Above the Battle

THE CAMPAIGN

It was at Detroit's Cadillac Square in 1948 that Harry Truman launched his furiously partisan "give-'em-hell" campaign. It was there in 1960 that John F. Kennedy set the tone of his campaign with a passionately partisan pitch for labors vote. And it was there that Lyndon Johnson went last week to begin his campaign--with a speech that was about as partisan as custard pie.

The President's delivery, to be sure, was in the best stumping style. He flailed his arms, pounded the lectern, shouted so hard his voice broke, leaned so far forward he was practically nose to nose with front-row listeners. But his words belied his mannerisms. They were carefully calculated as an above-party-politics plea to Republicans and Democrats alike.

The Dream. "I have come here today to pledge that if all Americans will stand united we will keep moving," he said. "This country is not going to turn from unity to hostility, from understanding to hate. Today I have come here to call for national unity."

In taking his leader-of-all stance, Johnson often sounds almost scriptural with his cadenced sentences and their sprinkling of Biblical quotations. In what appeared to be an impromptu peroration (actually it was the work of Speechwriter Richard Goodwin) to his Detroit speech, he told how as a boy he had often dreamed under "the scattered Texas sky." What he dreamed, he said, was that "the least among us will find contentment, and the best among us will find greatness, and all of us will respect the dignity of the one and admire the achievements of the other. This is my dream. It concerns the simple wants of people. But this is what America is really all about."

Smoothing Them Over. Johnson's constant themes are prosperity, peace --and unity. "Let us bring the capitalist and the manager and the worker and the Government to one table to share in the fruits of all our dreams and all of our work," he says. He seeks not to create issues, but to smooth them over. He hopes, for example, to blunt the G.O.P.'s "law-and-order" issue by having the FBI investigate the possibility that "outside agitators" moved in to provoke the riots in the North's Negro ghettos. And he is trying to soften the harsh debate over foreign policy--particularly over the mess in Viet Nam --by creating a bipartisan panel of distinguished private citizens to consult with him on "major international problems."

The President carefully refrains from attacks on the Republican Party as such, avoids mentioning Candidate Goldwater by name. But he leaves no doubt as to his opinion of Goldwater's views. Thus, in Detroit, he challenged Barry's stand on nuclear weapons control by quoting the Bible (Proverbs 16:32). "Any man who shares control of such enormous power," said Lyndon, "must remember that 'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.' " Later in the week in Harrisburg, he delivered a harsh attack on extremists, who, he claimed, "demand that you choose a doctrine alien to America--a doctrine that would lead to a tragic convulsion in our foreign relations--a doctrine that flouts the unity of our society and searches for scapegoats among our people."

On the Job. Some Democrats wish that Johnson would use even stronger language; they fear that the Presidents blandness may get boring. But for now, Johnson sees no reason to get rough. The polls look great, the editorial endorsements are flowing into the Oval Room in great swatches (see PRESS). and he is positively euphoric about his prospects. For the present, he figures his best bet is to leave the obvious partisan politicking to Hubert Humphrey and to present himself as the responsible, nonpartisan man in the White House.

He rarely misses an opportunity to burnish that image. At week's end he took off from Washington on 30 minutes' notice to slog through the muck in hurricane-struck Florida and Georgia. He squeezed in some handshaking and speechmaking along the way, reassured homeowners that "as long as I'm President, when there is any need, I'll meet it." Within hours, he was back at the White House. "We have a job to do here," he tells visitors, "and we are going to try to do that first." And if he can squeeze in a little on-the-job politicking while he's at it, why not?

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