Surprise Package

Picking up his telephone in Milwaukee one August night in 1957, Wisconsin's Edward William Proxmire offered particular congratulations to Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson on Johnson's 49th birthday. Boomed the Democrat who had just won Joe McCarthy's seat in an upset election: "Senator Johnson, I've got the biggest birthday present of 'em all for you; me." Last week Bill Proxmire became an Indian giver. Incensed over what he considers Johnson's highhanded conservative control of the Senate, Liberal Proxmire went into rebellion.

In a TV question-and-answer show filmed in Washington and telecast in Madison, Proxmire attacked Johnson and much that is sacred to him: 1) the control of Congress by the two Texans, Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn (''When you get these two men together with the power of making committee assignments, you see the obsequious bowing, scraping Senators and Congressmen around them"); 2) the oil depletion allowance ("a terrific tax handout and giveaway"); 3) Johnson's talents for civil rights compromise ("Effective civil rights legislation is impossible"). Then Proxmire, a Harvard Business School graduate ('40), blamed Johnson for keeping him off the Senate Finance Committee despite repeated requests, noted sarcastically that the Committee would, of course, deal with oil depletion.

Proxmire expects to follow up his attack with Senate floor speeches aimed toward liberal Democrats, pointing out, among other things, that Democrats meet in caucus only once a session, and then only to hear Johnson enunciate Democratic policy. What the one-man revolution hoped to gain, nobody knew. But even Lyndon Johnson would have to admit that Bill Proxmire had turned out to be quite a surprise package.

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