Just Storing Up Energy?

Lyndon Johnson a retiring sort? Lyndon Johnson dodging publicity? Perish the thought. But there he was --ducking reporters, scurrying to secret hide aways and acting for all the world like some latter-day Greta Garbo.

Off to Texas for a long July 4 weekend, the President all but said, "I vant to be alone." The L.B.J. ranch was declared off limits to reporters, who played pinochle and poker in Austin, 65 miles away. Persistent prodding of Presidential Press Secretary George Reedy got them nowhere. At one point, Reedy snapped: "As to what he did today, I do not go into matters of social or personal activities. The President regards going to church or various types of ranch activities, or boating--which I know is going to be raised somewhere along the line--as a purely personal affair."

Cruise in the Sun. At that, Lyndon spent little time at the L.B.J. ranch, slipping off to a smaller, more secluded spread called Haywood Ranch, which he owns along with A. W. Moursund, a Johnson City lawyer and a trustee of the L.B.J. business interests. Built on a knoll between the Llano River and a 1,620-ft. hill called Packsaddle Mountain, some 25 miles from the L.B.J. ranch, Haywood is a working spread. The one-story white house is neatly fenced to keep out grazing cattle.

But these days some changes have been made. A new boathouse rises from the Llano River's edge just as it begins broadening to become Granite Shoals Lake. There, a recently acquired 28-ft. cabin cruiser and a snappy black runabout are moored. With a handful of family, close friends and White House staff, the President cruised the choppy water sunning himself. At least once, the President took the controls of the runabout to give Lynda Bird some water-skiing practice. After several spills, Lynda gave up.

Back in Washington, it was much the same story as the President spent another curiously quiet week with no more than a handful of ceremonial greetings for White House visitors and a routine ceremony to sign the $375 million mass-transit bill into law.

Perfect but Paunchy. This was far from the whirlwind Lyndon that Washington had come to know so well. And the rumor swiftly spread through the capital and its environs that Johnson, who suffered a massive heart attack in 1955, was ailing again. His aides vehemently denied such stories, insisted that the President is in perfect health. Still, the merest glance at photographs of him in swim trunks while boating in Texas would indicate that, if nothing else, he ought to go on a diet.

At week's end, perhaps now fearing that he had overcompensated and cut back too far, the President called his first press conference since June 23. He opened with glowing projections for the economy, then ranged from a potential running mate (he will make public no choice until the August convention) to civil rights (50 new FBI agents will be assigned permanently to a new office in Mississippi). The conference lasted a dreary 30 minutes. It all hardly added up to the old Lyndon Johnson, but maybe he is just storing up energy for the campaign to come.

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