Captain Courageous

THE WHITE HOUSE

Her once bouffant hair pulled back in stylish severity beneath a 15-yard tulle veil, the bride swept down the stair case into the East Room of the White House. She moved in metronomic precision on the arm of her father, the 36th President of the United States, beneath the stern, portraited gaze of four predecessors (none a Democrat). The 32-man chamber orchestra of the U.S.

Marine Band, its scarlet tunics reflected in the Waterford chandeliers pendent from the 20-foot ceiling, played Bach's Arioso and Barber's Adagio for Strings, as Yuki, the President's favorite mongrel, trotted around outside in new red bootees and a matching jacket inscribed "CONGRATULATIONS."

Then, in a six-minute ceremony, Episcopal Canon Gerald McAllister of San Antonio united dimpled Lynda Bird Johnson, 23, and Marine Captain Charles Spittal Robb, 28, a brush-cut, bridge-playing descendant of Lord Baltimore. Asked who gave the bride away, L.B.J. could not resist a pitch for feminine votes, and said: "Her mother and I." On behalf of the Marine Corps, six of Chuck Robb's fellow officers crossed swords outside the East Room to form an arch as the couple exited. When Yuki tried to join the picture-taking session in the yellow Oval Room, Lady Bird cried: "Absolutely, that dog cannot come in here!"

Early-Catcher. Few weddings, royal or common, have been so closely scrutinized. Television networks devoted many a primetime hour to ogling the preliminaries and the gala reception at which 500 guests supped on lobster bar-quettes,* crabmeat bouchees, quiche lorraine and country ham with biscuits--to the accompaniment of California champagne. In a wedding-eve interview, Bridegroom Robb's brother David, 22, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, raised TV watchers' eyebrows by remarking that what Chuck wanted most out of life was money, and that the young Marine social aide used to sell his bubble gum to buddies after removing the much sought-after baseball cards.

Offsetting that fraternal knife job was the performance of Chuck's sister, Marguerite Trenham Robb, 19, a gabby gamine who failed to nab Lynda's bouquet but caught the fancy of every member of the wedding ("Trenny, you're cute," sighed L.B.I.). An aspiring fashion designer and model, Trenny set the White House asparkle during the wedding week with her five rings, her silver miniskirts, her flowing brown tresses and her Twiggy eyelashes. "You know," she suggested out of nowhere one day, "I ought to start a romance with George--wouldn't that be the end?" Actor George Hamilton, 28, Lynda's erstwhile beau, was on hand for the wedding, mugging soulfully for the cameras, if not for Trenny.

Eeyore & Elephant. The newlyweds, weary but radiant, winged off for a two-week (or better) honeymoon; giddiest guesses ranged from Caneel Bay to the "Garden Island" of Kauai in the Hawaiian archipelago, one of Lynda's favorite vacation spots (she has been there thrice). When they return, they will take up residence in a shrubbery-wreathed, $70,000 home near the White House, until Chuck departs in March for what he courageously hopes will be a combat post in Viet Nam. Meanwhile, they can catalogue their copious supply of wedding gifts, including a $6,770 silver tea and coffee service from the Washington diplomatic corps, a nest of teak tables from Chiang Kaishek, a color sketch of Eeyore by Winnie-the-Pooh Illustrator Ernest Shepard (Lynda is a Pooh buff), and--from Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Mc-Kinley Dirksen, of course--a small silver elephant.

&*Tiny niblets of ship-shaped pastry filled with esculents.

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