At Issue; 36; How the Press Was Won

Any T at issue, LBJ, how the press was won, composite take one. I think he really likes the press or likes good press. And all of a sudden he's right in the limelight and I think it's kind of like too much ice cream or too much dessert. He just goes at it and I think he's going to get his fill and more before he's through. And now Kathy May is a little seven year old girl that lives at 36 Himlock Park Forest, Illinois. And one of the hundred thousand letters we received last week here at the White House is from Kathy May and I shall read it. Dear President Johnson, I am a seven. I am seven. My grandma lives in New York. She is coming to see me, make my first holy communion. Please keep the railroad running so that my grandma can come to see me.

Thank you Kathy May Baker. Kathy May, the trains will keep running. My wife got the word. The kids got the word. And I said, well you all can't go down there. You'd be undermining the press. And they said, well it's you or us. So I had to go. I hadn't been to a press conference until that time. Now the children will come on up here. We'll have that picture made. National Educational Television presents at issue a weekly commentary on events and people in the news. At issue this week, LBJ, how the press was won, an examination of the press techniques of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Art Bookwall, columnist for the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate, Washington, and author of the book, I chose Capital Punishment.

I think President Johnson's biggest problem is he doesn't give enough press conferences. We don't have anything to do on Sundays. Russell Baker of the New York Times, Washington. Under President Johnson, the people of this country are headed for the greatest breakdown presidential fatigue in history. And I think it's the healthiest development in 30 years. Arthur Huppey, syndicated columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle. Well I happen to be in a unique authority on this subject as I'm the only reporter in the country as nearly as I can figure who doesn't know the President personally. Well this thing is called how the press was won. And I got it from that, there's an assumption on somebody's part that the press has been won over by President Johnson. Now I don't go along with that. I admit he's trying to do an awful good job of winning us all over. I thought the blackest day in the history of American journalism was when he had our wives and children over to the White House to try and win us over that way.

And I refused to bring my wife and my kids over because I just wasn't going to give in. Well he's subverting us, aren't he? I know. And I had a long discussion with you and I tried to tell you to keep your kids home but they were waiting at the door when you came home. Already dressed and ready to go, weren't they? Well that's the way he gets to you. Why do you think it ruins the image of the ace newsman, you know, having children. You expect to be bachelors and tough and all that. You got to rent children for those kind of things. Well I was saying that going down to junior village and getting some kids for the occasion and bringing them down to the press conference. Oh you're a do-gooder, aren't you? You're a bleeding heart. What happened to let press conference was quite simple and I don't know how you ever got away with it. My wife got the word. The kids got the word. And I said well you all can't go down there. You'd be undermining the press. And they said well it's you or us.

So I had to go. I hadn't been to a press conference until that time. Yeah but I got rid of my family that way. I chose this. No but the plug for the book. The thing is that we've never seen anything like this since we've been in Washington and I've only been here for about three months. But this this terrible thing of a president going out of his way to do everything he can for the press. He takes him on those walks around the White House and he's having him in Saturday afternoon and he's God blessing us all over the place. And you just don't see that. Nobody's ever had this experience before and it's kind of hard to get used to it. You really don't know how to behave because you expect a president to say no comment or not even to see him. And here we have a president. We actually see President Johnson more than we see George reading his press secretary. Oh I think it's great. I don't see what anybody's objecting about. After all our function is to complain. And when Eisenhower was president we complained because we never saw him. He was too aloof.

Then when Kennedy was president he saw some people and you complain because he played favorites. And now Johnson sees everybody. And people are complaining because he's not playing favorites. There's no distinction in it anymore. Well what I don't like about it. You've got to keep us complaining. Well no. What I don't like about it particularly the three of us. Now we're a little different than the average White House correspondent. We're supposed to attack the establishment. And the trouble with the Johnson administration is the more you attack the establishment the more he tells you he likes you. And this is kind of discouraging because it kind of discourages you because you want to somebody to call you up and say boy is the president mad at you. And you feel good but in this way you know it's very discouraging. I'm losing the old punch you say and I'm not really kicking him when he's down. Well you were kidding in the opening weren't you Arthur when you said that you would never met Johnson. Well honestly I've never had a I don't even have a five gallon souvenir hat.

