Washington

on the World Today

FOUR years ago, when he had been Vice President only four months, Lyndon B. Johnson vigorously advocated the kind of strong support of South Vietnam which he has been carrying out as President. He likes to say that American policy there originated with a letter from President Eisenhower to President Diem in 1954. But current policy in fact stems from Johnson’s visit to South Vietnam in May, 1961. It was first of all a defensive policy against guerrilla activity; now it assumes that harm must be inflicted on North Vietnam to bring about a tolerable condition in the south.

When the Vice President returned to Washington after the 1961 trip, he gave President Kennedy a memorandum in which he argued that a major effort was required to help Southeast Asian countries defend themselves against Communist aggression. Whatever may be said for or against the domino theory, Johnson was as much affected by what Asian leaders outside Vietnam told him as by what he saw in and around Saigon. In Manila, Taipei, Bangkok, and Karachi he was told that America had to do more in Vietnam if other nearby countries were to be saved from Communism. Even in New Delhi, where he had a long conference with Prime Minister Nehru, the Vice President was told that the future of non-Communist Asia depended upon the United States.

Johnson told Kennedy that there was no alternative to United States leadership in Asia. He said that the battle against Communism “must be joined in Southeast Asia with strength and determination to achieve success there — or the United States, inevitably, must surrender the Pacific and take up our defenses on our own shores.”

During the election campaign, President Johnson’s emphasis was on peace. He is as aware as his predecessors were that nuclear war would be catastrophic. But he is at the same time a toughminded product of the frontier who believes that power has its uses. That is why he has been quick to respond to attacks on American forces. The President believes that power is the only language the attackers understand. His military advisers have long been telling him that, and now most of his diplomatic advisers have said the same thing because they are convinced that negotiation will be possible only from a strong military base. Even with Premier Kosygin in Hanoi, the President did not hesitate to order major retaliatory action.

The President’s advisers were certain that neither the Soviet Union nor Communist China wanted a conflagration in Asia. They believed that the expanded conflict could be limited to North and South Vietnam. But they were not optimistic that any decisive result or serious negotiation could be expected in the near future.

The quiet crisis

Time, circumstances, and men are combining to make possible what should be the greatest conservation movement of the century. The basis was set in the deep interest President Kennedy took in the problem. Now the whole concept of conservation and natural beauty is given new meaning by the interest of President Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. The climate also is propitious on Capitol Hill, where last year significant new conservation legislation was enacted. At least two new congressmen were elected primarily on issues of conservation and river protection. It is apparent that Mrs. Johnson wishes to do as much to help renew and beautify the city of Washington as Mrs. Kennedy did for the White House.

While each one of these persons has made major contributions, none has worked at the problem harder than Secretary Udall. In his eloquent book The Quiet Crisis, published nearly two years ago, he attempted to define the problem in terms of today’s needs. Now he is the chief evangelist for an idea which has captured the imagination of millions of Americans, as the bulldozers and the honky-tonks, the pollution of water and air, the destruction of forests and seashores, the decay of cities, the multiplication of auto graveyards all make conservation an immediate problem for almost every citizen. Udall’s enthusiasm and the full backing he has from the President and the First Lady make him a formidable force.

Like all conservationists, he pays homage to the two Roosevelts. But the problem today is vastly different, he argues. TR and Gifford Pinchot fought primarily to save the forests; FDR built dams and flood-control projects to save the land. Now, with the growth of population and technology and the concentration of people in big cities, we have an entirely new set of problems which affect the whole environment. Pesticides applied 500 miles away may make a river poisonous along its entire length. The issue involves the living values of all the people, and Udall has thousands of letters, from Republicans and Democrats alike, supporting him in his campaign.

Both President Johnson and Secretary Udall arc convinced that the problem is capable of solution, enormous though it is. We have the technology and the understanding of the need, they contend, to preserve and to renew. They see this as not solely a national problem, or a state or a local one. All three levels of government are involved and must have the active support of a variety of private and semiprivate organizations. The President’s energy already has inspired the Bureau of Public Roads to work on ways to make highways more attractive and has prompted the Bureau of Mines to work on new methods to make use of abandoned autos. He will not let any agency rest. His unrelenting drive is reminiscent of TR’s, and his energy and commitment must be listed as national assets when applied in the fields of economy, conservation, health, and education.

Nevertheless, the President’s almost unbelievably enigmatic personality is becoming an issue in Washington; some observers are afraid that the small things may overshadow the large ones. He is enormously admired as a political genius with vast abilities to get things done in the bureaucratic and political jungle. But as one Democratic senator remarked some years ago, he wants everything done his own way. The President’s only noticeable mistakes in his first months in office have been minor ones, all deriving from his vanity, not from his decisions on issues.

