L.B.J, All the Way

From the gavel's first thump to the last hurrah, the convention was the production of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

He picked the stage settings, including two 40-ft.-high portraits of himself. He selected his own words, "Let us continue . . ." as the convention's motto. He chose Hello, Dolly! sung to the words "Hello, Lyndon!" as the convention's theme song. He dictated the schedule and rejiggered it whenever he felt like it. He directed all the performers, worked to sustain suspense over his choice of a running mate, added excitement with his own Atlantic City appearances.

A Hot Line. Throughout the week, Lyndon spent uncounted and uncountable hours on the phone. In Atlantic City his entourage took over all 120 rooms of the newly completed Pageant Motel, across from Convention Hall, as a White House command post. U.S. Army Signal Corpsmen installed a hot line direct to Lyndon. Key Johnson aides carried electronic devices in their pockets that buzzed whenever there was a call from the boss--and there was a lot of buzzing. The contraptions were supposed to work only above ground and within a five-mile radius of the Pageant switchboard. But they were underrated: one White House staffer was in a basement barroom, enjoying a supposedly safe, subterranean snort, when his pocket buzzer suddenly went wild. Texas' Governor John Connally was a good 15 miles out of town when the same thing happened.

On the day he was to be nominated, Lyndon seemed to be bursting with exhilaration. He rose at 5:30 a.m., signed an important amendment to the Atomic Energy Act allowing private firms to buy nuclear fuels rather than lease them from the Government, conferred during the day by phone or in person with some 70 Congressmen, a couple of dozen Governors, countless labor leaders and businessmen over the vice-presidential selection.

Soon after noon, he drawled to reporters in his office, "Y'all want to take a walk today?" Two days earlier, Lyndon had worn them all out by hiking around the White House's quarter-mile oval driveway a record nine times. But the reporters still chorused "Yes!" So started what the press later dubbed "the Death March."

In 89DEG heat, Lyndon began walking. He heard his beagles, Him and Her, the First Family of dogdom yapping. "Let's get the dogs," he said. "They-all heard you talkin' and they want to go too." On his fourth lap around the driveway, the President turned the panting beagles over to a Secret Service man, explained, "They're gettin' hot." So were the 60 reporters, but Lyndon loped on, talking about the convention. "John Pastore was just excellent," said Johnson, who had personally phoned the Rhode Island Senator to congratulate him after his keynote address. "My barber told me Pastore's talk stirred him up, made him proud to be an American." He thought Oklahoma's Representative Carl Albert, the convention's platform committee chairman, had done a marvelous job: "I just couldn't believe that anybody could get 110 people together." He lauded House Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts for his performance as convention chairman and especially for his skill at railroading untidy decisions through the convention. "I must say," chuckled Lyndon, "that I admired his parliamentary ability when he seated the Alabama delegation and he said, 'All those in favor say aye, all those opposed no, motion carried.' "

Wrong Pocket. In case anyone was concerned about his health, Johnson dug into a pocket for the report of a physical examination he had undergone after his nine-lap hike earlier in the week. Wrong pocket. "Whoops, that's the latest Gallup poll," he said. He dug deeper, came up with some figures from Pollster Elmo Roper showing that he was favored by 68% of U.S. women, 70% of those aged 21 to 34, 73% of the Catholics, 86% of the Negroes, 97% of the Jews. Finally he produced the medical report, signed by four physicians. "His exercise tolerance continues to be superb," it said. "There is no health reason why he could not continue an active, vigorous life."

Less tolerant of exercise, the newsmen peeled off sweat-soaked jackets or dropped out under shade trees as Lyndon marched on. The Death March ended only after 15 laps, nearly four miles and 95 minutes. "I'm goin' to give you a medal," Lyndon told the ladies who had been along, and he handed them newly struck medals li in. in diameter and bearing his likeness.

A couple of hours later, Lyndon strode across the lawn again, stopped at a White House limousine that had been parked at the rear entrance, unnoticed by newsmen, for nearly half an hour. Inside sat Hubert Humphrey and Connecticut's Senator Thomas Dodd, both summoned down from Atlantic City. Dodd, an old friend of the President's (he had backed him for the top spot in '60), was there partly to maintain the suspense over the vice-presidency and partly to get some visibility for his own campaign for reelection. In the car, Humphrey was sound asleep. Lyndon grabbed Humphrey's arm, shook him and said, "Wake up, Hubert." The three went into the White House, where Lyndon first held a private talk with Dodd, then with Humphrey.

On the Road. After 90 minutes, Johnson called in the waiting newsmen. "I'm sorry to have delayed you," he said matter-of-factly. "We are going over to get a little hors d'oeuvres and a sandwich in a moment, and then we are going to Atlantic City." That was the first anyone knew that he would be going to the convention that night. He said that Humphrey and Dodd would be on the plane with him--and he indicated that the reason for his trip would be to announce to the convention his choice for Vice President.

The President headed upstairs, followed by the herd of reporters, who were admitted to the President's private, second-floor living quarters for drinks, caviar and cheese canapes. Exploring the place, one brunette newswoman peered around a half-open door, quickly retreated. "The President is in his underwear!" she cried. While changing clothes in his bedroom, Lyndon watched a special three-screen TV unit that allowed him to see all the major networks at once. "I feel very relaxed," he told a reporter invited in for a chat, "and even relieved."

