Homespun Assurance

The 56 newsmen waited impatiently for Presidential Press Secretary Pierre Salinger. They were at the White House for Salinger's usual press briefing, and he was, as usual, late. When Salinger finally appeared, though, it was not to hold court himself. Instead he led the whole crowd down the hall to the capacious office of another White House official: Lyndon B. Johnson.

For the next half-hour, a little stiffly at first, the President held the informal kind of press conference that he prefers. The reporters simply crowded around --NBC's Herb Kaplow used Johnson's desk to write on--as the President, hands in pockets, eyes downcast, paced back and forth as if measuring his answers. "Is this the type of press conference you intend to hold?" the Baltimore Sun's Bill Knighton asked. Replied Johnson: "We will do what comes naturally. Maybe it will be a meeting of this kind today, maybe a televised meeting tomorrow, with maybe a coffee session the next day. We always want to be flexible."

On the Hill. Only a month in office Johnson has already indicated that flexibility and naturalness will guide his engagements with the press. That was how it was when Johnson was still on the Hill: a sudden summons, an easy confab over coffee, or perhaps a whisky highball. Last week's impromptu get-together was the second such for White House newsmen. The President has also paid his social respects to most of the syndicated political columnists. Last week, officials of the three television networks were his lunch guests.

The style may be reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt, whom Johnson served and admired; Roosevelt's press conferences were about as breezy as such affairs can get. But the technique is very much Johnson's own, and it is tailored to his personality. Some columnists, drawing comparisons with the large-scale televised conferences that Kennedy held in the State Department auditorium, thought that Johnson lacks the qualities for that sort of performance. "Although he has an alert mind," wrote New York Post Washington Columnist William V. Shannon, "he does not have Mr. Kennedy's blotting-paper memory for facts and details. He does not have Mr. Kennedy's wit."

Only to Ask. Perhaps not--although Johnson acquitted himself well last week, mixing homespun answers and facts and figures with impressive assurance. Even Kennedy did not feel entirely easy in the gang conference, and to a degree had become its prisoner. Moreover, Johnson's cozy, manageable and unheralded press assemblies may very well liberate more news. And any time the President wants to go on TV, he has only to ask.

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