Of Extra Glands, Giant Agony And the Grey Stone Mountain

Among the dozen men who serve as Special Assistants to the President, none rates higher in loyalty and devotion than ex-Houston Advertising Man Jack Valenti. If there was ever any doubt about that, Valenti surely dispelled it last week in an extraordinary 3,000-word speech on "The President and the Presidency" before the Advertising Federation of America in Boston. Excerpts:

In the shock and disbelief of what is still an incredulous minute in American history, he became President. I shall never forget that day. He sat in the cabin of Air Force One, a scant few minutes after the assassination, solemn, grim, his face an unyielding mask. All around him everyone was in various states of shock, nearing collapse. But the new President sat there, like a large grey stone mountain, untouched by fear or frenzy, from whom everyone began to draw strength. And suddenly, as though the darkness of the cave confided its fears to the trail of light growing larger as it banished the night, the nation's breath, held tightly in its breast, began to ease, and across the land the people began to move again.

The President, thank the good Lord, has extra glands, I am persuaded, that give him energy that ordinary men simply don't have. He goes to bed late and rises early, and the words I have never heard him say are "I'm tired."

In his mind is an alarm clock that silently nudges him about 4 in the morning whenever there is air action in Viet Nam. In the darkness, he turns and lifts the phone to call the Situation Room deep in the basement of the White House and then, hopefully, goes back to sleep. Once an admirer wrote a passage about the great lady of Greek letters Edith Hamilton, and it applies so accurately to Lyndon Johnson it is worth repeating now: "She feels like a personal experience the giant agony of the world; there are not many in this aristocracy of humanity."

Contrary to popular notion, the President is not fond of those who continually say yes to him. He thrives on new ideas, new initiatives, innovations, fresh thinking. If a man consistently agrees and offers no new counter arguments, that man is soon not asked for advice.

Like Antaeus, whose mother was Earth, each President goes back to the land and the people for his strength and the renewal of his spirit. President Johnson, like every President before him, sought this renewal and found it [during the 1964 campaign] in the outpouring of love and affection, in the outstretched arms of mothers holding up their babies to see the President, in the tears and the laughter of the people.

I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently because Lyndon Johnson is my President. For I know he lives and thinks and works to make sure that for all America, and indeed the growing body of the free world, the morning shall always come.*

*A concluding comment that inspired this headline in the Washington Daily News:

IF LBJ SAYS 'RISE' THE SUN WOULDN'T DARE TO DISOBEY

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