I think the only important in the country doesn't have a five gallon souvenir hat. And I go in and I can't hold my head up at the press club bar. It's a you know it's an awful thing. It's a it's a mark against me. Well I think somebody ought to explain exactly what what goes on at the White House. People don't really know what's what happens there. See we have a gate that we're allowed to go in. What is it the Westgate the Westgate the Northwest Gate and we all have passes and we go into what is a pretty ugly room. It's kind of like a death house. It's very you know it does nothing in there is a few couches and everybody sitting around very cold and discouraged. And there's there's I don't think you're even a washroom facilities are there in that wing of the building. Well there are. They are. Well I never found anything. That could be a real issue. But anyhow there's not much there and you just sit there and you're waiting and waiting and suddenly somebody comes out and says photographers. And suddenly all the photographers rush in and they take a picture of President Johnson shaking hands with the mayor.

Cook a walk of somewhere and then they come out and then about 10 minutes later they may come out again and say briefing. And then you go in and with Pierre it was a lot more fun because Pierre had a lighter touch than George really does. So you had a little more fun with Pierre but with George it's pretty heavy going. And he briefs here what the President is going to do for the day and whatever he tells you in the case that Johnson really doesn't hold true very long. And then you can't leave the White House. Now with President Kenny you could be kind of assured that when Pierre told you what the President was going to do that he was going to do it so you could leave. But with Johnson you never know what he's going to do so you can't leave so you're hanging around hanging around. Because when you were with President Eisenhower I covered over there in that time you could leave for weeks. Great. And did.

So there you have then you wait and suddenly the President says I'd like to see all reporters so you all go in and if you're lucky you get a cup of coffee and then he keeps going. And sometimes Merriman Smith was supposed to say thank you Mr. President to end the press conference says that President Johnson says I'd like to continue if you don't mind. Am I the press? I don't know. I always feel nervous. I feel it on the press but the real the real case here is he is whether he's winning over the country. Is everybody really going to vote for him and is the way he handles the press symptomatic of this? I think he's got overkill right now. But I think I agree with the press. I think the purpose of the press is to complain and not like the President. And I was sort of thinking back and we seem to one thing about Presidents as you can say about them is that people like them for whatever qualities they have. You get Mr. Roosevelt in there, a real patrician and everybody says gee, haven't we got a high-class President?

And then we get Mr. Truman in there and everybody says gee, doesn't that show that anybody can be President? You know, give him hell Harry. And then we get Mr. Eisenhower who is relaxed if we put it that way. And then we get Mr. Kennedy as the opposite. And we like each President for his own qualities. And you get Lenny Bruce as President. Everybody say you know that's our Lenny. Let's go and tell him off. I don't quite, I don't go all the way with you on that. We've been afflicted for a long time in this country with Presidents. We've had a whole succession of big star Presidents. FDR, General Eisenhower, President Kennedy, the only hiatus relief we've had was Harry Truman. And all of these people have required you to think about them all the time. They're a composite picture of the movie star, the baseball hero, their political gods. They're all over your life. You don't have time to think about anything else.

And now I think Johnson is carrying this to an extreme. He doesn't have the natural star quality that these other three men have had. And he's trying to make up for this in a hurry by overwhelming everybody with Johnson. And he's exhausting people. I think we may very well be coming to a period when it'll be possible to say, well after all, he's only a President. You know what I think? Well, you gotta remember though, for three and a half years, he was probably one of the most ignored men in Washington. And everybody used to say, hey, whatever happened to Vice President Johnson, you know? And he knew it. Nobody came to see him and the report couldn't have cared less what he was up to. And he suffered from this more than many people would. Because I think he really likes the press or likes good press. And all of a sudden, he's right in the limelight. And I think it's kind of like too much ice cream or too much dessert. He just goes at it. And I think he's going to get his fill and more before he's through. But I thought that after the incident down the LBJ ranch where he was speeding along the highway and time magazine really put it to him that that would be the end of the press

and his relations with it and then he'd start forgetting about us and go about being the president. But it hasn't bothered him at all. Well, he's had this trouble all along. I covered the Senate when he was a majority leader up there. And one of his idiosyncrasies is that he can never be wrong. He hates to be wrong. And when time magazine caught him out speeding, he had to overcome this. Make it right. And one of his responses has been to say that time had the story wrong because they reported that there was a glass of beer on the seat. It says, in fact, he had some scotch and soda before the drive. But if they want to give him the beer vote, he'll take it. I remember when he was in the Senate, he got caught in the elevator one day. For about 15 minutes, the elevator was stuck. And the AP got word of it and they ran a little bulletin. Lyndon Johnson stuck 15 minutes in the elevator. And I happened to run into him in the hall shortly after.

