Patrick Lyndon

THE PRESIDENCY

"That's an elephant, isn't it?" grinned Patrick Nugent. Proud and nervous, Pat announced to reporters at Austin's Seton Hospital that upstairs his wife Luci had just given birth to an 8-lb. 10-oz. son, the President's first grandchild. Name: Patrick Lyndon.

Lady Bird Johnson, who stood by in the hospital during her daughter's six hours' labor and delivery, immediately telephoned the news to her husband at the White House and was joshed about "being a grandma." Hearing about his son-in-law's elephant joke, Grandpa Johnson wired Luci: "I am happy for you and Patrick Sr., and Patrick Lyndon. Our best Hereford heifer is being curried for delivery, consigned to your 9-lb. son, who incidentally I know doesn't look like a donkey, and I hope that his father will quit publicizing him as an elephant. The time has come to get the Republicanism out of these Waukegan products. Love, Daddy."

(Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen likes to kid the President that the new father's parents are a pair of staunch Republicans from Waukegan, Ill.)

Not until Patrick Lyndon was nearly four days old could the President find time to visit his grandson on Saturday afternoon, when he brought the baby a $100 U.S. savings bond--a Johnson family tradition.

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