Follow the Leader

The chartered Viscount skidded to a stop on the sodden runway of Otis Air Force Base, and Lyndon Johnson stepped out, looking like a king-sized Martian in a ten-gallon hat. "I've come to see my leader," he announced. A waiting Air Force staff car whisked him to Hyannisport, 15 miles away. That night, while Caroline Kennedy's tiny grey kitten swatted night bugs on the front stoop, Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson held their first grand-strategy meeting since they parted company in Los Angeles, the victorious nominees on a strong and strange Democratic ticket.

In the Kennedy living room, Jack and L.B.J. and their lieutenants faced each other in a circle. Johnson sipped a weak Scotch and soda, pulled documents and memoranda from his fat dispatch case, and dominated the meeting. Since the upcoming session of Congress was Topic A, Jack was content to listen to the advice and schemes of his leader in the Senate, Lyndon Johnson. Wives Jackie and Lady Bird sat together on a nearby couch, put through long-distance calls for the conferees to Adlai Stevenson* and Governor Steve McNichols of Colorado.

Next morning a heavy southeaster drove a press conference into the living room of old Joe Kennedy's home, where newsmen were surrounded by assorted Kennedys and in-laws (including Jackie's pretty sister, Princess Radziwill). The special three-week session of Congress, said Jack, would absorb all of his and L.B.J.'s time and attention until Labor Day; despite Nixon the campaign could wait. During the session, they would attempt to enact such major Democratic planks as medical care for the aged, a $1.25 minimum wage, aid for education, and foreign aid, and if President Eisenhower vetoed or the Republicans closed ranks in opposition, that would stoke up the campaign too. Said Jack Kennedy: "The American people will be quick to spot obstructionist tactics aimed at keeping us from enacting much of this legislation."

Then Johnson took over, with some up-from-the-floor swipes at the Republicans: "The big difference between 1860 and 1960 for them is Lincoln. Jack Kennedy beat half the ticket [Lodge for the U.S. Senate] eight years ago. This time Jack is going the rest of the way with L.B.J." Asked whether he would honor Dick Nixon's request for weekend campaign breaks during the session, Johnson paraphrased a line he had used about Kennedy--before Los Angeles: "I haven't observed that it makes much difference to Mr. Nixon when the Senate is in session." Then Lyndon revealed that he had written a letter to Defense Secretary Tom Gates, asking whether he had rescinded his orders not to spend extra funds ($661,608,000) appropriated by the Congress in addition to the President's request. It was a sly maneuver to get the Democrats off the hook from Kennedy's suggestion that two or three billion dollars should be added to the defense budget during the short session. With that, Lyndon Johnson was off again for a busy weekend of noncampaigning at political rallies in Tennessee and Iowa. His irreverent parting shot as he left the Kennedys: "It's just like that old Baptist hymn, Where He Leads Me, I Will Follow"

*Arriving in Hyannisport the next day for his own conference with Kennedy, Stevenson was asked why he had not been included in the meeting with Johnson. Said Adlai: "Johnson? I didn't know he was here."

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