All Around the Park

The President of the U.S. looked rested--maybe a little bit heftier around the middle, but with far smaller bags beneath his eyes. He went out of his way to be solicitous of his staff. He was, quite frankly, resentful of reports (TIME, Nov. 20) that many staffers wanted out from under the pressures that he put upon them. He noted that Aide Jack Valenti, who he once said "gets up with me every morning," now does not arrive at the White House until nearly 9 a.m. He let it be known that his staffers could attend a State Department farewell cocktail party for longtime Presidential Assistant Ralph Dungan, who has been named Ambassador to Chile. They attended, and they carefully came as individuals, not as part of Johnson's escort. And they insisted, one and all, that they had no intention of leaving Lyndon Johnson.

President Johnson also was leafing through the reports of 16 study-group task forces that were plopping onto his desk. Just what the task forces are supposed to be studying is, by Johnson's order, top secret, but from their recommendations will almost certainly come some of the specifics of the Great Society.

Out from the White House to all department heads last week went the word to "economize, economize." The President huddled for many hours with Budget Director Kermit Gordon, searching for ways to keep fiscal 1965 requests just below the sinister $100 billion mark. The President ran the gamut of foreign affairs problems in talks with several advisers. He called in House leaders, told them to put the medicare and aid-to-Appalachia bills at the top of their priority lists.

Saturday Night Competition. But there was also time for home life. Lyndon and Lady Bird celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary at dinner with some 20 close friends in the White House. By presidential order, White House Pastry Chef Ferdinand Louvat had whipped up a twelve-pound sponge cake, sprinkled with sugar wedding bands. Inlaid in the frosting were nine of the President's favorite photos from the family scrapbook, including a honeymoon picture taken in the floating gardens of Xochimilco, near Mexico

City. Lyndon's gifts for Lady Bird: a pair of diamond-and-gold earrings, a quiet vacation trip to any place she chooses, and as a gag, a framed picture of Gunsmoke's Matt Dillon, inscribed, "To Lady Bird and my Saturday night competition."

The same day, Lyndon had stepped into the Rose Garden to accept a Thanksgiving turkey from the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board. Eying the 40-lb. Iowa gobbler, he quipped: "I wasn't quite sure what I would eat for Thanksgiving, but I'm glad it's turkey and not crow."

Preserving the Place. Back at the L.BJ. ranch for the Thanksgiving holiday, the President took the wheel of his station wagon and, horn a-honk-ing, led a six-car cavalcade of guests and newsmen through herds of frightened cattle, sheep and horses. With Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman, he hammed it up for photographers by trying to corral a mournful-looking steer.

Awaiting the Johnsons at the ranch was some good news. Across the Pedernales River from the ranch, local promoters had been planning to set up a kind of tourist trap with curio shops and snack bars, motels and filling stations.

But this was not to be. Last week the Texas parks and wildlife commission, whose most influential member, A. W. Moursund, is an old, close Johnson friend and the principal trustee, during Lyndon's presidency, of the Johnson business interests, announced that it was taking over a total of 245 acres across the river to make them the Lyndon Baines Johnson State Park.

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