Solace for a Stricken City

THE PRESIDENCY

His flashlight stabbed into the blackness of New Orleans' George Washington School, picking out the hudd'ed figures, mostly Negroes, who were standing, sitting, or sleeping on the hallway floor. Occasionally he would aim the light at his own face, so that the people would recognize him. Some didn't believe their eyes. "That's not the President," whispered one voice. "He wouldn't come down here."

Of course he had. It was an impulsive gesture, in keeping with Lyndon Johnson's character, to fly to New Orleans in late afternoon for a personal inspection of the havoc wrought by Hurricane Betsy. Though he had had little to say about the Indo-Pakistani war, and had even extended a long Labor Day weekend at the ranch as it spread, the plight of an American city stirred the President to instant action.

View from the Air. First Johnson bundled seven disaster-relief experts off to storm-battered Florida aboard a White House jet. Then, as damage reports from New Orleans worsened, he decided to head for the action. Louisiana Congressmen were called and told that they had half an hour to get on over to the White House if they wanted to come along. In another 45 minutes, Air Force One took off with Johnson, Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long, Representatives Hale Boggs, Otto Passman, James Morrison, Joe Waggon-ner Jr. and Edwin Willis.

Over the stricken city, the jet made a slow, 1,500-ft.-high pass so that its passengers could assess the full extent of the disaster. At the airport, the President spoke in drizzling rain to a welcoming committee led by Mayor Victor H. Schiro and Governor John McKeithen. Pledging the full help of the Federal Government ("Human suffering and physical damage are measureless"), he set off on his tour.

"Water! Water!" In one low-income neighborhood, Johnson halted his motorcade to look at waterlogged houses and a stream of refugees making their way to drier ground. He stopped to talk with one, an elderly Negro named William Marshall.

L.B.J.: How did you sleep last night?

Marshall: We didn't sleep. We set up.

L.B.J.: How old are you?

Marshall: 74.

L.B.J.: You don't look that old.

At Washington School, left dark and without potable water by a widespread power failure, Johnson moved through a noisy, fetid hall where one group of Negroes sat on the floor eating cold pork and beans and raw carrots. He was greeted with cries of "Water! Water! Give us drinking water!" Outside, Johnson, plainly moved by their plight, told Office of Emergency Planning Director Buford Ellington: "You've got to give them some water in there." L.B.J. then asked Mayor Schiro to get every Coca-Cola, Seven-Up and Pepsi-Cola bottling plant in town to rush soft drinks to the school--and advised the mayor to make personally sure that the bottles were handed out.

Bullhorn Goodbye. At the airport later that night, the President announced through a bullhorn: "I have ordered the red tape cut. Our assistance will be given the highest priority." Then, after declaring Louisiana a disaster area, he headed back to the Potomac, got home at 12:24 a.m.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.