His critics thought that they had found his Achilles’ heel when he pulled his dog by the ears, drove at excessive speeds on Texas highways, refused to explain his connection with Bobby Baker, and declined to dispose of his family television interests. In all these incidents the President blamed his troubles on the press.

The President and the press

The President’s human frailties are most sharply seen in his relations with the Washington press, the first representative of the public on the scene. Instead of openness and frankness, with each side aware of the limitations and restraints that should govern all human relations, there is a carping and distrust on both sides. The press believes that the President enjoys playing games with it; the President seriously believes that the press dislikes him because he is a Texan, a Southerner, or the inheritor of the Kennedy mantle. Moreover, he seems not to have learned what the function of the press is or to understand that it has an obligation to report as much of the truth as it can find, not just what one party or one politician wishes.

From the newsman’s point of view, Johnson has been at once the most accessible and the most tight-lipped of Presidents. His walking news conferences have produced little news but much insight into his varied personality, his generous impulses, his earthy allusions, his practical and unspeculative mind, his human foibles and manners, his incredible secretiveness, and his determination to keep everything in his own hands.

When he began experimenting with the press conference format, every Washington correspondent applauded. The big televised conferences of the Kennedy days had their limitations. But they were a natural development of the press conference as it had evolved under Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower. Johnson thought that he could go back to the more informal Roosevelt-type conference, with sixty or seventy men standing around his desk. Those who were on hand at the time the unscheduled Johnson conferences were called liked them at first. But those who were busy at the State Department, the Pentagon, or the Capitol and wanted to ask questions of the President were dismayed to be left out.

While the President has handled himself effectively — if often evasively — at various types of news conferences, he has refused to schedule regular conferences or to hold more than one or two in an auditorium where all could be accommodated. The press has become intolerant of this cat-and-mouse game. The newsmen think that the President simply does not like probing questions. He often has shown his annoyance when delicate subjects are raised, and he has rebuffed those who have tried to go beyond an official announcement or an incomplete answer to a question.

There are a number of possible explanations for the President’s attitudes and practices. He does not want to be compared with his predecessor on television. He does not like to comment on subjects until all the groundwork has been done and he is ready to announce his position. He is angered by questions that attempt to draw him out on future plans or appointments. He dislikes being involved in a public debate; a national consensus is hard to maintain if the President answers questions on all kinds of issues. Even a refusal to answer a question will alienate some groups and open him to criticism from others. Needless debate of this kind seems to this President senseless.

The need for candor

In 1941 President Roosevelt told the White House Correspondents Association that “you, more than you realize, have been giving me a great deal of information about what the people of this country are thinking.”

When President Truman was asked in 1952 whether he thought that the presidential news conference helped in the function of government, he replied: “Yes, I really do. It is one way the President has to get his ideas over in the way that people can understand. I have had just about as much fun out of them as you have had.” Truman knew that the news conference, in addition to informing the public, also informed the bureaucracy. Today the bureaucracy is almost as much in the dark about some Johnson policies as the public.

President Kennedy said that the news conference “serves its purpose, which is to have the President in the bull’s eye. And I suppose that is in some ways revealing.” It is immensely revealing, to the public and officialdom. But President Johnson does not like being in the bull’s eye except when he can stage-manage the whole event. And since he does not genuinely believe in the usefulness of the news conference, he can hardly approach it with the candor and understanding that in the last thirty years have come to be expected.

It would be tragic if this man who has proved to be exceedingly capable in many things should be worn down by petty quarrels growing out of his excessive secretiveness, his unwillingness to learn that the press is most cooperative when the official is most frank, his failure to appreciate that in the end a democracy cannot be operated in the dark. Many a President has tried to be his own Secretary of State. President Johnson seems of late to be more intent on being his own press secretary.

Mood of the Capitol

While deeply concerned over Vietnam, and more divided over a foreign issue than at any time since the Korean War, Washington’s mood on the domestic front is encouraged beyond measure by the continued strength of the economy. The senseless dock strike damaged both the national economy and the cause of collective bargaining, but there is a reasonable confidence that an acceptable solution can be reached in the steel industry. President Johnson has applied pressure both to labor and management to remember the public interest. A repetition of the 116-day strike in 1959 would be intolerable.

In keeping up the pressure on the steel companies against price increases, the President has his eye on the May 1 termination of the wage contracts. Last year’s auto wage settlement exceeded the Administration’s guidelines, and the President was convinced that one reason was that auto prices could and should have been reduced. By trying to keep steel prices steady, he thinks steel wages can be negotiated within a reasonable limit.