The Great Johnson Steamroller

By RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL

AFTER Mr. White's brilliant and compulsive description of the 1960 election, The Making of the President 1960, we would have expected that this book* would prove a severe anti- climax. After all, Kennedy was elected by only 113,000 votes with a poll of nearly 70 million. Lyndon Johnson was elected with the greatest plurality in the history of American politics. Yet in some ways the second book is more thrilling and fascinating than the first. Mr. White's politi- cal thought has developed and the quality and style of his writing has matured. His brief sum- mary of the assassination of President Kennedy and of the dramatically efficient and clockwork manner in which Johnson was sworn in and took over the government of the United States is a wonderful curtain-raiser to the 1964 election.

The story will greatly change the opinion which many people have formed of the new President.

After all, it was as difficult for Johnson to emulate Kennedy as for Lady Bird to follow Jacqueline Kennedy. In a perceptive passage White observes:

If Johnson had yielded to bitterness, or a Red hunt, or revenge; if he had faltered and let Congress or the Cabinet take leadership away from him; if he had not understood the nation to be in the beginning stage of a race crisis; if be had not understood the immediate tangle of international affairs; if he had been confused-7--7 if he had deviated by a hair from the course he was to choose in the next fourteen days—the country might yet be seething from the after- effects of the Kennedy Assassination. In retro- spect there is a quality of inevitability about the course he did pursue. But historians insist that the inevitable is inevitable only after men have made it happen.

The early days of Lyndon Johnson as a Texan member of the House of Representatives arc admirably told. With great difficulty he gained access to President Roosevelt to get his support for a large rural electric co-operative. Roosevelt sat Johnson in a chair and rambled on for fifteen minutes about matters of his own and then ushered the young congressman out. Johnson had no opportunity of raising his matter of rural electric co-operatives. Johnson had learnt his lesson. He succeeded with great difficulty in getting a second meeting arranged:

He entered the President's Oval Office carry- ing books, charts and maps and, without break- ing stride, before sitting down, began: 'Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink; public power everywhere and not a drop for my poor people.' Without pausing, he pulled out charts of power consumption and maps of his district, and for ten minutes, talking as only he can, overwhelmed the flabbergasted President. So amused was Roosevelt by the performance that, without bothering with further investiga- tion, he simply called the Rural Electrification Administration and directed it to make the founding loan to the local Texan co-operative.

The author is obviously a liberal in the purest sense of the word. He writes without prejudice or

cant and has sonic profoundly interesting things to say about integration, which many in this country might reflect upon : • THE MAKING OP Tun PRESIDTNT 1964. By Theodore H. White. (Cape, 42s.)

The catchword 'integration' serves its pur- pose worst, however, in public schooling. The dogmas of 'integration' require that 'neigh- bourhoods' be broken up so as to mix and homogenise ethnic groups whether they wish it or not, whether they are good or bad The prime examples of result mocking purpose lie, of course, in Washington and New York. Un- planned 'integration' in Washington, DC—the first great city in America to live with a Negro majority—has brought about the most 'segre- gated' school system outside of the South. And a similar erratic and unthinking bowing to dogma is in the process of destroying community sup- port of the public school system in New York.

It was what the Americans call a one-horse race. The two Conventions and the events lead- ing up to them are described in wonderful detail. Of course, the nomination of Lyndon Johnson was assured in advance: the Republican Conven- tion with its 'primaries was a far more exciting affair. Governor Rockefeller might have got the nomination but for his second marriage which shocked all the matrons of America, particularly as it involved the new Mrs. Rockefeller nominally leaving the custody of her four children to her former husband. But even Rockefeller would have been steamrollered by Johnson.

While doing full justice (which is more than can be said of the British press) to Goldwater's integrity and high sense of mission White brings out poignantly the incredibly inept things which

he said in the course of the primaries. These could not prevent him from being nominated but they were all noted down not only by Johnson but by Rockefeller also and were used with devastating effect against him in the campaign. Support for Goldwater was a genuine 'grass roots' campaign largely organised without any encouragement from him. The story of how Goldwater gallantly soldiered on for weeks after he knew he was defeated makes devastating reading.

Goldwater succeeded in splitting the Republi- can party in two. In New York liberal-minded Republican senator Kenneth Keating was to run 860,000 votes ahead of Goldwater : and yet he still lost to Bobby Kennedy by 720,000. In Michi- gan Governor Romney broke away from the Republican ticket, altogether, even refusing to appear on a platform with Goldwater.

The press of the United States is overwhelm- ingly Republican, but from August on they all started deserting Goldwater. Even the Hearst papers went Democratic for the first time since 1922. Other notable desertions were those of the New York Herald Tribune, the Saturday Even- ing Post and Lite. At the end only three major newspapers supported Goldwater—Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and the Cincinnati Enquirer. This was unique in American politics.

American politics are far more complex and exciting than British politics. Starting at the age of eighteen I have visited the United States at least twenty-five times and have long been fas- cinated by their politics. I even flattered myself that 1 understood them. I have learnt more from The Making of the President 1964 than I have learnt in half a lifetime. Without prolixity or over-simplification the author has etched the American political landscape so vividly that 'he who runs may read.' No one who refuses to read this book should be allowed to express an opinion on the great Republic.