Before boarding the presidential jet at Andrews Air Force Base, Lyndon publicly named Humphrey as "the next Vice President." At last, the secret was out. Later, while Air Force One streaked toward Atlantic City at 600 m.p.h., the President and Humphrey sat at a table in their shirtsleeves watching the convention on TV. "All right," Lyndon suddenly declared, "we've got this show on the road. Alabama yields to Texas." John Connally's face flashed on the screen, and the nominating speeches began.

Stealing His Own Show. When Connally recalled the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in which he had been seriously wounded, Lyndon leaned forward, "He almost had it himself," he said. "One more inch and he'd have been dead." After California's Governor Pat Brown finished the "co-nominating" speech (it was the first time there had ever been two of them), the strains of Happy Days Are Here Again thundered from a giant pipe organ, and a 25-minute demonstration for Lyndon began. It had more noise (klaxons, foghorns, etc.) and color (yellow balloons, tiny parachutes with American flags, sunflower posters for Kansas, gold-foil sunbursts for California and real corn for Iowa) than most such orgies, but those outside the hall saw very little of it.

For at the very moment it began, Lyndon landed in Atlantic City and TV followed him to the hall. He paused first for a planeside interview, then 'coptered to a smaller field and finally drove to the Pageant Motel. When the seven seconding speeches finally ended and the delegates roared approval of a motion to nominate Johnson by acclamation, TV showed Lyndon striding into Convention Hall.

On the podium, with Lady Bird and daughters Luci and Lynda Bird standing beside him throughout, Lyndon "suggested" to the delegates that they select Humphrey as his running mate, then took a seat and waited restlessly, often in apparent boredom, while the convention approved his choice.

Absolute Monarch. It was 2 a.m. before the President returned to Washington, but he was up early the following morning to fly 70 miles via Marine helicopter to Winchester, Va., for the funeral of Senator Harry Byrd's wife "Sittie." After the services, Lyndon reached into the Senator's car, grasped his hand and kissed it in a genuine gesture of condolence. He whispered a few words to Byrd, and old Harry, who has crossed many a political sword with Johnson, brushed tears from his eyes.

That afternoon Lyndon jetted once more to Atlantic City, motored to the white stucco ocean-front villa that he and his family had taken over for the week from Hess Rosenbloom, brother of the owner of the Baltimore Colts. He entered Convention Hall after the eulogies of John F. Kennedy, Sam Rayburn and Eleanor Roosevelt had ended. As he sat down in the presidential box overlooking the speaker's rostrum, Lyndon was the absolute monarch of the place, and he looked it--hands on his knees, elbows akimbo, face impassive.

Striding to the rostrum for his own acceptance speech, Lyndon knew that it was getting late and that the primetime televiewers would soon be flicking off their sets. He unstrapped his wristwatch, held it up to silence the cheers. "I accept your nomination," he began. "I accept the duty of leading this party to victory." When he added, "I thank you for placing at my side the man you; so wisely selected to be the next Vice President," the delegates burst into laughter. Even Lyndon had to smile.

A Mandate to Begin. The President spoke for 35 minutes, reading alternately from his text and from the Speech View prompters fastened to the podium at eye level. He urged Americans to "rededicate ourselves to keeping burning the golden torch of promise which John Kennedy set aflame." He reiterated the Democratic themes of "peace, prosperity and preparedness," promised "compassion and love to the old, the sick and the hungry," asked for "a mandate to begin" the march toward "the Great Society." He struck at Barry Goldwater by declaring that the coming campaign would be a contest "between those who welcome the future and those who turn away from its promise." Concluded Lyndon: "Let us now turn to our task! Let us be on our way!"-

Anxious to be on their own ways, the delegates cheered their final cheer and cleared out quickly. But Lyndon still had some partying ahead. In Convention Hall's ballroom, 5,000 guests crushed around to wish him a happy 56th birthday, while Comedian Danny Thomas burbled into a mike, "This is just a bunch of happy souls who are celebrating a happy day." It was certainly a happy one for Lyndon. "I've been going to conventions since 1928," he drawled, "and this one is the best one of all." Before a 10-ft. by 6-ft. birthday cake baked in the shape of the U.S., Lyndon playfully made a pass at Arizona with a knife, then sheared off the tip of Texas and wolfed it down with help from Lady Bird and Hubert.

Outside, the party for Lyndon had been going since dusk along the boardwalk. Irish and Russian dancers, Jewish and Italian singers performed, 31 high school bands and drum-and-bugle corps paraded past, and a flotilla of small boats tooted by in the surf. When the President stepped on the balcony, the crowd of some 20,000 sang a noisy "Happy birthday, dear Lyndon," and soon afterward the President called it a night. It took three tons of gunpowder to light the skies with a huge fireworks show, topped off by a 600-sq.-ft. pyrotechnic portrait of Lyndon in red, white and blue.

At week's end the President headed for the L.B.J. Ranch with Humphrey, got in some handshaking at the Bergstrom Air Force Base near Austin, Texas, was guest of honor at a birthday barbecue for 3,000 at nearby Stonewall. He also aimed to do some campaign strategy-planning with Hubert "in the shade of the live oaks on the banks of the Pedernales."

* An echo way back to F.D.R.'s fourth fireside chat, in October 1933, and also the title (On Our Way) of F.D.R.'s first book as President.

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