Viewing from the Top

The pollsters can't seem to get together on how much television the nation's leaders and tastemakers sit still for. The Louis Harris poll has found signs of "growing disenchantment with television on the part of affluent, better-educated adult Americans," but the Nielsen rating service claims that the upper echelons are watching more than before. Perhaps they are both right. A survey by TIME correspondents shows that America's first families do watch TV, to be sure. But mainly they limit their viewing to news, public affairs and sports. Relatively few of them switch on just for amusement. Says Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield: "There's just nothing on to entertain anyone."

The Lyndon Johnsons, for example, usually catch NBC's Today show at 7 a.m. every weekday morning. In the evening, Lady Bird tries to sneak in Gunsmoke if she can. The President likes to watch the suppertime news reports simultaneously on his three-set console, and on Sundays samples Meet the Press (NBC), Face the Nation (CBS) and Issues and Answers (ABC). What he sees there very often is his own Vice President; Hubert Humphrey has been the guest on the three programs 36 times. When Humphrey does get on the other side of the screen, it is to watch news and public affairs, Red Skelton, Andy Griffith, Jackie Gleason, Bonanza, and occasionally a late movie.

"Simply Trash." Interior Secretary Stewart Udall says flatly that he has time for nothing less portentous than a presidential message, but an aide has caught him tuning in on the World Series. HEW Secretary John Gardner is a Huntley-Brinkley man and also grabs the 11 p.m. news. Sometimes he watches the Today show on his way to work: his limousine sports a TV set.

Barry Goldwater says he "doesn't see much TV" but favors Walter Cronkite or the local news from Phoenix. Occasionally he looks at documentaries or sports events; his wife Peggy loves Lucy. George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald Reagan stick to news and public affairs. Nebraska's Governor Norbert Tiemann and Colorado's Governor John Love try to catch football and the most promising documentaries. So does Vermont's Philip Hoff, though he concludes that "most TV is simply trash, and I don't have the time." Washington's Governor Daniel Evans prefers the Bell Telephone Hour, I Spy and the public affairs programs. Tennessee's Governor Buford Ellington goes for pro football, Perry Como and Lawrence Welk.

Massachusetts' former Senator Leverett Saltonstall enjoys Welk and Jackie Gleason as well. New York's Mayor John Lindsay seems to find time for nothing but news between the Today and Tonight shows. Los Angeles' Mayor Sam Yorty rates news and sports his favorites, then Daktari, Gunsmoke and tapes of his own weekly interview show.

Those Organs! Harvard's Nathan Pusey, Yale's Kingman Brewster, and Caltech's Lee DuBridge watch next to nothing. Milton Eisenhower, nominated to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this month, sees news, sports and, at times, movies and specials. Physicist William Pickering, whose Jet Propulsion Laboratory has directed U.S. unmanned space probes from Explorer 1 to Surveyor 6, likes a preposterous piece of space fiction, Star Trek. J. Edgar Hoover is strictly business: No. 1 on his most wanted list is The F.B.I.

Norman Vincent Peale occasionally watches Lucy, Bonanza and The F.B.I. Van Cliburn often unwinds between practice sessions or before performances with afternoon soap operas. So does Artur Rubinstein, who on request can unravel the complicated plots of a half dozen of the soapers. ("Those organs!" says Rubinstein, holding his nose and unmistakably imitating their quavering tone.) William Buckley says that he finds no time for TV, but Chicago Lawyer Newton Minow, the former Federal Communications Commission chairman who described TV as a "vast wasteland," still watches fairly regularly. Among his favorites: Get Smart!

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