilly bedroom ambience in the Nixon White House, Jimmy Carter's dialogues with God, John Kennedy's sexual appetite, the pot experiments of Jerry Ford's son.

A lot of people are beginning to wonder whether they needed--or wanted--to know about all that. George Christian, who used to be L.B.J.'s press secretary, raised the issue during a round table featuring eight present and former White House press officers at the Johnson Library last week (no conclusion, just a view with alarm). In almost every political rally around the nation, there is a question or two about preserving some privacy for those in the presidency or seeking it.

The fact is that we probably will and should know as much as we possibly can about these people. Since we have placed so large a part of our destiny in the hands of a President, no part of him, from his blood pressure to his thought processes, should escape our scrutiny. Any stockbroker who goes to work in the morning unmindful of an ailing President's fever chart could be sorry by belltime. It is fair for partisans of the Equal Rights Amendment to use a President's relationship with his wife as a gauge of his sincerity about advancing women's affairs.

We hope that the need to know will be kept within the bounds of good taste.

But that line will always be arguable. Meantime, those who seek the presidency had best be conditioned to total examination. It is our way of life now.

One might trace the beginnings of this total-exposure phenomenon to Dwight Eisenhower's two major illnesses during his presidency. First, Ike's heart was examined, chamber by chamber, in prime time. Then, viewers were taken on a tour of his small intestine, the site of his ileitis. In family matters, however, Ike remained aloof. It was John Kennedy who saw that the cozy private world of public men--where they could talk one way and act another--was bound to end. He submitted to the rising demands to know. He opened up, a bit, on his family and his finances and his case of Addison's disease. But, as we have learned recently, Kennedy still kept much of his private world walled away.

Lyndon Johnson took almost anybody and everybody right into his bedroom, swimming pool and office. But when accounts of his earthy language, his drinking and his outrageous travel habits began to get around the country, he thought he had been violated. In fact, those accounts barely scratched the surface.

Richard Nixon, who claimed he understood that a President gave himself totally to his country ("like taking religious vows," he once insisted), schemed to create a secret White House beyond public knowledge. Ironically, when the fortress collapsed, it turned out that Nixon had documented his private utterances better than any other President, and the public dissection of Nixon that is now under way is the most painfully detailed scrutiny of any President, but also one of the most instructive.

Jerry Ford, who in many ways has proved quite responsive to the times in which he lives, has presented the profiles of his health, his spirit, his mind, his family with unprecedented candor. Just last week he revealed that 42% of his gross income of $250,000 was paid last year in federal, state and local taxes--a total of $106,500. In the old days that was not done. But now it is a necessary measure of whether a politician puts his money where his mouth is, the enduring test of sincerity.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.