Johnson for President

Eleven months after the murder of John F. Kennedy, as the campaign languishes in boredom, purposelessness, and platitude, it has become too easy to take Lyndon Johnson for granted and to see him only as the other candidate in a "squash Goldwater" election. It has become too easy to forget his role in reviving the nation's self-confidence and overcoming the Congressional balkiness which plagued his predecessor for two and a half years, to forget the relief we felt in the dusk of last November when the first Southern President in a century pledged a continuation of the Kennedy program, emphasizing his commitment to civil rights.

In two weeks, many voters will go to the polls to defeat Goldwater as much as to elect Johnson. But however richly the Senator deserves to be crushed, so too Lyndon Johnson deserves a mandate to continue. Johnson's election should be welcomed for positive reasons, no less than Kennedy's would have been had he lived.

I

Although he lacks the style and personality which made the late President a matchless national leader, Johnson possesses a knowledge of the Congress which has made him a superb legislative leader. In fact, no President in this century, not even Roosevelt, has had a better relationship (or more experience) with Congress; even his enemies willingly concede his political potency.

In a country which until this session of Congress had seen almost no significant reform legislation for twenty-five years, in which the deadlock between President and legislature has been the salient fact of political life, the value of a truly Congressional President is indisputable. Moreover, Johnson's instinct for compromise is uniquely suited to the politics of a pluralistic society in which parties must of necessity be coalitions.

Johnson has proven his ability to get things done. Regardless of how one assesses the impact of President Kennedy's death on the Congress, Johnson's skill in passing twenty-four of thirty "must" pieces of legislation is unquestioned. His sense of the possible is remarkably true since he never flinched in his support of the two major bills, Civil Rights and the Tax Cut. His ability to conciliate when necessary enabled him to settle a threatened national rail strike without compulsory arbitration, a feat which had eluded countless negotiators. And his sense of direction may be inferred from the anti-poverty program, which was a creative means of binding together and passing disparate pieces of needed legislation.

In short, Johnson is a masterful practitioner of the arts political who has an almost unprecedented chance to transform the fabric of contemporary society.

II

Nonetheless, because Johnson operates more comfortably in the interstices of the political process than on the summits of eloquence there is a nagging feeling of uneasiness about the President among both liberals and conservatives--a difficulty in getting right with Lyndon.

One problem is the odor of scandal and immorality many people think they perceive around the Johnson establishment. No doubt Johnson's action in the Bobby Baker case was at best moral laxness, at worst a willful moral error. No doubt the Walter Jenkins case demonstrates, at the least, an imperceptiveness on Johnson's part in judging people who work closely with him. No doubt he should speak as swiftly as possible, airing relevant facts before the public.

But lest legitimate criticisms and queries harden into self-righteousness, a sense of perspective must be maintained. The issue of morality in Washington is to some extent the last gasp of Senator Goldwater, who has failed to score with anything more tangible. Johnson's error, if and when it is proven, must be viewed alongside his many accomplishments. And the question of morality, if it is to be judged at all, becomes miniscule when compared with the other "moral" questions on which Senator Goldwater is contemptible: civil rights, poverty, or nuclear arms, for example.

A second, more serious problem that many people have with Johnson is the charge that the President, in contrast to John Kennedy, will fail to articulate or even broach new issues. They fear that Johnson will be so concerned about being President of all the people that he will ignore the needs of some of the people, that the attainment of a national consensus will require such elaborate compromise as to render further progress impossible.

Indeed, Johnson's obvious vanity about gaining a national consensus and his reluctance to risk engagement with Goldwater in a "great debate" of conflicting philosophies seems to give credence to the belief that he merely wants the warmth of national approval and won't try to convert it into energetic legislation.

But, however disagreeable Johnson's vanity may be, the decision to let Goldwater trumpet the coming of his own defeat should be viewed not as a lack of direction on Johnson's part but as a campaign tactic, and a correct one at that. The outcome of the election is too crucial to risk exposure to attack by setting forth new issues when it isn't necessary. Better to stand on nearly a year's record in office (by no means an insignificant support), let the Senator scare the voters, and wait until January to propose and debate the Johnson program.

Johnson's test, then, will come not so much on November 3 as when he tries to translate his mandate into new legislation--when he must shift from the static consensus that he enjoys now (by standing still he can appeal to a wide range of groups) to a moving consensus where he marks out new areas of advance and must rally others to follow him.

And there are many things to be done. Among them, the poverty program must be expanded, the Alliance for Progress reevaluated. A Vietnam policy more adequately formulated. The Civil Rights Law enforced. Related problems of urban housing and education attacked. Long-range unemployment and technological change examined. Medicare passed. Facilities for higher education doubled. And, what will put the most stress on Johnson's resolve, both the tax structure and the organization of Congress must be reformed.

Johnson will never stir the nation with his words, will never invigorate it with his example. But there are reasons to believe that on matters of policy Johnson will not suffer from an absence of ideas or new programs. First, Johnson has retained a Kennedy tradition. Although they have scarcely been publicized for fear of causing overconfidence, eleven "task forces" composed of one hundred special Presidential advisors are studying such problems as economic and social welfare, government organization, federal-state relations, and civil rights in order to suggest new areas of legislation. To each group has gone the command: Don't worry about politics.

Second, Hubert Humphrey will be Johnson's Vice-President. And whatever charges Representative Miller may make against Humphrey, he can never accuse him of lacking imagination. Moreover, liberal fears to the contrary, the Minnesota Senator will probably exert considerable influence on new policy. Himself only months removed from the Vice-Presidency, Johnson is not about to take a man of unquestioned talent and energy and relegate him, in the words of Everett Dirksen, to "shuffle around the world eating camels' eyes at potentates' tables."

III

Even if Johnson and Humphrey were less able than they are, it is inconceivable that a vote could be cast for the Republican candidates. Goldwater's childish approach to foreign policy, simplistic criticism of "big government," irresponsible stand on civil rights and unconscionable vote on the Test Ban Treaty head the list of his disqualifications for the Presidency. His pious platitudes, vaulting contradictions, and historical blindness combined with his thinly veiled exploitation of fear and prejudice mark Goldwater as a thoroughly bankrupt candidate. And as Know-Nothingism incarnate ("In your heart you know he's right"), Goldwater has demonstrated his lack of intelligence with appalling frequency; his election would be nothing less than a catastrophe.

Putting Representative Miller a heart beat from the Presidency is even more unthinkable. Deficient in experience, performance, and ability, Miller is a despicable non-entity, a hack politician whose vicious campaign eminently qualifies him for the discredited obscurity he will find after November 3.

Johnson is of course the only sensible choice. But those words don't convey the latent excitement, the almost unprecedented potential which his election implies. In domestic affairs, Johnson and Humphrey give the promise of a new progressive era in American history. In foreign affairs, the new Administration will undoubtedly continue the sophisticated and successful foreign policy of the Kennedy men, Secretaries Rusk and McNamara.

Whether Johnson will join vision and political power, will extend the Kennedy tradition of shifting the country from the programs of the thirties to the policies necessary for the sixties and seventies must remain uncertain for the moment. But we believe he can and will. Johnson's motivation, like Kennedy's when he became President, is to make secure his place in history. Such ambition combined with talent and energy give hope for the next four years as a time of great fulfillment as the last four years were a time of great promise.