And I said to him, say, here you stuck in the elevator. I wasn't stuck in the elevator. The story is a canard. He couldn't be stuck in an elevator. No. But he only holds it against you for 20 minutes. No, and he does. It's an interesting thing now. I've seen him at the gridiron dinner and I heard at the White House correspondence dinner. He doesn't enjoy those things at all. And in both cases, it's a ribbing of the president. And they kind of take everybody's skin off. And you can watch Johnson, which everybody does during those things. And he doesn't like him and he doesn't pretend he likes him. He sits there with a sour face on him and he really doesn't enjoy it. When he gets up, he's real glad to leave. And this is... Oh, well, I think that's natural for any president. The president has to sit through four of these tedious press dinners every spring in Washington, starting with the gridiron club, the photographers, the radio, TV people,

and the White House correspondence association. That's a terrible drain on the president's time. The president can he like him? I mean, at least he pretended to like him. He insisted, finally, that they all be rolled into one. We had a mammoth one with everybody. You couldn't even get your coffee. Eisenhower, of course, just wouldn't attend. He refused to attend the gridiron. It was a great scandal. That's how it's been said. Or an old gridironer came to me and said, well, we don't want him either. But you haven't got any clothes either from the White House about your wedding clothes, huh? I'm afraid he doesn't. I feel so ignored. I think I'm worse than you. It's all right. The basic thing is to attack some guy and have him get mad. But it keeps going. Why don't you call him a bar? We'll call him up. The three of us here are dealing in this business of knocking the establishment. And I think one of the things that's hurting us very badly, and I'm more worried about the YouTube probably, is this business of the establishment not caring.

I just cut this out of the Herald Tribune. It was a Leslie Fiedler wrote it, and I'd like to read it because it sort of hits on what we're talking about. With the aid of the mass media, antifashion becomes fashion at a rate that the world is critics and writers alike, and nobody will find so many staunch friends and supporters as the man who labels himself an outcast or an enemy of society. And this is what seems to be going on now in Washington, no matter what you do here, they don't, instead of getting sort. Do you feel that you're an enemy of society and that everybody loves you? I love you. Society won't reject you. I would prefer to be an outcast in an enemy, but I'm very proud of you. The terrible position to be, and the tribe to be an enemy of society and society won't hate you for it. But don't you think it was the beginning? When Johnson first took over, Mr. Johnson first took over, and excused the familiarity. There were a number of columns saying,

she's got to watch out because he's very sensitive to the press and all this, and he gets mad and blows up, and he certainly has to be careful about this. And all the experts were saying, it seems he sort of took it to heart and leaned over backwards the other way much to Arthur Grin. Well, I never thought there was much to that. It was almost inevitable that those stories would be written. I can't remember one president who, upon first taking office, who hasn't been subject to grave concern in the editorial pages about what his attitude toward the press was going to be. I really had to laugh at that one way you fell as brought all your children and your wives. You got to admit, as for a kid show, that was about us. Tell a performance that I've ever seen. I knew he couldn't hold the kids too long. But Joe... He'd worn himself out with the kids. You see, it's part of the general over exposure that he's heir to. He's always coming around our neighborhood,

dropping in for lunch, coming by for dinner somewhere. When this first started, the kids would all gather out in front of the house, and the secret service would roll up, and they'd go out and fight to shake his hand. He came up for dinner to one of my neighbors the other night, and I noticed my kids weren't out there fighting for their handshakes, and I said to my 11-year-old boy, you know, the president's out there. He said, won't you go out and have your hands shaking? He said, that guy, he says, when he shakes your hand, he says he reaches, he grabs your hand, and looks over your shoulder into the eyes of the next guy, because I want to see a guy who will shake my hand and look me in the eye at the same time. This kid would be more excited about seeing Dean Rosk now. I think this is why they were bored down there. Let's talk about the family now. You have this LBJ family here, and Mrs. Johnson and Linda Bird, is it Linda or Linda Bird? Linda Bird, and Dr. Bird, and Lucy Burns. How do you spell out Lucy? They are getting coverage now.

