Penny Saved, Dollars Earned

THE PRESIDENCY

Off on a three-day tour of politicking and party fund raising in the Mid west, President Johnson landed at Detroit's Metropolitan Airport in a ten-passenger Air Force JetStar. Where was Air Force One, the giant, four-jet Boeing liner the President usually rides? Well, explained an aide, on purely political trips like this one the Air Force bills the Democratic National Commit tee for presidential transportation. The tab for Air Force One is $2,350 an hour, for the JetStar only $522.

In fact, what the cost-conscious Lyndon Johnson saved was a drop in the bucket compared to what he raised. In Detroit, 74 of the party faithful paid $1,000 apiece for cocktails and a presidential handshake. Then the President went to Cobo Hall where 1,700 paid $100 apiece to dine with him.

There were some ordinarily Republican faces in the Democratic crowd. At the head table sat longtime Republican Henry Ford II, who has announced he will support Johnson in November but who had never before attended a Democratic fund-raising affair. At a front-row table sat John Gordon, president of General Motors Corp., and seven of his top executives. Cracked the President: "I am proud and inspired and stimulated that there is a Ford in my future. And with Jack Gordon here to night, I hope there is a Chevrolet. Lady Bird and I have waited so, so long to be a two-car family." And the two automen, who have labor-contract negotiations opening this week, have waited so, so long for a President who, they hope, might not be inclined to interfere on the side of labor.

Next day at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the President was greeted by a shouting crowd of 2,500, including a corps of red- white-and blue-costumed high school cuties who billed themselves as "Ladies for Lyndon." At the Minneapolis Sheraton-Ritz Hotel, more than 100 Democrats paid $1,000 each for a presidential cocktail party. Later Lyndon spoke to some 2,000 at a $100-a-plate dinner in the Minneapolis auditorium.

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