Mrs. Johnson has a very sharp press woman named Liz Carpenter, and she knows how to feed stories real good, and so I think that Mrs. Johnson's press has been darn good. They even knocked down that story very fast about the Alabama farm real fast, and I think one on that, and this was all that Carpenter is doing, and then all these trips to the poverty places are all Mrs. Carpenter has a lot to do with that. So I think that Mrs. Johnson's getting an excellent press, and seriously, she is different than Mrs. Kennedy, because Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't cooperate at all, and you find Mrs. Johnson is very cooperative, and I think she's winning over the press. There's a question that bothers me. It seems that during the Kennedy administration, it was much easier and quite common to poke fun at Mrs. Kennedy, all of the Kennedy women, the Kennedy children,

but for some reason it's very hard to do this with Mrs. Johnson. And why is this? And it may have been in bad taste of Mrs. Kennedy. I don't know, I think so, most of the time. I agree with that. But it seems to me whenever you think of doing it with the Johnson family, you always feel that you're treading on the end of the realm of bad taste. I agree. Why? I think part of it is to introduce a grim note as the assassination. This is crimp the style of poking fun at presidents for quite a while, and particularly at the family. Just like the breakup with the Ensign, I was, you know, I thought about it, and then I said, like, better not. I just felt as if people would get so much if you started kidding about a girl who broke up with her Ensign, who's probably in an article now anyway. But I find that there is a lot of difficulty in spoofing the Johnson family. I also find that he's so overexposed that it's not too much fun spoofing him anymore. So I don't do it too often.

You can't spoof him. You write him and writes, you know, it's livelier than that. It's harder for less. If you fictionalize. Yeah, there's your answer to your question in one respect. Kennedy, you could spoof because there was a lot more to spoof there. Johnson is kind of a spoof in himself, so he really can't take off on him. But I think people get tired, as you said, of Johnson. And I find that one column every out of every six or seven is a Johnson column. I just... I don't feel he rates more in the humor department. I don't know about you guys. Maybe you're getting tired. But you want to disagree. I disagree that the people are getting tired of. I think the press is getting tired of them, but I don't think... The press is always tired of them. The press is always tired of them. I think the press is always tired. No, whatever. You get the press getting tired of something. It gets down to people eventually. Oh, yes, eventually. I think, right, not yet. I think that people aren't tired. It's just as you say. We'll be star-based.

Have you ever done a spoof on Bobby Baker? Either of you. Oh, sure. No, sure. We had to. That's fun. It's kind of repulsive. Part of the Horatio album. Well, I did a spoof in which I actually had... I spoofed the president, which I had a guy like Bobby Baker who wanted to give me... Also, it's a presence he wanted to give me a stereo set, and then he... I didn't want that. And then he did something else for me. And I finally wound up. I think he gave me the deed to Disneyland. And, you know, he didn't want anything to return. And I thought I'd be stepping on some toes there and I'd get a real angry call. The president loved it. Was that one, Jack? I told you that. Thanks a lot. But we need a Bobby Baker every so often. And we'd be in trouble. Oh, great. Beagle, Scotch. What have we done in that, Beagle? Well, I'm very proud. I never did anything on the Beagle. I just thought it was too obvious. I was feeling a columnist writes his first piece about dogs. He's over the hill. I can't stand your superior than now.

Did you write one on Beagle? Oh, I do. I really do. You're out of the union. I know. You see, I think it's our job to do things that nobody else is doing. And everybody's doing Beagle's. And so I don't think we should be doing Beagle's. I think we should be doing Vietnam. Things that, well, you do a lot of Vietnam stuff, I don't know. Did you do speeding? Huh? Did you do speeding? Uh, yeah, I think. I think I got sucked in on that. I feel better. Either do you know of a case where somebody has been alienated permanently from the White House because of the piece critical of the president? No, that's my whole point. Well, that's my point. This is what's discouraging about us is that no matter what we do, we're not alienating the establishment. Maybe it's us. Maybe we're falling down on the job. Maybe we're not just nasty and vicious. I've been a soul searching about this. The thing about Johnson, and this is sort of a serious note which I hate to add. But the thing about Johnson is one day he behaves like, you know,

like a kid. And the next day, you have nothing but admiration for him. He goes out to, let's say, in the South and makes a speech for desegregation and everybody. He's got all the people down there cheering for him. And it's a really, he's an enigma because on one side, he's kind of corny on the other side, you kind of have some sort of respect for him. And who's that I do? I've never known. And I've only covered three presidents at the White House, but I've never known one that they didn't snipe and back bite about when they were on the road or standing around in that courtier's room there, and generalizing our, and everybody loved, nobody can say it. I mean, we're about to general accept the White House press people. And they had no use for him at all because he didn't, he didn't know any of them by name. Mariam and Smith, for years, he called him Mariam. Yeah. And when he'd addressed you as a group, he'd point his finger at you empiriously and say, you people out there.

And reporters didn't like this. They'd all reminisce about Truman who would come around and visit them in the press room. Now, here we are with Johnson who does these lovable old things. Everybody says, oh, it's corny. What do we want? How the press was won? I think the interesting lesson of all this, if there is one. It really isn't making any difference how the press feels. I think the power of the press is horrendous, and I'm trying to say. When the press was knocking Eisenhower, he was winning by 10 million vote landslides, and it would be hard to demonstrate that the press contributed one vote to the Kennedy victory. I'd like to say one thing about the Republicans, because we haven't talked about their press, but I was writing down a taxi just in the league. I was writing down a taxi the other day, and a taxi cab driver who was very much for goldwater says, you know, the press has been very unfair to goldwater. And I said, why do you say that? He says, he couldn't be saying all those stupid things

they're quoting him as saying. So I know that story is a conor. No, it's true. There's no cab driver for goldwater. So I think the real problem with Republicans now is, I can't think of one Republican today who could possibly close any kind of a press gap with President Johnson. Well, I think Senator Goldwater could. I think he's the one possibility. He's colorful, handsome, dashing. He likes to play around with gadgets, and he gives you a new lead every day. He's easy to write. The others are a mishmash. What do you think? Well, I would suggest the Republicans don't compromise with principles in this election, and they should nominate nobody for President. Nobody. Bill, nobody. We'll get a good press, too. But I hope they do get somebody like goldwater because he's the most colorful of all the candidates,

and at least we'll have some fun with him. And I just can't conceive of covering Nixon again in 64. It's too much. It's too much for anybody. What does somebody to kick around again? What does nobody have to recommend? Well, if you carefully analyze, I've read all the experts on the Republican Convention on the machinations going on, and if you carefully analyze it, nobody can win, first of all. And then, as you know, as everyone says, everyone's been saying for months that nobody can beat Johnson. So if we just nominate nobody, we've got to... Hey, that's a good idea for a column. I think I stole it from you. James Berryman, political cartoonist, the Washington Star. Now, Lyndon Johnson has represented, I would say, just about the answer to a cartoonist's prayer. Lyndon Johnson has large nose. It's a large hook nose. He has a very small mouth for one that works so much.

He has a deep clap chin, which they say represents character. Lyndon Johnson has quite some foiebols, though. He does not like to be what he calls really killed. He subjected very strenuously to me and to my editor, about my foot in him in cowboy boots, about wearing a bow tie. He told my editor that he'd never worn a bow tie in his life. Well, I was forced to protect myself with my own editor by going to the files, what they call the picture Morgan and his paper office. And I managed to dig out seven or eight photographs of Mr. Lyndon B. Johnson wearing a very plushie bow tie. He's a very ardent cartoon collector, though. He has many of my cartoons and many cartoons

from other cartoonists all over the United States. But he only collects the complimentary ones. Someone said there today that I was saying the press so much that they were worried about my overexposure. I'm not sure who's overexposure they're meant. Mine are the press. I enjoy seeing the press. I learn much from reporters. And the White House Press Corps alone, at least half a dozen experts already on animal husbandry. LAUGHTER MUSIC This is NET, National Educational Television.

This is NET, National Educational Television. This is NET, National Educational Television. NET, National Educational Television.

NET, National Educational Television. I think he really likes the press or likes good press. And all of a sudden he's right in the limelight and I think it's kind of like too much ice cream or too much dessert. He just goes at it and I think he's going to get his fill and more before he's through. And now Kathy May, Kathy May is a little seven year old girl that lives at 36 Himlock Park Forest, Illinois. And one of the hundred thousand letters we received last week here at the White House is from Kathy May and I shall read. Dear President Johnson, I am a seven, I am seven. My grandma lives in New York. She is coming to see me make my first holy communion.

Please keep the railroad running so that my grandma can come to see me. Thank you Kathy May. Kathy May, the cranes will keep running. My wife got the word, the kids got the word and I said well you all can't go down there. You'd be undermining the press and they said well it's you or us. So I had to go, I hadn't been to a press conference until that time. Now the children will come on up here and we'll have that picture made.